Swartbooisdrift is a small settlement in Kunene Region in the north of

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

. It is situated on the banks of the

Kunene River The Cunene (Portuguese spelling) or Kunene (common Namibian spelling) is a river in Southern Africa. It flows from the Angola highlands south to the border with Namibia. It then flows west along the border until it reaches the Atlantic Ocean. It ...

, directly at the

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

n border on the minor road D3700 and falls within the Epupa electoral constituency. Swartbooisdrift is populated by 150 - 300 semi-nomadic people of Himba and

Herero Herero may refer to: * Herero people, a people belonging to the Bantu group, with about 240,000 members alive today * Herero language, a language of the Bantu family (Niger-Congo group) * Herero and Namaqua Genocide * Herero chat, a species of b ...

descent, depending on the season. The settlement is named after Petrus Swartbooi, one of the

tribal chief A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribe The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia. Tribal societies are sometimes categorized as ...

captains of the Swartbooi Nama who raided the area in the 1890s. Swartbooisdrift has some historic significance as the place where Dorsland Trekkers crossed the Kunene River in 1881 to move into Angola. In commemoration of this migratory movement the ''Dorsland Trekkers Monument'' has been erected on a hill just outside the settlement. Swartbooisdrift was the administrative centre of the

Kaokoland Kaokoland was an administrative unit and a ''bantustan'' in northern South West Africa (now Namibia). Established during the apartheid era, it was intended to be a self-governing homeland of the OvaHimba, but an actual government was never e ...

from 1925 to 1939. Afterwards, administrative control of the area shifted to Ohopoho (today's Opuwo). During that time a police station was operational at the settlement. From 1938 to 1942, the settlement was one of a number of guard posts set up on all shallow stretches of the Kunene to prevent the spread of cattle lung disease into Namibia. Swartbooisdrift is a poor settlement with no access to electricity or clean water but features a clinic and a school. People live from subsistence cattle farming. There is a

sodalite Sodalite ( ) is a tectosilicate mineral with the formula , with royal blue varieties widely used as an wikt:ornamental, ornamental gemstone. Although massive sodalite samples are opaque, crystals are usually transparent to translucent. Sodalite i ...

mine to the east.

References

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External links

Wilkinsons World
Picture of the Dorsland Trekkers Monument Populated places in the Kunene Region