KRUGER, krōō'gẽr, (1825-1904). President of the South
African Republic (1883-1900). He was born in
Colesberg, Cape Colony, October 10, 1825. His
ancestor, Jacob Kruger, went from Berlin in the
Dutch East India Company's service in 1713, at
the time when the foundations of many of the
leading Boer families were being laid by
immigration. In 1836 young Paul shared with
his family the hardships of the great trek, when the blunders of the British colonial administration made enemies of the leading Boers of Cape Colony and drove them to a self-imposed exile which resulted in the founding of the new South African Republic beyond the Vaal. (See .) Paul's mother, who was a Steyn, died in his early youth and his father in 1852. The young man grew to manhood amid the hardships which attended the winning of the country from the savage natives. He was distinguished for strength and personal prowess, as well as for deep religious convictions. After the Sand River Convention (1852), when the conflict arose between two parties among the Boers themselves. Kruger cast his lot with the nationalist and orthodox party of Pretorius, and in the collision of the Pretorius party with the Orange Free State in 1857 he was one of the negotiators on the part of the former of the treaty which averted hostilities. He then held the rank of commandant in the Rustenburg district. In the rivalry between the Dutch Reformed and Separatist Reformed churches he was a strong supporter of the latter as the more orthodox. He headed the movement to overthrow Schoeman, who misused his powers as Acting President in 1860. Elected commandant-general of the reorganized Republic in 1863, Kruger put down the civil strife which had been the curse of the Boers from the time they obtained their independence, arranged peace with the Zulus and defeated the Basutos. He was Vice-President of the Republic under President Burgers. In 1877, when the failure of the Burgers policy and the skillful diplomacy of Sir Theophilus Shepstone had brought the Republic to the point of a grudging reception of annexation, Kruger became the head of the protesting Nationalist Party, although