Working in the mangroves and beyond: Scientific forestry and the labour question in early colonial Tanzania

Environment and History

Volumn 11, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 365-394

  Sunseri, Thaddeus ^a  

^a Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability   (United States)

Author keywords

Colonialism; Forestry; Labour; Mangroves; Tanzania

Indexed keywords

COLONIALISM; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; LABOR SUPPLY; MANGROVE; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

AFRICA; EAST AFRICA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; TANZANIA;

RHIZOPHORACEAE;

EID: 27844470635     PISSN: 09673407     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3197/096734005774462754     Document Type: Review

References (150)

1. My thanks to two anonymous E&H referees for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.
2. Tanzania National Archives (hereafter TNA) G35/1, Michels to Government, 26 June 1906.
3. TNA G35/1, Boeder to Referat VIII, 9 July 1906;
4. Dar es Salaam District Office to Bieberstein, 17 Nov. 1904.
5. TNA G35/1, Eckert to Government, 25 April 1907.
6. On the relationship between land scarcity and taungya in colonial South-east Asia see Nancy Lee Peluso, Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java (Berkeley: University of California, 1994), 62-4;
7. Raymond L. Bryant, 'From Laissezfaire to Scientific Forestry: Forest Management in Early Colonial Burma, 1826-85', Forest and Conservation History 38 (1994): 160-70, here 167.
8. Henry E. Lowood, 'The Calculating Forester: Quantification, Cameral Science, and the Emergence of Scientific Forest Management in Germany', in The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century, ed. Tore Frängsmyer, J.L. Heilbron, and Robin E. Rider (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1990), 315-42;
9. Ravi Rajan, 'Imperial Environmentalism or Environmental Imperialism? European Forestry, Colonial Foresters and the Agendas of Forest Management in British India 1800-1900', in Nature and the Orient: The Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Richard H. Grove, Vinita Damodaran and Satpal Sangwan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 324-71;
10. James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 11-12.
11. Joachim Radkau, 'Wood and Forestry in German History', Environment and History 2, 1 (1996): 63-76, here 67.
12. Richard Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
13. The Revenue of the Prussian State Forests', Indian Forester 19 (1893), 298.
14. The Forest Lands of Germany', Indian Forester 31, 6 (1905): 729-30. This figure compares with about 665,000 people employed in mining in 1905.
15. Volker Berghahn, Imperial Germany, 1871-1914: Economy, Society, Culture and Politics (Providence and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1994), 306.
16. Joachim Radkau, 'Das "hölzerne Zeitalter" und der deutsche Sonderweg in der Forsttechnik', in 'Nützliche Künste': Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Technik im 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Ulrich Troitzsch (Münster: Waxmann, 1999), 97-117;
17. idem, 'Wood and Forestry', 70-72.
18. Christoph Ernst, 'An ecological revolution? The "Schlagwaldwirtschaft" in western Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', in European Woods and Forests: Studies in Cultural History, ed. Charles Watkins (Wallingford: CAB International, 1998), 83-92, here 91.
19. Germans served as inspectors-general of the Indian Forest Department from 1864 to 1917. Rajan, 'Imperial Environmentalism', 343-62;
20. Indra Munshi Saldanha, 'Colonialism and Professionalism: A German Forester in India', Environment and History 2 (1996): 195-219;
21. Gregory Barton, 'Keepers of the Jungle: Environmental Management in British India, 1855-1900', The Historian 62, 3 (2000): 557-74;
22. Peluso, Rich Forests, Poor People, 63, 65;
23. Peter Boomgaard, 'Forest Management and Exploitation in Colonial Java, 1677-1897', Forest and Conservation History 36 (1992): 4-14;
24. Raymond L. Bryant, The Political Ecology of Forestry in Burma 1824-1994 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996).
