Boers

Boers (buːrz ; Boere (ˈbuːrə)) are the descendants of the Dutch-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 Dutch Cape Colony, but the United Kingdom incorporated it into the British Empire in 1806. The name of the group is derived from "boer", which means "farmer" in Dutch and Afrikaans. In addition, the term Boeren also applied to those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to colonise in the Orange Free State, Transvaal (together known as the Boer Republics), and to a lesser extent Natal. They emigrated from the Cape to live beyond the reach of the British colonial administration, with their reasons for doing so primarily being the new Anglophone common law system being introduced into the Cape and the British abolition of slavery in 1833. The term Afrikaners or Afrikaans people is generally used in modern-day South Africa for the white Afrikaans-speaking population of South Africa (the largest group of White South Africans) encompassing the descendents of both the Boers, and the Cape Dutch who did not embark on the Great Trek. The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie; VOC) was formed in the Dutch Republic in 1602, and at this time the Dutch had entered the competition for the colonial and imperial trade of commerce in Southeast Asia. The end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 saw European soldiers and refugees widely dispersed across Europe. Immigrants from Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland traveled to the Netherlands in the hope of finding employment with the VOC. During the same year, one of their ships was stranded in Table Bay near what would eventually become Cape Town, and the shipwrecked crew had to forage for themselves on shore for several months. They were so impressed with the natural resources of the country that on their return to the Republic, they represented to the VOC directors the great advantages to be had for the Dutch Eastern trade from a properly provided and fortified station at the Cape.