Rethinking Reform:
A Reappraisal of German East African History
Taylor Baljon
ESHCC
Erasmus University
#360346
Taylor.Baljon@Gmail.com
Gijsbert Oonk
Karin Willemse
2
Table of Contents
I. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………. 3
II. The Political Context……………………………………………………………………. 15
III. The Economic Context…………………………………………………………………. 26
IV. The Social Context……………………………………………………………...……… 39
V. The Settler Problem……………………………………………………………...……… 49
VI. Conclusion………………………………………………………...…………………… 57
Bibliography……………………………….………………………………….……………. 60
3
Chapter I: Introduction
This study is designed as a reappraisal of the history of German East Africa. Though
there have been a number of different attempts at reassessment of various aspects of the
period of German rule in modern day Tanzania, this study is by no means superfluous.1 The
point of contention brought up in this particular study differs from others in the object of its
reassessment. While others have focused on various aspects of the period under German
rule, including economic and social policies of the state and their subsequent effects, this
paper takes a somewhat broader view. The goal is not to examine a specific area of German
East Africa, but rather a wide-ranging analysis of several aspects of the colony in order to
undermine the currently accepted periodization and plot structure of the history of the colony
as a whole.
In particular, this study has been organized to debunk one segment of the history of
German colonial rule in East Africa. The segment in question is what is known in the history
of German East Africa as the Dernburg reform era. The nomenclature comes from the period
in office of the Colonial Secretary Bernhard Dernburg. The idea of the reform period stems
from older sources; most of these date from the late colonial period.2 In this older version of
the history, the year 1906 is taken as the decisive turning point. After two serious colonial
rebellions in the years up to that point, there was a serious political crisis, centering on the
colonies, and criticism thereof. As the crisis escalated, a fresh new face, Bernhard Dernburg,
was brought in as Colonial Secretary to clean out the Augean stables. Following a successful
election campaign, Dernburg set about reforming and reorganizing the colonial
administration and policy. This period of “scientific colonization,” or a studious betterment
of the colonial process through European technology and science, brought benefits to both
the metropole and to her colonial subjects in a manner fitting of a civilizing imperial power,
according to early European sources. In this way, the year 1906 represents in the older
versions of the history a drastic break between the excesses and abuses of an earlier period
and the peaceful era of prosperity and reform which was to follow.
John Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule 1905 – 1912. Cambridge. 1969. Juhani Koponen. Development
for Exploitation: German colonial policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884 – 1914. Helsinki. 1995. Jan-Georg
Deutsch. Emancipation without Abolition in German East Africa c. 1884–1914. Oxford. 2006. Tetzlaff,
Rainer. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte Deutsch-Ostafrikas 18831914. Schriften zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, Vol. 17. Berlin: Duncker und Humbolt. 1970.
2Mary Evelyn Townsend, The Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire 1884 – 1918. New York. 1930.,
W.O. Henderson. German East Africa 1884 – 1918.
1
4
This summation of events relies on four major premises. The first of these points
asserts that the colonial crisis of 1906, seen in an upsurge in public debate over the colonies
generally, and their rise to prominence as a national issue, was caused by previous
immorality within the German administration. It was the cruelty and thoughtlessness of the
previous officials that led to the two large rebellions in Africa, rather than any sort of native
African initiative. This idea leads to a second conclusion, that it was the public outcry in
Germany against the immorality of the colonial administration that led to major reforms. The
third premise of the argument continues that as this was a German response to a German
immorality, the initiative for reform lay firmly in the hands of Colonial Secretary Dernburg.
Dernburg’s program of enlightened imperialism, which he outlined during his election
speeches, then swept away the abuses of the previous administration. After Dernburg’s tenure
in office, the colony had been successfully reformed and worked to the benefit of all, a
veritable example of the civilizing mission for the entire world to see. The proof of this, the
fourth point, lies in the statistical rises in economic production, and especially in the absence
of rebellion between 1907 and 1914.3
That interpretation, however, has not been without its critics over the years. The
illustrious Cambridge professor, John Iliffe, wrote one of the earliest and best-known
critiques, especially within English language historiography.4 Writing in the early
postcolonial period, Iliffe sought to rectify many of the biases of previous authors in regard to
the so-called ‘era of reform.’ To this end, and after thorough research, Iliffe created his own,
more nuanced version of the later history of German East Africa. Iliffe’s history centers on a
number of basic points, many of them directly contradicting the above established version.
First, posits Iliffe, there were “very real changes… in East Africa after 1906.”5 These
changes, he continues, were not devised due to moral outrage among the German public, but
were rather a European response to the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905-7, an African initiative.
The second point, explains Iliffe, is that the reforms were not the work of an incredibly gifted
colonial secretary, forcing his will on Germany’s East African possession. Instead, they
derive from conflict and compromise between Colonial Secretary Dernburg, the governor of
East Africa, and the Reichstag in Berlin. His third point continues that the reform program
was opposed and ultimately reversed by the growing white settler community in the colony.
Despite this, he concedes in his fourth point, German East Africa was remarkably peaceful
Townsend. Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire 1884 – 1918.
John Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule.
5 Ibid. 7.
3
4
5
after 1907. He denies however, that this fact was due to any European initiative, but rather to
changes happening at the time within African societies. Iliffe then adds a fifth point,
extending somewhat the timeline of the reform period. He suggests that there was an “age of
improvement” towards the end of German rule in Tanganyika involving economic and social
advances.6 However, Iliffe then goes on to explain that this period should not been seen in
the light of the “era of reform,” but rather as the beginning of a new period of conflict
between Africans and Europeans. In this way, Iliffe contradicts many of the points and
problems of the older version of German East Africa’s history, but stops short of a
straightforward denial of the idea of a reform period.
Where Iliffe stops is essentially where the argument of this paper picks up. This
study intends to critique the historiography of German East Africa in a new light. This new
critique goes further than Iliffe, for despite his admirable work in uncovering biases and
misconceptions within previous histories, his acceptance of the idea of a period of reform
leaves much to be said. The main argument of this work is that the reform period, as it is
known, should not be labeled, or even perhaps periodized as such. Guiding this claim is a
wealth of scholarship on the German rule in East Africa that has been produced since Iliffe’s
1969 study.7 Many of these works deal with specific aspects of colonial rule, including
slavery, cotton production, labor, and systems of exploitation, but none has come out
definitively debunking the myth of the reform period. To this end, this study advances its
own system of points in much the same fashion as Iliffe to conclusively deny the existence of
a reform period.
The first of these points revolves around the concept of a reform period, and how that
idea was developed during the 1907 Reichstag elections. In the aftermath of the large
rebellions in the German colonies of South-West and East Africa, there was indeed, as the
older version of the history suggests, an outcry among the German public at the brutality and
expense, in both financial and human costs, of the uprisings. Such was the extent of the
scandal and the ensuing crisis that the government dissolved itself and new elections were
called. In the run-up to these elections, Dernburg, the new colonial secretary, was sent around
electioneering for the parties of order, explaining how the colonies would be reformed and
how they would eventually benefit both Germany and the natives. His speeches at this time
have become the basis of his historical legacy, in that the substance of reform has often been
6
7
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 8.
Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklungund Ausbeutung. Koponen. Development for Exploitation. Sunseri. A Social
History of Cotton Production in German East Africa, 1884-1915.
6
overlooked in favor of election promises. Starting from this point, this paper will show how
this particular misreading of events occurred, and why exactly the misunderstanding proved
so durable.
The second point of this study is that the economic growth of the colony, seized by
both the older interpretation and Iliffe’s own as evidence, was to a large degree overstated. If
Dernburg’s proposed program is taken as anything like a yardstick for the success or failure
of these so called reforms, then in economic terms, the reforms were lackluster at best. This
point will be advanced particularly in regard to the raw materials that Dernburg was so keen
on producing in the colonies for use in German industry. If one looks at the larger picture,
rather than simply examining the rising production numbers, this point becomes clear.
The third point that this paper advances is that, much as the colony did not become
the reformed booming producer of raw materials the Dernburg intended, its progress in social
terms was equally dismal. Recent studies on exploitation in the colony by Juhani Koponen
and the continuation of slavery under colonial rule, especially in the reform period, by JanGeorg Deutsch, help to illustrate this point.8,9 As both their studies, and further research has
shown, very little success occurred in regard to bettering the position of the natives, and
where progress was made, it was often not because of, but despite the interference of the
supposedly reform minded state.10
The last major point of the argument flows from Dr. Iliffe’s third point, that the white
settlers were able to oppose and ultimately reverse the policy of reform in the colony. If this
settler community was so successful in quickly opposing and reversing reforms, and these
reforms never came in effect, why then would one bother to apply the label of reform to the
period? Instead, as this paper will argue, the settlers represent a force of continuity over
change, which will be expanded upon below as the nucleus of a different periodization of
German East African History. It is the hope of the study that the new periodization will
provide a better vantage from which to view the admittedly short span of German Rule in
East Africa, and provide a definite break with the biased historiographies of the colonial
period.
Juhani Koponen. Development for Exploitation: German colonial policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884 –
1914. Helsinki. 1995.
9 Jan-Georg Deutsch. Emancipation without Abolition in German East Africa c. 1884–1914. Oxford. 2006.
10 Ibid. 168.
8
7
Methodology & Sources
This study is based on two types of source material: German accounts of the period,
in the form of published memoirs and speeches of colonial officials and colonial activists, as
well as documents collected in the Berlin – Lichterfelde department of the Bundesarchiv, and
the collected works of secondary sources on various subjects surrounding German rule in
East Africa. The idea behind this approach is straightforward. Through a combination of
official pronouncements, as well as statistics and letters from the colony itself, it is possible
to grasp, granted without perfect accuracy, an idea of the differences between the statements
of the government and the situation on the ground in German East Africa. This approach is
complimented by the large corpus of literature from other authors on the political, economic,
and social areas which have been designated as the major points of argument, as well as
discussions of the settler community which ultimately provides the new structure through
which to examine the colony. The statistics and insights that other authors have provided in
their research have been especially helpful in this endeavor, and I will not shy away from
admitting that in my efforts I am standing on their shoulders. To grasp the importance of the
other authors and their work, however, necessitates a detailed discussion of the
historiography of German East Africa, an explanation of how these works have influenced
my own views, and placement within the structure of my ultimate argument in debunking the
myth of reform in that colony.
The first of the categories of secondary literature useful to the study at hand involve
the political context of the supposed reform era. That is to say, these works involve
themselves, though not always in their entirety, with the situation in the Reichstag and the
elections to that body in 1907. This is important, for it was during this period that the idea of
a reform era first came about. Without discussing the implications of this election, any
progress on removing the aura surrounding the Dernburg reforms would be severely
hampered. That said, though there are many works on this subject, three in particular have
been especially useful in linking the importance of the colonies to the 1907 elections, and the
importance of the elections to German East Africa especially.
The first of these books, rather surprisingly, is a somewhat ancient tome on the
elections themselves. George Dunlap Crothers wrote his The German Elections of 1907 in
1941, well within the scope of the old colonial version of the reform period.11 Nevertheless,
11
George Dunlap Crothers. The German Elections of 1907. New York. 1941.
8
and probably owing in part to the dearth of later literature on the subject, Crothers largely
narrative account of the elections remains the best English language summary of the events
and reasons behind what was to be known as the Hottentot election. Crothers begins with a
discussion of the reasons for the colonial crisis that forms the major reason for the later
elections. This, as should be noted, had much more to do with Germany’s colony in South
West Africa, rather than its Eastern possession on which this study is centered. He then
continues with an explanation of the nature of the German Reichstag in 1906 and the more
powerful parties, including detailed accounts of their motives and agendas. Two of these
motivations are especially important, and lucidly described. The first of these is that of the
German center, and confessional catholic party, the Zentrum, which was attempting to gain
control of the purse strings of government through a blockage of colonial bills.12 The second
important motive discussed is that of the Chancellor, von Bülow, who, more than anything
else was concerned with his own job security. The main thrust of the book, however, is its
assertion that the 1907 elections represent a distinct surge in national and imperial enthusiasm
that was not to wane until after the First World War.13 Unfortunately that point, though well
articulated, is not directly relevant to this study.
The second book of note in describing the political context of the development of the
idea of a reform period was written much more recently. Woodruff D. Smith’s German
Colonial Empire is another narrative account, but much broader in scope, covering the entire
span of German colonial history.14 Within this all-encompassing trajectory are two chapters
of impressive clarity and substantial use to this study. Of most importance is Smith’s account
of Colonial Secretary Dernburg’s appointment to his position as an integral part of the
campaign conducted by the parties of order. The value of this argument is its link between the
demands of an election campaign and Dernburg’s election speeches. In the next chapter,
Smith goes on to explain the Dernburg era. While critical of the eventual outcome of the
reform period, Smith still labels it as such, and uses it as a definitive break in his
periodization of the German Colonial Empire. Unlike many of the other sources surrounding
German rule in East Africa, this book centers almost exclusively on the political and
administrative aspects of the empire. While this makes for a rather one-sided narrative of
German rule, it suits this paper’s needs admirably.
Crothers. The German Elections of 1907. 75.
Ibid. 11 – 12.
14 Woodruff D. Smith. German Colonial Empire. Chapel Hill. 1978.
12
13
9
The third book of use in understanding the political context of the reform period has
already been described in part above. John Iliffe’s definitive work on German East Africa,
while devoted in large part to the idea of the reform period, also contains a useful chapter on
the political context.15 Iliffe begins with a description of the colonies position within the
German government, and their importance to it. He then goes on to describe the colonial
crisis of 1906 and the reasons for it. Unlike Crothers and Smith, Iliffe is much more vocal
about the reasoning behind the Reichstag dissolution of 1906, stating, unequivocally that the
root of the crisis was, “the government’s determination to reverse socialist gains.”16 Iliffe
then goes on, much in line with Crothers, to describe the motives of the various parties
involved, though owing to the limited scope of his chapter, in far less detail. He explains the
appointment of Dernburg, and Dernburg’s aims for the colonies. He is rightly suspicious of
Dernburg’s reform agenda, but ultimately concludes his remarks on the political context of
the reform period by suggesting that, “Dernburg’s term of office as Colonial Secretary was an
era of genuine reform.”17 This might seem strange in light of his previous criticism, but he
holds that line through the rest of the work. That is of course, ultimately this paper’s problem
with Iliffe’s book, but does not dilute the usefulness of his several incisive points on the
political context of the reform period he set out to describe.
The second of the relevant categories of historiography pertaining to this study is that
which brings in the more tangible realities of the so-called reform period, with reference to
the claims of its theoretical leader, Dernburg. As will be discussed below, the major aspects
of Dernburg’s intended reforms can be grouped into economic and social categories,
themselves making up the more empirical part of the research contained within this paper.
Many of these topics overlap, and it has therefore been useful to combine the two into one
section of historiography, producing a more coherent structure.
The first of the useful sources regarding social and economic change during the
reform era in German East Africa has been described, but it is worth noting John Iliffe’s work
again, in respect to its usefulness to later chapters. While also describing the political
background of the reform era, Iliffe also discusses at length the economic and social changes
that occurred within German East Africa. To be fair, Iliffe’s work does not fit newer
interpretations of the reform period, but is useful in many ways. While Iliffe claims that
social changes formed a large part of the reform period, he does not cite them very clearly,
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule 1905 – 1912. 30 – 49.
