Orange River Sovereignty

The Orange River Sovereignty was a short-lived British-ruled entity in southern Africa between the Orange and Vaal rivers, an area known as Transorangia, which existed from 1848 to 1854. British interest in the region grew out of the Cape frontier, and in 1846 Captain Henry Warden was appointed resident and bought the farm Bloemfontein from a Griqua owner to serve as his headquarters. On 3 February 1848 Sir Harry Smith proclaimed British sovereignty over the territory, and a nominated legislative council and a high court were set up. The new administration tried to fix boundaries with the Sotho king Moshoeshoe I and the other African chiefdoms, but its authority was contested and several military campaigns followed. London soon judged the territory an expensive liability with little strategic value, and in 1854 Britain renounced sovereignty by the Convention of Bloemfontein. The settler community then proclaimed the Orange Free State, which kept Bloemfontein as its capital and later became a Boer republic, before the area was incorporated into the Union of South Africa and is today part of the Free State province.