The Boer Wars grew out of conflicting claims to sovereignty in the northern regions of modern-day South Africa. Since the early nineteenth century, emigrants of Dutch, French Huguenot and German origin had settled in the area and become farmers, although they had often clashed with dominant local tribes. By the 1880s, the British were keen to claim as much territory in southern Africa as possible, to counter the growing influence of Germany, Portugal and Belgium in the continent. The Boers had set up independent republics to try to escape British control, founding the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic in the 1850s. They were angered, therefore, when in 1877 the British annexed the Transvaal as part of their dominions, and in 1…
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Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "First Boer War". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=392, accessed 23 November 2024.]
