White Afrikaners still, however, held a great deal of resentment towards the British Empire.ĭeputy prime minister Jan Christian Smuts then became the second Prime minister of the union, and, one month later, was forced to call for elections after a barrage of criticism from the Boer community. The Boers, however, won the peace, creating a constitution that ensured the retention of the white-only rule in South Africa. An attempt at a federal system incorporating both the colonies and the Boer republics was shattered by a Boer victory over the British at Majuba in The resulting Anglo-Boer War, which ranged fromled to an annexation of the Boer republics. The period also saw the final, violent repressions of the last remaining free chiefdoms in South Africa. The influx of British prospectors soon led to increasingly violent confrontations between British colonials and Boer Republicans.
This changed upon the great trek, which led to more Boer immigrants joining the smaller Boer settlements established in the 17th century and the discovery of vast diamond and gold deposits in the area. The interior of South Africa remained largely irrelevant with only small settlements throughout since the 18th century and well into the 19th century.
