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The Great Trek was not universally popular among the settlers either. Around 12,000 of them took part in the migration, about a fifth of the colony's Dutch-speaking white population at the time. [2] [15] The Dutch Reformed Church, to which most of the Boers belonged, explicitly refused to endorse the Great Trek. [2]
Potgieter chose the one on the plain, while Uys decided to attack the hill in front of the commando. The pack horses were left here and Uys crossed the Nzololo. He continued along the deep pools of the Reed creek and crossed it some 120m further, swinging north to ascend Italeni Hill where the white shields were waiting.
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The subsequent favourable reports of the Commission Treks resulted in many farmers leaving their farms and trekking into the interior of Southern Africa, in what later became known as the Great Trek. Uys sold his own farm in December 1836 and left the Uitenhage area with his party of 100 Voortrekkers (as they became known) in April 1837.
Jan Gerritze Bantjes (Beaufort West, 8 July 1817 – Potchefstroom, 10 March 1887) was a Voortrekker [1] [2] [3] whose exploration of the Natal and subsequent report were the catalyst for mobilising the Great Trek. He was also the author of the treaty between the Zulu king Dingane kaSenzangakhona and the Voortrekkers under Andries Pretorius. [4]
This plunged the Great Trek into temporary disarray. In total 534 men, women and children were killed in the Weenen massacre . Retief's death and the Weenen massacre eventually led to the decisive Voortrekker victory at Blood River , after which Andries Pretorius and his "victory commando" recovered the remains of the Retief party.
Despite the distance covered by the itinerant Boers, known as voortrekkers, British attempts to re-assert control over them continued during the Great Trek . [81] This resulted in the first British annexation of a Boer state, the Natalia Republic , in 1843, and subsequently of two others, the South African Republic (also known as the Transvaal ...
Marthinus Jacobus Oosthuizen (October 14, 1818 – April 2, 1897) was a Voortrekker farmer known for his heroism in battle. He was born near Uitenhage and joined the "Groot Trek" (Great Trek). He became famous for his heroism during a battle on 16 February 1838 shortly after the murder of Piet Retief and his delegation, and the massacres of ...