Natalia Republic

The Natalia Republic was the short-lived Boer republic the Voortrekkers founded in 1839 after breaking the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River. Dingane had succeeded Shaka in 1828, British traders had planted Port Natal, the future Durban, in 1835, and emigrant Boers had trekked in from the Cape Colony. Da Gama had named it Terra Natalis on Christmas Day 1497 without landing, Lisbon neglected it beyond Delagoa Bay, Shaka's Zulus overran it between 1818 and 1820, and then the Voortrekkers seized it after Blood River. The republic set its capital at Pietermaritzburg and governed itself for four years while London watched with alarm. In 1842 Britain struck, and in 1843 the republic was annexed as the Colony of Natal. Most Voortrekkers refused to live under the Union Jack and trekked northwest again into Transorangia, the future Orange Free State, and the South African Republic, carrying the republican idea inland for another half century.