The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush that began in 1886 and led to the establishment of Johannesburg , South Africa . It was a part of the Mineral Revolution .
145-488: In the modern-day province of Mpumalanga , gold miners in the alluvial mines of Barberton and Pilgrim's Rest and local tribes had suspected the existence of gold deposits. In 1886, gold was found in the Witwatersrand region. Scientific studies show that the "Golden Arc", which stretches from Johannesburg to Welkom , used to be a massive inland lake, and silt and gold deposits from alluvial gold settled in
290-450: A Haute Cuisine route was formed, trickling from Mbombela down to Hazyview. The Lowveld Gourmet Route covers the four top fine dining restaurants the area has to offer. The restaurants include Summerfields Kitchen, Oliver's Restaurant, Orange and Salt. Mpumalanga is home to a diverse range of cultures, including Swazi, Ndebele, Afrikaans, Tsonga, Zulu, Mapulana, Portuguese and Pedi communities. The Ndebele Cultural Village at Botshabelo
435-617: A closed list system. Under the constitution of South Africa, the legislature is intended to create laws, promote public participation and provide oversight. From 1994 to the present, the African National Congress has been the leading party in the Mpumalanga legislature. As of the 2019 elections, the Economic Freedom Fighters , Democratic Alliance and Freedom Front Plus are in opposition in
580-471: A Boer household until reaching adulthood. Modern scholarship widely dismisses this as a technical ruse by the Boers to enforce a means of inexpensive labour for them while avoiding overt slavery. Gezina Kruger had an inboekeling maid for whom she eventually arranged marriage, and paid her a dowry . Having been promoted to the rank of lieutenant (between field cornet and commandant ), Kruger formed part of
725-473: A Tswana bullet swiped across his chest, tearing his jacket but not wounding him. The commando wrecked David Livingstone 's mission station at Kolobeng , destroying his medicines and books. Livingstone was away at the time. Kruger's version of the story was that the Boers found an armoury and a workshop for repairing firearms in Livingstone's house and, interpreting this as a breach of Britain's promise at
870-458: A commando sent against the chief Montshiwa in December 1852 to recover some stolen cattle. Pretorius was still sick, and only nominally in command. Seven months later, on 23 July 1853, Pretorius died, aged 54. Just before the end he sent for Kruger, but the young man arrived too late. Meintjes says that Pretorius "was perhaps the first person to recognise that behind [Kruger's] rough exterior was
1015-749: A communication that since Kruger was agitating against the government he had been dismissed from the executive council. Carnarvon had been succeeded as colonial secretary by Sir Michael Hicks Beach , who received the deputation coldly. After Bok gave a lengthy opening declaration, Hicks Beach muttered: "Have you ever heard of an instance where the British Lion has ever given up anything on which he had set his paw?" Kruger retorted: "Yes. The Orange Free State." The deputation remained in London for some weeks thereafter, communicating by correspondence with Hicks Beach, who eventually reaffirmed Carnarvon's decision that
1160-665: A date subsequently marked by the Boers as the Day of the Vow . Boer tradition of the time dictated that men were entitled to choose two 6,000-acre (24 km ) farms—one for crops and one for grazing—upon becoming enfranchised burghers at the age of 16. Kruger set up his home at the farm Boekenhoutfontein, near Rustenburg in the Magaliesberg area. Kruger later became the owner of a piece of farmland named Waterkloof, on 30 September 1842. This concluded, he wasted little time in pursuing
1305-692: A few kilometers from the future main reef, finding small gold samples while panning the Crocodile and Jukskei rivers and exploring the Suikerboschrand in the south during October and November 1853.On December 1, Marais sought approval from the Volksraad to look for gold, which was accepted with the provision that the Commission of the existing districts of the Republic would be notified if it
1450-410: A fossil layer shows microbial activity that is 3.22 billion years old. This discovery indicates that life emerged on Earth 300 million years earlier than previously thought. Mpumalanga has a high plant and animal diversity. Many species are endemic to the province. A partial list of species that are endemic to Mpumalanga The diverse and special flora and fauna of the province enjoys protection in
1595-552: A group of "volunteers" under the German Conrad von Schlickmann to defend the country, paying for this by levying a special tax. The war ended, but Burgers became extremely unpopular among his electorate. With Burgers due to stand for re-election the following year, Kruger became a popular alternative candidate, but he resolved to stand by the President after Burgers privately assured him that he would do his utmost to defend
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#17327652819461740-652: A land treaty with Potgieter. But he reconsidered and massacred first Piet Retief 's party of settlers, then others at Weenen . Kruger later recounted his family's group coming under attack from Zulus soon after the Retief massacre, describing "children pinioned to their mothers' breasts by spears, or with their brains dashed out on waggon wheels". But "God heard our prayer", he recalled, and "we followed them and shot them down as they fled, until more of them were dead than those of us they had killed in their attack ... I could shoot moderately well for we lived, so to speak, among
1885-477: A larger force Kruger and Pretorius held negotiations where it was agreed to hold a special court on the disturbances in January 1863, and soon thereafter fresh elections for president and commandant-general. Schoeman was found guilty of rebellion against the state and banished. In May the election results were announced—Van Rensburg became president, with Kruger as commandant-general. Both expressed disappointment at
2030-606: A major threat to British ambitions. Shepstone had the Transvaal's annexation as a British territory formally announced in Pretoria on 11 April 1877. Burgers resigned and returned to the Cape to live in retirement—his last act as president was to announce the government's decision to send a deputation, headed by Kruger and Jorissen, to London to make an official protest. He exhorted the burghers not to attempt any kind of resistance to
2175-473: A most singular person with an intellect all the more remarkable for being almost entirely self-developed". Pretorius did not name a successor as Commandant-General ; his eldest son, Marthinus Wessel Pretorius , was appointed in his stead. The younger Pretorius elevated Kruger to the rank of commandant. Pretorius, the son, claimed power over not just the Transvaal but also the Orange River area—he said
2320-495: A national Volksraad (parliament) and created an executive council, headed by a president. Pretorius was sworn in as the first president of the South African Republic on 6 January 1857. Kruger successfully proposed Schoeman for the post of national Commandant-General, hoping to thereby end the factional disputes and foster unity, but Schoeman categorically refused to serve under this constitution or Pretorius. With
2465-497: A national awakening occurring. "Paradoxically", John Laband writes, "British occupation seemed to be fomenting a sense of national consciousness in the Transvaal which years of fractious independence had failed to elicit." When Kruger visited Pretoria in January 1878 he was greeted by a procession that took him to a mass gathering in Church Square . Attempting to stir up the crowd, Kruger said that since Carnarvon had told him
2610-427: A personal relationship with God, he ventured into the Magaliesberg and spent several days without food or water. A search party found him "nearly dead from hunger and thirst", Davenport records. The experience reinvigorated him and greatly intensified his faith, which for the rest of his life was unshakeable and, according to Meintjes, perceived by some of his contemporaries as like that of a child. Kruger belonged to
