Joseph Frederiks II, Nama name: ǃKhorebeb-ǁNaixab (died 20 October 1893 in Bethanie) was a

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

or chieftain of the ǃAman ( Bethanie Orlam), a subtribe of the

Orlam The Oorlam or Orlam people (also known as Orlaam, Oorlammers, Oerlams, or Orlamse Hottentots) are a subtribe of the Nama people, largely assimilated after their migration from the Cape Colony (today, part of South Africa) to Namaqualand and Dam ...

. He became Captain when his uncle and stepfather David Christian Frederiks was killed in 1880 in the Battle of Otjikango. Frederiks was party to a land sale deal between the Bethanie Orlam and German merchant Adolf Lüderitz that would eventually establish

Imperial Germany The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

colony of

German South-West Africa German South West Africa () was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. German rule over this territory was punctuated by ...

. Lüderitz in May 1883 obtained the area of Angra Pequena (today the town of

Lüderitz Lüderitz is a town in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia. It lies on one of the least hospitable coasts in Africa. It is a port developed around Robert Harbour and Shark Island. Lüderitz had a population of 16,125 people in 2023. Th ...

) from Frederiks for 100 £ in gold and 200 rifles. Three months later on 25 August, Frederiks sold Lüderitz a stretch of land wide, between the

Orange River The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch language, Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibi ...

and Angra Pequena, for £500 and 60 rifles. File:Contract Frederiks-Vogelsang 1883 p1.jpg, Contract page 1 File:Contract Frederiks-Vogelsang 1883 p2.jpg, Contract page 2 File:Deutsche kolonien 1885 ausschnitt lüderitzland.jpg, Lüderitzland This area, for a short period called ''Lüderitzland'' and today part of the '' Sperrgebiet'', was far bigger than Frederiks had thought, as the contract specified its width as "20 geographical miles", a term that the tribal chief was not familiar with: 1 German

geographical mile The geographical mile is an international unit of length determined by 1 minute of arc ( degree) along the Earth's equator. For the international ellipsoid 1924 this equalled 1855.4 metres. '' The American Practical Navigator'' 2017 defines the ...

equals , whereas the common mile in the territory was the English mile, 1.6 kilometres. Both Lüderitz and the signing witness, Rhenish missionary Johannes Bam, knew that Chief Frederiks had no idea about geographical miles. He was only concerned about fertile land, and the shore of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

was of no value to his tribe. When Frederiks finally became aware of the size of the land he sold, he submitted a complaint to the German Imperial Government, but Consul-General

Gustav Nachtigal Gustav Nachtigal (; born 23 February 1834 – 20 April 1885) was a German military surgeon and explorer of Central and West Africa. He is further known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His miss ...

died on his return voyage, and the complaint was never delivered. In 1887 "even the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office doubted the validity of the treaty". In the wake of the land deal, Frederiks on 28 October 1884 also signed a protection treaty with the German Empire, the second of its kind in German South-West Africa, after the treaty with the Rehoboth Basters two weeks prior. He died on 20 October 1893 in his home village Bethanie, and Paul Frederiks succeeded him as Chief of the ǃAman.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frederiks, Josef, II Nama people People from Hardap Region 1893 deaths Year of birth missing