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101 Bomani African Soldiers as Colonial Intermediaries in German East Africa, 1890–­ 1914 Michelle Moyd Between about 1890 and 1900, African soldiers (askari) of the German colonial army (Schutztruppe) in East Africa carried out the conquest of German East Africa. Once established at colonial military outposts (bomas) across the territory, Schutztruppe officers, non-­ commissioned officers (NCOs), and civilian administrators relied on the askari for everyday policing and administration of the colony. Their presence as uniformed messengers, guards, executioners , and meters-­ out of corporal punishment made them the most visible agents of colonial rule. Historians have described literate colonial employees, such as clerks, translators, and teachers, as intermediaries. They were the agents of colonial rule who “bridged the linguistic and cultural gaps that separated European colonial officials from subject populations by managing the collection and distribution of information, labor, and funds.”1 This essay argues that askari also acted as intermediaries between the centers of colonial authority and the peoples who lived in proximity to the bomas. Everyday colonial life in the bomas reinforced the processes that helped consolidate colonial rule. German military strength resided in the bomas, but the askari also carried colonial state authority with them, ready to strike against those who resisted German rule. Beyond the obvious military roles of the bomas and the askari, the movement of many different kinds of people in and out of the bomas activated colonial authority on several levels—­ economically, socially, and culturally. Askari moved in, around, and between administrative stations in their everyday work, and East Africans who lived in proximity to the bomas also incorporated the colonial centers into their lives in various ways. Despite the everyday violence and coercion that the askari practiced in the name of the colonial state, their lives were full of face-­ to-­ face interactions and negotiations that blurred the boundaries between colonizers and colonized. 102    German Colonialism Revisited Askari and other colonial intermediaries might easily be understood as colonial “collaborators,” and indeed, past scholarship has tended to label them this way.2 They should, however, be understood as military intermediaries who fulfilled German colonial interests, while also creating new opportunities for East African men, women, and children to improve their access to status, wealth, and security. Askari negotiated the terrain between their roles as practitioners of everyday colonialism and their roles as community members in ways that tied local East Africans to the bomas through violence, but also sometimes through attraction and cooperation. The Kiswahili word bomani is a useful way of thinking about the dynamics set in motion by the presence of colonial stations throughout German East Africa. Bomani can mean either “in (at) the boma” or “to the boma,” depending on the context of its usage. Thus, it connotes both the bomas’ fixity and the mobility that enabled colonial rule. The bomas were the beginning and end points for the askaris’ day-­ to-­ day itinerant practices of colonial rule. They thus make useful analytical sites for situating the askari as colonial intermediaries, whose daily duties, family ties, and social connections brought them face-­ to-­ face with colonial officials, other Europeans, and East Africans living in and around the stations. The routine patterns of work and rest that characterized garrison life, the duties and activities that took the askari out of the bomas, and their travels between bomas all connected them to existing social networks and economies that enriched them materially, socially, and psychically. Violence and coercion inhered in these everyday duties and ultimately contributed to their ability to fashion themselves as respectable men with clients, land, livestock , and cash wealth. Askaris’ self-­ fashioning as respectable men required the tacit or forced participation of other East Africans, since it was their reactions to the askari that reinforced soldiers’ understandings of themselves as men of means. The bomas, where askari worked and often lived, were multipurpose spaces visited frequently by African colonial subjects, both voluntarily and involuntarily. They went to the bomas to pay taxes, to buy and sell goods and services, to attend juridical proceedings and community meetings known as mashauri (sing. shauri), to witness spectacles such as public executions, and to attend festivals and celebrations for major events. In other instances, the askari brought the boma’s authority to local residents in their daily duties of tax collection , delivering messages, or escorting dignitaries. In all of these activities, East Africans experienced askari in their roles as colonial intermediaries, viewing them as representatives of the boma and as men of some social standing...

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