There are several factors which will help reach a conclusion as to whether the main reason for the outbreak of the second Boer was because of the British wanting to seize control of The Boer Republic’s raw materials. The Boer war has produced a great deal of controversy among historians. The major area of the ‘historical debate’ are the roles of the so called ‘men on the spot’, who were Rhodes, Chamberlin, Milner and finally Kruger. Many Historians have stated other factors which started the second Boer war, such as J.A. Hobson who said that the second Boer war was caused by a shady conspiracy of financers, miners and ‘corrupt politicians’. After studying the debates carefully, it appears that the role of long term economics factors with the short term political decisions of the leading politicians caused the second Boer war.

The first factor is the long term effects of Anglo- Boer antagonism. The Dutch East India Company established a small tracking station neat the Cape of Good Hope and this was to be known as the Cape Colony, There, there was a community of protestant farmers of Dutch/German decent. And this community was soon to be known as the Boers. The British ended the Boer dominance in the Cape colony is 1806, by capturing it, then having nowhere to stay the Boers made ‘the great trek’, where they crossed the Orange and Vaal rivers, in the more northern part of Africa. And then they set up two independent states known as the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Then many years passed, and nothing occurred until 1877, when the Boers were Boers were losing to the Zulus, and they asked the British for help, and the British happily agreed, as they knew the Transvaal contained huge amounts of Mineral wealth, but also the leader at the time Carnarvon knew it would also benefit the British politically. This shows how the raw materials also played a crucial part