The Bondelswarts Rebellion Remembered – the ‘Sharpeville of the 1920s’

STUART MATHEWS

ONE HUNDRED years ago, the administration forces of South West Africa (now Namibia) attacked the Bondelswarts (now the !Gami≠nun, a clan of the Nama people) to force them to submit to colonial laws. 

The use of airplanes to bomb and machine-gun the Bondelswarts was controversial. Anti-apartheid activist Ruth First called it the “Sharpeville of the 1920s”.

In May 1922, administration forces assembled, armed with the latest rifles, ample ammunition, two German mounted field guns and four Vickers machine guns. 

Their target was 1 400 Bondelswarts men, women and children. 

The Bondelswarts were refusing to pay a punitive tax on dogs and objected to discriminatory livestock branding laws. 

Abraham Morris, one of the Bondelswarts leaders, was accused of bringing livestock and rifles from South Africa without proper permits.

The Bondelswarts had lost land to the Europeans; in just 30 years, their territory had shrunk from 40 000km2 to just 2 000 km2. 

The administration had introduced South African style pass and vagrancy laws, restricting movement and pressuring the Bondelswarts to provide manual labour to white settlers.

In early May 1922, the Bondelswarts retreated to the village of Guruchas (near Warmbad in the south-east). Each rifle was shared between seven fighters. Their limited ammunition would have to be used sparingly. 

Their strategy was to repeat Abraham Morris’ tactics against the Germans in 1903-1906, when they had ambushed inexperienced but well-equipped forces to gain arms and ammunition.

Now their preparations included taking six horses from a local white farmer, demanding tobacco, meat, bread and guns from another, and requiring his wife to make them coffee before leaving with three additional rifles. 

Two ambushes on administration troops failed as the troops anticipated such tactics.

BRUTAL AIR ATTACKS

The administration forces were commanded by Gysbert Hofmeyr – newly appointed as administrator of SWA by South Africa, which held SWA under mandate from the League of Nations. 

Hofmeyr requested airplanes and South African prime minister Jan Smuts sent two DH9s from Pretoria. The DH9 was a single propellor bi-plane armed with a mounted machine gun and carried high-explosive bombs.

On 29 May, administration ground forces attacked. The calm of the arid land was broken by the exchange of rifle shots. Now and then administration machine guns hammered, and artillery explosions erupted.

At 15h00, two bi-planes swept in over Guruchas, bombing and machine-gunning the livestock. 

Women and children scurried for shelter, terrified. In the rising dust and smoke, livestock scattered and fell. Two children hiding among the cattle were killed.

At 17h00, the bi-planes returned, concentrating fire on Bondelswarts fighters on the southern ridges where resistance had been fiercest, but they were well hidden and the bombing caused little harm.

The next morning, administration ground troops returned and burned the deserted Bondelswarts huts. The bi-planes swept in again, bombing and strafing. 

It was too much – 50 fighters were already dead. White flags were raised, and 90 men and 700 women and children were captured.

Overnight, 150 Bondelswarts fighters slipped away into the canyons. However, the bi-planes easily tracked them down. 

A few days later, after a fierce skirmish, the last surrendered. The administration forces confiscated 15 rifles. 

In all, more than 100 Bondelswarts had been killed, including women and children, and 468 wounded. Of the administration forces, two were killed and five wounded.

The air power had been decisive. The surviving Bondelswarts said they didn’t mind “as die voel drol kak” [“if the bird dropped bombs”], but in the machine gunning from the airplanes “dan is ons gebars” [“we are done for”]. 

The bewilderment was summed up by their leader, Jacobus Christian: “Wy hadden geen plannen omdat die vliegmachines ons bedonderd geshoten hadden” (“we had no plans because the flying machines shot us up so devastatingly”).

According to an airman’s evidence, 16 bombs were dropped, and “I remember the picture from the air… it was easy for us floating above the operation dropping our bombs. We made the canyons reverberate.”

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