2755-546: A poll through the former republican infrastructure—587 signed in favour of the annexation, 6,591 against—he organised a second deputation to London, made up of himself and Joubert with Bok again serving as secretary. The envoys met the British High Commissioner in Cape Town, Sir Bartle Frere , and arrived in London on 29 June 1878 to find a censorious letter from Shepstone waiting for them, along with
2900-619: A railway to Delagoa Bay and said he would go to Europe to raise the necessary funds. By the time he left in February 1875 opposition pressure had brought about an amendment to bring religious instruction back into school hours, and Kruger had been restored to the executive council. In 1876 hostilities broke out with the Bapedi people under Sekhukhune . Burgers had told the Acting President Piet Joubert not to fight
3045-542: A range of nature reserves. Many species of plants are unique to the different geological formations within Mpumalanga. Some examples of these formations include serpentines of Barberton Mountains, norites of Sekhukhuneland , quartzites of Blyde River Canyon , and the dolomites in the northern plateaus. Mpumalanga is governed by the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature , a unicameral system of 30 legislators democratically elected though
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#17327652819463190-588: A site near Mbombela shows evidence of agricultural societies from between the 6th to 17th century. Bokoni stone-walled sites on the Mpumalanga highveld are indicative of a large precolonial agropastoral society between ~1500 and 1820 CE. These societies became centers of trade, with increasingly large and centralised populations This pattern increased as they connected to the Portuguese trading post in Maputo Bay . In this era, groups that would become
3335-540: A war in his absence, so the Transvaal government did little to combat the Bapedi raids. On his return Burgers resolved to send a commando against Sekhukhune; he called on Kruger to lead the column, but much to his surprise the erstwhile commandant-general refused. Burgers unsuccessfully asked Joubert to head the commando, then approached Kruger twice more, but to no avail. Kruger was convinced that God would cause any military expedition organised by Burgers to fail—particularly if
3480-476: A young man. He and Elsie married in Cradock in 1820, when he was 19 and she was 14. A girl, Sophia, and a boy, Douw Gerbrand, were born before Paul was born in 1825. His first two names, Stephanus Johannes, were chosen after his paternal grandfather, but rarely used. The provenance of the third given name, Paulus, "was to remain rather a mystery", Johannes Meintjes wrote in his 1974 biography of Kruger, "and yet
3625-492: Is Mbombela . Mpumalanga was formed in 1994, when the area that was the Eastern Transvaal was merged with the former bantustans KaNgwane , KwaNdebele and parts of Lebowa and Gazankulu . Although the contemporary borders of the province were only formed at the end of apartheid , the region and its surroundings have a history that extends back thousands of years. Much of its history, and current significance
3770-648: Is a popular destination. The other major tourist attractions include the Sudwala Caves and the Blyde River Canyon . Many activities including the big jump, mountain and quad biking, horse trails, river rafting and big game viewing are endemic to the region. This is " Big Five " territory. Towns in the Lowveld are Barberton , Mbombela , White River , Sabie , Graskop , Hazyview , Malelane , Pilgrim's Rest , Lydenburg and Nkomazi . In 2008,
3915-587: Is a renowned center of cultural heritage, with displays of Ndebele house painting . Ndebele artist Esther Mahalangu gained international acclaim for her artwork rooted in Ndebele traditions and geometric patterns. Prominent South African artist Gerard Sekoto was born in Botshabelo . Many celebrated South African musicians, such as Ray Phiri , Rebecca Malope and Pretty Yende , are from Mpumalanga. Since 2003, Mpumalanga's capital city, Mbombela, has hosted
4060-582: Is an hour away on the Highveld: With climate change in the province, rainfall is becoming more variable, temperatures and evaporation rates are rising and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. It is predicted that these changes will shift biomes so that most of the province will be savanna. Some of the earliest signs of life on Earth have been found in Mpumalanga. In the Makhonjwa mountain range's greenstone belt near Barberton ,
4205-633: Is as a region of trade. Archeological sites in the Mpumalanga region indicate settlement by humans and their ancestors dating back 1.7 million years. Rock paintings, engravings and other archeological evidence throughout the province indicate that Mpumalanga has a long history of human habitation by groups of hunter gatherers. Excavations not far from the Mpumalanga border in the Origstad district, show evidence of Middle Stone Age habitation dating back to 40,000 years ago. The Lion Cavern, in Ngwenya on
4350-580: Is described in numerous anecdotes, depicted in films and sometimes reported as fact. Between August and October he visited the Netherlands and Germany, where he aroused little general public interest, but made a potent impact in the Reformed congregations he visited. After a brief sojourn back in England he returned to South Africa and arrived at Boekenhoutfontein shortly before Christmas 1877. He found
4495-410: Is done and the minerals found include gold, platinum group metals, silica , chromite , vanadiferous magnetite , argentiferous zinc , antimony , cobalt , copper, iron, manganese , tin , coal, andalusite , chrysotile asbestos , kieselguhr , limestone , magnesite , talc and shale . Gold was first discovered in Mpumalanga province in 1883 by Auguste Roberts in the mountains surrounding what
Witwatersrand Gold Rush - Misplaced Pages Continue
4640-541: Is now Barberton. Gold is still mined in the Barberton area today. Mpumalanga accounts for 83% of South Africa's coal production. 90% of South Africa's coal consumption is used for electricity generation and the synthetic fuel industry. Coal power stations are in proximity to the coal deposits. A coal liquefaction plant in Secunda ( Secunda CTL ) is one of the country's two petroleum-from-coal extraction plants, which
4785-637: Is one of the nine provinces of South Africa . The name means " East ", or literally " The Place Where the Sun Rises " in the Nguni languages . Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique . It shares borders with the South African provinces of Limpopo to the north, Gauteng to the west, the Free State to the southwest, and KwaZulu-Natal to the south. The capital
4930-400: Is operated by the synthetic fuel company Sasol . The high density of coal power stations on the Mpumalanga highveld means that the region has the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution in the world. Mpumalanga is popular with tourists. Kruger National Park , established in 1898 for the protection of Lowveld wildlife, covering 20,000 square kilometres (7,700 sq mi),
5075-499: Is the only South African province to border two provinces of Mozambique ( Gaza Province to the northeast and Maputo Province to the east), as well as all four regions of Eswatini ( Lubombo , Hhohho , Manzini , and Shiselweni districts). The Lowveld is subtropical , due to its latitude and proximity to the warm Indian Ocean . The Highveld is comparatively much cooler and drier, due to its elevation of 1700 m to 2300 m above sea level. The Drakensberg escarpment receives
5220-597: The Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek ("South African Republic"). In exchange for the Boers' pledge not to introduce slavery in the Transvaal, the British agreed not to make an alliance with any "coloured nations" there. Kruger's uncle Gert was also present; his father Casper would have been as well but he was ill and unable to attend. The Boer colonists and the local Tswana and Basotho chiefdoms were in near-constant conflict, mainly over land. Kruger
