Before the Genocide
For the chapter I'm currently working on, I'm looking at how Samuel Maharero rose to become the paramount chief of the Herero and the ways in which his interests, the interests of his people and those of the Germans interlocked in the context of the threat of Hendrik Witbooi's Nama to all of them. Part of this is examining the work done by Jan-Bart Gewald and Gerhard Pool, but part of it is weaving it into the broader story about relationships between African 'monarchs' and the kaiser (and his vice-regal representative the governor).
Once again, the emphasis is on African agency, however it's easy to go too far here. There are legitimate questions to be asked about the extent to which Maharero was free to act as he saw fit. The argument that he was simply awed by German military power doesn't really make sense. At the time that he took up with Leutwein, the German military was on the ropes, unable to defeat Witbooi despite having been sent extra troops from Germany. Put simply, Germany did not look like the most important power in Southwest Africa - Witbooi did.
In some ways this might contain the key to understanding the situation. It was easier for Maharero to see the Germans as a partner when they were not seen as the primary threat to the Herero. Better to align with a seemingly distant and understrength Germany than to risk becoming a subject ally of the soldier-prophet Witbooi.
That is only one dimension of the chapter however. I also want to look at the forms that the Herero-German partnership took throughout the 1890s. One instance is the (you guessed it) 'royal' tour of 1896, when Samuel Maharero's son Friedrich visited Germany and met the Kaiser. It is fair to say that Samuel Maharero might have expected more from the Kaiser than he got, but Friedrich (pictured) did get his audience with the Kaiser in which he told Wilhelm II that the Herero had absolute confidence in the leadership of Leutwein - a handy message for the governor!
This was, nonetheless against the backdrop of settler complaints that Leutwein was too pro-African in his approach - a cry heard all over the German Empire whenever settler plans were thwarted by any basic consideration for the national and personal interests of indigenous peoples. Missionaries were similarly targeted for being ostensibly anti-German in their desire to protect Africans (the dead, after all, cannot be converted).
In the end, Leutwein's 'system' of cooperating with paramount chiefs was indicative of the fundamental limitations of liberal imperialism - expecially in a settler colonial setting. Even with all of the understanding and good will of an individual (which does not, incidentally, describe Leutwein, no governor could overcome the inherent contradiction that expansion of German pastoral and agricultural interests could only ever come at the cost of the viability of indigenous nations. Either one side must agree to become economically and politically subordinate to the other, to acquiesce in the territorial demands of the other, or conflict must come. No amount of sympathy could avoid the question of political and territorial sovereignty.
To be honest, I was going to hold off writing this chapter, as I was keen to return to the Pacific for the next chapter. But I'm glad I'm doing this one now. The resources are all here and to have waited to try and write this one until I was back in Australia would have been a serious mistake.
I'm giving myself another week to get a draft up on this before I write my paper for the German History conference in Leicester. For that I'll simply be cannibalising chapters more or less already written, so it shouldn't take too long.
Once again, the emphasis is on African agency, however it's easy to go too far here. There are legitimate questions to be asked about the extent to which Maharero was free to act as he saw fit. The argument that he was simply awed by German military power doesn't really make sense. At the time that he took up with Leutwein, the German military was on the ropes, unable to defeat Witbooi despite having been sent extra troops from Germany. Put simply, Germany did not look like the most important power in Southwest Africa - Witbooi did.
In some ways this might contain the key to understanding the situation. It was easier for Maharero to see the Germans as a partner when they were not seen as the primary threat to the Herero. Better to align with a seemingly distant and understrength Germany than to risk becoming a subject ally of the soldier-prophet Witbooi.
That is only one dimension of the chapter however. I also want to look at the forms that the Herero-German partnership took throughout the 1890s. One instance is the (you guessed it) 'royal' tour of 1896, when Samuel Maharero's son Friedrich visited Germany and met the Kaiser. It is fair to say that Samuel Maharero might have expected more from the Kaiser than he got, but Friedrich (pictured) did get his audience with the Kaiser in which he told Wilhelm II that the Herero had absolute confidence in the leadership of Leutwein - a handy message for the governor!
This was, nonetheless against the backdrop of settler complaints that Leutwein was too pro-African in his approach - a cry heard all over the German Empire whenever settler plans were thwarted by any basic consideration for the national and personal interests of indigenous peoples. Missionaries were similarly targeted for being ostensibly anti-German in their desire to protect Africans (the dead, after all, cannot be converted).
In the end, Leutwein's 'system' of cooperating with paramount chiefs was indicative of the fundamental limitations of liberal imperialism - expecially in a settler colonial setting. Even with all of the understanding and good will of an individual (which does not, incidentally, describe Leutwein, no governor could overcome the inherent contradiction that expansion of German pastoral and agricultural interests could only ever come at the cost of the viability of indigenous nations. Either one side must agree to become economically and politically subordinate to the other, to acquiesce in the territorial demands of the other, or conflict must come. No amount of sympathy could avoid the question of political and territorial sovereignty.
To be honest, I was going to hold off writing this chapter, as I was keen to return to the Pacific for the next chapter. But I'm glad I'm doing this one now. The resources are all here and to have waited to try and write this one until I was back in Australia would have been a serious mistake.
I'm giving myself another week to get a draft up on this before I write my paper for the German History conference in Leicester. For that I'll simply be cannibalising chapters more or less already written, so it shouldn't take too long.
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