African enemies were not the only challenge. Divisions, schisms and squabbles among themselves nearly destroyed the trek. Trekker leaders were wealthy men but lacked the economic controls ordinarily available to enforce loyalty and discipline. The trek had a levelling effect on the class hierarchy. In the end the leadership had to rely on the established patriarchal family structure and on military reputation to maintain their control.
But even the leaders did not agree on their ultimate destination, apart from wanting to settle near an outlet to the sea. Retief was intent on Natal, Potgieter on the highveld of the Transvaal. Potgieter sought an agreement with the Portuguese in Mozambique over access to the port of Delagoa Bay (now Maputo) – as far away as possible from British authority – so that he could establish de facto independence. Retief, on the other hand, preferred to negotiate with Britain for independence.
Erasmus Smit (1778–1863), brother-in-law of Gerrit Maritz and former missionary in the service of the London Missionary Society, was supposed to be the Voortrekkers’ minister but many found him unacceptable. He was old, sickly and probably an alcoholic.
Ecclesiastical and political disputes, too, threatened the treks. In the absence of a Dutch Reformed Church minister, Erasmus Smit – brother-in-law of Maritz and a former missionary in the service of the London Missionary Society – tried to step into the breach, but he was old, sickly, not ordained, and rumoured to be an alcoholic. Many trekkers found him unacceptable. Arguments over the form of political organisation also ruptured the trekker community. Potgieter, a patriarchal figure, concentrated on the welfare of his own trek party, which developed into an autocracy under the Potgieter clan. Maritz, by contrast, viewed the trek as a common enterprise – a vereenigde maatschappij (united community) or a volk – and called for the leaders’ submission to an elected council.
There were brief moments of unity. In December 1836, while the treks of Potgieter and Maritz were at Thaba Nchu, the trekkers elected a Burgerraad (Burgher Council) of seven burghers with Maritz as civilian president and Potgieter as military commander. The Burgerraad supervised the making and enforcement of laws. But Maritz and Potgieter soon fell out and the Burgerraad was split.
When Retief arrived in Thaba Nchu the next April, he was unanimously elected ‘governor’ of the trekkers and took over the post of military commander from Potgieter. Maritz became ‘judge president of the Council of Policy’ and ‘deputy governor.’ Potgieter’s exclusion was confirmed two months later when a meeting at Winburg adopted nine articles, setting up the ‘Free Province of New Holland in South East Africa’ with Retief as ‘overseer’ of the Maatschappij, as the collective Voortrekker society was called.
