Boer

:For other uses, see Boer (disambiguation)

Coordinates	3°05′″N101°39′″N
Group	Boer people
Caption	Paul Kruger, Andries Pretorius, Sarel Cilliers, and Petrus Jacobus Joubert
Pop	approx. 1.5 million.
Languages	Afrikaans, South African English
Religions	Protestant (Afrikaner Calvinism, Reformed churches)
Related	Dutch, Flemish, Frisians; Germans, French, Scots, English; Cape Coloureds, Basters

Boer (, , or ; ) is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State, Transvaal (which are together known as the Boer Republics), and to a lesser extent Natal. Their primary motivations for leaving the Cape were to escape British rule and extract themselves from the constant border wars between the British imperial government and the native tribes on the eastern frontier.

History

Origin

.]] The Trekboere, as they were originally known, were mainly of Dutch origin and included Calvinists, Flemish and Frisian Calvinists, as well as French Huguenot and German and British protestants who first arrived in the Cape of Good Hope during the period of its administration (1652 – 1795) by the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC). Lesser migrations of Scandinavians, Portuguese, Greeks, Italians, Spanish, Polish, Scots, English and Irish immigrants also contributed to this ethnic mix.

For more information on history before the Great Trek, see Afrikaner.

Great trek

Those Trekboers who trekked into and occupied the eastern Cape were semi-nomadic. A significant number in the eastern Cape frontier later became Grensboere ("border farmers") who were the direct ancestors of the Voortrekkers. The Voortrekkers were those Boers (mainly from the eastern Cape) who left the Cape en masse in a series of large scale migrations later called the Great Trek beginning in 1835 as a result of British colonialism and constant border wars. When used in a historical context, the term Boer may refer to an inhabitant of the Boer Republics as well as those who were cultural Boers.

Anglo-Boer wars

Though the Boers accepted British rule without resistance in 1877, they fought two wars in the late 19th century to defend their internationally recognized independent countries, the republics of the Transvaal (the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, or ZAR) and the Orange Free State (OFS), against the threat of annexation by the British Crown. This led the key figure in organizing the resistance, Paul Kruger, into conflict with the British.

Boer War diaspora

After the second Anglo-Boer War, a Boer diaspora occurred. Starting in 1903, the largest group emigrated to the Patagonia region of Argentina. Another group emigrated to British-ruled Kenya, from where most returned to South Africa during the 1930s, while a third group under the leadership of General Ben Viljoen emigrated to Mexico and to New Mexico and Texas in south-western USA.

Boer Revolt

The Maritz Rebellion or the Boer Revolt or the Five Shilling Rebellion or the Third Boer War, occurred in South Africa in 1914 at the start of World War I, in which men who supported the re-creation of the old Boer republics rose up against the government of the Union of South Africa because they did not want to side with the British against Germany so soon after they had had a long bloody war with the British. Many Boers had German ancestry and many members of the government were themselves former Boer military leaders who had fought with the Maritz rebels against the British in the Second Boer War, which had ended only twelve years earlier. The rebellion was put down by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, and the ringleaders received heavy fines and terms of imprisonment. A renowned Boer, Jopie Fourie, was executed for treason in 1914. He was convicted as a rebel when, as an officer in the Union Defence Force, he refused to take up arms with the British.

Characteristics

Culture

The desire to wander, known as trekgees, was a notable characteristic of the Boers. It figured prominently in the late 17th century when the Trekboers began to inhabit the northern and eastern Cape frontiers, again during the Great Trek when the Voortrekkers left the eastern Cape en masse, as well as after the major republics were established during the Thirstland Trek. When one such trekker was asked why he has emigrated he explained, "a drifting spirit was in our hearts, and we ourselves could not understand it. We just sold our farms and set out north-westwards to find a new home."

The Boer quest for independence manifested in a tradition of declaring republics, which predates the arrival of the British; when the British arrived, Boer republics had already been declared and were in rebellion from the VOC (Dutch East India Company).

The Boers of the frontier were known for their independent spirit, resourcefulness, hardiness, and self-sufficiency, whose political notions verged on anarchy but had begun to be influenced by republicanism.

