Liberal Imperialism from Samoa to Cameroon
Those German historians of the 'es war nicht alles schlimm' variety who are looking for an example of a figure who demonstrates the 'charitable' nature of liberal imperialism, generally call upon Wilhelm Solf. Solf was the Governor of German Samoa for umpteen years and then Colonial Secretary in Berlin thereafter. During World War One, he was the author of some fairly outlandish Mittelafrika plans for a German empire in Africa that included Belgian, British and French territories
These historians are correct insofar as they identify Solf as a liberal imperialist. He was no arch Junker type and was seen in the conservative German press as having been far too liberal in Samoa, probably because he did not outlaw so-called mixed marriages between Samoans and Germans. This, it must be said, was pretty unremarkable before the events of 1904 in Southwest Africa changed the way in which race relations were managed in Germany's colonies.
But a few short years thereafter, he became an advocate for introducing racial segregation in Samoa, as I discuss here. When Solf became Colonial Secretary, he also demanded of his successor that he introduce the regulations against 'mixed marriages' in Samoa that he had not. By 1912/13, Solf was vociferously arguing for introducing a racial dimension to German citizenship, to stop Afro Germans from becoming citizens. He failed because a coalition of Social Democrats and Catholic Centre Party deputies outvoted the liberal-conservative coalition that favoured it.
I mention this because Solf has popped up again in the chapter I'm currently writing on King Rudolf Duala Manga Bell in Cameroon. Manga Bell (pictured here) is famous for his refusal to accept German plans to expropriate the lands of his people so that the Germans could create a racially divided harbour city firmly under the control of German settlers. The grounds for this move ranged from a fear that the Duala were becoming land speculators and exploiting German investors, through to the spurious claim that only racial quarantine could effectively combat malaria (a claim made by a doctor Ziemann - there was a troublesome Dr Ziemann in German Samoa too, but whether they're the same I haven't yet checked).
To cut a long story short (and if you want the long story, you need to read Adolf Rüger's unsurpassed study), as Manga Bell's intransigence became more obvious, Solf became more radical in his denunciations of the Duala king. Solf even travelled to German Cameroon and declared flatly to Manga Bell's face that he would not reverse the land expropriations and that the king had just better get used to this loss of territorial sovereignty.
Instead, Bell sent one of his closest allies to Germany to plead the Duala case directly to the Reichstag, while building alliances with other Cameroonian kings and leaders, At no stage was violent revolt embraced by the Duala. Instead, he embraced gradualist, pragmatic reform based on political consensus building in Germany.
When King Njoya of Bamum informed the Germans of Manga Bell's alliance building, however, Solf immediately had Manga Bell arrested and charged with high treason. This charge led directly to Manga Bell's execution in 1914, an execution explicitly touted as 'an example' to other would-be rebel kings during World War One.
There is much more to this story, including some theoretical discussions surrounding the balance between biopolitical considerations and sovereign power. For me, the incident hinges on questions of sovereign power, because that's the terrain that the Duala identified as central - the loss of their territorial sovereignty in contravention of the 1884 treaty that an earlier King Bell had signed.
What is worth underlining, however, is that Solf was a crucial figure here, arguing strenuously to a dubious Reichstag that the Duala be dispossessed. In the final analysis, he was prepared for this to come at the cost of the execution of an African king who dared to use the liberal tools of petitioning the Reichstag for assistance against seemingly arbitrary colonial authority.
As I've argued here, liberal imperialism was the mode of pre-war German colonialism. To be completely clear, that is not an argument in its favour. It's simply a descriptor of the structures of the system of dispossession that operated. Too often it's forgotten that liberalism has its own rich history of violence and dispossession, because its tracks have been carefully covered by historians looking to sheet home colonial violence to atavistic conservatives or proto-fascists.
These historians are correct insofar as they identify Solf as a liberal imperialist. He was no arch Junker type and was seen in the conservative German press as having been far too liberal in Samoa, probably because he did not outlaw so-called mixed marriages between Samoans and Germans. This, it must be said, was pretty unremarkable before the events of 1904 in Southwest Africa changed the way in which race relations were managed in Germany's colonies.
But a few short years thereafter, he became an advocate for introducing racial segregation in Samoa, as I discuss here. When Solf became Colonial Secretary, he also demanded of his successor that he introduce the regulations against 'mixed marriages' in Samoa that he had not. By 1912/13, Solf was vociferously arguing for introducing a racial dimension to German citizenship, to stop Afro Germans from becoming citizens. He failed because a coalition of Social Democrats and Catholic Centre Party deputies outvoted the liberal-conservative coalition that favoured it.
I mention this because Solf has popped up again in the chapter I'm currently writing on King Rudolf Duala Manga Bell in Cameroon. Manga Bell (pictured here) is famous for his refusal to accept German plans to expropriate the lands of his people so that the Germans could create a racially divided harbour city firmly under the control of German settlers. The grounds for this move ranged from a fear that the Duala were becoming land speculators and exploiting German investors, through to the spurious claim that only racial quarantine could effectively combat malaria (a claim made by a doctor Ziemann - there was a troublesome Dr Ziemann in German Samoa too, but whether they're the same I haven't yet checked).
To cut a long story short (and if you want the long story, you need to read Adolf Rüger's unsurpassed study), as Manga Bell's intransigence became more obvious, Solf became more radical in his denunciations of the Duala king. Solf even travelled to German Cameroon and declared flatly to Manga Bell's face that he would not reverse the land expropriations and that the king had just better get used to this loss of territorial sovereignty.
Instead, Bell sent one of his closest allies to Germany to plead the Duala case directly to the Reichstag, while building alliances with other Cameroonian kings and leaders, At no stage was violent revolt embraced by the Duala. Instead, he embraced gradualist, pragmatic reform based on political consensus building in Germany.
When King Njoya of Bamum informed the Germans of Manga Bell's alliance building, however, Solf immediately had Manga Bell arrested and charged with high treason. This charge led directly to Manga Bell's execution in 1914, an execution explicitly touted as 'an example' to other would-be rebel kings during World War One.
There is much more to this story, including some theoretical discussions surrounding the balance between biopolitical considerations and sovereign power. For me, the incident hinges on questions of sovereign power, because that's the terrain that the Duala identified as central - the loss of their territorial sovereignty in contravention of the 1884 treaty that an earlier King Bell had signed.
What is worth underlining, however, is that Solf was a crucial figure here, arguing strenuously to a dubious Reichstag that the Duala be dispossessed. In the final analysis, he was prepared for this to come at the cost of the execution of an African king who dared to use the liberal tools of petitioning the Reichstag for assistance against seemingly arbitrary colonial authority.
As I've argued here, liberal imperialism was the mode of pre-war German colonialism. To be completely clear, that is not an argument in its favour. It's simply a descriptor of the structures of the system of dispossession that operated. Too often it's forgotten that liberalism has its own rich history of violence and dispossession, because its tracks have been carefully covered by historians looking to sheet home colonial violence to atavistic conservatives or proto-fascists.
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