The
Voortrekkers (Afrikaans and
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
for
pioneers, literally "those who trek ahead") were emigrants during the 1830s and 1840s who left the
Cape ColonyThe Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
(British at the time, but founded by the Dutch) moving into the interior of what is now
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
. The
Great TrekThe Great Trek was an eastward and north-eastward migration away from British control in the Cape Colony during the 1830s and 1840s by Boers...
consisted of a number of mass movements under a number of different leaders including
Louis TrichardtLouis Trichardt is a town situated at the foot of the Soutpansberg mountain range in the Limpopo province of South Africa. It is in a fertile region where litchis, bananas, mangoes and nuts are produced....
, Hendrik Potgieter,
Sarel CilliersSarel Arnoldus Cilliers was a Voortrekker leader and a preacher. With Andries Pretorius, he led the Boers to a huge victory over the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River in 1838...
, Pieter Uys, Gerrit Maritz,
Piet RetiefPieter Mauritz Retief , was a South African Boer leader. Settling in the Cape Colony's strife ridden frontier region in 1814, he assumed command of punitive expeditions and acted as spokesperson for the frontier farmers...
, and
Andries PretoriusAndries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius was a leader of the Boers who was instrumental in the creation of the Transvaal Republic as well as the earlier but short-lived Natalia Republic in present-day South Africa....
.
The Voortrekkers mainly came from the farming community of the
Eastern CapeThe Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, as well as the eastern portion of the Cape Province. Landing place and home of the 1820 settlers...
although some (such as
Piet RetiefPieter Mauritz Retief , was a South African Boer leader. Settling in the Cape Colony's strife ridden frontier region in 1814, he assumed command of punitive expeditions and acted as spokesperson for the frontier farmers...
) originally came from the
Western CapeThe Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...
farming community while others (such as Gerrit Maritz) were successful tradesmen in the frontier towns.
The
Voortrekkers (Afrikaans and
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
for
pioneers, literally "those who trek ahead") were emigrants during the 1830s and 1840s who left the
Cape ColonyThe Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
(British at the time, but founded by the Dutch) moving into the interior of what is now
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
. The
Great TrekThe Great Trek was an eastward and north-eastward migration away from British control in the Cape Colony during the 1830s and 1840s by Boers...
consisted of a number of mass movements under a number of different leaders including
Louis TrichardtLouis Trichardt is a town situated at the foot of the Soutpansberg mountain range in the Limpopo province of South Africa. It is in a fertile region where litchis, bananas, mangoes and nuts are produced....
, Hendrik Potgieter,
Sarel CilliersSarel Arnoldus Cilliers was a Voortrekker leader and a preacher. With Andries Pretorius, he led the Boers to a huge victory over the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River in 1838...
, Pieter Uys, Gerrit Maritz,
Piet RetiefPieter Mauritz Retief , was a South African Boer leader. Settling in the Cape Colony's strife ridden frontier region in 1814, he assumed command of punitive expeditions and acted as spokesperson for the frontier farmers...
, and
Andries PretoriusAndries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius was a leader of the Boers who was instrumental in the creation of the Transvaal Republic as well as the earlier but short-lived Natalia Republic in present-day South Africa....
.
Origins
The Voortrekkers mainly came from the farming community of the
Eastern CapeThe Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, as well as the eastern portion of the Cape Province. Landing place and home of the 1820 settlers...
although some (such as
Piet RetiefPieter Mauritz Retief , was a South African Boer leader. Settling in the Cape Colony's strife ridden frontier region in 1814, he assumed command of punitive expeditions and acted as spokesperson for the frontier farmers...
) originally came from the
Western CapeThe Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...
farming community while others (such as Gerrit Maritz) were successful tradesmen in the frontier towns. Some of them were wealthy men though most were not as they were from the poorer communities of the frontier. It was recorded that the 33 Voortrekker families at the battle of Vegkop lost 100 horses, between 4,000 and 7,000 cattle, and between 40,000 and 50,000 sheep (these figures appear greatly exaggerated). Other members of the trekking parties were of
TrekboerThe Trekboers were nomadic pastoral descendants of Dutch settlers of the Cape Colony, Flemish settlers, French Huguenot refugees, German Protestants, and smaller numbers of Danes, and Scots as well as Indians, Malays and Khoi...
stock who came from a life of semi-nomadic herding; yet others were employees, many of whom had been slaves only a few years earlier.
The reasons for the mass emigration from the
Cape ColonyThe Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
have been much discussed over the years. Afrikaner historiography has emphasized the hardships endured by the frontier farmers which they blamed on British policies of pacifying the
XhosaThe Xhosa ) people are speakers of Bantu languages living in south-east South Africa, and in the last two centuries throughout the southern and central-southern parts of the country....
tribes. Other historians have emphasized the harshness of the life in the Eastern Cape (which suffered one of its regular periods of drought in the early 1830s) compared to the attractions of the fertile country of
NatalThe Natalia Republic was a short-lived Boer republic, established in 1839 by local Afrikaans-speaking Voortrekkers shortly after the Battle of Blood River. The republic was located on the coast of the Indian Ocean beyond the Eastern Cape, and was previously named Natalia by Portuguese sailors. The...
