Strategic tangles: Slavery, colonial policy, and religion in German East Africa, 1885–1918

ABSTRACT

When Germany occupied Tanganyika in 1889, the mobilising rhetoric was built around ending slavery, which in turn was framed religiously, as a “Muslim” institution to be ended by “Christian civilisation.” However, while the German colonisers subsequently suppressed slave-raiding and the large-scale slave trade, they never abolished slavery itself or the private sale of slaves. Moreover, the political utility of framing slavery as an “Islamic” practice quickly faded as the German government rested its political rule on the established Omani and Swahili Muslim elites and their economic networks. Settlers and planters, in turn, were soon discussing how to solve the problem of labour shortage by coercive means. Only missionaries had an interest to continue framing slavery as a Muslim practice in order to raise support for their Christianising endeavours. This led to an extended conflict about German colonial policy, in which settlers invoked Islam as an ally for “civilising” Africans for modern labour regimes, while missionaries continued to highlight slavery as an aspect of the “Islamic danger” in the colony. The essay traces the German debate of slavery in East Africa with a special interest in how it was connected to perceptions of Christianity and Islam. It demonstrates that the vicissitudes of the debate about slavery were not so much governed by the issue of slavery itself as by entangled strategic interests in the colonial nexus of politics, economy, and religion.

KEYWORDS:

• Colonialism
• Tanganyika
• slavery
• Islam
• missions
• Germany

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Heike Raphael-Hernandez and Pia Wiegmink for their invitation to contribute to this volume as well as their patience and their careful editorial comments to my drafts of this essay. I would also like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers and Salvatory Nyanto for their encouraging and insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Jörg Haustein is Senior Lecturer in Religions in Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is currently working on a book about colonial perceptions of Islam in German East Africa and how these influenced public debate and colonial policy.

ORCID

Jörg Haustein http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5792-5205

Notes

1 For the East African slave economy, see especially Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 40–87; Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar; Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition, 17–52.

2 See Anderson-Morshead, The History of the Universities’ Mission; Stoner-Eby, “African Leaders Engage Mission Christianity”; Kollman, Evangelization; Henschel, Argwöhnisch beobachtet; Kilaini, The Catholic Evangelization of Kagera in North-West Tanzania; Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society.

3 For a detailed social history of slavery in nineteenth-century Tanganyika, see especially Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition, 53–96; Glassman, Feasts and Riot, 79–114. For a contemporary account of both, see Swann, Fighting the Slave Hunters in Central Africa.

4 See Nimtz, Islam and Politics, 119–123.

5 For a detailed analysis of these contradictions, see Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition.

6 See Bückendorf, Schwarz-weiß-rot über Ostafrika!, 294–295.

7 See Schneppen, Sansibar und die Deutschen, 94. Klaus Bade pointed out the irony, that this statement came only three weeks after the conclusion of the Berlin Conference, whose (not yet ratified) General Act mandated the signatory powers to suppress slave trade by all means, see Bade, “Antisklavereibewegung,” 40.

8 See Kolonialakten, Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde (hereafter BArch) BArch R 1001/1002, 3–13.

9 For the plebeian dynamics of the uprising, see Glassman, Feasts and Riot; for the others, see especially Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, 92–98.

10 For this process, see Bade, Friedrich Fabri, 471–503.

11 See, for example, Toeppen, “Aus Sansibar”; Hellgrewe, “Bilder aus Sansibar”; Meinecke, “Wandlungen.”

12 Merensky, “Der mohammedanische Gegenstoß.”

13 Meinecke, “Wandlungen.”

14 Wissmann, “Die Bedeutung der Emin Pascha-Expedition.”

15 Wissmann, Unter deutscher Flagge, 197, 282, 299.

16 The print run of the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung had reached 18,500 in 1890. It probably closely followed the Colonial Society’s membership, which was roughly 16,000 in 1888. See Bade, Friedrich Fabri, 498.

17 See Bückendorf, Schwarz-weiß-rot über Ostafrika!, 353–355.

18 See Bade, “Antisklavereibewegung,” 44–45. Fabri had successfully advised Bismarck on colonial politics before, see Bade, Friedrich Fabri, 513–547.

