Boer War.

Boer War. I INTRODUCTION Boer War (1899-1902), conflict in southern Africa between Britain and the allied, Afrikaner-populated Transvaal (or South African Republic) and Orange Free State, in what is now South Africa; also known as the South African War. II TENSIONS LEADING TO WAR Throughout the 19th century, after Britain had acquired the Cape of Good Hope in 1814 and expanded its possessions in southern Africa, ill feeling mounted between the Dutch-descended population, called Afrikaners, or Boers, and British settlers. This resulted in the Afrikaner migration called the Great Trek (1835-1843?) and the consequent establishment of the Afrikaner republics: Natal, Orange Free State, and the South African Republic. Natal became a British colony in 1843, but Britain granted independence to the Transvaal territories in 1852 and to the Orange Free State in 1854. In the late 1850s, the Transvaal territories formed the South African Republic. The British annexed the South African Republic in 1877, but an Afrikaner revolt restored the republic's independence in 1881. The stage for war was set in 1884, when gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand, a region then encompassing parts of the southern Transvaal. The discovery lured thousands of British miners and prospectors to settle in th...