The Transvaal & the Boers; A Brief History (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1896 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II THE BOERS AND THEIR ANCESTORS The racial history of that part of the population of the Cape Colony which, in familiar parlance, we call the Boers deserves to be investigated, before one begins to tell the story of their separate existence in the Transvaal. It has already been stated that the name of Boer is simply a Dutch word akin to the German bauer, peasant. Our word boor has the same origin, but it has grown to denote certain qualities, found in many peasants, which do not necessarily exist in the Cape Boer, who is simply a peasant proprietor, farmer, or squatter. The first notion of the essential Boer in the popular mind is, probably, that he is of pure Dutch descent, a belief which his language, a bastard and jejune Dutch patois known as "the Taal," helps to confirm. But this is by no means the whole truth. ( A Boer of the Transvaal, picked out at random, may indeed, like Pretorius, trace his descent direct from the Netherlanders who fought at Haarlem and withstood the wrath of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Or he may pride himself upon the fact that in his veins runs the blood of the French Protestants who fought at Moncontour, and followed the white plume of the most romantic of kings at Ivry. It is also quite possible, though he will not boast of the fact, that he has something more than a tinge of native blood. But it is mainly from Dutch and French elements that the Transvaal Boer derives his being. The earliest European settlers at the Cape of Good Hope, as we have already seen, were servants of the Dutch East India Company. Van Riebeek's original followers consisted chiefly of soldiers and sailors, with a few artisans and gardeners. Two galleots which speedily followed him brought out fifty workmen and a clergyman, whose courageous w...