German West Africa (Deutsch-Westafrika) was an informal designation for the areas in West Africa that were part of the German Colonial Empire between 1884 and 1919. The term was normally used for the territories of Cameroon and Togo. German West Africa was not an administrative unit. However, in trade and in the vernacular the term was sometimes in use.
1885 map showing German interests in West Africa (Kapitaï and Koba appear as ‘Dubrica’)
German interest in West Africa dated from the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Duchy of Courland and Brandenburg-Prussia established fortifications and trading posts in the region. After 1720 there was no German presence in West Africa until the middle of the 19th century, when German trading companies including C. Woermann, Jantzen & Thormählen, Wölber & Brohm and GL Gaiser became active on the West African coast.[1][2] German missionaries, such as the North German Missionary Society, were also present from the mid 19th century.[3][4]
By the early 1880s German interests in West Africa consisted of:
trading posts and agreements with rulers of a number of coastal villages in modern Cameroon, including Bimbia, Malimba, Batanga, Kribi. There were German trading posts and agreements in the land of the Duala people, at Akwa-Town, Bell-Town and Dido-Town, which also had similar arrangements with British and other European traders.
The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 led to concerns among Hamburg merchants that their interests would be threatened, and they began to seek the protection of the German Empire for their activities.[5]:32–34 At the same time as established German commercial interests in West Africa were seeking government and naval support, the broader social movement in favour of colonisation was gaining ground. The German Colonial Society (“Deutscher Kolonialverein”) was founded on December 6, 1882, in Frankfurt am Main with Hermann, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg as its first president, and soon had about 15,000 members.[6]
Imperial Commissioner for West Africa
European claims in West Africa 1885: Rivières du Sud and Kapitaï & Koba were disputed between Germany and France.
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck asked for views on potential German intervention in West Africa from the senates of Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen. In response, Woermann submitted to the Chancellor plans for the establishment of a German-West African trade colony in 1883, which Bismarck initially received with some reservations.[7] In December 1883 however the government undertook to take action to protect German traders by sending an Imperial Commissioner for West Africa to enter into formal treaties with local rulers.[8][5]:35
In May 1884 Bismarck decided to appoint Gustav Nachtigal as Imperial Commissioner. His mission was to sail right down the Atlantic coast of the continent, to explore and test the existing a German claims in the region, and where possible to establish new ones.[9] Bismarck's plan was to use Nachitigal's treaties to establish German sovereignty over key areas in West Africa, which would then be governed indirectly, with administration undertaken mainly by a commercial company.[10][5]:39
In June 1884 Nachtigal reached Sangareya bay and the Los islands. He sent a party ashore to seek treaties with the rulers of Kapitaï and Koba.[11] However, by the time he arrived the local chiefs had already reached agreements with France, and did not want to sign any new treaties.[12] Nachtigal therefore steamed on to the German trading posts on the Bight of Benin.[8]
On 5 July 1884 Nachtigal signed a treaty with Mlapa III, ruler of Togo (a village known today as Togoville) establishing a German protectorate over a stretch of coastal territory.[13] This formed the basis of the future German colony of Togoland.[14] On 14 July 14, 1884, Nachtigal raised the German flag in Bell town and signed treaties placing under German protection the areas which became the colony of Kamerun.[5]:41 He spent some weeks visiting various ports around the Bight of Biafra before sailing south to Gabon, Angola and South West Africa. He steamed back to Kamerun in December 1884 and the Niger Delta in January 1885.[15] On 29 January 1885 he signed a treaty which brought Mahinland under German protection.[16] After this Nachtigal began his return journey to Germany but succumbed to malaria and died off the coast of Guinea in April.[17]
West African squadron, 1884–85
SMS Olga at the bombardment of Hickorytown (Douala), 21 December 1884The storming of Belltown by a landing party from SMS Olga, December 1884 (depiction by Carl Saltzmann, 1885)
