Anglo-German Agreement on East Africa
Rivalries in what is now Uganda between British and German companies led in the same year to the Anglo-German Agreement on East Africa, of 1890, which established British rights in Uganda and a British protectorate over Zanzibar and Pemba. In 1890 Tanganyika (now Tanzania) was split into different areas of influence by treaties made by German, British and the Sultan of Zanzibar. According to these treaties, in 1891 Tanganyika and Ruanda – Urundi (now Rwanda and Burundi) became German East Africa, Pemba and Unguja was British protectorate.
At British urging the Sultan of Zanzibar later gave up the coastal strip and the island of Mafia to Germany in exchange for an indemnity. The boundary between German and British spheres of interest, hitherto drawn only from the coast to Lake Victoria, was extended across the lake to the Congo border at 1° south latitude. Also fixed were the borders between German East Africa and Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia to the south.
The administrative system was initially supervised by Germans, mainly military officers, posted to each district. The use of military men as administrators was in part a function of their availability, in part of the unsettled state in the interior. The first resistance to German rule had occurred on the coast, but others soon occurred elsewhere, and not until 1907 when the Maji Maji Rebellion was finally put down were the Germans in firm control of the territory.
So it was, for example, that Chief Marealle of the relatively small Chaga chiefdom of Marangu persuaded the Germans for a time to make him a kind of paramount chief over a substantial section of Mount Kilimanjaro, and it has been argued that German recognition of one of the ilaya chiefs in Bukoba District gave him great status than he was otherwise entitled to. In any case chiefs were given new responsibilities — for example, tax collection — which from one perspective enhanced their power but from another was the first step in diminishing the legitimacy of many of' them in the eyes of their people.
The years from 1891 to 1898 were largely spent in consolidating the German hold on the protectorate with the help of African mercenaries (for example, Somali and Sudanese) from outside the territory and some local soldiers (askari). The consolidation was accomplished through a combination of treaties and violent actions, the latter frequent enough to overshadow the more conciliatory policies of' some German administrators.
Because of the lack of a sufficient number of German administrative personnel and the absence among some ethnic groups (particularly in the southeast) of territorial chiefs, the Germans made use of Swahili (and in some cases, Arab) maakida (political agents; sig., akida). These men, together with village headmen (majumbe; sing., jumbe) handled local administrative matters.
Elsewhere the presence of (usually hereditary) chiefs permitted a kind of indirect rule, although an akida was often posted to a chiefdom as adviser and supervisor. Generally the power of the akida was greatest in areas such as the southeast that lacked larger scale indigenous political organization and had been terrorized for much of the nineteenth century by the activities of slave raiders.
Arising opposition against European imperialism was led by charismatic leaders like Mirambo of the Nyamwezi in North eastern Tanzania, by Mkwawa of the Hehe in Southern Highlands and Meli of the Chagga in the area around Kilimanjaro. In 1905 to 1907 local opposition culminated in the Maji Maji resistance, inspired by Kinjekitile, Southern Tanzanian spiritual leader whose medicine alleged could avoid any harm of “white man’s bullets”. The charm used was water which in the local language is “Maji”. The resistance then came to be known as “Maji-Maji” Upraising.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
