Orange Free State constitutional framework was a success and the citizens
and officeholders developed a respect for law. Among the Afrikaners north
of the Vaal, by contrast, political authority depended on the mobilization
and application of force uninhibited by constitutional
formulas. There,
factionalism led to intermittent civil warfare in the early 1860s and con-
tributed to the British annexation of the state in 1877.
Some highveld Africans first viewed the incoming Afrikaners as liber-
ators and assisted them in driving the Ndebele out of the Transvaal, but
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