From 1904 onwards, the war of the Nama against the
colonial system was waged by the German colonial army with the same brutality
and ended – as before with the Ovaherero – with the systematic annihilation of
the Nama. Unlike the Ovaherero, however, the Nama avoided open battle against
the German occupation forces and began a guerrilla war. With Hendrik Witbooi
Snr, the Nama not only had a military commander, but also a charismatic
religious leader. The tactics of guerrilla warfare also made it necessary for
women and children to remain separate from the fighters in order not to be taken
hostage or become involved in the fighting. These conditions meant that
Evangelists of the Nama played a different role during this period than the RMS
co-workers under the Ovaherero. Hendrik Witbooi was one of these Nama
Evangelists who, as the son of the famous Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi,
experienced the events of 1904 to 1907 at close range – and reported on them.
Three men had a decisive influence on the thinking and action of the young
Hendrik Witbooi: his father, a missionary and a prophet. Significantly, all
three were deeply religious personalities: his father, Hendrik Witbooi Snr, the
missionary Johannes Olpp and the prophet Shepherd Stuurman (aka Hendrik Bekeer).
Thus, also his thinking was determined by deep religiousness, which can be
recognised in all his correspondence, for example from a letter he wrote from
captivity and exile in 1912:
For those who do not want to suffer and fight will not win. And whoever does not
win will not receive the crown of eternal life.
Early on, the father gave two of his eldest sons to the household of RMS
missionary Johannes Olpp and thus consciously exposed them to the influences of
a Christian house. There, the young Hendrik Witbooi and his brother Isaak
Witbooi, together with Johannes Frederik, were trained as mission “helpers”.
Here in the household of missionary Johannes Olpp he learned the basics of
Christian thinking and terminology, which soon became part of his own reasoning
and preaching. The Augustineum was only intended for Ovaherero students at that
time, and Nama missionaries had to find other means to train their co-workers.
At the 1874 conference in Berseba, Olpp’s “pupils” were examined before an
examination committee and, having passed the test in a “very satisfactory
examination”, were inducted as qualified local helpers for the Nama people in
the Rietmond congregation. Like their Ovaherero counterparts, they also came
from leading Nama/Oorlam families. Unlike the Ovaherero, however, they were
already the second generation of Christians. Hendrik Witbooi was just 17 when he
started work at his father’s congregation in Rietmond.
In Olpp’s household, he acquired the skills that not only qualified him as an
Evangelist, but also made him his father’s right hand. Until his father’s death,
he remained in the shadow of this important man. His father used Hendrik Witbooi
as a letter writer and also when it came to conveying messages to the
missionaries. During the military campaign of 1888, his father placed all the
women and children into the care of Hendrik Witbooi and, in 1892, sent him to
the negotiations for a peace agreement with the Ovaherero. Hendrik Witbooi
believed in the omnipotence and the special mission of his father and he himself
recounted similar dreams and visions as those of his father. Olpp did not just
provide a basic education, but complemented the basics with
“biblical-catechetical-homiletic and church history teaching”. Hendrik Witbooi
was inducted as a catechist in Rietmond in 1877 and received an annual salary of
£20.
On 16 July 1885, Hendrik Witbooi left Gibeon station together with his father
and about 500 members of the Nama group of the /Khobesin. His father’s vision of
finding new land on God’s command north of the settlement of the Ovaherero,
drove them, and led to conflict with the RMS. According to the understanding of
the /Khobesin, an ordained clergyman had to accompany them on their wandering.
This is why, during their preparations, Chief Hendrik Witbooi had already asked
missionary Heinrich Gottlieb Rust (successor of Olpp in Gibeon) in January 1885
to move with them, with the words: “The time has come, that we move from here to
the north, with you”. Unable to have his way, he asked the RMS missionary to
grant son Hendrik Witbooi and Samuel Isaak the right to baptise. Rust rejected
the request, and instead, referred the /Khobesin to the missionaries on the
mission stations which they would pass, for ministrations. For the ministerial
registration, Rust handed them a “Church Register of the Itinerant Congregation
of Gibeon” in which the missionaries could record the ministrations.
