The Rinderpest removed the Masai and their cattle from the crater in the 1890s

A suggestion to create a national park in 1935 was rejected by the governor who wrote about the western lakeshore as ‘one of the richest agricultural areas in the Territory’.

The arrival of the sand-flea or jigger-flea (Sarcopsylla penetrans) in Africa has been dated to 1872, when the British ship Thomas Mitchell - in ballast from Rio de Janeiro - called at the Angolan port of Ambriz. From there the insect spread rapidly across the continent, aided by the caravan traffic which brought it from one trading station to the next.A quarter of a century after its first contact with African soil, Oscar Baumann (1898) could report that the sand-flea had arrived in Zanzibar, thus completing its transcontinental move.

By 1905 he [Siedentopf] held more than 2,000 head of cattle and had plans to expand up to 5,000. (Fuchs)

Chief Game Warden, who later became the Director of Tsetse research

'They (the Masai) are dreaded as warriors, laying all to waste with fire and sword, so that the weaker tribes do not venture to resist them in the open field, but leave them in possession of their herds, and seek only to save themselves by the quickest possible flight.'

J.L. Krapf

Farler describes the Ngorongoro Crater as:

‘a thickly populated Masai district with many villages. The country is full of big game, harboured in the neighbouring forest. A strong boma is made here, and the caravan remains about twenty days to trade and hunt....

There are several wells here, with good water and much cattle. The country is very open, with a good pasturage of short sweet grass, and no trees.’

Hans Meyer observed the sand-flea ravages among the Masai settlers at Laitokitok on the north-eastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. He called the jiggers ‘the most fearful calamity that has ever afflicted the East African peoples’ (Meyer 1900:119-20). He gave examples of people who were unable to walk and were seen crawling around on all fours groaning with unbearable pains.

Oscar Baumann reported no trace of animals in the area presently covered by Lake Manyara National Park when he went through it in 1892

Oscar Baumann’s book, Durch Masailand, gives a chilling picture of the destructions caused by the Rinderpest among the pastoral people. Baumann travelled through the territory in 1891 when the impact of the plague was in clear evidence.

From the old Masai settlement in the Ngorongoro Crater, Baumann wrote[in 1894]:

'Large numbers of the woeful creatures who now populate Masailand congregated around the thorn fence of our camp. There were skeleton like women with the madness of starvation in their sunken eyes, children looking more like frogs than human beings, ‘warriors’ who could hardly crawl on all fours, and apathetic, languishing elders. ... They were refugees from the Serengeti, where the famine had depopulated entire districts, and came as beggars to their tribesmen at Mutyek who had barely enough to feed themselves. Swarms of vultures followed them from high, awaiting their certain victims. Such affliction was from now on daily before our eyes...'

Principal Medical Officer

The case of Tanganyika 1850-1950.

This pioneering book was one of the first to place the history of East Africa within the context of the environment. It has been used continuously for student teaching. It is now [1996] reissued with an introduction placing it within the debate which has developed on the subject; there is also an updated bibliography.

...provides evidence to suggest that the nineteenth century was a period of relative prosperity with well developed trade. He questions the view that warfare was pervasive and that the slave trade led to depopulation. He points to a balance between man and the environment.

The iron markets in North Pare are described by Fosbrooke (1954), who timed them as ‘Early Iron Age’ activities.

The provincial commisioners unanimously agreed to these sentiments, and R. de Z. Hall, the P.C. of the Central Province, later put their ideas into a draft bill ‘to Provide for the Removal of Natives from their Homes in Circumstances of Emergency’

The red locust plague of 1893-95 is well documented and was a matter of considerable government concern. It struck simultaneously in many communities, wiped the possibilities for local self-help in food supplies and brought a number of peoples face to face with starvation.