From Refuge to resistance: Botsabelo, Mafolofolo and Johannes Dinkwanyane: Missionaries and converts under the authority of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, 1860-1876

Abstract

In the 1870s the Transvaal witnessed an intensification of struggles over land and labour. This development was particularly marked in its eastern districts and was partly stimulated by the impact on the local and regional political economy of the discovery and exploitation of diamonds and gold. Also important was the changing nature of Z.A.R. control over, and intervention in, the countryside and the growing power of the Pedi polity. The latter had by the 1870s emerged as an alternative focus of power and authority to both the Z.A.R. and the Swazi kingdom. These factors shaped the disputes which culminated in the war between the Pedi and the Z.A.R. in 1876. This conflict in turn provided one of the pretexts for the British annexation of the Transvaal in early 1877.