Namakwa

Namaqualand takes its name from the Nama, Khoekhoe pastoralists whose herds moved through its dry hills and plains. The region held copper deposits, and its inhabitants worked the metal before Dutch expeditions arrived from the Cape. In 1682 Olof Bergh encountered Nama communities near the country of Garies while seeking the source of copper. Three years later Simon van der Stel reached the copper mountains farther north. The smallpox epidemic that spread from the Cape after 1713 brought devastating losses to pastoral communities in Namaqualand.