This thesis investigates how political, economic, and environmental structures affected how the colonial state in South West Africa, today Namibia, addressed labour concerns. With increased settlement of poor-white farmers from South Africa into the southern districts of Namibia in the first few decades of South African rule, labour shortages became more apparent, and the state took measures to subsidise the white farming industry by providing low interest loans and advances for purchasing equipment, livestock, fencing, etc. The colonial state indirectly subsidised them further by actively constraining the only competition these settlers had in the agricultural market: black Namibian farmers. It is argued that enforcement of taxes, particularly the “Dog Tax” formed a central component of this labour recruitment. Based on archival and oral history research, this thesis shows that a unique constellation of political, economic, and environmental structures emerged such that without state subsidy for vermin-proof fencing and jackal poisons, dogs became the main tool for for black Namibians to control vermin numbers in the arid South. Farm labour shortages and discourse around illicit hunting with dogs motivated heavy enforcement of the dog tax, resulting in pressures on wages, pastoral activities, and ultimately the self-sufficiency of black Namibians. This research also shows the contemporary relevance of historical dispossession of Namibian land and labour.
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