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This article is about the Boer people. For the animal, see Boer goat.
Boer is the Dutch (and Afrikaans) word for farmer which came to denote the descendants of the Afrikaans-speaking pastoralists of the eastern Cape frontier in South Africa as well as those who left the Cape Colony to settle in the Orange Free State, Transvaal and to a lesser extent Natal. Their primary motivation for moving was to escape British rule in the Cape as well as the constant border wars on the eastern frontier. The Trekboere, as they were known, are descended mainly from Dutch Calvinist, Frisian Calvinist, French Huguenot, Walloon, Flemish and German Protestant origins dating from the 1650s and into the 1700s. Smaller but significant numbers of Scandinavians, Scots, English, Indians, Malays and Khoi were absorbed as well. Those Boers who trekked into and inhabited the eastern Cape frontier were semi-nomadic. The term Boer is sometimes used in general to refer to an Afrikaner. When used in a historical context, it may refer to an inhabitant of the Boer Republics as well as those who were cultural Boers. The Boer designation was largely, though not completely, absorbed into the Afrikaner designation following the Anglo-Boer War.

Modern usage

In more recent times, mainly during the apartheid reform and post-1994 eras, a number of white Afrikaans-speaking people, mainly with "conservative" political views, have preferred to be called "Boers", rather than "Afrikaners". They feel that there were many people of Voortrekker descent who were not co-opted or assimilated into what they see as the Cape-based Afrikaner identity which began emerging after the Second Anglo-Boer War and the subsequent establishment of the Union of South Africa.

They contend that the Boers of the South African (ZAR) and Orange Free State republics were recognized as a separate people or cultural group under international law by the Sand River Convention (which created the South African Republic in 1852), the Bloemfontein Convention (which created the Orange Free State Republic in 1854), the Pretoria Convention (which re-established the independence of the South African Republic 1881), the London Convention (which granted the full independence to the South African Republic in 1884) and the Vereeniging Peace Treaty, which formally ended the Second Anglo-Boer War on 31 May 1902. Others contend, however, that these treaties dealt only with agreements between governmental entities and do not imply the recognition of a Boer cultural identity per se.

The supporters of these views feel that the Afrikaner designation (or label) was used from the 1930s onwards as a means of unifying (politically at least) the white Afrikaans speakers of the Western Cape with those of Trekboer and Voortrekker descent (whose ancestors began migrating eastward during the 1690s and throughout the 1700s and later northward during the Great Trek of the 1830s) in the north of South Africa, where the Boer Republics were established.

The supporters of the "Boer" designation view the Afrikaner designation as an artificial political label which usurped their history and culture turning "Boer" achievements into "Afrikaner" achievements. They feel that the Western-Cape based Afrikaners — whose ancestors did not trek eastwards or northwards — took advantage of the republican Boers' destitution following the Anglo-Boer War and later attempted to assimilate the Boers into a new politically-based cultural label as "Afrikaners". It is ironic though that the supposed original "Boers" never referred to themselves by that name as it was understood at the time to be a pejorative designation conferred upon them by the British, preferring instead to call themselves and be identified as Afrikaners. Note that the English word 'boor' still refers to churlish and insensitive behaviour.

See also

Notable Boers

South African society

Μπόερς | Bóer | Bôeres | 布尔人 | Буры

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Boer".

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