After Nachtigal had completed his mission of establishing German rights in West Africa, there was a need for naval support to reinforce them. On September 30, 1884, Emperor Wilhelm I issued an order establishing a West African squadron under the command of the Chief of the Staff of the Admiralty, Rear Admiral Eduard von Knorr.[18] The squadron was composed of the corvettes SMSBismarck (flagship), SMSGneisenau, SMSAriadne, SMSOlga and the steam tender Adler. The squadron departed for West Africa on October 30. On reaching the Cape Verde Islands, it dispatched the Ariadne to Liberia and the Guinea coast and the Gneisenau was sent to East Africa. On December 18, the Bismarck and the Olga reached the Cameroon River.[19]
Shortly before the squadron arrived, the settlement of chief Manga Ndumbe Bell, who had signed a treaty with Nachtigal, had been burned down and the German flag removed. Admiral Knorr decided on immediate intervention and sent landing parties ashore to destroy the villages of the rebels and arrest their chiefs. Two coastal steamers, the Fan and the Dualla were used as landing craft to bring 307 soldiers ashore at Hickorytown on 20 December. The landing party received word that rioters on the opposite bank had attacked the Jantzen & Thormählen factories and carried off their managers, and they stormed Joss town to try and recover them. The next day the Olga steamed upriver on the rising tide and bombarded the local villages. The landing party returned to their ships on 22 December. The Olga, with Rear Admiral Knorr on board, remained in the area where the anti-German uprising had taken place. Calm was gradually restored; in January 1885 the violence ended and in March the murderer of the factory manager was handed over for execution.[19]
On March 23, 1885, the gunboat SMS Habicht[de] arrived to replace the Olga at its permanent station in the river, allowing the Olga to return home together with the Adler. Meanwhile, the Bismarck cruised up and down the coast, hoisting the German flag in a number of places. Following the arrival of the first Imperial Governor of Kamerun, Julius von Soden on 7 July 1885, the Bismarck received orders to sail for East Africa while the gunboat Cyclop took up its position as the second gunboat on the West Africa station.[18] After pacification of tribal feuds and unrest in the area under German protection, the West African Squadron was dissolved in July 1885.
However, in September 1885 Captain Karl Paschen[de] was commanded to re-form the squadron with SMSStosch, SMSPrinz Adalbert and SMSGneisenau, deployed under Rear Admiral Knorr in East Africa, and return to the coast of West Africa. In the event, the multiple demand on Germany's small force of gunboats meant that on reaching Cape Town, the Gneisenau was ordered back to East Africa, leaving only the Prince Adalbert and the Stosch to continue to West Africa before proceeding back to Germany, and the West African squadron was finally dissolved in December 1885.[20] After this the Imperial German Navy established the West African Station, covering the maritime area off the coast of West Africa. Warships were assigned to the ports of the new German colonies.[21]
The West Africa Conference and territorial adjustments
Cartoon of Bismarck dividing Africa at the Berlin Conference, 1885
Having staked its claims with Nachtigal and backed them up with naval force by dispatching the West Africa Squadron, Germany needed to secure international recognition of its position in the region. Bismarck believed that the acquisition of colonies, while expensive and of no real economic or military interest, was beneficial in terms of gaining bargaining power with other governments.[22] His foreign policy goal was to secure an international agreement that would place a check on the extensive ‘informal empire’ that Britain had built up. With French support, he, therefore, convened a conference in Berlin which would place Germany's acquisitions in Africa on an internationally recognised footing and would establish the rules that all powers would follow in future when making territorial claims in the continent.[23]
The Berlin Conference (known as the ‘West Africa Conference’[24][25][26] or the ‘Congo Conference’) convened in November 1884, and remained in session until February 1885.[27] The General Act of the conference made no mention of Togo, Kamerun or any specific territory other than the basin of the Congo.[28] Nevertheless, the conference did confirm the steps required in order for the Powers to recognise each other's territorial claims in West Africa – steps which Nachtigal had followed. Along with a number of claims by other Powers, German claims in West Africa were thus effectively recognised by means of the conference. In parallel with the main conference sessions, discussions were pursued which were intended to avoid possible conflict by tidying up overlapping claims and starting to define borders.[29][30] Just two months after the Berlin Conference, on 22 April 1885, Germany concluded a treaty with England which established the borders around Mount Cameroon. The following year, on May 6, 1886, another treaty extended the frontier to the east. An agreement with France on December 24, 1885, fixed the Campo River as the southern border of Kamerun.[citation needed]
