Petrus Jacobus Joubert

Petrus Jacobus Joubert
Commandant General P. J. Joubert
Member of the Triumvirate
In office 8 August 1881 – 9 May 1883 Serving with M.W. Pretorius and Paul Kruger
Preceded by	The Viscount Wolseley As Governor of the Transvaal
Succeeded by	Paul Kruger As President of the South African Republic
Member of the Volksraad
Constituency	Wakkerstroom
Personal details
Born	Petrus Jacobus Joubert 20 January 1834 Farm Cango, Oudtshoorn, British Cape Colony
Died	March 28, 1900(1900-03-28) (aged 66) Pretoria, South African Republic
Occupation	Soldier, politician
Religion	Dutch Reformed Church
Military service
Allegiance	South African Republic
Rank	Commandant-general
Battles/wars	Battle of Laing's Nek Battle of Schuinshoogte Battle of Majuba Hill Malaboch War Siege of Ladysmith

Petrus Jacobus Joubert (20 January 1831 or 1834 – 27 or 28 March 1900), better known as Piet Joubert, was Commandant-General of the South African Republic from 1880 to 1900.

Joubert was born in the district of Prince Albert, British Cape Colony, a descendant of a French Huguenot who fled to South Africa soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. Left an orphan at an early age, Joubert migrated to the Transvaal, where he settled in the Wakkerstroom district near Laing's Nek and the north-east angle of the Colony of Natal. There he not only farmed with great success, but turned his attention to the study of the law.

The esteem in which his shrewdness in both farming and legal affairs was held led to his election to the Volksraad as member for Wakkerstroom early in the sixties, Marthinus Pretorius being then in his second term of office as president. In 1870 Joubert was again elected, and the use to which he put his slender stock of legal knowledge secured him the appointment of attorney-general of the republic, while in 1875 he acted as president during the absence of T. F. Burgers in Europe.

During the first British annexation of the Transvaal, Joubert earned for himself the reputation of a consistent irreconcilable by refusing to hold office under the government, as Paul Kruger and other prominent Boers were doing. Instead of accepting the lucrative post offered him, he took a leading part in creating and directing the agitation which led to the First Boer War (1880–1881), eventually becoming, as commandant-general of the Boer forces, a member of the triumvirate that administered the provisional Boer government set up in December 1880 at Heidelberg.