SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This is a study of German conquest, occupation and administration in the Pangani valley region of mainland Tanzania, which was the most important area of German settlement and economic enterprise in the former German East African protectorate. Its emphasis is mainly on the local evolution of German administrative and economic policies and methods. It examines the close connexion between the pre-colonial social and political situation in this region and the immediate reactions of its African peoples to the German intervention. It also studies how these reactions have shaped German policies. It has been established, for example, that the decisive factor in the assumption of direct responsibility by the Imperial Government for the administration of German East Africa in January 1891 was the inability of the German East African Company to govern on account of the opposition of the African peoples to the German intervention. Similarly, it was the shock of German military defeat at the hands of Moshi warriors in June 1892 that compelled the German authorities in Berlin and in Dares Salaam to abandon their experiment in civil administration in Kilimanjaro in favour of vigorous military rule throughout the north-east. The abolition of military rule in Usambara and Southern Pare in 1895 and its continuation in Uchagga and north-Pare section of the Moshi district till 1906, and in its Arusha sub-district until 1912, were also dictated primarily by local political conditions. In like manner, the virtual transformation of the north-east into a region of white settlement by 1912, even in spite of the pro-African policies of Dernburg and Rechenberg between 1907 and 1912, was as a result of the growth of German economic enterprise in this region and the consequent increase in the population and power of its European settler communities.