Ibid. 40.
17 Ibid. 49.
15
16
10
and ultimately admits that many of these policies changed or were eventually reversed by the
rise of the settler community. He also describes economic changes within the colony, but
again, is forced to explain that those same settlers halted most of these changes. This seeming
paradox between Iliffe’s claim of a period of “genuine reform,” and later admission of that
reform’s failure in sense sows the seeds of this paper’s argument for a new historical
periodization and trajectory.18 Despite this, Iliffe’s work is still very insightful, and provides
ample detail of the historical processes at work during the reform period.
A second valuable work in terms of both social and economic change in German East
Africa during Dernburg’s tenure in office is the Finnish scholar, Juhani Koponen’s book,
Development for Exploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884 –
1914. This much more modern book, published in 1995, is admittedly tilted towards a
description of the economics of the colony than social issues, and spans the entire length of
German rule, rather than a select period like Iliffe’s. However, Koponen’s work is much
more critical of the reform period than Iliffe, and should his work have been a narrative rather
than a concerted attempt to show that German East Africa was developed primarily to be best
exploited, rather than to help the natives or even civilize them, it might have made this
particular study unnecessary. As it stands though, Koponen’s lengthy work contains
invaluable chapters describing the social and economic changes in the colony during the
supposed reform period with a rightfully critical eye. Thomas Sunseri, however, harshly
criticizes his book, for its over-focus on economic matters as the driving force of history, and
its ignorance in regard to the perspective of the average African native.
This brings up the third work of note that proved useful in an assessment of he
empirical results of the reform period in German East Africa. Thomas Sunseri’s Ph.D.
dissertation, A Social History of Cotton Production in German East Africa 1884 – 1915,
published in 1993, provides another useful modern perspective dedicated solely to German
East Africa. Where Koponen focused primarily on economic issues, Sunseri has largely opted
for a social approach. Though Sunseri is quite critical of Koponen’s work in a review on the
topic, in practice the works can be seen as complimentary.19 Whereas Koponen is ultimately
critical of the efficacy of the economic development of the colony, Sunseri is equally critical
of the aspects of social reform claimed to have been carried out by the German authorities.
On the whole, however, while Sunseri claims that Koponen has focused too much on
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 49.
Thomas Sunseri, Review of Development for Exploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland Tanzania,
1884 – 1914. By Juhani Koponen. African Affairs, Vol. 96, No. 382 (Jan., 1997), pp. 145-147.
18
19
11
economic issues, it would seem instead the Sunseri’s work is the more lopsided of the two.
This of course, does not detract from its overall value to the study.
A fourth useful source on what we might call the situation on the ground in German
East Africa is Jan-Georg Deutsch’s work, Emancipation without Abolition in German East
Africa c. 1884 – 1914. Like Sunseri’s study of cotton production, Deutsch’s book focuses
mostly on social issues within the colony. Being the most recent publication of the sources,
dating from 2006, it also unsurprisingly takes one of the harsher views on the idea of the
reform period. Deutsch outlines the development of slavery in East Africa before the German
occupation, and then explains, with excellent archival evidence, the continuation of slavery
under German rule. Deutsch rather boldly asserts that slavery ultimately did not decline
because of, but rather in spite of German efforts. This of course, is extremely helpful in this
study’s attempt to debunk the myth of the reform period in German East African history.
Much like Koponen, if Deutsch’s work had been a complete narrative of German rule, rather
than a selective study, it might have rendered this study of little use. Given the circumstances,
however, a combination of the two works provides an excellent reappraisal of German rule in
a broader context than either of the two authors attempted themselves.
Besides English language examples, there is also an abundance of German language
material on German East Africa. This paper centers itself mainly on a reappraisal of the
English language history of German East Africa, which is largely less critical of the reform
era than its German counterparts. However, German language sources have proved useful on
their own, and two examples in particular provide a good viewpoint. These are Rainer
Tetzlaff’s Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung: Wirtschafts – und Sozialgeschichte
Deutsch – Ostafrikas 1885 – 1914, and Detleff Bald’s Deutsch – Ostafrika 1900 – 1914.
These works, published within a year of each other in 1971 and 1970 respectively, offer a
general context of the German literature with which to compare to English language sources.
Tetzlaff’s account is a combined social and economic approach, achieving much more
balance in his argument than any of the previously mentioned authors. He moves from a
general discussion of the failure of the initial colonial enterprise in the 1890’s to a more
detailed discussion of the social and economic failures of the so called reform period. More
than any of the English language authors, Tetzlaff is very concerned with the idea of
rethinking the reform idea during the Dernburg era. He quite convincingly points out many of
that theory’s failings, which have been quite useful in this work. Unfortunately, much of his
analysis has not carried over into English language sources. In Detleff Bald’s work, he
conforms to a much older line of historical analysis. While his is more narrative, and actually
12
adheres in its periodization more to a settler-based model of historiography, Bald does not
draw such a conclusion. Instead he is much less critical of the reform idea, and actually fairly
sympathetic to figures like Dernburg and Rechenberg. The contrast between the two mirrors
in miniature the same debate that occurs within the English language historiography.
Continuing with the idea of literature that is sympathetic to the idea of a reform era is
the work of Gann and Duignan, The Rulers of German Africa, 1884 – 1914. Published in
1977, this work perhaps more than any other shows the pitfalls of adherence to a reform idea.
While Rulers suggests definite social advances during the Dernburg era, they seem distinctly
shy about citing their sources on these claims, and equally so about the serious use of archival
sources. This detracts substantially from the credibility of their work. They do, however, do a
good job showing the economic changes and advances during the period, and document these
quite well. However, they lose the forest for the trees in their attempt, missing the point that
substantial economic growth in the German African colonies, though impressive, was from
such a low base as to render it ultimately irrelevant to the metropole, the whole point of
reforming the colony. That this happens despite charts describing colonial trade as a
percentage of all German trade is strange to say the least. Nevertheless, the book is useful in
much of its economic data, and perhaps even more so as a counterpoint to this argument.
Lastly, it has been useful to include sources on the role of Indian traders within the
German colony, their part in economic growth, and in regard to social changes within the
colony. This role has been largely filled by the work of Robert Gregory, in his work India
and East Africa: A History of Race Relations within the British Empire 1890 – 1939. As the
title suggests, this book is of only limited relevance to the thesis as a whole. However, its
discussion of German policy towards the Indian population is indeed insightful. It also allows
for comparison to British standards at the same time, which has been surprisingly useful
during the course of the research that allowed for this study.
A third category of relevant secondary literature in the production of this paper has
been on the development of a vocal and politicized settler population in German East Africa
that was ultimately to change the situation there dramatically. There has been lively debate
on this point within secondary literature as to whether German East Africa was moving
towards a model of colonialism that looked more like British South Africa than anything else.
As usual, John Iliffe’s Tanganyika under German Rule was again extremely useful in
defining the rise of the settler community in the colony, describing its often bitter relationship
with the administration of Governor Rechenberg in lucid detail. Iliffe was the first to advance
the idea that German East Africa was moving towards a settler-dominated “white man’s
13
country.” Though this study disagrees with many of his ultimate conclusions, in regard to the
direction the colony was moving his argument is coherent and sound.
Another author previously mentioned, Juhani Koponen, weighed in his opinion on the
rise of the settler community in his much more recent work. Despite much criticism of Iliffe
in his book, Koponen ultimately comes to the same conclusion as Iliffe in regard to the
development of German East Africa as a white man’s county. As he puts it plainly, the aim
was not a German East Africa, but rather an East African Germany. Along with Iliffe,
Koponen also describes in detail the rise of the settlers, their importance, and gives a more
highly documented and well-cited version of Iliffe’s original argument. In this way, this
study’s ultimate conclusions in regard to a new periodization of German East African history
are heavily indebted to the arguments of these two scholars.
A third valuable source on the settler community has been the German historian,
Rainer Tetzlaff. While he does not commit himself to the particular model of Iliffe and
Koponen, he does explain the rise of the settlers and their influence clearly, and provides in
his work much more quantitative methods of this rise, with much better graphs and tables that
have been immensely helpful in visualizing the process of change.
Of course, all of the secondary literature would not be sufficient on its own to produce
a study such as this, and so it is also important to note the necessary primary sources that
have been of great use in the production of this work. Much of the primary sources have
come from the Bundesarchiv in Lichterfelde, Berlin, and more specifically within the files of
the Reichskolonialamt that were so readily available there. The sources are generally
composed of correspondence that helped to flesh out the details of changes occurring in the
colony, both social and economic. It was also useful to check on the files that previous
scholars had cited, to gain a better understanding of their argumentation. Most useful, and
vital to my argument, however, are the speeches of Dernburg, published in the same year
they were given, on his ideas for reform. While it might have seemed prudent to define
reform in a very theoretical and technical sense, it is through Dernburg’s own claims of what
he saw as reform, and what his reform would entail that this paper is able to judge the
existence of the reform era.
Given the nature of the primary sources used, this paper leaves itself in some ways
open to criticism, especially in regard to a pro-government bias. Indeed, all of the primary
sources used in this paper come in one way or another directly from Germans in Germany or
in East Africa. In that sense, while this paper intends to get a degree of understanding about
the realities on the ground in German East Africa, it is by no means comprehensive, in that it
14
lacks African voices entirely. This situation is the case for a number of reasons. Firstly, given
that this is a master’s thesis, and not a PhD dissertation, my ability to travel to different
archives was severely limited. Had it been possible to visit the national archives in Tanzania,
the paper would be much more balanced for it, but would still have major problems. This
brings up the second issue, a distinct lack of input from Africans. While many modern
historians seek to use a bottom-up approach to history, the resources available from this
period simply do not allow so broad an attempt. Instead, source material is largely limited to
what the Germans produced. This has been considered in the course of the research, but on
the whole, given that this is an assessment of the German government rather than an attempt
to tell the story of the Africans there, the bias inherent in the sources does not seem to have
been seriously damaging to the overall results. Having reviewed the various sources, and the
method by which I have used them, it is now possible to enter into the actual discussion of
the reform period, and the new periodization which this paper intends to suggest for the
history of German Colonial East Africa.
15
Chapter II: The Political Context
The intention of this study is to debunk the myth of the reform period in German East
Africa. However, before any serious discussion of the successes and failures in Africa that
might lead to a positive or negative assessment of that myth, it is first important to launch
into an explanation of how the idea of a reform period came to be in the first place. To
understand that development, an understanding of the basic mechanics of the German
government and the colonies in that system, as well as an understanding of the relationship
between the Reichstag and the colonies is necessary. This must necessarily be followed by a
discussion of the nature of the Reichstag, and the parties that comprised it in 1906 during the
run up to the colonial crisis, as well as the ambitions and motives of these different actors.
Only then can an explanation of the crisis itself be undertaken. It is then through an
explanation of the crisis, the following dissolution of the Reichstag, and the election
campaign in which Dernburg’s colonial reform agenda played a major role, that the creation
of the idea of the reform era can be understood. This chapter then, seeks to examine each of
these aspects of the development in turn, with the goal of that greater understanding.
Structure of the Colonial Empire
The first step in understanding the idea of the reform period is to understand the
governmental structure from which it sprang, and especially the unique position of the
colonies in Germany’s constitutional structure as compared to other countries. This is not a
new idea, and has been articulated in several other writings on the topic, most notably in
Iliffe’s work on the reform period.20 The peculiar position of the colonies within this
framework is largely a product of the way the imperial German government was formed in
the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war. Due to the insistence of the Prussian authorities
that no non-Prussian body should wield serious influence over the internal workings of that
state, many powers were devolved on the various German states, leaving comparatively little
for the imperial government, and therefore the elected Reichstag, to control. There were
notable exceptions, including the newly acquired state of Elsaß-Lothringen, limited control
over social insurance, and more importantly the fledgling German navy, which at that time
20
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule 1905 – 1912.
16
was more of a pipe dream, but which had larger implications later on. In these, and a few
other areas, the Reichstag was able to amend and even veto budgets, giving it a considerable
degree of control. Any new imperial projects also fell under the financial supervision of the
Reichstag, should they require funding. This is where the colonies came into play.
When the colonies, which had not been considered at the time of German unification,
came into existence, Bismarck attempted to avoid this annoying interference in his affairs on
the premise that the colonies would be able to fund themselves. This would be possible
through a system of concessionary companies, one for each of Germany’s new colonial
possessions. However, by and large, these companies turned out to be dismal failures. None
could raise adequate capital to invest and exploit the resources of its own colony, and
eventually the German government was forced to take over the administration of the entire
colonial empire. This meant though, that the budgets of these colonies would now come
under the direct budgetary authority of the Reichstag. This direct control of the budget was
different from, for example, British colonies, where the House only had control over grantsin-aid.21 In the German case, the Reichstag was able to examine and change virtually any
aspect of the colonies funding. Furthermore, it had the time to closely scrutinize such
budgets, given the limited scope of its power within the Empire.
It was this peculiar nature of Reichstag control over the colonies, and the time and
reason to use that control that led the colonies to come to such prominence. In order to pass
colonial or naval bills, in a sense to conduct the foreign policy that Wilhelm II was insistent
upon, the Chancellor was forced, in practice, to attempt to form a semi-permanent majority,
in other words a coalition that would survive multiple elections, within the Reichstag that
would support his budgets. A Chancellor, himself directly responsible to the Kaiser, would
not last long if he was not able to do so. The peculiar nature also implied that, given the high
degree of authority the Reichstag wielded in regard to colonial policy, the composition of that
body could have a major effect on the direction of colonial policy. This was true especially
in regard to the right-wing coalition that came into power in the wake of the 1907 elections.
That influence, while important later on, is of less concern at this point in time. It is in this
way, due to the unique constitutional position of the colonies in Germany, and the peculiar
degree of control which the Reichstag wielded over them, that the colonies were to become
such a contentious issue. Given that, it becomes necessary to explain the nature of the
21
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule 1905 – 1912. 37.
17
Reichstag which was to have such an important effect on the colonies, and eventually on the
development of the idea of a reform period.
The Reichstag in 1906
While a full discussion of all the parties in the Reichstag and their motives would be
necessary to give a complete view of the situation in 1906, this paper will limit itself to a
discussion of three distinct groups, their ambitions, their fears, and their motives in relation to
the colonial crisis which was to come to a head in that year. Two of these groups are parties
themselves, namely the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, henceforth SPD, the
socialist party, and the Zentrum, or center party, which was in actuality a catholic
confessional party. The third grouping represents a number of parties, including the
Deutschkonservative Partei, the conservatives, the Deutsche Reichspartei, the party of the
empire, and the Nationalliberale Partei, the national liberals. These parties can be grouped
coherently as the parties of order, that is to say, pro-government and anti-socialist. In the
aftermath of the previous Reichstag elections in 1903, the SPD had made massive gains,
becoming for the first time the second largest party in the Reichstag, behind the catholic
center party, and a serious force to be reckoned with. For that reason, this discussion will start
with that new powerful bloc.
