The history of Namibia has passed through several distinct stages from being colonised in the late nineteenth century to Namibia's independence on 21 March 1990.
From 1884, Namibia was a German colony: German South West Africa. After the First World War, the League of Nations gave South Africa a mandate to administer the territory. Following World War II, the League of Nations was dissolved in April 1946 and its successor, the United Nations, instituted a trusteeship system to reform the administration of the former League of Nations mandates and clearly establish majority rule and independence as eventual goals for the trust territories. South Africa objected arguing that a majority of the territory's people were content with South African rule.
Legal argument ensued over the course of the next twenty years until, in October 1966, the UN General Assembly decided to end the mandate, declaring that South Africa had no further right to administer the territory, and that henceforth South West Africa was to come under the direct responsibility of the UN (Resolution 2145 XXI of 27 October 1966).
Pre-colonial history As early as 25 000 B.C., the first humans lived in the Huns Mountains in the South of Namibia. The painted stone plates that exist from that time not only prove that these settlements existed, they also belong among the oldest works of art in the world. A fragment of a hominoid jaw, estimated to be thirteen million years old, was found in the Otavi Mountains. Findings of Stone Age weapons and tools are further proof that a long time ago early humans already hunted the wild animals of the region.
In the Brandberg Mountains, there are numerous rock paintings, most of them originating from around 2000 B.C. There is no reliable indication as to which ethnic groups created them. It is debatable whether the San (Bushmen), who alongside the Damara are the oldest ethnic group in Namibia, were the creators of these paintings.
The Nama only settled in southern Africa and southern Namibia during the first century B.C. In contrast to the San and Damara, they lived on the livestock they bred themselves.
The north – the Ovambo and Kavango The Ovambo, and the smaller and closely related group Kavango, lived in northern Namibia, southern Angola and, in the case of the Kavango, western Zambia. Being settled people they had an economy based on farming, cattle and fishing, but they also produced metal goods. Both groups belonged to the Bantu nation. They rarely ventured south to the central parts of the country, since the conditions there did not suit their farming way of life, but they extensively traded their knives and agricultural implements.
Bantu Migration – the Herero
During the 17th century the Herero, a pastoral, nomadic people keeping cattle, moved into Namibia. They came from the east African lakes and entered Namibia from the northwest. First they resided in Kaokoland, but in the middle of the 19th century some tribes moved farther south and into Damaraland. A number of tribes remained in Kaokoland: these were the Himba people, who are still there today. During German occupation of South West Africa about one third of the population was wiped out in a genocide that continues to provoke widespread indignation. An apology was sought in more recent times.
The Oorlams In the 19th century white farmers, mostly Boers, moved further north, pushing the indigenous Khoisan peoples, who put up a fierce resistance, across the Orange River. Known as Oorlams, these Khoisan adopted Boer customs and spoke a language similar to Afrikaans. Armed with guns, the Oorlams caused instability as more and more came to settle in Namaqualand and eventually conflict arose between them and the Nama. Under the leadership of Jonker Afrikaner, the Oorlams used their superior weapons to take control of the best grazing land. In the 1830s Jonker Afrikaner concluded an agreement with the Nama chief Oaseb whereby the Oorlams would protect the central grasslands of Namibia from the Herero who were then pushing south. In return Jonker Afrikaner was recognised as overlord, received tribute from the Nama, and settled at what today is Windhoek, on the borders of Herero territory. The Afrikaners soon came in conflict with the Herero who entered Damaraland from the south at about the same time as the Afrikaner started to expand farther north from Namaqualand. Both the Herero and the Afrikaner wanted to use the grasslands of Damaraland for their herds. This resulted in warfare between the Herero and the Oorlams as well as between the two of them and the Damara, who were the original inhabitants of the area. The Damara were displaced by the fighting and many were killed.
With their horses and guns, the Afrikaners proved to be militarily superior and forced the Herero to give them cattle as tribute.
Baster immigration
The last group of people today considered indigenous that arrived in Namibia were the Basters; descendants of Boer men and African women (mostly Khoisan). Being Calvinist and Afrikaans-speaking, they considered themselves to be culturally more "white" than "black". As with the Oorlams, they were forced northwards by the expansion of white settlers when, in 1868, a group of about 90 families crossed the Orange River into Namibia. The Basters settled in central Namibia, where they founded the city Rehoboth. In 1872 they founded the "Free Republic of Rehoboth" and adopted a constitution stating that the nation should be led by a "Kaptein" directly elected by the people, and that there should be a small parliament, or Volkraad, consisting of three directly elected citizens.
