The Maji Maji Rebellion (german: Maji-Maji-Aufstand, sw, Vita vya Maji Maji), was an armed rebellion of
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
ic and
animist
Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, Soul, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct Spirituality, spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—Animal, animals, Plant, plants, Ro ...
Africans against German colonial rule in
German East Africa
German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozam ...
(modern-day
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
). The war was triggered by German Colonial policies designed to force the indigenous population to grow cotton for export. The war lasted from 1905 to 1907, during which 75,000 to 300,000 died, overwhelmingly from famine.
After the
scramble for Africa
The Scramble for Africa, also called the Partition of Africa, or Conquest of Africa, was the invasion, annexation, division, and colonisation of Africa, colonization of most of Africa by seven Western Europe, Western European powers during a ...
among the major European powers in the 1880s, Germany reinforced its hold on several formal African colonies. These were German East Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and part of Mozambique), German Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia), Cameroon, and Togoland (today split between Ghana and Togo). The Germans had a relatively weak hold on German East Africa. However, they maintained 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. This led to famed rebel leaders like Susiye Baoka having to lead guerilla struggles against them, mainly inspired by the bolasuka strategy, to use massive fireballs to destroy enemy lines. The Bolasuka strategy proved effective.
Germany levied head taxes in 1898 and relied heavily on forced labor to build roads and accomplish various other tasks. In 1902,
Von Götzen ordered villages to grow cotton as a cash crop for export. Each village was charged with producing a quota of cotton. The headmen of the village were left in charge of overseeing the production, which set them against the rest of the population.
The German policies were very unpopular, as they had serious effects on the lives of local peoples. 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. Also, the fact that men were away strained the resources of the village and the people's ability to deal with their environment and remain self-sufficient. In 1905, a drought threatened the region. All that, as well as opposition to the government's agricultural and labour policies, led to open rebellion against the Germans in July.
The insurgents 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, who practiced
Folk Islam
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized rel ...
that incorporated
animist beliefs, 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 Kiswahili) mixed with
castor oil
Castor oil is a vegetable oil pressed from castor beans.
It is a colourless or pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor. Its boiling point is and its density is 0.961 g/cm3. It includes a mixture of triglycerides in which about ...
and
millet
Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...
seeds.
Empowered with this new liquid, Bokero's followers began what would become known as the Maji Maji Rebellion.
The end of the war was followed by a period of
famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
, known as the Great Hunger (''ukame''), caused in large part by the scorched-earth policy advocated by
Gustav Adolf von Götzen
Gustav Adolf Graf von Götzen (12 May 1866 – 2 December 1910) was a German colonizer and Governor of German East Africa. He came to Rwanda in 1894 becoming the second European to enter the territory, since Oscar Baumann’s brief expedition in ...
.
file:Maji Maji rebellion - de.png, Map of
German East Africa
German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozam ...
with the areas affected by the rebellion highlighted in red.
Uprising
The followers of Bokero's movement were poorly armed with spears and arrows, sometimes poisoned.
However, they were numerous and believed that they could not be harmed because the Germans' bullets would turn to water.
They marched from their villages wearing
millet
Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...
stalks around their foreheads. Initially, they attacked small outposts and damaged cotton plants. On 31 July 1905, Matumbi tribesmen marched on Samanga and destroyed the cotton crop as well as a trading post. Kinjikitile was arrested and hanged for treason. Before his execution, he declared that he had spread the medicine of the rebellion throughout the region.
On 14 August 1905, Ngindo tribesmen attacked a small party of missionaries on a safari; all five, including Bishop Spiss (the
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
Bishop of
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...
) were speared to death.
Soon the
Yao tribes started participating and throughout August the rebels moved from the Matumbi Hills in the southern part of what is now
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
and attacked German garrisons throughout the colony. The attack on Ifakara, on 16 August, destroyed the small German garrison and opened the way to the key fortification at
Mahenge
Mahenge is a town in the Mahenge Mountains of Tanzania. It is the headquarters of Ulanga District in Morogoro Region.
There is a hospital, a market, and primary schools. A Catholic Capuchin mission was established around 1897, and there is n ...
. Though the southern garrison was quite small (there were but 458 European and 588 native soldiers in the entire area), their fortifications and modern weapons gave them an advantage. At Mahenge, several thousand Maji Maji warriors (led by another spirit medium, not Bokero) marched on the German cantonment, which was defended by Lieutenant
Theodor von Hassel
Theodor von Hassel (29 September 1868 – 29 November 1935) was a German officer and a farmer in East Africa. He was also noted as an enthusiastic hunter of elephants.
His son, Kai-Uwe von Hassel, served as president of the West German Bundest ...
with sixty native soldiers, a few hundred loyal tribesmen, and two
machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
s.
The two attacking tribes disagreed on when to attack and were unable to co-ordinate. The first attack was met with gunfire from 1000 m; the tribesmen stood firm for about fifteen minutes, then they broke and retreated. After the first attack, a second column of 1,200 men advanced from the east. Some of these attackers were able to get within three paces of the firing line before they were killed.
The
Qadiriyya Brotherhood declared a
Jihad
Jihad (; ar, جهاد, jihād ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with Go ...
against the Germans, with
Sufi Muslims
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spiri ...
now playing a major role in the rebellion.
