Strewe na 'n "volkstaat": Die prekoloniale posisie van die Rehoboth-Basters in Namibië, 1868-1884

Abstract

The people of mixed ancestry who came into being in the North Western Cape in the course of the eighteenth century and later known as the Rehoboth Basters, left the Cape Colony in 1868 and in 1870 settled at Rehoboth and environment, in the area later to be known as German South West Africa. Their pre-colonial settlement (1868-1884) was characterized by fruitless attempts to obtain the Rehoboth region as a permanent residential area and to maintain neutrality in the midst of the renewed Herero-Nama-Oorlam conflict. With the conclusion of the Baster-German Friendship and Protection Treaty of 15 September 1885, de jure recognition was at last granted to the ideal of a national state of the Rehoboth Basters, a settlement which, in terms of modern South African political jargon, may be called a "volkstaat" - this time not for white Afrikaners, but for their coloured kith and kin.