| State |
Entry |
Exit |
Combat Forces |
Population |
Losses |
| Boers |
1880 |
1881 |
10000 |
500000 |
3000 |
| Britain |
1880 |
1881 |
50000 |
38000000 |
8000 |
In 1877 Sir Theophilus Shepstone annexed the financially bankrupt republic to Britain over the halfhearted protest of its then-president, Thomas F. Burgers. The British failed to fulfill their promises of internal self-government to the Boers, however, and late in 1880 the Afrikaners revolted against the British and declared a new Transvaal republic. They regained their
independence -- subject to certain provisos -- in 1881 after overwhelming British forces at the Battle of Majuba Hill. Paul Kruger became the new republic's first president.
*****
In 1877, fearing a collapse of the South African Republic in the face of
defeat by a Pedi army, the British had formally annexed the Boer state, as the
Transvaal. They then set about destroying the Pedi to obtain laborers for the
Kimberley mines, and they completed the task in 1879. In 1880, however, the
Transvaalers rose, and at the Battle of Majuba Hill in 1881, they defeated a
British army. The British then withdrew, leaving the Boers victorious in what
they would later call their First War of Independence.
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