The Boer 'commando' system evolved from the early defence system at the Cape. In a rather unstable political and economic fragmented region this would create a settled environment for greater economic integration and progress under British supremacy, particularly after the discovery of diamonds in 1867 near the confluence of the Orange and Vaal Rivers. Only gradually effective state administrations emerged.Īs part of a surge of neo-imperialism, which had already started with the annexation of Basutoland in 1868, the British Colonial Secretary, Lord Carnarvon, proposed a confederation of South African states in 1875, along the lines of the Canadian federation of 1867. Like the African societies within their borders, the stock farming Boers enjoyed a pre-capitalist, near-subsistence economy. The republicans acquired the name 'Boers', the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmers. They established two independent republics - the Transvaal and the Orange Free State - as recognised by Great Britain at the Sand River (1852) and Bloemfontein (1854) Conventions. Their 'Great Trek' was a rejection of the British philanthropic policy with its equalisation of black and white at the Cape, and of the political marginalisation they experienced on the eastern Cape frontier. Between 18, about 15,000 Voortrekkers (people of Dutch extract) moved out of the (British) Cape Colony across the Gariep (Orange) River into the interior of South Africa.
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