On this wandering of the /Khobesin, the young Hendrik Witbooi took on the role
of the clergyman and was no longer under the direct control of an RMS
missionary. There were plenty of opportunities to act in this role: in teaching,
during Sunday church services and on special occasions such as the induction of
his father as “king” of the Nama in a solemn ceremony. A hint in one of the RMS
reports suggests that Hendrik Witbooi took on this role as preacher and as a man
for the ceremonial and liturgical accompaniment at the appearances of his
important father, also at Hornkranz, the retreat of the /Khobesin from 1888 to
1895.
After the return of the /Khobesin to Gibeon, Hendrik Witbooi again entered the
service of the RMS. In Gibeon he was appointed by Rust’s successor as a teacher,
and the conflict of the past years between the missionary and the /Khobesin no
longer seemed to play a role. A trusting work relationship again developed with
the succeeding missionaries Schröder, Simon and Christian Spellmeyer. At the
conference of the Nama missionaries held at Berseba in 1900, Hendrik Witbooi
delivered the important paper “On the History of the /Khowesi”, which laid the
basis for the historical research on the /Khobesin. On another occasion, he
represented the station missionary as his deputy. For Hendrik Witbooi, the
discrepancy between years of independent work and the return to the structures
of the RMS seemed not to have caused any noticeable conflicts.
Hendrik Witbooi’s encounter with Shepherd Stuurman also occurred during this
period. With his experience as an independent preacher of the /Khobesin, Hendrik
Witbooi would certainly have been able to incorporate the religious forms and
political contents of Prophet Shepherd Stuurman’s sermons into his own world
view.
Even more than his father, Hendrik Witbooi [...] succumbed to the [...] speeches
and prophecies of Stuurman Sheppard. It is conceivable that Hendrik Witbooi
[...], in the turmoil of the uprising, was more to be found alongside Stuurmann
Sheppard than at his father’s side. At the beginning of February 1905, so the
story goes, when hope of a victory faded and disappointment over Stuurmann
Sheppard spread, Witbooi jun. acted as a translator for Shepherd Stuurmann at a
large gathering of Nama fighters in the Kalahari as Stuurman was not able to
speak the Nama language.
With Stuurman, Hendrik Witbooi combined the desire for an independent territory,
an aspiration that was expressed in the demand “Africa for the Africans”. For
Hendrik Witbooi, therefore, there was no doubt that he would join the spiritual
awakening under Stuurman in 1904 and take part in the fight against the colonial
power. Nevertheless, he remained in missionary Spellmeyer’s house until the last
possible moment, protecting him, thereby risking his own life in the decisive
moment. Hendrik Witbooi, although he was not privy to the planned details of the
uprising, warned Christian Spellmeyer about the attack on Gibeon the next day
and thereby saved his life. Contrary to the first attacks of the Ovaherero on
settler villages and farms a few months earlier, the Nama warriors had no
specific order to save the lives of RMS missionaries.
Hendrik Witbooi joined the resistance movement and again went to war with his
father. Once more, he had the task to accompany the women and children during
the fighting and to ensure their safety. He never fought himself, he said after
the war. Because Hendrik Witbooi was not one of the active fighters, he was not
at his father’s side on 19 January 1905, when he was fatally wounded near
Vaalgras. It was said that for a long time Hendrik Witbooi did not believe in
the death of his father.
With the death of his father, Hendrik Witbooi lost his most important
confidential counsellor and the /Khobesin lost their irreplaceable leader.
Samuel Isaak, the military commander of the /Khobesin, surrendered on the 20
November 1905 in Berseba. An RMS source claimed that Hendrik Witbooi (as the
oldest son of his father) waivered his right as successor of the chief in favour
of his position as an Evangelist. Although Hendrik Witbooi was not willing or
intended to succeed his father, Chief Hendrik Witbooi, he still bore the
responsibility handed over to him by his father for about 350 women and
children. They managed to escape across the border to South Africa into the
Kalahari near Rietfontein and Haruchas. In the Kalahari they collected tsamas to
prevent them from dying of thirst, but the bitter wild melon was hardly enough
to survive on. From their hiding place they attended the church services of
missionary Heinrich Pabst in Rietfontein. When tsamas could no longer be found
at the end of the dry season, Hendrik Witbooi moved to Rietfontein in September
1906 with twenty people, including his paralysed mother and his two sons.
