century (1814) England purchased the Cape from Holland.
Twenty years later the English Parliament bought all the negroes held
by the Boers and set them free.

Eight thousand Boers, disgusted with the loss of their slaves and with
the small price they had received for them, left the Cape (1836) and
pushed far northward into the wilderness. Crossing the Orange River,
they founded the "Orange Free State." Another party of Boers, going
still further north, crossed the Vaal River (a tributary of the
Orange) and set up the Transvaal, or "South African Republic," on what
was practically a slaveholding foundation. Later (1852), England, by
a treaty known as the Sand River Convention, virtually recognized the
independence of the settlers in the Transvaal, and two years
afterwards made a still more explicit recognition of the independence
of the Orange Free State.

The Zulus and other fierce native tribes bordering on the Transvaal
hated the Boers and threatened to "eat them up." Later (1877), England
thought it for her interest, and for that of the Boers as well, to
annex the Transvaal. The English Governor did not grant the Boers the
measure of political liberty which he had promised; this led to a
revolt, and a small body of English soldiers was beaten at Majuba Hill
(1881).

Mr. Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister, did not think that the
conquest of the Transvaal, supposing it to be justifiable, would pay
for its cost, and he accordingly made a treaty with the people of that
country (1881). Lord Beaconsfield thought this policy a serious
mistake, and that it would lead to trouble later on. He said, "We
have failed to whip the boy, and we shall have to fight the man." The
Gladstone Treaty acknowledged the right of the Boers to govern
themselves, but subject to English control. Three years later (1884)
that treaty was modified. The Boers declared that the English then
gave up all control over them, except with regard to the power to make
treaties which might conflict with the interests of Great Britain.
But this statement the English Government emphatically denied.[1]

[1] The preamble of the Convention or agreement made between England
and the Boers in 1881 at Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal,
secured to the Boers "complete self-government, subject to the
suzerainty of her Majesty," Queen Victoria. In the Convention of
1884, made at London, the word "suzerainty" was dropped; but
Mr. Chamberlain, Colonial