First Boer War

The First Boer War was fought from December 1880 to March 1881 between the British Empire and the Boer settlers of the South African Republic in the Transvaal, who rose up against Britain's 1877 annexation of their republic in violation, as they saw it, of earlier treaty guarantees. The Boers won a string of engagements against British forces, including an initial ambush at Bronkhorstspruit and further victories at Laing's Nek and Schuinshoogte, before inflicting a decisive defeat at the Battle of Majuba Hill in February 1881, in which the British commander Major General George Colley was killed. The unexpectedly one-sided outcome led Britain to negotiate rather than continue fighting, and the Pretoria Convention of August 1881 granted the Transvaal Boers self-government under a nominal British suzerainty. The war marked a rare and humiliating British military defeat of the era and set the stage for the far larger Second Boer War fought between the same parties less than two decades later.