And these pioneers, whence came they, and what is their origin?  They are descended from that race which so valiantly resisted and defied Spanish tyranny and power for eighty years, and so achieved that freedom of life, freedom of thought and freedom of belief, from which all Europe and England herself has derived priceless blessings.  They are sprung from that stock whose courage was not shaken by the flames of funeral pyres, nor by all the tortures the human mind could devise; men who at the block betrayed no signs of fear, but faced death, as brave men ofttimes do, with a beatific smile, to the utter amazement of such as had to enact the cruel tragedy.  These pioneers have in their veins the best blood of European nations, and their traditions are such as any nation might be proud of.

With such a history behind them, and descended from such ancestors, it is not strange that the most prominent feature in the Boer character is an intense and unconquerable love of freedom.  His isolation, his large farm with outstretched plains or rugged mountains, and his manner of living, all tend to nourish that love of freedom in his bosom.  Above all things he wants to be free and independent.  His history is one long record of trekking away from British domination, not because he wishes to be exempted from all control and thus indulge in a lawless life, as some writers have erroneously maintained, but because he desires a government of his own.  The chief desideratum with the Boer, in regard to government, is that it shall be his own, and not that of some other power, be it never so excellent a form of government.

When the Republics were annexed the English thought and hoped that the Boers would very soon take to the new Government, would be more than satisfied with the new arrangements, and so forget the privileges which they had enjoyed under the auspices of their own government.  Those who thought and hoped thus were sadly disappointed.  That powerful sentiment and that strong passion for freedom, seated deep down in the heart of the Boer, sustained them in bidding defiance to fearful odds for almost three years.  That inborn passion enabled the Boer nation to sacrifice their all, and to endure for freedom’s sake indescribable hardships and sufferings.

A Boer may not exactly know all that independence includes; he may not be able to enumerate the benefits accruing from it, but instinctively he covets it as a jewel of great price.

That this love of liberty and of country amounted to something more than mere sentiment has been proved conclusively by the war, when the whole male population rose in arms against the invading foe.  Touching, indeed, it was to behold boys of twelve and grey-headed men of seventy and eighty years shouldering their rifles and all fighting for one great ideal.  When their homes were burned, families removed, and goods taken or destroyed, they exclaimed:  “Let the British do whatever they please, let them strip us of everything we hold dear, so long as we are only a free people.  We do not mind being poor; we are prepared, when the war is over, to live in tents as our forefathers did; but we do not want to swear allegiance to the despoilers of our country.  British subjects! No, never.”