25. Quoted in Rajan, 'Imperial Environmentalism', 344.
26. M.D. Subash Chandran,'Shifting Cultivation, Sacred Groves and Conflicts in Colonial Forest Policy in the Western Ghats', in Grove et al, Nature and the Orient, 674-707;
27. Jacques Pouchepadass, 'British Attitudes Towards Shifting Cultivation in Colonial South India: A Case Study of South Canara District 1800-1920', in Nature, Culture, Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia, ed. David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), 123-51.
28. Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 2000), 51.
29. Bryant, Political Ecology, 67-71.
30. Ramachandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil, 'State Forestry and Social Conflict in British India', Past and Present, 123 (1989): 141-77.
31. T. Siebenlist, Forstwirtschaft in Deutsch-Ostafrika (Berlin: Paul Parey, 1914), 1.
32. Hans G. Schabel, 'Tanganyika Forestry under German Colonial Administration, 1891-1919', Forest and Conservation History (July 1990): 130-41;
33. Christopher A. Conte, Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania's Usambara Mountains (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004).
34. For Tanzania after World War One see Roderick Neumann, Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1998);
35. idem, 'Forest Rights, Privileges and Prohibitions: Contextualising State Forestry Policy in Colonial Tanganyika', Environment and History 3 (1997): 45-68.
36. Philip D. Curtin, 'African Enterprise in the Mangrove Trade: The Case of Lamu', African Economic History no.10 (1981): 23-33;
37. Erik Gilbert, Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar, 1860-1970 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004), Chapter 5.
38. Thaddeus Sunseri, 'Reinterpreting a Colonial Rebellion: Forestry and Social Control in German East Africa, 1874-1915', Environmental History 8, 3 (2003): 430-51.
39. Juhani Koponen, Development for Exploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884-1914 (Helsinki/Hamburg: Finnish Historical Society, 1995), 588-9.
40. Thaddeus Sunseri, Vilimani: Labor Migration and Rural Change in Early Colonial Tanzania (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002).
41. K. Sivaramakrishnan, Modern Forests: Statemaking and Environmental Change in Colonial Eastern India (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 157-60.
42. Under British rule in Tanganyika forest squatting was introduced in some regions as early as the 1920s where fertile mountain land was in short supply. Conte, Highland Sanctuary, 79;
43. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness, 72-3.
44. Bryant, Political Ecology, 79, 104;
45. Nancy Lee Peluso, 'A History of State Forestry Management in Java', in Keepers of the Forest: Land Management Alternatives in Southeast Asia, ed. Mark Poffenberger (West Hartford: Kumarian Press, 1990), 31;
46. Paul Greenough, 'Naturae Ferae: Wild Animals in South Asia and the Standard Environmental Narrative', in Agrarian Studies: Synthetic Work at the Cutting Edge, ed. James Scott and Nina Bhatt (New Haven and London: Yale University, 2001), 141-85;
47. Anthony Reid, 'Humans and Forests in Pre-colonial Southeast Asia', in Grove et al, Nature and the Orient, 106-26;
48. Michael Mann, 'Timber Trade on the Malabar Coast, c. 1780-1840', Environment and History 7 (2001): 403-25.
49. A copy of the ordinance is found in Bundesarchiv Berlin (hereafter BAB) R1001/7680, Forstwesen in Deutsch-Ostafrika, 3-5.
50. The rupee was the currency of German East Africa, divided into 64 pesas before 1904, after which time one rupee was worth 100 hellers. One rupee was equal to about 1.33 marks. The annual hut tax, introduced in 1898, was three rupees.
51. BAB/R1001/7680, 1893 Forest Ordinance, 3;
52. Eugen Krüger, 'Die Wald- und Kulturverhältnisse in Deutsch-Ostafrika', Deutsches Kolonialblatt 5 (1894/95): 623-9, here 629.
53. BAB/R1001/726, Booth report, 17 Jan. 1906, 111b.
54. BAB/R1001/7680, Krüger report, 3 Oct. 1894, 30b.
55. BAB/R1001/7680, Erläuterung zu der Verfügung vom 12. Dezember 1893, 10;
56. Krüger, 'Wald- und Kulturverhältnisse', 626.
