Nama and Orlam communities in the early nineteenth century were not divided by a simple or permanent opposition. Some groups fought together, some Orlam groups fought one another, and both Nama and Orlam settled near mission stations. The term Orlam increasingly referred to differences within political formations rather than an absolute division between separate peoples, as communities completed a process of merging.

These polities relied on several forms of production and accumulation. Nama communities used cattle, sheep, goats, foraging, and raiding, while Orlam groups remained dependent on pastoralism for much of the period. Long-distance commerce grew from the 1830s and became more significant in the 1840s, linking coastal settlements, inland communities, cattle owners, arms traders, and merchants operating from the Cape.

Political authority was often organised through alliances and unequal patron-client relationships. Jonker Afrikaner made cattle loans and formed alliances with Otjiherero-speaking leaders, while other Nama–Orlam leaders established their own polities in the south-central region. Relations shifted over time: ||Oaseb competed with the Afrikaners, Willem Swartbooi supported ||Oaseb at times, and Amraal Lambert was Jonker’s firmest ally.

The expansion of these political formations brought both incorporation and impoverishment. Military campaigns displaced inhabitants and made cattle ownership more precarious, while Damara and San groups were affected by raiding, reduced access to resources, and the expansion of commercial hunting. Some Damara increasingly entered wage labour in road-building, guano extraction, and seal hunting from the 1840s.