Namaqualand. This is an area of southern Africa now divided between Namibia and South Africa. It is the historic home of the Namaqua people.
Namaqua Genocide. This led me to an article about the genocide of the Namaqua and Herero peoples which took place in the first decade of the 20th century. The Herero and then the Namaqua peoples rebelled against the German settlers who had occupied their land. At first, the Germans trapped the people in a desert region where they died of dehydration and starvation; then, Germans rounded the survivors up into concentration camps, where more died.
Shark Island Concentration Camp. The Germans then took survivors to a concentration camp on Shark Island off the Namibian coast. Between 1905-1907, several thousand Herero and Namaqua people died in this camp; thousands more died in other German concentration camps in German South West Africa. Women prisoners in the camp were forced to boil and clean the skulls of dead prisoners, and those skulls were sent back to Germany for "scientific" study. The camp was closed when the Witbooi tribe finally surrendered to the Germans.
Hendrik Witbooi (Namaqua chief). Hendrik Witbooi was a Namaqua chief. He is now regarded as a hero of Namibia, and his face appears on Namibian banknotes. His Nama name was ǃNanseb gaib ǀGâbemab (the captain who disappears in the grass). He was born around 1830, and he died fighting the Germans in 1905. He had been leading military campaigns against the Germans since the 1890s.
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