Kapitaï and Koba

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Early map of the German overseas territories from 1885: Kapitaï and Koba are recorded as Dubrica (Dubréka)

Kapitaï and Koba (formerly also Kabitai and Coba or Kobah ) were two West African coastal countries that were a goal of German colonial efforts from 1884 . Despite an imperial letter of protection, Germany gave up its claims in 1885 in favor of France. Although the two countries were located between the Rio Pongo and Dubréka rivers and thus south of Senegal and Gambia in what is now Guinea , they were assigned to the geographical area of Senegambia in 19th century usage . The short-lived German possession was occasionally called the Dembiah Colony or, after its founder, Colinsland .

Friedrich Colin and his German-African business

Senegambia 1881: The rivers Dubréka and Dembia flow into the Sangaréa Bay (here: Sangari ), the Rio Pongo lies further north. The Los Islands in front of Sangaréa Bay are marked as a British sphere of interest
Detailed map of Lower Guinea with the settlement areas of the Baga and Sousou near Dubréka (end of the 19th century)

The Stuttgart merchant Friedrich Colin , who came from Landau, had been trading in an area of ​​West Africa since 1870 in the service of a French company, to which France had reserved claims since 1882 as part of its Rivières du Sud colony , but initially had not yet effectively substantiated it . Because of the French claims, Colin fell out with his French partners in 1882 and from then on pursued his own interests in West Africa, but the German Colonial Association refused to support him.

With the support of his brother Ludwig, who was director of the Württembergische Vereinsbank in Stuttgart, Friedrich Colin first set up a station for his own trading house in Boulbinek and in the area of ​​the still free Baga and Sousou in 1883 and 1884, as well as a handful of other factories and factories along the Dubréka river. Branches (including Bramaia) and concluded contracts with local chiefs and petty kings. In the same area, apart from the German branches, there was a British trading post with German employees and a French branch. In a meeting between Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and German entrepreneurs in Africa on April 28, 1884, Colin first called for the protection of his possessions through German annexations in the area of ​​Rivières du Sud.

On March 9, 1885, Colin founded the company “Fr. Colin, German-African Business “as a company for the purpose of promoting or developing trade with West Africa and the goal of penetrating into the headwaters of the Niger (mountainous region of Fouta Djallon ). The share capital was 600,000 marks . 420,000 marks of this were subscribed directly in Frankfurt am Main. The company's share certificates were for 10,000 marks. Colin's trading post in Africa became the property of the new trading company. Their seat was in Hamburg. The general agency transferred the company to the company G. W. Wolf . As a sponsor and member of his society, Colin was able, after mediation by his brother, from 1883 onwards, initially well-known colonial advocates such as Prince Hermann zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg , Count Friedrich von Frankenberg and Ludwigsdorf , Baron Karl von Varnbuler , the bankers de Neufville and Stern and the entrepreneurs Adolf von Brüning , Gustav Godeffroy , Leopold Schoeller and Gustav Siegle win. Thus Colin was assured of the goodwill of the Foreign Office.

"Colinsland" in Senegambia

Landscape between Conakry and Kamsar where Koba was (photo from 2001)

The land claimed by Colin consisted of the five minor kingdoms Kapitaï, Koba, Bramaya, Dubréka and Sumbuja, of which only the first two were under imperial protection. The mountainous and wooded kingdom of Kapitaï (also Capitay , Kapitay , Kabitai or Khabitaye ) was located between the rivers Dembiah and Dubréka about 400–500 meters above sea level. It covered about 1,650 km² in the area of ​​today's prefecture Dubréka , the main town was Iatia (Yatiya). The somewhat smaller Kingdom of Koba (Kobah) was located north of Kapitaï in a lowland between the Dembiah and Rio Pongo rivers and covered about 660 km² in the area of ​​today's Boffa prefecture , the main town was Taboria (Taboriya). At the end of the 19th century Koba was rich in palm, kola, nut and other fruit trees. Kapitaï was rich in rubber trees and ore , which is why his name was translated as "land of smiths". Both countries were crossed by waters rich in fish and were considered suitable for the cultivation of cotton and coffee. Kapitaï and Koba together counted about 30-40,000 inhabitants at that time, who were predominantly Muslim (especially Sousou). There are about 48 villages in Kapitaï and 45 in Koba. The overseas movement of goods consisted mainly of barter, in which European products were exchanged for rubber and copal resin . German import items included cotton textiles, spirits , gunpowder and flintlock rifles .