The SPD in 1906 had been growing in the Reichstag steadily since the 1880’s, but
now reached a new prominence with 81 of the 397 seats in that body. This turned them, from
the government’s perspective, from a mere nuisance into a more serious threat. Of all the
serious political parties, that is to say excluding the obstructionist Poles, Alsatians, and
Danes, only the SPD was consistent in its opposition to all national policies. This position
was natural, given that they felt national policies only served to perpetuate the capitalist
system, to which they were obviously against. The position of the SPD on national policies is
perhaps best summed up by Crothers in his work on the 1907 elections, saying that, “their
basic syllogism was simple: capitalism is evil; the German army, navy, and colonies are
instruments of capitalism; ergo, they are evil.”22 For that reason, the socialists were a thorn in
the government’s side whenever it tried to pass colonial, navy, or army budgets. The SPD’s
opposition to colonialism and imperialism was somewhat conflicted. On the one hand, they
denigrated these activities as capitalist adventures, designed to profit the few at the expense
22
Crothers. The German Elections of 1907. 55.
18
of the many. However, they were also concerned for the welfare of the exploited Africans in
the colonies, and given prevailing thought at the time in regard to the white man’s burden to
civilize and help the natives, they were not opposed to a colonialism whose purpose was to
spread civilization, rather than capitalism. Despite this reservation, in practice the SPD
rejected nearly all colonial budgets as a matter of course.23 In that sense, the motives of the
SPD in the coming crisis are by far the most obvious, and do not require much analysis.
On the opposite end of the political spectrum were the parties of order, supporting
generally the policies of Prinz Bernhard von Bülow. Given that the government (read Bülow)
could normally count on the support of these parties, it is not so much their motives that are
relevant to this study, but rather the motives of Bülow, who they assiduously supported.
However, among them the parties of order occupied 160 seats in the Reichstag, and when
combined with the 25 seats of the less supportive radicals fell just short of a majority.
Bülow’s motives in the Reichstag are complex and complicated. Most authors, however, tend
to condense his goals into two coherent categories, which will suffice for this study. Of the
two categories, the first was the most often expressed and most obvious. As was stated
earlier, one of the major goals of any Chancellor was the creation of a semi-majority in the
Reichstag which would smooth the passage of budgets and legislation. This made Bülow’s
position in 1906 rather tenuous, without majority support the passage of bills was often
slowed and eventually, during the crisis to come, stopped. To combat this challenge, Bülow
aimed to follow a policy of Sammlungspolitik, that is, a majority coalition of the parties of
order aligned against the obstructionist socialist threat.24 Some authors argue further that in
fact Bülow had few other principles than determined opposition to socialism.25 On the other
hand, perhaps of larger consideration to Bülow, was his own job security. During this time
the German Chancellor was only responsible to the Kaiser, not the Reichstag, and ultimately
it was his job to get the Reichstag to go along with the Kaiser’s wishes. But Bülow’s relations
with Kaiser Wilhelm had gone sour recently, for a number of reasons.26 On the one hand,
Bülow had dismissed out of hand the Kaiser’s plans for a Franco-Russian-German alliance.
Perhaps more importantly, Bülow’s plans for an exploitation of the French position in
Morocco for other colonial gains had failed spectacularly in what is now known as the First
Moroccan Crisis, which strengthened the alliance between France and Great Britain and
With the important exception of the 1904 colonial bill for the suppression of the Southwest African
revolt.
24 Prince Bernhard von Bülow, ‘Memoirs’ 2:292-3, in Smith. The German Colonial Empire. 186.
25 Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule 1905 – 1912. 40.
26 Crothers. The German Elections of 1907. 67.
23
19
served to isolate Germany diplomatically. With rumors abounding that he would be replaced
due to the Kaiser’s ill feelings towards him, Bülow could not afford to appear weak in the
crisis that was to follow, and therefore neither would his supportive parties of order.
Holding the balance between these two blocs was the largest and most powerful party
in the Reichstag, the Zentrum. The Zentrum was a catholic confessional party, created to
prevent discrimination against the large catholic minority in a German Empire dominated by
protestant Prussia. Due to its desire to protect catholic interests, which were often the
preserve of smaller states within the empire, the party also became one of states’ rights
against the encroachment of the central government. This meant that, though the party was
often a supporter of order and the government, it could not always be relied upon. In the
public eye, this anti-national element was augmented by nominal homage to the foreign Pope
in Rome, making the Zentrum doubly suspicious in regard to its patriotism. As a half-hearted
supporter of the government, the Zentrum would usually agree to pass controversial budgets,
but only after pulling certain concessions from the government. For example, the navy could
be expanded, but only if that was accompanied by an inheritance tax, and a reduction of
indirect taxes.27 Support for colonial budgets, on the other hand, was often tied to their value
in terms of souls for catholic conversion. This tentative support would end in 1906, however,
as will be discussed below. Complicating the Zentrum’s position on government support, and
especially on colonial issues, was a fundamental divide within the party itself. The catholic
party tied together very different groups, from landed aristocrats in Silesia to catholic
laborers in the Rhineland. This left the party divided into a more conservative wing, led by
Peter Spahn, and a radical, left-leaning wing which would come to be led by Matthias
Erzberger.28 The differences between these two sides would accelerate during the colonial
crisis. As the Zentrum held the balance in the Reichstag in 1906, the question of which wing
would come into ascendancy would essentially decide whether or not the government could
pass bills according to the wishes Bülow and through him, the Kaiser. Given all this
information, it is now possible to move into a discussion of the colonial crisis itself, and
through that, the rise of Dernburg and the idea of the reform period.
Hansgeorg Fernis, ‘Die Flottennovellen im Reichstag, 1906 – 1912’ in Crothers. The German Election of
1907. 28.
28 The youngest member of the Reichstag in 1906, Erzberger eventually would be the man to sign the
armistice ending the First World War, for which he was assassinated as a traitor by a right-wing group in
1921.
27
20
The Colonial Crisis
While the motivations for the escalation of the colonial crisis in 1906 were contained
within the motivations of the various parties, the real root of the problem stemmed from the
revolt in German South West Africa that began in 1904. Suffice it to say that the African
revolt against the settler community became much more expensive in both human and
financial terms than anyone had predicted. This caused outrage both over budgetary matters
and also in a moral sense. However, during the course of the revolt, the Reichstag, for the
most part, continued to support increasingly large colonial budgets. This was also true of the
Zentrum, though its support of the budgets became increasingly tenuous. This was to change
in September of 1905, when the Zentrum, on which the government had previously counted
for its majority of support, suddenly changed tack.
The change in tack had everything to do with the split that had developed inside the
Zentrum, between conservative and radical wings. The rising star of the radical wing,
Matthias Erzberger, began a virulent attack on an assortment of colonial scandals. His
anonymous sources in the colonies revealed, for example, the huge amounts of money that
were being spent on Southwest Africa, and the minimal returns on those investments. They
also exposed the inefficiencies of the colonial administration there and certain cases of
corruption. His attacks were not limited to that, however, and also included discrepancies in
regard to railway concessions in German Cameroon.29 Soon, large segments of the Reichstag
joined in the clamor, especially the SPD and the radicals, building to a climax in January and
February of 1906. Though the leaders of the Zentrum, and specifically Spahn of the
conservative wing rebuked Erzberger as having gone to far, the majority of the party began to
follow Erzberger’s line.30 By May of that year, and the close of the Reichstag session, the
Reichstag was no longer approving colonial budgets, and a showdown in that body loomed.
Before the Reichstag reopened in November of 1906, Chancellor von Bülow had
surprised everyone with his choice of the new head of the colonial department. Given the
uproar over the situation in the colonies, which had also been taken up in the German press, a
strong message was necessary. The man that Bülow appointed for this purpose was the young
banker, Bernhard Dernburg. His appointment fulfilled two major purposes. The first of these
concerned Dernburg’s background. Known as a shrewd businessman, it was asserted that this
29
30
Smith. German Colonial Empire. 127.
Crothers. The German Elections of 1907. 35.
21
kind of man would be able to turn around a bloated and ineffectual administration,
streamlining it and removing serious inefficiencies. On this point, it was not all show, for
between September when he was appointed and November when the Reichstag opened,
Dernburg did indeed make some necessary changes, cancelling for example the worst of the
inefficient and basically bankrupt monopoly contracts in the colonies.31 In the process,
importantly, Dernburg came across efforts by Erzberger and his colleague Hermann Roeren,
to protect certain missionaries and catholic officials. However, showing a degree of change
was not Bülow’s only purpose in the appointment of Dernburg. Dernburg’s previous
association with the radicals was bait to which they would later rise, and join the
government’s position on colonial issues. In this way, Dernburg’s appointment, far from
simply an honest attempt to reform, was a political ploy that would ultimately prove very
successful.32
With the radical wing of the Zentrum in the ascendant, it was becoming clear that the
party would not support the government in its coming attempts to pass a colonial budget.
Merely a few days into the new session of the Reichstag, Dernburg set out to explain his
minor changes to the colonial system. The first two speakers for the Zentrum responded in
remarkably cordial tones, Erzberger included. The third, however, Roeren, launched into a
spectacular assault on colonial policy. He cited brutalities in Togo, which he had ostensibly
learned from his missionary contacts there, and went on to accuse the government of
protecting colonial officials from justice, even under Dernburg’s own short period in office.
Roeren then suggested that the entire colonial system should be abolished and not a “single
penny” more should be given to it.33 Dernburg, however, given his recent forays into the
efforts of Erzberger and Roeren to protect catholic officials, was more than prepared to
respond. Having lost patience with Roeren at the MP’s insinuation of his own complicity in
colonial scandals, Dernburg fired back with accusations of Roeren’s shady dealings with the
colonial department in his efforts to protect catholic officials. At this point, the dialogue
became truly nasty. Dernburg claimed to be exposing Roeren, to which Roeren retorted that
Dernburg was too young and unqualified to do so. Dernburg’s response devolved into a direct
attack on the Zentrum generally, and its interference in colonial affairs was “an abscess
which had to be lanced.”34
Ibid. 73.
Smith. The German Colonial Empire. 186.
33 Reichstag Debates, CCXVIII, 4094. In Crothers. The German Elections of 1907. 79.
34 Freisinnige Zeitung, (No. 436, Dec. 6, 1906) in Crothers. The German Elections of 1907. 80.
31
32
22
This is the point at which Dernburg’s importance in the idea of the reform period
begins to take shape. Though previously largely apolitical, the information Dernburg had
found in regard to Zentrum interference in colonial affairs, and those same people’s
subsequent personal attack on him, caused a marked shift in Dernburg’s position. His
scathing attack on the Zentrum transformed Dernburg suddenly into a government attackdog, a role he was to continue through the coming elections. The game changed in other
fundamental senses at this same time. In the wake of the vitriolic attacks of Dernburg on
Hermann Roeren and the Zentrum, that party, with its aforementioned problems in regard to
patriotism and national sentiment, now seemed distinctly anti-national. As the press led an
attack on the Zentrum’s obstructionism, and interference in colonial issues, the door was
open for the true mastermind of the 1907 elections, Chancellor von Bülow.
It has been mentioned earlier that Bülow had two main motives at this time, one being the
creation of an anti-socialist majority through Sammlungspolitik, as well a concern for his
personal prestige and job security.35 Bülow saw the chance for an election based on national
policies, with the colonies as the centerpiece. In a single stroke, Bülow would be able to bring
together the parties of order, smash the SPD, and regain his favor at court and with the
Kaiser. The Chancellor was quick to make his move. Even while Reichstag debates on the
colonies continued, Bülow secretly began the procedures necessary with the members of the
Bundesrat and the Kaiser to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections.36 When the
colonial budget came up for a vote a few days later, Bülow was prepared, carrying his notice
of dissolution in the wrong folder to disguise his intentions. Unaware of the danger, the
Zentrum voted down the colonial bills, expecting that they would be able to ask for
amendments and concessions before begrudgingly accepting the government’s plans. Instead,
the Reichstag was shocked by the sudden announcement of its dissolution in the wake of the
no vote. Bülow could now have his national election dominated by the issue of the colonies,
and at the center of it all would be Dernburg.
Given that the election of 1907 was ostensibly about the colonies, rather than Bülow’s own
personal prestige and search for a workable parliamentary majority, it was natural that as
colonial director, Dernburg would lead the campaign. This was especially possible given his
recent attacks on the intrigues of the center, and his small though noticeable reforms to date.
To this end, Dernburg devoted considerable energy, launching a serious of campaign
Though it seems foolish to condense any man’s ambitions and motives into two goals, all of my
secondary sources, and the memoirs they are in turn based on, agree with this conclusion. See especially
Koponen, Iliffe, Smith, and Crothers.
36 Crothers. The German Elections of 1907. 88.
35
23
speeches across the county, on which historical reputation is largely based.37 It is precisely
because Dernburg’s speeches at this point are the basis of that reputation that they have so
much bearing on the development of the idea of reform during his tenure as Colonial
Secretary.38 In many cases, it seems as though historians have confused Dernburg’s claims
during these speeches, full of often hopeful and overly optimistic assessments as can be
expected during an election campaign, for his actual accomplishments during the supposed
reform period.39 By looking at the speeches themselves, this paper will make the argument,
articulated over the next few chapters, first, that the understanding of the reform period as
seen in the colonial interpretation of the period is based on the claims made in these speeches,
second, that the reform period cannot be honestly called such, given the lack of change in the
way that Dernburg explained himself, and third, that the trajectory of German East African
history should instead avoid the pitfall of the reform period with a new periodization based
more on continuation during this time, rather than change. Given that, the speeches
themselves and the election that produced them must now be closely examined.
The Election and Campaign of 1907
The elections of 1907 were the only time during the Second Reich that Germany’s
colonies became an issue of serious national importance.40 This is, however, not surprising
for two reasons. The first of these was the actual deterioration of the situation in the German
colonies, especially Southwest and East Africa. However, the problems in the colonies would
have never become so important were it not for the reality that colonial issues were merely
proxies in a political game that Erzberger had begun.41 Erzberger’s attempt to use the colonial
scandals to gain greater control over Reichstag finances had failed though, and now Bülow
had his chance to do away with the need for the Zentrum entirely. The election was framed in
terms of a national question. As the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung put it on the day the
Reichstag was dissolved, the election and the proper financing of the colonies was, “a great
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule 1905 – 1912. 4.
The change from Colonial Director to Colonial Secretary reflects a reshuffle in the German
administration, by which the colonies were given their own department, separate from the Foreign
Office. In practice, however, there was not much difference between the positions, aside from simple
terminology. Certain proponents of Dernburg as an authoritarian force of change, such as Mary
Townsend, of the older colonial interpretation, do not share this view however.
39 Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule 1905 – 1912. 4.
40 Smith. The German Colonial Empire. 183.
41 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 265.
37
38
24
test of whether Germany is capable of developing from a European into a World Power or
not.”42
It was in this context that Dernburg was sent out campaigning, to explain to the
German people the value of their colonies, to frame the financing of these colonies as an
issue of national honor, and to explain how the colonies would be reformed in response to
previous criticism from the left and center. Dernburg gave several of these speeches in the
month before the election, and, like a good politician, he tailored these speeches to his
specific audience. This separates the speeches nicely for the purposes of this paper, in terms
of Dernburg’s social and economic plans, as will become apparent in further chapters below.
