A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
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A chief rationale behind the government’s pro-native policy was the<br />
instrumentalization of indigenous peoples as a colonial workforce. With the legal end of<br />
slavery in <strong>German</strong> Africa in 1905, a pragmatic policy of tacit acceptance of slavery was<br />
implemented in East Africa to facilitate the colonial economy. It has already been shown<br />
how colonial medicine was harnessed to the purpose of keeping a healthy workforce and<br />
thus a profitable plantation economy. Eckart and Zimmerer describe how colonial<br />
officials and doctors imbibed ideas of eugenics and Social Darwinism that worked in<br />
perfect collusion with the needs of the state for a healthy and docile native labour pool. 73<br />
In fact, one of the chief concerns raised by the massacre of the Herero was that Southwest<br />
Africa’s labour force would be wiped out, with a commensurate loss of colonial<br />
income. 74 In this context, the Marxist vision of labour is substantiated by Eckart and<br />
Zimmerer’s research.<br />
After the Herero, Nama and Maji Maji wars and the resulting colonial scandals,<br />
State Secretary Dernburg implemented significant improvements to native welfare in<br />
colonial policy. Under Dernburg, the new colonization of the native was to proceed by<br />
“preservation” through missionary and railroad instead of the “assimilation” by bottle,<br />
missionary and gun that had been practiced before. 75 In addition, the <strong>German</strong> state of law<br />
(Rechtsstaat) upheld the rights of native labourers against the worst abuses of the <strong>German</strong><br />
settlers, traders and administrators. Because of new <strong>German</strong> sensitivities to the plight of<br />
colonial subjects in this period, the government continually reiterated the evolution of<br />
positive relations with indigenous peoples. 76<br />
Though <strong>German</strong>y had always assumed a paternalistic attitude toward its colonial<br />
subjects, the aftermath of the revolts reaffirmed this doctrine. 77 Erzberger attacked<br />
92