Daniel Jacobus Erasmus (nickname 'van Straten'/'van Straat', Somerset East, Cape Colony, 1830 - Bethal District, Transvaal, 1913) was a South African Boer commander and politician.

Pieter roamed a great deal to look for cultivable land, a trait that his descendant, Daniel Jacobus Erasmus (not the same person who acted as State President), inherited.

[3] In 1841, the 56 year old Daniel "Swartkoppies" Jacobus Erasmus (1785 - 1861)[4] arrived with his family in the area that is now Centurion, South Africa.

Lourens Erasmus moved from Natal to eastern Transvaal before 1842 to settle on the Steelpoort River and was Volksraad member and field cornet for Ohrigstad.

[1] His son Daniel Jacobus Erasmus fought for the government in the Transvaal civil war (1862-1864) against Stephanus Schoeman.

After the Keate Award in October 1871 (the British seizure of the Kimberley diamond fields by Robert W. Keate, then Lieutenant-Governor of the British Colony of Natal), Transvaal president Marthinus Wessel Pretorius resigned and the Volksraad chose Erasmus as acting state president on November 21, 1871.

[1] As president Erasmus protested against the Keate Award and the southwestern boundaries, sent a commission under Piet Joubert to settle relations with the Swazi people, and introduced obligatory printed passes for Bantu individuals wishing to leave the Transvaal.

But Brand declined and proposed Reverend Thomas François Burgers of Hanover instead who was duly elected, in spite of the opposition by Erasmus and Paul Kruger.