Uganda treaty
The Uganda Treaty was an agreement between the German colonialist Carl Peters and the King ( Kabaka ) Mwanga II of Buganda . The contract was signed on February 27, 1890. From Peters' perspective, the treaty was intended to help expand German East Africa to areas north of Lake Victoria . However, due to the German-British border agreement in the so-called Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty and the emerging British protectorate of Uganda , the treaty gained no significance.
Prehistory: The German Emin Pascha Expedition
The background to the expedition to Uganda was the search for the missing traveler Eduard Schnitzer (alias Emin Pascha ). Schnitzer was in the service of Egypt as governor of the province of Equatoria and was temporarily cut off from the western world by the Mahdi uprising . Great Britain sent an expedition under the command of the African explorer Henry Morton Stanley to rescue Schnitzer . German colonial enthusiasts did not want to be inferior to the actions to find their compatriot Schnitzer. They collected donations and promoted a German Emin Pascha expedition . From the very beginning, the expedition was in competition with the colonial efforts of Great Britain, which also used to combine research and rescue trips with expansion plans.
The German project was favored by British-French rivalries that were carried out in Uganda through Anglican and Catholic missions. For the Catholic side in Uganda - especially in Buganda - the religious order of the White Fathers ( Pères Blancs ) stood out. Since France alone was unable to assert itself against Great Britain, the founder of the White Fathers , Charles Martial Lavigerie , suggested a German protectorate over Buganda in June 1886. The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (who was in the cultural war against the Catholics) , however, was opposed to new expansions if they touched the British sphere of interest . Nevertheless, a German expedition to Uganda could hope for sympathy among the French missionaries on site.
Carl Peters showed great interest in an expedition to Wadelai , Schnitzer's last known base in Uganda. Peters saw in the company an opportunity not only to protect Schnitzer, but also to continue the colonial acquisitions he had just completed in East Africa in Equatorial Africa . Originally, Peters was supposed to lead the majority of the marching group, while Hermann von Wissmann would have made the actual contact with Schnitzer in a pre-expedition . However, an uprising on the East African coast led to Wissmann remaining in the coastal area of East Africa, so that Bismarck decided on Peters as the overall leader of the expedition to Uganda.
Together with his companions, Kapitänleutnant Rusk and Oskar Borchert, Peters set out on June 9, 1889 with the ship Neera from Dar es Salaam to Kwaihu Bay on the coast of Kenya . In doing so, they bypassed a British blockade fleet on the East African coast and reached the Kwaihu Bay a week later, which was part of the sphere of influence of the sultanate of Witu , which was claimed by Germany . From there, Carl Peters and Adolf von Tiedemann set out for the interior. They were accompanied by 17 Somalis and 58 African porters. The group hiked up the Tana and past Mount Kenya , with Peters already negotiating initial agreements for intended land acquisitions. On the trip there were fights with warriors from the Maasai people . According to the travel reports of Peters and von Tiedemann, shortly before Christmas 1889 the expedition almost fell victim to an overwhelming majority of the Maasai. A total solar eclipse , however, frightened the Africans so much that an attack did not take place. In 1890 the group came to Lake Baringo and in February 1890 to the border with Uganda.
In Uganda, Peters received the news that Schnitzer and Stanley were already safe in East Africa. The original concern of the expedition was thus obsolete and Peters concentrated entirely on acquiring colonialism to enlarge the German protected area .
Meeting with Mwanga II.
Since the north of present-day Uganda, Wadelai and Bunyoro , continued to be threatened by the Mahdi’s troops , Peters turned south to the Kingdom of Buganda with the capital Mengo , present-day Kampala .
The group wandered through a country torn by tribal feuds and civil war . Buganda's ruler Mwanga was notorious in Europe for his tyranny . In 1890, however, he was looking for Christian allies against his Arab-friendly brother Karema , with whom he fought for the throne . On February 26, 1890, Peters' expedition reached Mengo, Mwanga's residence. On the same day Peters had an audience with the Kabaka, as the kings of Bugandas were called. Mwanga welcomed Peters and made him stay in Mengo until a German arms shipment arrived, which Peters promised him. In Mengo, Peters witnessed the reconstruction of the country, which encouraged him to conclude the planned protection treaty. Convinced of Buganda's economic and political importance as a hub between the Congo, Sudan and East Africa, Peters was now determined to lay the foundation for a new colonial acquisition.
