Welcome to Kedar Heritage Hotel

Rustenberg

Address: R565 Rustenberg/North West/South Africa

www.kedar.co.za

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Kedar Heritage Hotel offers wonderful accommodation and meals, Game Drives, and a local Historian who will inform their clients all about the Anglo-Boer War and tell them many stories of interest. Throughout the 19th century, after Great Britain had acquired the Cape of Good Hope in 1814 and expanded its possessions in southern Africa, ill feeling mounted between the Dutch-descended population, called Afrikaners, or Boers, and British settlers. This resulted in the Afrikaner migration called the Great Trek (1835-1843) and the consequent establishment of the Afrikaner republics: Natal, Orange Free State, and the South African Republic. Natal became a British colony in 1843, but the Transvaal territories were granted independence from Great Britain in 1852, and Orange Free State in 1854.

In the late 1850s, the Transvaal territories formed the South African Republic. The stage for war was set in 1884, when gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand, a region then encompassing parts of the southern Transvaal. The discovery lured thousands of British miners and prospectors to settle in the area, the influx being so great that the city of Johannesburg was created almost overnight.

The Afrikaners, primarily farmers, resented the newcomers, whom they called Uitlanders (“foreigners”), and in token of their feeling, taxed them heavily and denied them voting rights. The resentment on both sides grew, ultimately leading to a revolt by the Uitlanders in Johannesburg against the Afrikaner government.
British non-compliance with Kruger’s demands brought immediate action, and an alliance of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State declared war on October 12, 1899. Boer forces under the command of General De la Rey attacked the British garrison and railway siding at Kraaipan, south west of Mafikeng, thereby signaling the start of the Anglo-Boer War.

The North West province saw a number of important battles as both sides sought control of the main railway link to the north. The North West has a rich history of clashes that stretch between the coming of the Voortrekkers and the end of the Anglo-Boer Wars. The bulk of these battles occurred during the final two years of the Second Anglo-Boer War with the Siege of Mafikeng (14 October 1899 till 17 May 1900).