 Great Britain. 1893-1901 threepence. Boer War Issue. Ornately framed pinback, reverse with bright red outer circle supporting metallic leaves, reverse planed, OCT 11th 1899 engraved incenter. Made to commemorate the outbreak of the Boer War.
The Boer War, 1899-1902, was simply a struggle between Dutch settlers in what is now South Africa and an ever-expanding British colonization effort that simply felt that though the 19th century was nearly done, England still had the right to expand their empirical tentacles. Instigated by the High Commissioner of Cape Colony in South Africa, Alfred Milner seeking to create another toehold in Africa for Britain, while at the same time divesting Dutch settlers (who incidentally, had been there for generations) of their gold mines in the Dutch Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. During the course of the two-plus years the war raged, the British forces, unable to defeat the Dutchmen using conventional tactics, allowed the war to degenerate into a horrible morass of criminal acts on both sides. The British burned farms and confiscated food stuff, and packed off Boer women and children to concentration camps. After literally starving the Boer commandos into submission, the last of the Boer patriots surrendered in May 1902, with a treaty ending the war signed in Vereeniging. Many of today's historians point to the Boer War as a turning point in the long, slow decline of support for Great Britain's colonial ideals.
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