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German East Africa Deutsch-Ostafrika (German) | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1885–1918 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Service flag of the Colonial Office  Coat of arms of the German Empire | |||||||||||||||||||
| Anthem: "Heil dir im Siegerkranz" (German) (English: "'Hail to Thee in the Victor's Crown") | |||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Status | Colony ofGermany | ||||||||||||||||||
| Capital | Bagamoyo (1885–1890) Dar es Salaam (1890–1916) Tabora (1916, temporary)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Common languages | |||||||||||||||||||
| Religion |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Government | |||||||||||||||||||
| Emperor | |||||||||||||||||||
• 1885–1888 | Wilhelm I | ||||||||||||||||||
• 1888 | Frederick III | ||||||||||||||||||
• 1888–1918 | Wilhelm II | ||||||||||||||||||
| Governor | |||||||||||||||||||
• 1885–1891(first) | Carl Peters | ||||||||||||||||||
• 1912–1918(last) | Heinrich Schnee | ||||||||||||||||||
| Historical era | New Imperialism | ||||||||||||||||||
• Established by theDOAG | 27 February 1885 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1 July 1890 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 21 October 1905 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 3 August 1914 | |||||||||||||||||||
• Surrender | 25 November 1918 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 28 June 1919 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||||||||||
| 1912 | 995,000 km2 (384,000 sq mi) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||||||||
• 1912 | 7,700,000 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Currency | German East African rupie | ||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| Today part of | Burundi Rwanda Tanzania Mozambique | ||||||||||||||||||
German East Africa (GEA;German:Deutsch-OstafrikaDOA) was aGerman colony in theAfrican Great Lakes region, which included present-dayBurundi,Rwanda, theTanzania mainland, and theKionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated intoMozambique. GEA's area was 994,996 km2 (384,170 sq mi),[2][3] which is nearly three times the area of present-day Germany and almost double the area of metropolitan Germany at the time.
The colony was organised when the German military was asked in the late 1880s to put down a revolt against the activities of theGerman East Africa Company. It ended withImperial Germany's defeat inWorld War I. Ultimately the territory was divided amongst Britain, Belgium and Portugal, and was reorganised as amandate of the League of Nations.
Like other colonial powers, the Germans expanded their empire in the Africa Great Lakes region, ostensibly to explore the region's rich resources and its people. Unlike other imperial powers, however, they never formally abolished either slavery or the slave trade and preferred instead to curtail the production of new "recruits", regulating the existing business of slavery.[4][page needed]
The colony began whenCarl Peters, an adventurer and the founder of theSociety for German Colonization, signed treaties with several native chieftains on the mainland which is oppositeZanzibar. On 3 March 1885, the German government announced that it had granted an imperial charter, which was signed by ChancellorOtto von Bismarck on 27 February 1885. The charter was granted to Peters' company and was intended to establish aprotectorate in theAfrican Great Lakes region. Peters then recruited specialists who began exploring south to theRufiji River and north toWitu, nearLamu on the coast.[5][page needed][6][page needed][7][page needed]
TheSultan of Zanzibar protested and claimed that he was the ruler of both Zanzibar and the mainland. Chancellor Bismarck sent five warships which arrived on 7 August 1885, training their guns on the Sultan's palace. The Sultan was forced to accept the German claims on the mainland outside a 16-kilometre (10 mi)-strip along the coast. In November 1886 Germany and Britain reached an agreement declaring they would respect the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar over his islands and the 16-kilometre (10 mi)-strip along the coast. They otherwise agreed on their spheres of interest along what is now the Tanzanian–Kenyan border.[8] The British and Germans agreed to divide the mainland between themselves, and the Sultan had no option but to agree.[9][page needed]
German rule was established quickly overBagamoyo,Dar es Salaam, andKilwa.Oscar Baumann was sent to explore Masailand and Urundi. During his expedition he discovered the source of the Kagera river, the Alexandra Nile. The caravans ofTom von Prince, Wilhelm Langheld,Emin Pasha, andCharles Stokes were sent to dominate "the Street of Caravans".[citation needed] TheAbushiri Revolt of 1888 was put down with British help the following year. In 1890, London and Berlin concluded theHeligoland–Zanzibar Treaty, which gaveHeligoland to Germany and decided the border between GEA and theEast Africa Protectorate controlled by Britain, although the exact boundaries remained unsurveyed until 1910.[10][11][page needed]
