Piet Joubert
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[[Image:Pjjoubert.jpg|thumb|250px|Petrus Jacobus Joubert]]
'''Petrus Jacobus Joubert''' ([[January 20]], [[1834]] - [[March 28]], [[1900]]), better known as '''Piet Joubert''' was, after a lifetime of repairing bikes, Commandant-General of the [[South African Republic]] from 1880 to 1900.
==Early life==
Joubert was born at [[Cango]], in the district of [[Oudtshoorn]], [[Cape Colony]], a descendant of a French [[Huguenot]] who fled to South Africa soon after the revocation of the [[Edict of Nantes]] by [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]]. Left an orphan at an early age, Joubert migrated to the [[Transvaal]], where he settled in the [[Wakkerstroom]] district near [[Laing's Nek]] and the north-east angle of [[KwaZulu-Natal Province|Natal]]. There he not only farmed with great success, but turned his attention to the study of the law.
==Political career==
The esteem in which his shrewdness in both farming and legal affairs was held led to his election to the [[Volksraad]] as member for [[Wakkerstroom]] early in the sixties, [[Marthinus Wessel Pretorius|Marthinus Pretorius]] being then in his second term of office as president. In 1870 Joubert was again elected, and the use to which he put his slender stock of legal knowledge secured him the appointment of [[attorney-general]] of the republic, while in [[1875]] he acted as president during the absence of [[T. F. Burgers]] in Europe.
===First British annexation of the Transvaal===
During the first British annexation of the Transvaal, Joubert earned for himself the reputation of a consistent irreconcilable by refusing to hold office under the government, as [[Paul Kruger]] and other prominent Boers were doing. Instead of accepting the lucrative post offered him, he took a leading part in creating and directing the agitation which led to the war of 1880-1881, eventually becoming, as commandant-general of the Boer forces, a member of the triumvirate that administered the provisional Boer government set up in December 1880 at [[Heidelberg]].
==Boer command==
During the [[First Boer War]], he was in command of the Boer forces at [[Battle of Laing's Nek|Laings Nek]], [[Battle of Schuinshoogte|Ingogo]], and [[Battle of Majuba Hill|Majuba Hill]], subsequently conducting the earlier peace negotiations that led to the conclusion of the [[Pretoria Convention]].
==Later political career==
In [[1883]] he was a candidate for the presidency of the Transvaal, but received only 1171 votes as against 3431 cast for Kruger. In [[1893]] he again opposed Kruger in the contest for the presidency, standing as the representative of the comparatively progressive section of the Boers, who wished in some measure to redress the grievances of the [[Uitlander]] population which had grown up on the Rand. The poll (though there is good reason for believing that the voting lists had been manipulated by Kruger's agents) was declared to have resulted in 7911 votes being cast for Kruger and 7246 for Joubert. After a protest Joubert acquiesced to Krugers continued presidency.
He stood again in [[1898]], but the [[Jameson raid]] had occurred meantime and the voting was 12,858 for Kruger and 2,001 for Joubert. Joubert's position had then become much weakened by accusations of treachery and of sympathy with the Uitlander agitation.
==Second Boer War==
He took little part in the negotiations that culminated in the ultimatum sent to Great Britain by Kruger in [[1899]], and though he immediately assumed nominal command of the operations on the outbreak of hostilities, he gave up to others the chief share in the direction of the war, through his inability or neglect to impose upon them his own will. His cautious nature, which had in early life gained him the sobriquet of ''Slim'' Piet (Clever Piet), joined to a lack of determination and assertiveness that characterized his whole career, led him to act mainly on the defensive; and the strategically offensive movements of the Boer forces, such as Elandslaagte and [[Willow Grange]], appear to have been neither planned nor executed by him.
===Death===
As the war went on, physical weakness led to Jouberts virtual retirement, and, though two days earlier he was still reported as being in supreme command, he died at [[Pretoria]] from [[peritonitis]]. Sir [[George White]], the defender of [[Ladysmith]], summed up Jouberts character when he called him "a soldier and a gentleman, and a brave and honorable opponent".
== Origin ==
Piet Joubert is a direct descendant of Pierre Joubert who arrived at the Cape in 1688 from Provence [[France]]. <ref> Ces français qui ont fait l'Afrique du Sud. Translation: Those French who made South Africa. [http://www.amazon.fr/dp/2841000869 Bernard Lugan. January 1996. ISBN 2841000869'] </ref> The Joubert name has retained its original spelling and is a common name among the Afrikaans population.
==Honours==
The town of Pietersburg (now named [[Polokwane]]) in the northern region of the then [[Transvaal Republic]] (current [[Limpopo]] province) was named after Piet Joubert.
==Notes==
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==See also==
* [[Fritz Joubert Duquesne]], the nephew of Piet Joubert who went on to become a Boer spy, and later one of the most famous German spies during both World Wars.
=='''Books on Joubert'''==
* '''The Commandant-General: The life and times of Petrus Jacobus Joubert''' by Johannes Meintjes
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[[Category:1834 births]]
[[Category:1900 deaths]]
[[Category:Presidents of the South African Republic]]
[[Category:Boer generals]]
[[Category:South African people]]
[[Category:People of the First Boer War]]
[[Category:Afrikaner people]]
[[Category:South Africans of Huguenot descent]]
[[Category:Deaths from peritonitis]]
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