The ovamboland expedition of 1917: the deposing of King Mandume

Andries M. Fokkens

Small Wars and Insurgencies, 2023, vol. 34, issue 2, 382-421

Abstract: Mandume ya Ndemufayo, the last king of the Oukwanyama, resisted the subjugation of his people by colonial powers. To the Portuguese, Germans, and South Africans (and other missionaries), he was a recalcitrant, bloodthirsty, and murderous despot. But to the people of Namibia and Angola, he is a hero of the African people, with permanent remembrance at the Namibian National Heroes’ Acre, a university named after him in the City of Lubango, with street names, monuments, and memorials commemorating his acts of resistance against colonial rule. His demise at the hands of the Ovamboland Expeditionary Force on 6 February 1917 is the archetypal story of the colonial period in Africa – and elsewhere – that opposition to colonial rule was not tolerated and subdued, forcefully if necessary. European interests, along with superior firepower, facilitated the subjugation of many indigenous populations. It was no different in Ovamboland, yet in a period where kingdoms were tumbling, the Oukwanyama resisted.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09592318.2022.2153468 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:fswixx:v:34:y:2023:i:2:p:382-421

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/fswi20

DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2022.2153468

Access Statistics for this article

Small Wars and Insurgencies is currently edited by Paul Rich

More articles in Small Wars and Insurgencies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().