Two speeches in particular, given just a few days apart in Berlin are of special importance. In
the first, given to an audience of scholars, academics, artists and authors on the eighth of
January, outlines Dernburg’s original plans for social reform in the colonies. He was keen,
first of all, to describe to this learned audience the benefits that German rule would bestow
upon the natives in Africa. He asserted that Germany had begun this great civilizing mission
by ending slavery in its colonies, a claim that interestingly was absolutely false.43 The speech
went on to paint a picture of improving conditions for the African subjects, as they slowly
saw the tangible benefits of German rule, and were drawn into the money economy. This was
of course only possible because of the (false) previous abolition of slavery that had freed the
workforce for production of cash crops for the German market as well as plantation work for
the white settlers. As Dernburg put it, “where one colonized with destructive means in the
past, one can colonize with preserving means today, which including the missionary, the
doctor, the train, the machine, and advanced theoretical and applied science in all fields.”44
This quote, perhaps more than any other, is of paramount importance in the later
development of the reform idea. It is from this phrase that Mary Townsend was to devise the
idea of “scientific colonialism,” which was to inform the entire story of Dernburg’s reform
agenda in the colonial interpretation.45 After explaining these rather intangible benefits to a
responsive audience, Dernburg continued by explaining that the colonies cost relatively little
in terms of the German budget. As far as he was concerned, it was a small price to pay for he
honor of the role as a civilizing power. At the same time, he implied that the Reichstag had
been hindering this national obligation by not supporting the colonial bills, cleverly taking a
pot-shot at the center.
Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, December 13, 1906.
Dernburg. Zielpunkte des Deutschen Kolonialwesens. Berlin. 1907. 6.
44 Ibid. 9.
45 Mary Townsend. The Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire 1884 – 1918.
42
43
25
The second of the two speeches discussed here was given only three days later in the
same city, but to a very different audience. During this second campaign speech, Dernburg’s
audience consisted of various trading interests, and therefore its content was also very
different. Whereas a few days before he spoke of the cultural benefits of the colonies, and the
minor cost that such a venture would entail, he now changed tack entirely, and explained the
material benefits. One by one, he moved through the various raw materials which the
colonies would produce for the benefit of the fatherland. Copper, rubber, oil, rice and coffee
all played major roles in his plan, but it was cotton that he stressed the most.46 This involved
a detailed discussion of the overly optimistic predictions he had for the various colonies, the
type of cotton that would be produced, and how it would benefit the metropole. Cotton
production in East Africa especially, he argued, would break the Anglo-American duopoly in
that market, and make German industry more competitive. Soon, he projected, most of
Germany’s cotton needs could be sustained by its colonies. The crux of his speech, however,
was a four-part explanation of the most important benefits of the colonies to the homeland.
First, they secure German jobs, and high standard of living for German workers. Second, they
provide the raw materials needed for German industry. Third, the colonies secure cheap
prices for raw materials, allowing German industry to thrive. Fourth, through the cheap
production of all of Germany’s needed raw materials, they allow for a positive trade
balance.47 Finally, Dernburg brought the speech full circle, to suggest that this protection of
trade, as well as German jobs, was “a national issue of the highest rank,” that every good
patriot should support.48
In this way, Dernburg, through a proposition of colonial reform, made support of the
government position a national issue as Bülow had intended. The result was a massive
electoral success. While the Zentrum retained its strong position, the SPD was crushed at the
polls, losing half of its seats. At the same time, Bülow and his parties of order had gained a
solid majority, and would no longer have to compromise. This would have serious
implications for the colonies, and for the trajectory of attempts at reform. More important for
now, however, is that the correlation between Dernburg’s electoral speeches and Bülow’s
political machinations have been shown, as well as the context of the rise of the reform idea.
It is now possible to move on to a case based study of the efficacy of the reform period, and
whether indeed it should be called such.
Dernburg. Zielpunkte des Deutschen Kolonialwesens. 36 – 40.
Ibid. 49 – 50.
48 Ibid. 51.
46
47
26
Chapter III: The Economic Context
In this first of two largely quantitative chapters analyzing the efficacy of Dernburg’s
supposed reform period, this study will look at the economic results of the program, in light
of Dernburg’s claims during his election campaign speeches. To do this, the colonial
secretary’s plans must be broken down into their constituent parts, namely, his plans for the
production of raw materials in the colonies for the benefit of Germany, and the massive
building schemes that would make such ventures both possible and profitable. As far as East
Africa was determined to be a desirable location for the production of raw materials for
German industry, this was not a new idea created by Dernburg. Rather, Dernburg elaborated
on already existing ideas of the value and usefulness of the colonies, and especially East
Africa. Before launching into discussions of the successes and failures of the various raw
materials production schemes, it is first important to understand the development of the idea
of colonies as sources of these materials to Germany, and the way in which Dernburg
changed the emphasis and direction of this idea.
The idea of the colonies as a resource base from which to supply German industry
dates back to their very founding. While the colonies were being acquired for the still nascent
German Empire, Bismarck, the engineer of these acquisitions was already framing their
importance in terms of raw materials. As he put it at the time, “Just consider if a part of the
cotton… which we import could be grown on German soil, wouldn’t that be an increase in
the national wealth? Presently we buy all our cotton from America, and we’re bound by a
certain American monopoly… If we could… cultivate cotton in… the African equatorial
areas with the same intelligence as the Americans plant and work their cotton, … that would
be an advantage for our national prosperity, whereas now the money which we expend for
cotton… [is] completely lost from our wealth.”49 This is the basic crux of the idea. Cotton,
above all, was a product which for a number of reasons was essential to German industry,
and needed to be secured for it at a reasonable price. The reason that cotton was so important
at this time was that it was the major resource for the large German textile industry, which
itself was part of a larger chain of production involving numerous other areas of German
industrial might. The importance of the price and sourcing of the cotton that drove much of
Germany’s industrial development was made abundantly clear during the American civil war.
Stenographische Berichte, vol. 66, 13 March 1884, 1798. In Thaddeus Sunseri. A Social History of Cotton
Production in German East Africa, 1884-1915. University of Minnesota. 1993. 47.
49
27
At this time, Germany, as well as much of the rest of the industrialized world, was unable to
find enough cotton to keep its textile industry operational due to the Union blockade of the
Confederacy, from which most of the world’s cotton supply was sourced. Even after this
problem was made obvious, Germany still imported 70% of its cotton from America, and the
rest mostly from the British Empire, as other sources of this commodity were simply not
available.50 While there were no more stoppages of American production, speculation and
the near US monopoly on cotton created a situation of severely fluctuating prices that was
detrimental to the German economy. At the same time, safety regulations and rising industrial
wages were bringing up the costs of textile production. Furthermore, the dependence of
industrial workers on the textile industry, and the wages they gained there, made cotton a
national issue. Even the SPD, which was on principle against all colonial enterprises, saw the
value of cotton production within the German Empire as a means for securing German jobs.
In much the same way that the colonies themselves became a national issue in the elections
of 1907, the sourcing of cotton had become an issue of national importance much earlier.
Dernburg was to seize upon this and expand it in his agenda for colonial reform.
Where most industrialists had thought primarily in terms of cotton, Dernburg greatly
expanded the scope of benefits to the German economy and German industry that could be
provided by its colonies. Many of the products he was concerned with did not directly
involve German East Africa, for instance petroleum in Kamerun and copper in Southwest
Africa, and therefore do not deserve specific mention here.51 What Dernburg did have in
mind for German East Africa were agricultural products that could not be produced in
Germany. Foremost among these was naturally cotton, but he also explained the value of
sisal, rubber, and coffee. He suggested that these products could be produced in such vast
quantities in these areas that Germany would be self-sufficient. This was a significant
departure from Bismarck, for example, who had suggested that production of even a fraction
of the raw materials needed by the metropole would be considered a victory.52 Dernburg’s
optimistic assessment of the potential of the colonies in this respect would be a major factor
in the eventual rise of the idea of a reform era, for where he promised growth, indeed there
was often much growth, but as will be explained below, the growth in those areas was
deceptive, and hardly amounted to anything that could be realistically called a reform period.
Sunseri. A Social History of Cotton Production. 40.
Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 40 – 41.
52 Stenographische Berichte. Session 27, 1889. 622. In Sunseri. A Social History of Cotton Production. 48.
50
51
28
Sisal
It would perhaps be logical to start with one of the more successful of Dernburg’s proposed
raw material benefits to the metropole. This was the crop known as sisal. Sisal, to those who
might not be familiar with it, is a type of agave native to the Yucatan Peninsula, which
provides strong and durable fibers useful in the production of rope, much like hemp was used
at that time. In fact, in Dernburg’s own speech he refers to the product of the sisal plant as
hemp.53 Dernburg’s suggestion here was that this fibrous plant could eliminate German
reliance on Russian and Italian hemp in the rope, paper, and upholstery industries.
Eventually, though demand for the fiber of the sisal plant was now low, it would come to
occupy a more important role that Germany would be able to supply.
The production of sisal was remarkably successful in German East Africa. Of all the
cash crops grown on a large scale in the colony, it was the only one to provide continuous
year on year growth. In fact, the growth of the sisal crop, both in absolute terms, and in terms
of total revenue was truly impressive. From a starting point before Dernburg’s tenure in
office of 1,397 tons of sisal, with a total value of 1.1 million marks in 1905, production rose
by 1913 nearly twentyfold, to 19,698 tons and a total value of 10.3 million marks.54 This is
consistent with Dernburg’s own calculations during his election speech, in which he
suggested that production of sisal in the colony could be expected to reach 20,000, and a total
worth of 16 million marks.55 Had the value of sisal remained the same during the period, his
estimation would have been extraordinarily precise, unlike many of his other overly
optimistic claims. At the time of these increases, many fields originally producing other, less
hardy and climatically adapted crops switched to the production of sisal. So valuable was the
crop, that at the period of highest prices the investment on a field of sisal could be recouped
in only two years.56 Dividends of fifteen to twenty percent on investments in sisal production
were not unusual.57 The high value of sisal, and the conversion of many other plantations to
sisal production led the amount and value of the sisal crop to rise spectacularly. By 1913,
sisal was the largest and valuable export of German East Africa, accounting for 30% of the
worth of all exports.58 These successes were largely made possible by two factors. Firstly, the
Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 44.
Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklungund Ausbeutung. 118.
55 Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 44 – 45.
56 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 550.
57 Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 122.
58 Ibid. 118.
53
54
29
building of railroads, also strongly supported by Dernburg in his scheme, were hugely
important in transporting a very heavy crop from the interior to port, which would not have
possible with the previous caravan system. Secondly, the arrival of large scale German
capital keen to make a quick profit allowed for the import of the machinery necessary for the
labor intensive process of sisal preparation to proceed unhindered.
However, the successes of sisal during Dernburg’s supposed reform period hide major
flaws in terms of his overall plans. The rise in sisal production was accompanied, from 1908
onwards, by a concurrent decline in value as the market was saturated and overproduction
began to become a problem. At the time, surprisingly, German East Africa was actually
producing six times more sisal than was imported by the metropole, as the demand for sisal in
the paper and upholstery industries never materialized as Dernburg had envisioned.
Eventually, a major use for sisal was found in the production of agricultural equipment in the
1930’s. However, by this point, when sisal production in German East Africa had surged past
100,000 tons, and German imports of it reached 60,000 tons, the colony had been
surrendered, and Germany was importing yet another industrial raw material from the British
Empire. Therefore, Dernburg’s intention to make German industry independent in hemp
production, which was largely the point of growing the crop, ultimately failed, but at the
same time had other important consequences. Sisal, more than any other cash crop in German
East Africa, was entirely dependent on both machinery and a large supply of labor. This
meant that sisal production also entailed a rise in European owned plantations in the colony.
With their large labor demands, these enterprises could not coexist with the kind of nativeenriching peasant production schemes that Dernburg had intended for his social agenda in the
colonies. That is to say, the labor intensive interests of the plantations were eventually to
combine with settler interests to push back much of Dernburg’s social reform agenda,
resulting in the widespread use of coercive and forceful methods of manpower acquisition in
the colony. That point, however, will be discussed further below. At present, it is most
important to highlight the fact that, while the growth of sisal production was impressive, and
fairly accurately predicted by Dernburg, it did not develop in such a way as to help his reform
agenda, but rather hindered it in the long run.
30
Rubber
Before sisal overtook it in the final years of German East Africa, rubber had been the
most important and most valuable export of the colony. In fact, it held this position from
1899 to 1912. On the surface, this would seem to suggest a success story similar to that seen
with sisal. Indeed, as with sisal, rubber production in German East Africa increased
dramatically, from 326 tons in 1905 to 1,367 tons in 1913; a more than fourfold rise.59 This
boom allowed for the fulfillment of one of Dernburg’s promised ideals, namely that the
movement from a form of destructive colonization to one of preservation.60 Indeed, during
his time as colonial secretary, the rise in global rubber prices allowed for cultivated rubber to
overtake wild rubber, which was prone to abuses most spectacularly shown in the wellpublicized case of the Belgian Congo.61 By 1913, only 6% of the rubber exported from
German East Africa came from wild sources.62 The price of rubber rose dramatically during
the ostensible reform era, and might have been seen as a successful justification of the reform
idea, but in the end, the crop was to be one of the reform period’s most dubious failures.
To understand the history of rubber in German East Africa during this time, it is
important to view it in the context of the global rubber boom that peaked between 1903 and
1912. Before this time, rubber was largely collected in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, but
was not widely used. Suddenly, however, around the turn of the century, new technologies
like electric cables, cars, airplanes, and bicycles that all needed rubber expanded
dramatically. Production in Brazil proved unable to keep up with massively growing demand
for rubber, and the price rose accordingly. Soon speculation became rampant, and new
sources of rubber were sought after voraciously. German East Africa became wrapped up in
this excitement, but with one very important qualification. Whereas the rubber produced in
the Amazon came from the sap of the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis, the rubber produced in
German East Africa was actually not the same product that had been known the world over,
but rather came from an entirely different plant, related to the cassava, known scientifically
as Manihot glaziovii. This was a new type of crop, first used in plantations in German East
Africa, and was more drought resistant than normal rubber, allowing for its cultivation in
Heinrich Schnee. ed. Das Buch der deutschen Kolonien. Leipzig. 1937. 426 – 428. In L. H. Gann & Peter
Duignan. The Rulers of German Africa, 1884 – 1914. Stanford University Press. Stanford. 1977. 261.
60 Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 9.
61 See, for instance, Adam Hochschild. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in
Colonial Africa. New York. 1999.
62 Wirtschaftlicher Verein vom Meru to Government, 11 October 1913, Tanzanian National Archive.
G8/176, 21 ff. In Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 433.
59
31
areas previously thought impossible for rubber production. Given the current global boom,
settlers in German East Africa were quick to turn to this new and highly profitable crop. They
succeeded in a manner that the colony’s governor, Rechenberg, who had been advocating a
peasant production policy as the only reasonable course, was completely unprepared for.
Once again, Dernburg’s plans for social betterment of Africans would be thwarted by the
success of the white settlers and their cash crops. But the new growers were in for a shock.
The problem with the Manihot glaziovii, as compared to Hevea brasiliensis is that the rubber
produced by Manihot glaziovii was of a much lower quality than that derived from Hevea
brasiliensis. In fact, some experts considered rubber from Manihot glaziovii to be the worst
rubber in the world.63 Therefore, when British plantations in Southeast Asia started producing
large quantities of rubber from their newly planted Hevea brasiliensis trees in 1913, and the
price of rubber consequently collapsed, the plantations in German East Africa were left not
only with a crisis of overproduction, but also a crisis of quality. Suddenly the rubber that the
colony was producing was basically worthless, and companies involved suffered enormous
losses when the rubber bubble burst. Most companies and settlers then switched their lands to
produce sisal instead of rubber, explaining the later importance of that crop. What is
important to gather from all this, is that another one of Dernburg’s schemes to make the
colonies into beneficial resource bases for Germany’s industry had failed, despite growth on
paper.