The southern kingdom of Sumbuja (also Sumbayland , Simbaya , Symbaya or Sumbujo ) in today's Coyah Prefecture (main town Wonkifong) broke up in 1884 after the death of its ruler in a turmoil. Colin's local representatives Louis Baur , Eduard Schmidt and Johannes Voss signed a contract with the heir to the throne Mory Fode on July 11, 1884, as well as with Alkali Bangali, the chief of Kapitaï country, on July 13. After he was able to conclude a contract of the same name with King Allie Te Uri of Koba on October 10, 1884, Colin applied in a letter to Chancellor Bismarck on October 12, 1884 that the German Empire should take over the patronage. The Baga king Bala Demba von Dubréka, father of the king of Kapitaï, also asked Kaiser Wilhelm I for trade with the Europeans in a letter that Colin handed over personally in Berlin and, in turn, promised their protection. In January 1885, the German warship SMS Ariadne reached the mouth of the Dubréka River and placed the area under German protection.

The contracts of the same name with King Mory and King Alkali each guaranteed for an annual salary of 200 dollars that Sumbuja and Kapitaï would not conclude any contracts with other powers without the approval of the German Empire and leave the regulation of the trade to the most favored Colin. The royal families, their subjects and the whole country should be placed under German "protection", the jurisdiction between Europeans and Africans should be subject to German imperial laws. Mory and Alkali were to give Colin land free of charge throughout the kingdom for the construction of roads, roads, bridges, railways and German mission schools, as well as providing the workers necessary for construction and maintenance.

The lieutenant from Minden a. D. Tilly began exploring the landscapes. However, he died in the spring of 1885 of suffering as a result of the rigors of travel.

Agreement with France

30 years after Colin's protection treaty: a King of the Baga-Koba (1914)

As early as 1880, in parallel with Colin, French colonial agents from Senegal had also concluded contracts with other chiefs and kings in the region. The French government therefore claimed the entire area between the Rio Pongo in the north and Sierra Leone in the south. Goods exported from European factories were subject to customs duties by France. French authorities demanded health certificates and anchor fees from incoming ships.

In June 1884, the Reich Commissioner for German West Africa (later Togo and Cameroon), Gustav Nachtigal , and his representative, Maximilian Buchner , explored the Los Islands and the Sangaréa Bay on board the German warships SMS Möwe and SMS Elisabeth . Their aim was to test the rival claims. On June 18, 1884, an expedition started by steam pinasse . In addition to Nachtigal and Buchner, it consisted of Messrs. Baur and Moewius as well as an officer, a doctor, two cadets , four NCOs and 19 sailors from Elisabeth . The following day, the detachment visited the Bala Dembas residence in Tumania on the Dubréka River - a small village with barely more than twenty farms , as Buchner writes. Nachtigal presented Bala Demba with a letter of reply from the German Emperor Wilhelm I and a gilded Renaissance sword as a gift . (Another gift, an equestrian statue of the emperor from ore, was not given out of consideration for the Islamic prohibition of images .) In return, the German side hoped that the friendship request would not be sealed by a protection contract . According to Buchner, Bala Demba was “apparently opposed to writing”. The detachment returned to the ships on June 21, 1884. The Elisabeth , who left the Sangaréa Bay on June 22, followed on 24 June, the seagull with Commissioner Nachtigal on board.

Startled by Colin's treaties and the German warships, France finally had its protectorate over the entire Bramayaland (Bramiah, in the area of ​​today's Fria prefecture ) and claims as far as Fouta Djallon (headwaters of the Niger, Senegal and Gambia rivers on September 3, 1884 ) ) proclaimed.

Already had a contract with France: King William Fernandez von Bramiah (front, 2nd from right), here with the later governor Jean-Marie Bayol , around 1885.

