With its regular coastline and with relatively few large
sheltered bays and rocky promontories, the Namibian
coast offered little comfort to the early Portuguese
navigators searching for a sea route to India. One such
exception was a rocky inlet where strong southerly
winds forced Bartholomeu Dias to lie at anchor for five
days in December 1487. It was named Angra das Voltas or
the Bay of Tacks because of the number of tacks
necessary to enter it. On his return journey Dias was
accompanied by the explorer Pacheto Pereira who
described Angra das Voltas as having "... a large mouth
facing the north-west and ... enters within the land a
good league and a half, where a hundred vessels can
anchor in ten or twelve fathoms, secure in all weathers.
This bay is a league or more across; and it has within
it some rocky islets, and there is much fishing here."
Dias raised a padrao (cross) on a rocky point to the
west of the bay on 24 July 1488 and dedicated it to Sao
Tiago Zebedeu, St James.
Despite being considered the finest natural harbour on
the southwestern coast of Africa, the Portuguese did not
use Angra das Voltas as a stopover on their way to the
east and for nearly three centuries it remained a mere
name on maritime maps. In the early 1800s it was
renamed Angra Pequena, or Little Bay, and American
whalers, sealers and trading vessels began dropping
anchor in the bay.
In 1828 the American sealing vessel Antarctic explored
the southern Namibian coast and her master, Captain
Benjamin Morrell, wrote enthusiastically about the
prospects for trade in cattle. In his report Morrell
wrote: "I could purchase and have driven to the coast
more than 50000 bullocks, besides other valuable
articles common to this section of the country -
leopard skin, ostrich feathers, etc." Of the Bay of Angra Pequena he wrote that it "... affords an immense
quality of excellent fish of many different kinds,
which can be caught either with the hook and line or
with the seine."
Morrell also realised the importance of the guano on
the offshore islands along the Namib coast, and noted
that the surface of khaboe was '... covered with dirt
manure to a depth of 25 feet'. Others, too, realised the
importance of the "white gold" and between 1842 and
1845 the Namib coast witnessed the Guano Rush. Hundreds
of merchant ships rushed to khaboe Island and the
offshore islands to exploit the guano and conditions
became so chaotic that the Cape government annexed khaboe and the other 11 islands in 1861.
Then, in 1883, a German merchant from Bremen, Adolf
Lüderitz, sent a representative to Angra Pequena to
establish a trading venture. On 1 May Heinrich
Vogelsang concluded an agreement with Chief Joseph
Fredericks of Bethanie to buy "the Bay of Angra Pequena
and the adjoining territory extending five miles in all
directions". The price was 100 Pounds Sterling in gold
and 200 rifles with accessories. In August the same
year, Vogelsang concluded a second agreement with Chief
Fredericks in terms of which the firm of Lüderitz
acquired the coast from the Orange River northwards to
26 degrees south latitude, extending inland for 20
geographical miles from every point along the coastline.
The purchase price was 500 Pound Sterling in gold and 60
Wesley-Richards rifles, but Chief Fredericks was unaware
of the fact that 20 geographical miles extended 137 km
inland and subsequently disputed the agreement.
Lüderitz requested the German government to place the
territory under its protection and on 24 April 1884 the
area surrounding Lüderitz was declared a German
protectorate. In 1885 Adolf Lüderitz sold all the land
and rights to the Deutsche Kolonial Gesellschaft fur
Südwest Afrika (DKG) and died a year later when he
ignored advice not to sail in a small boat from the
Orange River mouth to Angra Pequena. The town was later
renamed Lüderitzbucht in his honour.
The lack of fresh water hampered development of the
settlement and for many years Lüderitzbucht remained a
quiet trading post. Water had to be transported from the
interior, or brought in by boat, and it was not until
1890 that the first seawater condenser was commissioned.
The supply was, however, insufficient and unreliable and
water had to be brought in by ship from Cape Town.
A German garrison was posted at Lüderitz in 1894, but it
was the 1904 uprising of the Nama against German
colonial rule that brought unexpected growth to the
settlement. Lüderitz became a port of entry for German
military supplies and an 80 m long jetty was built in
Robert Harbour in 1904. The German government approved
the construction of a railway line from Lüderitz to Aus
in December the following year.
In May 1907 an employee of the
Deutsche Kolonial
Eisenbahnbau- und Betriebsgesellschaft, August
Stauch, arrived in Lüderitz to take up employment as
Bahnmeisterof the Lüderitz-Aus railway line. He
instructed his labourers to be on the lookout for
unusual stones and in May 1908 came the sensational
discovery of diamonds near Kolmanskop. Whilst clearing
the railway line of sand a labourer, Zacharias Lewala,
picked up a glittering stone which he handed to Stauch.
