1 - Domination and Resistance: Epidemic and Exile in the German Togoland Colony
Corresponding Author(s) : Dennis Laumann
Afrika Zamani,
No. 17 (2009): Afrika Zamani: An Annual Journal of African History: Special Issue on Re-reading the History and Historiography of Domination and Resistance in Africa
Abstract
In 1914, King Dagadu III of Kpandu was forced into exile by the colonial regime in German Togoland. The king’s banishment was the culmination of friction between his royal court and the German colonial administration. The roots of this conflict lay in Germany’s suspicions that Dagadu remained too friendly with his former British allies in the neighboring Gold Coast. Tensions came to the surface, however, with the outbreak an epidemic in Kpandu. The primary charge against Dagadu was that he encouraged resistance to a German vaccina- tion campaign against the spread of sleeping sickness. From the perspective of the people of Kpandu, the vaccination effort itself was to blame for the rising death toll in their town and the disease affecting them was meningitis. This story provides a lens through which to explore how domination and resistance in colonial Africa was played out in the arena of medicine. While the Germans believed their knowledge of health was ‘rational’ and ‘scientific’, the people of Kpandu viewed their colonizers as ignorant bullies who lacked a proper under- standing of local medicine. Based on Ghanaian oral history and German colonial records, this article considers conflicting notions of health and illness and contested spaces of sovereignty in the colonial state.
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- Amenumey, D. E. K., ‘German Administration in Southern Togo’, Journal of African History, x/4 (1969), 623-39.
- Asem, A. K., A History of Awudome (Tema: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1973. Brown, David, ‘Ánglo-German Rivalry and Krepi Politics’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, Vol. XV (ii), 201-213.
- Clifford, Sir Hugh, German Colonies: A Plea for the Native Races (London: John Murray, 1918).
- Klose, Heinrich, Togo Unter Deutscher Flagge: Reisebilder und Betrachtungen (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1899).
- Knoll, Arthur J., Togo Under Imperial Germany 1884-1914 (Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, 1978).
- Laumann, Dennis, Remembering the Germans in Ghana (Peter Lang, in press).
- Laumann, Dennis, ‘A Historiography of German Togoland, or the Rise and Fall of a ""Model Colony""’, History in Africa, 30 (2003), 195-211.
- Lyons, Maryinez, The Colonial Disease: A Social History of Sleeping Sickness in Northern Zaire, 1900-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
- Sebald, Peter, Togo 1884-1914: Eine Geschichte der deutschen ""Muster-kolonie"" auf der Grundlage amtlicher Quellen (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1988).
References
Amenumey, D. E. K., ‘German Administration in Southern Togo’, Journal of African History, x/4 (1969), 623-39.
Asem, A. K., A History of Awudome (Tema: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1973. Brown, David, ‘Ánglo-German Rivalry and Krepi Politics’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, Vol. XV (ii), 201-213.
Clifford, Sir Hugh, German Colonies: A Plea for the Native Races (London: John Murray, 1918).
Klose, Heinrich, Togo Unter Deutscher Flagge: Reisebilder und Betrachtungen (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1899).
Knoll, Arthur J., Togo Under Imperial Germany 1884-1914 (Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, 1978).
Laumann, Dennis, Remembering the Germans in Ghana (Peter Lang, in press).
Laumann, Dennis, ‘A Historiography of German Togoland, or the Rise and Fall of a ""Model Colony""’, History in Africa, 30 (2003), 195-211.
Lyons, Maryinez, The Colonial Disease: A Social History of Sleeping Sickness in Northern Zaire, 1900-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Sebald, Peter, Togo 1884-1914: Eine Geschichte der deutschen ""Muster-kolonie"" auf der Grundlage amtlicher Quellen (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1988).