Coffee
Compared to the gradual success of sisal and the spectacular failure of rubber,
coffee’s history during the reform era is a much blander story. Attempts to grow coffee
started early in German East Africa, largely in the North around the Usambara Mountains.
These attempts largely failed, however, for a number of reasons. First of all, the soil
conditions were wrong. More importantly however, was, as Tetzlaff calls it, “nature’s
revenge.”64 During the founding period of the colony, the area around the Usambara
Mountains was heavily deforested, leading to dramatic erosion, which rendered previously
acceptable patches of soil unusable. Still, settlers and certain German companies persisted in
their efforts. Dernburg mentioned these, and their lack of success to date in one of his
campaign speeches, suggesting that, “the rising price [of coffee] gives us hope that the coffee
63
64
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 140.
Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 130.
32
plantations in East Africa, which had become unprofitable in 1902 and 1903 will again regain
their purpose.”65 This however, was not to be, and despite their best efforts. Even the largest
company involved, the DOAG, or German East Africa Company, only managed to make a
profit in three of its sixteen years of operation.66 Most producers however, just as Dernburg
was making his speeches, were switching to sisal, similar to the situation seen above with
rubber.67 At the same time, new areas were being opened up for the growth of coffee, which
would ultimately prove much more successful. The type of growth in these two areas was
remarkably different, and had very little in either case to do with central government
planning. In the first instance, around 1907 settlers began planting coffee in earnest on the
slopes of Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro. This was combined with missionaries who
suggested that the native Chagga people begin coffee cultivation as well. Both groups were
quite successful, as the average coffee bush on Kilimanjaro’s fertile slopes produced five
times as many beans as those from previous plantations in the Usambara Mountains.68 Here
can be seen one of few examples of Dernburg’s idea of enriching the African peasantry at
work, and by the end of German rule, it was said that the Chagga were cultivating somewhere
in the area of 80,000 coffee bushes.69 It might seem as though this would, in some small way,
validate Dernburg’s reform program, but the distribution of coffee seeds to the natives was
undertaken by catholic missionaries, not the government, which was unwilling to take a
position on the Chagga coffee growers. On the other side of the colony on the shores of Lake
Victoria coffee was also being grown with marked success, but in a very different way. In
Bukoba, the German resident came up with his own scheme for coffee production without
interference from the central government of the colony. Steumer, the German resident,
embarked on a top-down approach, by which he convinced the local rulers to coerce their
unfree subjects into planting coffee. This, though running totally in the face of Dernburg’s
ideas concerning African peasant production, was extremely successful. Between 1905 and
1912, while Steumer was resident, the value of coffee for export increased fifteen fold, and
by then accounted for a third of German East Africa’s coffee exports.70 However, these
successes, as is universally the case with raw materials produced in the colony, never made a
serious dent in the home market. This is made abundantly clear by statistics which show that
Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 45.
Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 132.
67 Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 69.
68 Ibid. 68.
69 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 436.
70 Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 170.
65
66
33
the thousand tons of coffee exported by German East Africa in 1913 barely made up half of
one percent of Germany’s annual coffee imports.71 Granted, Dernburg was correct in the long
run that coffee would become important in German East Africa, considering that modern day
Tanzania’s top export is in fact coffee. Nevertheless, on the whole, any pretense of correcting
Germany’s balance of payments on coffee was ultimately a failure.
Cotton
Last, but certainly not least of the raw materials designated to help transform German
East Africa from a liability to the metropole into a valuable asset was cotton. As mentioned
before, much of the reasoning behind the colonial effort in the first place centered on cotton,
and it was here without a doubt that the government made its greatest efforts to promote
cultivation for export. However, an analysis of the effectiveness of the Dernburg period in
transforming the nature of cotton production in German East Africa is complicated for a
number of reasons. Foremost among these, is the diverse nature of schemes created to
promote cotton production. Whereas many other crops were limited to specific areas, cotton
production was attempted many different areas, and under many different circumstances. It is
therefore hard to make generalizations about its effectiveness. Because of this, it is necessary
to compartmentalize cotton production. Two major groups with subgroups can best serve this
purpose. On the one hand, there was European-led, white production, which can be split into
large-scale commercial efforts, and smaller settler plantations. On the other side were efforts
at African cultivation, and these can be broken down into those that were largely benign, and
those that were by nature more coercive. However, to understand any of this, it is first
important to understand the background of cotton production in German East Africa, which
started well before Dernburg’s term in office. The process can be said to begin with the
establishment of the Colonial Economic Committee, or KWK, in 1896. With support from
the cotton industry, colonial interest groups, and some state support, the KWK sought to open
up the German colonies to cotton production. Its efforts did not get off the ground in German
East Africa though, until around 1904, under the tenure of Governor von Götzen. At that
time, KWK became a semi-governmental entity in the colony, effecting government policy,
and attempting to create suitable conditions of cotton cultivation. In their words, “mild
Heinrich Schnee. ed. Das Buch der deutschen Kolonien. Leipzig. 1937. 426 – 428. In L. H. Gann & Peter
Duignan. The Rulers of German Africa, 1884 – 1914. Stanford University Press. Stanford. 1977. 261.
71
34
compulsion” would be necessary to get cotton production going.72 The format needed to
make this happen was already in place, the communal shamba, or plot of land given over in
each town to production of export crops, by order of the government. When the KWK
became involved, all of these shambas were converted to cotton production, which was to
become a Volkskultur.73 Many historians have cited these shambas as the major reasoning
behind the Maji-Maji uprising which followed closely after their establishment, most notably
John Iliffe.74 Given the perceived failure of these coercive measures to produce effective
African cultivation, new methods were sought after in the aftermath of the Maji-Maji
uprising.
One of the two newer methods of cotton production advocated was a European-led
variety. The most obvious of this new form was the large, industrialized plantation.
Following Dernburg’s claims that with German technology and expertise, the colonies could
be transformed into the producers of Germany’s industrial cotton demand, several large
enterprises were set up to put the ideas into practice. Two of Germany’s largest textile
interests set out to produce the majority of their cotton needs in German East Africa, one
under the leadership of a millionaire by the name of Otto, and the other as a project of the
Leipzig Cotton Spinners. Both efforts failed spectacularly. In both cases, millions of marks
were poured into the effort to produce cotton in the colony, with little to no result. The Otto
plantation sought to bring in steam-driven plows, which cut too deeply into the soil,
effectively ruining it. The company continued to try to produce until the advent of the First
World War, but about the only thing it ever produced in quantity were losses. The Leipzig
Cotton Spinners’ plantation succumbed to recurrent cases of disease, and was abandoned
entirely in 1911 after equally astounding losses.75 These well-publicized failures effectively
scared future large enterprises off.
The other area of European run schemes for cotton production was that run by the
growing settler community. The settlers themselves are described below in detail, but suffice
it to say that they were a very vocal community, and largely antagonistic to the efforts of the
government and the KWK during Dernburg’s term in office. The settlers were indeed able to
settle and cultivate the land, mostly in the area around the Usambara Mountains and inland
from there to the peaks of Kilimanjaro and Meru. However, they were not able to do so
without help, for the most part. The major concern of these plantation owners was labor
Supf. Koloniale-Baumwolle. Bericht II. 6 – 7. In Koponen. Development through Exploitation. 226.
Tetzlaff. Kolonial Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 137.
74 Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 23.
75 Ibid. 99 -100.
72
73
35
supply, and how they were to procure it. The settlers sought to secure a pool of cheap labor to
work their fields, which generally run counter to the government and for that matter the
KWK’s plans for the development of African sources of production. Simply put, if the white
settlers were to be using the Africans on their own fields, the natives would not be free to
produce the cotton that German industry so desperately craved. Furthermore, there was the
issue of how the labor supply would be secured. Generally speaking, the settlers sought to
move the government to allow them to either coerce the natives into laboring in their fields,
or else to create tax incentives that would force the natives into a financial situation whereby
they would have to work in those fields. During Dernburg’s term in office, the efforts of the
settlers largely failed, and they needed loans and support to get by.76 In short, without
coercive measures from the central government, the settler population did not constitute an
effective force for the large-scale production of cotton for export.
On the other side of the spectrum of cotton cultivation efforts were those that saw
African cultivation, rather than any European enterprise, as the best hope for the creation of a
cotton resource base in German East Africa. This idea was strongly supported both by the
governor of the colony, Rechenberg, and the KWK. The idea, as far as the governor and the
KWK were concerned, was to convince natives, without force, to produce cotton for their
own material enrichment. Rechenberg was very anxious about any use of force, for in his
understanding it had been the excessive force used in the communal shambas that did not
economically benefit the natives under his predecessor, von Götzen, that had led to the MajiMaji uprising.77 To affect this sort of change, the government and the KWK passed out
increasing large amounts of cotton seed freely to African peasants. From 1,500
hundredweight of cotton seed passed out in the first year of Dernburg’s term in office, the
number tripled by the time he had left.78 In certain areas, mostly along the coast in Rufiji and
Lindi, the practice was moderately successful. How successful though, is extremely hard to
estimate, given the dearth of statistics on African peasant cultivation. It is also difficult to
determine how much if any coercion was used in these peasant production schemes, for it
was clearly happening in some cases under the rather innocent sounding name of “repeated
stimulation and encouragement.”79 Out of all the areas of cash crop production, and in all its
forms, this attempted stimulus of peasant agriculture was by far the biggest step the
government took. However, given the tenuous nature of evidence on the productiveness of
Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 149.
Rechenberg to Reichskolonialamt. 15 July 1907. Reichskolonialamt 1056 48 – 56.
78 Reichskolonialamt. Baumwollbau. 36 – 37. 103 -111.
79 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 430.
76
77
36
these non-coercive schemes, it would be unwise to come to rash conclusions. What can be
said, at any rate, is that those that did use coercion were often the most successful.
Using a coercive method to force the natives into producing cotton seems counterproductive, given the previous experience in the colony with Götzen’s communal shamba
policy. However, in some areas, these practices were essentially revived, and in some cases
with great success. We have already seen one such example, that of Resident Steumer and his
method for coffee production in Bukoba. In the district neighboring his, Mwanza, a new
district commissioner named Gunzert arrived in 1907, at the start of the Dernburg era.
Gunzert ignored the government’s orders not to use coercion, and much like Steumer in
Bukoba, set about forcing the chiefs to have their peasants produce cotton, under threat of
brutal punishment.80 Despite the violent nature of his methods, Gunzert’s plans proved very
successful; starting from nearly no cotton production in 1907, production rose by the end of
his time as commissioner to account for 20% of the colony’s cotton exports.81 This had a
surprising catalytic effect. Seeing that the cotton that had been forced on certain chiefs was
actually quite profitable, other headmen began to ask for seed of a crop they previously
despised and would actively resist planting. Gunzert himself explained that though ultimately
the Africans would need economic incentives to continue production in the long run, this
process was best started by force.82 In this way, the ends justified the means, and again
Dernburg’s social program was sacrificed for the sake of the creation of a raw materials base
in the colonies. Ultimately, this meant that both policies were doomed to failure, since the
cotton produced in German East Africa never even amounted to half of one percent of the
cotton needed by German industry, whereas Dernburg had claimed it would be producing all
of Germany’s cotton needs.83
Railways
Key to his program of reform was Dernburg’s idea that the growth of the colonies as
providers of raw materials would be ensured by a simultaneous program of railroad
construction. Railroads, like cotton, had long held a place of importance in the ideal of
German colonization. They were seen as signs of civilization and of true commitment to the
colonial effort. At the same time, it was widely agreed, even by those on the left wing of the
Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 431.
Teztlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 152.
82 Theodor Gunzert. “Baumwolle in Muansabezirk 1910/11.” Der Pflanzer. 1911. 539.
83 Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 154.
80
81
37
political spectrum that the colonies would remain worthless without integrated railroad
networks.84 Indeed, railroad construction had already begun in German East Africa before
Dernburg’s term in office, although at the time there were a paltry 129 kilometers of track.
This was massively expanded under Dernburg and afterwards, so that by the First World War
there were 1,500 kilometers of railroads stretching across the entire colony. This was one of
the major successes of the supposed reform era, and though this study criticizes the notion of
such a period, the vast expansion of rail in the colony, and the changes that were
implemented to allow for it do constitute actual reform in this case. This is because Dernburg
created an entirely new system of financing in order to pay for the railroad scheme he had in
mind. Whereas the Reichstag had previously balked at the idea of paying for capital-intensive
railroad construction, Dernburg, using his previous expertise as a banker, came up with a
clever trick to make it possible. By applying for loans in German capital markets that the
colony would service on its own, the specter of massive government payouts to the colonies
was mitigated. The railroads, following the proven example to the north in Uganda, would
open new markets, and bring new tax revenues into the colonial government’s purse, thus
accounting for increased expenditures that resulted from interest payments on the loans.85 In
other words, the system of railroad growth would largely support itself. Surprisingly, this
process generally worked in practice, unlike so many other schemes.
There were, however, deep-seeded problems and choices inherent in the construction
of railroads. The problem was complex; there were two basic railroad plans in competition,
each representing a different idea of the future development of the colony. It was doubtful as
to whether both railroad plans could be funded simultaneously, and therefore important
choices had to be made.86 On the one hand was the central line. This was to lead from the
coast at Dar es Salaam deep into the interior of the colony, allowing for natives to be drawn
into cash-crop production for export, and also in a sense civilizing them through the merits of
capitalism. This was the idea trumpeted by the colonial governor Rechenberg as well as
Dernburg. Working together, the two men were able to convince the Reichstag to allow the
new loan scheme, and in this way pushed the railroad inland. The settlers in the colony,
supported by the new right-wing majority in the Reichstag, had other plans. They sought a
northern line that would serve the area where their plantations were based. While the first
scheme was viable in that it would open up new areas to taxation and the export of
Barth. In Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 303.
Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 305.
86 Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 75.
84
85
38
commodities in quantity, the second scheme was not. Rechenberg attempted to thwart the
construction of this line, but was ultimately unsuccessful in his efforts. Dernburg,
succumbing to the will of the Reichstag, went back on his own reform ideals, and supported
the project in the end. The process will be elaborated further below, but it is important to
recognize this as one of the major steps in the rise of the settler ascendency. For now, it
should be noted that even though both projects were attempted simultaneously, they were
both able to be financed by the government, and though not all railroads were profitable, this
can be seen as a major instance of actual reform under Dernburg, and a vindication of some
of his electoral campaign speeches. At the same time, however, the change in policy
represented an ominous development that would ultimately doom any hope of the reform
period coming to be. Ultimately then, this was certainly not a period of total economic
transformation. The bright and optimistic speeches of Dernburg during 1907 largely came to
naught as far as the economics of the colonies and their worth to the metropole were
concerned. This is best shown by a last statistic; even by the First World War, despite
exponential growth in some sectors, the combined worth of all of the exports and imports of
all of the German colonies in Africa amounted to one half of one percent of the value of all
German trade.87 Clearly, despite the best efforts of a reform minded politician, the colonies
remained economically irrelevant to the metropole.
87
Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich. In Gann & Duignan. The Rulers of German Africa. 259.