As these border agreements proceeded, Germany abandoned certain of its claims in order to consolidate its position in Togoland and Kamerun. Thus on October 24, 1885, Mahinland came under British protection in return for territorial compensation to Germany.[31] On 24 December 1885 Kapitaï and Koba were ceded to France in return for compensation in Togo.[14]
In 1884 an expedition led by Eduard Schulze[de] tried to establish a Germany colony near Nokki on the Congo, but it received no official support.[32][33][34] The International African Association recognised the German claim, the borders of which were never defined. However at the Berlin Conference Bismarck ceded German rights in Nokki to Portugal.[35]
Race for the Niger
While the Berlin Conference was largely concerned with the Congo, there was also competition between Germany, France and Britain for rights on the Niger, an important artery for the colonization of the interior. Despite the failure of Gottlieb Leonhard Gaiser[de]’s venture in Mahinland, German traders still wanted duty-free access to the upper Niger.[36] The Benue expedition of Paul Staudinger[de] in 1885/86 sought to establish relations with the Sokoto Caliphate and the Emirate of Gwandu, but this did not lead to occupation or protection.[37] Likewise Friedrich Colin’s attempt to reach the headwaters of the Niger from Guinea came to nothing after Germany agreed to cede Kapitaï and Koba (also known as ‘Colinsland’) to France.
In 1894/95 an expedition funded by the Togo Committee and led by Hans Gruner[de] attempted to acquire territories for Germany in the central Niger region. Gruner and his companion Ernst von Carnap-Quernheimb[de] travelled the Niger and concluded "treaties of protection" with chiefs of Gwandu and Gurma[de].[38] However the French and British representatives signed similar agreements with the same chiefs, so they were of no value to Germany. Other German forays towards Niger, by Erich Kling[de], Gaston Thierry, Ludwig Wolf[de] and Julius von Zech auf Neuhofen[de] were similarly unsuccessful. Ultimately all Germany was able to gain for its efforts in the Niger basin was favourable adjustments to the border between Togoland and French West Africa when the border was settled by agreement in 1897.[39][40][41]
West African Syndicate
In October 1884, with Bismarck's support, the syndicate for West Africa was founded, which was intended to take over the internal administration of the West African colonies. However, the companies involved refused to assume this responsibility on their own and instead demanded the establishment of German government administration.[42] Bismarck's idea of indirect rule in the German "protected areas" had thus failed in West Africa. In 1886, the syndicate dissolved.[43]
Administrative relations for the German colonies in West Africa
The German colonial enterprise in West Africa was started by Gustav Nachtigal as Imperial Commissioner for West Africa. He started formally the "Schutzgebiete" (literally: "protectorates") in Kamerun, Togo and South-West Africa. This connection is reflected in the first legal decrees which were jointly done for the posts of the chief officials in these colonies, i.e. governor of Kamerun and the commissioners of Togo and South West Africa [44]
Later a number of decrees were jointly issued for Kamerun and Togo. Togo was ruled as a separate colony by an Imperial Commissioner (from 1893: "Landeshauptmann"[45]) until 1898 who was supervised by a Chief Commissioner ("Oberkomissar") who was at the same time the governor of Kamerun. The first governor of Kamerun, Julius von Soden, was also the Chief Commissioner for Togo. In 1898 the position in Togo was elevated to the rank of governor.[46]
For the courts in charge of Europeans, there was a joint "Appellate Court for the protectorates of Kamerun and Togo" (Kaiserliches Obergericht der Schutzgebiete von Kamerun und Togo).[47]
The designation Deutsch-Westafrika appeared in a few non official publications concerning the two colonies.[48][49]
A trading company which was active in Kamerun, Togo, Nigeria and Gold Coast used the name "Deutsch-Westafrikanische Handelsgesellschaft" (German West African Trading Company), founded in 1896[50] and was also involved in the 1904 founding of the "Deutsch-Westafrikanische Bank" (German West African Bank).[51]
Territories
Areas under German rule in West Africa between 1884 and 1919 were the following (excluding German South West Africa):[52]
German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozambique. GEA's area was 994,996 km2 (384,170 sq mi), which was nearly three times the area of present-day Germany and almost double the area of metropolitan Germany at the time.
