The Origins of the Boer War At the end of the 19th century, the power of the British Empire was at its height. Stretching across four continents and comprising a quarter of the world's population, it was by far the world's largest empire. His government was pushed to continually expand the empire's territory by the vast majority of British people who supported imperialism, the policy of expanding a country's power and wealth through the annexation of other territories, and believed that their culture was superior to that of others, and their duty was to spread these excellent principles to all. In the late 1880s, a small brawl with some stubborn Dutch farmers – Boers – at the tip of Africa seemed like a small matter to the government, which was sure that the Boers could be defeated without difficulty. Britain never expected tensions between these nations to explode into a three-year war that cost it millions of pounds, tens of thousands of soldiers and, most importantly, its pride. The driving forces behind Britain's decision to start the Boer War were the imperialist administrators at the head of the empire's government, who wanted to crush the growing power of the Boer Republics and maintain the global supremacy of the British Empire, in the face of intense competition from rival European countries for control of territory in Africa. The Cape Colony in South Africa was originally used only as a stopping point for the English on the way to their prized colony in India, but was populated by Dutch immigrants with customs that opposed those of the British, which led to many conflicts between the two nations. In 1814, Britain received control over Cape Town, located at the southern tip of Africa, as a settlement during the Napoleonic Wars. Only... mid-paper... against the Boer Republics of South Africa is sometimes identified as a right choice to defend the lost rights of British miners in the Transvaal. However, the reasons are more complicated. Diamonds had piqued Britain's interest in South Africa, transforming its casual interest in natural resources into a strong awareness of the mineral value that South Africa possessed. The scramble for Africa ensured that Britain held on to African territory, because it wanted to prevent any other European power from taking it; and the British government's fervent imperialist beliefs motivated the idea of ​​expanding the Cape Colony. Ultimately, Britain feared that its colony would be overwhelmed by a small Boer republic that, through a thriving gold industry, had become strong enough to challenge the supremacy of the world's most powerful empire, and had succeeded.