Herero and Namaqua genocide

After a drought starting in 1830, the Nama had been violently harassed by the nomadic Herero pastoralists seeking new pastures. With the help of the modern armed Orlam Afrikaners under their Kaptein Jonker Afrikaner, the Nama had been able to secure their tribal areas and had moved north with their allies. A decades-long war of robbery and defence now began between the Nama and the Herero. Jonker and his Orlam Afrikaners advanced as far as the central tribal area of the Herero near Okahandja and killed large numbers of Herero there around 1850 in their war of extermination. The end of the advance of the Orlam Afrikaners and the Nama was sealed in three battles in 1863 and 1864 at Otjimbingwe. There, with the help of the Swedish adventurer Karl Johan Andersson, who had formed an army from Herero warriors and equipped them with modern firearms and two field guns, the Herero managed to decisively defeat their opponents.

After a ten-year pause for peace, the nationwide attacks and looting by the Nama under their Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi began again. Even the now outnumbered German Schutztruppe did not succeed in protecting the Herero and ending the Nama's struggle, which is why the Herero briefly rescinded their protection treaties with the Germans in protest. Only after the Schutztruppe had been reinforced several times did the commanding major, Theodor Leutwein, succeed in subduing the Nama in 1894. As a result, a friendship developed between Samuel Maharero, who had been made captain of the Ovaherero by the Germans, and Leutwein.

There were two reasons that motivated the uprising: on the one hand, the German settlers claimed ever larger parts of the country for themselves, and on the other hand, the Herero and Nama suffered from the racist behaviour of the settlers and the organs of the colonial administration.

The Herero traditionally earned their living with cattle breeding. When a cattle plague occurred in 1897, the Herero herds were severely decimated. The increasing appropriation of the land, especially valuable grazing land, and fraud by which the German settlers tried to gain possession of the cattle, led to severe losses for the Herero not only in economic but also in cultural terms.

Due to the ensuing impoverishment, many Herero were forced to accept wage labour on German farms. Herero who still owned cattle increasingly came into conflict when they let their cattle graze on land now claimed by settlers. This drew the wrath of the settlers, who often had the herders forcibly evicted.

Since the legislative period 1893/1894, the Reichstag had been dealing with the land question of the Herero and Nama in the German "protectorate". In 1897, with the cooperation of the Rhenish Mission, a territory of 120,000 hectares to be reserved for the Nama was contractually regulated.

Apart from the loss of ever larger grazing areas, which threatened their existence, it was the racist discrimination against the Herero that acted as a trigger for the uprising. Thus, the lending practice of the German merchants, which had been practiced for many years until the ban in 1902, fostered the resentment of the Herero, whereby the Kaptein were supposed to pay for the debts of their tribesmen.

In July 1900, 75 citizens of the Southwest African city of Windhoek submitted a petition to the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office against the abolition of corporal punishment, saying: "In the long run, the native has no understanding for leniency and forbearance: he sees only weakness in them and consequently becomes arrogant and insolent against the white man, whom he must learn to obey, because he is spiritually and morally so far below him. The victims, who were often tied naked over a beer barrel, were abused with batten sticks and rhinoceros whips, among other things, until they suffered severe injuries. The colonial official Wilhelm Vallentin summed up his impression in the words "A raw, chopped beefsteak is nothing compared to that!".

Other serious offences were rape and murder, of which settlers were guilty towards Herero. The fact that these cases were often not punished or only mildly punished further increased the tensions.