19 Bade perhaps overstates Fabri’s influence in turning Bismarck around, since the Chancellor had already instructed the Foreign Office on 30 September to contact Cardinal Lavigerie, see Schneppen, Sansibar und die Deutschen, 246. However, the political utility of the anti-slavery societies for domestic purposes almost certainly was Fabri’s injection.

20 See Bade, Friedrich Fabri, 534–538.

21 Meinecke, “Die Lage in Ostafrika und die Araber,” 317.

22 “Die Araberfrage und der Sklavenhandel.” Wissmann had been a speaker at Fabri’s anti-slavery assembly in Cologne and was likely oriented about his political moves.

23 One of the main complaints against the Germans in Pangani was the desecration of a mosque, for details, see Glassman, Feasts and Riot, 215–218. For the early British view, see Leyden to Bismarck, 9 October 1888, BArch R 1001/706, 51–57.

24 See drafts of a position paper for the German consul in London, BArch R 1001/706, 89–101.

25 Hatzfeld to Bismarck, 19 October 1888, BArch R 1001/706, 104–112.

26 Bismarck to Hatzfeld, 22 October 1888; and 23 October 1888, BArch R 1001/707, 4–9; 24–29.

27 See Schneppen, Sansibar und die Deutschen, 244.

28 See Hatzfeld to Bismarck, 7 November 1888. BArch R 1001/709, 12–22.

29 See articles in the Times from 25 October, 1 November, and 7 November 1888, kept in the German records: BArch R 1001/691, 52; BArch R 1001/692, 76; 89–90.

30 See Stenographische Berichte 105, 303–321; Anlage 27, Stenographische Berichte 108, 182. For the political background to this, see Klaus Bade’s meticulous documentation in Friedrich Fabri, 537–542.

31 Ibid., 539–541.

32 Anlage 42, Stenographische Berichte 108, 389–417.

33 Anlage 71, Stenographische Berichte 108, 491–493; Stenographische Berichte 105, 603.

34 See Fabri, Fünf Jahre deutscher Kolonialpolitik, especially, 49–57. Compare Bade, Friedrich Fabri, 542–544.

35 Fabri, Fünf Jahre deutscher Kolonialpolitik, 51.

36 Ibid., 52–53.

37 “Gegen den Sklavenhandel,” 354.

38 “Die Araber in Mittelafrika.”

39 “Die Araberfrage und Emin Pascha.”

40 “Korrespondenzen,” 29 November 1890; “Aufruf zur Unterstützung der Vorschläge Emin Paschas.”

41 “Die Denkschrift über Ostafrika und die Araber.”

42 “Die Sklaverei auf Sansibar und Pemba.”

43 “Die Aufhebung der Sklaverei in Sansibar,” 17 April 1897; “Die Aufhebung der Sklaverei in Sansibar,” 4 August 1898.

44 “Ein Schreiben von Prof. Dr. Schweinfurth”; Hirsch, “Arabische Weltanschauung.”

45 “Mission oder Islam?”; Passarge, “Mission oder Islam?”

46 See Bade, “Antisklavereibewegung,” 54; Bade, Friedrich Fabri, 542.

47 The various press clippings collected on this matter in September 1890 fill more than 100 pages of the corresponding Foreign Office file, see BArch R 1001/1002.

48 Charles Euan-Smith to Gustav Michahelles, 13 September 1890, BArch R 1001/1003, 23–25.

49 See BArch R 1001/1003, 16–22, 47–48.

50 Anlage 501, Stenographische Berichte 124, 2800–2803; Stenographische Berichte 118, 2891–2895.

51 This was acknowledged in the explanatory statement for the bill, see ibid., 2801. The fundamental colonial law was the Protectorates’ Act, for its genesis and legal implications, see especially Grohmann, Exotische Verfassung.

52 See Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition, 107–109. See also Soden to Caprivi 25 November 1892, BArch R 1001/1003, 121–124.

53 Anlage 138, Stenographische Berichte 141, 683–700; Stenographische Berichte 140, 2339–2358.

54 See Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition, 113. Incidentally policy makers and legal commentators frequently invoked polygamy and slavery as reasons for the incompatibility of Muslim and German law and the resulting need for the category of the “native” – the circle was complete.

55 Stenographische Berichte 140, 2416–2420.

56 For this and the following, see Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition, 145–151.

57 See Tanzania National Archives (hereafter TNA), German collection G 9/34. In the end, this work turned into an orphanage and later into a sanatorium for Europeans.