Two English missionaries, representing Great Britain, observed Peters' presence with disapproval, but with the help of a French clergyman, Father Lourel, Peters was able to win Mwanga's trust and persuade him to sign a trade and friendship treaty with the German Empire.
Contract signature and content
Contrary to what Peters had hoped, Mwanga was not ready to give up his sovereignty , but viewed the Germans merely as helpers in maintaining his power, to whom he was prepared to grant certain special rights. He guaranteed the Europeans permission to trade and build houses in his sphere of influence. In future he only wanted to sell ivory to German companies - if they supplied him with weapons in return.
On February 27, 1890, the Uganda Treaty was finally signed, which opened the country to European trade on the basis of the Congo Act of 1885 and contained a friendship agreement with the German Empire. As a result of this treaty, Mwanga issued a decree on March 16, 1890 , in which he forbade the export of slaves in accordance with the Congo Act .
Peters viewed this merely as a preliminary contract , which was to be followed by the actual documented “protection treaty”, including the transfer of sovereignty to Germany.
- The contractual partners
Carl Peters
(1856-1918)
Mwanga II.
(1868-1903)
consequences
On March 25, 1890, Peters and his companions began their return journey to the coast of East Africa via Usambara . When he returned to Germany, Peters wanted his supposed new acquisitions, including the area in Uganda, to be placed under Reich protection as quickly as possible. But that never happened.
As early as August 19, 1889, Otto von Bismarck had secretly let Great Britain know that Germany had no interest in East African protected areas north of the first degree of southern latitude . In the so-called Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of July 1, 1890, Germany therefore limited its sphere of interest in East Africa vis-à-vis Great Britain to the borders of the emerging German East Africa , which Uganda with the Kingdom of Buganda clearly excluded. With this, Germany withdrew all possible claims on Witu , areas north of the Tana River, on Lake Baringo , on the Somali coast and on Uganda / Buganda. Instead, Uganda became a British protectorate in 1893.
The first attempt to create a coherent colonial area of German Central Africa had failed.
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilfried Westphal: History of the German colonies . Bindlach: Gondrom, 1991, p. 126ff., ISBN 3-8112-0905-1 .
- ↑ Pierre Bertaux: Africa - From Prehistory to the States of the Present. Weltbild, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-89350-989-5 , p. 238.
- ^ Franz Ansprenger: History of Africa. 2nd edition, Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-47989-8 , p. 85.
- ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Bismarck and Imperialism. 4th edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-423-04187-0 , p. 364.
- ^ W. Westphal: History of the German Colonies . P. 129.
- ↑ Bernd G. Längin : The German Colonies - Schauplätze und Schicksale 1884-1918 . Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn: Mittler, 2005, p. 160, ISBN 3-8132-0854-0 .
- ↑ It was evidently the solar eclipse of December 22, 1889 , the umbra of which actually touched Kenya.
- ^ W. Westphal: History of the German Colonies . P. 129
- ^ Rochus Schmidt: Germany's colonies . Volume 1, Berlin: Verlag des Verein der Bücherfreunde Schall & Grund, 1898, p. 19. (Reprint by Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-8289-0301-0 )
literature
Primary literature:
- Carl Peters: The German Emin Pascha Expedition . R. Oldenbourg, Munich / Leipzig 1891.
- Adolf von Tiedemann: Tana, Baringo, Nil - With Karl Peters to Emin Pascha. CA Schwetschke & Son, Berlin 1907.
Secondary literature:
- Horst founder : history of the German colonies . 5th edition, Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-8252-1332-3 , p. 89.
- Helmuth Stoecker : Urge to Africa - The German colonial expansion policy and rule in Africa from the beginning to the loss of the colonies . 2. revised Ed., Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-05-000825-3 , p. 91.
- Wilfried Westphal: History of the German colonies . Gondrom, Bindlach 1991, ISBN 3-8112-0905-1 , p. 126ff.
Web links
- Photograph of the Uganda Treaty in the picture collection of the German Colonial Society in the University Library in Frankfurt am Main: page 1 , page 2
- Travel route of the German Emin Pascha expedition 1889/90
