Johannes Samuel Hahn

Johannes Samuel Hahn (Teutschenthal, near Halle, Germany, March 12, 1805 - Stellenbosch, Cape Colony, July 22, 1883) was a Rhenish Missionary active in Namaland, South West Africa.

Ministry on the Western Cape

Hahn trained as a lay brother and farmer with the Rhenish Missionary Institute in Elberfeld-Barmen, and in 1834 he was dispatched to the Ebenhaeser mission, where in 1839 he would found the congregation now known as the Ebenezer Uniting Reformed Church on the banks of the Olifantsriver (Western Cape), helping foster the impoverished Khoikhoi settlement there. He built a church, two homes and barns, a windmill, and a water pump, and cultivated lay gardens and fields, all the while educating Khoikhoi on Western agricultural techniques. However, he could not sustain an agrarian lifestyle among the villagers in the drought-stricken region.

In South West Africa

Many towns in central and southern were founded by the Rhenish Missionaries, including Berseba, with the help of Hahn

By the time he was replaced by Norwegian missionary Hans Christian Knudsen in Bethanie north of the Orange River, Hahn's health was already failing him. Because he realized missionary work could only proceed in cohesive communities, he continued trying to make settled farmers of the nomadic Khoikhoi (Nama), and cultivated fields around Kubis and Oas on the Orange River banks with the help of the San people.

For the first time in South West Africa's history, then, Hahn brought two plows to break the soil at the foot of Brukkaros Mountain, an extinct volcano. The fields were left fallow eventually, however, and Hahn was ordained to prioritize missionary work instead. David Christiaan's slow going in Bethanie, gave him little hope, but Paul Goliat's work among the Oorlam people at the nearby Gulbrandsdalen station seemed more promising. When water scarcity drove him out, he started the Berseba mission under Brukkaros, but illness brought on by the brutal conditions compounded his difficulty learning the Nama language.

Return to Germany and South Africa

Accepting his emeritus degree in 1851, Hahn returned with his family to Barmen in 1852, serving the missionaries as an itinerant preacher in Germany until 1875. He then returned to South Africa until his death in Stellenbosch.

Personal life

Hahn married Helene Langenbeck from Barmen, having seven children together. His oldest son, Johannes Hahn, was headmaster of the Rhenish Missionary school in Stellenbosch (from whence the Rhenish Girls' High School sprang), and another of his sons was Johannes Theophilus Hahn (a merchant, linguist, and librarian), and the youngest was Paul Daniel Hahn, chemistry professor at the South African College in Cape Town.

Sources

• (af) De Kock, W.J. 1968. Suid-Afrikaanse Biografiese Woordeboek, vol. I. Pretoria: Nasionale Raad vir Sosiale Navorsing, Departement van Hoër Onderwys.