Editing History of South Africa (section)

===Second Anglo–Boer War===
{{Main|Second Boer War}}
[[File:Hobhouse.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[Emily Hobhouse]] campaigned against the appalling conditions of the [[British concentration camps]] in South Africa, thus influencing British public opinion against the war.]]

Renewed tensions between Britain and the Boers peaked in 1899 when the British demanded voting rights for the 60,000 foreign whites on the Witwatersrand. Until that point, President [[Paul Kruger]]'s government had excluded all foreigners from the [[Suffrage|franchise]]. Kruger rejected the British demand and called for the withdrawal of British troops from the borders of the South African Republic. When the British refused, Kruger declared war. This [[Second Boer War|Second Anglo–Boer War]], also known as the [[South African War]] lasted longer than the first, with British troops being supplemented by colonial troops from Southern Rhodesia, Canada, India, Australia and New Zealand. It has been estimated that the total number of British and colonial troops deployed in South Africa during the war outnumbered the population of the two Boer Republics by more than 150,000.<ref>Michael Davitt, ''The Boer Fight for Freedom'', [http://www.angloboerwar.com/books/37-davitt-boer-fight-for-freedom/870-davitt-chapter-xl-summary-and-estimates Chapter XL – "Summary and Estimates"] New York: Funk & Wagnalls 1902</ref>
By June 1900, [[Pretoria]], the last of the major Boer towns, had surrendered. Yet resistance by Boer ''[[bittereinder]]s'' (meaning those who would fight to the bitter end) continued for two more years with guerrilla warfare, which the British met in turn with [[scorched earth]] tactics. The Boers kept on fighting.

The British suffragette [[Emily Hobhouse]] visited British concentration camps in South Africa and produced a report condemning the appalling conditions there. By 1902, 26,000 Boer women and children had died of disease and neglect in the camps.<ref>Owen Coetzer, ''Fire in the Sky: The destruction of the Orange Free State 1899–1902'', Johannesburg: Covos Day, 2000, pp.82–88 {{ISBN|0-620-24114-4}}.</ref>

The Anglo–Boer War affected all ethnic groups in South Africa. Black people were recruited or conscripted by both sides into working for them either as combatants or non-combatants to sustain the respective war efforts of both the Boers and the British. The official statistics of blacks killed in action are inaccurate. Most of the bodies were dumped in unmarked graves. It has, however, been verified that 17,182 [[Black people#Southern Africa|black people]] died mainly of diseases in the Cape concentration camps alone, but this figure is not accepted historically as a true reflection of the overall numbers. Concentration camp superintendents did not always record the deaths of black inmates in the camps.<ref>Nosipho Nkuna, [http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol113nn.html "Black involvement in the Anglo–Boer War, 1899–1902"], ''Military History Journal of the South African Military History Society'', Vol 11 No 3/4 – October 1999. Accessed 6 June 2015</ref>

From the outset of hostilities in October 1899 to the signing of peace on 31 May 1902 the war claimed the lives of 22,000 imperial soldiers and 7,000 republican fighters.<ref>Peter Warwick, ''Black People and the South African War 1899–1902'', London: Cambridge University Press 2004, p.1 {{ISBN|0521272246}}</ref> In terms of the peace agreement known as the [[Treaty of Vereeniging]], the Boer republics acknowledged British sovereignty, while the British in turn committed themselves to reconstruction of the areas under their control.