39
Chapter IV: The Social Context
Whereas the first of the two chapters describing the effectiveness of the supposed reform
period was largely quantitative, an analysis of the results of the social transformation that
Dernburg envisioned in his speeches must necessarily be more qualitative, that is to say there
is less hard numerical evidence to point to in this case in debunking the idea of the reform
period. As has been mentioned earlier, Dernburg saw in the German occupation of its
colonies a chance for colonization by means of preservation, rather than destruction.88 This
was elaborated into a system of raising the natives and civilizing them, and can be seen in the
context of the international idea of the white man's burden. Like the idea of making the
colonies more of an economical asset than a burden on the metropole, this was hardly a new
idea, it was merely well and energetically articulated by Dernburg to a larger audience than
had been previously the case in Germany. In order to get an idea of the efficacy of the social
changes that Dernburg promised, it is again useful to break these changes into categories to
show the successes and failures of each part of his policy in turn. Some of these themes come
directly from Dernburg's speeches, while others are more peripheral, but certainly must be
included in any discussion of the relative progress of the civilizing mission. As such, the
social progress of the reform period will be discussed in terms of medical and educational
advances, the decline of slavery and its relation to labor recruitment, and finally the treatment
of non-native populations within German East Africa. Throughout this process, the focus, as
was the case with economic analysis, will remain on the supposed reform period, and the
changes that did or did not occur in that period in the context of larger scale changes with
earlier beginnings in order to get a precise idea of the nature of that period. This will show,
on the one hand, the many obvious failures, as well as successes that do not fit into the 19071910 periodization espoused by proponents of the reform period thesis.
Disease Prevention
One of Dernburg’s major points in regard to social progress in the colonies was
disease prevention. While the ideas he espoused mainly covered human diseases, it also
covered vaccinations against animal diseases, most notably rinderpest, although that was
mostly relevant to German Southwest Africa, and therefore will not be discussed here. As for
88
Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 9.
40
human diseases, three were stringently fought by the German authorities in German East
Africa; malaria, sleeping sickness, and smallpox. Of these, Dernburg highlighted malaria and
sleeping sickness as major targets for eradication during his tenure in office. These were
explained by Dernburg as the, “most dangerous enemies,” of whites and blacks
respectively.89
The first of these two diseases, malaria, being a greater problem for whites, and
therefore of greater relevance to his audience in Berlin, provides a good example of German
eradication efforts before, during, and after Denburg’s term in office. The disease represented
one of the largest problems for colonial development in the tropics, and had been recognized
as such essentially since European colonization began. Therefore, there were already known
methods for combatting the disease, represented largely by quinine, which, though not in its
pure form, had been known as effective against the disease since at least the seventeenth
century. It is not clear if Dernburg meant quinine when he suggested that, “the German
doctor has succeeded… in taming malaria,” but in any case this was simply not true.90
German attempts to combat the disease began in earnest in 1901 with expeditions against
malaria in Dar es Salaam and Tanga, with the goal of identifying all carriers of malaria and
subjecting them to quinine treatment.91 This was largely unsuccessful among the African
population, although with limited bright spots among the European population, with rates of
malaria among white children falling, for example. In Tanga, however, seven years into the
program no noticeable change had actually occurred.92 Besides quinine, which though
ineffective among the general population, had proven effective among soldiers, larval control
of the mosquitos that carry the disease was also attempted. This process began just before
Dernburg’s tenure as colonial secretary, in 1905, at which point it was becoming apparent
that large-scale quinine prophylaxis was impracticable. While these efforts started with
promising beginnings, they were largely given up as too expensive while Dernburg was still
in office. At least in regard to malaria then, Dernburg’s claims of social progress were not
realized, and even afterwards real attempts at eradication were not restarted, because, as
Koponen puts it, “after all, the German efforts were not undertaken for the health of the
Africans, but for the exploitation of the colony.”93
Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 9 – 10.
Ibid. 9.
91 Meixner. “Gesundheitsverhältnisse in Deutsch-Ostafrika im Jahre 1902/03”. Arbeiten aus dem
Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte. 21 (1904). 569 – 572. In Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 487.
92 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 488.
93 Ibid. 489.
89
90
41
The second disease mentioned by Dernburg, sleeping sickness, was a much larger
problem on the whole, and was much more of an issue of prevention among Africans as
compared to whites; in some senses an opposite scenario to malaria. The disease itself started
to spread out of the Congo basin at the end of the century, leaving massive devastation in its
wake, though Dernburg’s claim that it had killed 300,000 people in 1906 is a bit outlandish.94
At any rate, the disease was a serious threat, spreading into German East Africa first along
the coasts of Lake Victoria from Uganda. It was not, however, recognized as such at first in
the German colony, but by 1905 the reports from field doctors became increasingly severe,
with suggestions that many were going to die, and that immediate defense against the disease
was necessary.95 These efforts that were attempted against sleeping sickness came in two
forms, one medical, and one more physical. Medical efforts included especially
chemotherapy, but this was in any case quite ineffective, with suggestions that only twenty
percent of patients were cured, while most endured serious pain, and blindness occurred in
others.96 As was the case with malaria, when curing the disease proved impractical, other
methods were attempted. However, given the much greater seriousness of sleeping sickness
as compared to malaria, the costs were actually born, and the countermeasures were quite
intense. For example, in multiple cases the sick were rounded up and placed in concentration
camps, though it is very important not to confuse these with the later holocaust variety.97 This
sort of draconian measure was naturally resisted by the natives, who attempted to run from
the disease screening agents. In one particular case in Bukoba, on Lake Victoria, two villages
were entirely abandoned when they heard about the medical experts coming, fleeing with all
of their possessions and their cattle across the British border into Uganda.98 This acceleration
in the campaign followed Dernburg’s promised, and indeed picked up during his tenure in
office, the two cases above being from 1909. The draconian containment policies continued
afterwards, by the time Dernburg left office in 1910, multiple villages were being forcibly
depopulated and burned.99 Even afterwards, efforts to control the Glossina palpalis variety of
tsetse fly that was understood to spread the disease remained stringent, with reports of 10,000
natives working to clear forests along the shores of Lake Tanganyika that were known tsetse
Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 9.
Feldmann to Götzen. September 26 1905. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 5895 93
– 95.
96 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 480.
97 Kleine to the Government. February 15 1909. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt
5900 17.
98 Ibid. 17.
99 Wach to the Government. July 3 1910. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 5905 59.
94
95
42
breeding grounds.100 All of these attempts to control the disease were only mildly successful.
While the catastrophic accounts of Dernburg were certainly not realized, and in places where
the most strict, and in some cases inhumane methods were used to combat the disease, like
Shirati and Bukoba, the incidence of sleeping sickness declined during Dernburg’s term in
office by ninety-nine percent.101 However, at the same time, cases along Lake Tanganyika
actually doubled, and new outbreaks of the disease were being recorded in the south of the
colony, along the Ruvuma River. So, while the disease was far from contained, it did not
cause the horrible devastation that it was capable of in Uganda, for example, where between
1896 and 1908 it is estimated that 200,000 people died of sleeping sickness.102 In that light,
the fight against the disease under Dernburg can and has been considered a general success,
unlike malaria. Indeed, as claimed, the German doctor was coming to the rescue of the
natives.
A third major disease that was combatted with serious resources in German East
Africa during this time was smallpox, although it was not specifically mentioned as a target
by Dernburg in his campaign speeches. Like malaria and unlike sleeping sickness, smallpox
had been a serious problem for centuries, and by one estimate, every second African had the
telltale pock-marked complexion.103 Large-scale campaigns to vaccinate natives began in
1898, with something like 200,000 vaccinations given by 1904. This process was scaled up
massively during Dernburg’s time in office, with suggestions of nearly four million
vaccinations between 1909 and 1914.104 This would suggest that fully half of the population
of German East Africa had been vaccinated by 1914. These campaigns, as was seen with
sleeping sickness, did not necessarily run smoothly, and often the natives would run from the
doctors in fear or rise in revolt.105 The statistics, however, are impressive, to say the very
least, and would certainly indicate the sort of authoritarian cleansing of the Augean stables
that the colonial thesis on the Dernburg reform era suggests, were it not for a minor quirk. As
was mentioned before, Dernburg did not actually suggest that he was going to seriously
combat smallpox, and furthermore, the massive rise in vaccinations was not due to any sort of
official intervention or pressure, as was certainly given in regard to sleeping sickness.
Kleine to Governor Schnee. 24 June 1912. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 5892
134.
101 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 482.
102 Ibid. 475.
103 Becker in Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte. 1897. 19. In Koponen. Development for
Exploitation. 471.
104 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 473.
105 Dempwolff. “Kampf gegen die Pocken.” Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 5830 6.
100
43
Instead, it was a medical advance that occurred in 1909, during the supposed reform period,
namely the ability to produce the lymph that was needed for the vaccine, which made total
vaccination cheap and effective. In this way, disease prevention under Dernburg was
somewhat of a mixed bag. While there were definite successes, and conditions for the natives
in the colony did improve, it was not all the colonial secretary’s doing, and it would be wrong
to see his term in office as any serious turning point in the fight against diseases in the colony
generally. More importantly perhaps, is the reason that Dernburg needed to fight diseases in
the first place. If the colonies were to be productive resource bases of the German Empire,
the African labor that would make it so certainly could not be dying off. As will be seen in
the rest of this chapter, all social improvements were in one way or another linked to the
larger goal of labor creation for what can be seen as Dernburg’s clearest aim, a primary
resource producing colony. This does not imply that this sort of change is not reform in the
sense that Dernburg meant it, but it does run counter to the notion of raising the native.
Education
While Dernburg does not give any serious details about his intentions in regard to
educating the natives, it was definitely an important part of German policy in their East
African colony, not least because of the importance of missions and mission schools to the
Zentrum. However, the importance of education under the supposed Dernburg reform period
is its position in the historiography. Oftentimes, education is taken as one of the examples of
the successes of the reform period, and especially a success that grew out of the definitive
shift in policy after Dernburg came into office as colonial secretary. This is best illustrated in
Iliffe’s work, Tanganyika under German Rule, in which he posits that in the “age of
improvement” which followed Dernburg’s appointment, the most important form of
improvement was western education.106 Iliffe’s argumentation runs that this provided social
mobility to Africans, but in practice all that seems to be shown are minor groups advancing to
dominate others through education, largely as part of the German administration.107 Given
that he describes his age of improvement as one of Africans improving their societies, the
exchange of one set of rulers for a new European-educated set can hardly be considered as a
serious gain.108 Granted, there was a rise in education in the later part of German rule, as
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 171.
Ibid. 187.
108 Ibid. 166.
106
107
44
evidenced in British reports on widespread literacy in the colony.109 But this rise is more
complicated than improvement during and after Dernburg’s time in office. Rather,
improvements that did happen began earlier, and at any rate were not generally designed to
particularly raise the African native.
Education began early in German East Africa, but it was complicated in that it came
from two sources that were working essentially at cross-purposes. On the one hand were the
missions, whose goal was unsurprisingly maximum conversion, of which education was seen
as an integral part, especially in learning and disseminating the word of god. On the other
hand was the government, which due to its serious financial constraints, needed to train an
adequate body of underlings within the colonial society that might be able to work and
function for them. As was the case in colonies across Africa with large Islamic populations,
the administration and missions came into conflict over many aspects of policy, for while the
administration was content to take the easiest route and rule through the Muslim elites, the
missions were attempting to break down the societies they encountered in order to
Christianize and civilize them.110 The animosity was clearly evident, for example in the
outcry caused by the placement of a Muslim teacher in the government school at Tanga by
missionary groups, which eventually forced the government to remove the teacher in
question.111 Whereas the disconnect between the government and its missionaries caused
problems in many colonies, that problem was solved by an extensive compromise between
the government and the missions on the issue of education, known as the Benedictine
agreement. This informal agreement, which was reached between the government and certain
mission groups in 1900, meant that they would collaborate rather than compete within the
colony. The essence of the agreement was that missions would henceforth expand their
curriculum in order to promote the creation of workable colonial officials, while cutting back
on their activities along the mostly Islamic coastal areas, where their work often caused
conflict. For its part, the government would not found schools in areas already occupied by
missions, and would give financial support to schools which helped raise colonial officials.112
This compromise situation was far from perfect, and some missionaries complained that
should they follow the government’s suggestions on curriculum, there, “would be no more
Gann & Duignan. The Rulers of German Africa. 213.
Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 500.
111 “Praktische Negererziehung.” Kölnische Zeitung. November 19 1903. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde.
Reichskolonialamt 990 111 – 112.
112 Niesel. Kolonialverwaltung. 169 – 172. In Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 509.
109
110
45
room in [their] lessons for the most important subject, religion.”113 These problems could be
overcome in with local compromises however, as in one case where Governor von Götzen
offered fifty rupees for each suitable official that a missionary school produced.114 This
collaboration coincided with a rise of compulsion in education that the government no longer
feared now that the missions were teaching a more useful curriculum. Part of the reason for
this cooperation was the growing need among all sectors to produce viable workers for the
plantations that were growing in number to produce the raw materials needed by the
metropole before Dernburg came into office. As Koponen puts it, the Africans were to be
“educated for work,” not educated for the sake of lifting the natives.115 In fact, Dernburg
implies in his speeches exactly that, or rather that the over-education of the Africans in
America had been a serious policy mistake.116 Now, this is not to say that the education
program that occurred under German rule did not benefit the Africans to some degree. As has
been noted, literacy did rise impressively, and by the end of German rule, Africans no longer
needed compulsion to attend school, but in some cases demanded it after seeing the social
benefits it bestowed on them within the colonial setting.117 The point then is that the rise in
the efficiency of the educational system in German East Africa began much earlier than the
supposed reform period, and had very little to do with Dernburg himself.
Slavery
Another way in which to analyze the reform period, in terms of raising the condition
of the natives, would naturally be the presence of slavery in German East Africa. Dernburg
boasted in his speeches that, “slavery – God be praised – has been abolished.”118 The fact that
this statement was blatantly false opens up the reform period to a line of attack that has only
been made recently possible by modern scholars. The problem with previous works, and
notably that of Iliffe, is that they are largely silent on the issue of slavery under German rule,
seeing it as declining along with the general decline of the Arab slave trade in the area.119 In
some respects, this gap in early histories helps to show why the period might be seen as one
Karl Nauhaus to the government. July 30 1901. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt
990 83.
114 Götzen to Auswärtiges Amt, Kolonial-Abteilung. June 13 1901. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde.
Reichskolonialamt 990 45.
115 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 500.
116 Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 8.
117 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 501.
118 Dernburg. Zielpunkte. 6.
119 Iliffe. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge. 1989. 131-132.
113
46
of reform. The fact is though, that unlike the British and the French, the Germans never
actually abolished slavery in its entirety.120 To be fair, slavery did decline substantially under
German rule in East Africa. According to some estimates, the institution comprised as many
as 400,000 people in 1900 to 150,000 in 1914, representing a proportional drop in the
population of slaves from ten to four percent of the total population of the German colony.121
Furthermore, under German rule there were definitive steps taken against slavery. These
came in the form of three particular ordinances. The first of these was set out in 1891. This
ordinance stated that slaves could be ransomed free, but only with the right German
government documents, and that those that did not have said documents would be returned to
their masters. It also protected the rights of the slaves, to a certain degree, but in large part
upheld the rights of the masters.122 There are several reasons for this, as can especially be
seen in the writings of the governors of the colony. While an early governor, Schele, claimed
abolition was impracticable due to the economic consequences it would have, Liebert, one of
his successors, cited the political support that was needed from the slave-owners.123 Even by
the time of Götzen, just before Dernburg’s time as colonial secretary, Götzen claimed that
slavery could not be abolished until after the central railway had been built and the colony’s
economy developed.124 Instead, under Götzen, another ordinance was released in 1901. This
new law stated that now all slaves had the right to apply for their own ransom that they might
work off. This law was followed by another more important step in 1904, also under Götzen.