European influence and colonization
The first European to set foot on Namibian soil was the Portuguese Diogo Cão in 1485, who stopped briefly on the Skeleton Coast, and raised a limestone cross there, on his exploratory mission along the west coast of Africa. The next European to visit Namibia was also a Portuguese, Bartholomeu Dias, who stopped at what today is known as Walvis Bay and Lüderitz (which he named Angra Pequena) on his way to round the Cape of Good Hope. The inhospitable Namib Desert constituted a formidable barrier and neither of the Portuguese explorers went far inland.
The area was vaguely regarded as Cafreria. ("the land of the kaffirs") and similar terms over the next few centuries.
In 1793 the Dutch authority in the Cape decided to take control of Walvis Bay, since it was the only good deep-water harbour along the Skeleton Coast. When the United Kingdom took control of the Cape Colony in 1805, they also took over Walvis Bay. But colonial settlement in the area was limited, and neither the Dutch nor the British penetrated far into the country.
One of the first European groups to show interest in Namibia were the missionaries. In 1805 the London Missionary Society began working in Namibia, moving north from the Cape Colony. In 1811 they founded the town Bethanie in southern Namibia, where they built a church, which was long considered to be Namibia's oldest building, before the site at ǁKhauxaǃnas which pre-dates European settlement was recognised.
In the 1840s the German Rhenish Mission Society started working in Namibia and co-operating with the London Missionary Society.
It was not until the 19th century, when European powers sought to carve up the African continent between them in the so-called "Scramble for Africa", that Europeans – Germany in the forefront – became interested in Namibia.
The first territorial claim on a part of Namibia came when Britain occupied Walvis Bay, confirming the settlement of 1797, and permitted the Cape Colony to annex it in 1878. The annexation was an attempt to forestall German ambitions in the area, and it also guaranteed control of the good deepwater harbour on the way to the Cape Colony and other British colonies on Africa's east coast.
In 1883, a German trader, Adolf Lüderitz, bought Angra Pequena from the Nama chief Josef Frederiks II. The price he paid was 10,000 marks (ℳ) and 260 guns. He soon renamed the coastal area after himself, giving it the name Lüderitz. Believing that Britain was soon about to declare the whole area a protectorate, Lüderitz advised the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck to claim it. In 1884 Bismarck did so, thereby establishing German South West Africa as a colony (Deutsch-Südwestafrika in German).
A region, the Caprivi Strip, became a part of German South West Africa after the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty on 1 July 1890, between the United Kingdom and Germany. The Caprivi Strip in Namibia gave Germany access to the Zambezi River and thereby to German colonies in East Africa. In exchange for the island of Heligoland in the North Sea, Britain assumed control of the island of Zanzibar in East Africa.
German South West Africa
Soon after declaring Lüderitz and a vast area along the Atlantic coast a German protectorate, German troops were deployed as conflicts with the native tribes flared up, most significantly with the Nama. Under the leadership of the tribal chief Hendrik Witbooi, the Nama put up a fierce resistance to the German occupation. Contemporary media called the conflict "The Hottentot Uprising".
The Nama's resistance proved to be unsuccessful, however, and in 1894 Witbooi was forced to sign a "protection treaty" with the Germans. The treaty allowed the Nama to keep their arms, and Witbooi was released having given his word of honour not to continue with the Hottentot uprising.
In 1894 major Theodor Leutwein was appointed governor of German South West Africa. He tried without great success to apply the principle of "colonialism without bloodshed". The protection treaty did have the effect of stabilising the situation but pockets of rebellion persisted, and were put down by an elite German regiment Schutztruppe, while real peace was never achieved between the colonialists and the natives. The introduction of a veterinary pest-exclusion fence called the Red Line, which separated the north from the rest of the territory, led to more direct colonial rule south of the line and indirect control north of the line, leading to different political and economic outcomes for example between the northern Ovambo people compared to the more centrally located Herero people.
Being the only German colony in Africa considered suitable for white settlement at the time, Namibia attracted an influx of German settlers. In 1903 there were 3,700 Germans living in the area, and by 1910 their number had increased to 13,000. Another reason for German settlement was the discovery of diamonds in 1908. Diamond production continues to be a very important part of Namibia's economy.
The settlers were encouraged by the government to expropriate land from the natives, and forced labour – hard to distinguish from slavery – was used. As a result, relations between the German settlers and the natives deteriorated.
The Herero and Nama wars
The ongoing local rebellions escalated in 1904 into the Herero and Nama Wars when the Herero attacked remote farms on the countryside, killing approximately 150 Germans.
The outbreak of rebellion was considered to be a result of Theodor Leutwein's softer tactics, and he was replaced by the more notorious General Lothar von Trotha.
In the beginning of the war the Herero, under the leadership of chief Samuel Maharero, had the upper hand. With good knowledge of the terrain they had little problem in defending themselves against the Schutztruppe (initially numbering only 766). Soon the Nama people joined the war, again under the leadership of Hendrik Witbooi.