ABSTRACT
HUMAN nature seems to be so constituted that it can never learn any lesson from the past, but prefers to follow the chances of an irregular sort of existence, which it provides with a fine new name, when its object is to set ancient hates and quarrels, new schemes and plans, the lust for power and the will to conquer on the throne. At the beginning of the century, the Herero herdsmen had, with a total disregard of what was right, grazed and trodden down the pastures of Namaland, as if there were no such thing as a Nama nation, which had the right to put its own cattle to graze in the veld of its own country and to water them at the drinking places, to which their fathers and their grandfathers had always driven their herds. Jonker Afrikander had come to the Namas’ assistance, when they were sorely in need, and had driven the Hereros back to the Swakop in several fierce battles. Jonker was not satisfied with that so he settled in Windhoek, where the Namas had hunted in times gone by and where, too, the Herero cattle had grazed since ancient days. From Windhoek, and afterwards from Okahandja, he had sent his robber bands farther and farther north, carried off innumerable cattle, and so impoverished and oppressed the Hereros that they ceased to be a nation at all. Then followed the recovery of the Hereros in 1863, when Jonker’s son, Christian, lost his life and his brother Jan Jonker became chief of the Afrikander tribe. The Hereros and the Nama matched their strength against each other in a struggle which lasted seven years, until general war-weariness brought about the peace of Okahandja in 1870, as a result of which Windhoek was given to the Afrikanders as a fief. No boundary lines were fixed by the peace treaty of Okahandja, for the peace negotiations would certainly have broken down had boundary questions been brought under discussion, and so the parties separated without having settled a most important question. The Namas thought that, because Windhoek had been granted to Jan Jonker, the Swakop was the northern boundary of Namaland. Maharero thought that, as he had only given the Afrikanders Windhoek 450as a fief, and as he had provided the Swartboois with a new place to live, Ameib, in exchange for Rehoboth, the southern boundary of Hereroland consisted in a line drawn from west to east, passing through Rehoboth. As this line was not clearly marked by the course of a river or a range of mountains, he tried to persuade Palgrave, the Cape Government’s Commissioner, to have it ploughed, because, to a man who could not read and write, the thin line appearing on the Commissioner’s map seemed to be far too indefinite. Now the same old game began once again, if almost imperceptibly. Maharero sent large herds of cattle to Windhoek and set up his cattle posts to the south of it. When complaints were lodged, he made the existing drought his excuse, and said that he was forced to take possession of the pasture lands to the south. In actual fact, his cattle posts operated as guards for the boundary line, and this the Namas knew very well. The ancient disregard for the rights of others made itself felt along the whole border. Without even asking, the Hereros watered their cattle at wells which the Namas had sunk, and any one who tried to resist them was ruthlessly beaten to death with their knobkerries. In the end, Jan Jonker calculated that 118 of his people had been killed by Maharero’s herdsmen. This was, of course, not always without fault on their side, for it was in the blood of the Namas, and the Bergdamas who served them, to drive off cattle by stealth whenever they could.
