The great trek was undertaken by the ??????

Question

this is my exact question... True or False: The great trek was undertaken by the _______ in an attempt to escape the British but led them into conflict with the Zulu and other Africans.

Answer 1

Trekboers and migrations
- as noted earlier, some white farmers had taken to pastoralism as their main economic activity about the beginning of the 18th C. They had developed the tradition that if they needed more or better land, moving farther was the way to acquire it. These treks or journeys were undertaken by small groups or families.

- by the early 19th C, these treks had ceased because of

* confrontation with the Xhosa to the east;
* a law by British authorities in Cape Town forbidding migration north of the Orange River.

- for reasons we shall discuss, a series of coordinated, large treks were undertaken beginning in 1837. These collectively came to be called ‘The Great Trek’. Traditionally, it was said to have ended in 1847 (the bulk of the migration happened in the first years up to 1840), although small scale migration continued afterwards.
- for a short article on the suedafrika site, see .... Great Trek
- one estimate is that 6,000 whites left the Cape Colony up to 1840 (the suedafrika article says about 10,000 during the entire period of the Great Trek). Another estimate is that over 15,000 people in total left in that period; however, this includes non-whites who made up at least half of the total. Although they are given little recognition in the Afrikaner nationalist hagiography, a great many servants and employees (mostly Coloureds) also were part of the ‘Great Trek’. One reason for the designation ‘great’ is this size and scale of the migration.

- later, as Afrikaner identity and nationalism began to grow, this series of events (including the battles with various indigenous peoples), came to be regarded as an heroic and defining moment in the history of the Afrikaner ‘nation’. The white participants began to be regarded as larger-than-life heroes who had preserved the Afrikaner ‘nation’ from Anglicization and assimilation. They came to be called ‘Voortrekkers’ meaning those trekkers who went before—i.e., the first Afrikaner nationalists. They have tended to be venerated (like saints or like Americans regard their ‘founding fathers’).

- as noted, the Great Trek was composed of a number of individual ‘treks’. The latter were a bit like wagon trains during the 19th C in the U.S. Some treks had several hundred white people, at least an equal number of servants, large numbers of ox wagons (bigger and much heavier than ‘prairie schooners’ in the U.S.), and huge herds of cattle and livestock. Most treks were organised by and around a particular leader. Moreover, as was shown repeatedly over the next 30 years or so, loyalty was usually to individual leaders rather than to the mystical entity, the ‘nation’.

Interpretations
- the Great Trek has been the subject of disparate interpretations.

1. Flight from bondage in the land of Egypt
- this was the line taken by the Voortrekkers themselves. They complained of a number of grievances and ‘injustices’ under British rule. The list was long: the Black circuit, Slaughter’s Nek, anglicization policies, immoral and impious overturning of divine order by imposing equality between ‘Christians’ and ‘heathens’, the abolition of slavery with inadequate compensation, maligning of Boers by missionaries and other malicious persons, refusal to allow all cattle and land confiscations from Xhosa in the wars that whites argued were their due, etc.). The government in Cape Town was likened to the government of the pharaohs.

2. Meddling busybodies and do-gooders in London
- this was the line taken by the British settlers and the ‘settler’ school of historians who had their own axes to grind.
- the Great Trek was seen as the consequences of the pernicious influence of Exeter Hall (this was the auditorium in London where the anti-slavery organisations and Aborigines Protection Society held their large rallies and meetings) and the meddling of ignorant do-gooders in Whitehall who had no understanding of the ‘realities’ in South Africa. The trekkers had been goaded beyond the point of endurance to the point that they were prepared to face the dangers of the unknown in order to get away.

3. Incorrigible slave masters
- missionaries and other critics argued that the trekboers were upset because slavery and their high-handed oppression of the indigenous people were ended or at least being curbed. The Great Trek into the interior, they argued, was mainly an attempt to reestablish the old ways and slavery again.
- the Voortrekkers hotly denied that they were involved in slavery, but in fact raids to capture people and the practice of ‘apprenticeship’ reemerged among the Voortrekkers.

4. Nationalist superheroes
- as noted, this movement came later to be viewed in an Afrikaner nationalist perspective. In this interpretation, Anglicization and ‘liberalism’ was threatening the infant Afrikaner nation with extinction (‘cultural genocide’ is the more florid term used by the unthinking nowadays).
- the brave and hardy Voortrekkers defied the overwhelming natural and human dangers in wildest Africa to preserve the infant and vulnerable Afrikaner nation from contamination, culturally and religiously. The Voortrekkers became great superheroes in the pantheon of Afrikaner nationalism.

5. Landless poor whites
- recent interpretations tend to stress more mundane factors and motivations for the movement. The migratory habits to acquire more land, which were firmly established by trekboers throughout the 18th C, had been bottled up for 40-50 years and there were growing numbers of landless white males. In trekboer society, this was a terrible situation and fate. Their only course was to become a ‘bywoner’ to some relative or other farmer with land. As such, they would provide services (usually as an overseer) and be allowed to use some land for a few cattle or agricultural purposes. This meant that their status was only a bit better than non-white servants.
- this interpretation sees the ‘Great Trek’ as merely the bursting of the dam that had bottled such migrations up for over 2 generations.