This last ordinance on slavery essentially stated that all slaves born in 1905 and beyond
would be free.125 That is to say, the law stopped well short of abolishing slavery, although it
was assumed that it would of course die off in time without an influx of new slaves. In fact,
colonial policy-makers did not envisage total abolition as being possible until 1930 or
1940!126 Ransoming of slaves into freedom did occur during this period, but there was no
significant rise in this policy during the supposed reform period; only a few thousand slaves
were emancipated with German government documents each year.127 The total drop in the
Sunseri. A Social History of Cotton Production. 91-92.
Deutsch. Emancipation without Abolition. 165.
122 Landesgesetzgebung. Ordinance Concerning the Ransom of Slaves. September 4, 1891. No. 111a. 329331. In Sunseri. A Social History of Cotton Production. 92.
123 Schele to Auswärtiges Amt, Kolonial-Abteilung. October 30, 1893. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde.
Reichskolonialamt 1003 168.
124 Götzen to Auswärtiges Amt, Kolonial-Abteilung. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt
1006 69.
125 Gann & Duignan. The Rulers of German Africa 1884 – 1914. 202.
126 Sunseri. A Social History of Cotton Production. 81.
127 Wiedner op cit p. 138; Reichstag Memorandum no. 1395, 1912/14, p. 12. In Sunseri. A Social History of
Cotton Production. 97.
120
121
47
slave population therefore has much more to do with slaves running away and manumissions
than with government policy. In this light, Dernburg’s claim that slavery had already been
abolished seems downright preposterous, if not simply disingenuous. The fact was that the
government’s policy on slavery went hand in hand with its policy on labor creation. One of
the overarching concerns of the colony was labor procurement, and keeping slavery around
helped that process. This is because the reality of work on German plantations was quite
brutal, and it was necessary to have an institution worse than plantation work around for
Africans to sign up to that process.128 As far as the German government in East Africa was
concerned, the process of ransoming slaves out of slavery and into plantation work was
necessary to keep up the labor supply. The fact that this usually only meant the trading of an
African master for a European one was not a serious concern. In fact, this process can be seen
to have continued to some degree even when the British came to Tanganyika, in that they
released the slaves from bondage, but then simply forced them to continue working in the
same place.129 For now though, Dernburg’s obliviousness to the fate of the slave population
in his speeches, and the statistical evidence showing no great leap in slave emancipation
during his tenure in office is certainly damning to anyone seeking to raise the position of the
natives in any substantial manner.
Indians
Also of note, when considering the raising of the natives, is the situation of the Indian
population in German East Africa, though the Indians were not themselves specifically
mentioned by Dernburg in his campaign speeches. This is because of a quirk of German law
in the colony, which left Indians classified for official purposes as natives.130 Indians had a
long history of trade with East Africa, moving back and forth with the monsoon, but did not
start to settle on the East African coast until the late nineteenth century, with the advent of
European rule.131 If Dernburg had indeed been the champion of the natives and reform
generally, then the period should have seen a relaxing of restrictions on Indians and other
natives. Instead, records show precisely the opposite took place. Indians had never been
Sunseri. A Social History of Cotton Production. 130.
Ibid. 132.
130 Robert Gregory. India and East Africa: A History of Race Relations within the British Empire 1890 – 1939.
Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1971. 100.
131 Gijsbert Oonk. “South Asians in East Africa (1880 – 1920) with a Particular Focus on Zanzibar: Toward
a Historical Explanation of Economic Success of a Middlemen Minority.” African and Asian Studies.
Volume 5, no. 1. 2006. 9.
128
129
48
popular with the Germans, especially the settler population, who saw them as leeches feeding
off business which should have been in European hands. However, the colonial governor,
Rechenberg, saw the Indians differently, and recognized them as indispensable intermediaries
between the European businesses and the African natives, which, to be fair, they were.132 At
the same time, he thought that a mixing of Europeans at the native level in business would be
detrimental to the social hierarchy which was necessary in the colony. At first, these views
prevailed on Dernburg, at the beginning of his tenure. For instance, a 1906 attempt by the
colonial settlers to force Indians to do their bookkeeping in either German or Swahili was
swatted down by Dernburg.133 Over time though, Dernburg would vacillate on the issue.
Pressured by colonial supporters in the right-wing dominated Reichstag, Dernburg devised a
number of policies which would have severely limited Indian migration to the colony by
requiring migrants, for example, to be proficient in either Swahili or a European language.134
Where Dernburg, had he been the colonial reformer championed by the reform thesis, should
have been pressing for improved rights, we instead see him curtailing the rights of the natives
with pressure from the settler community. In fact, it was Rechenberg, the colonial governor,
who was responsible for stopping these policies from being enacted. Dernburg was on over
by Rechenberg largely because the Indians were British subjects, and were the Germans to
impede British subjects, they might just close themselves off from their trade in India, which
at the time was worth fifteen times as much as German trade with East Africa.135 It would not
be until after Dernburg left office that the lot of the Indians in German East Africa would
improve. It is important to note in this section the growing influence of the settler community
on both Dernburg and the colony at large. As this study moves into its next segment, the issue
of the rise of the settlers will be discussed in detail.
Rechenberg to Reichskolonialamt. September 14, 1908. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde.
Reichskolonialamt 28. 121 – 126. In Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 295.
133 Ibid. 295.
134 Gregory. India and East Africa. 101.
135 Dernburg. February 26, 1909. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 28. 154 – 155. In
Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 297.
132
49
Chapter V: The Rise of the Settlers
Whereas the reasons for economic colonization had long roots, as was especially seen
in the case of cotton, there was a second serious impetus for colonial acquisition and
development. This was the idea of Siedlungskolonien, or settler colonies, which had even
deeper roots than the economic variety. The concept of the creation of colonies for German
settlement can be traced all the way back to the liberal revolutions of 1848 and the Frankfurt
Assembly which met that year in an attempt to foster liberalism and German unification. By
that point, the problem of Auswanderung, or emigration, had become a serious issue. With
the advent of industrialization in Germany, though the full effects were far from complete at
this time, dislocation of earlier forms of production had created a large movement of people
from the German states to new areas, more specifically the Americas. Though it was by no
means a primary topic of debate, the issue of colonies was discussed for a new united
Germany. These colonies would have been located in the Americas, among existing German
settlements, and would ostensibly provide an outlet for Germans to emigrate to without
losing their cultural distinctiveness. At the same time, the colonies would have provided a
release valve that would prevent the rise of a truly revolutionary class.136 This of course was a
real threat in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions across Europe. Though these talks came to
nothing with the overall failure of the liberal revolution, they laid an important foundation for
later thought on the issue of Auswanderung and settler colonization. The issue of settler
colonization lay largely dormant until the time of German unification, with a new wave of
emigration and a coherent foreign policy among the various German states for the first time.
Now, however, settler arguments were combined with economic arguments in a politically
viable package, best laid out by the missionary, Friedrich Fabri, in his paper, “Does Germany
Need Colonies?” This included elements of the industrialist line of raw material security, but
then went on to describe the benefits of the retention of German emigrants within a larger
German Empire.137 This convergence of interests, with lower and middle class support for
settlement, as well as business support for economic colonialism allowed, or possibly
convinced, Bismarck to embark upon his colonial venture in the mid 1880’s, such a potent
political force was it. Dernburg, and through him Bülow, would later tap into this same
dynamic patriotic force in their electoral success in the 1907 Reichstag elections. However, at
the start, the economic, trading model defined the colonies almost entirely. It was only with
136
137
Smith. German Colonial Empire. 3 – 4.
Friedrich Fabri. “Does Germany Need Colonies?” 3 rd ed. 1883. 1-6.
50
the obvious failure of the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft (DOAG), or German East
Africa Company, in 1890 that settlement could truly begin under the cover of more robust
government intervention in the colony.
Development of the Settler Community
Even with the advent of direct government intervention in German East Africa, settler
growth was decidedly slow. Before the governorship of Liebert began in 1896, it had been
limited to exactly two settlers, one of which was killed in the coastal rebellion which ended
the DOAG’s authority, and a second who fled.138 As the colony had not been entirely secured
under German domination, settlement was not yet practical, reasonable, or safe for that
matter. Even under the enthusiastic Governor Schele, who saw the colony as ripe for German
peasant settlement, none actually arrived. The early governors, were not, however, generally
disposed towards settlement, with Soden and Wißmann in fact entirely opposing the idea, and
blocking several efforts at settlement.139 The effective blocking of colonial settlement in
German East Africa was to end with the start of the governorship of Eduard von Liebert in
1896. Liebert, “a racist, radical conservative committed to white settlement,” was to change
colonial policy on settlement drastically.140 From the very beginning of his rule, Liebert made
numerous overtures to prospective settlers, suggesting they base themselves near the coast in
West Usambara, by the old DOAG railhead. He even sweetened the deal, mandating that the
district office in the area should provide each settler with something like ten tax-laborers each
for work in their fields.141 While evidence is scarce as to who exactly was coming into the
colony as settlers in the period of Liebert’s rule, that they did is not in question. Given that
settlement was virtually non-existent under the rule of the first three governors, the fact that
there were 1078 Europeans, the vast majority of them Germans, living in German East Africa
by 1900, towards the end of Liebert’s period in office, indicates a serious takeoff in the
community around the turn of the century.142 This development was to continue under the
next governor of the colony, Götzen. Like Liebert, Götzen was inclined to support Germanic
Kurtze. DOAG. 152. In Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 157.
Kayser to DOAG. November 26, 1892. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Deutsch-Ostafrikanische
Gesellschaft Berlin. 14, 160. In Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 156.
140 Smith. German Colonial Empire. 104.
141 Liebert to Hohenlohe. April 12, 1897. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 78. 44. In
Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 156.
142 Amtliche Jahresberichte über die Entwicklung der deutschen Schutzgebiete in Afrika under der
Südsee. In Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 106.
138
139
51
settlement of German East Africa, and by the end of his rule, and the start of the supposed
reform period, the European population had more than doubled to 2,465.143 Götzen did not
however support simply any type of colonial development, but was clear that it would be a
difficult venture that demanded considerable capital. Nevertheless, he did claim that, “a
capable man will be able to establish a secure livelihood.”144 At the same time, Götzen
sponsored two rather outlandish settlement schemes, including Boers escaping the conflict in
South Africa, and Volga Germans from the Caucasus.145 Both of these were largely failures,
with many of the Boers moving on to Kenya, and the majority of the Volga Germans never
arriving. Regardless, the growth of the settler community continued apace, and at this point
was irreversible. Less obvious, however, by this point were the implications of the growth of
the settler community. Under Götzen’s rule in German East Africa, the settler community
was not only to grow in numbers, but also consequently in terms of political clout. That the
settler community grew and organized substantially during this period has often been
overlooked, or the importance undervalued, is at least partially responsible for the frequent
division of the history of German East Africa in terms of the reform period.146 The issue of
the growth of the strength of the settler community, and its ultimate reversal of any attempt at
reform must now be discussed as a major proponent of a revised trajectory of German East
African history.
Rise of Settler Influence
Running parallel to, and eventually superseding the growth of the settler population
was a second factor, their growing political power and organization. This process, like the
population growth, was set in motion well before Dernburg’s time in office. Like the overall
growth in population, the power and organization of the settlers began to coalesce under the
welcoming rule of Governor Liebert with his particular interest in supporting German
settlement. While sweetening the proposition for would be settlers with offers of free tax
labor, he also set in motion two major factors for later colonist organization and influence. In
order to help the newly arrived settlers organize themselves in their dealings with the colonial
Amtliche Jahresberichte über die Entwicklung der deutschen Schutzgebiete in Afrika under der
Südsee. In Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 106.
144 “Auskunft für Ansiedler in Usambara und anderen Gebieten von Deutsch-Ostafrika.” January 1902.
Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 11. 31.
145 Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 60 – 61.
146 The de-emphasis of the settler issue can be seen in Sunseri A Social History of Cotton Production in
German East Africa, 1884-1915. And Deutsch. Emancipation without Abolition.
143
52
state, the Pflanzer Verein Tanga, or Tanga Planters’ Union was established on the initiative
of Governor Liebert in 1898.147 While this move helped the settlers organize themselves, they
were also given a large degree of control and influence under the Kommunalverband, or local
commune system. These systems, established in 1899 under the guidance of Liebert, were
designed as local executive organs of government.148 They had the power to tax the locals,
and to use fifty percent of the revenue for local projects. In this way, it was hoped that the
central government in East Africa would be able to avoid local micromanagement, but the
implications and the amount of power that was being handed over to the colonists were not
yet obvious to the government, and these communes would later become the flashpoint of a
clash between the central government and the colonists. As the settler population grew under
the governorships of Liebert and Götzen, they became more assertive, and began asking for
more rights, in the German tradition of Selbstverwaltung, or self-administration. Götzen
would be the first governor to confront these demands, but he was more than willing to go
along. Accordingly, in 1903, Götzen created what was known as the Governor’s Council, in
which a combined body of official, (meaning government-employed,) and unofficial, (which
normally meant from the settler community,) Germans would be able to express their
interests and demands, as well as advise the governor. On paper, this mere advisory power
does not sound overly intimidating, but in practice going a against the council meant that the
governor was putting his own neck on the line in regard to whatever issue the council had not
supported, and would be held personally responsible in Berlin.149 Therefore, it was not long
before the council was able to begin forcing its demands on Götzen, starting with the removal
of all non-Germans from the local communes, on the pretext that they would not be able to
follow German conversations well enough.150 This meant that the communes were now more
specifically the main organ of settler control, in which they could use government revenue
directly to support their own interests. At the same time, under Götzen, the settler community
was beginning to organize even more than it had previously outside of the governmental
structures. New groups of planters began making their own unions, which would later come
together to form a very influential force in the German colony. All the while, the settler
community continued to grow, not even seriously hindered by the massive Maji Maji
rebellion, as the settlers never completely lost control of the situation. This point is reflected
Liebert to Tanga. November 12, 1897. Tanzanian National Archive VIII/J/19/I. In Iliffe. Tanganyika
under German Rule. 84.
148 Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 220 – 221.
149 Ibid. 257.
150 Ibid. 258.
147
53
in government statistics on population, which though our only source, do not seem to lend
themselves to any sort of bias.151 By the time the colony received a governor who was
generally opposed to settlement by Europeans, the power of the settler community had
become entrenched, and could not be reversed. Instead, in the clash to follow, it would be the
governor’s own ideas that would suffer.
