Great Trek in the context of "Wagon train"

Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a historic socioeconomic class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe an affluent, educated section of the Cape Colony's Afrikaner population which did not participate in the Great Trek or the subsequent founding of the Boer republics. Today, the Cape Dutch are credited with helping shape and promote a unique Afrikaner cultural identity through their formation of civic associations such as the Afrikaner Bond, and promotion of the Afrikaans language.

Slavery in South Africa existed from 1653 in the Dutch Cape Colony until the abolition of slavery in the British Cape Colony on 1 January 1834. This followed the British banning the trade of slaves between colonies in 1807, with their emancipation by 1834. Beyond legal abolition, slavery continued in the Boer republics, particularly the South African Republic (Transvaal) through the system of inboekstelsel after the Great Trek.

Afrikaner Calvinism (Afrikaans: Afrikaner Calvinisme) is a cultural and religious development among Afrikaners that combined elements of seventeenth-century Calvinist doctrine with a "chosen people" ideology based in the Bible. It had origins in ideas espoused in the Old Testament of the Jews as the chosen people.

A number of modern studies have argued that Boers gathered for the Great Trek inspired by this concept, and they used it to legitimise their subordination of other South African ethnic groups. It is thought to have contributed the religious basis for modern Afrikaner nationalism. Dissenting scholars have asserted that Calvinism did not play a significant role in Afrikaner society until after they suffered the trauma of the Second Boer War. Early settlers dwelt in isolated frontier conditions and lived much closer to pseudo-Christian animist beliefs than organised religion.

Afrikaner nationalism (Afrikaans: Afrikanernasionalisme) is an ethnic nationalistic political ideology created by Afrikaners residing in Southern Africa during the Victorian era. The ideology was developed in response to the significant events in Afrikaner history such as the Great Trek, the First and Second Boer Wars and the resulting anti-British sentiment and Anti-communism that developed among Afrikaners and opposition to South Africa's entry into World War I.

According to historian T. Dunbar Moodie, Afrikaner nationalism could be described as a civil religion that drew upon the Afrikaner people's history, the defense of the Afrikaans language, republicanism, and Afrikaner Calvinism. A major proponent of the ideology was the Broederbond secret society and the National Party that ruled the country from 1948 to 1994. Other Afrikaner nationalist organizations were the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Organisations (Afrikaans: Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge, FAK), the Institute for Christian National Education, and the White Workers' Protection Association.