Scramble for East Africa
Terms of the Anglo-German Agreement, 1886
- The Sultan of Zanzibar was given a 16 kms coastal strip and the offshore islands of Pate, Mafia, Pemba, Zanzibar and Lamu.
- Germany got the territory between River Umba in the north and River Ruvuma in the south. The coastline of Witu was also considered to be under Germany’s sphere of influence.
- Britain got the territory north of River Umba to River Juba in the north.
The rule about the western boundary and Uganda was simple: it was left open to whichever power got there first. Subsequently, Imperial British East Africa Company (formed by William Mackinnon in 1887) and Germany East Africa Company (formed by Carl Peters in 1887) were mooted and entrusted by their home governments with the work of administering their respective territories. What ensued next was nothing short of expected, as both Britain and Germany sought to take over Uganda. At the same time, Italy had now joined the colonial race and was disputing with the British East Africa Company (IBEA) over ports controlled by the Sultan – Kismayu, Merka, Mogadishu and Warsheikh – in the northern coast. At this point, the IBEA Co. had an upper hand in the affairs of East Africa, now claiming authority over an area of about 300 kms inland and favoured by the Sultan. Britain had previously handed over Lamu to the Sultan who had in turn relinquished it back to them. Likewise, the British had handed over the northern ports back to the Sultan, with same outcome. Classic British diplomacy at its best, and a show of shrewd political ethos by the IBEA. Not to be bedazzled, the Germans convened a second diplomatic negotiations meeting in 1890 that would be the 2nd Anglo-German Agreement, or Heligoland Treaty.
Terms of the Anglo-German Agreement, 1890
- Uganda was recognized by Germany as an area within British influence.
- Germany relinquished her claim over Witu, and also accepted the Islands of Zanzibar and Pemba as under British sphere of influence.
- Germany agreed to own a strip on Lake Tanganyika acquired from the British and the coastal region of Tanganyika from the Sultan for a fee.
- The western boundary was also defined.
Although the long term impact and process of developing their colonies was strenuous for both, Germany’s policy of less-is-more would turn out to be a high value decision in establishing colonial rule. The action came thick and fast, with some of the immediate challenges including the large capital outlay required to develop the colonies, scarcity of natural resources, non-existent lines of communication in the hinterland, no telecommunication and lack of navigable rivers. Then, there were the insurmountable odds like the cultural barriers, tropical diseases, acclimatization and the resistance from the natives.
The IBEA Co’s plan had sparked controversy and drawn heated discussion back home, with some saying it evoked dystopian notions of capital outflow based on unrealistic projections. So much so, that the IBEA Co. was forced to surrender its charter to the government in 1894 and Uganda was declared a protectorate in the same year – with the British Consul General in Zanzibar now assigned to administer it. In 1895, the British Government declared the territory that was to become Kenya as the East African Protectorate. “It was their wish that they do everything within their means to make the territory economically effective”.
Native Response to Colonial Rule
Henceforth, operations were run from Britain and the officials used the posts which had been established by the IBEA Co. In the beginning, when the British were still getting their footing around the colony and settling manpower, they had preferred signing of treaties to establish their colonial rule. “This method was used where the natives were peaceful and readily accepted protection and payment of taxes, for example, the Maasai agreements of 1904 and 1911″. This approach wasn’t achieving half the goals in double the time, so Britain needed to figure out how to start making effective progress. In any case, most of the communities resisted the British. So, they decided to try and boost progress by pushing their way into a much older method of convincing: military conquest or use of force. It is perhaps less of surprise, then, that with no other power other than that of military might, the British made considerable gains in suppressing the natives in their rapid result strategy, and alleviated any form of resistance.
At ground zero, the Coast Region of Kenya, the Swahili under the Mazrui Arabs had maintained a strong system of governance and were unwilling to give up their independence without a fight, often mounting guerilla attacks to resist the British, and declining all treaties proposed. In return, the British moderate approach was hewn to a firmer stratagem, on-boarding the Balustan regiment from Northern India to send a clear message. By 1900, the British were in full control of most of the towns at the Coast. A little further inland, in Taita, the natives had put up a spirited resistance in 1892 and in 1897, but this too proved to be no match for the loftier British artillery and by 1902 Taita was well under British rule. This scenario would replay itself in the sparsely populated River Tana Delta, with the same outcome, albeit a much faster one. The peripheral area between Coast and the Central Highland required a much softer approach, for this was Maasailand, guarded by the fierce Maasai whose presence here is widely cited to have saved the region from widespread slave trade. The Maasai, now controlling a vast territory in the southern plains of Kenya, also controlled movement of trade caravans to the hinterland. “It was expected that the Maasai would put up a stiff resistance against the Brits. As it turned out, however, that was never the case. They collaborated, and dealt with the Brits diplomatically”.
Throughout the 19th Century, the Maasai’s sphere influence had spread far and wide, to as far as Uasin Gishu, Lake Victoria and south into Tanzania. Howbeit, prolonged drought, rinderpest attacks and wrangling between its factions (the pastoralist Purko led by Laibon Supet and the agriculturalist Uasin Gishu Kwavi who were almost wiped out by the Purko between 1850 and 1870) had all led to the Maasai decline in the late 1890’s. Even more worrying for the Maasai, their arch-rivals, Kalenjin-Nandi, were on the rise, gaining territory and centralizing their power base. Closer to home, the Maasai’s broken spirits were still reeling from the shock of the 1895 Kedong Massacre. As it goes, Maasai warriors had attacked a caravan of the Agikuyu that was returning from Eldama Ravine and in the ensuing fracas they had killed about 650 Agikuyu and Swahili porters. It elicited the response of a settler trader, Andrew Dick, who in company with two French travellers had gunned 100 Maasai warrior. To make things even worse, a British official named Gilkinson had led a further assault on the Maasai. The events had spooked the Maasai beyond their wildest imagination of defeat, and forced the hand of Laibon Lenana to seek help from the British. In the short-term, the relationship appeared to benefit both. In the Maasai Agreement of 1904, two reserved were setup, at Laikipia and Ngong, and Maasai promised to have the rights of this land in perpetuity. They were also rewarded with cattle from communities they helped to pacify including the Agikuyu, Nandi and Luo. In the long-run, the Maasai would end up losing 75% of their land and isolated to a small fraction of the area in the Ngong Reserve, in the 1911 land agreement.
“Following Supet’s death, Mbatian, one of his sons, reigned as Laibon between 1866 and 1890. But from about 1875, the pastoral groups began to fight each other in a Purko split of warring factions. Each group supplied a different son of Mbatian as the Laibon. This succession dispute weakened the Maasai even further, and Lenana seemed to losing the battle to his brother Sendeyo. It was for this reason that Lenana appealed to the British for help. With the latter’s assistance, Lenana defeated his brother Sendeyo, driving him southwards to Tanzania. After all said and done, Lenana became the undisputed Laibon”.