The Voortrekkers

The Voortrekkers of Dutch and French origin entered the Cape and made their way up north through Southern Africa

The Voortrekkers of Dutch and French origin entered the Cape and made their way up north through Southern Africa

The Voortrekkers  is the Afrikaans word for pioneers and literally means "those who move ahead" or "first/forward traveler") were white Afrikaner farmers, then known as Boers, who in the 1830s and 1840s emigrated during a series of mass movements of a number of separate trekking contingents under different leaders in what is called the Great Trek from the British controlled Cape Colony into the erstwhile black-populated (depopulated from the difaqane said to have originated from Shaka, the Zulu King) areas north of the Orange River in what is now South Africa.

Of several wagon trains to embark on the arduous journey into an unknown hinterland, the group led by Piet Retief entered the Kingdom of the Zulu in 1837, and immediately began negotiating with Dingane for land to establish an independent Boer territory. On 6 February 1838 - the day scheduled to finalise their agreement - King Dingane had Piet Retief and 101 Voortrekkers put to death at his royal settlement near Ulundi . Dingane's impis then massacred other groups of would-be settlers camped in the vicinity of Estcourt . The survivors eventually regrouped and abandoned the site still referred to as Weenen - their 'Place of Weeping'. They headed inland... intent on revenge.

Within nine months the Voortrekkers believed themselves capable of defeating Dingane's Zulu hordes, and at Wasbank on 9 December 1838, vowed to sanctify that date and build a church... should God grant them victory over their enemy.

Exactly one week later - along the banks of a river near Dundee known to the Zulu as 'Peaceful One' - a 15 000- strong impi attacked the 460 Voortrekkers... and experienced the first failure of their Shaka-devised battle strategies.Traditional weapons, ox-horn formation and unquestioning bravery proved no match for the flintlocks, field artillery and mounted marksmen of the Boer's own unique tactics... and the ensuing carnage remains known as 'The Battle of Blood River'.

King Dingane fled northwards, only to be assassinated in a forest on the edge of Swaziland... while the Voortrekkers built their Church of the Vow three years later in a more secure Pietermaritzburg, and religiously maintain their Day of the Vow.