Treaty of Vereeniging

The Treaty of Vereeniging was a peace treaty signed on 31 May 1902 that ended the Second Boer War. The parties were the South African Republic and the Orange Free State on one side and the United Kingdom on the other. It provided for an end to hostilities and for eventual self-government for the Transvaal, as the South African Republic was known, and the Orange Free State as British colonies. In exchange the Boer republics agreed to come under the sovereignty of the British Crown, and the British government agreed to a number of further details of the settlement. The treaty therefore closed the last independent Boer states and set the legal path by which the two territories would later be governed within the British Empire.