1852 Jonker Afrikaner, extremely anxious to prevent Europeans from exploring Hereroland and Ovamboland and supplying Ovaherero with arms, attacks Tjamuaha and Maharero at Otjosemba. Even Hahn loses his cattle. Jonker moves on to Omambonde and the Omatako omuramba (fossil river)(Khoekhoegowab: ||Khuob) at the Omatako Mountains (#Hakha) and attacks Otjihinamaparero and the community of Chief Katjikurure. He extends his attacks as far north as the Ondonga area in Ovamboland.
22.07. Rhenish missionary Matthäus Gorth travels to the south in order to take over the mission station Bethany.
27.10. Gorth arrives at #Goais near Bethany where he dies on 05.01.1853.

Namibia_Karas_Bethany_6.JPG (91409 bytes)

Bethany: Rhenish Missionary Cemetry: Matthäus Gorth: died on 05.01.1853: #Goais (Grootfontein South)
Copyright of Photo Dr. Klaus Dierks

1853 ||Oaseb, as requested by missionary Vollmer, again settles at Hoachanas (!Hoaxa!nâs), the Kai||khaun headquarters. Most of his followers, however, refuse flatly to follow the Chief from the Skaap River (Kubakop River) to Hoachanas because they are not interested in a missionary.
Missionaries Kleinschmidt and Vollmer complete their writing of the biblical history in the Nama language.
Rhenish missionary Heinrich Schöneberg works at Otjikango, but is expelled by Jonker Afrikaner.
Due to Jonker's increasing resistance against the Rhenish missionaries, Hahn leaves Hereroland and returns to Cape Town and from there for two years to Europe.
Missionary Friedrich Simon Eggert works in Berseba, Rehoboth, Naosanabis (present-day Leonardville), Gobabis (meaning in Nama, "Place where the people argued"; also known by the Ovaherero as "Epako" or "Elephant’s Fontain") and Rooibank.
Charles John Andersson and Galton reach Lake Ngami in Bechuanaland (present-day Botswana). They are accompanied by a guide from Bechuanaland, Jonathan Afrika.
The Witbooi Nama Jesaias Witbooi is born in Pella (?) in South Africa.
23.05 Rhenish missionary Franz Heinrich Vollmer establishes and runs a mission station at Hoachanas (until 03.02.1867) when the mission station has to be abandoned due to the Ovaherero-Nama war of the 1860s. He is followed by Eduard Heider (from 27.06.1874 until 1881, when the mission station again has to be abandoned due to the outbreak of the new Ovaherero-Nama war of the 1880s). Before this Heider worked in Berseba. Missionary Heider dies in Hoachanas on 16.06.1881.
1854 Jonker Afrikaner settles at Tjamuaha’s Okahandja settlement, at the site where the Rhenish Missionary Society’s church would be built in 1875, in order to have better control over the Ovaherero. Jonker’s raids into Hereroland lead even Ovaherero to flee from places like Otjitambi and Otavi into the Kaokoveld.
||Oaseb of the Kai||khaun attacks Jonker Afrikaner, who again had earlier attacked the Topnaar-Nama (#Aonin) who were under the protection of ||Oaseb.
The Topnaar under the command of Chief Piet ||Haibeb (Piet Haibib)(his predecessor is Chief Khaxab) are deeply divided. They are deeply divided, and the elements of choice in their decision cannot be perceived from the written missionary sources. Some join Jonker, others the Swartboois, others remain apart from these conflicts and stay in Walvis Bay (Rooibank) or escape either into the Erongo Mountains, or move to the Kaokoveld or Franzfontein.
Willem Swartbooi (!Huiseb #Haobemab) plans a raid on Jonker but missionary Kleinschmidt advises him not to do so, not for moral reasons but because of lack of ammunition. This shows the missionary double-standards: a raid against Jonker, considered as an enemy by the Rhenish Missionary Society is not immoral, whereas Jonker’s raids were denounced as expressions of the anti-Christ.
Hermann Heinrich Kreft, a Rhenish missionary from Bethany, mentions that he and Krönlein had finished translating Luther’s Catechism into the Nama language.
The Swedish explorer Johann August Wahlberg lands in Walvis Bay. He spends nearly one year in the territory before he is trampled to death by an elephant.
Mid-1850s The territory’s southern region experiences a severe smallpox epidemic (lasting until the early 1860s). Later comes the lungsickness. These two diseases add to the demise of Orlam power in Namibia.
The Witbooi Nama (|Khowesin), under the leadership of Kido Witbooi (or #A-||êib), move from Pella in South Africa to Gibeon (Khaxa-tûs) where they settle in 1863 (with Jacob Knauer as missionary).
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