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Christopher Farai Charamba The Reader
As a lover of history I have always been sceptical of the myth that Africans did not write, that their history was confined to oral traditions and archaeological evidence. This was a historiography peddled by those who sought to create a specific narrative for the African continent that made it easier for the continent to be conquered.

This myth has been debunked and we have since learnt that some of the first institutions of tertiary learning were in Timbuktu, Mali. We know too that the myth was enforced throughout the 15th and 16th centuries when an appropriation and epistemicide of knowledge was orchestrated by European men who replaced the histories of their victims with their own accounts.

One individual who debunks the myth of the illiterate African and managed to leave a personal account of early colonial resistance on the African continent is the Nama chief Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi.

Hendrik Witbooi is considered an icon of the early liberation struggle against German colonialism in Namibia. As one of the few literate leaders during the Germany occupation of Namibia, Kaptein Witbooi was able to communicate and negotiate peace with German delegations and other local leaders within his area of jurisdiction.

Born around 1830, Kaptein Witbooi was educated by the Rhenish Missionaries and rose to the Nama chieftainship in 1884. His tenure as chief ended with his line on October 29, 1905 when he was killed in battle against the Germans.

As he was literate, Kaptein Witbooi kept a journal and wrote letters to different chiefs, missionaries as well as the German occupiers during his reign. Following his death these journals, containing outgoing diplomatic and administrative correspondence, treaties and proclamations were collected and held in various places, until they were collated and translated into the Hendrik Witbooi Papers by the National Archives of Namibia.

Reading the Hendrik Witbooi Papers turns the account of colonialism and colonial resistance by Africans on its head. It causes one to question whether the narratives that exist of how the treaties were signed and how supposed gullible African leaders were, is true.

Not only did Kaptein Witbooi challenge the Germans militarily, but he brought into question their intentions and challenged them intellectually and philosophically.

He understood that the Germans had come to colonise and conquer not to offer partnerships and protection as they had stated in their protectorate treaties.

In a letter to Chief Maharero, the chief of the Herero people, who had signed a protectorate treaty with the Germans, Kaptein Witbooi wrote,

“You, dear Captain, you have now accepted another rule, and have handed yourself over to a human supremacy for protection against all dangers… You will eternally regret that you have given your land and your right to rule into the hands of White men … what you have done now, surrendering yourself over to government by another, by White people, thinking it wisely planned: that will become to you like carrying the sun on your back.”

When offered protection by the Germans against the Boer, Kaptein Witbooi understood that this treaty was subjugation and not worth the paper it was written on. His response to the Germans was as follows,

“An independent and autonomous chief is chief to his people and land – because every ruler is chief over his people and country, to protect it and himself against any danger or disaster which is threatening to harm himself or his land . . . It is thus: when one chief stands under the protection of another, the underling is no longer independent, and is no longer master of himself, or of his people and country”

Kaptein Witbooi had clear understanding of what colonialism and refused to be complicit in the conquest of his people or of other Africans. He pleaded with his counterpart chiefs in the Namibian space to resist the Germans as they bore disaster and destruction.

Unfortunately, as he was not a favoured individual among other tribes his message fell on deaf ears and the land was eventually brought under suppression. His papers, however, are a window into the brilliance and intelligence of some African traditional leaders.