
The Trekboers ( ) were
nomadic pastoralist
Nomadic pastoralism, also known as nomadic herding, is a form of pastoralism in which livestock are herded in order to seek for fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance, ...
s descended from mostly Dutch colonists on the frontiers of the
Dutch Cape Colony
The Cape of Good Hope () was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) supplystation in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original supply station and the successive states that the area was ...
in
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...
. The Trekboers began migrating into the interior from the areas surrounding what is now
Cape Town
Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
, such as
Paarl
Paarl (; ; derived from ''parel'', meaning "pearl" in Dutch) is a city with 294,457 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the largest city in the Boland, Western Cape, Cape Winelands. Due to the growth of the Mbekweni ...
(settled from 1688),
Stellenbosch
Stellenbosch (; )[A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer.](_blank)
Thomas Baldwin ...
(founded in 1679), and
Franschhoek (settled from 1688), during the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century.
Origins
The Trekboers were seminomadic
pastoralists
Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The anima ...
, subsistence farmers who began trekking both northwards and eastwards into the interior to find better pastures/farmlands for their livestock to graze, as well as to escape the
autocratic
Autocracy is a form of government in which absolute power is held by the head of state and Head of government, government, known as an autocrat. It includes some forms of monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with demo ...
rule of the
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...
(or VOC), which administered the
Cape
A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...
. They believed the VOC was tainted with corruption and not concerned with the interests of the
free burghers, the social class of most of the Trekboers.
[
]
Trekboers also traded with indigenous people. This meant their herds were of hardy local stock. They formed a vital link between the pool of animals in the interior and the providers of shipping provisions at the Cape. Trekboere were nomadic, living in their wagons and rarely remaining in one location for an extended period of time. A number of Trekboers settled in the eastern Cape, where their descendants became known as ''Grensboere'' (Border Farmers).
Expansion

Despite the VOC's attempts to prevent settler expansion beyond the western Cape, the frontier of the Colony remained open: the authorities in Cape Town lacked the means to police the Colony's borders.
[
]
By the 1740s the Trekboers had entered the
Little Karoo. By the 1760s they reached the deep interior of the
Great Karoo
The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe Khoemana (also known as !Orakobab or Korana) word is a semidesert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent i ...
.
Independent republics
Due to the collapse of the VOC (which went bankrupt in 1800) and inspired by the
French Revolution (1789) and the
American Revolution
The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
, groups of Boers rebelled against VOC rule. They set up independent republics in the town of
Graaff-Reinet
Graaff-Reinet (; Xhosa: eRhafu) is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the oldest town in the province and the fourth oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, Paarl and Swellendam. The to ...
(1795), and four months later, in
Swellendam
Swellendam () is the third oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town and Stellenbosch), a town with 17,537 inhabitants situated in the Western Cape province. The town has over 50 provincial heritage sites, most of them buildings of Cape D ...
(17 June 1795). A few months later, the newly established
Batavian Republic
The Batavian Republic (; ) was the Succession of states, successor state to the Dutch Republic, Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on 19 January 1795 after the Batavian Revolution and ended on 5 June 1806, with the acce ...
nationalised the VOC (1 March 1796); the Netherlands came under the sway of the new post-revolution
French government
The Government of France (, ), officially the Government of the French Republic (, ), exercises Executive (government), executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister of France, prime minister, who is the head of government, ...
.
The
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
, who
captured Cape Town in September 1795 in the course of the
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars () were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted French First Republic, France against Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain, Habsb ...
and took over the administration of Cape Colony, increased the level of government oversight the Trekboers were subject to. Tensions between the Trekboers and the British colonial administration would culminate in the
Slachter's Nek Rebellion of 1815, which was rapidly suppressed and the leaders of the rebellion executed. Eventually, due to a combination of dissatisfaction with the British administration, constant
frontier wars with the
Xhosa to the east, and growing shortages of land, the Trekboers eventually went on the
Great Trek
The Great Trek (, ) was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial adminis ...
.
Legacy

Numerous Trekboers settled down to become border farmers for a few generations and later
voortrekkers. But many of the group continued well into the 19th century as an economic class of nomadic pastoralists.
Many Trekboers crossed the
Orange River
The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch language, Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibi ...
decades before the Voortrekkers did. Voortrekkers often encountered Trekboers in
Transorangia during their
Great Trek
The Great Trek (, ) was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial adminis ...
of the 1830s and 1840s. In 1815, a Trekboer/trader named Coenraad (Du) Buys (a surname of French Huguenot origin) was accused of cattle theft and fled from the British. He settled in the (western)
Transvaal. He allegedly contracted polygamous marriages with hundreds of indigenous women, with his descendants' populating the town of Buysplaas in the
Gourits River
Gourits River (), sometimes spelled 'Gouritz River', is situated in the Western Cape, South Africa.
The Gourits River flows from the confluence of the Gamka River and Olifants River and is joined by the Groot River, before flowing through the ...
valley. He continued having numerous wives after leaving the colony. Descendants of his second series of marriages still live in the small town of Buysdorp, near the mission station of Mara, 20 km to the west of
Louis Trichardt in the modern Limpopo province. Buys eventually disappeared while traveling along 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 ...
.
By the late 17th century, both the Trekboers and the Voortrekkers were collectively called
Boers
Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...
.
Language

The Trekboers spoke a variety of
Dutch which they called ''die taal'' (lit. 'the language'), which evolved into the modern-day dialect
Eastern Border Afrikaans, also known as East Cape Afrikaans. The Afrikaans language as a whole generally originated from 17th- and 18th-century Dutch dialects. Over time it incorporated numerous words and expressions from French, German, Portuguese,
Malay,
Khoi
Khoikhoi ( /ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ ''KOY-koy'') (or Khoekhoe in Namibian orthography) are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San (literally "foragers") peop ...
, and later also English. Still, roughly 90% of the vocabulary is of Dutch origin and it is closer linguistically to Standard Dutch than many Dutch dialects. If Afrikaans had not been defined a separate language during the 20th century, its various dialects would have been considered dialects of Dutch.
See also
*
Afrikaner Calvinism
Afrikaner Calvinism () is a cultural and religious development among Afrikaners that combined elements of seventeenth-century Calvinist doctrine with a "chosen people" ideology based in the Bible. It had origins in ideas espoused in the Old Tes ...
*
Afrikaner nationalism
Afrikaner nationalism () is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnic nationalistic political ideology created by Afrikaners residing in Southern Africa during the Victorian era. The ideology was developed in response to the significant events in Afrikaner ...
*
Boer
Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...
*
Boer republics
*
History of Cape Colony Pre-1806
References
{{Reflist
Pastoralists
Great Trek
Afrikaans words and phrases