Ovamboland

Ovamboland Flag

File:Missionsstation im Ovamboland 1900.jpg

a German Mission in Ovamboland (ca 1900)

Ovamboland was the name given by English-speaking visitors to the land occupied by the Ovambo people in what is now northern Namibia and southern Angola. Before the first world war, the area was basically ruled by local Finnish missioners.

During the First World War South African troops conquered the German colony of South West Africa in 1915, and took control of Ovamboland in 1917, though it still lay outside the "police zone".

Following the Odendaal Commission in the 1950s the South African government decided to apply the apartheid policy in South West Africa, which South Africa continued to rule in terms of a League of Nations mandate, and continued to do so after the mandate was revoked in 1968.

Ovamboland then became a bantustan called Owambo, intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing "homeland" for the Ovambo people. It was set up in 1968 and self-government was granted in 1973.

Owambo was the setting for a protracted counter-insurgency war that formed part of the South African Border War.

Owambo, like other homelands in South West Africa, was abolished in May 1989 at the start of the transition to independence.

For English-speaking people, the iconic images of the region are the makalani palm, oshana and cuca shop.

See also

• Apartheid
• Leaders of Ovamboland

External links

• Experiences of two volunteers teaching in Ovamboland 2002–2004