Brutal German punitive expeditions followed [the murder of the first two missionaries to settle on Meru in 1896], during the course of which large number of Arusha and Meru were killed, their cattle confiscated, banana groves burnt down and Chagga wives repatriated to Kilimanjaro.

Shortly thereafter the Germans granted huge blocks of land on north Meru to a hundred Afrikaner families newly arrived from South Africa, and they subsequently alienated a solid block of land across the southern slopes

Arusha and Meru Wariors sought to arrest the precipitous decline in their natural and social orders by a systematic crusade to restore moral order that culminated in the murder of the first two missionaries to settle on Meru in 1896.

After years of hardship, a bumper harvest in 1907 marked their recovery

When the British troops seized the area in 1916 and colonial authority collapsed, both Meru and Arusha resumed upward expansion, rapidly clearing and planting up to 5800 feet before the British were able to reimpose a forest zone above that in 1920.

The British expelled the German settlers and confiscated their farms, but then reallocated them to Greek and British settlers, rather than providing relief to Arusha and Meru. ...

In the end they went much further than the Germans, however, opening up new lands south of the Arusha-Moshi road for Sisal production that increased the amount of alienated land around Meru by 81 per cent.

In 1920, therefore, [to solve the shortage of land to the Arusha and Meru] they allocated six farms to Arusha and two to Meru to provide greater access to the plains. All were on the lower drier reaches of the mountain, which were unsuitable for banana cultivation.

Eventually Coffee became the most lucrative and important cash crop. Planted initially in the 1920's, overall production and the number of people growing Coffee grew only slowly during the 1930's and the early 1940s owing to depressed prices, but then picked up substantially in the 1950s and 1960s with rising prices and returns.

... that would change by 1951, when the eviction of Meru from North Meru erupted in the Meru Land Case and rang the death knell for colonialism in Tanzania.

Meru are Chagga-speakers who first migrated to Mount Meru from Western Kilimanjaro sometime in the seventeenth century.

Arusha and Meru had cleared and settled most of the southern slopes of Meru from 4000 to 5300 feet by the 1880s, when a series of disasters swept across northern Tanzania. Bovine pleuropneumonia and Rinderpest devastated the herds of pastoral Maasai, driving them into the mountains to seek refuge; smallpox spread rapidly along the trade routes recently forged up the Pangani Valley; and drought and killing famine blanketed the area, especially during the years 1883-6, 1891-2 and 1897-1900, ...

In the aftermath [of the disasters of the 1890's and the German conquest], men and women alike were conscripted to build roads and the German boma. [in Arusha]

Meru were well established on the mountain when the first Arusha settled there in the 1830s. Arusha were Maa-speakers who lost their cattle during the tumultuous wars then being fought among Maasai for control of the pastoral resources on the plains and so were forced to become farmers.

The boma that Meru and Arusha were forced to build in 1900 was a solid statement of the imposition of a new political and moral order. Set on a small hill at the base of Mount Meru, the fortress-like building faced out over the plains below. One approached along a 'fine wide road, equal to a well-kept highway in England', that was `carefully marked off in kilometres', the adventurer John Boyes noted on a visit in 1903.

"The road led to a place called Arusha, and as we approached it we came to our astonishment in sight of a truly marvellous building, erected in European style and surrounded by a moat....

The boma was a one-storey building of stone and mortar, with a huge tower in the centre and the whole glistened bright in the sunlight, like an Aladdin's Palace transported from some fairy-land and dropped down in the heart of the tropics. Emblazoned on the front of the tower were the Royal Arms of Germany, which could be seen nearly a mile off....

The station was walled off and, being furnished with a Maxim and a machine gun, made a formidable stronghold...."

Standing in the midst of the 'lush plantations of the Waarusha', one approached the fort along a wide straight path and entered through a heavy stone portal into an open courtyard, surrounded by stone walls, with a square, flat-topped tower in the centre and Swahili-type houses arrayed along the back wall. Boyes was impressed by the amenities:

"Water from neighbouring gullies was laid on throughout the building, and a plentiful supply was available for all purposes. Water-power was used for driving a lathe in the workshop, and the officer had a staff of trained Natives. The wood-work especially was particularly well done. Even the tiles on the roof were made by the Natives, and the building was made entirely from local material. The inside of the station was paved with stone; the living rooms were fitted with electric bells; and Herr K'ster said he hoped to install electric light at an early date."

