British Annexation of the Transvaal
On 12th April 1877 Sir Theophilus Shepstone, using the pretext that the President Burgers’ government was bankrupt and ineffective, annexed the Transvaal as a British colony ostensibly to preserve the security of Natal. All the ZAR towns, including Wakkerstroom, were occupied by British forces. Shepstone was succeeded as Administrator of the new colony by Sir William Owen Lanyon in January 1879.
After much indecision by both Boers and Brits it was the attempted collection of arrear taxes that led to the final decision by the Boers to start the War of Independence. The burghers (citizens) of the Wakkerstroom district played a leading role in this. On 16th November 1880 they placed the following advertisement, with 113 signatories, in De Volkstem, a Pretoria newspaper:
‘The undersigned burghers of Wakkerstroom district, having learnt that some of the inhabitants of the district have been called upon and others are being summoned to pay quit-rent and railway tax, seeing that the country is being robbed illegally and we, burghers of the country, owe no quit-rent except to the lawfully constituted Government of the S.A. Republic, we fully expect from those persons who arrogate to themselves to demand quit-rent in this manner and to molest us, the burghers, that they will now leave us in peace, as we will pay no quit-rent unless an Estimates Law shall have been promulgated by our Volksraad in accordance with the Grondwet; and we bring this to the notice of you gentleman, who send written demands to us and molest us.
And we hereby forbid all Englishmen or English partisans, of those who call themselves officials in this country, from coming on our ground or to our homes for whatever reason, as we will have nothing to do with low betrayers of the country.’
This advertisement helped bring matters to a head. A Republican meeting held at Paardekraal on 8th December 1880, near the present-day Krugersdorp. It was resolved to fight, to the death if necessary, for the restoration of the republic. The War of Independence officially started at Potchefstroom on 16th December 1880.