A map charting the routes of the largest trekking parties during the first wave of the Great Trek (1835-1840) along with key battles and events. The yellow area indicating the initial area of colonisation extends too far south – south of Thaba Nchu and what would become Bloemfontein was an area colonised by Griqua and Trekboers.
The Great Trek (Afrikaans: Die Groot Trek[diˌχruətˈtrɛk]; Dutch: De Grote Trek[dəˌɣroːtəˈtrɛk]) was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial administration.[1] The Great Trek resulted from the culmination of tensions between rural descendants of the Cape's original European settlers, known collectively as Boers, and the British Empire.[2] It was also reflective of an increasingly common trend among individual Boer communities to pursue an isolationist and semi-nomadic lifestyle away from the developing administrative complexities in Cape Town.[3] Boers who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as voortrekkers (/ˈfʊərtrɛkərz/,[4]Afrikaans:[ˈfuərˌtrɛkərs]), meaning "pioneers", "pathfinders" (literally "fore-trekkers") in Dutch and Afrikaans.
^Arquilla, John (2011). Insurgents, Raiders, and Bandits: How Masters of Irregular Warfare Have Shaped Our World. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. pp. 130–142. ISBN978-1566638326.
^Bradley, John; Bradley, Liz; Vidar, Jon; Fine, Victoria (2011). Cape Town: Winelands & the Garden Route. Madison, Wisconsin: Modern Overland. pp. 13–19. ISBN978-1609871222.