Report on the natives of South-west Africa and their treatment by Germany / prepared in the Administrator's Office, Windhuk, South-West Africa, January 1918.

  • South-West Africa. Administrator's Office.
Date:
1918
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report on the natives of South-west Africa and their treatment by Germany / prepared in the Administrator's Office, Windhuk, South-West Africa, January 1918. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/226 (page 7)
    y/ not a shadow of substance for these reports, and I declined to move, as I was certain that these stories were deliberately spread for the purpose of coercing me into allowing the farming population to have firearms with which again to menace their native servants. In Part II., Chapter III., will be found a statement of the number (35 in all), and description of serious cases (7.e., cases necessitating trial before the chief tribunal of the Protectorate, the Special Criminal Court) of murders of, and assaults on, natives by Europeans since our Occupation. On the other hand, there have been | but two cases of a similar kind where natives were involved with Europeans, and in one of those cases there was a suggestion that the Europeans had been tampering with the natives’ womenfolk. In the lower courts no fewer than 310 cases of ill-treatment of native servants b y their masters have been heard and penalties imposed since the establishment of those courts on 20th September 1915. A letter full of interest on this question of native treatment in the event of the return of Germany to power in South-West Africa came into my hands some time ago. It was addressed to the late Governor of this country, who is at present on parole, by one of the principal ex-officials (also on parole) of the iate Administration, and it contained a number of speculations as to the future of the Protectorate and the measures to be adopted “ on resumption of control by the German Government.” A considerable portion of it was devoted to the discussion of future native policy. The writer urged the need for the organisation as soon as peace is declared of a strong force of police to cope with the natives, and ventured the opinion “ that it is an open question what impression will be made on the natives by the re-transfer of power to the German authorities.””> He strongly blamed the present German inhabitants for frightening the natives with constant threats of thrashings and hangings as soon as German rule 1s restored. It is common knowledge to the officials of the Administration that such threats are often made, as they have formed the subject of frequent complaints by natives and numerous convictions in our courts. He went on to advocate the limitation to the utmost of the movement of natives from farm to farm or district to district, and, in order to improve the native labour supply, that Ovamboland should be effectively occupied. To that country the Germans had never really penetrated. The climate is malarious, and between Outjo, Tsumeb, and Grootfontein lies a wide stretch of _ waterless country difficult to pass. He added that if Germany failed to do this her prestige amongst those tribes (which it should be noted are still intact) in the north and north-east would cease. He concluded by stating— It is a well-known fact that some of our countrymen have not always acted in manner free from objection. Unreliable men of this kind in an out-of-the-way colony of the German Empire are not merely insufferable but they are a danger. Such persons must be removed without any con- = sideration. If no criminal proceedings can be instituted against them | banishment should be the punishment. . . The Government should refuse them assistance, and it is precisely in the rendering of assistance in procuring native labour, to which a blunt refusal must be given and may be given, that a weapon is available to make them tired of the country. He had been learning the lesson of the past; but I fear that however heartily the German colonists would endorse his views on the subject of the control of the natives and the anticipated spoliation of Ovamboland, but few supporters would rally to his cry for the ejection of farmers who ill-treat their servants. Their sole idea is complete domination over every one who has a dusky skin. ‘In the suggestion that farmers who are guilty of constant ill-treatment of their native servants should be denied native labour he is, apparently unconsciously, merely repeating what His Excellency the German Governor had already, so long ago as 1912, threatened to do. This threat was contained in a secret letter, now in my possession, from the Governor to all the District Heads, and a translation is reproduced in Chapter XXII. The words of the Governor in that letter contain what will probably be considered as the most damning piece of evidence of all that has been collected as to the point to which the ill-treatment of natives had been carried. B 2