57. The Swahili version of the 1893 forest ordinance as applied to Rufiji district is found in TNA G8/19, untitled document 1581/94 (1894), 60-61.
58. Gilbert, Dhows and the Colonial Economy.
59. TNA G8/687, 'Bumi' Forest Reserve, Crown Land Protocol No. 40, 12 Oct. 1911;
60. Prüssing, 'Ueber das Rufiyi-Delta', Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten 14 (1901), 106-13, here 108.
61. G.L. Sulivan, 'Survey of the Lower Course of the Rufiji River', Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 45 (1875): 364-7.
62. Krüger, 'Wald- und Kulturverhältnisse', 627-8.
63. BAB/R1001/7680, Die Wald- und Culturverhältnisse in Deutsch-Ost-Afrika, von Krüger, 3 Oct. 1894, 37b.
64. TNA G8/588, Rundererlass an alle Bezirksämter, 30 September 1898. The forester and long-time Rufiji district officer, Karl Grass, wrote an overview of the first five years of the Rufiji forest administration. Karl Grass, 'Forststatistik für die Waldungen des Rufiyideltas, angefangen im Jahre 1902', Berichte über Land- und Forstwirtschaft (hereafter BLF), II (1904-06): 165-96.
65. BAB/R1001/7680, von der Decken to Foreign Office, 18 Nov. 1898, 196-8.
66. Grass, 'Forststatistik', 186.
67. BAB/R1001/7723, Forest Administration in Rufiji, 22 April 1901, 167-70.
68. TNA G8/529, Grass to Government, 7 Jan. 1903;
69. Grass to Government, 11 March 1904.
70. Gilbert, Dhows and the Colonial Economy, 118-20;
71. idem, 'Sailing from Lamu and Back: Labor Migration and Regional Trade in Colonial East Africa', Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 19, 2 (1999): 9-15.
72. TNA G8/588, Eberstein to Governor, 6 May 1897.
73. BAB/R1001/489, Liebert to Foreign Office, 5 Sept. 1899, 106.
74. Gilbert, Dhows and the Colonial Economy, 118-19.
75. BAB/R1001/490, Grass to Government, 8 Oct. 1901, 7b.
76. BAB/R1001/490, Grass to Government, 8 Oct. 1901, 6b.
77. BAB/R1001/490, Grass to Government, 8 Oct. 1901, 7;
78. Grass, 'Forststatistik', 189;
79. BAB/R1001/489, Liebert to Foreign Office, 5 Sept. 1899, 106.
80. TNA G8/514, Forstverwaltung Rufiyi 1902/03.
81. TNA G8/531, Mohoro, Forest Station to Government, 13 July 1908, 23-4;
82. Grass to Referat VIII, 10 March 1904.
83. TNA G8/530, Stuhlmann to BA Mohoro, 16 Oct. 1902.
84. Karen Brown, 'The Conservation and Utilisation of the Natural World: Silviculture in the Cape Colony, c. 1902-1910', Environment and History 7 (2001): 427-47;
85. Harald Witt, 'The Emergence of Privately Grown Industrial Tree Plantations', in South Africa's Environmental History: Cases and Comparisons, ed. Stephen Dovers, Ruth Edgecombe and Bill Guest (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2003), 90-111.
86. BAB/R1001/490, Grass to KG, 8 Oct. 1901, 3.
87. TNA G8/539, Forsteinrichtung Rufiyi Msalla, 1902.
88. Grass, 'Forststatistik', 195.
89. Gilbert discusses the mangrove bark industry after World War One in Dhows and the Colonial Economy, 124-9.
90. BAB/R1001/673, Stracke report, (1911), 139.
91. The British forester D.K.S. Grant put the tannin content slightly lower at 35-45% in 'Mangrove Woods of Tanganyika Territory, their silviculture and dependent industries', Tanganyika Notes and Records 5 (1939): 5-16, here 11.
92. BAB/R1001/7723, Grass report, 22 April 1901, 167.
93. BAB/R1001/526, 'Prospekt', Sept. 1908, 3. Alternately, 15000 cubic metres of wood produced about 2200 tons of bark.
94. BAB/R1001/7725, Haug report, 1908, 92.
95. BAB/R1001/7723, Mangrove Bark in DOA, 1900-1901.
96. BAB/R1001/672, Uebersichtliche Zusammenstellung der an der Küste Deutschostafrikas vorhandenen Mangrovenbestände, n.d. (1906?).
97. These methods were still used during the 'bark mania' of the 1930s and beyond. Gilbert, Dhows and the Colonial Economy, 125.
98. BAB/R1001/673, Bewersdorf to Government, 3 Feb. 1910.
99. BAB/R1001/673, Rechenberg to Colonial Office, 2 Sept. 1911, 135.
100. BAB/R1001/673, Rechenberg to Colonial Office, 8 Oct. 1910, 93.
101. BAB/R1001/673, Schnee to Colonial Office, 14 April 1914, 209-10.
102. BAB/R1001/7725, Haug to Feuerlein, 1908, 87-93;
103. BAB/526, Deutsch-Koloniale Gerb- und Farbstoffgesellschaft, 'Prospekt', 1908;
104. 'Die Verhältnisse im Pachtgebiet der Deutsch-Kolonialen Gerb- und Farbstoff-Gesellschaft', (1910), 60.
