South West Africa on the eve of European imperialism was inhabited by three major ethnic groups notably the Ovambo, Nama and Herero.   The latter two were predominantly pastrolists and were therefore competing for grazing land amongst themselves.  The emergence of Germans onto the colonial scene traces its way from the years of 1884 following the Berlin conference when the coastline and it’s hinterland were recognised as the German spheres of influence.  It was therefore from then that the Germans begun to impose themselves on the Nama and Herero groups who from the beginning resisted the German colonial rule until 1894 when a truce was signed supposed to be followed by both the Germans and Indigenous people.

The truce was accepted by the Herero people who even made an alliance with  the Germans a move that was greatly condemned by the Nama people as evident in the words of chief Henrick Witbooi 

This giving of yourself into the hands of the whites will become to you a burden as if you are carrying a sack on your back”.

This alliance however, didn’t take long for in 1904, the Herero people opted to revolt against German leadership.

In the first instance its believed that the Germans failed to honour the agreement of submission that they had made to the local people for they were supposed to protect them but only oppressed them which partly explains why the Nama and Herero people decided to rebel against German administration a combination of which came to be known as Nama-Herero rebellion.

Furthermore, the Nama and Herero had lost their land to the German settlers and companies and having been predominantly pastoralists, in no way could the two ethnic groups have accepted to lose their land.  It’s therefore in this context that the Indigenous groups rebelled against German rule.

In addition, the Nama and Herero people rebelled because of loss of their cattle which were very important economically and socially and had been taken away by the Germans through forcing Africans to reduce the cattle population, taking away of the land by forcing the local people into reservoirs and the worst of which was by grabbing forcefully considering the fact that the Nama and Herero people had lost a lot of their cattle to the rinder pest epidemic of 1897, there was no alternative other than to rebel against the Germans.

Another area of resentment was the debt policy for it’s argued that the Germans for a long time had sold their goods to the Africans on credit and sometimes given them or lent them money at a higher interest which would subsequently put the Africans in a debt trap a move that was made by the Germans to loot Africans of their property.  The climax of which came in 1903 when a credit ordinance was passed giving the Africans only a year to pay off their debts lest they would lose their property.  With this ordinance, the Germans succeeded in stealing the Africans’ property for inevitably, the Africans failed to pay in one year and subsequently the Germans got the opportunity to satisfy their motives as Samuel Maherero wrote to the Governor.

“The German traders went so far as to pay themselves for instance taking away cattle by force, 2 or 3 heads of cattle to cover a debt of one pound sterling”.

It is this broad day stealing of the Germans that greatly annoyed the Nama-Herero people to want to do away with the German rule in what came to be the Nama-Herero rebellion.

Furthermore, the Nama and Herero people revolted against the oppression of the Germans and the subsequent expatiation for their leadership was characterised by over taxation of the masses, forced labour, public flogging, arbitrary imprisonment and other brutal punishments.  It was therefore as a result of this mal administration that the Nama-Herero revolted against the German rule.

The timing to this rebellion coincided with the German expedition against the Bondelswart people when Herero country was left free of the German military units, an opportunity that was exploited by the Herero people to make an attack on the German settlers in the year of 1904.  This became the beginning of this rebellion.  Although the Herero initially did not have the support of the Nama people, two months later, the Nama joined partly because they shared similar grievances against the commons but most important was as a result of the German provocation.  This is because the Germans attempted to disarm the Nama and dispose them from their areas.  It was therefore in this contest that the Nama joined the Herero people and the rebellion entered its second gear.

Like any other African rebellion, the Nama-Herero rebellion was disastrous to both parties for initially the Germans were butchered, but following the reinforcement of the German governor and general Von Trotha, the Herero were mercilessly suppressed and decisively defeated at the battle of waterberguhere Von Trotha declared.

“Inside the German territory every Herero tribesman armed or unarmed with or without cattle must be short on sight”. 

The rest were driven into the Kalahari desert and those that survived were starved to death while many of the women and children died from forced labour such that by the 1905 armistice only 16,000 Herero out of  the original 70,000 remained or survived.  In the same way, many Nama equally lost their lives and many were deported to other parts of the colony for it is believed that out of 20,000 only 9,800 of Namas survived and many of their leaders died for example Witbooi was killed and replaced by Jacob Marenga a half Nama and Herero who was also killed in 1907 and was replace by Simon Cooper who although emphasised the Nama nationalism and had continued with the rebellion until 1909, he finally accepted a German bribe and surrendered.

The Germans introduced more forceful and exploitative policies especially the labour law.

The Herero country was declared a German property, the remnants of Herero were forbidden to keep cattle and so were the Nama.

The Nama-Herero people lost a lot of land and were turned into squatters and the Nama-Herero accepted the German colonialism.

A critical analysis of the Nama-Herero rebellion suggests that it was disastrous to the Nama people and it was equally not the best for the Germans.  For it has been regarded as the most bloody revolt in the colonial history of Africa against the Germans as one socialist leader August Bebel rightly concluded:

“This is the worst crisis we Germans have faced since 1870”.