The stretch of border betweenKenya andTanganyika, running from the sea to Lake Victoria, was surveyed by two British brothers: Charles Stewart Smith (British Consul at Mombasa) and his younger brother George Edward Smith (an officer and later a general with the Royal Engineers). Stewart Smith had been appointed British Commissioner in 1892 for the delimitation of the Anglo-German Boundary inAfrica, and in the same year they both surveyed the 290-kilometre (180 mi) line from the sea to Mount Kilimanjaro. Twelve years later George Edward Smith returned to complete the survey of the remaining 480 kilometres (300 mi) from Kilimanjaro to Lake Victoria.[12]
The German expansion was undertaken by military groups such as the notorious Wissmann Truppe, armed with modern weaponry. The Wissmann Truppe consisted of African soldiers led by German commanders. Under their command the Wissmann Truppe committed widespread atrocities.[13] Between 1891 and 1894, theHehe people which were led byChief Mkwawa resisted German expansion. They were defeated because rival tribes supported the Germans. After years of guerrilla warfare, Mkwawa was cornered and committed suicide in 1898.[14]
The colonial expansion led by Carl Peters came with considerable violence against the local populations. Carl Peters was infamous for his brutality, which had earned him the nickname "Mkono-wa-damu", or "Man with the blood-stained hands". He was known for leaving a path of destruction in his wake during his conquests, leaving entire villages slaughtered. Peters was also known for keeping a "harem" of local women, who would be completely at the mercy of Peters. In one instance, he had a woman flogged daily on suspicion of having sexual relations with another native. The native in question was hanged.
Other atrocities included rape, floggings and torture with iron rods.[15] Flogging was so excessive that the German colonies were known by other European powers as the "flogging colonies"[citation needed].
These widespread atrocities caused several uprisings in the German colonies. TheMaji Maji Rebellion occurred in 1905[16] and was put down by GovernorGustav Adolf von Götzen, who ordered measures to create a famine to crush the resistance. It may have cost as many 300,000 lives.[17][18] Scandal followed with allegations of corruption and brutality. In 1907, ChancellorBernhard von Bülow appointedBernhard Dernburg to reform the colonial administration.[19][20]
German colonial administrators relied heavily on native chiefs to keep order and collect taxes. By 1 January 1914, not including local police, the military garrisons of theSchutztruppen (protective troops) in Dar es Salaam,Moshi,Iringa, and Mahenge numbered 110 German officers (including 42 medical officers), 126 non-commissioned officers, and 2,472Askari (native enlisted men).[21]: 32
Germans promoted commerce and economic growth. Over 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres) were put undersisal cultivation which was the largest cash crop.[22] Two million coffee trees were planted, rubber trees grew on 81,000 hectares (200,000 acres), and there were large cotton plantations.[23]
In the early years of the colony, hunting and gathering remained the basis of the export economy, and ivory and wild rubber were major exports. The African-owned plantations along the coast, on the other hand, suffered from the gradual abolition of slavery. The number of European-owned plantations rose steadily, but many of them proved unprofitable. Global markets for commodities like coffee and rubber were very unstable, and the soil and climate were not always favourable to the grower. It was only in sisal that the large plantations finally found a reliable source of income.[24] Under the governorship ofAlbrecht von Rechenberg, from 1906 to 1912, the colonial administration began to place more emphasis on the economic potential of African small-holder agriculture, for which railway construction was an essential precondition.[25] In his detailed study of the economic development of the colony, Rainer Tetzlaff came to the conclusion that "German East Africa never achieved any real significance for the German Empire, neither as a colony for the settlement of emigrants, nor as a supplier of raw materials, nor as a market for exports."[26]
