Last modified: 2002-07-20 by jarig bakker
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![[Nieuwe Republiek (South Africa)]](../images/z/za-bnr.gif)
by António Martins, 2 Mar 1999
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Like the Vierkleur, but blue and green interchanged. Don't know why.
Carsten Linke, 11 Oct 1996
Your map of South Africa shows the Nieuwe Republiek as not quite touching
the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek. They were in fact adjacent. As you mention,
it became part of the ZAR and in 1903 part of Natal. The colony had claimed
the Nieuwe Republiek as war reparations. What had confused me over the
Nieuwe Republiek was the war reparations received by Natal
in 1903, which comprised the districts of Utrecht and Vryheid. This part
of the map was very familiar to me, and I knew
that these districts had previously been part of the Zuid
Afrikaansche Republiek. What I had not realised was that while the
Vryheid district had been the Nieuwe Republiek and had become part of the
ZAR when the Nieuwe Republiek dissolved itself, the Utrecht district had
been part of the ZAR for much longer. Utrecht was a small early Boer republic
which was at first not recognised by the other Boer states on the grounds
of fear that the British would regard it as an encroachment on their territory.
However, the Lydenburg republic eventually not only recognised it but incorporated
it, and when Lydenburg, Potchefstroom and Zoutpansberg combined to form
the ZAR, Utrecht became part of that state.
Mike Oettle, 14 Dec 2001
Tonight I came across this passage from the Standard Encyclopædia
of Southern Africa:
"After Dinizulu, successor to Cetshwayo, who had died in 1884, had
appealed in van to the British against Usibepu (Zibhebhu), a
rival chieftain, he turned to the Boers. Several hundred farmers from
the districts of Utrecht and Vryheid undertook to restore
order, in return for land for the formation of an independent republic.
They claimed about half of Zululand, including St Lucia
Bay, an outlet to the sea. After considerable dispute a Natal arbitration
court recognised the New Republic, reduced in size,
however, and deprived of its claims to St Lucia. The following year
it was absorbed into the Transvaal ad the distruct of
Vryheid."
This is the only reference I have come across so far to a Boer state
in Zululand, and it comes back to the Nieuwe Republiek, as
you see. But it is possible that they used the yellow-green-red flag
during the initial period when they claimed St Lucia Bay.
On the other hand it is possible that Usachev was indulging in a bit
of pro-Boer propaganda, publicising the flag of a
non-existent state.
Mike Oettle, 14 Jul 2002
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