This article focuses on the aftermath of the First World War for West African Kru in colonial Namibia. It posits that Kru had been a ‘labour elite’ in the colony under German rule and that the war and resulting years of South African occupation led to their economic decline. By the early 1920s, this situation was a strong factor in West Africans’ robust engagement and leadership within the colony’s ‘Africa for the Africans’ Garveyite movement. Economic troubles after the First World War, as well as an increasing tendency towards intermarriage between Kru and local Namibians, factored into Kru workers’ decisions to join political ranks with the Herero and other groups who had suffered under German rule. Both local and migrant Africans saw Garveyism as a possible solution for their new economic and societal challenges. The article utilises a South West African migrant worker database that I compiled for this research (WBL Namibian Worker Database) and micro-histories to give insight into individual workers’ experiences between 1892 and 1925. On a broader note, this work expands research on the role of West African labour in colonial Namibia, bringing regional historiography more firmly into the scope of the discipline of global history.

本文着重于第一次世界大战对纳米比亚殖民地西非克鲁的影响。它认为，克鲁在德国统治下曾是该殖民地的“劳动精英”，而战争和随之而来的南非多年占领导致其经济衰退。到1920年代初，这种情况已成为西非人在该殖民地的“非洲非洲人” Garveyite运动中强有力的参与和领导的重要因素。第一次世界大战后的经济麻烦以及克鲁和当地纳米比亚人之间通婚的趋势日益增加，这是克鲁工人决定加入赫雷罗和其他在德国统治下遭受苦难的团体的政治职级的因素。非洲本地人和移民非洲人都将Garveyism视为应对新的经济和社会挑战的可能解决方案。