58 See TNA G 9/1, 135. For the decree, see Kaiserliches Gouvernement von Deutsch-Ostafrika, Die Landes-Gesetzgebung des Deutsch-Ostafrikanischen Schutzgebiets, Teil II, 308.

59 Bismarck to Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, 17 December 1895. BArch R1001/1004, 21. For reports see, for example, the roughly 100 pages about Ruanda in TNA G 9/18.

60 Merensky, “Was sagt der Koran über Sklavenjagden und Sklaverei?”

61 “Korrespondenzen,” 20 May 1891; v. C., “Was thun wir Deutsche gegen den Sklavenhandel?”

62 See Verhandlungen des Deutschen Kolonialkongresses 1902.

63 Acker, “Über einige Mittel zur Abschaffung der Sklaverei,” 453.

64 Ibid., 456.

65 “Deutsches Reich.”

66 Merensky, “Das Urtheil des Reichskommissars Wißmann über römische und evangelische Missionserfolge in Afrika.”

67 “Deutsches Reich.” See also Katharina Stornig’s essay in this volume, “Catholic missionary associations and the saving of African child slaves in nineteenth-century Germany.”

68 Warneck, “Zur Abwehr und Verständigung”; Wissmann, Antwort auf den offenen Brief des Herrn Dr. Warneck. The German government stayed neutral: they reminded Wissmann of regulations regarding publications in the press, but did not comment on the debate in any way, see BArch R 1001/836.

69 This was not true of all German missions and in part explains Warneck’s harsh assessment of the new Evangelical Mission Society for German East Africa (Berlin III), which explicitly allied with colonial causes.

70 “Bericht des Lieutenants Sigl über den Sklavenhandel,” 511.

71 See Schröder, Prügelstrafe und Züchtigungsrecht, 112–117.

72 See Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 106–107.

73 See Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition, 218–227; Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule, 64–68, 133–138.

74 “Schreckgespenster.”

75 “Verschiedene Stimmen aus unserem Leserkreise.”

76 “Unsere Schwarzen”; “Eingesandt”; “Regulirung und Verschärfung der Prügelstrafe”; “Der Aufstand und der Einfluß der Missionen.”

77 Richter, “Der Islam eine Gefahr für unsere afrikanischen Kolonien.”

78 Froberger, “Welches ist der Kulturwert des Islam für koloniale Entwickelung?”

79 See Nachtwey, “Die Mission als Förderin der Kultur und Wissenschaft,” 557, 561.

80 “Koloniale Umschau”; “Mission und wirtschaftliche Kolonialpolitik”; Elpons, “Der Missionsanwalt.”

81 See in particular, “Übersicht der Presse”; Der Vorstand des Deutschen Kolonialbundes, “Gegen den neuen Kreuzzug”; the ensuing debate stretched over more articles later that year.

82 See also the longer defense of this same argument in Zache, “Koloniale Eingeborenenpolitik (Fortsetzung).”

83 Bongard, “Die Studienreise des Staatsekretärs Dernburg nach Deutsch-Ostafrika (Fortsetzung)”; Leue, “Vor dem Sturm”; Leue, “Tipputip”; see also Leue, “Die Sklaverei in Deutsch-Ostafrika.”

84 For the debate and resolution, see Redaktionsausschuss des deutschen Kolonialkongresses, Verhandlungen des Deutschen Kolonialkongresses 1910, 662–673.

85 Stenographische Berichte 284, 1529. On the resolution and its further development, see also Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition, 118–122.

86 Stenographische Berichte 288, 4309–4310.

87 Ibid., 4334–4337

88 Ibid., 4350, 4354–4355.

89 Anlage 1395, Stenographische Berichte 303, 2885–2891.

90 Stenographische Berichte 294, 7903–7906, 7912–7914.

91 Ibid., 8106.

92 Tschudi, “Die Fetwa des Schejch-ül-Islâm.”

93 Schwanitz, “Djihad ‘Made in Germany’.”

94 Pesek, Das Ende eines Kolonialreiches, 282–295.

95 Förster, “Die christliche Mission und der Islam in den deutschen Kolonien,” 2.

96 Ibid.

97 Deutsch, “The ‘Freeing’ of Slaves in German East Africa.”