Herero uprising

The Herero and Nama WarTemplate:Sfn is the collective term for a series of interlinked, anti-colonial armed struggles by native peoples in German South West Africa (present-day Namibia), mainly the Herero and Nama people, against the German Empire. The overall conflict took place between 1904 and 1908,Template:Sfn and included the Herero uprising and the Second Nama Rebellion.

Names

The 1904–1908 conflict has received numerous different names, with Herero and Nama War being a popular choice,Template:Sfn including the variant war against the Ovaherero and Nama.Template:Sfn The alternatives Namibian-German War or Namibian War had gaind popularity by the 2020s, emphasizing the anti-colonial and inter-ethnic character of the conflict.Template:Sfn As part of the debate on Namibian genocide reparations, the Template:Ill released a 2016 paper where the overall conflict was dubbed Rebellion by the Ethnic Groups of the Herero and Nama in German Southwest Africa; this naming was strongly criticized by historian Harald Kleinschmidt who regarded it as "discriminatory" and based on German colonial literature.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn

Instead of giving the entire war one name, however, researchers have often focused on individual sections or phases of the figthing and given those individual names. As such, the 1904–1908 conflict has been subdivided into the Herero uprising (1904–1907),Template:Sfn alternatively known as Herero Revolt,Template:Sfn Revolt of the Hereros,Template:Sfn Herero War,Template:Sfn or the Ovaherero-German War;Template:Sfn and the Second Nama Rebellion (1904–1908)Template:Sfn or Nama-German War.Template:Sfn

Background

Pre-colonial South-West Africa

The native peoples of Namibia were mainly semi-nomadic cattle-raisers, with the most populpus groups including the Herero in the central and southern regions, the Nama in the south, and the Ovambo in the north.Template:Sfn Under the leadership of Jonker Afrikaner, who died in 1861, and later under the leadership of Samuel Maharero, the Herero achieved supremacy over the Nama and Orlam peoples in a series of conflicts that had in their later stages, seen the extensive use of firearms obtained from European traders.Template:Sfn Both the Herero and Nama also adapted some aspects of warfare from the South African Boers, including horse-mounted guerrilla warfare.Template:Sfn

German colonization

In the early 1880s, the German statesman Otto von Bismarck, reversing his previous rejection of colonial acquisitions, decided on a policy of imperial expansion. In 1882 Bismarck gave permission to Adolf Lüderitz to obtain lands which Germany would bring within its "protection", under the conditions that a port was established within the territories taken and that there was "clear title" to the land. Lüderitz bought the title to Angra Pequena (later renamed Lüderitz Bay) from Joseph Fredericks, a chief of the Oorlam people, in exchange for 200 rifles, 2,500 German marks, and some lead toy soldiers, and established a port there. Clarification of Germany's title among the European powers took some time, as the British demurred in response to a German request to clarify the boundaries of their title, however in April 1884 Bismarck instructed the German consul in declare "Lüderitzland" (as Lüderitz's holding in South-West Africa had become known) as under the "protection" of the German Reich. Lüderitz steadily spread Germany's influence throughout the South-West African territory until by 1885 only one tribe within it – the Witboois – had not concluded some kind of arrangement with Germany.Template:Sfn

The continued resistance of the Witbooi Nama, led by Hendrik Witbooi, culminated in an armed conflict in 1893, as the Germans opted to violently force them into submission. This campaign, also known as the "First Nama Rebellion", demonstrated the Nama's effective use of guerrilla warfare and dragged on until 1904. It was concluded when the new German governor, Theodor Leutwein, managed to corner the Witboois in the Naukluft Mountains where they agreed to surrender. The German-Witbooi treaty allowed the Witbooi Nama to remain under arms as German allies and auxiliaries.Template:Sfn Over the next years, Leutwein launched disarmament and punitive operations to subjugate native groups, including the Mbandjeru and Khaua Nama, the Zwartboois, the Grootfontein "mixed-bloods", and some Afrikaners.Template:Sfn

