Judicial administration beyond the Orange River from 1838 to 1843

In Southern Africa a movement known as the Great Trek commenced in 1836. It entailed that groups of people with their families (generally known as the Voortrekkers or simply the Boers) left the Cape Colony and migrated north beyond the Orange River with the purpose of establishing an independent state free from British rule. After the battles at Marikwa in November 1837 and Blood River in December 1838, the main Voortrekker movement split into two with some Boers settling in the area east of the Drakensberg (later Natal) and others settling in the area west of the Drakensberg where they established the towns of Potchefstroom and Winburg (in what would later become the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek - or ZAR for short - and the Orange Free State respectively). No longer a nation on the move, the needs of society changed; it now required more than mobile or emergency institutions.