SOUTH AFRICA

SOUTH AFRICA / SUID-AFRIKA.

150th anniversary of the Boer migration (Great Trek).
Map with the Boers' itineraries.
First stamp in a set of 4, issued on 21.11.1988.
Face value: 16 South African cents.
Design: J. van Niekerk.
Printing: Offset lithography.
Size: 29 x 38 mm.

Catalogs
- Michel No. 762.
- Scott No. 758.
- StampWorld No. 801.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 673.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 679.

The Great Trek (Afrikaans: Die Groot Trek) was a Northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who traveled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial administration. The Great Trek resulted from the culmination of tensions between rural descendants of the Cape's original European settlers, known collectively as Boers, and the British Empire. Boers who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as voortrekkers, meaning "pioneers", "pathfinders" (literally "fore-trekkers") in Dutch and Afrikaans. The migration led directly to the founding of several autonomous Boer republics, namely the South African Republic (also known simply as the Transvaal), the Orange Free State, and the Natalia Republic. It was also responsible for the displacement of the Northern Ndebele people, and was one of several decisive factors influencing the decline and collapse of the Zulu Kingdom. During the Great Trek there were several armed conflicts with the local populations of the territories occupied by the Boers, which caused great massacres. The Great Trek was used by Afrikaner nationalists as a core symbol of a common Afrikaans history. It was used to promote the idea of ​​an Afrikaans nation.

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Thanks to Dragan Buškulić for his contribution (https://worldofstamp2.wordpress.com/).