 The huge inflow of "Uitlanders" (foreigners), mainly from Britain, had come to the region in search of employment and fortune.The discovery of gold made the Transvaal overnight the richest and potentially the most powerful nation in southern Africa, but it attracted so many Uitlanders (in 1896 approximately 60,000) that they quickly outnumbered the Boers (approximately 30,000 white male Boers).Fearful of the Transvaal's losing independence and becoming a British colony, the Boer government adopted policies of protectionism and exclusion, to include restrictions requiring Uitlanders to be resident for at least four years in the Transvaal to obtain the franchise, or right to vote.