3) The Anglo-Boer War

While reading The Power of One, by Bryce Courtenay, I realised that Courtenay includes that Peekay and all the others were situated around the Anglo-Boer War, which is a war between the British Empire and the Boer republics, the Oranje Vrijstaat and the Republeik van Transvaal. This war was a type of civil war, between the English immigrants, that is the British Empire and also the African/Dutch immigrants, also including those who spoke the language.

The first war started out in 1880 and lasted for about a year. It was the war between the Boers, which were South Africa farmers, and the British over their independence. This war consisted of three stages, which started with the Boers, who were the African white people and Dutch Africans besieged against the British Garrisons, the name given to any British military army. The second stage was the British attacking back in offense, with a lot of troops. The British advanced and took over some of Africa. In the third stage, this is the final stage, the Boers fight against the British, raiding targets like the British railways, telegraph sites and storage depots. The British fought back getting at the Boer farms and capturing some Boers and putting them in concentration camps. A lot of women and children died in these concentration camps, almost ten thousand. This war ended in 1902, when the Boers lost hope and surrendered.

Personally I thought that the Nazi’s were bad for capturing Jews and innocent ones as well, and killing them or even gassing them in the concentration camps. But in this novel we can read and learn that even before the Nazi’s, the British were cruel, killing thousands in their concentration camps because they wanted their independence, resulting in war, and then death for thousands.