It turned out to be a diamond.
News of the discovery was initially met with scepticism,
but soon there was a rush of self-styled prospectors,
fortune-seekers and conmen to Lüderitzbucht. Attracted
by reports that some deposits were so rich that diamonds
could be picked up from the surface, the desert was
gripped by diamond fever. Mining camps sprung up and
swarms of diamond seekers scoured the sand on their
hands and knees in search of the precious gems.
Companies that existed only on paper were floated and
diamond fields were ‘salted.’
In his book
The Clamour of Prospecting, the
intrepid prospector Fred Cornell, who visited Lüderitz
some time after the discovery of diamonds, relates how schurfscheinen (prospecting licences) "... often
changed hands, and for quite large sums, before they
were even used for their legitimate purpose of enabling
the holder to locate and peg-off a claim. And often,
when, as a result of an expensive expedition, ground
was located and title secured, the diamonds shown to
back up the "discoverer's" or "promoter's" highly
coloured report would be the only ones ever seen by the
gullible purchaser or shareholder."
Cornell describes the harbour town as: "... little more
than a forlorn collection of corrugated iron huts
clustering around one or two of the more important
buildings, dignified by the name of "hotel," store and
the Customs House. The streets were ankle deep in sand
and the first thing that struck me was the enormous
number of empty bottles..."
In September 1908 the sole right to prospect and mine
minerals in the Sperrgebiet, or Forbidden
Territory, was granted to the Deutsche
Kolonialgesellschaft fur Südwest Afrika. Bounded in
the south by the Orange River, in the north by the 26th
degree south latitude and in the west by the
Atlantic Ocean, the Sperrgebiet extended inland for 100
km.
Further discoveries of diamonds south of Lüderitz
followed. At Idatal (named after August Stauch's wife)
in the Pomona area diamonds were picked up by the
handful and in a nearby valley the precious stones lay
"like plums under a plum tree'. In one valley an
unbelieving prospector repeatedly whimpered "Ein Märchen!
Ein Märchen!" and the valley became known as Märchental
or Fairytale Valley. Other discoveries were made at
Hexenkessel (Witches' Cauldron), Schreibetal and at the
Bogenfels. With a height of 55 meters, the Bogelfels, or
Rock Arch, is the highest coastal rock arch in southern
Africa.
During these heady days Lüderitz experienced an
unprecedented boom and money was spent with gay abandon. The
women dressed in imported frocks, while the men wore stiff
collars, black ties and top hats. Picnics were undertaken
into the desert, race horses were imported and gymkhanas
held. Fortunes were made and lost overnight and tales abound
of men ordering champagne and pouring it into ladies' shoes
before proposing a toast. Barmaids came from Germany and
Lüderitz attracted its fair share of 'ladies' who flocked to
the town to entertain the men. When the chandelier in the
Spitz bar of the Kapps Hotel became the occasional
target of a trigger happy miner, the waiter would merely
note the name down and added the price of a new one to the
account!
In 1920 the assets and rights of all the major diamond
companies operating in the Sperrgebiet were bought by the
Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa. The early
1920s also saw the birth of Namibia's rock lobster industry
when the first factories were established at Lüderitz. Like
the diamonds, however, the industry has had its ups and
downs, but has, nevertheless, played an important role in
the town's economy.
Following the discovery of the fabulously rich diamond
deposits on the northern banks of the Orange River in 1928,
the focus of the diamond industry shifted south. In
1938 most of the workers and equipment at Kolmanskop were
moved to Oranjemund and Lüderitz faced a bleak economic
future.
Unlike many early gold-and diamond mining towns that became
ghost towns, Lüderitz refused to die and in the late 1970s
the Lüderitzbucht Foundation adopted the motto "Lüderitz
Must Live". A major boost for the town's economy came when
CDM (Consolidated Diamond Mines) announced in 1989 that the
company was to reestablish a mining operation at Elizabeth
Bay. The mine was brought into operation in 1991 and
recovery was estimated at 250,000 carats of small,
gem-quality diamonds a year at full production.
Another major economic boost came when the Namibian Ports
Authority, Namport,
announced plans to upgrade the port at an estimated cost of
N$ 50 million. The project included the construction of 300
meters of quay to handle vessels with an 8m draught, the
dredging of the harbour and the provision of modern cargo
handling equipment.
Copied
in full
from
Lüderitz: A Guide to Namibian Excellence,
Souvenir
Edition May 2002,
published by Lüderitz Waterfront, pp. 21-24
.jpg "Diaz Cross: planted by the Portugese navigator, Bartolomeu Diaz")
.jpg "Luderitz Harbour - memories of the past")
.jpg "Luderitz Harbour - growing economy")