Whilst Rhenish missionaries, traders, and other Europeans had been present in the territory since the 1830s, it was only with the advent of Germany's claim to South-West Africa that German settlement of the territory began in earnest. By 1903 there were roughly 4,682 European settlers in the protectorate of whom nearly 3,000 were Germans, most of them in the towns of Lüderitz, Swakopmund, and Windhoek. The advent of large-scale German settlement also brought about changes in the treatment of the native Herero and Nama peoples by Europeans, with native people facing increased legal discrimination and expropriation of land for the use of European settlers. The impact of the German colonization was uneven, with the Herero territories being havily affected,Template:Sfn whereas the Ovambo "remained essentially unconquered".Template:Sfn

Prelude

Herero grievances

The Herero's key grievance and the structural condition which led to the outbreak of the war was the existence of an unfair judicial system. If a white person was killed, multiple Africans would be executed as punishment. In contrast, settlers could kill natives with effective impunity because African lives were deemed worthless, so the judicial system would find a way to exonerate or issue a minimal punishment.Template:Sfn The result was widespread murder and rape against Africans by settlers, which weakened the colonial administration's monopoly on violence and overall authority. The victims were powerless to get redress for these crimes because police and soldiers were among the perpetrators.Template:Sfn African witnesses were generally deemed to be unreliable by German courts,Template:Sfn often contributing to the courts exonerating settlers accused of wrongdoings.Template:Sfn Several settlers abused the lopsided judicial system, becoming serial violators. On the other side, Germans who opposed the abuses were ostracized by settlers and even sanctioned by the courts as well as colonial authorities.Template:Sfn German employers were legally allowed to beat, whip, and flog indigenous employees.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Even chiefs were subject to corporal punishments. According to historian Horst Drechsler, most "Germans described the Africans as baboons and treated them accordingly".Template:Sfn

The influence of the struggle over land in regards to the Herero uprising remains disputed among researchers. Some studies have emphasized struggle over land as the central cause of the uprising, but the colonist population was not quickly increasing in 1903 and other research has shown that the land question was not urgent.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn In the period before the rebellion, Leutwein had begun to implement a strategy to concentrate indigenous people on reserves.Template:Sfn The creation of the reserves, alongside a statute limiting contracts in July 1903, were supposed to at least partially remedy abuses against the Herero. Instead, the reserves openly showcased how little land the Herero still held, while the statute led traders to further pressure natives to repay debts. These measures thus led to even greater grievances among the Herero.Template:Sfn The building of the Otavi railway resulted in further seizure of land in the southern territories of the Herero, and the railway's financier –the Otavigesellschaft– openly demanded that the Herero cede not just land for a further expansion of the line itself but also all water rights and a stretch along the tracks. Leutwein negotiated with Samuel Maharero over these demands until the chief partially yielded. Maharero agreed to relinquish land for the railway's tracks free of charge, but no additional territory.Template:Sfn The Herero were aware that the expansion of the railway might lead to an influx of more settlers into their areas.Template:Sfn

In general, the settler population as well as German authorities ignored the provisions of the protection treaty with the Herero, with Leutwein noting that the majority of the local whites were even ignorant of the treaty's existence. The Herero complained that the Germans were violating their customs and breaking the treaty; realizing that the old promises were ignored, many Herero also no longer felt bound by the agreement by 1904.Template:Sfn

Nama unrest

In 1903, a rebellion by the Bondelswarts, a Nama clan, erupted in the southeastern Namibia. Lieutenant Walter Jobst, Warmbad district chief, had violently intervened in a dispute over a supposedly stolen goat, shooting Bondelswarts Kaptein (chief) Jan Abram Christiaan. The chief's followers responded by killing Jobst. Governor Leutwein responded by leading the majority of the colony's Schutztruppe garrison to punish the Bondelswarts.Template:Sfn On 25 December 1903, a company of Schutztruppe was diverted to the far south of the colony to quell the Bondelswarts' rebellion, leaving the north stripped of troopsTemplate:Sfn—there were only 770 German soldiers in the entire colony.Template:Sfn A short and fierce war erupted.Template:Sfn At this point, several local clans still offered support to the Germans; for instance, Hendrik Witbooi's clan fought alongside the Schutztruppe against the Bondelswarts.Template:Sfn

