By the beginning of the eighteenth century the Cape settlers were expanding their territory north east. This expansion was primarily led by the trek boers seeking fresh grazing for their cattle. These cattle farmers had no fixed dwelling place and many led a semi-nomadic existence, moving ceaselessly between summer and winter pastures. As most trek farmers had large families, the system encouraged swift expansion. The Cape government had done nothing to hinder expansion inland since it provided a source of cheap meat.

As the trekkers’ expansion increased they inevitably came into conflict with first the Khoikhoi and later the Xhosa people (a Bantu-speaking group to which Mandela belongs) into whose land they were encroaching. This marked the beginning of the subjugation of the Tembu, Pondo, Fingo and Xhosa in the Transkei. The Xhosa in particular fought nine wars spanning a century which gradually deprived them of their independence and subjugated them to British colonial rule.

In the towns, tension was also increasing between settlers and the Dutch authorities, with the former becoming increasingly resentful at what they perceived as administrative interference. Soon the districts of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinette pronounced themselves independent Republics, though this was short-lived: in 1795 the Cape Colony was annexed by Britain.

Consequently, in 1835, ten thousand Boers left the Cape Colony and went north and northeast. Of these voortrekkers, about five thousand settled in the area that later became known as the Orange Free State (present day Free State). The rest headed for Natal (present day KwaZulu-Natal) where they appointed a delegation to negotiate with the Zulu king, Dingaan, for land.

Dingaan granted them a large area of land in the central and southern part of his territory, but as the voortrekand ker delegation left they were ambushed killed by the Zulu. The newly elected Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius prepared the group for a retaliatory attack and the Zulu were subsequently defeated at the famous 'Battle of Blood River' (16 December 1838), leading to the founding of the first Boer Republic in Natal.

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