Piet Retief’s Manifesto
- Retief was one of the most influential of the Great Trek leaders. Among those who joined the Great Trek, he was a bit unusual in a couple of respects. He was much better off than most trekkers; at one time he owned over 20 lots in Grahamstown as well as farm properties. As can be seen from his letter (it was translated for publication in the Grahamstown Journal), he was better educated than most who were illiterate or just barely literate.

- Retief’s so-called manifesto has too often been accepted uncritically and without analysis of context. Not all the assertions can be accepted at face value. It must be analysed carefully and critically.

- for example, the complaint about the abolition of slavery and the process of compensation for a long time went unexamined and was repeated innumerable times as a factor in the trek (by both friends and critics).

- however, investigation revealed that slavery was not common in the eastern frontier areas from which almost all the Voortrekkers came. Besides, no new slaves could be imported after 1807 and the prices of the existing slaves had risen markedly. Very few (if any) Voortrekkers had ever owned slaves. Retief’s only known connection was that at one time he had borrowed money from an ex-slave woman!

- undoubtedly, there were grievances and complaints; even that early, they had established a catalogue of complaints and felt genuinely aggrieved (whether we think the grievances were as serious as they did is another matter).

Elements in the context
- a number of elements in the context tends to put these issues in a different perspective.

1. Shutting down of migration after 1780s.
- the earlier expansion had left some land not taken up behind the leading edges and the pushing back of the Xhosa in the early wars in the 19th C had made some land available (however, the 1820 settlers had also been assigned much of that); nevertheless, the voracious appetite for land among trekboers meant that by the 1830s, landlessness had grown. In effect, the on-going migration that had characterised the 18th C had been dammed up for almost 50 years. Thus, the Great Trek can be viewed as the bursting of the dam. Thus, the Great Trek can be seen as merely the resumption of the earlier process.
- this interpretation is supported by the fact that late in the 19th C when the problem of landlessness again reemerged in the South African Republic (Transvaal), a couple of attempts were made to organise new treks farther into the interior (into Zimbabwe or Angola). These efforts were blocked by Rhodes who wanted to ensure that it was the British Empire that got these areas. However, these aborted attempts to leave the Boer republic could hardly be viewed as attempts to ‘preserve the Afrikaner nation’ from extinction of assimilation.

2. Law forbidding migration north of the Orange River
- the rumours about the proposed treks beyond the Orange River had been circulating for 3-4 years and the government had been considering what it could do in such a case. Again rumours were that troops were to be sent to the drifts (fords) in order to intercept and prevent the treks. Retief and the trekkers were trying to forestall such actions.
- one of the ways to do this was to influence public opinion and sympathy. Many of the grievances were probably included to appeal to those Afrikaners who were not going on the trek. The slavery abolition surely falls into this category. The slave owners lived mostly in the western province area and none of them were joining the trek; however, raising the issue was sure to get their sympathy.

3. Disobedience of lawful authority
- this is a sin in much of Calvinist tradition. Earthly authority and government is a surrogate for Divine authority; the Calvinist definition of sin is rebellion against God. Thus, rebellion against earthly authority becomes by projection rebellion against God.
- the only exception is when earthly government is so evil and wicked that disobedience and rebellion is justified. Thus, some of the arguments (not so much by Retief but by others in the movement) were designed to show that this was true of the British administration in the Cape.

4. Nationalist piety and sacrifice?
- this came to be the major assertion of Afrikaner nationalists in later generations. F. van Jaarsveld challenged this idea in the 1960s in The Awakening of Afrikaner Nationalism; he was roundly denounced for this heresy and there were demands that he be fired from his job in the Univ. of Potchefstroom for Christian National Education.
- he argued that a sense of ‘national identity’ was very little or not at all developed; Trekboers certainly recognised the differences in language, religion, etc. between themselves and the British;
- they had certainly developed a way-of-life and a set of values that were distinctive, but they were also significantly different from people of Dutch descent in the western province areas of the Cape. The latter regarded the Trekboers as rather wild, semi-barbarous frontiersmen and the sense of common identity was limited and incomplete. The westerners followed the Trek with interest and probably with a good deal of sympathy, but they certainly did not see the trekkers as the saviours of some mystical Afrikaner ‘nation’.
- even more significantly, the trekkers themselves had only a limited sense of unity; only severe danger could unite them. Mostly, their loyalties were to individual leaders. Repeatedly during the next 30 years or so, they fought and bickered with each other. They were not even united on religion; two new Reformed churches were started (they left the NGK behind in the Cape as it was too ‘liberal’ and required well educated clergy). One of these new churches (known as the ‘Dopper Church’) was very austere; even singing of hymns was regarded as too worldly and the only music allowed was the singing of psalms (this was the church of Paul Kruger).
- van Jaarsveld argued that a true sense of national identity did not emerge until after the British annexation of the South African Republic in the 1870s; then a series of national meetings to oppose the annexation and the successful revolt against the British—the ‘1st War of Independence’—did bring a sense of identity among the Boers of the Transvaal.
- this feeling of nationalist identity was only fully developed and confirmed in the period leading up to and including the South African War (‘2nd War of Independence’ for Afrikaner nationalists).

