<P> After 1806, a number of Dutch - speaking inhabitants of the Cape Colony trekked inland, first in small groups . Eventually, in the 1830s, large numbers of Boers migrated in what came to be known as the Great Trek . Among the initial reasons for their leaving the Cape colony were the English language rule . Religion was a very important aspect of the settlers culture and the bible and church services were in Dutch . Similarly, schools, justice and trade up to the arrival of the British, were all managed in the Dutch language . The language law caused friction, distrust and dissatisfaction . </P> <P> Another reason for Dutch - speaking white farmers trekking away from the Cape was the abolition of slavery by the British government on Emancipation Day, 1 December 1838 . The farmers complained they could not replace the labour of their slaves without losing an excessive amount of money . The farmers had invested large amounts of capital in slaves . Owners who had purchased slaves on credit or put them up as surety against loans faced financial ruin . This is to be queried as the Boers were in favor of abolishment of slavery Bloemfontein (1854) and Sand River conventions (1852, Art . 4), Britain had allocated the sum of 1 200 000 British Pounds as compensation to the Dutch settlers, on condition the Dutch farmers had to lodge their claims in Britain as well as the fact that the value of the slaves was many times the allocated amount . This caused further dissatisfaction among the Dutch settlers . The settlers, incorrectly, believed that the Cape Colony administration had taken the money due to them as payment for freeing their slaves . Those settlers who were allocated money could only claim it in Britain in person or through an agent . The commission charged by agents was the same as the payment for one slave, thus those settlers only claiming for one slave would receive nothing . </P> <P> The South African Republic (Dutch: Zuid - Afrikaansche Republiek or ZAR, not to be confused with the much later Republic of South Africa), is often referred to as The Transvaal and sometimes as the Republic of Transvaal . It was an independent and internationally recognised nation - state in southern Africa from 1852 to 1902 . Independent sovereignty of the republic was formally recognised by Great Britain with the signing of the Sand River Convention on 17 January 1852 . The republic, under the premiership of Paul Kruger, defeated British forces in the First Boer War and remained independent until the end of the Second Boer War on 31 May 1902, when it was forced to surrender to the British . The territory of the South African Republic became known after this war as the Transvaal Colony . </P> <P> The independent Boer republic of Orange Free State evolved from colonial Britain's Orange River Sovereignty, enforced by the presence of British troops, which lasted from 1848 to 1854 in the territory between the Orange and Vaal rivers, named Transorange . Britain, due to the military burden imposed on it by the Crimean War in Europe, then withdrew its troops from the territory in 1854, when the territory along with other areas in the region was claimed by the Boers as an independent Boer republic, which they named the Orange Free State . In March 1858, after land disputes, cattle rustling and a series of raids and counter-raids, the Orange Free State declared war on the Basotho kingdom, which it failed to defeat . A succession of wars were conducted between the Boers and the Basotho for the next 10 years . The name Orange Free State was again changed to the Orange River Colony, created by Britain after the latter occupied it in 1900 and then annexed it in 1902 during the Second Boer War . The colony, with an estimated population of less than 400,000 in 1904 ceased to exist in 1910, when it was absorbed into the Union of South Africa as the Orange Free State Province . </P>

When did south africa gain its independence from britain
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