Maji Maji Rebellion
The Maji Maji Rebellion, sometimes called the Maji Maji War, was an uprising by several African tribes in German East Africa against the German colonial rulers, lasting from 1905 to 1907.
Background
As a result of the Scramble for Africa among the major European powers in the 1880s, Germany had ended up with several colonies on the "Dark Continent". These were German East Africa (now Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and part of Mozambique), German Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia), Cameroon, and Togoland (today split between Ghana and Togo).
They had a relatively weak hold on German East Africa, but they did maintain a system of forts throughout the interior of the territory and were able to exert some control over it. Since their hold on the colony was weak, they resorted to using violently repressive tactics to control the population.
They began levying head taxes in 1898, and relied heavily on forced labour to build roads and accomplish various other tasks. In 1902 the governor also ordered villages to grow cotton as a cash crop. Each village was charged with producing a common plot of cotton. The Headmen of the village were left in charge of overseeing the production; a position that left them vulnerable to criticism and rage from the population. The use of regular villagers, who had other things to do, to produce cotton was extremely unpopular across Tanzania. In many places the villagers simply refused to work the land, or refused payment.
These German policies were not only unpopular, they also had serious effects on the lives of Africans. The social fabric of society was being changed rapidly. The social roles of men and women were being changed to face the needs of the communities. Since men were forced away from their homes to work, women were forced to assume some of the traditional male roles. Not only that, but the fact that men were away strained the resources of the village and the peoples’ ability to deal with their environment and remain self sufficient. These effects created a lot of animosity against the government at this period. In 1905 a drought threatened the region. This, combined with opposition to the government's agricultural and labour policies, led to open rebellion against the Germans in July.
The natives turned to magic to drive out the German colonizers and used it as a unifying force in the rebellion. A spirit medium named Kinjikitile Ngwale claimed to be possessed by a snake spirit called Hongo. Ngwale began calling himself Bokero and developed a belief that the people of German East Africa had been called upon to eliminate the Germans. German anthropologists recorded that he gave his followers war medicine that would turn German bullets into water. This "war medicine" was in fact water (maji in Swahili) mixed with castor oil and millet seeds. Empowered with this new liquid, Bokero's followers began what would become known as the Maji Maji Rebellion.
The Uprising
The followers of Bokero's movement were poorly armed with cap guns, spears, and arrows, sometimes poisoned. However, they were numerous, and wearing millet stalks around their foreheads, they started from the Matumbi Hills in the southern part of what is now Tanzania and attacked German garrisons throughout the colony. In the south of the colony, German forces amounted to 458 Europeans and 588 native soldiers. Nonetheless, the Germans used their superior firepower to their advantage. At Mahenge, several thousand Maji Maji warriors (led by another spirit medium, not Bokero) marched on the German cantonment there which was defended by Lieutenant von Hassel with sixty African soldiers and a machine gun. Many Maji Maji fighters were killed by machine gun fire.
While this was the apex of the uprising, the Ngoni people decided to join in the revolt with a force of 5,000. German troops, armed with machine guns, departed from Mahenge to the Ngoni camp, which they attacked on 21 October. The Ngoni soldiers retreated, throwing away their bottles of war medicine and crying, "The maji is a lie!"
Upon the outbreak of the fighting, Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen, governor of East Africa, had requested reinforcements from the German government. Kaiser Wilhelm immediately ordered two cruisers with their Marine complements to the troubled colony. Reinforcements also arrived from as far away as New Guinea. When 1,000 regular soldiers from Germany arrived in October, Götzen felt he could go on the offensive and restore order in the south.
Three columns moved into the rebellious South. They destroyed villages, crops and other food sources used by the rebels. They made effective use of their firepower to break up any attacks the rebels might launch.
A successful ambush on a German column crossing the Ruhuji River by the Bena kept the rebellion alive in the southwest, but the Germans were not to be denied for long. By April 1906, the southwest had been pacified.
However, elsewhere the fighting was bitter. A column under Lt. Gustav von Blumenthal (1879-1913, buried at Lindi) consisting of himself, one other European and 46 Askaris fell under continuous attack as it marched in early May 1906 from Songea to Mahenge. The Germans decided to concentrate at Kitanda, where Major Johannes, Lt. von Blumenthal and Lt von Lindeiner eventually met up. Lt. von Blumenthal was then sent along the river Luwegu, partly by boat.
The southeast campaign degenerated into a nasty guerrilla war that brought with it a devastating famine. Not until August of 1907 were the embers of rebellion stamped out.
In its wake, the Maji-Maji rebellion left several hundred Germans and 75,000 natives dead. It also broke the spirit of the natives to resist and the colony remained calm until the outbreak of World War I.
Aftermath and interpretation
The Maji Maji uprising was the greatest challenge to German colonial rule in Africa. The German suppression changed the history of southern Tanzania. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people died or were displaced from their homes.
In the wake of the war, the imperial government instituted administrative reforms so that, by the outbreak of the First World War, Tanganyika could be said to be among the better-adminstered European colonies in Africa .
The rebellion became a focal point in the history of the region. Later Tanzanian nationalists used it as an example of the first stirrings of Tanzanian nationalism, a unifying experience that brought together all the different peoples of Tanzania under one leader in an attempt to establish a nation free from foreign domination.
Later historians have challenged this view, claiming that the rebellion can not be seen as a unified movement, but rather a series of revolts conducted for a wide range of reasons. Many people in the area itself saw the revolt as one part of a longer series of wars continuing since long before the arrival of Germans in the region. They cite the alliance of some groups with the Germans in order to further their own agendas at the time.
Today, the area in Tanzania where the Maji Maji war took place is one of the largest wildlife reserves in Africa.
Kinjikitile "Bokero" Ngwale is revered as a hero by the people of Tanzania.
See also
External links
- Bullets into Water: The Sorcerers of Africa
- Maji Maji Bibliography Project
- The East African - Michael Okema: Maji Maji