Andries Pretorius

Andries Pretorius

Andries Pretorius

Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius (born November 27, 1798 in Graaff-Reinet ; † July 23, 1853 in Grootplaats, Magaliesberge , Transvaal ) was a Voortrekker , Boer politician and founder of the South African Republic .

Pretorius, a Boer of Dutch descent, left his home on the Cape during the Great Trek and soon became a respected leader of the Voortrekkers. Pretorius reached Natal via what is now the Vrystaat and the Drakensberg , where he united the Boers, who were leaderless after the murder of Piet Retief , and mobilized Voortrekker to a campaign of revenge against the Zulu king Dingane .

On December 16, 1838, Pretorius defeated the almost 20,000 strong Zulu army with 464 Boers in the Battle of the Blood River , four days later the Zulu destroyed their own capital, uMgungundlovu . In 1840 Pretorius supported 400 men in an attempt to overthrow Dingane's half-brother Mpande , who with this support gained power in the Zulu Empire.

In the same year he led Boer resistance fighters who defeated the weak British occupation of Durban . When British reinforcements arrived, however, he withdrew to Pietermaritzburg , from where he tried to reach a diplomatic agreement between the Boers and the British.

Pretorius then lived as a farmer in Natal, UK, until he was chosen by the Boers in 1847 to present their complaints to the British governor . He refused Pretorius an audience, however, and the diplomatic mission failed. For this reason, Pretorius decided again to give up his country and to emigrate to the north of South Africa , which was not yet under British control.

Pretorius settled north of the Vaal and was a co-founder of the independent Boer Republic of the Transvaal. He was elected commander in chief by the Boers on both sides of the Vaal (also in English-controlled territory) and, following a call for help from the Afrikaaner Winburgs , crossed the Vaal with his units in July 1848 and led the Boer freedom struggle. On July 20, 1848 he succeeded in occupying Bloemfontein , but in August he was defeated at Boomplaats and had to withdraw again behind the Vaal. There he became leader of one of the largest Boer parties into which the Transvaal Boers were divided at the time. He became commander in chief in Potchefstroom and Rustenburg .

In 1851 he threatened to cross the Vaal again, again asked by dissatisfied Boers on the Orange River and the Basotho chief Moshoeshoe I. The main reason for the threatening gestures, however, was to put pressure on the British, as Pretorius tried to obtain official recognition of the independent Boer republics by Great Britain. Pretorius met with the British negotiators on January 17, 1852 and he succeeded in a diplomatic coup: the British revoked the claim of a bounty of 2000 pounds , which had been suspended after the attack on Bloemfontein, and recognized them in the Sand River Convention the independence of the Transvaal.

In the following period Pretorius tried to trade to establish with Natal and the Bechuanaland to colonize and led to the western borders of the Transvaal war against indigenous, African tribes. In the course of an expedition against the Batswana under Sechele, the house of David Livingstone in Kolobeng was looted in 1852 .

Pretorius died July 23, 1853 on his estate in Magaliesberg, he is considered the most capable and most important leader of the Voortrekker. Two years after his death, his son Marthinus Wessel Pretorius founded the city of Pretoria , which he named in honor of his father.

literature

• Wilhelm Grütter, DJ Van Zyl: The history of South Africa. Human & Rousseau, Cape Town et al. 1982, ISBN 0-7981-1436-3 , p. 28 ff.