The Boers Are Distinct From the Afrikaners.

The distinct nature of the Boer people from the bulk of the Cape Dutch descended Afrikaners is recognized among honest academic circles.

Quote: [ The majority of the original white settlers, known as Cape Dutch, or in frontier regions Boers, maintained a nominal loyalty to the Dutch Reformed Church. ] From: Christianity in Southern Central Africa Prior to 1910.

The frontier Boers themselves recognized themselves as distinct from the Cape Dutch.

Quote: [ Trekboers certainly recognised the differences in language, religion, etc. between themselves and the British; they had certainly developed a way-of-life and a set of values that were distinctive, but they were also significantly different from people of Dutch descent in the western province areas of the Cape. The latter regarded the Trekboers as rather wild, semi-barbarous frontiersmen and the sense of common identity was limited and incomplete. The westerners followed the Trek with interest and probably with a good deal of sympathy, but they certainly did not see the trekkers as the saviours of some mystical Afrikaner ‘nation’. ] From: Professor Wallace Mills. The Great Trek.

Though it turns out that there was not a lot of "sympathy" for the Great Trek by the Cape Dutch as they could not understand why the Boers would want to trek "away from civilization" but they must have realized that the conditions were especially rough for the frontier Boers who were facing the brunt of the constant "frontier wars" & the arbitrary policies of the British Colonial power.