German Colonial Policy in the Pacific Islands: Origin, Determinants and Implementation
Henning, Rodney M (September 1982). German Colonial Policy in the Pacific Islands: Origin, Determinants and Implementation (Thesis). University of Hawaii.
- Has attachment: File:FCNC3DKN.pdf
Abstract: "The Germans are coming:" In the mid-1880's, that was an anxious cry where Australian and New Zealand businessmen were concerned. They were familiar with Theodor Weber, the "South Sea King" and his "Long-Handle Firm," the Deutsche Handels-und plantagengesellschaft zu Sudsee Inseln Hamburg (DHPG). Its trading stations were spread throughout the Pacific from the Tuamotu Islands to New Guinea, and its ships carried a significant portion of the European trade in the Pacific. By then Weber and his German proteges had gained a reputation as tough and calculating merchants, not only with their competitors but with the Islanders as well. Land acquisitions in the Samoa Islands and New Guinea for copra plantations, gained legally or through confiscation by the these merchants, inevitably led to disputes with Islanders. Land once "sold" to the white man was difficult to reclaim, and animosities on the part of both German merchant and Islanders continued to simmer, occasionally leading to violence and bloodshed. Passive and active resistance on the part of the Islanders led to a call for assistance and protection from the other country by the German traders and planters. SOOn the islanders found German warships at their shores demanding guarantees of friendship or warning of retaliation for misdeeds against the German Empire's loyal and prosperous subjects. When politics did not go the latter's way, they sought to make politics work to their advantage, either by tacit support of the opposition or by direct interference. Land ownership to the Islanders was important, but no less so to the Germans, who required law and order and security of property for their financial prosperity. In Germany, the merchants were supported by a very vocal minority favoring acquisition of colonial territories and eXPansion of the Empire into Africa and the pacific. Eventually the vocal minorities and their support within the Imperial government were politically powerful enough to create the conditions favorable for colonial acquisitions. Bismarck, steadfastly cautious about colonial endeavors, reversed his attitudes about colonial acquisition in 1884 and 1885 to declare protectorates in Africa, the Marshall Islands and New Guinea. He returned to his previous policies thereafter, which his successor, Caprivi, maintained. However, Kaiser Wilhelm II chose to exhibit and maintained a more aggressive attitude toward territorial acquisition until the beginning of World War Ie At the turn of the century, turmoil in Samoa combined with the defeat of the Spanish to give the German merchants the security and stable colonial government they required and Kaiser Wilhelm the remaining territory of Micronesia that he wanted. For most of the fifteen years remaining of German Colonial Rule in New Guinea, Samoa and Micronesia, the administrators had difficulty just keeping the peace. The turmoil, which the Germans experienced from the outset, did not end with colonial acquisition. The government could not totally pacify or sUbjugate the Islanders. Their resistance continued pressure on the colonial administrators until foreign occupation of German Pacific territories as result of World War I. 'This paper intends to review events and factors which gave rise to and shaped German policy in the pacific. It traces the foundations for German entry into the Pacific, the wellspring of colonial aspirations and the methods by which acquisitions were effected. Its major purpose is to define the policies of the German colonial participants and government which were in force before and after formal annexation. The native response to German activities, though not often found in print, can be considered as explicitly forming indigenous "policy" toward the German colonials.
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MAG: 2292155800 CorpusID: 129974966 OpenAlex: W2292155800
