Making the household, making the state: Colonial military communities and labor in German East Africa

International Labor and Working-Class History

Volumn 80, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 53-76

  Moyd, Michelle ^a  

^a INDIANA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 80555123666     PISSN: 01475479     EISSN: 14716445     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S014754791100007X     Document Type: Review

References (113)

1. See Mark Leopold, "Legacies of Slavery in NorthWest Uganda: The Story of the 'One-Elevens,'" in Henri Médard and Shane Doyle, eds., Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa (Oxford, 2007), 124-144;
2. Timothy Parsons, 'Kibra is our Blood': The Sudanese Military Legacy in Nairobi's Kibera Location, 1902-1968," The International Journal of African Historical Studies 30:1 (1997): 87-122.
3. Sebastian Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation im Deutschen Kaiserreich (München, 2006), 79-83.
4. Stephen Rockel, Carriers of Culture: Labor on the Road in Nineteenth Century East Africa (Portsmouth, NH, 2006), 117-130.
5. For a comparative case in French West Africa, see J. Malcolm Thompson, "Colonial Policy and the Family Life of Black Troops in French West Africa, 1817-1904," International Journal of African Historical Studies 23:3 (1990), 427-9.
6. For British East Africa, see Timothy Parson, "All Askaris are Family Men: Sex, Domesticity and Discipline in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964," in David Killingray and David Omissi, eds., Guardians of Empire: The Armed Forces of the Colonial Powers c. 1700-1964 (Manchester, 1999), 170-5.
7. W.H. Besant, "The Early Days of the Egyptian Army, 1883-1892," Journal of the Royal African Society 33:131 (1934), 167;
8. G.R.F. Bredin, "The Life-Story of Yuzbashi 'Abdullah Adlan," Sudan Notes and Records XLII (1961), 43-44;
9. Rockel, Carriers of Culture, 117-30.
10. Barton C. Hacker and Sally L. Hacker, "Military Institutions and the Labor Process: Noneconomic Sources of Technological Change, Women's Subordination, and the Organization of Work," Technology and Culture 28:4 (1987), 775.
11. For an overview of the history of military slavery in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, see Ahmad Alawad Sikainga, "Military Slavery and the Emergence of a Southern Sudanese Diaspora in the Northern Sudan, 1884-1954," in Jay Spaulding and Stephanie Beswick, eds., White Nile, Black Blood: War, Leadership and Ethnicity from Khartoum to Kampala (Lawrenceville, NJ, and Asmara, Eritrea, 2000), 23-37. For a comparative case, see Allen F.
12. For a comparative case, see Allen F. Isaacman and Barbara S. Isaacman, Slavery and Beyond: The Making of Men and Chikunda Ethnic Identities in the Unstable World of South-Central Africa, 1750-1920 (Portsmouth, NH, 2004), 1-7 and passim.
13. Jonathan Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion, and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-1888 (Portsmouth, NH, 1995), 61-64;
14. Rockel, Carriers of Culture, 66-68.
15. for example, Myron Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Séné galais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 (Portsmouth, NH, 1991);
16. Isaacman and Isaacman, Slavery and Beyond; and Timothy Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964 (Portsmouth, NH, 1999).
17. For a comparative case, see Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham and London, 2006).
18. I argue this point more extensively in Michelle Moyd, Becoming Askari: African Soldiers and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa, 1850-1918 (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 2008).
19. Thaddeus Sunseri, "Labour Migration in Colonial Tanzania and the Hegemony of South African Historiography," African Affairs 95 (1996), 581. According to Sunseri, these "kraal to compound" interpretations "emphasized the one sidedness of the labour migration process, the power of the capitalist state and settler allies, the complicity of African elites, and the irreversibility of 'oscillating migration' as a state of incomplete, but inevitable, proletarianization." See p. 582.
20. Thaddeus Sunseri, Vilimani: Labor Migration and Rural Change in Early Colonial Tanzania (Portsmouth, NH, 2002), xxiii-xxiv. Other social histories of African labor that came out around the same time that Sunseri was making his critique of South African historiographical hegemony include Keletso Atkins, "The Moon is Dead! Give us our Money": The Cultural Origins of an African Work Ethic, Natal, South Africa, 1843-1900 (Portsmouth, NH, 1993);
21. Jeanne Penvenne, African Workers and Colonial Racism: Mozambican Strategies and Struggles in Lourenço Marques, 1877-1962 (Portsmouth, NH, 1995).
