African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 167: Chapter 156: Isolated East Africa

November 5, 1868.

First Town.

Northwest of First Town, by the Little Rhine River, this land originally belonged to Second Town. However, with the upgrading of the East African colonies, the status of First Town also rose accordingly. As the location of the East African colonial government and the capital of the Central District, expansion was natural; thus, Second Town, adjacent to First Town, was annexed.

Over a month ago, residents of the original Second Town saw a group of strangers come to this place for the first time in a long while. For the residents of Second Town, who hadn’t seen new faces for nearly half a year, this was truly a novelty.

Since the expansion of East Africa, all regions needed immigrants. To populate the newly occupied lands, many areas in the east, having been developed earlier, had a relatively large population. Thus, there was seldom new immigration, and Second Town was among these places.

In the plains near the coastal areas, besides a few port cities in East Africa and the urban area of First Town where the East African colonial government was located, there was basically no new immigration. Most new immigrants tended to incline towards inland regions.

If they were just ordinary immigrants, the residents of Second Town naturally wouldn’t be curious. Yet, the residents of Second Town could immediately tell that this group was different from ordinary immigrants, as the residents of Second Town themselves were immigrants.

So when they immigrated to East Africa, they were well aware of what it was like. When they first came to East Africa, they were in a sorry state; many didn’t even have a decent piece of clothing.

At that time, they were all in uniforms distributed uniformly by the East African colonies upon landing, and to this day, the vast majority of people in East Africa still wear clothes modified from Prussian military uniforms.

Even the immigrants from Europe didn’t dress particularly well, but their clothes were not confiscated by the East African colonies.

After a simple disinfection, their clothes were returned to them, along with a set of East African-style Prussian military outfits.

European immigrants, after all, lived more decently compared to Chinese immigrants, and their clothes had a slightly finer touch.

If the clothes of European immigrants could at least still be recognized as garments, though the dimensions might not fit well,

the clothes worn by Chinese immigrants when they initially arrived in East Africa could be described as a big collection of rags, with not a single complete piece, mended on top of mends, with countless tears and holes. Even among the same batch of Chinese immigrants to East Africa, some wore single layers while others had cotton-padded jackets.

For the sake of facilitating the extermination of bacteria and dust that immigrants might carry and to ease subsequent management, Ernst simply prepared new attire for immigrants, while the ragged clothing of Chinese immigrants was directly confiscated by the East African colonies.

Of course, the confiscation of the clothing Chinese people wore coming from the Far East also had considerations regarding assimilation. To be Germanized meant going all the way, cutting the queue, and naturally, clothing with Oriental characteristics had no reason to be retained.

European immigrants didn’t need to have their clothes confiscated; after a simple clean-up, they were returned, and some European immigrants even brought along a few pieces of ancestral clothing for replacement.

However, since East Africa was distributing a set of new clothing, though military in nature, for the poor of this era, they would gladly accept it.

European immigrants enjoyed mixing their original clothing with the Prussian military outfits in their dress.

If people from European countries came to visit East Africa, they would witness a bizarre sight.

The entire East Africa, at first glance, was filled with Prussian military uniforms. Without carefully exploring, one might mistakenly think they arrived at a Prussian military camp.

Anton Peruz was one of the victims. Anton Peruz was the professor Ernst had invited when he established the East African Tropical Agriculture Research Institute.

Upon his initial arrival in Dar es Salaam, Anton Peruz didn’t notice much because the port, after all, was the only external communication hub of the East African colonies. Sir Ernst ensured that immigrants at the port were given ordinary European clothing instead of military uniforms, to avoid startling the Allies.

Ernst wasn’t about to shut down the traditional Indian Ocean coastal ports of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, as ships from various nations still needed to dock and replenish supplies there.

If the ports were blocked, the Anglo-Portuguese-French-Dutch Alliance would come knocking the next day. Ernst’s success in establishing the East African colonies greatly benefited from Prussia’s inability to unify Germany at the time.

Especially since Great Britain, the current overlord of the seas, had a very good relationship with Prussia, and since East Africa was not considered a valuable place at that time, British turned a blind eye, allowing Ernst to establish the East African colonies.

East Africa was not considered a valuable place relative to the contemporary understanding of European countries. Not only East Africa, but there were not many places in the whole of Africa that countries eyed.

West Africa was the Gold Coast, Ivory Coast, Slave Coast, and Pepper Coast... hence the scramble among nations.

Cape Town, British Somaliland, Gibraltar, and the future Suez Canal each controlled the most important maritime corridors of Africa.

The North African coast had been a European priority area since ancient Roman times.

It was only the Portuguese who managed to stably run a few colonies in Africa, but they had arrived in Africa hundreds of years ago, during the thriving days of the slave trade, and had long recouped their investments. Such prolonged investment was clearly beyond the current Portuguese capacity to sustain.

Europeans flocked into Africa in the few years around 1880 entirely driven by the economic crisis of 1873.

Every economic crisis is deadly for capitalist countries and signifies that economic development has reached a bottleneck, necessitating a new outlet for expansion.

The immediate consequence of the 1873 economic crisis was the transition of capitalist countries from commodity export to capital export. For sources of raw materials and world markets, the great powers started a frenzy to carve up the world.

The time clearly wasn’t ripe yet, for the British, life was peaceful, and they were stirring up trouble in South America. Major wars broke out consecutively on the continent; France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia lacked the energy to meddle; the United States was busy cleaning up the aftermath of the Civil War and the Westward Expansion. Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands all made little progress in recent years, with hardly any major moves overseas.

As long as Ernst could restrain himself and not prematurely expose East Africa’s resources, nobody had their eyes on East Africa.

Back to Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, as the only external communication hubs of East Africa, they had to serve their own needs and also accommodate the various colonizers drifting on the Indian Ocean.

After all, they were crucial nodes on traditional trade routes. If they took themselves too seriously and shut themselves off from the world, it would result in no good outcomes.

Of course, Ernst, already enjoying his monopoly in East Africa, simply continued maintaining the status quo of these two ports, continuing to offer conveniences to various countries.

Tanga, Bajamojo, and Mtwara didn’t need to be shared with other nations; these were ports developed solely by East Africa and were used exclusively by the Heixinggen consortium.

However, to be on the safe side, Ernst mandated that all immigrants, apart from the regular army, wear ordinary clothes at all ports, so East Africa would appear somewhat normal in the eyes of visiting ships from various countries.

If other countries saw a large area of Prussian military uniforms in East Africa, anyone would be inclined to think more deeply about the situation.

Inland areas had no such necessity, as apart from immigrants and members of the Heixinggen consortium, no nationals from other countries could penetrate deep into the East African interior to investigate the situation.

Formerly active Arab traders and slave merchants in the East African interior now waited at border markets for the colonies to deliver goods to them.

Moreover, East Africa was geographically and tribally isolated from other countries and colonies with world connections.