The town itself lay below the boma and consisted of some thirty Indian, Greek, and Arab shops selling cloth, trinkets, soap, enamelled plates and bowls, beads, and copper wire. One even had a sewing machine out front and produced jackets and trousers for the German soldiers and 'more progressive natives'. Boyes found:

"Everything about Arusha was equally surprising, the streets being well laid out with fine side-walks, separated from the road by a stream of clear water flowing down a cemented gullyway. We had discovered a real oasis in the wilderness. The township was spotlessly clean and we saw Natives with small baskets picking up any litter lying about, as though the place were the Tiergarten of Berlin and not the wild interior of the Dark Continent....

Attached to the fort was a splendid kitchen garden in which grew almost every kind of European vegetable, and next to that a coffee plantation)."

The German administration, like the boma, was built on solid military lines meant to impress. German military officers served as both local commanders and district officers, alternately administering and punishing their unruly subjects. Mount Meru had been administered, largely by means of punitive raids, by Captain Johannes from Moshi. With the completion of the boma in 1901, colonial troops were garrisoned in Arusha under the command of First Lieutenant Georg K'ster, and Arusha remained under military rule until the general transfer to civilian administration throughout Tanganyika in 1906. Even under civil rule, however, district officers continued to wield considerable power in the exercise of their authority, and they did so largely free of troublesome constraints imposed by the central government. Few remained in Arusha long enough to gain much of an understanding of the local situation. Eleven district officers served an average of sixteen months each during the period of German rule from 1901 to 1916.

German officers ruled through local Arusha and Meru leaders, but in the aftermath of the mass hangings of 1900 they had difficulty identifying likely leaders and persuading them to serve. The Germans initially chose Masengye (1900-01), a son of former Mangi Matunda (1887-96), to replace his executed brother, Lobolu (1896" 1900), as Meru chief, but Masengye was deposed and imprisoned within a year for murder (see Table 4.1: Meru Mangi). Abandoning the royal Kaaya clan for a nominee viewed as a more reliable collaborator, the Germans then appointed Nyereu (1901-02) from the Nasari clan, but he too was soon imprisoned, allegedly for neglecting his duties and procuring girls for German soldiers. The Germans finally found the nominee they had been seeking when they appointed Sambegye (1902-25), a member of the Nanyaro clan and favoured neighbour of the missionaries newly re-installed at Nkoaranga. Sambegye prospered as chief, taking ten wives by 1905, and he continued as chief until 1925. He soon ceased being a mission favourite, however, and in 1905 Rev. Krause complained that his overt friendliness was but a mask for covert opposition: 'How could it possibly be otherwise! His friends are beer and women, and he knows these do not mix with the new teachings.'

Arusha, unlike Meru, had no tradition of chiefdom, so the Germans appropriated the tradition of regional spokesmen (laigwenak) that had first emerged during the warriors' raids of the 1850s, and called them Mangi after the Meru term for chief.15 Having hanged Maraai and Rawaito, the spokesmen from Boru (upper Arusha) and Burka (lower Arusha) respectively, however, they had to find replacements. The new Arusha spokesman for Burka was Ndasikoi, but the Germans also wished to reward their Afro-Arab ally, Saruni, and so they split Burka between the two men (see Table 4.2: Arusha Mangi/ Olkarsis). Both men remained in office for the duration of German rule. Sabaya (1900-11) was appointed in Boru and served until his death, when he was replaced by his eldest son Leshabar (1911-16). Arusha opposed Leshabar and burned down his home, however, forcing the administration to replace him with Lairumbe (1916-33), a wealthy cattle trader associated with the Lutheran mission.

The Germans also appointed local headmen to rule over individual districts below the chiefs. In Meru, these came initially from the ranks of local lineage or clan leaders (vashili), who normally were chosen by local clan members to mediate disputes among them and represent their interests with other clans and the mangi. Vashili became increasingly dependent on the administration, however, as they became encumbered with the unpopular tasks of raising labour and taxes.

