f cattle. After the
rinderpest scourge of 1897 they still owned something like 90,000 head.
By 1902, less than ten years after the arrival of the first German
settlers, the Hereros had only 45,898 head of cattle, while the 1,051
German traders and farmers then in the country owned 44,487. The policy
of robbing and killing the natives had by that time received the
sanction of Berlin. By the end of 1905 the surviving Hereros had been
reduced to pauperism and possessed nothing at all. In 1907 the Imperial
German Government by ordinance prohibited the natives of Southwest
Africa from possessing live stock.

The wholesale theft of the natives' cattle, their only wealth, with the
direct connivance and approval of the Berlin Government, was one of the
primary causes of the Herero rebellion of 1904. The revolt was
suppressed with characteristic German ruthlessness. But the Germans were
not content with a mere suppression of the rising; they had decided upon
the practical extinction of the whole tribe. For this purpose Leutwein,
who was apparently regarded as too lenient, was superseded by von
Trotha, noted for his merciless severity. He had played a notorious part
in the Chinese Boxer rebellion, and had just suppressed the Arab rising
in German East Africa by the wholesale massacre of men, women, and
children. As a preliminary von Trotha invited the Herero chiefs to come
in and make peace, "as the war was now over," and promptly shot them in
cold blood. Then he issued his notorious "extermination order," in terms
of which no Herero--man, woman, child, or babe--was to receive mercy or
quarter. "Kill every one of them," he said, "and take no prisoners."

The hanging of natives was a common occurrence. A German officer had the
right to order a native to be hanged. No trial or court was necessary.
Many were hanged merely on suspicion.

The Hereros were far more humane in the field than the Germans. They
were once a fine race. Now there is only a miserable remnant left.

This is amply proved by official German statistics. Out of between
80,000 and 90,000 souls, only about 15,000 starving and fugitive Hereros
were alive at the end of 1905, when von Trotha relinquished his task. In
1911, after all rebellions had been suppressed and tranquillity
restored, the government had a census taken. The figures, reproduced
below, speak for themselves:

Estimate Official Census
1904 1911