The Transvaal Trekkers were a group of Boers, or Dutch-speaking South African farmers, who left the British-ruled Cape Colony in the 1830s and 1840s in search of land and independence. They eventually settled in the area known as the Transvaal, which is now part of modern-day South Africa. The Transvaal Trekkers were instrumental in the establishment of the independent Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.