Unlike Nachtigal, who did not see the conditions for colonial acquisitions in Senegambia or Guinea because of the French claims, Colin saw no French rights and then urged the imperial government in October 1884 to send another warship to protect his properties. After the imperial government had given Colin a corresponding promise in November 1884, the corvette Ariadne drove up the rivers Dubréka and Dembia a few kilometers at the end of December 1884. The crew spent New Year's Eve with the German employee of the British trading post, Mr. Ohse. It went further upstream on January 1, 1885 on the private steamer Susu . The expedition consisted of Korvettenkapitän Chüden, Kapitänleutnant du Bois, Leutnant zur See Oppenheimer and five other Germans. Just like Colin, Chüden initially did not consider the areas to be French territory. The Bramiah King William Fernandez received Chüden hospitably and willing to cooperate, but stated that he had already concluded treaties with France. The most recent treaty was dated September 4, 1884 and, from Chüden's point of view, spoke clearly for France. In Bramiah he therefore refrained from hoisting a German flag. The following day, the Germans drove by rowing boat to the town of Yatiya (also Jatia) on the river of the same name, where Chüden met the King of Kapitaï, Alkali Bangali. On January 2nd, 1885, he finally had the German flag hoisted at Sangaréa Bay in the presence of the king, the German officers and a few sailors. Kapitaï was thus the German property of the House of F. Colin in Stuttgart. Even the king of Koba, Allie Te Uri, was prepared to cooperate with the local German representatives against French demands and had German flags hoisted in three of his villages from January 4 to 6, 1885. These flag hoists were communicated to the neighboring French military post in Boffa.

Claims of European states to coastal regions of West Africa, around 1885: Rivières du Sud or Kapitaï and Koba were controversial between France and Germany

On January 6, 1885, Kaiser Wilhelm I issued an official letter of protection from the Reich for both the Dubréka colony and the Dembia colony. Colin agreed to take over the costs of setting up a German colonial administration. But that never happened. As a result of the agreements of the Congo Conference , France and Germany began to delimit their spheres of interest and areas of influence from February 1885. Bismarck endeavored to weaken France's policy of revenge and to steer it towards colonial acquisitions that would instead divide France with England.

After Nachtigal's death in April 1885, the German ambassador in Paris, Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst , tried to find an understanding between France, the Reich and Colin's trading company. In an internal directive, Herbert von Bismarck made it clear that his father placed little emphasis on how the acquisition of Colin would be dealt with in detail. He asked, however, that the main focus should be on good relations with France. At the same time, the Togo-based company Wölber & Brohm campaigned to round off the borders of this colony by renouncing Kapitaï and Koba in favor of Germany. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, on the other hand, tried to persuade his relatives to ask France to give up Kapitaï and Koba as a “farewell present” before the latter was to change office. Otherwise, Colin's company would suffer significant losses. But neither Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst nor Heinrich von Kusserow , who was also asked for help , responded to this half-silly request - Hohenlohe-Langenburg himself sat on the board of directors of Colin's company - and asserted higher interests. Negotiations were suspended in the summer of 1885, but when they were resumed in November of the same year, Herbert von Bismarck's threat to Paris that Germany would “definitely settle” in Sangareah Bay if necessary was just a bluff for an early one Make a decision.

In the Franco-German Protocol of December 24, 1885, Germany finally recognized France's sovereignty over the region. In return, the German Reich received some strips of territory bordering Cameroon and Togo ( Anecho and Batanga Coast ). Colin's “German-African business” fell under French jurisdiction, and Prince Hermann zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg then withdrew from the company.

present

In Guinea, which has been independent since 1958, Koba today forms the Koba-Tatema sub -prefecture within the Boffa prefecture together with Taboriya . Khabitaye is a 4,900 hectare national park, and Kapitaï's former capital, Yatiya, is now part of the Khorira sub-prefecture .

