Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the negotiation and creation of colonial borders in German Southwest Africa in the face of the threat of the rinderpest that threatened the entire cattle economy of the german colony.

Paper long abstract:

In the history of German rule in colonial Namibia, cattle breeding played a central role in the establishment of a settler colony. When the threatening news of the introduction of the devastating rinderpest hit the German colony in 1896, a border line was established to prevent the spread of the cattle plague from the Ovambo region to the north and the British colony of Bechuanaland to the east. The resulting border line against rinderpest is the historical example of a colonial border that was constructed under local conditions on the ground and was not an armchair product like many other colonial borders. In the context of the demarcation line, the territoriality of German colonial rule in the colony was renegotiated or rather defined for the first time in specific regions. When the border line was established, border posts were erected, which were intended to prevent the total control of animals and humans. The selection of border posts for the line of demarcation was determined by local environmental factors such as water points, and local indigenous knowledge was also used to implement control.

The paper thus makes a historical contribution to the extent to which local, colonial territoriality and its borders were negotiated and defined by epidemic diseases such as rinderpest in German Southwest Africa.