5365-478: The Afrikaans national arts festival Innibos. The festival features music, comedy, arts, crafts and theatre. Mpumalanga's population is 4,039,939 people (according to the 2011 census). The average population density is 52.81 people per km². Some 30% of the people speak siSwati , the language of neighbouring Eswatini , with 26% speaking isiZulu , 10.3% isiNdebele , 10.2% Sepedi and 11.6% Xitsonga . As of
5510-514: The Battle of Boomplaats . Like the Krugers, Pretorius lived in the Magaliesberg mountains and often hosted the young Kruger, who greatly admired the elder man's resolve, sophistication, and piety. A warm relationship developed. "Kruger's political awareness can be dated from 1850", Meintjes writes, "and it was in no small measure given to him by Pretorius." Like Pretorius, Kruger wanted to centralise
5655-484: The Crocodile River on 5 January 1864. Elections were held yet again, and this time Pretorius defeated Van Rensburg. Kruger was re-elected as commandant-general with over two-thirds of the vote. The civil war had led to an economic collapse in the Transvaal, weakening the government's ability to back up its professed authority and sovereignty over the local chiefdoms, though Lydenburg and Utrecht did now accept
5800-530: The Devil , for example. Kruger publicly accepted Burgers's election, announcing at his inauguration that "as a good republican" he submitted to the vote of the majority, but he had grave personal reservations regarding the new president. He particularly disliked Burgers's new education law, which restricted children's religious instruction to outside school hours—in Kruger's view an affront to God. This, coupled with
5945-453: The Earth was flat , a belief he retained firmly to his dying day. At mealtimes he said grace twice, at length and in formal Dutch rather than the South African dialect that was to become Afrikaans . In late 1858, when he returned to Boekenhoutskloof, he was mentally and physically drained following the exertions of the past few years and in the midst of a spiritual crisis. Hoping to establish
Witwatersrand Gold Rush - Misplaced Pages Continue
6090-474: The Eswatini border, shows evidence of people mining iron ore in the Mpumalanga region and surrounding areas from at least 28 000 years ago. Evidence from mine shafts and trade goods shows that there was notable industry in tin, copper, gold, iron, ochre, and bronze. The Lydenburg Heads , from around 500 CE, are Africa's oldest Iron Age artworks south of the equator and were found in Mpumalanga. Evidence from
6235-661: The Heroes' Acre in Pretoria . Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger was born on 10 October 1825 at Bulhoek, a farm in the Steynsburg area of the Cape Colony , the third child and second son of Casper Jan Hendrik Kruger (1801–1852), a farmer, and his wife Elsje (Elisa; née Steyn; 1806–1834). The family was of Dutch-speaking Afrikaner background, of German, French Huguenot and Dutch stock. Also counted amongst its ancestry
6380-494: The Kruger National Park is in the latter region. The Drakensberg exceeds heights of 2000 m in most places, with this central region of Mpumalanga being very mountainous. These regions have alpine grasslands and small pockets of Afromontane forest . The Lowveld is relatively flat with interspersed rocky outcrops. The Lebombo Mountains form a low range in the far east, on the border with Mozambique . Some of
6525-687: The South African Republic . The well established Pedi, Swazi and Zulu kingdoms put up significant resistance against the settlers. The Pedi fought wars with the Boers in 1876 (see Sekhukhune Wars ) and the Zulu fought with British settlers in 1879 (see Anglo-Zulu War ). These interconnected conflicts played a role in shifting the balance of power in southern Africa to colonial control. After 1860, missionaries, especially German missionaries like Alexander Merensky set up mission stations in
6670-520: The Swazi , Pedi , Ndebele , Mapulana and others established themselves in the area that is now Mpumalanga. In 1845, as part of the Great Trek , the first Dutch-speaking colonial settlers arrived in what they called the eastern Transvaal. The rest of the 19th century in the region was characterised by colonial encroachment and conflict over land and political control. In 1852, the Boers established
6815-564: The Waterberg . The chiefs retreated into what became called the Caves of Makapan ("Makapansgat") with many of their people and cattle, and a siege ensued in which thousands of the defenders died, mainly from starvation. When Commandant-General Piet Potgieter of Zoutpansberg was shot dead, Kruger advanced under heavy fire to retrieve the body and was almost killed himself. Marthinus Pretorius hoped to achieve either federation or amalgamation with
6960-513: The " Cradle of Humankind ". However, he found minor reefs, and today the consensus falsely holds that credit for the discovery of the main gold reef is attributed to George Harrison, whose findings on the farm Langlaagte were made in July 1886, either through accident or systematic prospecting. This was a British attempt to give credit for the discovery to the Anglo-Saxon sector to justify claiming
7105-600: The "Doppers"—a group of about 6,000 that followed an extremely strict interpretation of traditional Calvinist doctrine. They based their theology almost entirely on the Old Testament and, among other things, wished to eschew hymns and organs and read only from the Psalms . When the 1859 synod of the Nederduits Hervormde Kerk van Afrika (NHK), the main church in the Transvaal, decided to enforce
7250-558: The 1858 constitution only NHK members could take part in public affairs. In late 1859 Pretorius was invited to stand for president in the Orange Free State, where many burghers now favoured union, partly as a means to overcome the Basotho. The Transvaal constitution he had just enacted made it illegal to simultaneously hold office abroad, but nevertheless he readily did so and won. The Transvaal volksraad attempted to side-step
7395-480: The 2011 census, approximately 90.65% of Mpumalanga's population are Black, 7.51% are White, and 0.91% are Coloured and 0.69% are Indian or Asian. Paul Kruger Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger ( Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈkry.(j)ər] ; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger , was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa , and State President of
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#17327652819467540-443: The 51-year-old Kruger boarded a train for the first time in his life. In Cape Town, where his German ancestor had landed 164 years before, he had his first sight of the sea. During the voyage to England Kruger encountered a 19-year-old law student from the Orange Free State named Martinus Theunis Steyn . Jorissen and Bok marvelled at Kruger, in their eyes more suited to the 17th century than his own time. One night, when Kruger heard
7685-699: The Boer settlers, there were many English-speaking colonists who wanted rule from the Cape to continue. On 23 February 1854 Sir George Russell Clerk signed the Orange River Convention , ending the sovereignty and recognising what the Boers dubbed the Oranje-Vrijstaat ("Orange Free State"). Bloemfontein , the former British garrison town, became the Free State's capital; the Transvaal seat of government became Pretoria , named after
7830-487: The Boers and put in place measures to stop this. Kruger discussed the measures with Bantjes, whose father, Jan Gerritze Bantjes , had educated Kruger when he was a boy during the Great Trek . One of the measures placed heavy taxes on the sale of dynamite to foreigners to slow the momentum. This agitated the miners, and the British took this as a reason to claim the gold fields for themselves. The Jameson Raid followed, which brought attention to Cecil Rhodes . The Jameson Raid