One of the great impediments to the development of plantation agriculture was the labour problem. The plantations could not function without a large African workforce, but employment conditions were often poor, not to say life-threatening. Local German officials frequently colluded with European landowners in forcing Africans to work on the plantations, although the government in Berlin had banned any form of forced labour. The various labour ordinances promulgated in Dar es Salaam were largely ignored in the interior. The social and economic impacts of large-scale labour migration on "labour reservoirs" such as Unyamwezi and Usukuma were often devastating.[27][28][29][30]
Beginning in 1888 theUsambara Railway was built fromTanga to Moshi to bring these agricultural products to market. TheCentral Railroad covered 775 mi (1,247 km) and linked Dar es Salaam,Morogoro,Tabora, andKigoma. The final link to the eastern shore ofLake Tanganyika was completed in July 1914 and was cause for a huge and festive celebration in the capital with an agricultural fair and trade exhibition. Harbor facilities were built or improved with electrical cranes, with rail access and warehouses. Wharves were remodeled at Tanga, Bagamoyo, andLindi. After 1891, the German colonial administration undertook efforts to overhaul the region's caravan routes, which had existed before European colonisation, into all-weather highways, although most of these projects proved to be unsuccessful and ended in failure.[31]
In 1912, Dar es Salaam and Tanga received 356 freighters and passenger steamers and over 1,000 coastal ships and local trading-vessels.[21]: 30 Dar es Salaam became the showcase city of all of tropical Africa.[32]: 22 By 1914, Dar es Salaam and the surrounding province had a population of 166,000, among them 1,000 (0.6%) Germans. In all of the GEA, there were 3,579 Germans.[21]: 155
Gold mining in Tanzania in modern times dates back to the German colonial period, beginning with gold discoveries nearLake Victoria in 1894. The Kironda-Goldminen-Gesellschaft established one of the first gold mines in the colony, theSekenke Gold Mine, which began operation in 1909 after the finding of gold there in 1907.[33]
In German Tanganyika, slavery was gradually phased out. New enslavement and commercial slave trade was banned in 1901, but private slave sales were not banned, and thousands of slaves, mostly women, were sold during 1911–1914; all slaves born after 1905 were born free; slaves who had been subjected to abuse were freed; slaves were permitted to ransom and buy their freedom, and thousand of slaves bought their freedom or left their enslavers when the Germans did not act to prevent them.[34] In 1914, the Germans contemplated to ban slavery, but ultimately did not, since they did not consider it financially possible to compensate their owners.[34]
Germany developed an educational program for Africans that included elementary, secondary, and vocational schools.[citation needed] In 1924, ten years after the beginning of the First World War and six years into British rule, the visiting AmericanPhelps-Stokes Commission reported, "In regards to schools, the Germans have accomplished marvels. Some time must elapse before education attains the standard it had reached under the Germans. Instructor qualifications, curricula, textbooks, teaching materials, all met standards unmatched anywhere in tropical Africa."[32]: 21
TheSwahili word for school,shule, is derived from the German wordSchule.[35]
In the most populous colony of the German Empire, there were more than 7.5 million locals. About 30% were Muslim and the remainder belonged to various tribal beliefs or Christian converts, compared to around 10,000 Europeans, who resided mainly in coastal locations and official residences. In 1913, only 882 German farmers and planters lived in the colony. Approximately 70,000 Africans worked on the plantations of GEA.[36]
GeneralPaul von Lettow-Vorbeck had served inGerman South West Africa andKamerun. He led the German forces in GEA during World War I. His military force consisted of 3,500 Europeans and 12,000 native Askaris and porters. The war strategy was to harry the British army of 40,000, which was at times commanded by the formerSecond Boer War commanderJan Smuts. One of Lettow-Vorbeck's greatest victories was at theBattle of Tanga (3–5 November 1914). In the battle, the German forces defeated a British force, which was more than eight times larger.[37]
Lettow-Vorbeck'sguerrilla warfare compelled Britain to commit significant resources to a minor colonial theatre throughout the war and inflicted more than 10,000 casualties. Eventually, the weight of numbers, especially after forces coming from theBelgian Congo had attacked from the west (Battle of Tabora), and dwindling supplies forced Lettow-Vorbeck to abandon the colony. He withdrew south intoPortuguese Mozambique and then intoNorthern Rhodesia, where he agreed to a ceasefire after he had received news of the armistice between the warring nations three days earlier.[38]
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Currency had to be printed locally due to a significant lack of provisions resulting from the naval blockade.
