First settlements Europeans first visited the country north of the Orange River towards the close of the 18th century. One of the most notable visitors was the Dutch explorer Robert Jacob Gordon, who mapped the region and gave the Orange River its name. At that time, the population was sparse. The majority of the inhabitants appear to have been members of the
Sotho people but in the valleys of the Orange and Vaal were Korana (
Khoikhoi) and a section of
Barolong in the
Drakensberg and on the western border lived numbers of
Nomadic Southern Africans. Early in the 19th century
Griqua established themselves north of the Orange.
Boer immigration In 1824 farmers of Dutch,
French Huguenot and German descent known as
Trekboers (later named
Boers by the English) emerged from the
Cape Colony, seeking pasture for their flocks and to escape British governmental oversight, settling in the country. The route is called the Great Trek. Up to this time the few Europeans who had crossed the Orange had come mainly as hunters or as missionaries. These early migrants were followed in 1836 by the first parties of the
Great Trek. These emigrants left the Cape Colony for various reasons, but all shared the desire for independence from British authority. The leader of the first large party,
Hendrik Potgieter, concluded an agreement with
Makwana, the chief of the
Bataung tribe of
Batswana, ceding to the farmers the country between the
Vet and
Vaal rivers. The Boers soon came into collision with Mzilikazi's raiding parties, which attacked Boer hunters who crossed the Vaal River. Reprisals followed, and in November 1837 the Boers decisively defeated Mzilikazi, who thereupon fled northward
British rule Meanwhile, a new power had arisen along the upper Orange and in the valley of the
Caledon.
Moshoeshoe, a minor
Basotho chief, had welded together a number of scattered and broken clans which had sought refuge in that mountainous region after fleeing from Mzilikazi, and had formed the Basotho nation which acknowledged him as king. In 1833 he had welcomed as workers among his people a band of French Protestant missionaries, and as the Boer immigrants began to settle in his neighborhood he decided to seek support from the British at the Cape. At that time the British government was not prepared to exercise control over the immigrants. Acting upon the advice of Dr
John Philip, the superintendent of the
London Missionary Society’s stations in South Africa, a treaty was concluded in 1843 with Moshoeshoe, placing him under British protection. A similar treaty was made with the Griqua chief
Adam Kok III. By these treaties, which recognised native sovereignty, the British sought to keep a check on the Boers and to protect both the natives and Cape Colony. The effect was to precipitate collisions between all three parties. While the elected delegates sent two members to England to try and induce the government to alter their decision, Sir George Clerk speedily came to terms with a committee formed by the republican party and presided over by Mr J. H. Hoffman. Even before this committee met a royal proclamation had been signed (30 January 1854) "abandoning and renouncing all dominion" in the Sovereignty. From 1936 to 1947, approximately 190 miles of drilling had been accomplished by over 50 companies for prospecting the area, and in 1951, the first gold bar was produced from these fields. By 1981, gold mining was contributing 37.4% of the provinces GDP, and the city of
Welkom and town of
Riebeeckstad had been established to accommodate the labour forces.
Peaceful relations with neighbours The relations between the British and the Orange Free State, after the question of the boundary was settled, remained perfectly amicable down to the outbreak of the
Second Boer War in 1899. From 1870 onward the history of the state was one of quiet, steady progress. At the time of the first annexation of the
Transvaal the Free State declined Lord Carnarvon's invitation to federate with the other South African communities. In 1880, when a rising of the Boers in the Transvaal was threatening, President Brand showed every desire to avert the conflict. He suggested that
Sir Henry de Villiers, Chief Justice of
Cape Colony, should be sent into the Transvaal to endeavour to gauge the true state of affairs in that country. This suggestion was not acted upon, but when war broke out in the Transvaal, Brand declined to take any part in the struggle. In spite of the neutral attitude taken by their government a number of the Orange Free State Boers, living in the northern part of the country, went to the Transvaal and joined their brethren then in arms against the British. This fact was not allowed to influence the friendly relations between the Free State and Great Britain. In 1888 Sir
Johannes Brand died. from the Orange Free State and Transvaal During the period of Brand's presidency a great change, both political and economic, had come over South Africa. The renewal of the policy of British expansion had been answered by the formation of the
Afrikaner Bond, which represented the aspirations of the
Afrikaner people, and had active branches in the Free State. This alteration in the political outlook was accompanied, and in part occasioned, by economic changes of great significance. The development of the diamond mines and of the gold and coal industries – of which Brand saw the beginning – had far-reaching consequences, bringing the Boer republics into contact with the new industrial era. The Orange Free Staters, under Brand's rule, had shown considerable ability to adapt their policy to meet the altered situation. In 1889 an agreement made between the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony government, whereby the latter was empowered to extend, at its own cost, its railway system to Bloemfontein. The Orange Free State retained the right to purchase this extension at cost, a right it exercised after the
Jameson Raid. Having accepted the assistance of the Cape government in constructing its railway, the state also in 1889 entered into a Customs Union Convention with them. The convention was the outcome of a conference held at
Cape Town in 1888, at which delegates from
Natal, the Free State and the
Cape Colony attended. Natal at this time had not seen its way to entering the
Customs union, but did so at a later date.