The Bondelswarts were still fighting by early 1904, ensuring that most of the German colonial troops were not present in central Namibia when the Herero uprising broke out.Template:Sfn

Rebellion

Herero plans

In response to their grievances, several Herero leaders including Samuel Maharero began to plan an anti-German uprising.Template:Sfn The Herero uprising was an act of desperation to retake their land, cattle, and political independence; as well as exact revenge.Template:Sfn Matthias Häussler writes that the war was limited in means but not ends; the Herero wanted the permanent end of German colonization.Template:Sfn Maharero attempted to forge a wider coalition within Namibia. He secretly contacted the Ovambo in the north, encouraging them to ally with the Herero.Template:Sfn

The removal of most German troops from their lands due to the Bondelswarts rebellion provided the Herero with a favorable strategic situation, contributing to the rebel leaders triggering their rising in January 1904.Template:Sfn

Early Herero rebellion

The Herero clans seized the opportunity to rebel on 12 January 1904.Template:Sfn The uprising caught the colonists by surpriseTemplate:Sfn and saw a stunning success at first: farms and businesses were plundered, and 123Template:Sfn or as many as 160 Germans were killed.Template:Sfn Most of those killed were farmers and traders; German soldiers were only one-tenth of the dead. The rebels generally spared women, children, missionaries, and white people who were not German.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Individual attacks were planned to take advantage of deception and surprise, and the Herero seized weapons and supplies.Template:Sfn The Herero killed men, took anything useful, razed buildings, and attempted to destroy everything else, in an attempt to destroy colonists' economic existence and force them to depart Namibia forever.Template:Sfn The occurrence of mutilation, particularly castration, was in revenge for the sexual violence that had previously been visited on Herero women.Template:Sfn

After the uprising's start, Samuel Maharero sent letters to Kaptein Hermanus van Wyk of the Rehoboth Basters as well as Hendrik Witbooi, requesting their support.Template:Sfn In his letter to Witbooi, Maharero expressed his desire for an inter-ethnic alliance, famously exclaiming Let us die fighting! Yet van Wyk and Witbooi initially refused to join any rebellion, and van Wyk turned the letters over to the Germans. Maharero may had hoped that the Nama and Basters could tie down the Germans in the south, but this came not to pass.Template:Sfn Upon learning of the Herero's actions, Leutwein hastily initiated negotiations with the Bondelswarts and concluded a peace which provided for the clan's disarmament but was otherwise not favourable to the Germans; this allowed him to move his troops back north.Template:Sfn When the colonial authorities called upon the Nama clans to provide auxiliaries in accordance with the old treaties, they obliged; about 100 Nama joined the anti-Herero operations, including several Witboois.Template:Sfn

Troops were also sent from Germany to re-establish order but only dispersed the rebels, led by Chief Maharero. The Herero led a guerrilla campaign, conducting fast hit-and-run operations then melting back into the terrain they knew well, preventing the Germans from gaining an advantage with their modern artillery and machineguns. The German governor Theodor Leutwein sent desperate messages to Maharero in hopes of negotiating an end to the war. The Hereros, however, were emboldened by their success and had come to believe that, "the Germans were too cowardly to fight in the open," and rejected Leutwein's offers of peace. One missionary wrote, "One hears nothing but (Herero) talk of 'cleaning up,' 'executing,' 'shooting down to the last man,' 'no pardon,' etc."Template:Sfn

German reaction

The Germans were largely surprised by the uprising.Template:Sfn Soon after the rebellion began, German Emperor Wilhelm II replaced Leutwein with the notorious General Lothar von Trotha.

