The Great Trek
The Great Trek (Afrikaans: Die Groot Trek; Dutch: De Grote Trek)
This refers specifically to the migration by wagon trains of Dutch-speaking settlers from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards. The main impetus was the increasing tensions between rural descendants of the Cape's original European settlers and the rules imposed by the British government in Cape Colony. The families who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as Voortrekkers, meaning "pioneers", "pathfinders" (literally "fore-trekkers") in Dutch and Afrikaans.
Like the Anglo Boer War, the (often idealized) saga of the Great Trek would become one of the cornerstones in the construction of an Afrikaner history and identity, and thus a major theme in art, literature and performance.
