Great Trek

s in the Karoo .]]

In South Africa n history, the Great Trek was an eastward and north-eastward migration of the segment of Afrikaner s (known as Boer s or Boere ( Dutch / Afrikaans for "farmers")), who as descendants primarily of immigrants from western mainland Europe , lived a semi-nomadic pastoralist life in the eastern frontier region of the Cape . Those who had settled into the eastern districts of the Cape province where they became established farmers and artisans were soon known as Grensboere (Border Farmers) from which most those who undertook the Great Trek came from and were called Voortrekkers. It began in 1835 as an attempt to escape the recently imposed British rule, its Anglicisation policies and the constant border wars in the east, as well as to ease pressure on an overcrowding frontier where land was becoming scarce.

The semi-nomadic/migrating farmers of the eastern frontier were known as Trekboers. Those who lived in the western Cape and did not trek eastward were known as the Cape Dutch . The isolated pioneers from the eastern Cape frontier who trekked / migrated into the interior en masse in a series of migrations later known as the ''Great Trek'' were known as Voortrekkers . A small number of Voortrekkers came from the western Cape as well.

In the 1830s and 1840s an estimated 12,000 Voortrekkers penetrated the future Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal provinces to put themselves beyond the reach of British authority. While some historians claim that this series of mass migrations, later known as the Great Trek, was caused because the Boers did not agree with the British restrictions on Slavery , the fact of the matter is most Trekboers did not own slaves unlike the Cape Dutch, their more affluent cousins in the western Cape who did not trek eastward and migrate or participate in the Great Trek. The vast majority of Voortrekkers were Trekboers from the eastern Cape who engaged in pastoralism. Nevertheless, the British promulgation of Ordinance 50 in 1828 , which guaranteed equal rights before the law to all "free persons of color", was indeed a factor in Boer discontent, as is well documented by numerous contemporary sources; the various republics founded by the Voortrekkers while prohibiting slavery itself would all enshrine inequality by race into their constitutions.

The Great Trek was mainly the result of the "bursting of the dam" of pent up population migration and population pressures, as Trekboer migrations eastward had come to a virtual stop for at least three decades (though some Trekboers did migrate beyond the Orange River prior to the Great Trek). During the ''Great Trek'' they fought with the Zulu s after Voortrekker leaders Piet Retief and Gerhard Maritz , along with almost half of their followers, were lured to a feast under the pretence of a land treaty and massacred by King Dingane and his warriors. Dingane's tribe occupied the best land in some of the areas the Boers were attempting to trek into. Retief and the local Voortrekkers had performed several deeds for Dingane and came to finalise the treaty in which the Voortrekkers were to be granted lands in Dingane's kingdom. Dingane changed his mind, kiling Retief, his delegation and half of the Natal contingent of Voortrekkers. The Boers had their revenge when the forces of Andries Pretorius killed about 3,000 Zulus after the Boers came under attack in the Battle Of Blood River , in a classic mismatch between guns and spears.The Zulu resistance changed the direction of the Trek. The emphasis moved from occupying lands in which the Zulu held sway (i.e. east of the Drakensberg mountains) to the west of them and onto the high veld of the Transvaal and Transorangia, which was lighty occupied owing to the devastation of the Mfecane .

The Boers established independent states in what is now South Africa: the Natalia Republic , the Transvaal Republic (the South African Republic ) and the Orange Free State .

SEE ALSO

History Of South Africa

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Great Trek