South African Republic: Encyclopedia II - South African Republic - History

South African Republic - History

The Transvaal region is known to have been inhabited since the 8th century by Venda and Sotho peoples. In 1817, the region was invaded by tribes pushed from their land by the Zulu king Shaka and his Impis. These forced migrations, known as the Difaqane, made the region very weak, and easy to colonize by the nearby European settlers.

In the 1830s and the 1840s, descendents of Dutch and other settlers, collectively known as Boers (farmers) or Voortrekkers (pioneers), left the British Cape Colony, in what was to be called the Great Trek. With their military technology, they overcame the local forces with relative ease, and formed several small Boer republics in areas beyond British control, without a central government.

On January 17, 1852 the United Kingdom signed the Sand River Convention treaty with 5000 or so of the Boer families, recognizing their independence in the region to the north of the Vaal River, or the Transvaal. The Orange Free State, a sister Boer republic, was granted independence around the same time. In 1856 the Boers of the Transvaal adopted the name South African Republic for the region, and a new constitution was put in place.

In 1877, after the republic faced considerable economic hardship and outside Zulu threats, Britain annexed the Transvaal, hoping that this move would be perceived by the Boers as salvation. But it wasn't — the Boers viewed it as an act of aggression, and protested. In December 16, 1880 the independence of the republic was proclaimed again, leading to the First Boer War. The Pretoria Convention of 1881 gave the Boers self-rule in the Transvaal, under British oversight, and the republic was restored with full independence in 1884 with the London Convention, but not for long. Gold was soon discovered in Witwatersrand (1885), bringing in a rush of non-Boer European settlers (called uitlanders, outlanders, by the Boers). This led to a destabilization of the republic.

In 1895, Cape Premier Cecil Rhodes planned to support an uitlander coup d'etat against the Transvaal government. Leander Starr Jameson carried out this plan, without British authorization, in December of that year — in the ill-fated Jameson Raid. After the failed raid, there were rumors that Germany offered protection to the Boer republic, something which alarmed the British. Fearing Britain's imminent annexation, the Boers launched a preemptive strike against the nearby British colonies in 1899, a strike which became the Second Boer War.

The Second Boer War is a watershed event for the British Army in particular and for the British Empire as a whole. It was here that the British first used Concentration Camps in a war setting (the first general use being by the Spanish during the Cuban insurrections of the 1890s).

By May 1902, the last of the Boer troops surrendered, and the independent Boer republic in the Transvaal was no more - the region became part of the British Empire. In 1910 the Transvaal became a province of the newly created Union of South Africa, a British Dominion.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki