February is Black History Month and this year marks the 400th anniversary that blacks were brought to Bermuda as indentured servants. Throughout this month, The Royal Gazette will feature people, events, places and institutions that have contributed to the shaping of African history

The Maji Maji Uprising in Tanganyika was the most significant African challenge to German colonial rule during the brief period when Germany had African colonies. The uprising lasted two years and involved people over 10,000 square miles.

During the “scramble for Africa” that began with the Treaty of Berlin in 1885, European powers dominated much of Africa, carving out vast territories as their own and establishing often brutal regimes to enforce their rule.

Four major regions had been colonised by Germany, including Tanganyika (modern-day Tanzania), Togo, Cameroon and Namibia. Tanzania had been acquired largely through the efforts of the German Colonisation Society, founded by Karl Peters.

When Germany established control over Tanganyika by 1898, it imposed a violent regime to control the population, including a policy of killing kings who resisted German occupation. This earned Peters, now the Tanganyika colonial governor, the name “Milkono wa Damu”, meaning “Man with blood on his hands”. Throughout this period of German occupation, the African population was also subjected to high taxation and a system of forced labour, whereby they were required to grow cotton and build roads for their occupiers.

The oppressive regime bred discontent among Africans, and resentment reached a fever pitch in 1905, when drought hit the region. A prophet emerged by the name of Kinjikitile Ngwale. He claimed to know the secret to a sacred liquid that could repel German bullets — it was called “Maji Maji”, which means “sacred water”. Thus, armed with arrows, spears and doused with Maji Maji water, the first warriors of the rebellion began to move against the Germans, attacking at first only small German outposts, such as at Samanga, and destroying cotton crops. The rebellion spread throughout the colony, eventually involving 20 different ethnic groups, all of whom wished to dispel the German colonisers. As such, it was the first significant example of inter-ethnic co-operation in the battle against colonial control.

The apex of the rebellion came at Mahenge in August 1905 when several thousand Maji Maji warriors attacked but failed to overrun a German stronghold.

On October 21, 1905, the Germans retaliated with an attack on the camp of the unsuspecting Ngoni people, who had recently joined the rebellion.

The Germans killed hundreds of men, women, and children. This attack marked the beginning of a brutal counteroffensive that left an estimated 75,000 Maji Maji warriors dead by 1907. The Germans also adopted famine as a weapon, purposely destroying the crops of suspected Maji Maji supporters.

Although the Maji Maji Uprising was ultimately unsuccessful, it forced Kaiser Wilhelm’s government in Berlin to institute reforms in their colonies, as they realised the potential cost of their brutality. Furthermore, the uprising would inspire later 20th-century freedom fighters, who called for similar inter-ethnic unity as they struggled against European colonial rule.

• Sources: John Iliffe, The Organisation of the Maji Maji Rebellion, Journal of African History, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1967); Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 (New York: HarperCollins, 1992); Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, The Spectre of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Molefi Kete Asante, The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony (Florence, Kentucky: Routledge, 2007)