Potgieter, Andries Hendrik

Andries Hendrik Potgieter, (born Dec. 19, 1792, Graaff-Reinet district, Cape Colony [now in South Africa]—died Dec. 16, 1852, Schoemansdal, Transvaal [now in South Africa]), Boer leader in the Great Trek who took his party from the Cape Colony to settle the Transvaal and became a prominent figure in the early history of that state.

Potgieter was a well-to-do sheep farmer from the Tarka district of eastern Cape Colony before the vacillating frontier policy of the British caused him to opt for leaving the colony. His appetite for more land had been whetted by the defeat inflicted on the Xhosa in the Cape Frontier War of 1835, and in 1836 Potgieter assembled and led his own Voortrekker group north of the Orange River. His gifts as a military leader were demonstrated in his battles with Mzilikazi’s Ndebele (Matabele) in 1836–38. Potgieter organized an alliance of Boers, Africans, and Griqua to attack Mzilikazi’s people at Mosega in January 1837, which he followed with a series of raids in late 1837 that sent the Ndebele fleeing northward. In particular, his victory at Marico River (November 1837) was notable for opening the Highveld beyond the Vaal River to the Boers. Potgieter then took some followers into Natal, but in 1838, after losing a fight to the Zulu and quarreling with rival Boer leader Andries Pretorius, he moved back to what became known as the Transvaal and established Boer settlements at Potchefstroom (1838), Ohrigstad (1845), and, to the far north, Soutpansberg (1848).

Potgieter was one of the Boer leaders who chose to live the life of an adventurer and plunderer rather than settle down to farm newly conquered territories. In the early 1840s he began raiding, taking captives as slaves to the Portuguese at Delagoa Bay. He used the settlement at Ohrigstad as a base for his elephant-hunting and slaving expeditions. In the mid-1840s Potgieter clashed with the Pedi under King Sekwati over land, claiming (dubiously) that the king had given him large land concessions; he also clashed with Mswati II and his Swazi people. As more white settlers moved into the settled centres of Ohrigstad and Lydenburg, Potgieter moved with his raiders northward, just south of the Soutpansberg mountains, where he continued the slaving, hunting, and raiding expeditions, including an 1852 attack on Phiring, the Pedi capital, where he seized women, children, and cattle. Further conflict was pursued with the Laka people of chief Mankopane in the Waterberg region (northwest Transvaal). Potgieter died during a raid under obscure circumstances.