Why Togo was NOT a "model colony" for Germany
In July 1884, the imperial German flag was raised for the first time on the African continent - not in Tanzania or Namibia, but in Togo. The tiny protectorate became Togoland, and because Germany's 30-year rule seemed relatively peaceful compared to other German imperial conquests, Togoland was promoted as "a model colony". But it was a self-serving myth for German colonial administrators.
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00:00 In Togo, colonialism not only split communities by creating arbitrary borders,
00:05 but also shattered existing power structures.
00:08 The Atlantic slave trade and merchants brought many Europeans to the West African coast
00:13 well into the 19th century.
00:15 Different African leaders ignored, cooperated, or bargained with Europeans showing up
00:21 according to their own needs.
00:23 In the territory of Togo, German merchants wanted trading autonomy,
00:27 reliable markets, and no competition.
00:30 So in July 1884, on his way to the Cameroons,
00:34 Germany's imperial colonial commissioner, Gustav Nachtigall,
00:37 signed a protection treaty.
00:39 But that deal ultimately sealed German claims over Togo.
00:43 It was then made into a German colony by securing power in the hinterlands
00:48 with punitive military expeditions.
00:50 Here, they cultivated cash crops and forced local people to work on plantations.
00:56 The produce was mostly exported, and profits stayed in German hands.
01:01 The colonial regime relied on a small number of German officers to control the land,
01:06 who ruled over it with arbitrary violence often carried out by mercenary troops
01:11 from other African regions.
01:13 As a result, the complex power structures in Togoland
01:17 were reduced to a system of compliant local leaders.
01:20 These power shifts outlived German and then French colonialists,
01:24 and still play a key role in the power structures of modern-day Togo.