Boer (redirected from Boere)

Boer (br, bôr) [Du.,=farmer], inhabitant of South Africa of Dutch or French Huguenot descent. Boers are also known as Afrikaners. They first settled (1652) near the Cape of Good Hope in what was formerly Cape Province. After Great Britain annexed (1806) this territory, many of the Boers departed (1835–40) on the Great Trek and created republics in Natal (see KwaZulu-Natal), the Orange Free State (see Free State), and the Transvaal. Hostility between the Boers and the British resulted in the South African War (1899–1902), after which the Boer territories were annexed and the Union of South Africa formed. There has been some tension between South Africans of British descent and the Boers. South Africa withdrew (1961) from the Commonwealth of Nations and became a republic, an event that was strongly supported by Afrikaner nationalists. Afrikaans, derived from Dutch, is an official language of the republic, along with English and several indigenous African languages. Boer politicians were largely responsible for the inauguration of the policy of apartheid, which was applied to the nonwhite population of South Africa for most of the latter half of the 20th cent.

Bibliography

See S. Patterson, The Last Trek (1957); J. Fisher, The Afrikaners (1969).

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Afrikaner

 formerly Boer

Historically, any South African of Dutch or Huguenot descent whose native language is Afrikaans. Beginning in the late 20th century, the term also was used for all Afrikaans speakers, regardless of ethnicity. The Afrikaners were originally called Boers (“farmers”), since many Dutch and Huguenot settlers of the old Cape Colony (founded 1652) became frontier farmers in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. They established self-sufficient patriarchal communities, developed their own language and subculture, and were committed to a policy of racial segregation, later referred to as apartheid. They fought a bitter war with the British (the South African War, 1899–1902) over the right to govern the frontier territories. Though defeated, they retained their old language and culture and eventually attained politically the power they had failed to win militarily. They dominated South African politics for most of the 20th century but were obliged to give up national power after the first elections based on universal suffrage in 1994. See also Cape Town; Great Trek; National Party.

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Boer

a. a descendant of any of the Dutch or Huguenot colonists who settled in South Africa, mainly in Cape Colony, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal

b. (as modifier): a Boer farm
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War
www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Boer-War