How was the Boer republic of Natal established?

How was the Boer republic of Natal established?

  • It was founded as the republic in 1839 by Andries Pretorius after crushing the Zulu under Dingane.
  • During the early years of the 19th century, many Boers trekked out the British cape colony in search of new lands where they could build themselves republics.




  • Reports from hunters and traders that the lands to north were almost empty encouraged the Boers to migrate.
  • Natal was founded by the third and the last group of the Boer trekkers led by Piet Retief.
  • This group planned to occupy the fertile Zulu land by moving across the Transvaal and later moved to natal through the slopes of the Drakensberg Mountains.
  • A group of about 200 trekkers under Piet Retief crossed into Natal in 1837 and asked Dingane to start a settlement in his kingdom.
  • Dingane, the Zulu king did to trust the white man. He was worried of their fire arms. Besides, he had heard that they had over thrown other African chiefs and taken their land.
  • Later Dingane promised to give land to the Boers if they helped him to recover the Zulu cattle stolen by chief Sekonyera of the Tlokwa.




  • Retief recovered the Zulu cattle too easily that Dingane feared the intensions of the Boers.
  • To remove this fear, Dingane invited Retief and his people tocelebrate the victory over the Tlokwa and killed them.
  • The remaining Boers recovered quickly under the leadership of Pretorius and revenged the killing of their leader by crushing the Zulu at the battle of the blood river.
  • The Boers took formal control of Zulu land and captured thousands of Zulu cattle.
  • In December 1839 the Boers established a new Boer state of Natal with its capital at Pietermaritzburg.
  • The blacks who lived in the Natal area were ordered to leave. These blacks started to move away towards the Cape Colony.
  • The Boers established the Natal Volksrand (peoples’ council) to exercise executive, legislative and judicial powers.
  • The Volksrand also served as the court of appeal with 24 members to elect the president at each session.




  • The British feared that more Boer attacks from the north would drive the Bantu into the cape a factor that would disturb the peace. This partly led the British to attack natal in 1842.

RELATED POSTS

Published by

mwaikusa

IAM experienced geography teacher with more than three years of teaching and creating content related to geography and other subjects for both high school and college students. hope you will find the content of this website useful to your studies and daily life

One thought on “How was the Boer republic of Natal established?”

Comments are closed.