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Retrospect on the Development in 1908 of the
Protectorate Deutsch-Ostafrika, Contents: |
 Above : Mount Kilimanjaro as seen from Moshi. Below : Atheris ceratophora, or the Usambara horned bush viper. 
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The German Colonial Atlas with Yearbook, edited by the German Colonial Society, Berlin 1909,
Retrospect on the Development in 1908 of the Protectorate Deutsch-Ostafrika with added comments.
'German East Africa, with its, in part, already far developed economy, has not remained uninfluenced by the world crisis in 1908. Its white population has constantly risen, from 2629 individuals, to 2845, and it is particularly gratifying that the European population in Moshi district has increased itself from 386 to 505. The plantation occupied areas of Tanga, Wilhelmstal, Morogoro, Rufiji, Lindi and Mwanza, also indicate a rise in the number of whites.'
Comment:
The following table shows the numbers of Europeans for the territory of Deutsch Ost Afrika 1904-7, with a native, 'schwarze(black)' population of at least 7, perhaps 10 million inhabitants, and an indeterminate number of 'mischvolk', a mixed population including Baluchis, Indians, Parsees, Goanese, Syrians, Egyptians, and Turks.
The anomalous situation in which the Asian found himself in this scheme of things had not gone unnoticed by Winston Churchill. He published 'My African Journey' in this year, 1908, which gave an account of his first-hand experiences on the continent. An extract from the book dealing with the plight of the Indian in Africa can be read at 'My African Journey'.
| European population | 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 |
| A. Germans | 1102 | 1324 | 1499 | 1656 | 2014 |
| B. Adult German women | - | 316 | 401 | 437 | 507 |
| Total no.of whites. | 1437 | 1873 | 2465 | 2629 | 2845 |
'However, in spite of this, the total trade has only climbed up by an altogether tiny amount, namely from 36.01 million Mks. in the year 1906, to 36.03 million Mks. in the year 1907, whereas exports have even regressed by about 1 and a half million Mks. Rubber exports have gone down in both, monetary value and in overall quantity of the produce. If the exports of gum copal have experienced an increase, then, equally, nobody can document this as a favourable advance, because the blacks, gathering this according to experience, do not see themselves, from their harvest, and the results of their harvest, in a correspondingly happy position. Perhaps one must also discount the not even significant increase in the export of wax on similar grounds. Similar reasons show themselves again in explaining the climb in ivory exports which, although they stay below 300,000 Mks., still represent a rise of 70,000 Mk.'
Comment:
The figure represents roughly about a third of the trade of
'German' Africa as a whole. For the table depicting the total
rise from 1904 see Mundus
3.
'The position is more fortunate with produce from European plantations, although it should not be said that black labour plays no part in this. For example, not a small part of the cotton exports is recorded from black cotton farmers in the Rufiji valley. With rubber exports, the produce from cultivation as a proportion, is not an insignificant part, for example, nine-tenths of the caoutchuc export from Tanga, amounting to 52 tons, is from plantations. With regard to sisal-hemp, the value becomes noticeable from a not inconsiderable elevation in the amount. The trading conditions are almost crisis ridden with the rise and fall in hides and furs, as when, due to the American market, an enormous drop in prices stepped in, and rendered the market, depending on the timing, uneconomic in Tabora. One outcome of this was that the black man found worthwhile use for himself of the skins from his slaughtered or dead animals and, consequently, made fewer purchases of European clothing items.'
Comment:
There had been, throughout 1907, very volatile markets,
and a difficult economic situation in the United States, with
tumbling share prices, and a depression which John D.
Rockefeller had predicted on the basis of Roosevelt's
policies. It had been especially severe in March and
October of that year, and had led to bankers forcing
through a Federal Reserve Act, the Aldrich-Vreeland Act of
May 30, 1908, which established the National Monetary
Commission and provided for the issuance of emergency
currency. Whether as a result of these measures, or
independently of them, the economy was much more stable
in 1908.
'At the forefront of interests lies the question of the worker and the settler. On all sides, it was confessed that the conditions for the workers had improved significantly, whereas in the summer of 1906, the plantation owners in the northern districts, owing to worker difficulty, had indicated their situation to be in the utmost danger. Today, the supply, in many places, is certainly greater than demand. Besides, the official records state firmly, that the awful treatment of the labourers is a rare event, and that, pehaps, trespasses and mishandling usually issues from young employees, who have only been living in Africa for a short while, and not from plantation owners. Even in response to the strong appeals made by railways, construction workers were constantly at hand. Incidentally, the establishment of routes of communication, especially for railways, is particularly helpful as a solution to the worker shortage, because the whole traffic of freight transport in these directions had to be finished earlier carried on the heads of black people, whereas, now, wagons wholly, or, rather, locomotives do the moving. The question of the settlers occupies one rather with the precedence in neighbouring British East Africa. There, the settler trials on the part of the Nairobi officials was described as a failure, while according to newer, reliable German travellers, the Englishmen settled there feel satisfied and sense progress. The German East African Government tends towards the British opinion, but the reality seems, nevertheless, to testify strongly in opposition to Daressalaam, as indicated by the afore-mentioned growth of the German population in the district of Moshi, the main settler area . Recently, more and more people with wealth, German landowners and the like, have penetrated the settlements in the largest German colony, the higlands of which, owing to the regular cooling at night time, signifies for the European settler no less suitable a stretch, than similar conditions elsewhere between the tropics.