In the meantime, he was completely impoverished and started working for the RMS
school in Rietfontein in November 1906 for £4 a month. In order to survive, he
and his sons tended to a small garden. Because they were on South African soil,
the German colonial army was reluctant to capture them. During this time, the
RMS missionary from Rietfontein reported to Barmen on Hendrik Witbooi: “He was
invited by a letter from the government to freely return [to German South West
Africa]. He too, like the whole tribe of the Witbooi, would be given clemency if
he obeys the government from now on; they would receive a certain number of milk
goats for their livelihood.” But Hendrik Witbooi did not trust the assurances
and remained in Rietfontein.
After the colonial military command lifted the state of war on 31 March 1907,
Hendrik Witbooi crossed the border into German South West Africa in May 1907 and
reported to the Hasuur military station. He was accompanied by nine women and
five children, but his mother and sons remained in Rietfontein. In Hasuur, he
was initially treated with courtesy. He was not constrained and supplied with
food. Immediately after his arrival, Hendrik Witbooi began giving lessons and
Sunday church services. His request to be allowed to move back to Gibeon was
rejected. The motives behind this lenient approach by the colonial authorities
became clear, when a meeting was set up with Governor von Lindequist in
Keetmanshoop. Hendrik Witbooi was sent back to Rietfontein to renegotiate with
the remaining /Khobesin – and especially the /Khobesin under Simon Cooper – and
to persuade them to surrender in Hasuur. Probably this task was related to the
military action planned a little later at Hasuur. After months of preparation,
an attack was launched from there in 1907/1908 on Simon Cooper’s camps in the
Kalahari. Was Hendrik Witbooi used to reconnoiter the exact position of Simon
Cooper’s camps?
What can be certainly said, is that Hendrik Witbooi went back over the border
into the Kalahari, but that his traces were lost for the year 1908. It is,
however unknown whether he was captured and held by Simon Cooper or fought with
him in the battle at Seatsub, during which the camp of Simon Cooper was attacked
and ultimately destroyed by the colonial German army under Captain von Erckert
on the 16 March 1908. Both references are so inaccurate that they do not give a
clear picture of Hendrik Witbooi’s encounter and abidance with Simon Cooper.
After the battle of Seatsub, Simon Cooper and his people reported to the English
authorities and applied for asylum, which was granted. He signed a contract that
he would cease all hostilities with the Germans and he remained in this part of
South Africa until his death.
At the beginning of 1909, Hendrik Witbooi again entered the German colonial
territory from South Africa – this time with his two sons. He rode on an ox
wagon, which is said to have been provided by the colonial authority. This time,
for unknown reasons, he trusted Lindequist’s promise of providing him with
freedom and temporary residency in Keetmanshoop – a trust in which he was soon
bitterly disappointed.
It seemed to belong to Hendrik Witbooi’s self-image to immediately start
teaching, giving baptism lessons and holding church services as soon as they had
settled down at the first place of residence: this time at Spitzkoppe west of
Keetmanshoop. Other than the /Khobesin group who accompanied him, his
congregation consisted of //Ogain (Groot Doden), who, coming from Warmbad, were
to be driven to the northern part of the country as part of the abduction and
forced displacement of the German military. During this period, an application
by the RMS was submitted to the military command to release Hendrik Witbooi as a
teacher for Karibib, according to the agreement of 8 March 1905 between Praeses
Eich and General Lothar von Trotha. Now the colonial administration no longer
felt bound by its promises: Hendrik Witbooi and his group of women and children
were declared “particularly dangerous enemies” and were “concentrated and
closely guarded in a camp in Grootfontein [Grootfontein South]”. The application
of the RMS remained unanswered.