105. Jahresbericht über die Entwicklung der deutschen Schutzgebieten in Afrika und der Südsee. Beilage zum Deutschen Kolonial-Blatt (hereafter Jahresbericht) (1907), 115;
106. TNA G8/888, Bewersdorf to Government, 30 Oct. 1906.
107. 'Sonderberichte der Forstverwaltung von Deutsch-Ostafrika für das Jahr 1909: Forstbezirk Rufiyi', BLF 3, 5 (1911), 293-4.
108. TNA G8/516, Jahresbericht des Forstamtes Rufiyi, April 1912.
109. TNA G8/529, Grass to Government, 7 Jan. 1903. In that year about 6000 Rp were paid as wood cutting and hauling wages out of a total cost of 10,000 Rp.
110. TNA G8/589, Verkaufsliste, Salale Waldreservat to OAEG, 23 Dec. 1913, 37-40;
111. Helmut Schroeter and Roel Ramaer, German Colonial Railways (Krefeld: Röhr Verlag, 1993), 32;
112. 'Daressalam-Morogoro Eisenbahn', Deutsches Kolonialblatt 17 (1906), 11.
113. TNA G8/529, Grass to Referat VIII, 10 March 1904.
114. TNA G8/609, Foreign Office to Imperial Government DOA, 31 May 1903.
115. TNA G8/609, Eckert report, 16 Jan. 1904.
116. BAB/R1001/7681, Götzen to Foreign Office, 8 March 1904, 111.
117. 'Forstwirtschaft', Jahresbericht, 30-31.
118. The provisions of the Crown Land ordinance are found in 'Kaiserliche Verordnung über die Schaffung von Kronland', Landesgesetzgebung des Deutsch-Ostafrikanischen Schutzgebietes (Tanga/Dar es Salaam: Kaiserliches Gouvernement von Deutsch-Ostafrika, 1911), 212-14. Except for land held privately or occupied by 'chiefs or native communities', all other land could be declared to be the property of the German Reich.
119. Harald Sippel, 'Aspects of Colonial Land Law in German East Africa: German East Africa Company, Crown Land Ordinance, European Plantations and Reserved Areas for Africans', in Land Law and Land Ownership in Africa, ed. Robert Debusmann and Stefan Arnold (Bayreuth: D. Gräbner, 1996), 3-38.
120. BAB/R1001/7681, Götzen to Foreign Office, 8 March 1904, 111-12.
121. TNA G8/630, Eckert to District Officers, 26 June 1904.
122. Conte, Highland Sanctuary, 74-5;
123. Schabel, 'Tanganyika Forestry', 133.
124. A map of forest reserves at the end of German rule is found in Koponen, Development for Exploitation, 534-5.
125. TNA G35/1, von Bieberstein to Ref VIII DSM, 24 Oct. 1904;
126. KB DSM to Bieberstein, 17 Nov. 1904.
127. TNA G35/1, Reich to Akida Kirumbi, 8 March 1905;
128. Akida Kirumbi bin Kirumbi to Reich, 11 May 1905.
129. I have discussed the relationship between wild pig devastations, labour shortage, and the cotton programme in Thaddeus Sunseri, 'Famine and Wild Pigs: Gender Struggles and the Outbreak of the Maji Maji War in Uzaramo (Tanzania)', Journal of African History 38 (1997): 235-59.
130. Verordnung, betreffend die Anwerbung von Eingeborenen in Deutsch-Ostafrika, 27 Feb. 1909, Landesgesetzgebung, 311-17.
131. TNA G35/1, Mehrhardt to DSM Forest Administration, 21 Feb. 1906.
132. TNA G35/1, Jungfer to DSM District Office, 2 April 1906.
133. TNA G8/516, Jahresbericht des Forstamtes Rufiyi, April 1912.
134. TNA G8/516, Jahresbericht des Forstamtes Rufiyi, April 1912, 2.
135. Adolf Graf von Götzen, Deutsch-Ostafrika im Aufstand (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1909), 231.
136. TNA G8/655 Tongomba;
137. G8/656 Kisangi;
138. G8/609, Waldreservate Allgemein.
139. Videant consules', Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung 14, 3 (8 Jan. 1913): 1-2.
140. TNA G8/516, Jahresbericht des Forstamtes Rufiyi, April 1912, 12.
141. TNA G8/516, Jahresbericht des Forstamtes Rufiyi, April 1912, 15-17.
142. Siebenlist, Forstwirtschaft, 5.
143. TNA G8/589, Mohoro Forest Office to Government, 20 Feb. 1913.
144. On this point I differ from Schabel's conclusion's in 'Tanganyika Forestry', 135.
145. TNA G8/887, Caprivi to von Schele, Berlin, 30 Sept. 1894.
146. TNA G8/516, Jahresbericht des Forstamtes Rufiyi, April 1912, 29.
147. James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985);
148. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness, 44-50.
149. M. Büsgen, 'Forstwirtschaft in den Kolonien', Verhandlungen des Deutschen Kolonialkongresses (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1910), 811.
150. BAB/R1001/668, Wirtschaftliche Erschliessung der Waldungen der deutschen Schutzgebiete, May 1909, 174-5.