Some German authorities quickly began to investigate the rebellion's causes. The Reichstag demanded an official inquiry in March 1904, and this demand was reluctantly backed by Oskar Stuebel, director of the Colonial Department. Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow forwarded the demand to Wilhelm II who promptly postponed any investigation indefinitely.Template:Sfn In general, German imperialists showcased little genuine interest in the circumstances of the rebellion, instead viewining it as a good pretext to seize more control as well as territory in South West Africa.Template:Sfn The uprising was broadly blamed on Herero "blood-thirstiness", "racial strife", the traders' practices,Template:Sfn and Leutwein's allegedly too lentient governing style.Template:Sfn British influence was also used as a scapegoat,Template:Sfn with Leutwein quickly joining those who claimed that British individuals had incited the Herero to rebel, seeking to deflect blame from himself.Template:Sfn The ensuing anti-British campaign –including the arrest of British citizens in South West Africa– petered out once no evidence could be found.Template:Sfn German missionaries were also blamed by officials and the pro-colonial press, alleging that the missionaries were somehow abetting the insurgents. Missionaries responded with an anonymous letter in the newpaper Der Reichsbote, clarifying that the rebellion was rooted in the mistreatment of Herero by settlers and officials. This further incited imperialists and colonial officials; the "shadow-boxing" between the missionaries and their critics in the press ultimately availed to little.Template:Sfn

Fall

File:LPJ 21 février 1904 cropped.jpg

German garrison of Windhoek, besieged by the Herero, 1904

A conclusive battle was fought on 11 August 1904, at the Battle of Waterberg in the Waterberg Mountains. Chief Maharero believed his six to one advantage over the Germans would allow him to win in a final showdown. The Germans had time to bring forward their artillery and heavy weapons. Both sides took heavy losses, but the Herero were scattered and defeated.Template:Sfn

Trotha's troops defeated 3,000–5,000 Herero combatants at the Battle of Waterberg but were unable to encircle and annihilate the retreating survivors.Template:Rp The pursuing German forces prevented groups of Herero from breaking from the main body of the fleeing force and pushed them further into the desert. As exhausted Herero fell to the ground, unable to go on, German soldiers killed men, women, and children.Template:Rp

It took the Germans until 1908 to re-establish authority over the territory. By that time tens of thousands of Africans (estimates range from 34,000 to 110,000) had been either killed or died of thirst while fleeing. 65,000 of 80,000 Hereros and at least 10,000 of 20,000 Nama died as a result of the conflict.

Aftermath

In 1915, during World War I, South African forces occupied it in the so-called South West Africa Campaign, and SW Africa officially became a mandate of South Africa in 1920.

On 16 August 2004, 100 years after the war, the German government officially apologised for the atrocities. "We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time," said Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's development aid minister. In addition, she admitted that the massacres were equivalent to genocide.

Not until 2015 did the German government admit that the massacres were equivalent to genocide and again apologised in 2016. The Herero are suing the German government in a class action lawsuit. In 2021, Germany announced that they would repay Namibia €1.1 billion.

Some notable fighters in Herero Wars are revered as the national heroes of Namibia.

In literature

The Herero Wars and the massacres are both depicted in a chapter of the 1963 novel V. by Thomas Pynchon. The tragic story of the Herero and Nama Genocide also appears in Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow.

The heavy toll of the Herero and Nama genocide on individual lives and the fabric of Herero culture is seen in the 2013 historical novel Mama Namibia by Mari Serebrov.

The war and the massacres are both significantly featured in The Glamour of Prospecting, a contemporary account by Frederick Cornell of his attempts to prospect for diamonds in the region. In the book, he describes his first-hand accounts of witnessing the concentration camp on Shark Island amongst other aspects of the conflict.

See also

• Herero and Nama genocide
• National heroes of Namibia