Great Trek was the historic journey made into the interior of South Africa by Dutch-speaking farmers. They made the Great Trek (great haul) mainly because they wanted to escape from British rule in the Cape Colony. Between 1835 and 1838, about 10,000 people made this long and difficult journey in wagons hauled by oxen. Later, they became known as Voortrekkers, a word meaning advance pioneers in Afrikaans.
Causes
of the northward migration included shortages of land and labor in the Cape Colony. Eastward expansion of Dutch settlers had been stopped by war with the Xhosa people, who lived in the eastern frontier region of the Cape Colony. But the immediate cause of the Great Trek was political differences between the Dutch settlers and the British rulers.
The British had occupied the Cape Colony since 1806. By 1828, they were beginning to police its troubled eastern frontier to keep the Dutch and the Xhosa apart. Increasingly the Dutch frontier farmers found themselves subject to British colonial regulations that they had no part in drawing up. In particular, the frontier farmers resented Ordinance 50 of 1828, which gave rights to nonwhite laborers on the principle of equality before the law regardless of color.
News reached the frontier of wars between various African chiefs in the interior. British missionaries and Dutch hunting expeditions returned from the interior suggesting that there was plenty of land and labor there for conquest. By 1834, some Dutch farmer leaders had begun to suggest the idea of moving into the interior.
The journeys.
The first people to make the Great Trek were members of a party led by Hendrik Potgieter. They crossed the Orange River and traveled northward at the end of 1835.
The trekkers traveled in family groups in wagons drawn by oxen. They drove some sheep, cattle, and goats with them. Servants traveled with the families they had served.
Potgieter’s party initially trekked toward the Vaal River. In October 1836, they were attacked by the Ndebele led by Mzilikazi, who controlled this region. The trekkers defended themselves at Vegkop by drawing their wagons into a circle, known as a laager. In January 1837, they attacked Mzilikazi’s capital, Mosega, and drove the Ndebele out of the area. Potgieter then claimed Mzilikazi’s former kingdom by right of conquest and established himself and his followers in the lands across the Vaal.
Another leader, Piet Retief, headed north and then east. He opened negotiations with the Zulu king Dingane for permission to settle the main body of trekkers in Natal. Dingane appeared willing, but may have been playing for time. For his part, Retief threatened the Zulu king in various ways. On Feb. 6, 1838, a treaty was probably agreed, granting the trekkers permission to settle in Natal. But Retief and his party were all killed during the festivities that followed. Dingane then sent out his warriors to kill all the trekkers who had entered Natal. A relief force led by Potgieter was ambushed and defeated at Italeni. In November 1838, a new trekker leader, Andries Pretorius, arrived in Natal with reinforcements. In the Battle of Blood River on December 16, the Zulu were decisively defeated and the way was open for the trekkers to settle in Natal.
The British government consistently refused to recognize the trekker states as legal and regarded the trekkers as falling under British law. Attacks on blacks by the trekkers in Natal also threatened the peace of the Cape Colony’s eastern frontier. After a short war, the British took over Natal on July 15, 1842. Most of the Natal trekkers left and settled in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The United Kingdom finally recognized the Transvaal as an independent republic in 1852. In 1854, the British also recognized the independence of the Orange Free State.
