BURGERS, THOMAS FRANcOIS presi dent of the Transvaal Republic, was born in Cape Colony on April 15, 1834, and was educated at Utrecht, Holland, where he gradu ated doctor in theology. On his return to South Africa he was ordained minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and stationed at Hanover in Cape Colony. In 1864 an ecclesiastical tribunal suspended him for heretical opinions. He appealed to the colonial government, which had appointed him, and obtained judgment in his favour, which was confirmed by the privy council of England on appeal in 1865. On the resignation of M. W. Pretorius and the refusal of President Brand of the Orange Free State to accept the office, Burgers was elected president of the Transvaal, taking the oath on July 1, 1872. In 1873 he endeavoured to persuade Montsioa to agree to an alteration in the boundary of the Barolong territory as fixed by the Keate award, but failed (see BECHUANALAND). In 1875 Burgers, leaving the Transvaal in charge of Acting-President Joubert, went to Europe mainly to promote a scheme for linking the Transvaal to the coast by a rail way from Delagoa bay, which was that year definitely assigned to Portugal by the MacMahon award. With the Portuguese Burgers concluded a treaty, in Dec. 1875, providing for the construction of the railway. In June 1876 he induced the raad to declare war against Sikukuni (Secocoeni), a powerful native chief in the eastern Transvaal. The campaign was unsuccess ful, and with its failure the republic fell into a condition of lawlessness and insolvency, while a Zulu host threatened invasion. Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had been sent to investigate the condition of affairs in the Transvaal, issued April 12 a proclama tion annexing the Transvaal to Great Britain. Burgers fully acquiesced in the necessity for annexation. He accepted a pension from the British government, and settled down to farming in Hanover, Cape Colony. He died at Richmond in that colony on Dec. 6, 1881 (see TRANSVAAL: History).