7975-659: The Boers in Natal had trekked back north-west to the area around the Orange and Vaal rivers. In 1845 Kruger was a member of Potgieter's expedition to Delagoa Bay in Mozambique to negotiate a frontier with Portugal; the Lebombo Mountains was settled upon as the border between Boer and Portuguese lands. Maria and their first child died of fever in January 1846. In 1847 Kruger married her cousin, Gezina du Plessis, from
8120-498: The British Cape administration for some time, but the Krugers were comparatively content. They had always co-operated with the British, and had not owned slaves. They had given little thought to the idea of leaving the Cape. A group of emigrants under Hendrik Potgieter passed through the Krugers' Caledon encampments in early 1836. Potgieter envisioned a Boer republic with himself in a prominent role; he sufficiently impressed
8265-571: The British and the Zulus were close to war. Shepstone had supported the Zulus in a border dispute with the South African Republic, but then, after annexing the Transvaal, changed his mind and endorsed the Boer claim. Meeting Sir Bartle Frere and Lord Chelmsford at Pietermaritzburg on 28 November 1878, Kruger happily gave tactical guidance for the British campaign—he advised the use of Boer tactics, making laagers at every stop and constantly scouting ahead—but refused Frere's request that he accompany one of
8410-593: The British columns, saying he would only help if assurances were made regarding the Transvaal. Chelmsford thought the campaign would be a "promenade" and did not take Kruger's advice. Soon after he entered Zululand in January 1879, starting the Anglo-Zulu War , his unlaagered central column was surprised by Cetshwayo 's Zulus at Isandlwana and almost totally destroyed. The war in Zululand effectively ended on 4 July 1879 with Chelmsford's decisive victory at
8555-496: The British had promised it to his father—but virtually nobody, not even supporters like Kruger, accepted this. Following Sir George Cathcart 's replacement of Smith as governor in Cape Town, the British policy towards the Orange River Sovereignty changed to the extent that the British were willing to pull out and grant independence to a second Boer republic there. This was in spite of the fact that in addition to
8700-554: The British until these diplomats returned. Jorissen, one of the Dutch officials recently imported by Burgers, was included at Kruger's request because of his wide knowledge of European languages (Kruger was not confident in his English); a second Dutchman, Willem Eduard Bok , accompanied them as secretary. They left in May 1877, travelling first to Bloemfontein to confer with the Free State government, then on to Kimberley and Worcester , where
8845-449: The Colesberg area. Their first child, Casper Jan Hendrik, was born on 22 December that year. Concerned by the exodus of so many whites from the Cape and Natal, and taking the view that the Boers remained British subjects , the British Governor Sir Harry Smith in 1848 annexed the area between the Orange and Vaal rivers as the " Orange River Sovereignty ". Pretorius led a Boer commando raid against this, and they were defeated by Smith at
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#17327652819468990-444: The Free State, and a treaty was concluded on 2 June 1857. Over the next year Kruger helped to negotiate a peace agreement between the Free State and Moshoeshoe I of the Basotho, and persuaded Schoeman to take part in successful talks regarding constitutional revisions, after which Zoutpansberg accepted the central government with Schoeman as commandant-general. On 28 June 1858 Schoeman appointed Kruger Assistant Commandant-General of
9135-436: The Free State. After Schoeman unsuccessfully attempted to forcibly supplant Grobler as Acting President, Kruger persuaded him to submit to a volksraad hearing, where Schoeman was censured and relieved of his post. Willem Cornelis Janse van Rensburg was appointed Acting President while a new election was organised for October 1862. Having returned home, Kruger was surprised to receive a message urgently requesting his presence in
9280-465: The Krugers that they joined his party of Voortrekkers. Kruger's father continued to give the children religious education in the Boer fashion during the trek, having them recite or write down biblical passages from memory each day after lunch and dinner. At stops along the journey, the trekkers made improvised classrooms, marking them with reeds and grass. The more educated emigrants took turns in teaching. The Voortrekkers faced indigenous competition for
9425-430: The Netherlands ceded it to Britain with the Convention of London . Boer discontent with aspects of British rule, such as the institution of English as the sole official language and the abolition of slavery in 1834, led to the Great Trek —a mass migration by Dutch-speaking " Voortrekkers " north-east from the Cape to the land on the far side of the Orange and Vaal rivers. Many Boers had been expressing displeasure with
9570-588: The Orange Free State, but before he could contemplate this he would have to unite the Transvaal. In 1855 he appointed an eight-man constitutional commission, including Kruger, which presented a draft constitution in September that year. Lydenburg and Zoutpansberg rejected the proposals, calling for a less centralised government. Pretorius tried again during 1856, holding meetings with eight-man commissions in Rustenburg, Potchefstroom and Pretoria, but Stephanus Schoeman , Zoutpansberg's new Commandant-General, repudiated these efforts. The constitution settled upon formalised
9715-404: The Orange River area, advised Smith in 1851 that he thought a compromise should be attempted with Pretorius. Smith sent representatives to meet him at the Sand River . Kruger, aged 26, accompanied Pretorius and on 17 January 1852 was present at the conclusion of the Sand River Convention , under which Britain recognised "the Emigrant Farmers" in the Transvaal as independent: they called themselves
9860-404: The Orange River on the western edge of the Free State, arousing the interest of Britain and other countries; mostly British settlers, referred to by the Boers as uitlanders ("out-landers"), were flooding into the region. Britain began to pursue federation (at that time often referred to as " confederation ") of the Boer republics with the Cape and Natal and in 1873, over Boer objections, annexed
10005-474: The Parktown Ridge. The Witwatersrand Gold Rush had a significant role in both the failed Jameson Raid in 1895-1896 and the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899. The British mine owners orchestrated the coup of the Boer government, which controlled the Witwatersrand, triggering the Second Boer War. Mpumalanga 26°S 30°E / 26°S 30°E / -26; 30 Mpumalanga ( / ə m ˌ p uː m ə ˈ l ɑː ŋ ɡ ə / )
10150-454: The President rode with the commando, which he was determined to do. "I cannot lead the commando if you come", Kruger said, "for, with your merry evenings in laager and your Sunday dances, the enemy will even shoot me behind the wall; for God's blessing will not rest on your expedition." Burgers, who had no military experience, led the commando himself after several other prospective generals rebuffed him. After being routed by Sekhukhune, he hired
10295-532: The Sand River not to arm tribal chiefs, confiscated them. Whatever the truth, Livingstone wrote about the Boers in strongly condemnatory terms thereafter, depicting them as mindless barbarians. Livingstone and many others criticised the Boers for abducting women and children from tribal settlements and taking them home to work as slaves. The Boers argued that they did not keep these captives as slaves but as inboekelings — indentured "apprentices" who, having lost their families, were given bed, board and training in
10440-586: The South African Republic (or Transvaal) from 1883 to 1900. Nicknamed Oom Paul ("Uncle Paul"), he came to international prominence as the face of the Boer cause—that of the Transvaal and its neighbour the Orange Free State —against Britain during the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. He has been called a personification of Afrikanerdom and admirers venerate him as a tragic folk hero. Born near
