Die „Eingeborenen“ Deutsch-Südwestafrikas

Ihr Bild in deutschen Kolonialzeitschriften von 1884–1918

Author: Peter Scheulen. Series edited by: Michael Bollig, Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig †.

Series: HSA History, Cultural Traditions and Innovations in Southern Africa Volume 5

This study reconstructs the image German Colonialists held of their indigenous subjects of their colony Deutsch-Südwestafrika during the time from 1884–1918, using articles and images in German Colonial newspapers as source material. The articles and images, which are analysed in this scientific study for the first time, clearly indicate that at that time colonizer and colonized were in a kind of dialogue, contrary to common expectations. Though marked by the inequality of the participants, it still had a considerable influence on their images of and their actions towards each other. The latter did not always imply conflict. Often mutual interests lead to a harmonious coexistence.

The Germans differed in their views of the natives, depending on their competing interests, as evidenced by e.g. the Colonial administration, missionaries, merchants and settlers. Furthermore, the different images developed during the 34 years of German Colonial government and in the end the negative interpretations of the natives were clearly predominant.

The perspective chosen in this study is that of a cultural anthropologist. By evaluating the sources a contrasting procedure is found: the statements of the Colonial period are gathered together and intensified into coherent ethnographic pictures, and then the underlying concepts and images of the contemporaries are deduced.

The description of the legal conditions of the colonized in Deutsch-Südwestafrika is handled in a separate chapter. Apart from that the author deals with some of the dominant stereotypes at the time in the German empire about the inhabitants of Africa. These examinations give an important frame of reference for the analysis of the actual sources used in this book.

Under these links you will find another publication by the author in SUGIA 12/13 and further studies of the history of southern Africa:

Accompanying material:

• Frühe Kolonialgeschichte Namibias, 1880–1930 (ISBN 978-3-89645-058-6)
• Kalahari and Namib Bushmen in German South West Africa (ISBN 978-3-89645-146-0)
• Social Organization of the !Kõ Bushmen (ISBN 978-3-927620-57-5)
• South African |Xam Bushmen Traditions and Their Relationships to Further Khoisan Folklore (ISBN 978-3-89645-875-9)
• SUGIA Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika (ISBN 978-3-927620-22-3)
• The Kalahari Ethnographies (1896–1898) of Siegfried Passarge (ISBN 978-3-89645-141-5)
• The San and the Colonization of the Cape 1770–1879 (ISBN 978-3-927620-58-2)

Cross-reference:

• “Grandmother’s Footsteps” (ISBN 978-3-89645-056-2)
• „For the Power and Glory“ (ISBN 978-3-89645-451-5)
• „Widerstand und Gottesfurcht“ (ISBN 978-3-89645-059-3)
• Afrikaner schreiben zurück (ISBN 978-3-89645-053-1)
• Der Caprivizipfel während der deutschen Kolonialzeit 1890–1914 (ISBN 978-3-89645-050-0)
• Die Hottentottin (ISBN 978-3-89645-316-7)
• Heinrich Vedder’s ‘The Bergdama’ (ISBN 978-3-89645-358-7)
• Hendrik Witbooi – ein Leben für die Freiheit (ISBN 978-3-89645-315-0)
• Manasse Tjiseseta, Chief of Omaruru, 1884–1898, Namibia (ISBN 978-3-89645-055-5)
• San and the State (ISBN 978-3-89645-357-0)
• The Kavango Peoples in the Past (ISBN 978-3-89645-353-2)
• The Mbukushu in Angola (ISBN 978-3-89645-350-1)

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