The first time that the RMS support groups in Germany heard about the
deportation of the Nama prisoners around Hendrik Witbooi was in the RMS
newsletter of December 1910. Without further inquiry they echoed the official
version of the event: “We were informed, that the deportation was made necessary
because of the desire for another uprising. Each one of the banished has been
convicted by a court”. The official transport list of the group, however,
revealed that only three of the 93 listed prisoners were sentenced, either to
three months’ imprisonment (because of “disobedience and to lie to the master”)
or ten years’ imprisonment (because of “cattle stealing”). It took some time
before the RMS missionaries realised how they had been deceived by the
misinformation of the colonial administration. This resulted in a very cautious
change in the tone of their correspondence with the colonial representatives.
However, the reports on the deportation in the monthly newsletters kept
downplaying the whole issue, in spite of the fact that some of the RMS
missionaries in Namibia witnessed the heartrending injustices mentioned in it.
In the meantime, the colonial authorities spread the rumour in Namibia that
Hendrik Witbooi had chosen to voluntarily go to Cameroon, since he himself “was
completely harmless”.
From there they were transported by train to Swakopmund, some in chains. It was
25 April 1910, when the gates closed behind the 97 prisoners in the Swakopmund
prison. The colonial authority knew how to hide the cloak-and-dagger operation
from the eyes of the RMS and thus especially from critical public opinion in
Germany. When Eich and Vedder, the two RMS missionaries in Swakopmund, heard
about the prisoners from their congregation, the authorities refused them access
to the prisoners.
Only a journalist from the ranks of the settlers received permission to attend
the loading of the prisoners on a ship to Cameroon on 6 June 1910. A few days
later, his cynical eyewitness account appeared in the “Windhoeker Nachrichten”
under the headline “An Exodus”. There are no other documents on this stage of
Hendrik Witbooi’s deportation. Apparently, the report was written to convince
the settlers of the energy and resolve of the Reich Colonial Office to “get rid
of a constant danger to peace in the colony”. However, given the already pitiful
state of health of the prisoners, the readers of the newspaper could have had no
doubt about the dubious nature of the action. Whether the reporter from Windhoek
actually recognised Hendrik Witbooi among the 93 prisoners remains an open
question, however he does mention him:
Then the train stopped at the loading cranes. While the shackled captives had
their chains removed for the duration of the embarkation in order not to hinder
them from the free use of the limbs, the homeless looked onto the wide water
that they did not yet know. Where would the journey with the big grey steamer go
out there? To Lüderitz to the diamond fields, or where else? No one had yet
given them the destination of the trip; it was still soon enough if they found
out about it on the steamer.
Calmly we once more overlooked this Areopagus of ugliness. What a totality of
dirty shagginess, yellow stupor and ape-like facial features. Only the black
Mongolian eyes which sometimes flashed, reminded of the restless spirit of the
former steppe riders.
A little way off is an elderly Hottentot with greying hair. Under the torn hat,
he looks back at the land which gave birth to him and which he shall leave; he,
the only one, looks back. It is Hendrik Witboi [sic], son of the old Captain
Hendrik Witboi [sic]. What does he think of in this moment of parting, of saying
goodbye forever to the land of former freedom, which also saw the shame of his
people? Now he is their captain, the adviser, but no longer the leader of the
last lamentable remnants of his tribe. His brother, Klein-Witboi, is also among
the waiting flock, which he now sees, in groups of four to six, when children
are present, also several more, being raised in large coal baskets by the crane
and then sliding down into the wide belly of a coal bunker, dancing up and down
on the rolling sea.
The children laugh as they see in the process only an unprecedented change in
their monotonous existence. The “ladies”, especially the older ones, are anxious
not to reveal too much of their skinny gracelessness when climbing over the high
basket walls. The men approach the inevitable with stoic calm; some young boy
shows his white teeth, grinning, as he glides through the air. And then it is
Hendrik Witbooi’s turn. The tail-enders are three old ladies, two of them with
crutches, like black-brown morels. They have been left with their own, according
to their wishes, even though they are an inconvenient burden during transport.