10585-498: The South African Republic along European lines, hoping to set in motion a process that would lead to a united, independent South Africa. Finding Boer officialdom inadequate, he imported ministers and civil servants en masse from the Netherlands. His ascent to the presidency came shortly after the realisation that the Boer republics might stand on land of immense mineral wealth. Diamonds had been discovered in Griqua territory just north of
10730-493: The South African Republic's government and, if he saw fit, annex the country. Shepstone arrived in Pretoria in January 1877. He outlined criticisms expressed by Carnarvon regarding the Transvaal government and expressed support for federation. After a joint commission of inquiry on the British grievances—Kruger and the State Attorney E ;J P Jorissen refuted most of Carnarvon's allegations, one of which
10875-460: The South African Republic's independence. The towns of the Transvaal were becoming increasingly British in character as immigration and trade gathered pace, and the idea of annexation was gaining support both locally and in the British government. In late 1876 Lord Carnarvon , Colonial Secretary under Benjamin Disraeli , gave Sir Theophilus Shepstone of Natal a special commission to confer with
11020-487: The South African Republic. "All in all", Kruger's biographer T R H Davenport comments, "he had shown a loyalty to authority in political disputes, devotion to duty as an officer, and a real capacity for power play." Kruger considered Providence his guide in life and referred to scripture constantly; he knew large sections of the Bible by heart. He understood the biblical texts literally and inferred from them that
11165-652: The Transvaal Treasury and was subsequently ordered to leave the country and escorted to the border, where he returned to the Cape Colony . Another find by Pieter Jacob Marais, who had dug gold in California, was recorded in 1853 on the Jukskei River but was subject to similar secrecy. He arrived at Potchefstroom on September 3, 1853. Marais explored the northern slopes of the Witwatersrand,
11310-495: The Transvaal burghers. The Transvaal men were scandalised and returned home en masse, despite Kruger's attempts to maintain discipline. The following February, after a meeting of the executive council in Potchefstroom, Kruger capsized his cart during the journey home and broke his left leg. On one leg he righted the cart and continued the rest of the way. This injury incapacitated him for the next nine months, and his left leg
11455-460: The Transvaal government disliked Pretorius's unconstitutional dual presidency, and worried that Britain might declare the Sand River and Orange River Conventions void if the republics joined. Pretorius was told by the Transvaal volksraad on 10 September 1860 to choose between his two posts—to the surprise of both supporters and detractors he resigned as President of the Transvaal and continued in
11600-402: The Transvaal on the verge of civil war, tensions also rose with the Orange Free State after Pretorius's ambitions of absorbing it became widely known. Kruger had strong personal reservations about Pretorius, not considering him his father's equal, but nevertheless remained steadfastly loyal to him. After the Free State government dismissed an ultimatum from Pretorius to cease what he regarded as
11745-757: The Transvaal, under a system known as Inboekstelsel , Boers carried out raids to capture children and forced them into indentured labour. During the South African War , the region was the site of notable battles. When the National Party came to power in 1948, their policy of apartheid intensified the segregation that had defined communities in the Transvaal . Under a policy of forced removals, Black South Africans were evicted from areas reserved for white people and moved into homelands, including KaNgwane , KwaNdebele , Lebowa and Gazankulu . As
11890-516: The Witwatersrand fields as British. This move was one of the factors leading to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. Harrison declared his claim with the then-government of the South African Republic (ZAR), and the area was pronounced open. His discovery was recorded with a monument where the original gold outcrop is believed to be located and a park named in his honor. Harrison is believed to have sold his claim for less than 10 pounds before leaving
12035-504: The ZAR did not believe that the gold would last for long and mapped out a small triangular piece of land to cram as many plots onto as possible. This is the reason Johannesburg's central business district streets are so narrow. There is a dispute as to the origin of the name Johannesburg and to whom Johannes , a common Dutch name, the city was named after. One theory is that it is named after two state surveyors who were sent to choose an area for
12180-521: The ZAR in 1855 to settle in Dordrecht , Cape Colony. In 1856, Lieutenant Lys travelled to Pretoria from Pietermaritzburg and became stuck crossing a marsh on the farm Driefontein , today's Germiston , which would become the Knights Mine. On returning to his wagon, he discovered conglomerate rock that, when crushed, contained gold. Though there were smaller mining operations in the region, it
12325-483: The Zulu capital Ulundi . Around the same time the British appointed a new Governor and High Commissioner for the Transvaal and Natal, Sir Garnet Wolseley , who introduced a new Transvaal constitution giving the Boers a limited degree of self-government. Wolseley blunted the Zulu military threat by splitting the kingdom into 13 chiefdoms, and crushed Sekhukhune and the Bapedi during late 1879. He had little success in winning
12470-589: The annexation breached the Sand River Convention and went against the popular will in the Transvaal. His arguments were undermined by reports to the contrary from Shepstone and other British officials, and by a widely publicised letter from a Potchefstroom vicar claiming that Kruger only represented the will of "a handful of irreconcilables". Carnarvon dismissed Kruger's idea of a general plebiscite and concluded that British rule would remain. Kruger did not meet Queen Victoria , though such an audience
12615-401: The annexation would not be revoked he could not see what more they could do. The gambit worked; burghers began shouting that they would sooner die fighting for their country than submit to the British. According to Meintjes, Kruger was still not particularly anti-British; he thought the British had made a mistake and would rectify the situation if this could be proven to them. After conducting
12760-498: The annexation would not be revoked. The deputation attempted to rally support for their cause, as the first mission had done, but with the Eastern Question dominating the political scene few were interested. One English sympathiser gave Kruger a gold ring, bearing the inscription: "Take courage, your cause is just and must triumph in the end." Kruger was touched and wore it for the rest of his life. Like its predecessor,
12905-434: The apartheid regime implemented oppressive policies that defined almost every aspect of life, activists responded with resistance. In 1959, the small town of Bethal on what is now the Mpumalanga highveld was the center of the anti-apartheid consumer potato boycott in response to the working conditions Black South African labourers faced on farms in the area. The region was influenced by dynamics in exile and elsewhere in
13050-570: The area surrounding the huge diamond mine at Kimberley , dubbing it Griqualand West . Some Doppers preferred to embark on another trek, north-west across the Kalahari Desert towards Angola, rather than live under Burgers. This became the Dorsland Trek of 1874. The emigrants asked Kruger to lead the way, but he refused to take part. In September 1874, following a long delay calling the volksraad due to sickness, Burgers proposed
