History and Bremen mer chant by the name Liideritz established at Angra Pequena, a trading station in 1883, and acquired certain rights over surrounding terri tory. These the German government took over the following year, and extended its holdings gradually northward, southward and into the interior. Portugal and Germany mutually settled the northern boundary between their respective territories in 1886; and four years later Great Britain came to an understanding with the .German government as to the eastern and south ern boundaries of German Southwest Africa. The domination of the territory went steadily forward. In 1903 a Hottentot tribe, the Bon delzwarts, took up arms in the south against the invaders and carried on war for over a year. They had scarcely been put down when the Hereros in the north rebelled against German authority, massacred the whites everywhere and threatened to wipe them out entirely. The colony was saved by the arrival of reinforce ments from Germany. The southern Hotten tots joined in the war on the foreigners against whom they held their own for over a year. In this war which lasted into 1906, the Germans lost over 2,000 men out a force of about 15,000. The natives, too, suffered severely, for both sides resorted to the most savage practices.
Notwithstanding this, the war broke out again three years later, under the leadership of Morenga, a former leader who had taken refuge in British territory. But this time the Germans were better prepared and Morenga was driven into the mountains and finally killed. From this time on German authority was practically supreme in the colony until after the outbreak of the European War. In August 1914 the British government proposed to the government of South Africa the seizure of the ports of German Southwest Africa and such territory as might be thought advisable. But a serious insurrection in the British colony prevented this step being taken and it was not until the end of this trouble that operations began against the German possession in January 1915; though some preliminary steps had been taken in Sep tember 1914, when Liideritz Bay had been seized. Swakopmund fell in January and two armies were sent against the capital of the ter ritory, Windhoek, one under Botha from the north and the other under Smuts from the south. Botha .reached Windhoek on 12 May and the German forces surrendered on the following 9 January. Consult Dove, (Berlin 1913) ; Watermeyer, (Deutsch-Sudwest Afrike (Berlin 1899).