22. Stephen J. Rockel, Carriers of Culture: Labor on the Road in Nineteenth-Century East Africa (Portsmouth, NH, 2006).
23. See for example David Killingray, "Beasts of Burden: BritishWest African Carriers in the First World War," Canadian Journal of African Studies 13:1/2 (1979);
24. David Killingray, "Labour Exploitation for Military Campaigns in British Colonial Africa 1870-1945," Journal of Contemporary History 24 (1989);
25. Melvin Page, "TheWar of Thangata: Nyasaland and the East African Campaign, 1914-1918," The Journal of African History 19:1 (1978).
26. See Thomas Cardoza, Intrepid Women: Cantiniéres and Vivandiéres of the French Army (Bloomington,IN, 2010);
27. John A. Lynn II, Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2008);
28. Holly A Mayer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community during the American Revolution (Columbia, SC, 1996);
29. Matthias Steinbach, Abgrund Metz: Kriegserfahruing, Belagerungsalltag und nationale Erziehung im Schatten einer Festung 1870-71 (München, 2002).
30. For a more contemporary assessment of military communities and gender, see Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley, 1990).
31. Michael Pesek, Koloniale Herrschaft in Deutsch-Ostafrika: Expeditionen, Militär undVerwaltung seit 1880 (Frankfurt and New York, 2005), 245;
32. Erick Mann, Mikono ya damu: "Hands of Blood": African Mercenaries and the Politics of Conflict in German East Africa, 11888-1904 (Frankfurt, 2002), 273-281.
33. For more on the Maji Maji War and its effects on German East African peoples, see Ludger Wimmelbücker, "Verbrannte Erde: Zu den Bevölkerungsverlusten als Folge des Maji-Maji-Krieges," in Der Maji-Maji-Krieg in Deutsch Ostafrika 1905-1907, Felicitas Becker and Jigal Beez, eds. (Berlin, 2005), 87-99.
34. Kirsten Zirkel, "Military Power in German Colonial Policy: The Schutztruppen and their Leaders in East and South-West Africa, 1888-1918" in David Killingray and David Omissi, eds., Guardians of Empire: The Armed Forces of the Colonial Powers c. 1700-1964 (New York, 1999), 103.
35. Juhani Koponen, Development for Exploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884-1914 (Helsinki and Hamburg, 1994), 241.
36. F. Hildebrandt, Eine deutsche Militärstation im Innern Afrikas (Wölfenbüttel, 1905), 23.
37. Tom von Prince, Gegen Araber und Wahehe: Erinnerungen aus meiner ostafrikansischen Leutnantszeit 1890-1895, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1914), 114.
38. Vorschriften über die Handhabung des Dienstbetriebes auf den Stationen der Schutztruppe für Ost-Afrika," Deutsches Kolonialblatt: Amtsblatt für die Schutzgebiete des Deutschen Reichs (hereafter DKB), February 1, 1891, 55-56.
39. Hildebrandt, Eine deutsche Militärstation, 20.
40. Vorschriften," DKB, 56.
41. Keletso Atkins, "'Kafir Time': Preindustrial Temporal Concepts and Labour Discipline in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Natal," The Journal of African History 29:2 (1988), 229-230;
42. E.P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism," Past and Present 38 (1967), 60-61.
43. On the German project of "teaching the Negro to work," see Sebastian Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation im Deutschen Kaiserreich (München, 2006), 79-83;
44. Andrew Zimmerman, "AGerman Alabama in Africa: The Tuskegee Expedition to German Togo and the Transnational Origins of West African Cotton Growers," American Historical Review December 2005 ,http://www. historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/110.5/zimmerman.html. (accessed September 20, 2010), 55-8 112-13.
45. For a comparative example in Portuguese East Africa, see Penvenne, AfricanWorkers and Colonial Racism, 11-7, 104-9. On African work ethics and their collisions with colonial ideas of African "laziness,"
46. Atkins, The Moon is Dead! Give Us Our Money!, 664-71778-79 and Zimmerman, "AGerman Alabama in Africa," 112-13.
47. Prince, Gegen Araber und Wahehe, 114.
48. On gardening, see Hildebrandt, Eine deutsche Militärstation, 12.
49. Otto Stollowsky, Jambo Sana! Lustige Geschichten, Plaudereien und Schnurren aus dem Leben in Deutsch-Ost-Afrika (Leipzig-Unger, 1935), 123.