Now the tugboat lies in front of the bunker with the mottled load which it is
rarely called to lead, and soon the flock of exiles is far out on the road, safe
on the big grey steamer, which abducts them from the old homeland forever.
And the wind, which seeks its old friends between the thorn bushes and stones of
the south-west African high steppes, can only find them under the palms and
cocoa trees of distant Cameroon.
Hendrik Witbooi was almost 60 years old when he arrived in Duala (Cameroon) in
July 1910. But it was not his age that made him the leader of the group of 97
/Khobesin; it was the history that connected him with the people. He was
accompanied by his wife, Elisabeth Witbooi, as well as six of his own children.
After his aged mother, “the old Els”, had died in the Grootfontein South Prison
Camp in 1909, his 20-year-old daughter Bettina and his three-year-old son died
in Duala in quick succession. In Duala, two newborns also died immediately after
birth.
Immediately after arriving in Duala, the deadly impact of the prison camps, the
transport by sea with accommodation on deck and the unhealthy climate in
Cameroon had on the disengaged prisoners, was already apparent. The transfer of
the prisoners to Dschang in the interior did not change much. Thus the message
of the Imperial Colonial Office of February 1911 to the Governorate sounded like
sheer mockery.
According to a recent report by the Imperial Governorate of Cameroon, the
success of transferring the Hottentots to Dschang could be described as quite
favourable. After they had recovered from the exertion of the trip, they soon
got used to the Cameroonian way of life. They are now well-nourished and
physically in good condition, with the exception of some sick persons, so there
is no concern about keeping them in Dschang permanently. Von Lindequist.
Upon Hendrik Witbooi’s initiative, the group of prisoners already got in touch
with a missionary of the Basel Mission Society (BMS) in Duala via the Cameroon
Governorate. Being part of the mission structure himself, the Evangelist knew
exactly how to use the worldwide connections of the Protestant mission societies
to draw attention to their plight. Due to the inter-connectedness of the mission
societies, Hendrik Witbooi and his group were again taken note of by the RMS.
After moving inland from Duala to Dschang, Hendrik Witbooi had kept contact with
the Basel Mission Society (BMS) missionary Adolf Vielhauer, who visited them
from his mission station, which was several days’ travel away. Hendrik Witbooi
was concerned about two aspects: on the one hand, as an Evangelist, he wanted
the Protestant missionary to baptise the “baptism candidates” which he had
instructed regularly since their incarceration in the Grootfontein-South Prison
Camp. On the other hand, he would have calculated that, as prisoners in a
completely isolated situation, through this connection with an international
mission society, they would have had a chance that their plight might be noticed
by the outside world. His letter, dated 22 December 1912, expressed a spirit
that contained both: a realistic surrender to a painful situation that they
themselves could not change, and the inner resistance against and unwillingness
to accept the pain created by others:
On Sunday mornings and afternoons, I hold church services, and in the evening by
[candle] light singing lessons, on weekdays every evening, lessons and narrating
Bible stories. So far, my teachers! Be of good cheer about the news that I am
still alive. I will say with Joshua: as for me and my house, we want to serve
the Lord, for the service of the Lord is for me the most glorious service,
however important money and honour may be. We don’t know how long we still have
to stay here in this foreign place.
Through his contacts with the BMS, Hendrik Witbooi requested the RMS to send him
New Testaments in Nama, Nama hymn books and a violin for his work among his
fellow prisoners. He prepared “baptism candidates” for baptism, and others, like
his two sons Petrus and Hendrik, for confirmation. Like all prisoners, he was
obliged to do forced labour, such as “leather work”, a description for
manufacturing and repairing army boots. Although he was forbidden to have
written outside contact, letters, which he himself had dictated, reached the
outside world with the help of BMS missionaries.
