A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

the colonies in a new manner, since German domestic commercial standards barely
existed in the unregulated colonial trade. Therefore, new economic relations were
created by the deterritorialization of German trade to the colonies through the local power
of these companies. This influence questions Landes’, Hallgarten’s and Taylor’s
assertions that strategic concerns trumped economic motives, for economic interests
appear predominant over strategic issues in this context.
Nonetheless, it would be incorrect to assume consistent exploitation of the
government by the colonial companies. The enterprises were occasionally brought to
heel by the government in extreme cases of abuse or negligence. An illustrative example
is the government’s restructuring of the East African economy after the Maji Maji revolt
in 1905. Sunseri observes how the revolt caused the government to reject plantation-style
agriculture in favour of small-scale cultivation in order to avoid a repeat of the violence. 26
Cotton was the most important colonial raw material transported to Germany and fears of
a “cotton famine” provoked the government to assure its continued supply, even through
forced labour and a restructuring of colonial commerce. 27 Thus colonial business and the
entire East African cotton economy were shaped by fears of colonial instability and the
domestic requirements of Germany. This instance of the colonies’ influence upon the
companies and the metropolis is a powerful argument for the colonial agency thesis and
the “compensatory reterritorializations” of the state discussed by Deleuze and Guattari.
However, the more holistic picture shows colonial enterprises subverting government’s
interference in commerce.
More frightening to the colonial firms than government intervention was the
potential of foreign commercial competition. Fears of competition were a frequent theme
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