President Steyn

Two great statesmen dominated the South African scene at the end of the nineteenth century. They were Paul Kruger, President of the South African Republic, and Marthinus Theunis Steyn, President of the Orange Free State Republic. This is the biography of the last President of the Orange Free State.

He was born a Republican and when he had finished his schooling read law at Oxford. He held no animosity towards Britain or his English fellow countrymen and acted as mediator between Britain and the Transvaal over the Uitlander question. And yet, once the war had been joined, he persevered to the last and refused to agree to peace at the cost of independence even when many of his fellow countrymen were maintaining that the Boer cause was irrevocably lost. Though his health was broken by the war, he returned to play a leading role in the rebellion of his country.

Johannes Meintjes has succeeded in giving us not only a picture of Steyn the man, but of the times he lived in, using them as a framework within which the qualities of Steyn's character and the extent of his influence can be given perspective.

272 pages, well indexed.

Format : Downloadable PDF (± 60mb, zipped)