The Rössing publication, by Lester Venter (1983:11-13) continued to narrate that in the second year of the war, Maharero, with the help of the traders, inflicted two significant defeats on Jan Jonker. In one battle, the hunter, Frederick Green (known among the Ovaherero as Kerina) led a contingent of Ovaherero who defeated the Afrikaner forces at Witvlei, near Windhoek. Frederick Green (alias) Kerina is a blood ancestor of Professor Mburumba Kerina. Since the Battle of Witvlei, Jan Jonker was now on the run.

In the second great battle, Charles John Andersson led 3 000 Ovaherero who engaged the Afrikaner forces in the mountains between Windhoek and Rehoboth. Hundreds of Nama soldiers were killed, but without failing to seriously inflict injuries on Andersson.

After this battle, Maharero built for himself a stone house at Otjimbingwe.

However, after Andersson's death in 1867, Maharero moved back to Okahandja and using the now considerable military experience he gained, he continued to harass Jan Jonker. Lester Venter writes that it was in November 1868 that an important battle between the Ovaherero and the Nama took place at Otjomukaru, near Okahandja,
The Ovaherero ambushed their adversaries, who had just returned from a raid. And, that Jacobus Boois' tribe was annihilated, while Jan Jonker and a few of his followers narrowly escaped from the battle scene. However, not everything went Maharero's way. In 1869, his forces were reduced to eating scorpions to stay alive in the veldt.

But by that time, Jan Jonker and his people were demoralised, starving and homeless. Thus, Jan Jonker requested missionary Carl Hugo Hahn to mediate for peace.

A peace conference was called in September 1870 at Okahandja and after days, an armistice was reached but with Maharero emerging as a dominant force in the land.

Ten years of peace followed between Nama of Jan Jonker and the Ovaherero, but a new threat posed by Boer expansionism emerged to threaten Maharero's hold on the land. News of the "Dorsland Trekkers" emerging from the 'trek' (journey) in the Sandveld began to reach him. To pre-empt Boer domination over his land, Maharero was forced to request the authorities of the British Cape Colony (the sworn enemy of the Boers) to place his land and the Ovaherero under its jurisdiction.

He also ceded to the British, a large portion of the Otjimbingwe and Kaokoveld, Ultimately, only Walvis Bay was annexed.

The news of the Boers coming to settle and remove them from their land alarmed many Namibian leaders and made them vow for war if necessary. In Namibia, Klein Kido Witbooi, Andreas Lambert, Nyangana waMukuve, Saul Shepherd and Maharero kaTjamuaha are on record telling the Boers to move away or not come near their land. On his part, on April 9, 1877 Maharero wrote to the Boers the following; "From time to time, I hear reports that your people are coming to take my country, most of you being farmers of the Transvaal, and that your people keep coming from the Transvaal along the Limpopo River, with the intention of taking part of my country from me.

"I am the Paramount Chief of the whole country called Damaraland. And, with the sanction of my under captains and advisors, I protest against the actions of your people, so I wish now to inform you that I have given my country over to a man of my own choosing, and have asked the Government of the Cape Colony to send me a magistrate, so as to give my country over to that Government."

The man he was referring was W.C. Palgrave who arrived at Okahandja as Special Commissioner of the Cape British colonial government in May 1876, a few months after the Alberts trek party had reached Rietfontein.

In 1880, the so-called 10-year peace with Jan Jonker came to an end as war between them resumed again, and once again routed the Nama. To get more grazing land, Maharero was now determined to push the Herero boundary with the Nama southwards, putting him on collision course not only with Jan Jonker, but also with Moses Witbooi and as from 1884 with his son, the formidable Hendrik Witbooi. Hendrik Witbooi would prove to be more a thorn in the flesh of Maharero than Jan Jonker.

Since 1884, an eight-year war began between the Witboois and the Ovaherero, which in the early years of the war, Witbooi suffered several defeats at the hands of Maharero. For example, the first major clash between them at Osona, Maharero's forces routed 200 Witboois, killing many and putting the survivors to flight. The wounded Ovaherero forces were treated by Dr Göring, Germany's Imperial Commissioner in the territory, who was keen to enter into the so-called 'protection treaty' with Maharero. Mistakenly, Maharero, thus became convinced of German's good intentions to protect them and signed a protection agreement with Germany.

By then, Hendrik Witbooi intensified the attacks on the Ovaherero with many successful cattle raids on his side. In 1888, Maharero won a battle against the Witboois, but the war was now being lost.

In an act of great magnanimity in 1889, Maharero gave shelter to his former enemies, the Afrikaner clan fleeing leaderless from a vengeful Hendrik Witbooi. They remained under his protection. Now an ageing man, succession plans began to come into the open, and thus, Maharero's wife, Kataree and chief campaigner of her son Samuel begun to orchestrate so as to swing the balance in favour of her son.

Maharero became ill and refused the attentions of the healers. At his request, Maharero was carried to the grave of his father, Tjamuaha, where he sat pensively and silently for a long while.

Too weak to walk, the aged, wise and resigned chief was carried back to his hut, and on the morning of October 7, 1890, he died. His grave can be spotted at Okahandja to date.