As long as three hundred years ago, Dutch people (people from the Netherlands, or Holland) began to live in the southern part of Africa that is now the Union of South Africa. These people were called Boers, which means "farmers" in the Dutch language. They now call themselves Ajrikaaners, or "people who live in Africa." The Dutch people continued to settle in South Africa. Some of them were Protestants who were being persecuted because of their religion, just as were the Pilgrims who settled Massachusetts.
The Boers worked hard and built fine farms. By 1800, they had a very prosperous colony. But part of their wealth was due to the fact that they had made slaves of the native Negro peoples of that territory. Great Britain wanted South Africa too, for bases on their sea route to India. In 1815, the British took over control of much of the South African territory. Among other things, they freed the slaves, which disturbed the Boers' way of life. Between 1835 and 1840, in a famous overland journey called the "Great Trek," the Boers moved their entire households to territories in the eastern part of South Africa. It was like the trips of Americans to settle the western parts of the United States. The Boers founded two new states, called the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Then about fifty years later, in 1885, big deposits of gold were found in the Transvaal. This made the territory valuable to the British, and again there were disagreements between the British and the Boers. This led to war between them.
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