After the war, Lettow-Vorbeck was acclaimed as one of Germany's heroes. HisSchutztruppe was celebrated as the only colonial German force during World War I that was not defeated in open combat, but it often retreated when it was outnumbered. The Askari colonial troops who had fought in the East African campaign were later given pension payments by theWeimar Republic andWest Germany.[39]
TheSMSKönigsberg, a Germanlight cruiser, also fought off the coast of the African Great Lakes region. She was eventually scuttled in theRufiji delta in July 1915 after running low on coal and spare parts and was subsequently blockaded and bombarded by the British. The surviving crew stripped out the remaining ship's guns, mounted them on gun carriages, and joined the land forces, which added considerably to their effectiveness.[40]
Another smaller campaign was conducted on the shores of southern Lake Tanganyika in 1914 and 1915. It involved a makeshift British and Belgian flotilla and theReichsheer garrison at Bismarckburg (modern-dayKasanga).[citation needed]
The Supreme Council of the1919 Paris Peace Conference awarded all of German East Africa (GEA) to Britain on 7 May 1919, over the strenuous objections of Belgium.[41]: 240 The Britishcolonial secretary,Alfred Milner, and Belgium's ministerplenipotentiary to the conference,Pierre Orts [fr], then negotiated the Anglo-Belgian agreement of 30 May 1919[42]: 618–9 where Britain ceded the north-western GEA districts ofRuanda and Urundi to Belgium.[41]: 246 The conference's Commission on Mandates ratified this agreement on 16 July 1919.[41]: 246–7 The Supreme Council accepted the agreement on 7 August 1919.[42]: 612–3
On 12 July 1919, the Commission on Mandates agreed that the smallKionga Triangle south of theRovuma River would be given toPortugal;[41]: 243 it eventually became part of independentMozambique. The commission reasoned that Germany had virtually forced Portugal to cede the triangle in 1894.[41]: 243
TheTreaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, although the treaty did not take effect until 10 January 1920. On that date, the GEA was transferred officially to Britain, Belgium, and Portugal. Also on the same day, "Tanganyika" became the name of the British territory.
Some names in German East Africa continued to bear German spellings of the local names for a while, such as "Udjidji" forUjiji and "Kilimandscharo" forMount Kilimanjaro, "Kleinaruscha" for Arusha-Chini and "Neu-Moschi" for the city now known asMoshi. (Kigoma was known for a time as "Rutschugi".)[43]
Many places were given African names or had their previous names reestablished:[44][45][46][47]
The Imperial High Commissioners (German:Reichskommissar) and Imperial Governors (German:Kaiserlicher Gouverneur) of German East Africa:[48]
The administration of German East Africa from 1884 to 1917 is documented in a set of records now held by theTanzania National Archives. In 1997, these German records were inscribed byUNESCO in itsMemory of the World International Register, recognising them as documents of global importance.[49]
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In 1914, a series of drafts were made for proposed coats of arms and flags for theGerman colonies. However,World War I broke out before the designs were finished and implemented, and the symbols were never actually used. Following its defeat in the war, Germany lost all its colonies and the prepared coats of arms and flags as a result were never used.[citation needed]
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