European perceptions of the Samoan were not unanimously positive, but the idea of the Samoan noble savage had more support than that of the Witbooi noble savage, as colonial discourse on the Nama was largely mixed and often negative. White settlement was also of a much smaller scale in Samoa, in part due to its tropical climate. Because of these factors the education system for natives in Samoa was more advanced and featured secular schools that trained Samoans for jobs in colonial administration. The situation in Namibia was vastly different and would not allow similar policies. Settlers blocked attempts to improve native education and continued to exploit the indigenous population. Meanwhile Leutwein’s own passive policy of appropriation would contribute to his downfall in the events of 1904. 
	In the second week of January 1904, the Ovaherero rose up against the Germans in a series of spontaneous and possibly coordinated attacks on European farms and military posts. In the opening days of the uprising 126 settlers and soldiers were killed. Women, children, and missionaries were generally spared. There is some debate over whether the uprising was a reaction to a German military offensive or a planned revolt. Although the Ovaherero had at this point lost approximately 10% of their grazing land to white settlers, this was only one factor in the rebellion. The Ovaherero were protesting settler conduct and a legal system that treated them as juvenile subjects. This was aggravated by “business practices which not only systematically swindled the Herero, but also drove them into traps of debt.”
	Initially the Germans were unable to effectively resist the Ovaherero. Against the 8,000 Ovaherero fighting-men, 6,000 of whom were equipped with firearms, the Germans could only present a 750-man garrison. This proved to be a major embarrassment for the German colonial administration. Soon more soldiers were called in from Germany and Lothar von Trotha replaced Leutwein as commander of the military. Von Trotha was an experienced general with a reputation for brutal repression of native uprisings in East Africa and China. Perhaps fearing that Von Trotha would turn on them after defeating the Ovaherero, the Witbooi and other Nama groups joined the rebellion. This led to the end of Leutwein’s native policy and his eventual replacement as Landeshauptmann in 1905.
	Von Trotha went on to lead a military campaign of genocide, relentlessly pursuing the Ovaherero into the desert where many died of thirst and starvation. Out of a population of 60,000 to 80,000 Ovaherero in South West Africa before the war only 15,130 remained by 1911 and of the 20,000 Nama only 9,781. Von Trotha’s campaign succeeded in reducing the Ovaherero population by nearly 80% and the Nama by over 50% as well as destroying the social and political structures of the tribes.
The war in 1904 marked the end of African political significance in South West Africa and the beginning of the total supremacy of white interests in the colony. 