Bondelswarts Rebellion

The Bondelswarts Rebellion in 1922 (also known as the Bondelswarts Uprising or Bondelswarts Affair or the Bondelswarts Punitive Expedition) was a controversial violent incident in South Africa's League of Nations Mandate of South West Africa, now Namibia.

In 1917, the South African mandatory administration had created a tax on dogs, and they increased it in 1921.^[1] The tax was rejected by the Bondelswarts, a group of Khoikhoi, who were opposed to various policies of the new administration. They were also protecting five men for whom arrest warrants had been issued.^[1]

There is disagreement over the details of the dispute, but according to historian Neta Crawford, "most agree that in May 1922 the Bondelswarts prepared to fight, or at least to defend themselves, and the mandatory administration moved to crush what they called a rebellion of 500 to 600 people, of which 200 were said to be armed (although only about 40 weapons were captured after the Bondelswarts were crushed)".^[1]

Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr, the Mandatory Administrator of South West Africa, organised in 400 armed men, and sent in aircraft to bomb the Bondelswarts. Casualties included 100 Bondelswart deaths, including a few women and children.^[1] A further 468 men were either wounded or taken prisoner.^[1]

South Africa's international reputation was tarnished.^[2] Ruth First, a South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar, describes the Bondelswarts shooting as "the Sharpeville of the 1920s".^[3] It was one of the first uprisings to be examined by the Permanent Mandates Commission under the new League of Nations mandate system introduced after the First World War. The application of the principles set out in the League of Nations mandatory covenants by the independent Permanent Mandates Commission led to a deepened international examination of the ethics of colonialism and of the actions of taken against subject peoples.^[1]