Comment:
It is easy to see why the highland areas of East Africa, with
their pleasant, temperate cimate, their rich fertile soil, and
their freedom from many of the commoner diseases and
inconveniences of life on the plains was so much more
attractive to the settlers. In northern East Africa, two areas
were particularly important. One was the 'bläulichen
Berge Usambaras, alte liebe Bekannte', the bluish
Usambara
mountains, old loved acquaintances, of Oskar
Baumann(1864 -1899), the German explorer of Masailand. The other was the area around Mount Kilimanjaro, first seen by
Rebman in 1848, and then successfully climbed, or conquered, in 1889 by
the famous German publisher and geologist, Hans
Meyer(1858 -1929) and the Alpine mountaineer, Ludwig
Purtscheller(1849 - 1900), with their guide called Muini,
who shivering with cold, 'sah höchst verwegen
aus', covered from head to toe in a patchwork
harlequinade of clothing, including a threadbare red jacket
from a Scottish infantry regiment! The mountain had since
then been promulgated as the highest 'German' mountain
in Africa.
The botanical and entomological research carried out in
the Usambara highlands has been mentioned in previous
articles. How dear it was to the German people is attested
to even today, in modern Germany, by the enormous
popularity of the house plant called 'Usambaraveilchen', or
African violet, which was a species originally developed
there(see pictures below).
Usambaraveilchen, or African violet.
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The Usambaraveilchen, or African violet, is scientifically named as Saintpaulia ionantha hybrid, after its 'discoverer', Walter von Saint Paul Illaire (1860-1940). He was a representative of the Deutsch-Ostafrikanischen Gesellschaft, a Customs director, the District Commissioner of Tanga, and founding member of the colonial branch of the German Agricultural Society. It was named in his honour by Hermann Wendland (1825 - 1903), a German botanist and Chief Royal gardener at the Herrenhausen Gardens in Hanover, who was a noted authority on the family of Arecaceae (palms), and grew one of the world's largest housed palm collections. The genus 'Wendlandiella' is named after him. In the U.S. alone, over 2000 varieties of 'African violets' have been registered.The specific designation, ionantha, is derived from the Greek, 'ίον', for violet, and 'άνθος', which means flower. |
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'One of the official pages of the published list of self-sufficient settlers numbers them there as 224, of which 121 are German. The majority of them are placed away from the mentioned Moshi district, and certainly many English, and more Greeks and Italians, are included in the districts of Tanga and Wilhelmsthal. On the side of the officials, their situation is indicated as not bad, though their earnings should have been augmented by a considerable amount from road construction and other public works. The settlers near Wilhelmsthal have had good takings in maize, potatoes, and vegetables.'
'In the autumn of the year 1908, the Under-secretary of the Imperial Colonial Office, Herr von Lindequist undertook a fact-finding tour of the entire highland area of German East Africa. After which, at least until now, Herr Lindequist also has the conviction that a settlement there is possible, and that, above all, an extension of the Usambara railway line is required to go as far as the territory around Kilimanjaro and Meru, which forms a principal part of the enquiry into such a settlement.'
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Friedrich von Lindequist, (1862 -1945), served in high office as a judge and as governor in Southern Africa. He went to South-West Africa in 1893, where he was employed by the Governor, Theodor Leutwein, in a regional capacity. In 1900, he moved to the German consulate in Cape Town where he went on to become consul general. In 1905, as Governor of South West Africa, he arrived in the footsteps of the infamous Lothar von Trothas, Commander in Chief of the armed forces, whose successful measures in the Boxer rebellion in China had led to his deployment there in order to quell the uprisings. His brutality had caused a scandal in Germany. Hermann von Wissmann(1853 - 1905), who was Reichskommissar and, briefly, Governor for German East Africa (1895-6), and who obtained the capture of Abbushiri ibn Salim al Harthi (أبوشيري بن سالم الحرثي), described Trothas as "ein schlechter Staatsmann, wie er als Führer im Kriege nicht ausreichte und dazu ein unedler, selbstsüchtiger und kaltherziger Mensch." Lindequist sought the withdrawal of Trothas from the command of the territorial army, seeing an escalation of rebellion in his uncompromising attitude, and became the first civilian governor of the colony. He received an honorary doctorate from Greifswald University in 1906, and under him the rebellion ended officially in 1907, much as it did in Deutsch Ost Afrika, for which see Mundus 3. Lindequist in 1908 set up new legal provisions, enjoining natives to possess cattle and land, and tor eshape thei tribes, as long as they constantly wore brass identifiers, hoping thereby to make better use of native labour. He also attempted to introduce the central Asian breed of Karakul sheep (Persian, قراقل, meaning "black lake" in several Turkic languages) into Africa, which afterwards became known as 'swakara' sheep, and he shaped one of the earliest game reserves in Namibia. Interestingly, Bernhard Dernburg, who had visited the colony in the year before (see photograph), had reported in March to the Reichstag on the state of the colonies, and had defended the right of white settlers to "flog" the indigenous population. The purpose of Lindequist's visit was to explore the possibility of further German settlement. After a spell as Undersecretary, he followed Bernhard Dernburg in 1910 as State Secretary, but resigned in the following year in protest at the Morocco Congo Agreement. During World War I, he served as General Delegate in charge of health in the East, and from 1914 to 1933 as vice-chairman of the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft. |
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