It took the mighty British Empire nearly three years, 1899-1902, to crush the Boers, a pioneering people who tried to build an independent nation for themselves in South Africa. The Dutch, Huguenot and German ancestors of the Boers first settled the Cape of South Africa in 1652. After several earlier invasions, Britain took over the colony in 1814. Refusing to submit to foreign colonial rule and the takeover of their farms, 10,000 Boers left the Cape in 1836. They …showed first 75 words of 3412 total…

…showed last 75 words of 3412 total…to punish the victors for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It took the largest empire in the world almost three years, some 350,000 soldiers and 22,000 dead to crush a tough pioneer people of less than half a million. That extraordinary tenacity is worth keeping in mind when reading predictions of how the Boers of today, the Afrikaners of South Africa, will give up control of their country as easily as did the Whites of Rhodesia.