KRUGER, STEPHANUS JOHANNES PAULUS (1825-1904), president of the Transvaal republic, was born in Colesberg, Cape Colony, on Oct. To, 1825. His father was Caspar Jan Hendrick Kruger, who was born in 1796, and whose wife bore the name of Steyn. In his ancestry on both sides occur Huguenot names.
At the age of ten Paul Kruger—as he afterwards came to be known—accompanied his parents in the migration, known as the Great Trek, from the Cape Colony to the territories north of the Orange in the years Brought up on the borderland be tween civilization and barbarism, constantly trekking, fighting and hunting, he had little education. His literature was almost confined to the Bible, and the Old Testament was preferred to the New. Kruger, like Piet Retief and others of the early Boer leaders, believed himself the object of special Divine guidance. At about the age of 25 he is said to have disappeared into the veldt, where he remained alone for several days, under the influ ence of deep religious fervour. He belonged to the narrow and puritanical Dopper sect, the members of which were always un swerving in their support, and at all critical times in the internal quarrels of the state rallied round him.
When the lad, who had already taken part in fights with the Matabele and the Zulus, was 14 his family settled north of the Vaal and were among the founders of the Transvaal state. At the age of 17 Paul found himself an assistant field cornet, at 20 he was field cornet, and at 27 held a command in an expedition against the Bechuana chief Sechele—the expedition in which David Livingstone's mission-house was destroyed. In 1853 he took part in another expedition against Montsioa. When not fighting natives in those early days Kruger was engaged in distant hunting excursions which took him as far north as the Zambezi. In 1852 the Transvaal secured the recognition of its independence from Great Britain in the Sand River convention. In 1856-57 Kruger joined M. W. Pretorius in his attempt to abolish the district governments in the Transvaal and to overthrow the Orange Free State government and compel a federation between the two countries. The raid into the Free State failed.
In 1864, when the faction fighting ended and Pretorius was president, Kruger was elected commandant-general of the forces of the Transvaal. In 1870 a boundary dispute arose with the British government, which was settled by the Keate award (1871).
The decision caused so much discontent in the Transvaal that it brought about the downfall of President Pretorius and his party; and Thomas Francois Burgers, an educated Dutch minister, resi dent in Cape Colony, was elected to succeed him. During the term of Burgers' presidency Kruger did everything in his power to undermine his authority, going so far as to urge the Boers to pay no taxes while Burgers was in office. The impasse in the gov ernment of the country drew bitter protest from Burgers, and terminated in the annexation by the British in April 1877. Kruger and his party were determined to secure the downfall of Burgers, and they did not foresee the results of his fall. The Transvaal was annexed and Kruger accepted office under the British govern ment.
He continued, however, to agitate for the retrocession of the country, being a member of two deputations which went to Eng land endeavouring to get the annexation annulled, and in 1878 Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the British administrator, dismissed him from the service. In 188o the Boer rebellion occurred, and Kruger was one of the famous triumvirate, of which General Piet Joubert and Pretorius were the other members, who, after Majuba, negotiated the terms of peace on which the Pretoria convention of Aug. 1881 was drafted. In 1883 he was elected president of the Transvaal, receiving 3,431 votes to 1,171 recorded for Joubert.
In Nov. 1883 President Kruger again visited England, and secured the London convention, granted by Lord Derby in 1884 on behalf of the British government. In 1888 he was elected president for a second term of office. In 1889 Dr. Leyds, a young Dutchman, was appointed state secretary, and a system of state monopolies around which much corruption grew up was begun. President Kruger now turned his attention to securing Boer political monopoly in face of the increase in the Uitlander popu lation. In 1890, 1891, 1892 and 1894 the franchise laws (which at the time of the convention were on a liberal basis) were so modi fied that Uitlanders were practically excluded. In 1893 Kruger had to face a third presidential election, in which his majority fell to about 700. His opponent, Joubert, accused the government of tampering with the returns, and appealed to the volksraad. The appeal, however, was fruitless, and Kruger retained office.