The siege of Ladysmith was a protracted engagement in the Second Boer War, taking place between 2 November 1899 and 28 February 1900 at Ladysmith, Natal.

Boers ( BOORZ; Afrikaans: Boere) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled this area, but the United Kingdom incorporated it into the British Empire in 1806. The name of the group is derived from "boer," which means "farmer" in Dutch and Afrikaans.In addition, the term Boeren also applied to those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to colonise in the Orange Free State, Transvaal (together known as the Boer Republics), and to a lesser extent Natal. They emigrated from the Cape to live beyond the reach of the British colonial administration, with their reasons for doing so primarily being the new Anglophone common law system being introduced into the Cape and the British abolition of slavery in 1833.The term Afrikaners or Afrikaans people is generally used in modern-day South Africa for the white Afrikaans-speaking population of South Africa (the largest group of White South Africans) encompassing the Boers and the other descendants of the Cape Dutch who did not embark on the Great Trek. Today Afrikaans is spoken by a variety of ethnic groups and refers simply to the language and not to the culture.