While this was the apex of the uprising, the
Ngoni people
The Ngoni people are an ethnic group living in the present-day Southern African countries of Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. The Ngoni trace their origins to the Nguni and Zulu people of kwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The di ...
decided to join in the revolt with a force of 5,000. The Muslim Gwangara Ngoni were relatively recent arrivals in the region, descendants of a remnant of the Ndwandwe confederation defeated by the Zulus in 1818 (other Ngoni states were formed in Malawi, Zambia, and north-central Tanzania). 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
Gustav Adolf Graf von Götzen (12 May 1866 – 2 December 1910) was a German colonizer and Governor of German East Africa. He came to Rwanda in 1894 becoming the second European to enter the territory, since Oscar Baumann’s brief expedition in ...
, governor of German 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 rebel attacks. A successful ambush of a German column crossing the
Rufiji River
The Rufiji River lies entirely within Tanzania. It is also the largest and longest river in the country. The river is formed by the confluence of the Kilombero and Luwegu rivers. It is approximately long, with its source in southwestern Tanzania ...
by the Bena kept the rebellion alive in the southwest, but the Germans were not 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
Lindi is a historic southern Tanzanian coastal small city and regional capital of the Lindi Region located at the far end of Lindi Bay, on the Indian Ocean in southeastern Tanzania. The town is south of Dar es Salaam and north of Mtwara, ...
) consisting of himself, one other European and 46 Askaris fell under continuous attack as it marched in early May 1906, from
Songea
Songea is the capital of Ruvuma Region in southwestern Tanzania. It is located along the A19 road. The city has a population of approximately 203,309, and it is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Songea. Between 1905 and 1907, the cit ...
to Mahenge. The Germans decided to concentrate at
Kitanda, where Major Johannes, Lt. von Blumenthal and
Lt. von Lindeiner-Wildau eventually gathered. Von Blumenthal was then sent along the
Luwegu River, partly by boat. The southeast campaign degenerated into a guerrilla war that brought with it a devastating famine.
The famine following the Maji Maji Rebellion was partly deliberate. Von Götzen was willing to pardon the common soldiers who gave up their weapons, leaders and traditional healers. However, he also needed to flush out the remaining rebels and so chose famine. In 1905, one of the leaders of German troops in the colony, Captain Wangenheim, wrote to von Götzen, "Only hunger and want can bring about a final submission. Military actions alone will remain more or less a drop in the ocean."
Not until August 1907 were the last embers of rebellion extinguished. In its wake, the rebellion had left 15 Germans and 389 askaris and tens or even hundreds of thousands of insurgents and local civilians dead.
Aftermath and interpretation
The
Abushiri revolt
The Abushiri revolt, also known as the slave trader revolt (german: Sklavenhändlerrevolte), was an insurrection in 1888–1889 by the Arab and Swahili population of the areas of the coast of East Africa that were granted, under protest, to G ...
of 1888–1889 and the Wahehe Rebellion of 1891–1898 are viewed by historians as precursors of the Maji Maji uprising. The suppression of the Maji Maji people changed the history of southern
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
. 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, and by the outbreak of the First World War, Tanganyika could be said to be among the better-administered European colonies in Africa. The rebellion became a focal point in the history of the region. Journalist
John Gunther
John Gunther (August 30, 1901 – May 29, 1970) was an American journalist and writer.
His success came primarily by a series of popular sociopolitical works, known as the "Inside" books (1936–1972), including the best-selling '' Insi ...
noted in 1953 that "even today the Southern Province of
Tanganyika
Tanganyika may refer to:
Places
* Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state
* Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania
* Tanzania Main ...
, the 'Cinderella Province,' has not fully recovered from the German terror half a century ago. The economy of the region has never been successfully rebuilt."
Later Tanzanian
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
s 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 that view and claimed that the rebellion cannot be seen as a unified movement but rather a series of revolts conducted for a wide range of reasons, including religion. The Muslim Ngoni chiefs were offered Christian baptism before execution. 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 to further their own agendas.
See also
*
Chief Mkwawa
Chief Mkwavinyika Munyigumba Mwamuyinga (1855 – 19 July 1898), more commonly known as Chief Mkwawa or Sultan Mkwawa, was a Hehe tribal leader in German East Africa, based in Kalenga, Iringa region, who opposed the German colonization. The na ...
*
Herero Wars
The Herero Wars were a series of colonial wars between the German Empire and the Herero people of German South West Africa (present-day Namibia). They took place between 1904 and 1908.
Background Pre-colonial South-West Africa
The Hereros wer ...
**
Herero and Namaqua genocide
The Herero and Namaqua genocide or the Herero and Nama genocide was a campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment waged by the German Empire against the Herero (Ovaherero) and the Nama in German South West Africa (now Namibia). ...
References
External links
Maji Maji Bibliography Project
{{Authority control
1905 in German East Africa
1906 in German East Africa
1907 in German East Africa
20th-century rebellions
African resistance to colonialism
Conflicts in 1905
Conflicts in 1906
Conflicts in 1907
Conflicts involving the German Empire
History of Tanzania by period
Military history of German East Africa
Rebellions in Africa