Caucasian

The first European descendant to take up permanent residence in Namibia is believed to have been Guilliam Visagie, who with his wife had settled at a place called Modderfontein, today known as Keetmanshoop. A number of explorers, ivory and big game hunters, traveled up from the Cape in South Africa  and  the  first  missionaries,  Abraham and Christian Albrecht, arrived at Warmbad in 1806. The London Missionary Society, having too few candidates to send to southern Africa, was provided with missionaries by the Berlin Missionary Society, and thus the first missionaries to South West Africa were Germans. As more and more information about the country reached the outside world, so the numbers of adventurers, prospectors, traders and explorers increased.

When conflict broke out between the Herero and the Nama, soldiers and administrative personnel were brought into the country. Boers from South Africa, some getting away from the Anglo-Boer war in 1899-1902 came into the country. At the end of the Herero wards many of the German soldiers decided to stay in South West Africa. Diamonds were discovered and more Europeans arrived. After the First World War, farms and various other properties were bought by new settlers and the number of European residents grew steadily.

The granting to South Africa of a mandate over South West Africa brought in administrative personnel, policemen, railway-men and entrepreneurs who set up businesses. Mining, fishin, farming and light to medium industrial activities mushroomed, bringing in engineers, scientists, teachers, architects, agronomists, surveyors, doctors, nurses and many others, the majority of whom were of European descent.