Orlam

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Orlam , also Oorlam , actually ǃGû-ǃgôun or Nauba-xu gye ǀki-khoen , is a collective term for the companies that emerged in the Cape Colony in the 17th and 18th centuries from the connections between Dutch Boers and the Nama women who work for them .

Origin of the name

According to one theory, the name Orlam developed from Afrikaans ( o'erlands or oor landers ) and means something like original inhabitants . According to the Gondwana Collection Namibia are dispossessed been so named because they were increasingly marketed in the 18th century from their traditional settlements and enslaved.

history

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The peculiarity of the Orlam is that, due to their family ties to the European immigrants, they were quite familiar with their way of life and language, were mostly able to read and write and, among other things. a. had learned how to handle firearms. This gave them a pronounced feeling of superiority over other Nama groups and led to a separation of Nama and Orlam, which was encouraged by the Europeans. The Orlam formed regional family clans, who mostly worked for their European relatives as domestic servants, farm workers or guards. In contrast to their Nama relatives, they had a relatively secure economic livelihood, were able to raise their own herds and thus achieved a modest level of prosperity.

This exerted a pull on other Nama members, who joined the Orlam families and gradually formed independent societies with them. The groups were given - based on the Dutch model - selected chapels , the Dutch name of which was elevated to a "tribal name" in European literature; about the "Witbooi" after Kido Witbooi . In the 18th century, five independent Orlam companies came into being:

The size of the tribe meant that the Orlam could no longer stay with "their" respective farms, but instead demanded their own tribal areas in the Cape and - after assuming certain functions to secure the Cape region (see below) - were also granted. These tribal areas were mainly in the northern Cape Province - e.g. B. Pella, Tulbagh, Clan William '- and were intended by the Kaphollands as a buffer region to the restless Korana (a Nama people) and San , north of the Orange River , which disrupt colonization . The Orlam, especially the Africans , fulfilled their intended task and undertook numerous raids against the northern Nama and the San . The Cape Government thanked for this "achievement" by declaring the African tribe to be "an official part of the Cape Dutch police force" and - after supplying rifles and ammunition - empowering them to "independently carry out police duties against the robber San". This led to the complete displacement of the San from southern Southwest Africa. As the arbitrariness of the Orlam increased more and more, their tribal area became more and more a reservoir for adventurers and criminals from the Cape Province, which was reflected in increasing violence and attacks on traders, farmers, explorers and other tribal settlements.

But only the murder of the Dutch field cornet Petrus Pienaar and his family by his serfs , including Klaas Afrikaner , triggered energetic police measures by the Cape government, before which in 1796 first the Africans and after them other Orlam groups fled across the Orange River to southwest Africa and formed new settlements there . The Africans under Jager Afrikaner in ǁKhauxaǃnas (Karas Mountains), the Bethanier under Jan Boois in Bethanien , the Khauas under Amraal Lambert in Gobabis , the Berseba under Paul Goliath in Berseba and the Witbooi under Kido Witbooi in Gibeon .

The Africans rose to become the dominant power in South West Africa during the 19th century. The Witbooi also played a major role in the history of Southwest Africa - especially in connection with the Herero and Nama uprising from 1904 to 1908, in which they appeared both as allies and as opponents of the German protection force.

The other Orlam tribes took part in the various disputes of the 19th century, mostly as allies of one or the other tribe, and in this respect have no longer developed any meaning of their own up to the present day.

See also

annotation

  1. ↑ 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 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ George Steinmetz: The Devil's Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa . University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 110
  2. ↑ World Heritage: the writings of Nama-Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi. Gondwana Collection Namibia, June 23, 2017.
  3. ↑ Illustration based on Dedering: p. 53
  4. ^ Heinrich Vedder: The old South West Africa. South West Africa's history until Maharero's death in 1890 . SWA Scientific Society, 5th edition, Windhoek 1981, p. 187
  5. ↑ Dedering: p. 54