- Bloemfontein Conference
The Bloemfontein Conference was a meeting that took place in
Bloemfontein , capital of theOrange Free State from May 31 until June 5, 1899. The main issue dealt with the status of British migrant workers called "Uitlanders ", who mined the gold fields inTransvaal .The conference was initiated by Orange Free State president
Martinus Theunis Steyn , in order to settle differences between Transvaal PresidentPaul Kruger and British High Commissioner Alfred Milner. It was considered a last effort at reconciliation to prevent war between the two factions.At the conference, Milner made three demands from Kruger:
* Enactment by Transvaal a law that would immediately give Uitlanders enfranchisement and the right to vote.
* Use of the English language in theVolksraad (Transvaal Parliament}.
* All laws of the Volksraad would need to be approved by the British Parliament.Kruger considered these demands an impossiblility, however he was willing to reduce the period of Uitlander enfranchisement from the present fourteen years to seven years. Milner refused to compromise his original demands. And despite encouragement from British Colonial Secretary
Joseph Chamberlain for him to continue the talks, Milner walked out of the conference on June 5, and no resolution concerning the fate of the Uitlanders was reached.At this time, Milner composed a diatribe called the "Helot's Dispatch", which lambasted the Transvaal as a force that "menaces the peace and prosperity of the world". On October 11, 1899, the
Second Boer War began.See also
History of Cape Colony from 1870 to 1899 [http://www.gtexts.com/college/papers/s1.html Origins of the Boer War by Garrett Moritz]
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