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Local Roots of Policy in German East Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Marcia Wright
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Extract

The standard history of the German period in Tanzania has been seriously marred by imperial rivalries and excessive concentration on metropolitan aspects of German policy-making. In the period to 1907, which has heretofore been written off as a time of punitive expeditions and absence of administrative direction, the government in fact developed a secular state education service. The standard curriculum generated by the state was later adopted by missionary schools. The policy was controversial, and the strength of the administration's relatively pro-African position may be explained by the continuity of personnel, by the popularity of the secular schools, and by pessimism among officials as to whether white settlers could make an economic contribution commensurate with their political claims.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 1968 , pp. 621 - 630
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

1 The principal archives used were the Secretariat (Zentralbureau) files, especially the series on schools and missions deposited in the National Archives of Tanzania (NAT), and records of German missionary societies in Tanzania and Germany (Herrnhut, Berlin, Leipzig, Bethel).

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7 Extreme examples of the exclusive metropolitan orientation continue to appear. See Richard, V. Pierard, ‘The Dernburg reform policy and German East Africa’, Tanzania Notes and Records, no. 67 (1967), 31 ff.Google Scholar

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