13195-474: The area that formed the found gold. The first discovery of gold in the region was made in 1852 on the Pardekraal farm, Krugersdorp , in the South African Republic (ZAR) by John Henry Davis, a Welsh mineralogist. Davis presented his gold find to President Andries Pretorius who feared what would happen to the new republic if the discovery became widely known. Davis was told to sell the gold, worth £600, to
13340-512: The area they were entering from Mzilikazi and his Ndebele (or Matabele) people, a branch from the Zulu Kingdom to the south-east. On 16 October 1836, the 11-year-old Kruger took part in the Battle of Vegkop , where Potgieter's laager , a circle of wagons chained together, was unsuccessfully attacked by Mzilikazi and around 4,000–6,000 Matabele warriors. Kruger and the other small children assisted in tasks such as bullet-casting , while
13485-455: The area. News of gold spread rapidly and reached Cecil Rhodes in Kimberley . Rhodes and his partner Robinson, with a team of companions, were curious and rode over 400 km to Bantjes' camp at Vogelstruisfontein, where they stayed with him for two nights near what would later become Roodepoort . Rhodes purchased the first batch of Witwatersrand gold from Bantjes for £3000. This purchase
13630-505: The boy was always called Paul." Paul Kruger was baptised at Cradock on 19 March 1826. Soon thereafter his parents acquired a farm of their own to the north-west at Vaalbank, near Colesberg , in the remote north-east of the Cape Colony. His mother died when he was eight; his father Casper soon remarried and had more children with his second wife, Heiletje ( née du Plessis). Beyond reading and writing, which he learned from relatives,
13775-512: The capital, the volksraad having recommended him as a suitable candidate; he replied that he was pleased to be summoned but his membership in the Dopper Church meant he could not enter politics. Van Rensburg promptly had legislation passed to give equal political rights to members of all Reformed denominations. Schoeman mustered a commando at Potchefstroom, but was routed by Kruger on the night of 9 October 1862. After Schoeman returned with
13920-411: The central administration. By 1865 tensions had risen with the Zulus to the east and war had broken out again between the Orange Free State and the Basotho. Pretorius and Kruger led a commando of about 1,000 men south to help the Free State. The Basotho were defeated and Moshoeshoe ceded some of his territory, but President Johannes Brand of the Free State decided not to give any of the conquered land to
14065-428: The constitutional problems surrounding this by granting Pretorius half a year's leave, hoping a solution might come about during this time, and the President duly left for Bloemfontein, appointing Johannes Hermanus Grobler to be acting president in his absence. Pretorius was sworn in as president of the Free State on 8 February 1860; he sent a deputation to Pretoria to negotiate union the next day. Kruger and others in
14210-533: The country, for instance Black Consciousness , the Sharpeville Massacre and the 1976 Soweto Uprisings . In the 1980s, under intense repression, youth and labour organizations moblized against the government and townships and Bantustans erupted in political unrest and violence. In 1986, an avoidable disaster killed 177 mine workers in Kinross Mine in the region's highveld. The response to
14355-520: The disaster by the National Union of Mineworkers was a key point in the South African labour struggle. By the late 1980s, the intensity of resistance across South Africa (including areas like Mpumalanga, which hadn't previously been seen as key areas of resistance) combined with economic factors and international pressure was strong enough to end apartheid. On 27 April 1994, when South Africa held its first democratic elections , Mpumalanga province
14500-725: The drier Highveld region, with its cold winters, and the hot, humid Lowveld allow for a variety of agricultural activities. Mpumalanga has been an important supplier of fruit and vegetables for local and international markets for decades. A history of dispossession mean that farming land is largely white owned, although policies of land redistribution era aim to address this. Crops include maize, wheat, sorghum , barley , sunflower seed , soybeans , macadamias , groundnuts, sugar cane, vegetables, coffee, tea, cotton, tobacco, citrus , subtropical and deciduous fruit. Natural grazing covers approximately 14% of Mpumalanga. The main products are beef, mutton , wool , poultry and dairy. Farming in
14645-574: The eastern edge of the Cape Colony , Kruger took part in the Great Trek as a child during the late 1830s. He had almost no education apart from the Bible. A protégé of the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius , he witnessed the signing of the Sand River Convention with Britain in 1852 and over the next decade played a prominent role in the forging of the South African Republic, leading its commandos and resolving disputes between
14790-468: The elder Pretorius. The South African Republic was in practice split between the south-west and central Transvaal, where most of Pretorius' supporters were, and regionalist factions in the Zoutpansberg , Lydenburg and Utrecht districts that viewed any central authority with suspicion. Kruger's first campaign as a commandant was in the latter part of 1854, against the chiefs Mapela and Makapan near
14935-479: The emigrants under a single authority and win British recognition for their territory as an independent state. This last point was not due to hostility to Britain—neither Pretorius nor Kruger was particularly anti-British—but because they perceived the emigrants' unity as under threat if the Cape administration continued to regard them as British subjects. Henry Douglas Warden , the British Resident in
15080-509: The first railway lines in this part of Africa. As a result of the rapid development of the goldfields on the Witwatersrand in the 1880s and the demand for coal by the growing industry, a concession was granted by the ZAR government to the Netherlands-South African Railway Company (NZASM) on July 20 , 1888 , to construct a 25 kilometres (16 mi) railway line from Johannesburg to Boksburg . The line
15225-625: The game." Because of the attacks, the Krugers returned to the highveld, where they took part in Potgieter's campaign that forced Mzilikazi to move his people north, across the Limpopo River , to what became Matabeleland . Kruger and his father settled at the foot of the Magaliesberg mountains in the Transvaal. In Natal Andries Pretorius defeated more than 10,000 of Dingane's Zulus at the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1838,
15370-592: The hand in the stomach of a freshly killed goat, a traditional Boer remedy. He considered this a success—"when it came to the turn of the second goat, my hand was already easier and the danger much less." The wound took more than six months to heal, but he did not wait that long to start hunting again. Britain annexed the Voortrekkers' short-lived Natalia Republic in 1843 as the Colony of Natal . Pretorius briefly led Boer resistance to this, but before long most of
15515-529: The hand of Maria du Plessis, the daughter of a fellow Voortrekker south of the Vaal; she was only 14 years old when they married in Potchefstroom in 1842. The same year Kruger was elected a deputy field cornet —"a singular honour at seventeen", Meintjes comments. This role combined the civilian duties of a local magistrate with a military rank equivalent to that of a junior commissioned officer . Kruger
15660-490: The influx of thousands of predominantly British settlers with the Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886, " uitlanders " (foreigners) provided almost all of the South African Republic's tax revenues but lacked civic representation; Boer burghers retained control of the government. The uitlander problem and the associated tensions with Britain dominated Kruger's attention for the rest of his presidency, to which he