At the beginning of 1912, another reference to the “exiles” appeared in the
mission sources. Again, it was primarily the human misery that alarmed a visitor
– this time a Miss Anna Wuhrmann from Basel – and about which she wrote
following her return to Basel. But it was also the strength of Hendrik Witbooi
who, in the eyes of Wuhrmann, did not allow hopelessness to have inner power
over the prisoners. She wrote:
In a secluded courtyard between high walls, we found a group of terminally ill
men, women and children. A year ago there were 68, now there are 43, and many of
them are already in the valley of the shadow of death. The climate and the way
of life are so bad for them that they all suffer from consumption; they look
like wandering corpses, hollow-cheeked, pale and with matt-looking eyes. A
constant hoarse cough sounds through the yard and from the small huts that close
off the farmstead on one side. These Hottenot are Christians, and their teacher,
who is exiled with them, a dear old man, is a son of the rebellious Witbooi. He
understands German very well and was able to translate the comforting words Mr.
B. had for the poor exiles into the Hottentot language. After the short address,
the entire small dying Christian community sang the hymn: “When peace like a
river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot Thou
hast taught me to say: It is well, it is well with my soul.” It was moving to
hear this song from the mouths of these poor people. We went from them knowing
that they were not hopeless. The commander told us that the officers themselves
had sent a petition to Germany for permission that this dying little nation may
return home. These people are loved very much in Dschang, and just think of it
that a black soldier has been won over to Christianity by their quiet ways.
Despite these isolated reports, the contact between Hendrik Witbooi and the BM
missionaries remained sporadic. They therefore proposed to the Council of
Delegates of the RMS that Hendrik Witbooi be ordained so that he himself could
carry out the ministrations among the prisoners. Inspector Johannes Spiecker
forwarded the proposal to Namibia, but the praeses in Karibib opposed it. The
RMS thus once again let the opportunity pass to award the ecclesiastical duties
of a missionary to one of its most distinguished co-workers. Hendrik Witbooi
would not have heard of this, nor of the subsequent correspondence between the
RMS and the Imperial Colonial Office. When in 1913 only 38 of the original 97
prisoners were still alive, public pressure on the colonial authority seemed to
have improved the supply situation of the Nama prisoners. Despite the RMS’s
critical attitude towards the authorities which becomes obvious from the letters
they wrote to them, the RMS tried to convey a positive assessment in its public
reports in “Berichte der Rheinischen Missionsgesellschaft” in which it published
an extract from a letter written by a BMS missionary:
Hendrik Witbooi [...] is always cheerful despite his white hair, and he keeps
his small flock in loving discipline. He still has two adults taking baptism
lessons, the others are all baptised. He often complains that his eyesight is so
weak, mainly because of the smoke. He would like glasses, but since these can
only be prescribed by a doctor, I had to comfort him with waiting.
A short time later, at the end of 1913, the small group was transported back
from Cameroon to Namibia. Descendants of these prisoners would later find their
own words to describe the power for survival of Hendrik Witbooi. In fact, it
remains extraordinary that he is one of the survivors who was returned to
Namibia at the end of 1913. However, on arrival in Namibia they were still not
allowed to go back to their home in Gibeon, but were taken to the next prison
camp, in Okanjanda. Hundreds of kilometres from Gibeon, they were held at this
military post, which had been established in 1909. Okanjanda had been
expropriated as a “settlement of Christian Herero” like all Ovaherero territory
and, upon the arrival of the /Khobesin prisoners, still had the old settlement
structure. In forced labour, prisoners had to manufacture and repair army boots.
Again Hendrik Witbooi contacted the RMS, this time he wrote to Kuhlmann who was
at the nearest mission station in Omaruru. Again, his concern was a seemingly
superficial one: the baptisms in Dschang.
Okanjanda 14 December 1913
Dear Mr. and Missionary Kuhlmann!
I ask you cordially. Be so good, and send this letter for me to Germany, to a
missionary, his name is Adolf Vielhauer. He baptised the people I had been
teaching in Dschang in Cameroon, and went to Germany. He did not have time to
give the baptism letter to the people, and to be certain, all whom he baptised
must have this baptism letter, so that the missionaries, with whom I am now,
also see by which missionary the people are baptised.
With a warm greeting. Hendrik Witbooi. Schoolmaster.