50. See also Ernst Nigmann, Schwarze Schwänke: Fröhliche Geschichten aus unserem schönen alten Deutsch-Ostafrika (Berlin, 1922), 149;
51. Magdalene v. Prince, Eine deutsche Frau im Innern Deutsch-Ostafrikas 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1908), 109;
52. Marcia Wright, Strategies of Slaves and Women: Life Stories from East/Central Africa (New York and London, 1993), 179-223.
53. Michael L. Fleisher, Kuria Cattle Raiders: Violence and Vigilantism on the Tanzania/ Kenya Frontier (Ann Arbor, 2000), 162;
54. J. Terence McCabe, Cattle Bring Us to Our Enemies: Turkana Ecology, Politics, and Raiding in a Disequilibrium System (Ann Arbor, 2004), 190.
55. Jeff Guy, "Analysing Pre-Capitalist Societies in Southern Africa," Journal of Southern African Studies 14:1 (1987), 21-22. Emphasis in original.
56. Glassman, Feasts and Riot, 1165-70.
57. Dauber, Heinrich, ed., 'Nicht als Abentheurer bin ich hierhergekommen ⋯': 100 Jahre Entwicklungs-'Hilfe': Tagebücher und Briefe aus Deutsch-Ostafrika 1896-1902 (Frankfurt, 1991), 181.
58. Dauber, 'Nicht als Abentheurer,' 181;
59. Magdalena v. Prince, Eine deutsche Frau, 21.
60. Hildebrandt, Eine deutsche Militärstation, 20.
61. Juhani Koponen, Development for Exploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884-1914 (Helsinki and Hamburg, 1994), 297-314, 410-12. By 1910-1911 some 25,000 people were employed by the railway companies, especially on the Central line.
62. Jan-Georg Deutsch, Emancipation without Abolition in German East Africa, c. 1884-1914 (Oxford, 2006), 219.
63. Bericht über den Betrieb und die Arbeiten der Usambara-Eisenbahn für die Monate April-September 1899," DKB, December 1, 1899, p. 807;
64. Sunseri, Vilimani, 167-69.
65. Bror MacDonell, Mzee Ali: The Biography of an African Slave-Raider turned Askari & Scout (Johannesburg, 2006), 124-25.
66. Koponen, Development for Exploitation, 602;
67. MacDonell, Mzee Ali, 125;
68. Karl Weule, Native Life in East Africa: The Results of an Ethnological Research Expedition, Alice Werner, trans. (London, 1909), 28-29.
69. MacDonell, Mzee Ali, 134.
70. Richard Kandt, Caput Nili: Eine empfindsame Reise zu den Quellen des Nils, 5th ed. (Berlin, 1921), 26.
71. See Kolonial-Abteilung des Auswärtigen Amts, ed., Medizinal-Berichte über die Deutschen Schutzgebiete 1903/04 (Berlin, 1905), 31.
72. Hans Poeschel, Bwana Hakimu: Richterfahrten in Deutsch-Ostafrika (Leipzig, 1940), 23;
73. Hildebrandt, Eine deutsche Militärstation, 60.
74. Dauber, 'Nicht als Abentheurer', 189.
75. Hildebrandt, Eine deutsche Militärstation, 60.
76. See, for example, Marks to Bezirskamt Bagamoyo,August 2, 1912,G 32/5, TNA, which records an incident of an askari severely whipping a woman on a chain gang after she refused to continue her street-building work and physically assaulted him.
77. Heinrich Fonck, Deutsch-Ost-Afrika: Eine Schilderung deutscher Tropen nach zehn Wanderjahren (Berlin, 1910), 65.
78. See also Marcia Wright, Strategies of Slaves and Women: Life Stories from East/Central Africa (New York and London, 1993), 185-87.
79. See, for example, Magdalena von Prince's descriptions of the wives of "Sudanese" askari. These soldiers occupied the highest ranks and because of their experience, leadership skills, and "loyalty" were held in high esteem by German officers. Magdalena von Prince, Eine deutsche Frau, 880-81
80. Bernd Arnold, Steuer und Lohnarbeit im Südwesten von Deutsch-Ostafrika, 1891- 1916 (Münster, 1994), 192.
81. Karen Tranberg Hansen, "Household Work as a Man's Job: Sex and Gender in Domestic Service in Zambia," Anthropology Today 2:3 (1986), 18-23.
