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 of this rivalry was that the natives were used by both parties to attain their several ends, and that a peaceful establishment of German political control was afterwards made more difficult than it would otherwise have been, and the temptation to precipitate and high-handed action was stronger. In the 1861–1870 wars between Hereros and Hottentots, the former were led by English traders. In 1883, the date of the hoisting of the German flag at Angra-Pequena, a party of Transvaal Boers and Cape colonists trekked into Ovamboland and founded the "Republic of Upingtonia," which broke up after the murder of its founder by the natives. In 1888 an English trader and prospector named Lewis, induced Kamaherero to expel the German settlers from his territory. This event was a land-mark in the history of the Dependency, for it destroyed what little authority Bismarck's so-called "Merchant Administration" possessed, and was the propelling cause of German official intervention, and of the creation of the "German South-West Africa" Chartered Company to which large concessions of land and minerals were granted without any regard to pre-existing native rights. No sooner did the company secure its privileges than it demanded Government action, to "assist the spirit of German enterprise by securing peace there" and the establishment of an organised administration, and announced its intention of preparing for the future settlement of the country by German farmers and agriculturists "on a large scale."

In 1890, the German Government, yielding to domestic pressure, resigned itself reluctantly to political action. Its early steps were half-hearted and inefficient. It sent out a single officer, Captain von François, with an escort of 21 soldiers and with instructions to put what order he could into the existing chaos, "to take no sides, but to remain strictly on the defensive." Contemporaneously with his arrival in the country, the Hereros and Hottentots had taken to the field once more, the former under Kamaherero, the latter under Hendrik Witbooi. Von François' first step was to get Kamaherero to renew the "protection" treaty he had repudiated at Lewis' instigation; his next to induce Witbooi to come to terms with his antagonist. In this he was unsuccessful. Witbooi insisted upon prosecuting the war. He had, moreover, attacked and defeated the chief of the Red "Bastards,"