Emigration of some 12,00014,000 Boers (see Afrikaner s) from Cape Colony (South Africa) between 1835 and the early 1840s, in rebellion against British policies and in search of fresh pasturelands.
The trek, regarded by Afrikaners as the origin of their nationhood, enabled the settlers to establish temporary military supremacy over the Xhosa , to penetrate into Natal and the Highveld, and to expand white settlement north to the Limpopo River. See also Andries Pretorius .