Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈkryjər]; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic (or Transvaal) from 1883 to 1900. Nicknamed Oom Paul (“Uncle Paul”), he came to international prominence as the face of the Boer cause—that of the Transvaal and its neighbour the Orange Free State—against Britain during the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. He has been called a personification of Afrikanerdom, and remains a controversial figure; admirers venerate him as a tragic folk hero.
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger
(Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈkryjər]; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic (or Transvaal) from 1883 to 1900. Nicknamed Oom Paul (“Uncle Paul”), he came to international prominence as the face of the Boer cause—that of the Transvaal and its neighbour the Orange Free State—against Britain during the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. He has been called a personification of Afrikanerdom, and remains a controversial figure; admirers venerate him as a tragic folk hero.
Family and childhood
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger was born on 10 October 1825 at Bulhoek, a farm in the Steynsburg area of the Cape Colony, the third child and second son of Casper Jan Hendrik Kruger (1801–1852), a farmer, and his wife Elsje (Elisa; née Steyn; 1806–1834).The family was of Dutch-speaking Afrikaner or Boer background, of German, French Huguenot and Dutch stock. His paternal ancestors had been in South Africa since 1713, when Jacob Krüger, from Berlin, arrived in Cape Town as a 17-year-old soldier in the Dutch East India Company’s service. Jacob’s children dropped the umlaut from the family name, a common practice among South Africans of German origin. Over the following generations, Kruger’s paternal forebears moved into the interior. His mother’s family, the Steyns, had lived in South Africa since 1668 and were relatively affluent and cultured by Cape standards. Kruger’s great-grand-uncle Hermanus Steyn had been president of the self-declared Republic of Swellendam that revolted against Company rule in 1795.