- certainly, I tend to put a good deal of emphasis upon ‘land hunger’; however, not all landless trekboers joined the migration and others, like Retief, were not landless so other factors were involved as well.

British attempts to create a stable frontier and border
- the problem of defining a clear boundary as a means of avoiding hostilities and warfare with the indigenous people had, as we noted earlier, began soon after the settling at the Cape. Although VOC officials had tried to draw boundaries, it had never worked, especially after the emergence of trekboers. However, the Khoikhoi had not posed such a serious military threat as the Xhosa did.

- the British too wanted to limit responsibilities. This was all the more so because it soon proved that wars with the Xhosa were expensive.

* the mainstay of British attempts to solve the frontier problem was the practice of signing treaties with Xhosa chiefs. The first attempt involved making a treaty with the Ngqika, who was paramount chief of the Rharhabe clans west of the Kei River. The problem was that Ngqika had no control over his uncle Ndlambe and other chiefs; he hoped that the treaty would bring them back under his control with help from the British. The British failed to understand the real situation; although he was genealogically paramount, it did not mean that he had any real authority or control. Later, the British decided that Ngqika was being two-faced when he did not force the chiefs to abide by the terms of the treaty that he had signed. In spite of repeated failures, the British kept trying to use treaties.

* another approach was to create an unoccupied nomansland between the white settlement and the Xhosa. Thus, after forcing the Xhosa back in a war, they signed treaties with the chiefs that their people would stay out. African chiefs could not enforce such an order upon African people who regarded the land as theirs. On the other side, there was also much unhappiness among whites who had hoped and expected that any land taken from the Xhosa would be given or, at least, sold to them.

* the 1820 settlers was another attempted solution. It was hoped that this settlement would accomplish 2 things: the British settlers would act as a buffer between the trekboer farmers and the Xhosa. Secondly, a major part of the problem was deemed to be the extensive agriculture and pastoralism practised by the Afrikaner farmers which created the unsatiable demand for land. The British farmers were supposed to be an example of the intensive agriculture as practised in Britain. If Afrikaners could be converted to this, there would be adequate land for a long time. This too failed because the Xhosa still regarded it as their land and the climate was totally unsuitable for intensive farming. Most of the 1820 setters soon abandoned the land for towns (most had not been farmers anyway) and those who remained on the land had to adopt many of the same practices as the Afrikaners. Now the British government were worse off because they now had to protect British settlers who had much greater claims for protection on the government.

* on the other hand, men on the spot (governors) often were frustrated and felt that the solution was to annex the disputed land and impose order. This was opposed by most missionaries who felt that not only was this unjust to the Xhosa, but it was catering to the white settlers who would have incentives to foment further troubles whenever they wanted more land. This latter suspicion occurred to imperial officials in London also. Besides, if this process was started, where would the annexations end?


- J. S. Galbraith came up with a general explanation—the ‘turbulent frontier’ thesis in his book, Reluctant Empire. He had earlier had this idea to explain British expansion in India; this book applied the idea to South Africa.

- he argued that in order to have a stable border, it is necessary to have strong central governments in states of comparable size and power. Strong central governments are required on both sides of the border in order that unruly elements can be controlled. Otherwise, border incidents occur and escalate into war which then leads to expansion of the winning state. If there is too big a power differential between the states, there is a partial vacuum on the side of the border of the weaker state and the more powerful state tends to get pulled into expansion.

- he used this theory to explain how it happened that the English East India Company and later the British government got pulled into expansion in India until the government ended up controlling the entire subcontinent either directly or indirectly. He uses this same theory to explain why, in spite of great reluctance and even strong steps to avoid it, the British nevertheless made annexations and expanded their control in South Africa.

- the thesis is that failing these 2 requirements, the border area tends to be ‘turbulent’; incidents increase tensions and lead to wars. If the 2 sides are relatively equal, it is an endemic condition. If not, the stronger state conquers and expands.

- the situation in South Africa failed on both counts. The Xhosa were not united and paramounts had at best only limited control of genealogical subordinates. Chiefs could not impose their will in the face of popular opposition. Even the British at times had difficulty controlling white settlers. Moreover, power differentials were great.

- as a result, according to Galbraith, in spite of their great reluctance, the British kept getting drawn deeper into southern Africa.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Starting in 1835, more than 10,000 Boers, the Voortrekkers, left the Cape Colony with their families and went north and north-east.

Answer 4

Boers, is the short answer that fits the blank. I do not know why some people have to put on a big production number for one small answer.

Answer 5

William Shatner