Boer Wars

The Boer Wars were two conflicts between the British Empire and the Boer republics of southern Africa, the South African Republic, also known as the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State. The first, in the early 1880s, ended with a Boer victory at Majuba Hill and the restoration of Transvaal self-government. The second, which began in 1899, was provoked by the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand and British demands for political rights for foreign workers. After early Boer successes, Britain sent large reinforcements and took the capitals, but the Boers continued with guerrilla warfare, and the British responded with scorched earth and concentration camps, in which thousands of Boer women and children, and many Black Africans, died. The war ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902.

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