| dc.description.abstract | After the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War, many Afrikaners
began searching for other lands in which they could settle.
The newly colonized regions of East Africa beckoned a
number of these restive people. A few of the potential
settlers hoped to establish politically autonomous states
in German East Africa but many were searching for inexpensive
agricultural lands for themselves and their children.
Others who had been accused of collaboration with the
British during the war preferred living under British rule
rather than suffer the indignities which were being heaped
upon them by their fellow Afrikaners after the war.
Finally some trekked out of an inner psychological need.
The Afrikaners' reception in East Africa was mixed.
Initially the German regime welcomed the immigrants but a
change of policy during the 1904-1906 period discouraged
further immigration and caused nearly half of the immigrants
to either return to South Africa or trek northwards into
British East Africa. The British Administration was also
,reluctant to grant land to these migrants and only
responded to their needs when they were joined by the
substantial Van Rensburg Trek in 1908. After considerable
negotiations between administrative officials and Van
Rensburg, the Afrikaners were permitted to settle on the
Uasin Gishu Plateau two hundred miles northwest of Nairobi. | en |
