KRUGER, kroo'ger, Stephanus Johannes Paulus, Boer statesman : b. Colesberg, Cape Colony, 10 Oct. 1825; d. Clarens, Switzerland, 14 July 1904. At 11 he accompanied his parents in the "great trek" or migration of Boers, whom the British administrators had antagonized, from the Cape Colony,— a movement which resulted in the colonization by Boers of Natal, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. He and his parents resided for a time in the Orange Free State, but they ultimately made their home north of the river Vaal. At 16 he was assist ant to a fiekl cornet, and not long afterward became a field cornet himself. From that time he was constantly connected with either the military or the civil government of the Trans vaal, and his force of character gradually brought him to the front. In 1863 he became commandant-general, and in that capacity put down civil feuds and defeated the Basutos. At the time of the annexation of the Transvaal to the British territories in 1877 he was Vice-Presi dent under President Burgers. Upon the re organization of the Boer government by the national committee in 1880, he again assumed the office of Vice-President, and in the war of 1880-81 with Great Britain he took a leading part. He was elected President in 1883, and re-elected in 1888, 1893 and 1898. He visited England in 1883 in order to obtain a revision of the Pretoria Convention of 1881, and before his return in the following year he secured its re placement by a new convention practically granting independence— except in so far as re lations with foreign countries were concerned and authorizing the renaming of the state as the South African Republic. Kruger's position in the republic was now one of almost unlim ited influence and authority. The enormous in flux of foreigners after the discovery of the rich gold deposits of the Witwatersrand created problems of the utmost gravity. The greed of
the British South Africa Company was ex treme, the Uitlanders complained of injustice in being debarred from the franchise, and the Boers on their part were determined to resist foreign aggression. A crisis presented itself in the so-called "Jameson Raid" of December 1895, which was easily crushed by the Boers, and at the same time led them to look forward to another and greater struggle with the Eng lish and to accumulate in anticipation a large supply of military stores. Kruger managed with much diplomatic skill the difficult matters connected with this affair. In the second war with Great Britain Kruger remained in the country till the fall of Pretoria (5 June 1900), then escaped into Portuguese territory, and thence 19 October sailed for Europe, hoping to enlist some of the European powers on behalf of the Boer republics, but failing in this he took up his residence in the Netherlands. In the summer of 1901 he proposed visiting the United States for the purpose of inducing the government to give its moral support to the Boers, but on being informed that neither President McKinley nor after him President Roosevelt would receive him in other than a strictly unofficial manner, the project was aban doned. His wife died at Pretoria in July 1901. Kruger was buried in Pretoria. (See also SOUTH AFRICAN WAR). Consult Van Dordt, 'Paul Kruger' (1900) • Scohle and Abercromby, 'The Rise and Fall of Krugerism' (1900) ; Statham, 'Paul Kruger and his Times) (1898). His 'Memoirs,' translated by de Mattos, were pub lished in 1900.