Two key events contributed to the rise of political parties. The first was the 1878 annexation of the Transvaal and the ensuing First Anglo-Boer War. After dismissing the Transvaal government, the Cape Colony Governor installed a former separatist, John Gordon Sprigg, as the new Prime Minister, with instructions to implement the Colonial Office's policies. Sprigg formed a cabinet composed entirely of Eastern frontier white settlers, but contributed to a new pro-imperialist ideology that was not tied to any particular region of the Cape, or indeed, of southern Africa. The attempted annexations of the Boer republics and perceptions of exclusion in the Cape Colony caused growing resentment in the Afrikaner or "Cape Dutch" population.