A newspaper-style article describing the end of the Boer war, ending in British victory.

Essay by fuzzymonkeyHigh School, 10th grade February 2004

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May 1902--The pent up tensions between British in Afrikaner states and the Afrikaners themselves had finally broken. The British gold prospectors moving in on Boer land, and the Boer's mistreatment of the British became too much for both sides and in 1899, the Boer's declared war. A little history of the relationship between these settlers is due.

The British claimed the Cape of Good Hope in 1806. Called the "Great Trek", the Afrikaners settled beyond the Vaal and Orange Rivers in 1835, when the British freed slaves in 1834 and started expanding into South Africa. The Afrikaners founded Afrikaner republics of the South African Republic or Transvaal, Orange Free State, and Natal. In 1843, Britain annexed Natal, and in 1877, after twenty years of being recognized as an independent state, the British annexed Transvaal. In 1881, Paul Kruger led a revolt that ended up in the relinquishment of Transvaal.

In 1895, Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit backed an invasion of Transvaal, called the Jameson raid, which failed completely because of unfortunate timing and caused Cecil Rhodes to resign as Prime Minister. Their motive was that "the demand for gold [in Witwatersrand in 1886 in the Transvaal] was inexhaustible [and] within twenty years the powerful companies were responsible for one third of the world's output" (source 3->Africa).

Ever since gold was discovered in Witwatersrand gold mines in vast amounts in the Transvaal, British prospectors had been going to the Transvaal to seek their fortunes and the Boers had become more and more irritated with the moving in of "Uitlanders" (foreigners). Because of these hostile feelings, the Boers started treating these foreigners with disrespect and abuse. Uitlanders were denied voting rights and other political rights by the President of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger. "The Uitlanders were believed to outnumber the Boers",