82. For examples of boys expressing their future aspirations for higher status and rank, see Magdalena vo Prince, Eine deutsche Frau, 109; diary entry;
83. Friedrich Fülleborn, Das Deutsche Njassa- und Ruwuma-Gebiet, Land und Leute, nebst Bemerkungen über die Schire-Länder (Berlin, Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen), 1906), 8.
84. Michael von Herff, "They Walk Through the Fire Like the Blondest German: African Soldiers Serving the Kaiser in German East Africa (1888-1914)" (M.A. thesis, McGill University, Montreal, July 1991), 88.
85. Fonck, Deutsch-Ost-Afrika, 67;
86. Sunseri, Vilimani, 169-71.
87. Arnold, Steuer und Lohnarbeit, 192.
88. Arnold, Steuer und Lohnarbeit, 197;
89. MacDonnell, Mzee Ali, 118-121.
90. For comparative cases, see Douglas M. Peers, "Imperial Vice: Sex, Drink and the Health of British Troops on North Indian Cantonments, 1800-1858," in David Killingray and David Omissi, ed., Guardians of Empire, 25-52;
91. Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990), 86-102.
92. For a discussion of the ubiquitous connections between military bases and prostitution in world history and in the present, see Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives (Berkeley 2000), 49-107.
93. P. Groeschel, Zehn Jahre christlicher Kulturarbeit in Deutsch-Ostafrika: Dargetstellt in Briefen aus den Jahren 1898-1908 (Berlin, 1911), 222.
94. Lynn, Women, Armies, and Warfare, 18.
95. Rockel, Carriers of Culture, 117-30.
96. On shauri as part of German colonial practice, see Jan-Georg Deutsch, "Celebrating Power in Everyday Life: The Administration of Law and the Public Sphere in Colonial Tanzania, 1890-1914," Journal of African Cultural Studies 14:1 (2002), 93-103;
97. Michael Pesek, "Cued Speeches: The Emergence of Shauri as Colonial Praxis in German East Africa, 1850-1903," History in Africa 33:1 (2006), 395-412.
98. Diary entry, 21.XI.1910, KlE 857 (Alfred Reuss), BA-K.
99. Lynn, Women, Armies, and Warfare, 8, 10.
100. G.A. Graf von Götzen, Durch Afrika von Ost nach West: Resultate und Begebenheiten einer Reise von der Deutsch-Ostafrikanischen Küste bis zur Kongomünde in den Jahren 1893/94, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1899), 2. Götzen became Gouverneur of German East Africa in 1901 and remained so until 1906. He played a central role in the management of the early stages of the Maji Maji War (1905-1907).
101. Götzen, Durch Afrika von Ost nach West, 16, 31.
102. C. Waldemar Werther, Die mittleren Hochländer des nördlichen Deutsch-Os-Afrika Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Irangi-Expedition 1896-11897 nebst kurzer Reisebeschreibung (Berlin, 1898), 8;
103. Rockel, Carriers of Culture, 83-4, 174-75.
104. Charles Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London, 1899), 1. Caldwell, a British army officer, wrote Small Wars as a kind of manual for other officers facing deployment to areas where they might be involved in colonial warfare. According to Callwell, "The expression 'small war' has in reality no particular connection with the scale on which any campaign may be carried out; it is simply used to denote, in default of a better, operations of regular armies against irregular, or constructively speaking irregular, forces."
105. Zirkel, "Military Power in German Colonial Policy," 97.
106. Michelle Moyd, "'All people were barbarians to the askari ⋯': Askari Identity an Honor in the Maji Maji War, 1905-1907," in James Giblin and Jamie Monson, eds., Maji Maji: Lifting the Fog of War (Leiden, 2010), 168-72.
107. For good overviews of the East African campaign ofWorldWar I, see Ross Anderson The Forgotten Front: The East African Campaign, 1914-1918 (Stroud, 2004);
108. Hew Strachan, The First World War in Africa (Oxford, 2004);
109. Richard Paice, Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa (London, 2007).
110. Geoffrey Hodges, The Carrier Corps: Military Labor in the East African Campaign, 1914-1918 (Westport, CT, 1986);
111. Melvin Page, The Chiwaya War: Malawians and the First World War (Boulder, CO, 2000), 107-14, passim;
112. Rockel, Carriers of Culture;
113. Sunseri, Vilimani, 115-18.