Soon the prison camp would be looked after by the RMS missionary Vedder, who was
stationed in nearby Gaub. The prisoners were only allowed back to Gibeon after
the unconditional surrender of the German colonial army due to World War I in
distant Europe. On 29 August 1915, coming from the north, they finally reached
Gibeon. The /Khobesin men confidently wore their national emblem, the white tie
around the hat, demonstrating their claim to the freedom of the past years
before the war. Eleven years had passed since the day Hendrik Witbooi had left
Gibeon. How little the perception of the settlers had changed was shown by the
fact that on the return of the /Khobesin, a rumour spread amongst the settlers
that they were planning a new uprising. The “Remains of the Witbooi” under the
leadership of Hendrik Witbooi were also perceived by the missionaries as being
“quite confident”. After so many years of humiliation, there was no visible sign
of brokenness or subservience as the missionaries might have expected. On the
contrary, the self-esteem of Hendrik Witbooi and the returnees prompted the
missionaries to remark in their reports: “Our sincere joy that they were now
allowed to return to their homeland after years of exile is somewhat clouded by
this.”
For the leaders of the /Khobesin, the return to Gibeon and the meeting of the
scattered groups was accompanied with much hope. “The coming of the South
African army was construed as the advent of ‘English’ rule, which was styled as
being tantamount to liberation from the colonial yoke and the consummation of
a long-term policy”, as Kössler once put it. Hendrik Witbooi’s brother Kaptein
Isaak Witbooi, who had been incarcerated in the Okawajo prison camp near Karibib
until 1915, was appointed “headman of the natives on the Gideon Native Reserve”
by the South Africans. After long disputes with the new colonial authorities,
the /Khobesin saw an important step in regaining control of Gibeon with the
establishment of the Krantzplatz Reserve in 1924.
Even for the praeses of the RMS, in retrospect, the different fates of the
Hendrik Witbooi and Samule Isaak seemed extremely ironic. Samuel Isaak, the
former military commander of the /Khobesin forces, was, in the eyes of the
colonial army, directly involved in the shooting of the Head of the District
Office Captain Henning von Burgsdorff, with which the /Khobesin had started the
war. After his surrender he was not immediately hanged, as happened to other
leaders, but spent most of the time in the Okawajo prison camp until 1915
“almost without supervision”. In Okawajo he was employed by the RMS as an
Evangelist, conducted devotions and services and became the contact person
between missionary August Elger and the 166 Christians among the 300 Nama
prisoners. Hendrik Witbooi, however, was apparently to be sentenced to death by
exile. The missionaries did not seem to understand their observation: the
disarmed military leader Samuel Isaac was an insignificant threat to the
colonial rulers compared to the intellectual/spiritual leader Hendrik Witbooi.
Immediately after their return to Gibeon, the importance of Hendrik Witbooi
again became evident. The district secretary observed that the self-confidence
and feeling of unity of the Nama had improved through the presence of the three
Witbooi brothers. Like Kaptein Isaak Witbooi, Hendrik Witbooi received a
financial contribution of 10/- (ten shillings) per month from the South African
administration. With this payment, the South African military administration
tried to distance itself from the oppressive practices of the German colonial
power. The stature and authority of Kaptein Isaak Witbooi grew with the
traditional role as Kaptein amongst the /Khobesin, even if his attempt to create
new communal institutions, as his father had done in accordance with old
community structures, did not succeed.
Although Hendrik Witbooi received the recognition of the administration through
the financial contribution and although he was part of the traditional court
which his brother chaired, he nevertheless stepped into the background again. As
at the time of his father, Hendrik Witbooi now operated in the shadow of his
important brother. As an Evangelist, he again committed himself fully to the
work in the RMS mission congregation, which now saw itself as an integral part
of the /Khobesin community. As late as 1928, Hendrik Witbooi, then 78, was
mentioned as an active Evangelist at the Rietmond branch station.
Hendrik Witbooi passed away on 7 January 1933 and was buried in Gibeon in the
old cemetery of the /Khobesin. The overturned and smashed tombstone on his
grave, not far from the monumental marble tombs of his son and his grandson,
shows that even 80 years after his death, he has not yet been given the
recognition he deserves.
Evangelists of Namibia
