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Great Trek

1836–1852 Boer migrations away from the British Cape Colony

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A map of the first wave of the Great Trek (1835-1840) illustrating the paths of the largest parties of Voortrekkers across Southern Africa.
Discott · CC BY-SA 4.0

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The Great Trek led directly to the founding of several autonomous Boer republics, namely the South African Republic (also known simply as the Transvaal), the Orange Free State and the Natalia Republic. It also led to conflicts that resulted in the displacement of the Northern Ndebele people, and conflicts with the Zulu people that contributed to the decline and eventual collapse of the Zulu Kingdom.

Background

Hunter-Gatherer communities largely populated the south-western coast of Africa. These groups can collectively be termed 'Khoisan'/ 'Khoesan', however, there are significant genetic and cultural differences between given Khoi and San groups making the grouping arbitrary. Bantu populations migrated from the Niger-Cameroon region and settled in sparse settlements along the fringes of larger kingdoms, such as Batua, Monomotapa, and other smaller Nguni kingdoms, c.2000 BCE. Bartolomeu Dias was the first explorer to navigate to the Cape, in 1488, and in 1652 the first Europeans settled in the Cape area under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company (also known by its Dutch initials VOC), which established a victualling station there to provide its outward bound fleets with fresh provisions and a harbour of refuge during the long sea journey from Europe to Asia (Hunt, John (2005)). In a few short decades, the Cape had become home to a large population of "Glidden", also denoted as "vrijburgers" (free citizens), former Company employees who remained in Dutch territories overseas after completing their contracts. Since the primary purpose of the Cape settlement at the time was to stock provisions for passing Dutch ships, the VOC offered grants of farmland to its employees under the condition they would cultivate grain for the Company warehouses, and released them from their contracts to save on their wages. Vrijburgers were granted tax-exempt status for 12 years and loaned all the necessary seeds and farming implements they requested. They were married Dutch citizens, considered "of good character" by the Company, and had to commit to spending at least 20 years on the African continent. Reflecting the multi-national character of the VOC's workforce, some German soldiers and sailors were also considered for vrijburger status as well, and in 1688 the Dutch government sponsored the resettlement of over a hundred French Huguenot refugees at the Cape. As a result, by 1691 over a quarter of the colony's European population was not ethnically Dutch. Nevertheless, there was a degree of cultural assimilation through intermarriage, and the almost universal adoption of the Dutch language. Cleavages were likelier to occur along social and economic lines; broadly speaking, the Cape colonists were delineated into Boers, poor farmers who settled directly on the frontier, and the more affluent, predominantly urbanised Cape Dutch.

Following the Flanders Campaign and the Batavian Revolution in Amsterdam, France assisted in the establishment of a pro-French client state, the Batavian Republic, on Dutch soil. This opened the Cape to French warships. To protect her own prosperous maritime shipping routes, Great Britain occupied the fledgling colony by force until 1803. From 1806 to 1814, the Cape was governed as a British military dependency, whose sole importance to the Royal Navy was its strategic relation to Indian maritime traffic. The British formally assumed permanent administrative control around 1815, as a result of the Treaty of Paris.

Causes

At the onset of the British rule, the Cape Colony encompassed 260,000 km2 (100,000 sq mi) and was populated by about 26,720 people of European descent, a relative majority of whom were of Dutch origin. Just over a quarter were of German ancestry and about one-sixth were descended from French Huguenots, although most had ceased speaking French since about 1750. There were also 30,000 African and Asian slaves owned by the settlers, and about 17,000 indigenous Khoisan. Relations between the settlers – especially the Boers – and the new administration quickly soured. The British authorities were adamantly opposed to the Boers' ownership of slaves and what was perceived as their unduly harsh treatment of the indigenous peoples.

The British government insisted that the Cape finance its own affairs through self-taxation, an approach which was alien to both the Boers and the Dutch merchants in Cape Town. In 1815, the controversial death of a white farmer, who was shot after resisting arrest for abusing his native servant, resulted in the abortive Slachter's Nek Rebellion. The British executed five Boers for insurrection. In 1828, the Cape governor declared that all native inhabitants but slaves were to have the rights of "citizens", in respect of security and property ownership, on parity with the settlers. This had the effect of further alienating the colony's white population. Boer resentment of successive British administrators continued to grow throughout the late 1820s and early 1830s, especially with the official imposition of the English language. This replaced Dutch with English as the language used in the Cape's judicial and political systems, putting the Boers at a disadvantage, as most spoke little or no English.

Britain's alienation of the Boers was particularly amplified by the decision to abolish slavery in all its colonies in 1834. All 35,000 slaves registered with the Cape governor were to be freed and given rights on par with other citizens, although in most cases their masters could retain them as apprentices until 1838. Many Boers, especially those involved with grain and wine production, were dependent on slave labour; for example, 94% of all white farmers in the vicinity of Stellenbosch owned slaves at the time, and the size of their slave holdings correlated greatly to their production output. Compensation was offered by the British government, but payment had to be received in London, and few Boers possessed the funds to make the trip.

Bridling at what they considered an unwarranted intrusion into their way of life, some in the Boer community considered selling their farms and venturing deep into South Africa's unmapped interior to preempt further disputes and live completely independent from British rule. Others, especially trekboers, a class of Boers who pursued semi-nomadic pastoral activities, were frustrated by the apparent unwillingness or inability of the British government to extend the borders of the Cape Colony eastward and provide them with access to more prime pasture and economic opportunities. They resolved to trek beyond the colony's borders on their own.

Opposition

Although it did nothing to impede the Great Trek, the United Kingdom viewed the movement with pronounced trepidation. The British government initially suggested that conflict in the far interior of Southern Africa between the migrating Boers and the Bantu peoples they encountered would require an expensive military intervention. However, authorities at the Cape also judged that the human and material cost of pursuing the settlers and attempting to re-impose an unpopular system of governance on those who had deliberately spurned it was not worth the immediate risk. Some officials were concerned for the Nguni Kingdoms, as a result of the Mfecane, the Boers were certain to encounter, and whether these Kingdoms could be conquered, sapped for more slaves, or otherwise reduced to a state of penury.

The Great Trek was not universally popular among the settlers either. Around 12,000 of them took part in the migration, about a fifth of the colony's Dutch-speaking white population at the time. The Dutch Reformed Church, to which most of the Boers belonged, explicitly refused to endorse the Great Trek. Despite their hostility towards the British, there were Boers who chose to remain in the Cape of their own accord.

For its part, the distinct Cape Dutch community had accepted British rule; many of its members even considered themselves loyal British subjects with a special affection for English culture. The Cape Dutch were also much more heavily urbanised and therefore less likely to be susceptible to the same rural grievances and considerations as those held by the Boers.

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