Angra Pequena was a small coastal area in what is now known as Lüderitz

Lüderitz

Lüderitz is a harbour town in south-west Namibia, lying on one of the least hospitable coasts in Africa. It is a port developed around Robert Harbour and Shark Island.- Overview :...

, Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

.

First discovered by Europeans in 1487 by the Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 explorer Bartolomeu Dias

Bartolomeu Dias

Bartolomeu Dias , a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer who sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first European known to have done so.-Purposes of the Dias expedition:...

. On April 10, 1883 Heinrich Vogelsang (emissary of Adolf Lüderitz of Bremen) first landed at Angra Pequena. Vogelsang signed a fraudulent lease of land from Joseph Fredericks, Kaptein of the Bethanie community. (Vogelsang used the unit of geographical miles in lieu of ordinary miles, effectively obscuring the true amount of land to be leased.) Angra Pequena was made into a trading station by German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 trader Adolf Lüderitz

Adolf Lüderitz

Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz was a German merchant and founder of the first German colony in Southwest Africa....

 in 1883 who subsequently renamed the cove Lüderitz

Lüderitz

Lüderitz is a harbour town in south-west Namibia, lying on one of the least hospitable coasts in Africa. It is a port developed around Robert Harbour and Shark Island.- Overview :...

 after April 24, 1884, when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...

 declared that the station and the surrounding area would be henceforth a protectorate under the German Reich. (The act took effect on August 7, 1884.) Bismarck's hasty act was propelled by the belief that Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 was about to claim the area as a protectorate.

Renamed Lüderitzbucht (Lüderitz Bay) by the Germans, the location then became a naval base for German South West Africa, modern day Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

.

Islands off the coast of Angra Pequena, rich in guano

Guano

Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...

 deposits, were annexed by Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 in 1867 and added to Cape Colony

Cape Colony

The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...

 in 1874. Hence, Shark Island, German South West Africa, an island in Angra Pequena bay (or as it became known, Lüderitzbucht), was connected to the mainland by a bridge. It might then be claimed that Shark Island (or Haifisch Insel) was technically not an island, thus avoiding the British claims.

Shark Island later became the world's first extermination camp.