Transvaal

Transvaal, historic region and province in north-eastern South Africa, now divided into the provinces of Limpopo Province (formerly Northern Province), Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and North-West. For the geography of the region, see under these separate headings.

The land beyond the Vaal River, which includes what are now Gauteng and North-West provinces, was settled first by migrating Bantu and then early in the 19th century by Boers—people of Dutch and Huguenot descent—moving away from British rule in the Cape Colony in the Great Trek. For a time the British extended their rule to the region, then all called the Transvaal, but in 1852 they granted the people in the territory “the right to manage their own affairs”. In the late 1850s the Boers established the Transvaal as the South African Republic, but after a period of political instability, the British annexed the territory in 1877; three years later the Boers revolted. Led by their commandant general, Paul Kruger, they defeated the British at the battle of Majuba Hill in 1881. The republic was recognized as autonomous, under British suzerainty, and Kruger was elected president. He served from 1883 until 1902.

The discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand area in 1886 brought a sudden influx of immigrants, mostly British, who soon outnumbered the Boers. To maintain their supremacy, the Boers did not permit the foreigners, or Uitlanders, to share in the Transvaal government. Eventually, the immigrants, backed by Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes of the Cape Colony, plotted a rebellion. In 1895 they were joined by an armed force from the Cape, led by Sir Leander Starr Jameson, but their uprising ended in failure. The Uitlanders continued to agitate for political freedom, and in 1899 they petitioned Queen Victoria for aid. Shortly thereafter the British government intervened in their behalf. Negotiations led to the repudiation of British suzerainty by the Boers, mobilization of Boer troops, and the South African War (Boer War). The British were victorious, and the Transvaal, together with the Boer Orange Free State, was governed as a British Crown Colony from 1902 to 1907, when it was granted self-government. In 1910 it was united with the Orange Free State, Natal, and the Cape Colony into the Union of South Africa (since 1961, the Republic of South Africa). In 1994, at the time of South Africa's first multiracial elections, the Transvaal was roughly broken up into the provinces of Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and North-West.