This study centres on the opposition of the majority Afrikaner sheep farmers in the 1890s to legislation affecting their stock farming pursuit. Focusing on the sheep-farming community, the study delves deeper into the process of ethnic identity formation among Afrikaner farmers. These farmers left, unusually, an amazingly rich body of written evidence. This offered the author a unique opportunity to explore the elusive process of ethnic consciousness formation among ordinary Afrikaners. Ethnic identity among Cape Afrikaner sheep farmers was forged, as is invariably the case, along the fault lines between them and the English-speaking settlers and the colonial government led by Cecil Rhodes. The main conflict arose around differences in culture and attitudes towards sheep farming.