See also

literature

  • Brockhaus' Conversations-Lexikon, supplement volume. Leipzig 1887
  • Herrmann Chüden: The negro kingdoms Coba and Kabitai, the Sangareah-Bai and the rivers that flow into the same, in: Annalen der Hydrographie. Volume 13, No. 6, 1885, p. 321 ff.
  • Norbert B. Wagner: Archive of German Colonial Law (PDF; 2.0 MB) Brühl / Wesseling 2008
  • August Totzke: Germany's colonies and its colonial policy. Bruns: Minden i. W. 1885, p. 229 ff. ( Digital collection of the University and State Library of Münster )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Afrika: Erforschungsgeschichte, in: Paul Heichen (Hrsg.): Afrika Hand-Lexikon . Volume 1, Gressner & Schramm, Leipzig 1885, p. 39 ff.
  2. ↑ Kurt Hassert : Germany's Colonies - Acquisition and Development History, Regional and Folklore and Economic Significance of our Protected Areas. Dr. Soul & Co., Leipzig 1899, p. 34.
  3. ↑ a b c August Totzke: Germany's colonies and its colonial policy. Bruns: Minden i. W. 1885, p. 229 ff.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Max von Koschitzky: Deutsche Colonialgeschichte. Volume 2 - Acquisition of the Reich Protected Areas until the Carolinen Controversy was settled, Paul Frohberg's publishing house, Leipzig 1888, pp. 190 ff. ( Online ).
  5. ↑ Without author: The German Dembiah Colony in Northwest Africa, in: Deutsche Kolonialzeitung. 2. Vol., Ed. 9, 1885, pp. 277-279. ( Online on the website of the University of Frankfurt am Main ).
  6. ↑ a b Origins of Modern German Colonialism , Chapter 8 ( DjVu )
  7. ↑ Jean Suret-Canale: La maison de négoce de Friedrich Colin, la “German-African business” et la tentative d'implantation allemande en Guinée (1880–1908), in: Hubert Bonin, Michel Cahen et al. (Ed.): Négoce blanc en Afrique noire - L'évolution du commerce à longue distance en Afrique noire du 18e au 20e siècles. Société française d'histoire d'outre mer, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-85970-024-2 , p. 272.
  8. ↑ Bramaia, in: Paul Heichen (Ed.): Afrika Hand-Lexikon. Volume 1, Gressner & Schramm, Leipzig 1885, p. 256.
  9. ↑ Khabitaye (information taken from enzyklo.de from the former Meyers online lexicon )
  10. ↑ a b Meyers Konversationslexikon, Volume 17, p. 214 . 4th edition, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892
  11. ↑ a b c d Baden-Württemberg State Archives: Estate of Prince Hermann zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg
  12. ↑ a b c d Wagner, p. 153f
  13. ↑ Hans-Georg Steltzer : The Germans and their colonial empire. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-79730416-1 , p. 76.
  14. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : Bismarck and Imperialism. 4th edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-423-04187-0 , p. 330.
  15. ↑ a b c d e A. L. Melzer: The German colonies, the Congo state, Australia and America as goals of emigration and colonization - an adviser for emigrants, travelers and newspaper readers. Föllen, Berlin 1885, p. 18 ff.
  16. ↑ a b Brockhaus, p. 461f
  17. ↑ a b Meyers Konversationslexikon, Volume 9, p. 892 . 4th edition, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892
  18. ↑ Africa: State division, in: Paul Heichen (Hrsg.): Afrika Hand-Lexikon. Volume 1, Gressner & Schramm, Leipzig 1885, pp. 85 ff.
  19. ↑ a b Wagner, p. 340
  20. ↑ a b Wagner, p. 345
  21. ^ Wagner, p. 155
  22. ^ Wagner, p. 241
  23. ↑ Albert Röhr: GERMAN NAVY CHRONICLE. Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg / Hamburg 1974, ISBN 3-7979-1845-3 , p. 90
  24. ↑ a b German Protected Areas in West Africa
  25. ↑ Hans Holzhaider: A Bavarian on behalf of His Majesty. Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 8, 2017, accessed on June 11, 2017 .
  26. ↑ Max Buchner : Aurora Colonialis - fragments of a diary from the first beginning of our colonial policy 1884/1885. Piloty & Loehle, Munich 1914, p. 16 ff. (Unchanged facsimile reprint, Fines Mundi, Saarbrücken 2016).
  27. ^ Meyers Konversationslexikon, correspondence sheet for the 1st volume, p. 1023 . Leipzig / Vienna 1885
  28. ↑ Dr. H. Klee (Ed.): Latest Communications , Volume IV, No. 14, Berlin, February 3, 1885.
  29. ↑ Hans Peter Müller: The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Beginnings of German Colonial Policy (1879 / 80-90), in: Commission for Geschichtliche Landeskunde in Baden-Württemberg and Württembergischer Geschichts- und Altertumsverein Stuttgart (Ed.): Journal for Württemberg State History. Volume 66, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2007, ISSN 0044-3786, p. 441.
  30. ↑ Vladimir Petrovich Potjomkin : History of Diplomacy , Volume Two (The Diplomacy of Modern Times 1872-1919). SWA-Verlag Berlin 1948, pp. 94ff and 128.
  31. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler 1976, p. 332 f.
  32. ^ Wagner, p. 202
  33. ↑ Brockhaus, p. 16
  34. ^ Wilfried Westphal: History of the German colonies . Gondrom, Bindlach 1991, ISBN 3-8112-0905-1 , p. 197.
  35. ↑ Passarge-Rathjens: Batanga Coast . In: Heinrich Schnee (Ed.): Deutsches Koloniallexikon , Vol. I. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1920, p. 142.