In accord with differences in local Arusha politics, headmen were initially drawn from the ranks of local age-set spokesmen (laigwenak) chosen by their age-mates to mediate internal disputes and to represent their interests with other sets. As in Meru, however, their traditional legitimacy quickly broke down before the illegitimate nature of the tasks they were asked to assume by the authorities. Thereafter, headmen, like chiefs, increasingly became drawn from an emerging group of younger men associated with either the government or the mission.'7

While there is no direct evidence to assess the impact of these changes on the nature of local leadership in Arusha and Meru, we can place them within the context of Arusha. While neither society had a tradition of strong central authority, the military successes and increasing wealth of the warriors during the 1880s and early 1890s enhanced their status and power while eroding whatever authority the mangi in Meru or the logwenak in Arusha had possessed previously. German conquest and rule reversed this process, for not only did Talala's crushing defeat in 1896-7 damage their self-confidence and reputation, as shown by their disintegration in 1900 but, more critically, the warriors lost nearly all their cattle as well as the means to replenish them. As power and wealth shifted to chiefs and headmen appointed by the administration, the influence of the warriors continued to wane. No future Arusha age-set attained the fame of Talala; joint activities by Arusha and Meru warriors ceased; and Meru slowly withdrew from the Maasai age-set system altogether until they refused to join with Arusha to initiate Terito in the mid-1920s.

Chiefs and headmen appointed by the Germans after 1900 saw their potential power and influence increase as a result of their newly institutionalized authority, their support from the colonial administration, and their ability to use their new-found power to gain wealth. At the same time as power and status were shifting from the warriors to the chiefs, the means of attaining them were also shifting from criteria based on age, respect, wealth in cattle and bananas, and the size of one's following to those based on education, affiliation with the government and mission, and wealth gained from wages.

While the means of achieving power were changing, the ways in which it was deployed through wealth in cattle and social investments were frequently similar, thus obscuring the more fundamental changes taking place under the surface of Arusha and Meru social relations. Chiefs became known for their large cattle herds and number of wives and, following the bumper harvest of 1907, there was a spate of 'ox-hangings' around the mountain as wealthy men competed to see who could distribute the most meat to their friends and followers so that they might be 'lauded by the people'." Such changes were gradual at first, scarcely noticeable during much of the German period, but they would become more prominent in the years to come.

Chiefs' newly-enhanced power and status did not come without costs, however. Chiefs and headmen were frequently unpopular with their followers as they became increasingly answerable to their German patrons, losing their own legitimacy in the process. Just as the Germans quickly abandoned appointing Meru chiefs from the royal Kaaya clan, so all chiefs came to owe their office to the whim of the government rather than to whatever influence or status they possessed locally. Increasingly, one's patrons became more important than one's clients, as chiefs came to have a share in the power of others, rather than exercising it on their own.

The German administration, like the conquest that had established it, was viewed as harsh and unjust by Meru and Arusha. They called Lt K'ster Bwana Fisi', or Mr Hyena. The missionaries thought that his successor, Baron Ludwig Friedrich von Reitzenstein, was 'kindly' and 'well-disposed toward the natives', respected by them because he allowed `no idling or disobedience from his chiefs or their underlings', held court according to local custom while making 'sure it was not spoiled by the long-windedness of the natives', and successfully built roads without resorting to the feared kiboko (whip).'' The missionaries' notion of respect gained by the firm exercise of authority was not the same as that held by Arusha and Meru, however, who objected to the continued use of corv�e (unpaid labour) for public works, the collection of taxes, the corruption of chiefs and, most of all, the seizure of precious land for South African and German settlers. In their exercise of unfettered power and their continued reliance on military force and coerced labour, German officials must not have appeared to be very different from the predatory trading chiefs who had preceded them elsewhere in the Pangani Valley.

The threat of colonial labour demands to the domestic economy was largely deflected, however, large-scale land alienation fundamentally threatened Arusha and Meru long-term survival and would become the central economic and political issue in both societies over the course of the twentieth century. The German administration's attitudes to land were contradictory at best, favouring European settlement in some areas, while sharply restricting it in favour of African smallholder production in others. The cool and fertile highlands of northeastern Tanzania was one of the favoured settlement areas, but the conquest of Usambara had led to such an orgy of land grabbing by European speculators that the government started in 1895 to restrict alienation to leasehold grants of unoccupied land and required leaseholders to clear and develop 5 to 10 per cent of their land annually. From Shambaa, the settlers moved on to Kilimanjaro and Meru, but there was little unoccupied land on the congested mountain sides themselves, and settlers were forced to accept lower land around the bases of the mountains, rapidly ringing each with a chain of European farms and plantations.