Kamerun was an African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1920 in the region of today's Republic of Cameroon. Kamerun also included northern parts of Gabon and the Congo with western parts of the Central African Republic, southwestern parts of Chad and far northeastern parts of Nigeria.
Carl Peters was a German explorer and colonial administrator. He was a major promoter of the establishment of the German colony of East Africa and one of the founders of the German East Africa Company. He was a controversial figure in Germany for his views and his brutal treatment of native Africans, which ultimately led to his dismissal from government service in 1897.
Gustav Nachtigal was a German military surgeon and explorer of Central and West Africa. He is further known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His mission as commissioner resulted in Togoland and Kamerun becoming the first colonies of a German colonial empire. The Gustav-Nachtigal-Medal, awarded by the Berlin Geographical Society, is named after him.
The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in 1871, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Bismarck resisted pressure to construct a colonial empire until the Scramble for Africa in 1884. Claiming much of the remaining uncolonized areas of Africa, Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French. The German colonial empire encompassed parts of several African countries, including parts of present-day Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, as well as northeastern New Guinea, Samoa and numerous Micronesian islands.
Togoland was a German Empire protectorate in West Africa from 1884 to 1914, encompassing what is now the nation of Togo and most of what is now the Volta Region of Ghana, approximately 90,400 km2 in size. During the period known as the "Scramble for Africa", the colony was established in 1884 and was gradually extended inland.
The Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty was an agreement signed on 1 July 1890 between Germany and the United Kingdom.
The Society for German Colonization was founded on 28 March 1884 in Berlin by Carl Peters. Its goal was to accumulate capital for the acquisition of German colonial territories in overseas countries.
The German West African Company, in German Deutsch-Westafrikanische Gesellschaft / Compagnie, was a German chartered company, founded in 1885. It exploited the two German protectorates in German West Africa but did not actually govern them — unlike its counterpart in German East Africa.
Curt Karl Bruno von François was a German geographer, cartographer, Schutztruppe officer and commissioner of the imperial colonial army of the German Empire, particularly in German South West Africa where he was responsible on behalf of Kaiser for the foundation of the city of Windhoek on 18 October 1890 and the harbor of Swakopmund on 4 August 1892.
Oskar Alexander Richard Büttner was a German botanist and mineralogist who was involved in the exploration of the Congo Basin.
German South West Africa was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
Kapitaï and Koba were two areas on the coast of West Africa which were the object of German colonial initiatives in 1884 and 1885. They lay between the Pongo and Dubréka rivers, south of Senegal and Gambia in modern Guinea; in the terms commonly used in the 19th century they were considered part of Senegambia. The short-lived German colony there was known as the Dembiah colony or Colinsland.
Mahinland was a piece of land in the coast east of Lagos on the Bight of Benin in modern Nigeria. In the late 19th century it was briefly the object of German colonial initiatives.
