(

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

for 'Little Free State') was a short-lived Boer republic in what is now

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

(around the town of

Piet Retief Pieter Mauritz Retief (12 November 1780 – 6 February 1838) was a '' Voortrekker'' leader. Settling in 1814 in the frontier region of the Cape Colony, he later assumed command of punitive expeditions during the sixth Xhosa War. He became a s ...

History

From around 1876, a group of Boers lived on land bought from the Swazi king Mbandzeni. In 1886, a formal government was formed, following the adoption of a

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

. King Mbandzeni sold the land but kept his kingdom. He was another son of Mswati II, ruling from 1875 to 1889.. Alternative url: This state existed until 1891 when it was incorporated into the

South African Republic The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republics, Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result ...

(Transvaal).

Flag and land grants

The flag of the Klein Vrystaat (KVS) is almost identical to the Transvaal's own : a horizontal red-white-blue triband with a vertical green stripe near the hoist. The difference between the two lies in that the width of the green stripe was equal to the height of the horizontal stripes in the Klein Vrystaat flag, and a quarter thicker in the Transvaal flag. The KVS was mainly a European (largely

Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...

) community located on Swazi-owned land along the kingdom's southwestern border with the Transvaal, which was granted in 1877 by iNgwenyama Mbandzeni Dlamini to two hunters: Joachim Johannes Ferreira and Frans Ignatius Maritz. The land consisted of northeast of the present town of

. What Mbandzeni thought he had granted was in the nature of a permanent grazing concession, but Ferreira and Maritz opened up the territory to Afrikaner settlement and subdivided it into small farms. Mbandzeni finally gave them permission to form their own ''labndla'' (council), which led to the establishment of a local government, consisting of a president and council, with its own constitution and laws. Johannes Jurgen Bezuidenhoudt (10 November 1830 – 7 March 1911) was appointed the president of the Klein Vrystaat.

Miniature republic

The Swazi saw the Zulus' refusal to allow white farmers, traders and missionaries to penetrate their land, leading to Britain's defeat of the Zulus in the

Anglo-Zulu War The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in present-day South Africa from January to early July 1879 between forces of the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Two famous battles of the war were the Zulu victory at Battle of Isandlwana, Isandlwana and th ...

of 1879. In the 1880s, King Mbandzeni granted numerous concessions to Boer graziers along with British traders and miners. This amounted to a "paper conquest" of Swaziland. After the Anglo-Zulu War, the Swazis aided the British in dissolving the Pedi Kingdom. In gratitude, Britain promised the Swazis they would retain their independence. The Nieuwe Republiek Zuid Afrika was created by the Boers on Zulu territory in 1884, and the Klein Vrystaat in Swaziland in 1886 as a miniature republic. In each case, use was made of tribal warfare among the African population to introduce a small amounted of Boer colonisers, who, having defeated one of the contenders in the tribal war, exacted their price, in land, from the victor. In 1886, the discovery of gold made the Transvaal the prime force in southern Africa. The Boers demanded the British agree to their expansion either north across the

Limpopo River The Limpopo River () rises in South Africa and flows generally eastward through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a group of Tsonga settlers led by Hosi Rivombo who settled in the mou ...

or east through Swaziland (the road to the sea). Britain reversed its position on Swazi independence and by 1894 had allowed the Boers to establish control over Swaziland. White settlers arrived in greater numbers throughout the 1880s, after the discovery of gold in neighboring Transvaal and at Piggs Peak and Forbes Reef in Swaziland. Mswati's son, Mbandzeni, granted large chunks of his territory in concessions to the new arrivals, emboldening the Boers to ignore his claims to most of the rest, and, by the time Swaziland became a

protectorate A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a State (polity), state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over ...

of the

in 1894, there was precious little land left. In 1886, the settlers declared their independence as the Little Free State and were able to rebuff Mbandzeni's halfhearted attempts to evict them on the grounds that they had exceeded his mandate. In 1888, Ferreira and Maritz requested that the

(ZAR) incorporate them into the Transvaal, claiming that Mbandzeni had renounced his authority over them. At that point, Mbandzeni reasserted his sovereignty over the territory and demanded an annual rental payment of £21, but, by then, it was too late. By the terms of the first

Swaziland Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where ...

Convention (1890), the Little Free State KVS was incorporated into the ZAR, with the accord of the British, as part of the Piet Retief, Mpumalanga district.

British control

After their victory in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), Britain assumed control of the territory and retained it until 1968.''The Rough Guide to South Africa''

Footnotes

References

* Alan R. Booth. ''Historical Dictionary of Swaziland'' Second Edition. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. London 2000. pp. 150–151. * A.J. Christopher. ''Land Policy in Southern Africa During the Nineteenth Century''. Department of Geography, University of Port Elizabeth. pp. 6–7. * "The Rough Guide to South Africa.", 2007. . * Richard M. Patricks. "Swazi History. Olden Times to 1900". Swaziland National Trust Commission (SNTC). July 2000.

External links

Klein Vrystaat at Flags of the World
{{coord missing, South Africa Boer Republics States and territories disestablished in 1891 Former countries in Africa Former republics 19th century in Africa States and territories established in 1886 1886 establishments in Africa 1886 establishments in South Africa