In the following pages I have endeavoured to present an accurate picture of the Boers in war-time. My duties as a newspaper correspondent carried me to the Boer side, and herein I depict all that I saw. Some parts of my narrative may not be pleasing to the British reader; others may offend the sensibilities of the Boer sympathisers. I have written truthfully, but with a kindly spirit and with the intention of
presenting an unbiased account of the struggle as it was unfolded to the view from the Boer side.
Howard Clemens Hillegas
New York City,
August 1, 1900.
Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans noun for "farmer" In South African contexts, "Boers" (Afrikaans: Boere) refers to the descendants of the proto Afrikaans speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th and much of the 19th century.
From 1652 to 1795 the Dutch East India Company controlled this area, but the United Kingdom incorporated it into the British Empire in 1806. Following the British annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, Paul Kruger was a key figure in organizing the resistance which led to conflict with the British. The Boers fought two Boer Wars in the late 19th century to defend their internationally recognised independent countries, the republics of the Transvaal (the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, or ZAR) and the Orange Free State (OFS).
Howard Clemens Hillegas (December 30, 1872 – January 29, 1918) was an American author, newspaper correspondent, and newspaper editor. Hillegas traveled to South Africa as a correspondent for the New York World to cover the Second Boer War.
