Paul Kruger

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Paul Kruger was a large squarely built man, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. In later years his hair went snowy white. He wore a beard, but never a mustache. He mostly went dressed in a black frock coat with a top hat. Never far from his pipe, he was a chain smoker. The image of Kruger in his top hat and frock coat, smoking his pipe was used to great effect in the Anglo-Boer war by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland cartoonists.

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Krüger (10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger and fondly known as Oom Paul (Afrikaans for "Uncle Paul"), was a prominent Boer resistance leader against British rule and president of the Transvaal Republic in South Africa. The Afrikaner farmer, soldier, and politician was president of Transvaal between 1883 and 1900, until after the outbreak of the Second Boer War. He became a symbol for Afrikaner nationalism.

Life

Paul Kruger's ancestors include German immigrants. His parents were Caspar Jan Hendrik Kruger and Elisa Kruger, née Steyn. He was baptized by the Dutch Reformed congregation in Cradock. The first of his ancestors to come to South Africa in 1714 was Jacob Kruger, his great-great-great-grandfather, from Berlin, as a mercenary for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was released from the VOC because he lost a hand and naturalized in 1718. The Kruger family was influenced by Calvinism. When a Voortrekker camp was attacked by Ndebele warriors at Vegkop in 1836, Kruger was eleven years old and supported the fighters by providing relief services. In 1854 he was elected commandant of the town of Rustenburg. Ten years later, Kruger had reached the peak of his military career. The now independent Boer Republic of Transvaal appointed him commandant-general of its troops in 1864.

Kruger was born at Bulhoek, his grandfather's farm in the Steynsburg district near the town of Cradock, and grew up on the farm Vaalbank. He received only three months' formal education, his master being one Tielman Roos, but supposedly became knowledgeable from life on the veld. His father, Casper Kruger, joined the trek party of Hendrik Potgieter when the Great Trek started in 1836.

The trekkers crossed the Vaal River in 1838, and at first stayed in the area that is known today as Potchefstroom. Kruger's father later decided to settle in the district now known as Rustenburg. At the age of 16, Kruger was entitled to choose a farm for himself at the foot of the Magaliesberg, where he settled in 1841.

The following year he married Maria du Plessis, and the young couple accompanied his father to live in the Eastern Transvaal for a while. After the family had returned to Rustenburg, Kruger's wife and infant son died, probably from malaria. He then married Gezina du Plessis, who was his constant and devoted companion until her death in 1901. Seven daughters and nine sons were born of the marriage, some dying in infancy.

Leadership

In time, Kruger emerged as a leader. He started as a field cornet in the commandos, eventually becoming Commandant-General of the South African Republic. He was appointed member of a commission of the Volksraad, the republican parliament that was to draw up a constitution. People began to take notice of the young man and he played a prominent part in ending the quarrel between the Transvaal leader, Stephanus Schoeman, and M.W. Pretorius.

In 1873, Kruger resigned as Commandant-General, and for a time he held no office and retired to his farm, Boekenhoutfontein. However, in 1874 he was elected to the Executive Council and shortly after that became Vice-President of the Transvaal.

Following the annexation of the Transvaal by Britain in 1877, Kruger became the leader of the resistance movement. During the same year, he visited Britain for the first time as leader of a deputation. In 1878, he was part of a second deputation. A highlight of his visit to Europe was when he ascended in a hot air balloon and saw Paris from the air.

The First Boer War, also known as the "First War of Independence", started in 1880, and the British forces were defeated in the decisive battle at Majuba in 1881. Once again, Kruger played an important role in the negotiations with the British, which led to the restoration of the Transvaal's independence under British suzerainty.

On 30 December 1880, at the age of 55, Kruger was elected President of the Transvaal. One of his first aims was the revision of the Pretoria Convention of 1881, the agreement between the Boers and the British that ended the First Boer War. Therefore, he again left for Britain in 1883, empowered to negotiate with Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby. Kruger and his companions also visited the Continent and this visit became a triumph in countries such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Spain. In the German Empire, he attended an imperial banquet at which he was presented to Kaiser Wilhelm I, and spoke at length with Otto von Bismarck.

In the Transvaal, things changed rapidly after the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand. This momentous discovery was to have far-reaching political repercussions and to give rise to the uitlander, or foreigner, problem, which was eventually to cause the fall of the Republic. Kruger is reputed to have predicted the events that were to follow afterwards, declaring that instead of rejoicing for the discovery of gold, they should be weeping because it will "cause our land to be soaked in blood."

At the end of 1895, the failed Jameson raid took place; Leander Starr Jameson was forced to surrender, taken to Pretoria and handed over to his British countrymen for punishment. In 1898, Kruger was elected President for the fourth and

Exile

On 11 October 1899, the Second Boer War broke out. On 7 May 1900, Kruger attended the last session of the Volksraad, and left Pretoria on 29 May 1900 as Lord Roberts was advancing on the town. For weeks he either stayed in a house at Waterval Onder or in his railway carriage at Machadodorp in the then Eastern Transvaal, now Mpumalanga. In October, he left South Africa on the Dutch warship De Gelderland, sent by the Queen of the Netherlands Wilhelmina, which had simply ignored the British naval blockade of South Africa. His wife was too ill to travel and remained in South Africa; she died on 20 July 1901.

Death

Kruger went to Marseille, France, and stayed for a while in Netherlands, before moving to Clarens, Switzerland, where he died on 14 July 1904. He was buried on 16 December 1904 in the Church Street cemetery, Pretoria.

Legacy

His former Pretoria residence is now the Kruger House Museum.

In Church Square, Pretoria, stands a statue of Kruger in formal dress.

The Kruger National Park is named after him, as is the Krugerrand coin, which features his face on the obverse.

Pipe manufacturers still produce a style named an "Oom Paul," the characteristic large-bowled full-bent shape often seen in photographs of Paul Kruger and believed to have been custom designed for him.

In 2004, Paul Kruger was voted a Great South African.

National Socialist Germany used his biography (Kruger had German ancestors) for one of their anti-British propaganda films, "Uncle Krüger", directed by Hans Steinhoff in 1940–41. The role of Kruger in this movie was played by Theodor Friedrich Emil Jannings, Swiss-born German actor who was popular in Hollywood films in the 1920s.

External links

Encyclopedias

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