Boer War

Negotiations for peace began on March 23, 1902, and on May 31 Afrikaner leaders signed the Treaty of Vereeniging. The settlement provided for the end of hostilities and eventual self-government to the Transvaal and the Orange Free State as colonies of the British Empire. Britain agreed in turn to pay a £3 million indemnity for rehabilitation, and granted amnesty and repatriation to Afrikaner soldiers who pledged their loyalty to the British monarch.

In the course of the Afrikaner War, British losses totaled about 28,000 men. Afrikaner losses were about 4000 men, plus more than 20,000 civilians who died from disease in concentration camps. Thousands of black Africans also died in the camps.

The Treaty of Vereeniging brought peace and political unification to South Africa but did not erase the underlying causes that had triggered the conflict. Even after the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the Afrikaners, by and large, kept themselves culturally and socially separate.