In the border area at the Fish River constant conflicts with the Xhosa occurred and the central government in Cape Town was neither willing nor able to give the Boers efficient military protection. Absolutely incomprehensible to the conservative Boer communities was the approach of the British colonial government towards the black inhabitants of the colony, who were held as slaves on most of the white farms. From 1833 on the slave trade was declared illegal and the "Emancipation Act" demanded that white masters set their slaves free, against payment of a small compensation by the state. The Voortrekkers felt that the British policy destroyed their traditional social order which was based on racial separation, and would undermine white predominance, which they saw as God's own will. (Please click on "Next".)

Top: The River Crossing. Drawing (Cape Arch.).
Left: Attack. Drawing, (Cape Archives, col. © KGH

The Great Trek

The historical events in 19th century South Africa are marked by the "Groot Trek". Starting in 1835, more than 10,000 Boers, the Voortrekkers, left the Cape Colony with their families and went north and north-east. The reasons for this mass exodus were their economic problems, the threatening danger of conflict with the Xhosa, who settled on the other side of the Fish River, and primarily, discontent with the English colonial authorities who didn't provide sufficient protection and had forbidden the slave trade and postulated the equality of whites and non-whites.