Answer to Question #179168 in History for Marno

Question

What were the main reasons that the Voortrekkers provided for the movement in the 1830s that came to be known as the Great Trek?

Answer 1

A conflict between the Cape Colony and the governments and South African settlers in the location, which erupted into the Great Trek occurred, resulting in a movement of some 12,000 to 14,000 of those settlers moving on to Natal's land illegally in pursuit of a better place to live, away from their homes in search of new pastures. The Great Trek is seen by the Afrikaans people as an important since it was the start of their century as well as the root of their nationhood. Opening up of the Limpopo District, located in the Highveld of Natal, permitted them to transform the extension of their colony to the east into a flanking movement around the Xosa peoples who had neutralized all attempts to progress there, allowing them to launch a northward penetration into Natal and the Highvelds.

 

However, it was, as a result of its conquest by the British in 1843, all other Natal residents soon rejoined around the Drakensberg, with the exception of the residents of Natal Voortrek and Malelane; their expulsion from which was only short lived on as an act of memory. In 1852 and 54, the British granted the trekkers their freedom from the Zulu land and Transozebezi regions of Africa, and in the Cape of Good Hope, respectively. While a number of petty principalities were formed, factional strife was finally quelled in the decade of the 1860s in the area of Transvaal. With the British forces' departure, the people of Transorangia migrated, instead of returning to their tribes, and rather than each fleeing on his own, the borders in an attempt to defend his nation against all internal threats, formed an association for the sake of unity.