Orange Free State
The Orange Free State was a landlocked independent Boer republic in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Empire at the end of the Second Boer War in 1902. It is one of the three historical precursors to the present-day Free State province.
Extending between the Orange and Vaal rivers, its borders were determined by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1848 when the region was proclaimed as the Orange River Sovereignty, with a British Resident based in Bloemfontein. Bloemfontein and the southern parts of the Sovereignty had previously been settled by Griqua and by Trekboere from the Cape Colony.
The Voortrekker Republic of Natalia, founded in 1837, administered the northern part of the territory through a landdrost based at Winburg. This northern area was later in federation with the Republic of Potchefstroom which eventually formed part of the South African Republic.
Following the granting of sovereignty to the Transvaal Republic, the British sought to drop their defensive and administrative responsibilities between the Orange and Vaal rivers, while local European residents wanted the British to remain. This led to the British recognising the independence of the Orange River Sovereignty and the country officially became independent as the Orange Free State on 23 February 1854, with the signing of the Orange River Convention. The new republic incorporated the Orange River Sovereignty and continued the traditions of the Winburg-Potchefstroom Republic.
The Orange Free State was annexed as the Orange River Colony in 1900. It ceased to exist as an independent Boer republic on 31 May 1902 with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging at the conclusion of the Second Boer War. Following a period of direct rule by the British, it attained self-government in 1907 and joined the Union of South Africa in 1910 as the Orange Free State Province, along with the Cape Province, Natal, and the Transvaal. In 1961, the Union of South Africa became the Republic of South Africa.
The Republic's name derives partly from the Orange River, which was named by the Dutch explorer Robert Jacob Gordon in honour of the Dutch ruling family, the House of Orange, whose name in turn derived from its partial origins in the Principality of Orange in French Provence. The official language in the Orange Free State was Dutch.
History
First settlements
Europeans first visited the country north of the Orange River towards the close of the 18th century. One of the most notable visitors was the Dutch explorer Robert Jacob Gordon, who mapped the region and gave the Orange River its name. At that time, the population was sparse. The majority of the inhabitants appear to have been members of the Sotho people but in the valleys of the Orange and Vaal were Korana and a section of Barolong in the Drakensberg and on the western border lived numbers of Nomadic Southern Africans. Early in the 19th century Griqua established themselves north of the Orange.Boer immigration
In 1824 farmers of Dutch, French Huguenot and German descent known as Trekboers emerged from the Cape Colony, seeking pasture for their flocks and to escape British governmental oversight, settling in the country. The route is called the Great Trek.Up to this time the few Europeans who had crossed the Orange had come mainly as hunters or as missionaries. These early migrants were followed in 1836 by the first parties of the Great Trek. These emigrants left the Cape Colony for various reasons, but all shared the desire for independence from British authority. The leader of the first large party, Hendrik Potgieter, concluded an agreement with Makwana, the chief of the Bataung tribe of Batswana, ceding to the farmers the country between the Vet and Vaal rivers. When Boer families first reached the area they discovered that the country had been devastated, in the northern parts by the chief Mzilikazi and his Matabele in what was known as the Mfecane, and also by the Difaqane, in which three tribes roamed across the land attacking settled groups, absorbing them and their resources until they collapsed because of their sheer size. Consequently, large areas were depopulated. The Boers soon came into collision with Mzilikazi's raiding parties, which attacked Boer hunters who crossed the Vaal River. Reprisals followed, and in November 1837 the Boers decisively defeated Mzilikazi, who thereupon fled northward and eventually established himself on the site of the future Bulawayo in Zimbabwe.In the meantime another party of Cape Dutch emigrants had settled at Thaba Nchu, where the Wesleyans had a mission station for the Barolong. These Barolong had trekked from their original home under their chief, Moroka II, first south-westwards to the Langberg, and then eastwards to Thaba Nchu. The emigrants were treated with great kindness by Moroka, and with the Barolong the Boers maintained uniformly friendly relations after they defeated Mzilikazi. In December 1836 the emigrants beyond the Orange drew up in general assembly an elementary republican form of government. After the defeat of Mzilikazi the town of Winburg was founded, a Volksraad elected, and Piet Retief, one of the ablest of the Voortrekkers, chosen "governor and commandant-general". The emigrants already numbered some 500 men, besides women and children and many servants. Dissensions speedily arose among the emigrants, whose numbers were constantly added to, and Retief, Potgieter and other leaders crossed the Drakensberg and entered Natal. Those that remained were divided into several parties.
British rule
Meanwhile, a new power had arisen along the upper Orange and in the valley of the Caledon. Moshoeshoe, a minor Basotho chief, had welded together a number of scattered and broken clans which had sought refuge in that mountainous region after fleeing from Mzilikazi, and had formed the Basotho nation which acknowledged him as king. In 1833 he had welcomed as workers among his people a band of French Protestant missionaries, and as the Boer immigrants began to settle in his neighborhood he decided to seek support from the British at the Cape. At that time the British government was not prepared to exercise control over the immigrants. Acting upon the advice of Dr John Philip, the superintendent of the London Missionary Society’s stations in South Africa, a treaty was concluded in 1843 with Moshoeshoe, placing him under British protection. A similar treaty was made with the Griqua chief Adam Kok III. By these treaties, which recognised native sovereignty, the British sought to keep a check on the Boers and to protect both the natives and Cape Colony. The effect was to precipitate collisions between all three parties.The year in which the treaty with Moshoeshoe was made, several large parties of Boers recrossed the Drakensberg into the country north of the Orange, refusing to remain in Natal when the British annexed the newly formed Boer republic of Natalia to form the Colony of Natal. During their stay in Natal the Boers inflicted a severe defeat on the Zulus under Dingane in the Battle of Blood River in December 1838, which, following on the flight of Mzilikazi, greatly strengthened the position of Moshoeshoe, whose power became a menace to that of the Boer farmers. Trouble first arose, however, between the Boers and the Griqua in the Philippolis district. Some of the Boer farmers in this district, unlike their fellows dwelling farther north, were willing to accept British rule. This fact induced Mr Justice Menzies, one of the judges of the Cape Colony then on circuit at Colesberg, to cross the Orange and proclaim the country British territory in October 1842. The proclamation was disallowed by the Governor, Sir George Napier, who, nevertheless, maintained that the Boer farmers remained British subjects. After this episode the British negotiated their treaties with Adam Kok III and Moshoeshoe.
The treaties gave great offence to the Boers, who refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of the native chiefs. The majority of the Boer farmers in Kok's territory sent a deputation to the British commissioner in Natal, Henry Cloete, asking for equal treatment with the Griquas, and expressing the desire to come under British protection under such terms. Shortly afterwards hostilities between the farmers and the Griqua broke out. British troops moved up to support the Griquas, and after a skirmish at Zwartkopjes a new arrangement was made between Kok and Peregrine Maitland, the then Governor of Cape Colony, virtually placing the administration of his territory in the hands of a British resident, a post filled in 1846 by Captain Henry Douglas Warden. The place purchased by Captain Warden as the seat of his court was known as Bloemfontein, and it subsequently became the capital of the whole country. Bloemfontein lay to the south of the region settled by Voortrekkers.