Trekboer
In the history of Southern Africa, the Trekboere were nomadic pastoralists descended from mostly Dutch colonists, French Huguenots and German Protestants in the Cape Colony (founded in 1652). The Trekboere began migrating from the areas surrounding what is now Cape Town - such as Paarl (settled from 1688), Stellenbosch (founded in 1679), and Franschhoek (settled from 1688) during the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century.
Origins
The Trekboere were seminomadic pastoralists, subsistence farmers who began trekking both northwards and eastwards into the interior to find better pastures/farmlands for their livestock to graze, as well as to escape the autocratic rule of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC), which administered the Cape, and which they saw as tainted with corruption and unconcerned with the interests of the free burghers, a social class from which most of the Trekboers came.
Trekboere also traded with indigenous people. This meant their herds were of hardy local stock. They formed a vital link between the pool of animals in the interior and the providers of shipping provisions at the Cape. Trekboere tended to live in the wagons in which they traveled, and rarely remained in one location for an extended period of time. A number of Trekboere settled in the eastern Cape, where their descendants were soon known as Grensboere (Border Farmers), or later called simply Boers (Boer is a Dutch and Afrikaans word for "farmers").
