Hacienda Humboldt is an

ejido An ''ejido'' (, from Latin ''exitum'') is an area of communal land used for agriculture in which community members have usufruct rights rather than ownership rights to land, which in Mexico is held by the Mexican state. People awarded ejidos in ...

in the municipality of Julimes Municipality,

Chihuahua Chihuahua may refer to: Places *Chihuahua (state), a Mexican state **Chihuahua (dog), a breed of dog named after the state **Chihuahua cheese, a type of cheese originating in the state **Chihuahua City, the capital city of the state **Chihuahua Mun ...

which was once a private cattle ranch. It belonged for a period of time to

Luis Terrazas Luis Terrazas (20 July 1829 in Chihuahua, Mexico – 18 June 1923 in Chihuahua) was a Mexican politician, businessman, rancher, and soldier. Career Terrazas was a pivotal figure in the history of the state of Chihuahua from the middle o ...

and was sold by him for the formation of a colony of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

n refugees from the

Anglo Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

. Among them was the

Boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape Colony, Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controll ...

general

Ben Viljoen Benjamin Johannes "Ben" Viljoen (7 September 1869 – 14 January 1917) was an Afrikaner-American Consul, soldier, farmer, Maderista, and Boer general. Viljoen was born in a cave in the Wodehouse district of the Cape Colony to Susanna Magdalen ...

. The refugees were assisted in their project by President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

. He hired

Marshall Latham Bond Marshall Latham Bond was one of two brothers who were Jack London's landlords and among his employers during the autumn of 1897 and the spring of 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush. They were the owners of the dog that London fictionalized as Bu ...

to represent him before Terrazas and the government of Mexico. The colony never particularly thrived. The Humboldt colonists already beginning in 1908 to emigrate to more active Mexican towns like Ciudad de Chihuahua and farming areas like the

Mesilla Valley The Mesilla Valley is a geographic feature of Southern New Mexico and far West Texas. It was formed by repeated heavy spring floods of the Rio Grande. Background The fertile Mesilla Valley extends from Radium Springs, New Mexico, to the wes ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

near

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...

in the United States. Boers who stayed in Mexico married into local families, or moved away resulting in the loss of the community's identity with the Boers by the mid-1930s.

Sources

Mexfiles: The Boer Colony in Chihuahua
Taylor Hansen, Lawrence Douglas. "La colonizacío bóer en Chihuahua y el suroeste de Estados Unidos, 1903–1917. Historia Mexicana, LII: 2, 2002, pp. 449–489. Rio Conchos Populated places in Chihuahua (state) Mexico–South Africa relations Humboldt Afrikaner diaspora {{Chihuahua-geo-stub

See also

Sources