Bondelswart
The Bondelswart (also Bondelzwart ), actually ǃGami-ǂnun , are an ethnic group of the Orlam - Nama in Namibia . In some cases they are also referred to as Bondelswart-Nama or Bondelswart-Hottentot in the records of the colonial rulers .
revolt
The Bondelswart went down in history at the beginning of the 20th century when they carried out an uprising against the German colonial protection forces at the end of 1903 . They were supported by Jakobus Morenga , who was later able to use his tactical experience in the fight against the Germans.
The uprising was triggered by the behavior of the German protection force. The responsible district chief had summoned the captain of Bondelswart, Jan Abraham Christian, to bring him to account for a minor offense. When he refused, there was an exchange of fire in which the captain was fatally hit. On the German side, the district chief, Lieutenant Walther Jobst and two other gunmen died.
On November 7, 1903, Kaiser Wilhelm II personally ordered the suppression of the uprising as quickly as possible. In the battle at Hartebeestmund on December 12, a German patrol suffered a defeat and fled across the Orange River to the British, who interned the Germans temporarily. On December 27, 1903, a temporary armistice was agreed. After the outbreak of the Herero uprising on January 12, 1904, the Germans had to move their troops to the north of South West Africa as quickly as possible. On January 27, 1904, a peace treaty was signed in which the Bondelswart committed themselves to handing over their weapons to the Germans.
At the beginning of the Nama uprising , Morenga recruited his department mainly from dissatisfied Bondelswart. The tribesmen residing in Warmbad under their captain Johannes Christian ( ǃNanseb ǂKhami ǂNaoxamab ) were disarmed and interned by the German troops in one blow in October 1904 before they could join the revolt. After the Bondelswart were released again in May 1905 as a result of misunderstood instructions, they immediately joined the rebels. Since it was not possible to militarily defeat Bondelswart, who had been sent in the guerrilla war, the colonial administration decided in October 1906 to negotiate a solution. As a result, on November 21, a first division under Cornelius Stürmann resulted, on December 22, 1906, the mass of tribesmen under Johannes Christian. One of the conditions of the peace treaty was that the Bondelswart surrender their weapons and recognize German rule. In return, they were assured of impunity; they received guaranteed residences and several flocks of goats and sheep. Another group of Bondelswart under Abraham Morris, who had fled to the neighboring Cape Colony and interned there by the British, returned after the contract was signed and submitted to the Germans.
Immediately with the beginning of the First World War in South West Africa , the German colonial leadership carried out a deportation of Bondelswart to the north of the colony, which had been considered for some time. Therefore, the Bondelswart initially supported the South African Union troops when they advanced to the north of German South West Africa in 1915.
After German South West Africa was placed under British rule by the South African Union at the end of the First World War , the Bondelswart, under their leader Abraham Morris, rose again in an armed uprising in May 1922. The cause of this survey was the tax policy of the British administration. The insurgent camp was surrounded by police units and settler militias, then bombed from the air and forced to surrender.
See also
literature
- Franz Dewaldt (Ed.): Native uprisings in Southwest Africa: documents on the armed uprisings of the Bondelzwart tribe (1922) and the bloodless revolt of the Rehoboth bastards (1925) in Ex-German Southwest Africa administered by the Union of South Africa under mandate , Salisbury, NC: Documentary Publications, 1976
- Horst Drechsler : Uprisings in South West Africa , Dietz Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1984
Individual evidence
- ↑ in "who-is-who" on namibiana.de (accessed on March 12, 2013)
- ↑ Helmuth Stoecker (Ed.): Drang nach Afrika - The German colonial expansion policy and rule in Africa from the beginning to the loss of the colonies . Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1991, p. 242f. ISBN 3-05-000825-3 .
Remarks
- ↑ Note: This article contains characters from the alphabet of the Khoisan languages spoken in southern Africa . The display contains characters of the click letters ǀ , ǁ , ǂ and ǃ . For more information on the pronunciation of long or nasal vowels or certain clicks , see e.g. B. under Khoekhoegowab .