Germany-East+Africa

=**Germany -** **East Africa**=

**By: Marilyn A. Wero**



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 * The colony began with Carl Peters, an adventurer who founded the "Society for German Colonization" and signed treaties with several native chieftains on the mainland opposite Zanzibar. On March 1885, the German government announced it had granted an imperial charter (issued of February 17) to Peter's company. The British and Germans agreed to divide the mainland between themselves, and the Sultan had no option but to agreee. German rule was quickly estabilshed over Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, Kiwa, even sending the caravans of Prince, Langheld, Emin Pasha, Charles stokes to dominate "The Street of Caravans". In 1890, London and Berlin conluded the itligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, returning Heligoland (seized during the Napoleonic wars) to Germany and deciding on the borders of German East Africa (the exact boundaries remained unsurveyed until 1910). Between 1891 and 1894, the Hehe tribe, led by Chief Mkwawa, resisted German expansion. German colonial administrators relied heavity on native Chiefs to keep order and collect taxes. Commerce and growth started in earnest under German direction. By 1914 Dares Salaam and the surrounding province had a population of 166,000, among them 10,490 (1,050 Eurpeans, 1,000 of them Germans). In all of the East African protectorate were 3,579 Germans. Gold mining in Tanzania in modern period, beginnning with gold discoveries near lake Victoria in 1894. Despite all these efforts, German East Africa never achieved a profit for the German Empire and needed to be subsidized by the Berlin treasury. Unlike the Belgian, British, French and Portuguese colonial masters in central Africa, Germany developed and educational program for Africans that involved elementary, secondary and vocational schools. Classroom in a German East African school began in March 1914. German East Africa was in First World War but the war was called colony's military commander, General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. It was one of his greatest wars with the battle of Tanga (3-5 November 1914). Belgian Congo had attacked from the west and running out of supplies forced Lettow Vorbeck to abandon the colony. The German light cruiser SMS Konigsberg also fought off the coast of East Africa. In July 1915 after running out of fuel (coal), the crew, along the ship's guns which were stripped out and mounted on trunnions, then joined the land forces, adding considerably to their effectiveness. The German colonial population numbered 5,125 in 1903, and about 23,500 in 1913. The German pre-World War I colonial population consisted of 19,696 Germans in Africa and the Pacific colonies in 1913, including more than 3,000 police and soldiers, and 3,806 in Kiaochow (1910), including 2,275 navy and military staff.** **German acquired an overseas colonial empire in the 1880. The important colonies were German South-West Africa. German rule was quickly established over Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, and Kilwa, even sending the caravans of Prince, Langheld, Emin Pasha, Charles Stokes to dominate "the Street of Caravans". The Maji Maji Rebellion occurred in 1905 and was put down by the governor, Count Gustav Adolf von Gotzen. But scandal soon followed, with stories of corruption and brutality, and in 1907 Chancellor appointed Bernhard Dernburg to reform the colonial administration.**