This article examines how German Protestant missionaries to the Herero people influenced colonial “native policy” in German Southwest Africa in the years leading up to the Colonial War of 1904 to 1907. By the late 1890s, burgeoning European settlement increasingly displaced the Herero from their traditional territory. While colonial officials promoted more settlement, missionaries had developed a concept of conversion that linked Christianization with living in self-sufficient agricultural communities, and hoped to place limits on Herero displacement. Thus, missionaries and colonial officials engaged in protracted political negotiations over the creation of inalienable “native reservations” for the Herero. I show that missionaries’ model of Herero conversion prompted them to promote an alternative mode of settler colonialism that would make room in Southwest Africa for self-sufficient Herero settlements. Prior to the Colonial War, missionaries succeeded in convincing the colonial government to begin creating reservations, thus shaping colonial policy according to missionary priorities.

本文研究了在1904年至1907年殖民战争之前的几年中，德国新教传教士对赫雷罗人的传教士如何影响着德国西南非洲的殖民“本国政策”。到1890年代后期，蓬勃发展的欧洲定居点使赫雷罗人逐渐摆脱了传统领土。殖民地官员提倡更多的定居点时，传教士发展了一种转变观念，将基督教与生活在自给自足的农业社区中联系起来，并希望限制赫雷罗人的流离失所。因此，传教士和殖民地官员就为赫雷罗岛建立不可剥夺的“本土保留”进行了旷日持久的政治谈判。我表明，传教士的赫雷罗conversion依模式促使他们推广定居者殖民主义的另一种模式，这将在西南非洲为自给自足的赫雷罗定居点腾出空间。在殖民战争之前，传教士成功地说服了殖民政府开始建立保留地，从而根据传教士的优先次序制定了殖民政策。