The Settler Ascendancy
From the beginning of their times in office, which began almost simultaneously at the
end of the Maji Maji rebellion, both Dernburg and Rechenberg were opposed to the settler
community in general terms; a one hundred and eighty degree turn from the positions of
Liebert and Götzen. Both envisioned an African colony in which the natives would produce
the raw materials needed in Germany of their own accord. Dernburg was generally silent on
the issue of settlement in his election speeches, focusing more on the economics of the
colonies. Had he spoken out, he might have endangered the national cause that the colonies
had become, and the support that the parties of order garnered from the upsurge of popular
support. Later however, he was much clearer, claiming, “I have become convinced, that the
East African economy cannot depend on the work of settlers and plantations.”152 Given that
Rechenberg was even more clear in his opposition to settlement, it is surprising that the two
men working in tandem proved unable to change the course that the colony was already
moving on. The failure of Dernburg and Rechenberg was not, however, for lack of effort.
Their time on office represents a long struggle between the settlers and the bureaucracy,
which the settlers would ultimately win. The struggle began with Dernburg’s plans for
railroads. If the colony were to become the African based economy that Rechenberg sought,
then it would need railroads to penetrate the interior and stimulate the growth of capitalism.
The scheme, however, was impossible without the destruction of the local communes, which
would waste the money necessary for construction themselves, and furthermore prevent the
government from recouping its investment through tax revenues. Sensing a threat against
their interests, the settler unions that had previously existed joined together in 1907 to form
the Northern League, which effectively represented all of the settler interests. It was from this
league that the settlers made their first real attempt to thwart government policy. While
Amtliche Jahresberichte über die Entwicklung der deutschen Schutzgebiete in Afrika under der
Südsee. In Tetzlaff. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 106.
152 Dernburg to Paul Voith. December 31, 1907. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 120.
15.
151
54
Dernburg and Rechenberg were in Berlin, pushing their budget, including provisions for a
central railroad line and the dissolution of the communes, through the Reichstag, a challenge
arrived from East Africa in the form of a petition for the Northern League. It claimed that, “a
native policy is to be pursued in German East Africa which considers only colored interests,
and neglects German business as against them: a policy which will make German East Africa
merely a negro and Indian trading colony, with European plantations a secondary
consideration.”153 This was of course, generally speaking what Rechenberg and Dernburg had
planned for the colony, though they would not have admitted such publicly. The motion
might have been halted, were it not for the fact that the petition devolved into a personal
attack on the Colonial Secretary and the governor. The attack was seen as having been in
poor taste, and was largely ignored. The settlers, however, had shown that they were capable
of over-reaching the colonial government. After this point, the settlers changed tactics.
Regrouping as the Territorial League, the settlers found new ways to have their demands
heard, and became more and more effective in their efforts. This effect can be seen in a
number of different areas, some of which have already been elaborated to a certain degree
above. The reason for the success of the settlers lay in their use of politics in Berlin to
advance their own interests. As Dernburg was beholden to the right-wing coalition then in
power in the Reichstag, he was forced to listen to the demands of the settlers when presented
through members of his coalition. When, for instance, Rechenberg attempted to protect the
interests of the Indians against the settlers, Dernburg instead first listened to the settlers, and
attempted to block Indian immigration into the colony. Rechenberg ultimately thwarted him
in this effort, but he had already shown his vacillating tendency. Later, when Rechenberg was
advancing his plans for the central railroad, Dernburg again caved to settler demands
presented to him in Berlin, and despite reasonable claims that it was not financially feasible,
agreed that the colony would finance extensions to both the central and northern lines, the
northern line being key to settler interests.154 Dernburg furthermore took the settler’s position
against Rechenberg in regard to labor laws, refusing to curb brutality within the system. 155
This hardly supports Dernburg’s supposed goals of raising the position of the natives, and the
tendency to compromise disqualifies any sort of reform agenda, not to mention any sense of a
strong willed politician that would be necessary to reform a system. The best example,
however, of the settlers’ effect on colonial policy was in regard to their own power in the
Petition to Reichstag. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt 120. 119.
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 103.
155 Ibid. 106.
153
154
55
colony. Rechenberg, having already moved against the local communes, now sought to
destroy the power base of the settlers in the governor’s council, which was becoming a thorn
in his side. He did so by packing the council with his own supporters, to defeat the unofficial
element within that body. The Territorial League, however, immediately protested to its
friends in the Reichstag. At the next meeting of the Reichstag, Dernburg was forced to make
concessions to the settlers. The council would now have a majority of election non-officials.
This meant that the settlers would have an effective check on the governor henceforth, and
that Rechenberg’s efforts had not only failed, but backfired miserably.156 Not only that, but
where Rechenberg thought he had previously succeeded, his hopes were dashed. Dernburg
was to compromise once again, this time on the issue of local taxation, the second major
source of power of the settlers. While he agreed to end the local communes, he allowed new
district councils, composed mostly of settlers, to take twenty-five percent of the tax revenues.
This essentially defeated the point of removing the communes in the first place, much to
Rechenberg’s chagrin. Eventually, though, Dernburg’s balancing act in the Reichstag proved
untenable. In May 1910, he was forced to resign over a fight with another settler community,
this time in German South-West Africa. His replacement, Lindequist, was entirely pro-settler,
and it was obvious to all that the settlers had won the day.
Towards the South African Model
The distinction has already been made in this paper between the two different types of
colony possible: a trading colony on the West African model, or a settlement colony of a
South African design. In the period during and after Rechenberg and Dernburg, the colony
moved substantially in the direction of the South African model, which can be seen as the
new definition of the colony generally, had it not been for the First World War.157 The
process had become entrenched under the so called reform period of Dernburg, and continued
after he resigned. In his wake, A distinctly pro-settler governor, Lindequist, was appointed, as
well as an ambivalent governor, Schnee, who while attempting not o favor any one model
over the other, ultimately did not try to hamper settler efforts in establishing their own rules
and power. On all the major issues that Dernburg and Rechenberg had attempted to stand
firm, the regime now definitively caved in to settler pressure. In regard to Indians,
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 112.
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 201. Koponen. Development for Exploitation. 250. Tetzlaff.
Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. 289.
156
157
56
immigration was curtailed, and their rights to acquire land were restricted. The northern rail,
which Rechenberg had attempted to block as uneconomic, was now continued deep into the
hinterland as far as Mount Kilimanjaro. Labor laws, furthermore, did not change, but
remained friendly towards settler interests. Perhaps most importantly, the power of the
governor’s council, that main organ of settler control, was set to increase, with proposals on
the table by the time of the First World War that would have given the council decisive
power over European agriculture and labor laws.158 This was the case in German South-West
Africa, which had already become a colony on the South African model, dominated by
settlers, rather than trading interests. The point then, here, is that German East Africa was,
from the beginning of settlement, moving inexorably towards a settlement model. It was
simply too difficult for a German administration to ignore the complaints of its own citizens
in East Africa for the benefit of the natives, who did not have a voice. Instead, as the settler
growth and influence in the Reichstag increased, concessions to settler demands became
unavoidable. Therefore, rather than seeing the Dernburg period as one of reform, it is
necessary to see it as a time of defensive moves, ultimately futile, against a growing settler
tide.
158
Iliffe. Tanganyika under German Rule. 204.
57
Chapter VI: Conclusion
Over the course of this research paper, much has been clarified about the so-called
Dernburg reform period. Several historians have seen it, mostly in the past, but also
significantly in modern popular literature, as just such a reform period under the authoritarian
guidance of a visionary colonial secretary. 159 This paper has sought to clarify what that
reform period actually was, and how the idea of it came about. As such, it was first explained
that the idea of the Dernburg reform period was born out of the Reichstag elections of 1907.
Dernburg made a great many claims about how East Africa, and the German colonies in
general would become vital resource production areas, and at the same time the natives
would be lifted from their squalor through the wonders of the German civilizing mission.
These claims, articulated largely to gain support for the right-wing coalition that Bülow was
building in the Reichstag, did not reflect reality. Despite that, they have managed to confuse a
number of historians.160 The election, and Dernburg’s term in office, did not represent a
serious shift in the dynamics of the colony, but rather a revived interest in the colony
generally, as befit an issue of supposed national importance. The facts on the ground help to
support this case. This has been seen, on the one hand, in terms of economic growth and
change in the colony. Whereas Dernburg made grand claims about the value of the colony
and its possible exports to Germany, with the exception of sisal, these claims failed to
materialize. The planting of these crops had begun under governor Götzen, and merely
continued and attracted more investment under Dernburg’s watch. Furthermore, the increases
that did occur, (this paper does not deny that there was exponential growth in cash crop
production,) were from an extremely low base level, and never came close to meeting the
needs of German industry. Rather, the entire trade value of the colony only ever managed to
become one half of one percent of Germany’s total trade; far less than Germany’s trade with
other nations’ colonies. Where the colony did seriously improve in economic terms was in its
value as a whole, with the growth of railroads. However, efforts to make these railroads
economic failed in large part over the necessity to meet the settlers’ demands and also build
an unprofitable northern line. While the colony did not become the economic powerhouse
that Dernburg envisioned, it also failed to move forward substantially in social terms. While
Earlier academic historians include Townsend, Iliffe, and Bald, and more recently
Gann & Duignan, while a good modern day example can be seen in Thomas Pakenham’s
the Scramble for Africa.
160 See above works for examples.
159
58
certain diseases, like smallpox, were certainly rooted out to a large degree, this represented a
lone area of serious progress, despite failures in curbing malaria, and merely the ability to
check the spread of sleeping sickness. Education, though increasingly prevalent, did not
seriously improve the lot of the natives, but rather was intended to Christianize them, and
prepare intermediaries for work in the German administration. Statistics that might show a
general rise in literacy are non-existent, as this was not a major policy concern. Slavery
continued in the colony in this period, despite Dernburg’s claims that it had already been
abolished by his time in office, and in spite of his suggestion that it was morally
reprehensible. At the same time, labor laws against the natives were not substantially altered,
and a certain brutality continued to tinge German occupation as compared with British rule in
Kenya to the north. Lastly, persecution of Indians began during this supposed reform period,
and was codified in the aftermath thereof. What the failure of the colony in economic terms,
and the failure of the colony in terms of social advancement have in common is their root
cause, what can be seen as the primary historical development during German rule in East
Africa: the rise of the settlers. Between 1899 and 1914, the population of settlers increased
dramatically, from essentially none to over five thousand Europeans. As their population
grew, so did their authority and influence on colonial affairs. They prevented the ideas that
Dernburg and Rechenberg held for the colony, as one of African freedom and production for
the benefit of the German Empire, from coming into being. They did this largely through
their supporters in the Reichstag, and in the process they managed to divert the resources of
the colony into the promotion of European settler plantations using African labor, rather than
Africans working of their own accord. They diverted railroads to advance their own interests,
and effectively blocked any worthwhile social reforms, except for perhaps disease
prevention, which also of course was to their benefit. By the end of German rule in East
Africa, the settlers were coming to dominate the affairs of the colony in more obvious ways,
and this trend seems unlikely to have changed were it not for the First World War.
This paper argues then, that the period between 1907 and 1910, when Dernburg was
in office, should not be taken as a period of reform, or for that matter as the defining
watershed in German East African history. While most modern scholars have moved away
from explaining the period as one of reform, in the line of John Iliffe, they remain beholden
to the old colonial periodization of that history. As such they use the Maji Maji rebellion, and
the subsequent colonial crisis which was followed by Dernburg’s appointment, as the major
break in the history of the colony. However, having seen that the colony did not seriously
reform during Dernburg’s time in office, nor develop as a worthwhile economic factor in
59
German industry or trade, this periodization seems misguided. While there is an increased
interest in the colony after the Maji Maji rebellion from Imperial Germany, the situation there
did not change enough to warrant a dramatic historical break. Rather, this paper argues, the
time that Dernburg was in office should be seen in a larger context. There was certainly an
attempt in some ways at reform, if not in social terms, there was a definite attempt to make
the colony profitable to the empire. But this attempt at reform only represents a minor period
of backlash against the rising settler tide. Instead of breaking the history in the middle of the
period of settler growth, the entire twentieth century portion of German rule should be seen
as a coherent entity. As the colony developed during this period, it moved further and further
towards a distinctly South African model; a colony designed to benefit the settler community
there. Given the power of colonial and patriotic societies in Germany, and the support that the
colonists received from the right wing of the political spectrum, this was unavoidable. In both
of the German colonies with substantial European populations, that is to say German East
Africa, and German South-West Africa, the settlers came to dominate, whereas the others
remained trading colonies. In the context of this new periodization with the dominant
historical thread begin the rise and eventual dominance of the settler community, stretching
from 1899 to 1914, the period between 1907 and 1910 is therefore not seen as a period of
reform, but rather as an attempt to push the colony back onto a trading model trajectory. It is
precisely because the primary historical trend of settlement colonization began several years
prior to this effort, that the attempt to reform the colony failed. The precedence of German
settlers over African natives was not a situation that could be altered within the German
Empire, and therefore the presence of settlers in large numbers ultimately determined the
historical trajectory of the colony.
60
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde. Reichskolonialamt.
Dernburg, Bernhard. Zielpunkte des deutschen Kolonialwesens. Berlin. 1907.
Fabri, Friedrich. “Does Germany Need Colonies?” 3rd ed. 1883. German History
Documents. 5 July, 2012.
Secondary Sources
Bald, Detlef. Deutsch-Ostafrika 1900-1914: Studie über Verwaltung, Interessengruppen
und wirtschaftliche Erschliessung. Munich: Weltforum Verlag. 1970.
Crothers, George Dunlap. The German Elections of 1907. New York. 1941.
Deutsch, Jan-Georg. Emancipation without Abolition in German East Africa c. 1884–1914.
Oxford. 2006.
Engdahl, Torbjörn. The Exchange of Cotton: Ugandan Peasants, Colonial Market
Regulations and the Organization of the International Cotton Trade, 1904-1918. Uppsala
University. 1999.
Gann, L. H. & Duignan, Peter. The Rulers of German Africa, 1884 – 1914. Stanford
University Press. Stanford. 1977.
Gregory, Robert G. India and East Africa: A History of Race Relations within the British
Empire, 1890 – 1939. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1971.
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial
Africa. New York. 1999.
Hyden, Goran. Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured
Peasantry. University of California. 1980.
Iliffe, John. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
1979.
Iliffe, John. Tanganyika under German Rule 1905 – 1912. London. 1969.
Koponen, Juhani. Development for Exploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland
Tanzania, 1884 – 1914. Helsinki. 1995.
Oonk, Gijsbert. “South Asians in East Africa (1880 – 1920) with a Particular Focus on
Zanzibar: Toward a Historical Explanation of Economic Success of a Middlemen
Minority.” African and Asian Studies. Volume 5, no. 1. 2006.
61
Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent
from 1876 to 1912. HarperCollins Publishers Inc. New York. 1991.
Porter, Andrew, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire. Vol. 3: The Nineteenth
Century. Oxford. 2001.
Smith, Woodruff. German Colonial Empire. Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina
Press. 1978.
Steinmetz, George. The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State.
The University of Chicago Press. Chicago. 2007.
Sunseri, Thaddeus. A Social History of Cotton Production in German East Africa, 18841915. University of Minnesota. 1993.
Sunseri, Thaddeus. The Baumwollfrage: Cotton Colonialism in German East Africa.
Cambridge University Press. 2001.
Tetzlaff, Rainer. Koloniale Entwicklung und Ausbeutung. Wirtschafts- und
Sozialgeschichte Deutsch-Ostafrikas 1883-1914. Schriften zur Wirtschafts- und
Sozialgeschichte, Vol. 17. Berlin: Duncker und Humbolt. 1970.
Townsend, Mary Evelyn. The Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire 1884 – 1918.
New York. 1930.