In December next the Voortrekker Centenary is to be celebrated in South Africa.
The Voortrekkers, or pioneers, need no introduction here. They were a band of people who, smarting under many grievances, decided to seek independence and pastures new. They were mostly farmers with their families from the Eastern frontier districts of the old Cape Colony and they trekked in parties across the Orange River. Leading a team of oxen in one of these parties was a ten-year-old lad who later became the famous President Stephanus Paulus Kruger, better known as Oom Paul.

The main migration, known as the Great Trek, which started in 1834, had assumed large proportions in 1836. By 1838 it had fizzled out. It is estimated that no less than 40,000 emigrants had left the Colony by 1840. The then Governor of the Cape, Sir Benjamin d'Urban, described them as a brave, patient, industrious, orderly and religious people, the cultivators the defenders and the tax contributors of the country.

They crossed over into the unknown with their cattle and covered wagons, which were loaded with provisions and necessities, and, in the face of many privations and much suffering, through sheer pluck and perseverance, won through and opened up the interior of South Africa to Western civilization.

The thrilling- episodes, culminating in the Battle of Blood River on 16th December, 1838, need not be narrated here. Dingaan's Day is, as everybody knows, a statutory holiday, intended to be observed, as Sarel Celliers meant it to be, as a Day of Thanksgiving, a Sabbath.

In 1933 a Central Committee was formed in Pretoria with the object of inaugurating a fund for the election of an appropriate national Voortrekker Monument, which, it was hoped, would be unveiled on 16th December, 1938, on the centenary of the Battle of Blood River and the overthrow of barbarism in this country. This monument is now in course of erection on a chosen site overlooking Pretoria.

For propaganda purposes and in order to assist the fund, the Government and the Postal Department were approached at the time with the object of seeking their cooperation. The result was that the issue of special Voortrekker stamps was sanctioned and on 1st May, 1933, three stamps, viz., 1½d, 3d and 4½d, were placed on sale in all post offices. Two-thirds of the value of the stamps represents postage and a third is allocated to the fund.

In the selection of designs the committee announced that the place of honour on the stamps should be given to the trekker, his wife, and the ox-wagon. Anton van Wouw 's famous sculpture group, Boervrou en Trekker, provided the necessary inspiration for the designs on two of the stamps, while an ox-wagon appeared on the third.
The stamps were printed in Pretoria in rotogravure and issued in sheets of 120 stamps. The details of the designs did not reproduce clearly as the rotogravure process is more successful when the design is of a simple nature.

The penny stamp is a photograph from Michell's original engraving of Cradock's Pass which is in the collection of Major Wm. Jardine, of Sir Lowrys Pass, Cape. A similar engraving , varying slightly in design, is to be seen in the South African Public Library at Cape Town. It represents an incident about the year 1840, viz., the crossing of the Cradock Pass, near George. This was long before the Montagu Pass road was constructed. The design shows the difficulties encountered in ox-wagon transport a century ago. It also portrays typical South African attributes. viz., the ox-wagon and span (team) of oxen, kopjes, and aloes.

On the two penny stamp is seen a typical trekker with his rifle (Ou Sanna as it was often affectionately termed) gripped in his hand, acting as silent sentry over the laager to guard it against a surprise attack. The ox-hide shields and sharp-pointed assegais at either side represent Zulu weapons, symbolic of barbaric Africa.

The indispensable boervrou, with her bonnet (kappie) and typical dress, adorns the three penny stamp.
On 16th January, 1936, the half-penny denomination appeared. It is undoubtedly the most beautiful of all our stamps thus far printed by the rotogravure process. It is a plain design of the Church of the Vow, which was erected in 1840 on the spot where. two years before, Sarel Celliers and the trekkers made a covenant that if God gave them the victory they would build a church and consecrate that day as a Thanksgiving Day, a Sabbath for evermore.

The building, which stands in Pietermaritzburg, now serves as a museum for Voortrekker relics. It is built of stone (slate) and originally had unplastered walls, with the doors at the sides. To-day, tiles have displaced the original thatch and a porch has been added. It is a solid edifice with gables of the typical Cape-Dutch style of architecture.

The Rev. Erasmus Smit, who accompanied the Voortrekkers to Natal, was its first minister. Regular services were conducted in the little church until 1861, when a new church was built beside it. The latter is the Mother Church of the Dutch Reformed Church of Natal, and still uses the original pulpit of the Voortrekker Church.
In 1874 the Church of the Covenant was sold, and served less worthy purposes until 1912, when it was re-purchased and restored, as far as possible, to its original design. On 16th December, 1912, the building became a museum for the housing of Voortrekker antiques.

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1938 Voortrekker Centenary Memorial Fund