A small number of Boers may also be members of Baptist, Pentecostal or Lutheran Churches.

Modern usage

During recent times, mainly during the apartheid reform and post-1994 eras, many more white Afrikaans-speaking people, mainly with "conservative" political views and of Trekboer and Voortrekker descent, have preferred to be called "Boers" or Boere-Afrikaners, rather than "Afrikaners". They feel that there were many people of Voortrekker descent who were not co-opted or assimilated into what they see as the Cape-based Afrikaner identity which began emerging after the Second Anglo-Boer War and the subsequent establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. Certain Boer nationalists have asserted that they do not consider themselves a right-wing element of the political spectrum.

They contend that the Boers of the South African (ZAR) and Orange Free State republics were recognized as a separate people or cultural group under international law by the Sand River Convention (which created the South African Republic in 1852), the Bloemfontein Convention (which created the Orange Free State Republic in 1854), the Pretoria Convention (which re-established the independence of the South African Republic 1881), the London Convention (which granted the full independence to the South African Republic in 1884) and the Vereeniging Peace Treaty, which formally ended the Second Anglo-Boer War on 31 May 1902. Others contend, however, that these treaties dealt only with agreements between governmental entities and do not imply the recognition of a Boer cultural identity per se.

The supporters of these views feel that the Afrikaner designation (or label) was used from the 1930s onwards as a means of unifying (politically at least) the white Afrikaans speakers of the Western Cape with those of Trekboer and Voortrekker descent (whose ancestors began migrating eastward during the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century and later northward during the Great Trek of the 1830s) in the north of South Africa, where the Boer Republics were established.

In contemporary South Africa and due to Broederbond propaganda, Boer and Afrikaner have been used interchangeably despite the fact that the Boers are the smaller segment within the Afrikaner designation as the Afrikaners of Cape Dutch origin are larger. Afrikaner directly translated means "African" and subsequently refers to all Afrikaans speaking people in Africa irrespective of colour or nationality. Boer is the specific ethnic group within the larger Afrikaans speaking population.

Politics

Democratic Alliance (South Africa)

Freedom Front Plus

Herstigte Nasionale Party

Education

The BCVO ('Movement for Christian-National Education') is a federation of 47 Calvinist private schools, primarily in the Free State and the Transvaal, committed to educating Boer children from grade 0 through to 12.

Media

Some local Radio stations promote the ideals of the people identifying with Boer/Afrikaner people, like Radio Rosestad (in Bloemfontein), Overvaal Stereo and Radio Pretoria.

Territories

Two territorial areas are being developed as settlement exclusively for Boer/Afrikaners, Orania in the Northern Cape and Kleinfontein near Pretoria.

==Notable Boers==

; Voortrekker leaders

Sarel Cilliers Voortrekker leader

Andries Hendrik Potgieter

Andries Pretorius

Piet Retief Voortrekker leader

; Great trek

Racheltjie de Beer

Dirkie Uys

; Participants in the Second Anglo-Boer War

Koos de la Rey, general and regarded as being one of the great military leaders of that conflict.

Danie Theron, soldier

Christiaan Rudolf de Wet, general

Siener van Rensburg, considered a prophet by some.

; Politicians

Louis Botha, first prime minister of South Africa (1910–9) and former Boer general

Petrus Jacobus Joubert, general and cabinet member of the Transvaal Republic

Paul Kruger, president of the Transvaal Republic

; Spies

Fritz Joubert Duquesne, a Boer Captain known as the Black Panther, served in the Second Boer War. Captured in Mozambique, he escaped prison in Portugal and returned to South Africa as a British officer. In 1901, he was caught planning to sabotage strategic British installations in Cape Town and sentenced to life in prison; however, he escaped and was re-captured several times again throughout his life. In World War I, Duquesne spied for Germany, earning the Iron Cross for allegedly sinking the HMS Hampshire thereby killing Lord Kitchener in 1916. He also served as a Nazi spy in the United States and, in 1941, he was caught by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the largest espionage case in U. S. history: The Duquesne Spy Ring.

See also

References

External links

Category:South African society Boer Category:Great Trek