Transvaal Colony

Transvaal Colony
British colony
1877–1881 1902–1910
Flag Badge
Location of Transvaal, ca. 1890
Capital		Pretoria
Languages		Dutch (written) / Afrikaans (spoken) English (official) Tswana Zulu Sotho
Religion		Dutch Reformed, Anglican
Government		Constitutional monarchy
King
•	1902–1910	Edward VII
•	1910	George V
Governor
•	1902–1905	Viscount Milner
•	1905–1910	Earl of Selborne
Prime Minister
•	1907–1910	Louis Botha
Historical era		Scramble for Africa
•	Established	12 April 1877
•	Pretoria Convention	3 August 1881
•	Treaty of Vereeniging	31 May 1902
•	Union of South Africa	31 May 1910
Population
•	1904 est.	1,268,716
Preceded by Succeeded by South African Republic South African Republic Union of South Africa
Today part of		South Africa
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The Transvaal Colony (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈtrɐnsfɑːl]) was the name used to refer to the Transvaal region during the period of direct British rule and military occupation between the end of the Anglo-Boer War in 1902 when the South African Republic was dissolved, and the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The physical borders of the Transvaal Colony were not identical to the defeated South African Republic (which had existed from 1856 to 1902), but was larger. In 1910 the entire territory became the Transvaal Province of the Union of South Africa.

Both the Boer republics, the South African Republic known as ZAR and the Orange Free State were defeated in the Anglo Boer War and surrendered to Britain. A peace treaty was signed, the Treaty of Vereeniging which contained the following terms:

In 1902, with peace following the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging, the new Transvaal colony was faced with intertwined economic and political issues that need to be resolved. The economic issues faced included the restoration of the mining industry to pre-war levels, then growing it further with the need for extra labour, the restoration of the Boers to their lands and increasing the agricultural output of those farms. The political issue faced depended on what side of politics you stood on. The existing British administrators under Alfred Milner wished to anglicise the population through two main means. One by increasing the English speaking population of the Transvaal and secondly teach the Boer children in English with very little Dutch used, followed by self-rule. The Transvaal Boers political objectives was the restoration of self-rule in the colony and the political environment to be dominated by the Boer.

As the war ended the British were faced with a large proportion of Boer men as prisoners of war and their families in concentration camps. As the British followed a scorched earth policy in the Transvaal, Boer lands, stock and farms had been destroyed.