A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
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claim to further African territory, ending the slave trade, encouraging settlement,<br />
converting new souls and developing colonial trade. 93 Commercial companies and the<br />
DKG frequently played a critical role in determining where expeditions would venture by<br />
emphasizing the exploration of areas with economic potential.<br />
These expeditions garnered considerable attention for the colonial advocates<br />
through the exciting tales of African exoticism related by <strong>German</strong>y’s celebrity explorers.<br />
Dr. Eduard Schnitzler, otherwise known as Emin Pascha, galvanized public opinion<br />
through his East African voyages, his capture by the Sudanese Mahdi and his subsequent<br />
rescue by the British adventurer Henry Stanley in 1892. 94 Such adventures concretized<br />
colonial dichotomies of Europeans and Africans as <strong>German</strong>s were forced to ally with<br />
European competitors in order to conquer the African wild. 95 The African opposition to<br />
explorers like Emin Pascha stirred <strong>German</strong>s to establish racist visions of Africa, where<br />
absolute binary identities and absolute solutions to African problems were constructed. 96<br />
There was a subsequent valorization in <strong>German</strong> society of the returning heroes who had<br />
fought against great odds to bring <strong>German</strong> commerce, culture and Christianity to Africa.<br />
Though Schnitzler was universally hailed as a hero, the trajectory of Carl Peters<br />
was markedly different. A central founder of the DKG and tireless advocate of colonial<br />
expansion, Peters continuously traveled across Africa for <strong>German</strong> interests. 97 It was not<br />
long, however, before word got back to <strong>German</strong>y that Peters’ actions in Africa were less<br />
than “civilized.” This was quite true, for Peters was the most pugnacious of <strong>German</strong>y’s<br />
explorers in Africa; he unashamedly confessed the “intoxication” of killing Africans. 98<br />
Because of his ferocious approach to colonialism, Peters lost public favour and was<br />
dismissed from government service when he was eventually convicted of murder,<br />
63