First Boer War

The First Boer War (Afrikaans: Eerste Vryheidsoorlog, lit. 'First Freedom War'), was fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 between the United Kingdom and Boers of the Transvaal (as the South African Republic was known while under British administration). The war resulted in a Boer victory and eventual independence of the South African Republic. The war is also known as the First Anglo–Boer War, the Transvaal War or the Transvaal Rebellion.

In the 19th century, Britain at some times attempted to set up a single unified state in southern Africa, and at other times wanted to control less territory. The British Empire's expansion in South Africa was accelerated due to the desire to control trade routes between India via the Cape of Good Hope, the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley in 1867, and the race against other European powers to control as much of Africa as possible.

The British annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 represented one of their biggest incursions into Southern Africa, but other expansions also occurred. In 1868 the United Kingdom annexed Basutoland (modern Lesotho in the Drakensberg mountains, surrounded by the Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal), following an appeal from Moshoeshoe, the leader of a mixed group of mostly Sotho-speaking refugees from the Difaqane who sought British protection from both the Boers and the Zulus. In the 1880s, the Tswana country became an object of dispute between the Germans to the west, the Boers to the east, and the British in the Cape Colony to the south. Although the Tswana country had at the time almost no economic value, the "Missionaries Road" passed through it toward territory farther north. After the Germans annexed Damaraland and Namaqualand (modern Namibia) in 1884, the British annexed Bechuanaland in two parts in 1885: the Bechuanaland Protectorate (modern Botswana) and British Bechuanaland (later part of the Cape Colony).

Following the Battle of Blaauwberg (1806) Britain had formally acquired the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa from the Dutch in 1814 after the Napoleonic Wars. Certain groups of Dutch-speaking settler farmers (Boers) resented British rule, even though British control brought some economic benefits. Successive waves of migrations of Boer farmers (known as Trekboers which literally means "travelling farmers"), probed first east along the coast away from the Cape toward Natal, and thereafter north toward the interior, eventually establishing the republics that came to be known as the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (literally "across/beyond the Vaal River").

The British did not try to stop the Trekboers from moving away from the Cape. The Trekboers functioned as pioneers, opening up the interior for those who followed, and Britain gradually extended control outwards from the Cape along the coast toward the east, eventually annexing Natal in 1843.

The Trekboers were farmers, gradually extending their range and territory with no overall agenda. The formal abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 led to more organised groups of Boer settlers attempting to escape British rule, some travelling as far north as modern-day Mozambique. This became known as the Great Trek, and those who took part in it are called Voortrekkers.

Indeed, the British subsequently acknowledged two new Boer Republics in a pair of treaties: the Sand River Convention of 1852 recognised the independence of the Transvaal Republic, and the Orange River Convention of 1854 recognised the independence of the Orange Free State. However, British colonial expansion, from the 1830s, featured skirmishes and wars against both Boers and native African tribes for most of the remainder of the century.

The discovery of diamonds in 1867 near the Vaal River, some 550 miles (890 km) northeast of Cape Town, ended the isolation of the Boers in the interior and changed South African history. The discovery triggered a diamond rush that attracted people from all over the world, turning Kimberley into a town of 50,000 within five years and drawing the attention of British imperial interests. In the 1870s the British annexed Griqualand West, site of the Kimberley diamond discoveries.