Colonists sent out in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company, they landed at the Cape of Good Hope, discovered two centuries before (1486), and settled there, employing themselves in agriculture and cattle-breeding.
At the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 300 French Huguenots joined them, bringing up the number of the colonists to about 1,000. The fusion of the two races was rapid, and the French tongue disappeared among them. Many of the French names even were corrupted--Cronje was originally Crosnier--but many, on the other hand, have persisted in their Gallic form--Villiers, Marais, Joubert, Du Toit--and their bearers are very proud of their French descent. But England, anxious to acquire the colony when it began to prosper, sent out a number of emigrants, reinforcing them steadily, till they became an important factor in the community.
From 1815, when Cape Colony was recognised as a British possession by the Treaty of Vienna, English policy has been hostile to the Boers, who, for their part, received the English settlers in no friendly spirit.
About 1835 the Boers, under the pressure of the vexations to which they were subjected, began their exodus to the north--the Great Trek, as they still call it--and founded the Orange Free State, recognised in 1869 by Europe, and the Transvaal.
They were not left long in the enjoyment of the territory they had wrested from the Kaffirs. Diamondiferous deposits were discovered in the Orange Free State in 1871; the English promptly confiscated the find on the pretext that it belonged to a native chief under their protection.
In 1877, the Zulus having risen against the Boers, England intervened for the alleged pacification of the country, sent her troops to Pretoria, and annexed the Transvaal.
But in 1880 the Boers revolted, and under Joubert inflicted a crushing defeat on the English at Majuba Hill, on the frontier of Natal, February 27, 1881.
The treaty of August 3, 1881, recognised the independence of the Transvaal under the suzerainty of the Queen. Another treaty, signed in London, February 27, 1884, recognised the absolute independence of the Transvaal.
On January 2, 1896, the famous Jameson Raid, still fresh in men's memories, was checked at Krugersdorp.
Wishing to satisfy the claims of the Uitlanders, the President reduced the term necessary for the acquisition of electoral rights from fourteen to nine years. Finally, in 1899, England, constituting herself the champion of the foreigners, instructed Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of the Cape, to demand a further reduction of the term to five years.