, the
Orange Free StateThe Republic of the Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
and the
TransvaalThe Transvaal is the name of an area of northern South Africa. Originally the bulk of the independent Boer South African Republic, after the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 it became the Transvaal Colony, and one of the founding provinces of the Union of South Africa, with its regional capital in...
. Growing land shortages have also been cited as a contributing factor. The true reasons were obviously very complex and certainly consisted of both "push" factors (including the general dissatisfaction of life under British rule) and "pull" factors (including the desire for a better life in better country.)
The Voortrekkers were mainly of
TrekboerThe Trekboers were nomadic pastoral descendants of Dutch settlers of the Cape Colony, Flemish settlers, French Huguenot refugees, German Protestants, and smaller numbers of Danes, and Scots as well as Indians, Malays and Khoi...
(migrating farmer) descent living in the eastern frontiers of the Cape. Hence, their ancestors had long established a semi-nomadic existence of trekking into expanding frontiers. A contingent of Voortrekkers migrated into Natal and negotiated a land treaty with the Zulu King
DinganeDingane kaSenzangakhona Zulu —commonly referred to as Dingane or Dingaan—was a Zulu chief who became king in 1828, setting up his kraal Ngungundlovu.-Rise to power:...
. Upon reconsideration, Dingane doublecrossed the Voortrekkers, killing their leader
Piet RetiefPieter Mauritz Retief , was a South African Boer leader. Settling in the Cape Colony's strife ridden frontier region in 1814, he assumed command of punitive expeditions and acted as spokesperson for the frontier farmers...
along with half of the Voortrekker settlers who had followed them to Natal. Other Voortrekkers migrated north to the Waterberg area, where some of them settled and began ranching operations, which activities enhanced the pressure placed on indigenous wildlife by pre-existing tribesmen, whose Bantu predecessors initiated such grazing in the Waterberg region around 450 AD. These Voortrekkers arriving in the Waterberg area had believed they were in the Nile River area of
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
based upon their understanding of the local topography. (Taylor, 2003)(Lumina, 2006)
History
Andries Pretorius filled the leadership vacuum hoping to enter into negotiations for peace if Dingane would restore the land he had granted to Retief. When Dingane sent an impi (armed force) of around twelve thousand Zulu warriors to attack the local contingent of Voortrekkers in response, the Voortrekkers defended themselves at a battle at Nacome River (called the Battle of Blood River on 16 December (1838) where the vastly outnumbered Voortrekker contingent defeated the Zulu impis (warriors). This date has hence been known as the Day of the Vow as the Voortrekkers made a vow to God that they would honor the date if He were to deliver them from what they viewed as almost insurmountable odds. The victory of the besieged Voortrekkers at Nacome River was considered a turning point. The Natalia Republic was set up in 1839 but was annexed by Britain in 1843 whereupon most of the local Boers trekked north joining other Voortrekkers who had established themselves in the region.
Armed conflict,first with the Ndebele people under Mzilikazi in the area which was to become the Transvaal, then against the Zulus under Dingane, went the Voortrekkers' way, mostly because of their tactics, horsemanship and the effectivenes of their muzzle-loading guns. This success led to the establishment of a number of small Boer republics, which slowly coalesced into the Orange Free State and the South African Republic. These two states would survive until their annexation in 1900 by United Kingdom Britain during the Second Boer War.
The Voortrekkers are commemorated by the Voortrekker Monument located on Monument Hill overlooking Pretoria, the erstwhile capital of the South African Republic and the current and historic administrative capital of the Republic of South Africa. Pretoria was named after the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius.
The Voortrekkers had a distinctive flag, used mainly by the Voortrekkers who followed Andries Hendrik Potgieter, which is why it was also known as the Potgieter Flag. This flag was used as the flag of the Zoutpansberg Republic until this republic was incorporated into the Transvaal Republic also known as the South African Republic. A version of this flag was used at Potchefstroom, one of the first independent Boer towns and republics established by local Voortrekkers.
See also
- Voortrekker Monument
The Voortrekker Monument is a monument situated in the city of Pretoria, South Africa. The massive granite structure, built to honour the Voortrekkers who left the Cape Colony in the thousands between 1835 and 1854, was designed by the architect Gerard Moerdijk who had the ideal to design a...
- Great Trek
The Great Trek was an eastward and north-eastward migration away from British control in the Cape Colony during the 1830s and 1840s by Boers...
- Weenen massacre
The Weenen massacre refers to the massacre of Voortrekkers by the Zulu on 17 February 1838. After the murder of Piet Retief and his delegation, the Zulu chief Dingane sent his impis to exterminate the remaining voortrekkers who were camped at Doringkop, Bloukrans The Weenen massacre refers to the...
- Battle of Blood River
The Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1838 was fought between 470 Voortrekkers, led by Andries Pretorius, and an estimated 10,000 Zulu attackers on the banks of the Ncome River at in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa...
External links