15805-717: The interior. His mother's family, the Steyns, had lived in South Africa since 1668 and were relatively affluent and cultured by Cape standards. Kruger's great-granduncle Hermanus Steyn had been president of the self-declared Republic of Swellendam that revolted against Company rule in 1795. Bulhoek, Kruger's birthplace, was the Steyn family farm and had been Elsie's home since early childhood; her father Douw Gerbrand Steyn had settled there in 1809. The Kruger and Steyn families were acquainted and Casper occasionally visited Bulhoek as
15950-568: The intervention of the republic's Swazi allies. Pretorius stepped down as president in November 1871. In the 1872 election Kruger's preferred candidate, William Robinson, was decisively defeated by the Reverend Thomas François Burgers , a church minister from the Cape who was noted for his eloquent preaching but controversial for some because of his liberal interpretation of the scriptures. He did not believe in
16095-408: The layout of the new town, Johann Rissik and Christiaan Johannes Joubert . Within 10 years, the town was the largest in South Africa, growing faster than Cape Town , which was more than 200 years older. The gold rush saw massive development of Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand, and the area today is the prime metropolitan area of South Africa. One consequence of the gold rush was the construction of
16240-569: The leading figure in the movement to restore the South African Republic's independence, culminating in the Boers' victory in the First Boer War of 1880–1881. Kruger served until 1883 as a member of an executive triumvirate , then was elected president. In 1884 he headed a third deputation that brokered the London Convention , under which Britain recognised the South African Republic as a completely independent state. Following
16385-424: The legislature. Elected every five years, the premier of Mpumalanga is the head of government in the province. Since 2024 Mandla Ndlovu has held the office of premier. Mpumalanga Province is divided into three district municipalities . The district municipalities are in turn divided into 18 local municipalities : 68% of land area in the province is used by agriculture. The climatic contrasts between
16530-473: The low turnout and resolved to hold another set of elections. Van Rensburg's opponent this time was Pretorius, who had resigned his office in the Orange Free State and returned to the Transvaal. Turnout was higher and on 12 October the volksraad announced another Van Rensburg victory. Kruger was returned as commandant-general with a large majority. The civil war ended with Kruger's victory over Jan Viljoen's commando, raised in support of Pretorius and Schoeman, at
16675-482: The marginalisation of his supporters south of the Vaal, Pretorius called up the burghers and rode to the border, prompting President Jacobus Nicolaas Boshoff of the Free State to do the same. Kruger was dismayed to learn of this and on reaching the Transvaal commando he spoke out against the idea of fighting their fellow Boers. When he learned that Boshoff had called on Schoeman to lead a commando against Pretorius from Zoutpansberg and Lydenburg, he realised that disbanding
16820-458: The most precipitation , with all other areas being moderately well-watered by mostly-summer thunderstorms . The Highveld often experiences considerable freezing, while the Lowveld is mostly frost-free. Winter rainfall is rare, except for some drizzle on the escarpment . The differences in climate are demonstrated by comparing the capital, Mbombela , which is in the Lowveld, with Belfast , which
16965-486: The new post of vice-president. The impression of Kruger garnered by the British envoys in Pretoria during early 1877 was one of an unspeakably vulgar, bigoted backveld peasant. Regarding his austere, weather-beaten face, greying hair and simple Dopper dress of a short-cut black jacket, baggy trousers and a black top hat, they considered him extremely ugly. Furthermore, they found his personal habits, such as copious spitting, revolting. Shepstone's legal adviser William Morcom
17110-554: The oldest rocks on earth have been found in the Barberton area; these ancient greenstones and metamorphosed granites form the Crocodile River Mountains in the southeast of the province. The Lowveld is underlaid by African Cratonic Basement rocks of ages in excess of 2 billion years. The Highveld is mostly Karoo Sequence sedimentary rock of a younger, Carboniferous to Permian age. Mpumalanga
17255-550: The only education Kruger received was three months of study under a travelling tutor, Tielman Roos, and Calvinist religious instruction from his father. In adulthood, Kruger would claim to have never read any book apart from the Bible. In 1834 Casper Kruger, his father, and his brothers Gert and Theuns moved their families east and set up farms near the Caledon River , on the Cape Colony's far north-eastern frontier. The Cape had been under British sovereignty since 1814 when
17400-643: The process has been marked by corruption, controversy and has been seen as inadequate to address the extent of apartheid spatial planning. In 2001, 1,270 hectares of the Boomplaats farm near Mashishing was the first farm in South Africa to be expropriated. The Drakensberg escarpment divides Mpumalanga into a westerly half consisting mainly of high-altitude grassland called the Highveld and an eastern half situated in low-altitude subtropical Lowveld / Bushveld , mostly savanna habitat. The southern half of
17545-430: The province is driven by both a combination of seasonal , permanent and temporary labourers. Conditions on farms vary widely but seasonal and temporary workers, many of whom are migrant workers from nearby Mozambique , face intense insecurity. Forestry is extensive around Sabie and Graskop . Located near the forests, Ngodwana is the site of one of South Africa's largest paper mills ( Sappi ). Extensive mining
17690-473: The region, spreading Christianity and European values. Just as the region had been a center for trade in the precolonial era, in the colonial era, the Eastern Transvaal region became an important thoroughfare for trade between Johannesburg and Delagoa Bay (now Maputo ). Gold mining around areas like Pilgrims Rest and Barberton and farming were the main forms of economic activity. On farms in
17835-486: The rival Boer leaders and factions. In 1863 he was elected Commandant-General , a post he held for a decade before he resigned soon after the election of President Thomas François Burgers . Kruger was appointed vice president in March 1877, shortly before the South African Republic was annexed by Britain as the Transvaal. Over the next three years he headed two deputations to London to try to have this overturned. He became
17980-403: The second deputation went on from England to continental Europe, visiting the Netherlands, France and Germany. In Paris , where the 1878 Exposition Universelle was in progress, Kruger saw a hot air balloon for the first time and readily took part in an ascent to view the city from above. "High up in mid-air", he recalled, "I jestingly asked the aeronaut, as we had gone so far, to take me all
18125-441: The sickness of Gezina and their children with malaria, caused Kruger to lose interest in his office. In May 1873 he requested an honourable discharge from his post, which Burgers promptly granted. The office of commandant-general was abolished the following week. Kruger moved his main residence to Boekenhoutfontein , near Rustenburg, and for a time absented himself from public affairs. Burgers busied himself attempting to modernise
18270-640: The singing of modern hymns, Kruger led a group of Doppers that denounced the NHK as "deluded" and "false" and left its Rustenburg congregation. They formed the Gereformeerde Kerke van Zuid-Afrika (GK), thereafter known informally as the "Dopper Church", and recruited the Reverend Dirk Postma , a like-minded traditionalist recently arrived from the Netherlands, to be their minister. This act also had secular ramifications as according to
18415-408: The town. The loss of Schoemansdal, once a prosperous settlement by Boer standards, was considered a great humiliation by many burghers. The Transvaal government formally exonerated Kruger over the matter, ruling that he had been forced to evacuate Schoemansdal by factors beyond his control, but some still argued that he had given the town up too readily. Peace returned to Zoutpansberg in 1869, following