The Carolines Question was a conflict between the German Empire and the Kingdom of Spain over the sovereignty of the Caroline Islands and Palau in the western Pacific. It took place in 1885, at the beginning of the German colonial empire and towards the end of the Spanish Empire.
The SMS Möwe (Seagull) was a gunboat of the Imperial German Navy. Its only sister ship was the SMS Habicht, although the SMS Adler was later built on the basis of the same blueprint.
Heinrich Ludwig Wolf was a German doctor and anthropologist.
Bismarckburg was a colonial station in the German colony of Togo. It was named after the founder of the German empire, Otto von Bismarck.
Hans-Georg Wilhelm von Doering was a German officer and the last colonial governor of German Togoland before surrendering the position during the Togoland campaign of the African theatre of World War I.
Heinrich Vogelsang was a German merchant and explorer, who led the first expedition of Adolf Lüderitz to Angra Pequena, German South West Africa in 1883.
↑ Blackshire-Belay, Carol Aisha (1992). "German Imperialism in Africa: The Distorted Images of Cameroon, Namibia, Tanzania, and Togo". Journal of Black Studies. 23 (2): 235–246. doi:10.1177/002193479202300207. JSTOR2784532. S2CID141534668.
↑ Auflagenhöhe der Deutsche Kolonialzeitung im Februar 1885 (source: ZDB-ID214536-4)
↑ Mommsen, Wolfgang J. (1994). Das Ringen um den nationalen Staat – Die Gründung und der innere Ausbau des deutschen Reiches unter Otto von Bismarck 1850 bis 1890.. Berlin: Propyläen Verlag. p.514. ISBN978-3549058176.
1 2 Von Koschitzky, Max (1887). Deutsche Colonialgeschichte. Leipzig: Verlag von Paul Frohberg. p.151. Archived from the original on 26 April 2019. Retrieved 27 January 2019.
↑ Priesner, Claus. "Nachtigal, Gustav". deutsche-biographie.de. Neue Deutsche Biographie. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
1 2 Herold, Heiko (2012). Reichsgewalt bedeutet Seegewalt. Die Kreuzergeschwader der Kaiserlichen Marine als Instrument der deutschen Kolonial- und Weltpolitik 1885 bis 1901. Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag. pp.25–51. ISBN978-3-486-71297-1.
↑ Porter, Andrew (1985). "The Berlin West Africa conference of 1884–85 revisited: A report". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 14 (1): 83–92. doi:10.1080/03086538508582705.
↑ Austen, Ralph (1972). "The Metamorphoses of Middlemen: The Duala, Europeans, and the Cameroon Hinterland, ca. 1800 - ca. 1960". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 5 (1): 1–24. doi:10.2307/217908. JSTOR217908.
↑ Mommsen, Wolfgang (1993). "Das Ringen um den nationalen Staat – Die Gründung und der innere Ausbau des deutschen Reiches unter Otto von Bismarck 1850 bis 1890". Geschichte Deutschlands. Vol.7. Berlin: Propyläen Verlag. p.523. ISBN978-3549058176.
↑ Die deutsche Kolonial-Gesetzgebung (digital copy of the German colonial laws, Berlin 1893, at archive.org); page 177 (210 / 823 of pdf): Decree concerning the ranks of the Governor of Kamerun and the commissioners of the West African protectorates
↑ The German author Rochus Schmidt titled a chapter "Deutsch-Westafrika" in his book Deutschlands Kolonien. Band 2, Berlin: Verlag des Vereins der Bücherfreunde Schall & Grund, 1898, S. 1–292. (Reprint durch Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN3-8289-0301-0)
↑ Schnee, Heinrich, ed. (1920). "Deutsch-Westafrikanische Bank". Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon (in German). Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer. Archived from the original on 10 June 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
↑ Gründer, Horst (2004). Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien[History of the German colonies] (in German) (5thed.). Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich: Ferdinand Schöningh. p.84. ISBN978-3-8252-1332-9.
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