biography
| name: |
Kruger, Paul
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in full Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, nickname Oom (‘Uncle’) Paul
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pronunciation:
[krooger]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1825–1904)
|
| biography:
| President of the Transvaal (1883–1902), born in Colesberg, Cape Colony, SC South Africa. With his fellow-Boers he trekked to Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal, and won such a reputation for cleverness, coolness, and courage that in the first Boer War (1881) he was appointed head of the provisional government. In 1883 he was elected President of the Transvaal and held the post until the Boers submitted to British control in 1902. After the discovery of gold on the Rand, he strove to protect the Boer state, refusing civil rights to the ‘Uitlanders’, and resisting British power by seeking alternative railway outlets as well as capital and arms from the Germans and the Dutch. During the second Boer War (1899–1902), after weeks as a fugitive, he left for Europe, urging the Boers to fight on. He died in Switzerland. |
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