18560-589: The two Dutchmen discussing celestial bodies and the structure of the universe, he interjected that if their conversation was accurate and the Earth was not flat, he might as well throw his Bible overboard. At the Colonial Office in Whitehall , Carnarvon and Kruger's own colleagues were astonished when, speaking through interpreters, he rose to what Meintjes calls "remarkable heights of oratory", averring that
18705-527: The way home." The pilot asked who Kruger was and, on their descent, gave him a medal "to remind me of my journey through the air". The deputation composed a long reply to Hicks Beach, which was published as an open letter in the British press soon before they sailed for home on 24 October 1878. Unless the annexation were revoked, the letter stated, the Transvaal Boers would not co-operate regarding federation. Kruger and Joubert returned home to find
18850-494: The women and larger boys helped the fighting men, of whom there were about 40. Kruger could recall the battle in great detail and give a vivid account well into old age. During 1837 and 1838 Kruger's family was part of the Voortrekker group under Potgieter that trekked further east into Natal. Here they met the American missionary Daniel Lindley , who gave young Paul much spiritual invigoration. The Zulu King Dingane concluded
18995-433: Was already an accomplished frontiersman, horseman, and guerrilla fighter. In addition to his native Dutch, he could speak basic English and several African languages, some fluently. He had shot a lion for the first time when he was a boy—in old age he recalled being 14, but Meintjes suggests he may have been as young as 11. During his many hunting excursions, Kruger was nearly killed on several occasions. In 1845, while he
19140-465: Was discovered. He was also warned that if he told any foreign power about any potential finds that caused a disturbance to the republic's existence, he would be punished by death. Marais then paddled the Sand and Dwars rivers in January 1854. His small gold finds were exhibited at the courthouse in Potchefstroom in January 1854. After submitting his final report to the ZAR government on April 7, 1855, he left
19285-522: Was elected field cornet of his district in 1852, and in August that year he took part in the Battle of Dimawe , a raid against the Tswana chief Sechele I . The Boer commando was headed by Pretorius, but in practice he did not take much part as he was suffering from dropsy (edema). Kruger narrowly escaped death twice—first a piece of shrapnel hit him in the head but knocked him out without cutting him; later
19430-594: Was formed. It was originally called the "Eastern Transvaal" province, but the name was later changed to Mpumalanga on 24 August 1995. The liberation movement turned leading party, the African National Congress (ANC) came into power in Mpumalanga after white minority rule ended. A program of land redistribution , aimed at granting land back to the black communities who were forcibly moved during apartheid, had redistributed tens of thousands of hectares to these communities and their descendants. However,
19575-524: Was hunting rhinoceros along the Steelpoort River , his four-bore elephant gun exploded in his hands and blew off most of his left thumb. Kruger wrapped the wound in a handkerchief and retreated to camp, where he treated it with turpentine . He refused calls to have the hand amputated by a doctor, and instead cut off the remains of the injured thumb himself with a pocketknife. When gangrenous marks appeared on his arm up to his shoulder, he placed
19720-498: Was no longer enough and that they would have to make terms. With Pretorius's approval, Kruger met Boshoff under a white flag . Kruger made clear that he personally disapproved of Pretorius's actions and the situation as a whole, but defended his president when the Free Staters began to speak harshly of him. A commission of 12 men from each republic, including Kruger, reached a compromise whereby Pretorius would drop his claim on
19865-637: Was not until 1884 and the subsequent 1886 discovery at Langlaagte that the Witwatersrand gold rush got underway in earnest. Explorer and prospector Jan Gerrit Bantjes (1840-1914) was the first and original discoverer of a Witwatersrand gold reef in June 1884. He had prospected the area since the early 1880s, and operated the Kromdraai Gold Mine in 1883 in the NW of present-day Johannesburg with his partner Johannes Stephanus Minnaar in an area known today as
20010-525: Was one of the first British officials to write about Kruger: calling him "gigantically horrible", he recounted a public luncheon at which Kruger dined with a dirty pipe protruding from his pocket and such greasy hair that he spent part of the meal combing it. According to Martin Meredith , Kruger's unsightliness was mentioned in British reports "so often that it became shorthand for his whole personality, and indeed, his objectives". They did not consider him
20155-433: Was opened on March 17, 1890, with the first train being hauled by a 14 Tonner locomotive. It became known as the "Randtram", even though it was a railway and not dedicated to tram traffic. This was the first working railway line in the Transvaal . The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand also created a super-wealthy class of miners and industrialists known as Randlords . Many Randlords built large estates and mansions on
20300-599: Was re-elected in 1888 , 1893 and 1898 , and led to the Jameson Raid of 1895–1896 and ultimately the Second Boer War. Kruger left for Europe as the war turned against the Boers in 1900 and spent the rest of his life in exile, refusing to return home following the British victory. After he died in Switzerland at the age of 78 in 1904, his body was returned to South Africa for a state funeral, and buried in
20445-589: Was some Khoi blood, which came down to it from his ancestress Krotoa . The Kruger paternal ancestors had been in South Africa since 1713, when Jacob Krüger, from Berlin , arrived in Cape Town as a 17-year-old soldier in the Dutch East India Company 's service. Jacob's children dropped the umlaut from the family name, a common practice among South Africans of German origin. Over the following generations, Kruger's paternal forebears moved into
20590-408: Was supported by Rhodes and led by Sir Leander Starr Jameson. Its intent was to overthrow the Transvaal government and turn the region into a British colony. There were 500 men who took part in the uprising; 21 were killed, and many were arrested, then trialed and sentenced. The mining village of Ferreira's Camp was formalized into a settlement after people seeking gold settled in the area. Initially,
20735-409: Was that Pretoria tolerated slavery—Shepstone stayed in the capital, openly telling Burgers he had come to the Transvaal to annex it. Hoping to stop the annexation by reforming the government, Burgers introduced scores of bills and revisions to a bewildered volksraad, which opposed them all but then passed them, heightening the general mood of discord and confusion. One of these reforms appointed Kruger to
20880-428: Was the first transaction of the newly formed company, Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa. News reached the rest of the world, and prospectors from Australia to California began arriving in masses, and settlers arrived in soon-to-be Johannesburg. The entrance of foreigners was going well, but a number of years later, President Paul Kruger of the South African Republic (ZAR) worried that foreigners would outnumber
21025-491: Was thereafter slightly shorter than his right. In 1867, Pretoria sent Kruger to restore law and order in Zoutpansberg. He had around 500 men but very low reserves of ammunition, and discipline in the ranks was poor. On reaching Schoemansdal , which was under threat by the chief Katlakter, Kruger and his officers resolved that holding the town was impossible and ordered a general evacuation, following which Katlakter razed
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