The Red Nation () is the main subtribe of the

Nama people Nama (in older sources also called Namaqua) are an African ethnic group of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. They traditionally speak the Khoekhoe language, Nama language of the Khoe languages, Khoe-Kwadi language family, although many Nama ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

and the oldest Nama group speaking

Khoekhoegowab Khoekhoe or Khoikhoi ( ; , ), also known by the ethnic terms Nama ( ; ''Namagowab''), Damara (''ǂNūkhoegowab''), or Nama/Damara and formerly as Hottentot, is the most widespread of the non- Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy ...

, the language often called Damara/Nama. The main settlement of the Red Nation is

Hoachanas Hoachanas (Khoekhoe language, Khoekhoe: ) is a List of villages and settlements in Namibia, settlement of 3,000 inhabitants in the Hardap Region of southern central Namibia, located northeast of Kalkrand. It is situated at the junction of the m ...

, a small settlement in southern central Namibia, today part of the

Hardap Region Hardap is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, its capital is Mariental. Hardap contains the municipality of Mariental, the towns Rehoboth and Aranos, and the self-governed villages Gibeon, Gochas, Kalkrand, Stampriet and Maltahöhe. I ...

History

Pre–colonial period

The word ''Khaiǁkhaun'' means "great defender" in Khoekhoe, from ǁkhau, "defend". There is no agreement as to where the name ''Red Nation'' originated from.

Heinrich Vedder Hermann Heinrich Vedder (born 3 July 1876 in , Westphalia, Germany; died 26 April 1972 in Okahandja, South-West Africa) was a German missionary, linguistics, linguist, ethnology, ethnologist and historian. Originally a silk weaver, he received miss ...

claims that the Khaiǁkhaun called themselves ǀAwa-khoi, "red people", whereas Klaus Dierks declares that the Europeans later nicknamed the tribe ''Red Nation''. In any case, the attribution is a reference to their slightly reddish face color. The first Kaptein of the Khaiǁkhaun was ǂHâb who unified most of the Nama clans at the end of the 17th century. After ǂHâb's death in 1710 the ǁKhauǀgoan (Swartbooi Nama) and the ǂKharoǃoan (Keetmanshoop Nama) were the first Nama groups to leave the union and to settle at Rehoboth and

Keetmanshoop Keetmanshoop is a town in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia. It is named after , a German Empire, German industrialist and benefactor of the city. Keetmanshoop had a population of 27,862 people in 2023. History Before the colonial era, ...

, respectively. Later other groups split from this union one by one and settled at different places in central and southern Namibia, but the Red Nation is still regarded as the main Nama faction. With Manasse ǃNoreseb ascent to chieftaincy in 1880, hostilities started between the Red Nation and other Nama clans. Hendrik Witbooi, leader of the

ǀKhowesin The ǀKhowesin (literally ''queen bees'', also: Witbooi Nama or Witbooi Orlam) are one of five clans of the Orlam people in Namibia. They originated from Pella in the Cape Colony in South Africa and migrated to South West Africa the 19th century, ...

(Witbooi Nama) was an archenemy of Manasse. His superiority in power forced the Red Nation into alliances with other Nama factions such as the ǁOgain (Groot Doden) and the ǀHaiǀkhauan (Berseba Orlam), but also the

Ovaherero The Herero () are a Bantu ethnic group inhabiting parts of Southern Africa. 178,987 Namibians identified as Ovaherero in the 2023 census. They speak Otjiherero, a Bantu language. Though the Herero primarily reside in Namibia, there are also sig ...

, and later the Imperial colonial administration 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 ...

. Witbooi attacked Hoachanas several times and broke the resistance of the Khaiǁkhaun. He installed a rival chief, ǃHoeb ǁOasemab (

Fritz Lazarus ǁOaseb Fritz is a common German male name. The name originated as a German diminutive of Friedrich or Frederick (''Der Alte Fritz'', and ''Stary Fryc'' were common nicknames for King Frederick II of Prussia and Frederick III, German Emperor), as well ...

) and confiscated the land of the Red Nation. The German protection treaty did not help, the Germans never had the intention to help single parties within the same tribe.

opined that Witbooi's plan was to defeat the Nama tribes one by one, lease the land back to them after he conquered it, and gain the position of a Nama Paramount Chief in the process.

German colonial period

When the Herero and Nama War broke out in which the Germans attacked the indigenous Herero and Nama in

, Manasse ǃNoreseb and Hendrik Witbooi ceased their hostilities and fought together against the ''

Schutztruppe (, Protection Force) was the official name of the colonial troops in the African territories of the German colonial empire from the late 19th century to 1918. Similar to other colonial armies, the consisted of volunteer European commissioned a ...

'' ("protection force", the units deployed to the German colonies). The Red Nation under Manasse, with only 100 armed men, took over the defense of the central eastern area of

Aranos Aranos is a town in the Hardap Region of central Namibia, situated in the Nossob River basin in the Kalahari Desert. The town had 5,493 inhabitants in 2023. The main economic activity is farming. The place normally receives an annual average rainf ...

, Leonardville,

Aminuis Aminuis is a cluster of small settlements in the remote eastern part of the Omaheke Region of Namibia, located about 500 km east of Windhoek. It is the district capital of the Aminuis electoral constituency. Economy and Infrastructure Ami ...

, and Hoachanas. The German Empire's ''Schutztruppe'' defeated both the Nama and the Herero during this war. Manasse ǃNoreseb and Hendrik Witbooi died in 1905, survivors were detained in

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

s, much the same way as the British had set up camps for forced labour in their colony of South Africa during the

Anglo-Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic an ...

of 1899–1902. Thousands of people, including women and children, died in these concentration camps from illness, neglect, and malnutrition, leading to a genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples. After the defeat in the war, Namas were displaced all over the country, and even deported to the German colonies of

Togoland Togoland, officially the Togoland Protectorate (; ), was a protectorate of the German Empire in West Africa from 1884 to 1914, encompassing what is now the nation of Togo and most of what is now the Volta Region of Ghana, approximately 90,400&nb ...

and

Kamerun Kamerun was an African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1916 in the region of today's Republic of Cameroon. Kamerun also included northern parts of Gabon and the Congo with western parts of the Central African Republic, southwestern ...

. The ethnical structures of the Nama people were destroyed; the Red Nation only got a new chief in 1922.

Traditional leaders

The following people have been chiefs of the Red Nation since the foundation of that tribe in 1695: #ǂHâb (1695–1710) #ǁKhomab ǂHâmab (1710–1725) #ǁKhaub gaib ǁKhomab (1725–1740) #ǂÔ-ǁnâib ǁKhaumab (1740–1755) #ǀHanab ǂÔǁnâimab (1755–1770) #ǃGaob ǀHanamab (1770–1800) #Gaméb ǃGaomab (1800–1814) #Tsawúb Gamab (1814–1824) #!Na-khom Gamab (1824–1840) #ǁOaseb !Na-khomab (1840–1867) #ǂGoraxab ǀOasib (Barnabas, 1867–1871) #Gôbeb ǂGoraxab (Petrus, 1871–1880) #Manasse !Noreseb Gamab (1880–1905) #ǃHoëb ǁOaseb (Fritz Lazarus, 1922–1936) #Noach Tsai-Tsaib (1936–1948) #Matheus Kooper (1948–1986) #Petrus Simon Moses Kooper (since 1988)

References

Notes

Literature

* {{authority control Ethnic groups in Namibia Nama people