Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Boers had cut their ties to Europe as they emerged from the Trekboer group. [24] The Boers possessed a distinct Protestant culture, and the majority of Boers and their descendants were members of a Reformed Church. The Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk ('Dutch Reformed Church') was the national Church of the South African Republic (1852–1902).
The Volksraad from Winburg was transferred to Potchefstroom and the South African Republic (Dutch: Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek; the ZAR) was established as the name of the new country. [2]: 231 The Boer Republics were predominately Calvinist Protestant due to their Dutch heritage, and this played a significant role in their culture.
Unlike the Boers, the contact most Cape Dutch had with black Africans were predominantly peaceful, and their racial attitudes were more paternal than outright hostile. [61] Meanwhile, the VOC underwent a period of commercial decline beginning in the late eighteenth century which ultimately resulted in its bankruptcy. [64]
The British authorities were adamantly opposed to the Boers' ownership of slaves and what was perceived as their unduly harsh treatment of the indigenous peoples. [11] The British government insisted that the Cape finance its own affairs through self-taxation, an approach which was alien to both the Boers and the Dutch merchants in Cape Town. [2]
The Boers had no problems with mobilisation, since the fiercely independent Boers had no regular army units, apart from the Staatsartillerie (Dutch for 'State Artillery') of both republics. As with the First Boer War, since most of the Boers were members of civilian militias, none had adopted uniforms or insignia.
The Orange Free State (Dutch: Oranje Vrijstaat [oːˈrɑɲə ˈvrɛistaːt]; Afrikaans: Oranje-Vrystaat [uəˈraɲə ˈfrɛistɑːt]) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Empire at the end of the Second Boer War in 1902.
There were thus now three Dutch Reformed Churches in South Africa – the Afrikaner Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk (the Cape Synod), the Boer Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, which was the State Church of the South African Republic, and the Boer Gereformeerde Kerk, the smallest of the three, led by Rev. Postma.
The British historian R.W. Johnson wrote: "Russian conservatives were pro-Boer not only for the usual nationalist, anti-British reasons but because they thought the Boers were like the best sort of Russians – conservative, rural, Christian folk resisting the invasion of their land by foreign (especially Jewish) capitalists."