Thirty years of German settler colonialism in South West Africa (1884 to 1914) paved the way for continued white minority rule under South African control. The primary resistance against the foreign invasion triggered the first genocide of the 20th century among the Ovaherero, Nama and other groups. As main occupants of the eastern, central and southern regions of the country, they were forced from their land into so-called native reserves.

Since then, the land (dis-)possession continued. The South African Apartheid regime’s administration provided Afrikaans-speaking poor whites a new existence as farmers in the occupied so-called fifth province. Land appropriations and resettlements took place until the 1960s also as part of the Bantustan policy, which was transplanted under the so-called Odendaal Plan.