Boerhaave — Boer War, p. 234
Page 234 : Boerhaave — Boer War
Individual articles:
great general Epaminondas, to the poets Hesiod and Pindar, and to the historian Plutarch. Bœotia and Attica together now form a province in the kingdom of Greece, with an area of 2,472 square miles and a population of 407,063. See Platæa and Thebes.
Boerhaave (bōr'häv or bo͞or'hä-ve), Hermann, the most famous physician of the 18th century, was born near Leyden in 1668. After a long and thorough course of study, he was appointed lecturer on the theory of medicine at the University of Leyden. He devoted himself to chemistry, mathematics and botany, and besides his work in his own line he was for a time engrossed by these studies. He published several works on medicine and a work on chemistry. He became known throughout Europe, and patients and students flocked to him from all countries. Peter the Great visited him and received instruction from him, and the story is told that a Chinese mandarin sent him a letter addressed “Boerhaave, celebrated physician, Europe.” He was a brilliant lecturer, and his personal character was admirable. After his death, in 1738, the city of Leyden raised a monument to his memory in the church of St. Peter, inscribed “To the Health-giving Skill of Boerhaave.”
Boers (bo͞orz), meaning “farmers,” is the name given to the Dutch colonists of South Africa, who are engaged in agriculture and cattle-raising. As early as the 17th century their first settlement was made at the Cape of Good Hope (1652), and they still have the old Dutch characteristics, especially the love of freedom, with an added energy and recklessness, although they have mixed to some extent with other races. The Cape was ceded to England in 1814, and in 1835 the Boers, not liking the new government, as it prohibited the holding of slaves, went northward in bands and occupied Natal, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. They seized the land of the natives, whom they reduced to a sort of servitude. They are an interesting people, sober, industrious, good horsemen and splendid marksmen. See Natal, Orange River Colony and Transvaal.
Boer War (1899–1901). Dutch disaffection toward England’s domination in South Africa long existed, and in the country there was always an atmosphere of hostility and, at periods, of actual strife. Manifestations of racial resentment date back as far as the era of the closing rule of the Dutch East India Company, at the end of the 18th century and the occupation of the Cape by the British. Still more incensed became the Dutch population when England abolished slavery and sought to discipline the Boers, owing to their harsh treatment and enslavement of the Basutos and Griquas. This attitude of the dominant power led to the great “trek” in the thirties, when the stout Dutch burghers put the Orange River and, subsequently the Vaal, between them and the rule of Britain. Nor were racial antipathies in any way softened when, in consequence of the chronic native wars, England intervened in the affairs of the Transvaal and annexed their territory in 1877, though four years later (1881) she restored it to self-government, subject, however, to the suzerainty of the British crown. The convention of 1884 somewhat modified the terms of this restoration, the control which Britain desired to exercise leaving the South African Republic (which the Transvaal government was now officially named), free to form an alliance with their Dutch kin in the Orange Free State, but insisting upon the right to control the external affairs of the republic, if occasion arose to do so. England’s object in insisting on this control over the external affairs of the Transvaal was influenced partly by her concern for the peace of the whole of South Africa, where she had many colonies; and partly by the determination to check the paramountcy of the Afrikander influence in the country. Nor was England uninfluenced by the fact that the British people, especially of the aggressive Tory type, bitterly resented the Gladstonian surrender of British interests in 1881, and were humiliated by the defeat of Sir George Colley by the Boers at Majuba Hill. The incoming of a foreign element, chiefly of British nationality, in 1884, after gold was discovered in the Transvaal, added to the racial friction, and incited the Boers to treat them unjustly as citizens. This treatment of the newcomers, who were refused the rights of representation and indeed of liberty and free speech, led to the abortive attempt of some of the restless spirits of the British community to overthrow the Dutch government. This was the Jameson raid, which had its ignominious ending in the surrender at Doornkop on Jan. 2, 1895. The rising resulted only in increasing the oppression of the Outlanders, who now turned to the mother country for redress of their grievances, and forwarded to the crown a petition praying for rights which they claimed were in accordance with the conventions and treaties. This action brought about a conference held at Bloemfontein in May, 1899, between tre British High Commissioner (Sir Alfred [now Lord] Milner) and President Kruger, which resulted adversely to Britain’s demand of the franchise for her subjects. The following months were spent in diplomatic overtures, which were abruptly ended in the month of October (1899), when the Transvaal, with its ally, the Orange Free State, in an ultimatum, addressed to the British government, demanded the withdrawal of the British forces from the Boer frontier and the recall of the reinforcements then on the
