The German Colony

Bismarck was at first ambivalent about colonies, fearing they would bring trouble and expense. However, he eventually realized that without colonies Germany risked being excluded from trade with West Africa. But once they had made the claim for ‘German East Africa’ the Germans moved fast. They built railways, roads, schools, hospitals, mapped the country, prospected for minerals, introduced new crops, and by insisting on the use of Kiswahili in courts and administrative correspondence, gave the country a national language. They supported German settlers in the highlands, German plantation companies growing sisal and other crops near the coast, but also forced African farmers to grow cash crops by imposing a hut tax on every hut. Governor Rechenberg (1906–1912) concluded that the best prospects lay with African farmers, and gave little encouragement to settlers, though by the outbreak of World War I their numbers were increasing.

Agriculture · Ambivalence · Archaeology · Cash crop · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Geography · German · Governor · Political science · African history and culture studies · Engineering · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History