Boer War

The Boer Flag

It was a war of greed. An already rich and powerful nation wanted more and was willing to sacrifice anything to get it. The Boer War was actually two wars, but since the name is most related with the second of the two wars I will focus on the second. The war took place between 1899 and 1902.

In 1886 gold was discovered in the Transvaal in South Africa. The idea of finding gold and striking it rich brought many outsiders into the Boer territory and brought great attention to South Africa. The Boers were farmers and merchants of European descent that had colonized in South Africa. They wanted to become independent of British control but the discovery of gold did anything but help them become independent. In October of 1899 Britain decided to start war on the Boers to gain control over the gold. Feeling powerful they thought the war would be finished by Christmas of that year, however, the Boers surprised Britain.

Around May or June of 1890 Britain had control over two of Boers main territories and thought the war was over. However, the Boers were not going to give up that easily. The Boers waged Guerrilla warfare, and Britain did not know how to fight this. Eventually, Britain decided the best way to defeat the Boers was with their own tactics. Britain burned farms, took over food supplies, and kidnapped women and children to be put into concentration camps. In 1902 the Boers surrender after everything they had was completely devastated, and sign The Treaty of Vereeniging.



Over the course of the war over 25,000 Boer people were killed and over 14,000 natives died. While reading up on the Boer War one of the websites said that in most accounts of history the natives of Africa, whom were very much affected by the war, are forgotten, which I found to be very true.


Websites I used.....
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8141/boerwar.html
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/v18n3p14_Weber.html
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist1.html