Renewal of hostilities In January 1889
Francis William Reitz was elected president of the Orange Free State. Reitz had no sooner got into office than a meeting was arranged with
Paul Kruger, president of the
South African Republic, at which various terms were discussed and decided upon regarding an agreement dealing with the railways, terms of a treaty of amity and commerce, and what was called a political treaty. The political treaty referred in general terms to a federal union between the
South African Republic and the Orange Free State, and bound each of them to help the other, whenever the independence of either should be assailed or threatened from without, unless the state so called upon for assistance should be able to show the injustice of the cause of quarrel in which the other state had engaged. While thus committed to an alliance with its northern neighbour no change was made in internal administration. The Free State, in fact, from its geographical position reaped the benefits without incurring the anxieties consequent on the settlement of a large
Uitlander population on the
Witwatersrand. The state, however, became increasingly identified with the reactionary party in the
South African Republic. In 1895 the Volksraad passed a resolution, in which they declared their readiness to entertain a proposition from the
South African Republic in favour of some form of federal union. In the same year Ritz retired from the presidency of the Orange Free State. The
1896 presidential election to succeed him was won by
M. T. Steyn, a judge of the High Court, who took office in February 1896. In 1896 President Steyn visited
Pretoria, where he received an ovation as the probable future president of the two Republics. A further offensive and defensive alliance between the two Republics was then entered into, under which the Orange Free State took up arms on the outbreak of hostilities between the British and the
South African Republic in October 1899. In 1897 President Kruger, bent on still further cementing the union with the Orange Free State, had visited
Bloemfontein. It was on this occasion that Kruger, referring to the
London Convention, spoke of
Queen Victoria as a
kwaaje Vrouw (angry woman), an expression which caused a good deal of offence in England at the time, but which, in the phraseology of the Boers, was not meant by
President Kruger as insulting. In December 1897 the Free State revised its constitution in reference to the franchise law, and the period of residence necessary to obtain naturalization was reduced from five to three years. The oath of allegiance to the state was alone required, and no renunciation of nationality was insisted upon. In 1898 the Free State also acquiesced in the new convention arranged with regard to the Customs Union between the
Cape Colony,
Natal,
Basutoland and the
Bechuanaland Protectorate. But events were moving rapidly in the Transvaal, and matters had proceeded too far for the Free State to turn back. In May 1899 President Steyn suggested the conference at Bloemfontein between President Kruger and
Sir Alfred Milner, but this act was too late. The Free Staters were practically bound to the
South African Republic, under the offensive and defensive alliance, in case hostilities arose with Great Britain. The Orange Free State began to expel British subjects in 1899, and the first act of the
Second Boer War was committed by Orange Free State Boers, who, on 11 October 1899, seized a train upon the border belonging to Natal. For President Steyn and the Free State of 1899, neutrality was impossible. A resolution was passed by the Volksraad on 27 September declaring that the state would observe its obligations to the Transvaal whatever might happen. After the surrender of
Piet Cronjé in the
Battle of Paardeberg on 27 February 1900,
Bloemfontein was occupied by the British troops under
Lord Roberts from 13 March onward, and on 28 May a proclamation was issued annexing the Free State to the British dominions under the title of
Orange River Colony. For nearly two years longer the burghers kept the field under
Christiaan de Wet and other leaders, but by the articles of peace signed on 31 May 1902 British sovereignty was acknowledged. ==Politics==