The Arusha boma and township were themselves placed in the midst of one of the most densely settled areas of Arusha, and Mount Meru became one of the few areas in Tanzania where the administration actively promoted European settlement through schemes designed to attract both small- and large-scale farmers. The first was the settlement of one hundred Afrikaner families who had driven their ox wagons north after the Boer War, arriving in Arusha in 1902:

"The men" strong, wide figures with long beards, crushed down hats, serious, but in many ways good-meaning facial features; the women with large bonnets; the children like small farm boys and girls at home; the heavy covered wagons; the beautiful dogs; in short, just as one has seen it so manifold in pictures."

The administration welcomed the Afrikaner pioneers and gave each family 1,000 hectares on the northern slopes of Mount Meru between Oldonyo Sambu and Engare Nanyuki in the hopes that they would develop this semi-arid region on the fringes of Maasailand. They hoped in vain, however. Within a few years many Afrikaners had either moved on to Kenya or returned south, while those that remained preferred to hunt or keep livestock and cultivated only small gardens of vegetables and maize.

In 1906 the government sponsored German peasants to develop small-holdings at Leganga on south eastern Meru between Usa River and Maji ya Chai.

Several Evangelical Lutheran settlers had already become established west of Arusha town when the government decided to settle German refugees from southern Russia. Forty people were recruited at a cost of 7,000 marks each, and each family was given fifty hectares to grow wheat, maize, and vegetables. Far from being experienced peasant farmers, however, the recruits were poorly-educated, unskilled labourers who were unable to adjust to farming under colonial conditions, and the scheme collapsed almost immediately. The first settlers were already on their way home as the last arrived.

The German-Russians were replaced in 1908-9 by Swabian Germans from Palestine in the hopes that they would adapt more readily to colonial conditions, and Leganga soon became known as the Palestiner Reservat'.

The government then opened up larger grants between Nduruma and Usa River and recruited Reich Germans to develop them. By 1910, 89 farms had been allocated to Germans. Of 195,907 hectares of land suitable for crops and livestock in Arusha District, 23,700 hectares, or 12 per cent, was alienated overall, though most of it remained unsurveyed and undeveloped.

The result was a disastrous restriction of land available for Meru and Arusha. Alienated land formed an almost solid band around the heavily populated slopes of southern Meru, effectively restricting Arusha or Meru expansion down the mountain and on to the plains. The administration also blocked upward movements by establishing a forest reserve above 1,600 metres, at that time the upper limits of Meru and Arusha settlement. Arusha and Meru would effectively push the northern boundary up to 1,800 metres before the British effectively closed it in the 1920s, but the implications for the future were clear: 'An "iron ring" of alienated land was clamped around the native lands on the mountain. With expansion blocked, Arusha and Meru could only turn in on themselves, occupying vacant hillsides and pastures on the slopes, while turning their political grievances outwards against the settlers and colonial authorities in the years to come.

The imposition of German rule on Mount Meru thus fundamentally challenged the Meru and Arusha peoples' social, political, and economic practices and beliefs. The hierarchical, military administration of the boma threatened the fluid nature of local politics" in which wealthy patrons built their influence by feasting their clients, sharing cattle with them, and marrying their daughters" and led to the rise of a new class of local leaders beholden to their colonial overlords. 'Work' for cash wages posed a threat to continued family production and values, and land alienated to German settlers challenged the social contract in which every family had a right to its own kihamba or engisaka. In short, German political economy premissed on 'solid regulated work', capitalist production for the market, and authoritarian politics conflicted sharply with Arusha and Meru moral economies based on everyone's rights to sufficient land to support one's family, to the fruits of one's own labour, and to the exercise of social and political influence.

The two world views were not irreconcilably opposed to one another, however, and the peoples of Mount Meru proved adept at using colonial means to achieve their own ends. Thus chiefs used their new administrative powers to increase their local influence by acquiring numerous cattle and wives, while labourers similarly invested their wages in social as well as productive capital. In the process, new social syntheses began to emerge as people re-evaluated their own practices and beliefs in the light of new opportunities. Such simultaneous subversion of the colonial order and transformation of their own would continue throughout the period of colonial rule and beyond.

District Agricultural Officer: supported the 1927 restrictions on Coffee growing by the Meru

Kitching's successor as District Officer

The District Officer [in Arusha]

Provincial Commisioner [Arusha]

conducted a comprehensive survey of land distribution and use on Mount Meru

The Provincial Commissioner

Agricultural Officer: conducted a new study of the land problem in Meru [presumed to be Brian Hartley]

a British Engineer in Tanzania for some 20 years, was a seasoned and critical observer. ... was scathing in his criticism of the settlers.