The Devil's Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning)

677 Pages·2007·5.42 MB·English

by  George Steinmetz

the devil’s handwriting
chicago studies in practices of meaning
Edited by Jean Comaroff, Andreas Glaeser, William Sewell, and Lisa Wedeen
also in the series:
Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space
by Manu Goswami
Parité!: Sexual Equality and the Crisis of French Universalism
by Joan Wallach Scott
Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation
by William H. Sewell, Jr.
The Devil’s
Handwriting
precoloniality and
the german colonial state
in qingdao, samoa,
and southwest africa
George Steinmetz
(cid:2)
the university of chicago press : Chicago & London
GEORGE STEINMETZ is professor of sociology and German
studies at the University of Michigan and the author of
State/Culture: State Formation after the Colonial Turn, The
Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and Its
Epistemological Others, and Regulating the Social: The
Welfare State and Local Politics in Imperial Germany.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2007 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2007
Printed in the United States of America
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-77241-7 (cloth)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-77243-1 (paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-77241-1 (cloth)
isbn-10: 0-226-77243-8 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Steinmetz, George, 1957–
The devil’s handwriting : precoloniality and the German
colonial state in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa /
George Steinmetz.
p. cm. — (Chicago studies in practices of meaning)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-226-77241-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-77243-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-77241-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-77243-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Germany—Colonies—History. 2. Germany—Foreign
relations—1888–1918. 3. Germany—Colonies—Race
relations. 4. Qingdao (China)—History. 5. Germany—
Foreign relations—China. 6. China—Foreign relations—
Germany. 7. Samoa—History. 8. Namibia—History—1885–
1915. 9. Imperialism. I. Title.
JV2017.S74 2007
325(cid:2).343—dc22
2006019664
(cid:2)(cid:3) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
To Julia and to the memory of my mother

contents
List of illustrations [ix] Preface [xiii] Acknowledgments [xxv]
Abbreviations [xxix]
chapter 1 Introduction: Ethnography and the Colonial State [1]
Three Colonies, 3 • Making Sense of Colonial Variations, 19 • The Specificity
of the Colonial State, 27 • Precolonial Mimicry and the Centrality of Native
Policy, 41 • Toward an Explanation: The Colonial State as a Social Field, 45 •
Symbolic and Imaginary Identifications, 55 • Resistance, Cooperation, and
Inflections of Native Policy by Its Addressees, 66 • Imperial Germany and the
German Empire, 68
part one: southwest africa
chapter 2 “A World Composed almost Entirely of Contradictions”:
Southwest Africans in German Eyes, before Colonialism [75]
Precolonial and Protocolonial Imagery of Southwest Africans, 77 • The Khoi-
kh oi: The Path to Precolonial Mimicry, 79 • The Rehoboth Basters: Pure Inter-
mediacy, 121 • The Ovaherero: A Radically Simplified Ethnographic Discourse,
124 • Toward Colonialism, 133
chapter 3 From Native Policy to Genocide to Eugenics:
German Southwest Africa [135]
Accessing the Inaccessible, 135 • The Germans and the Witbooi People, 146 •
“Rivers of Blood and Rivers of Money”: Germans and Ovaherero, 179 • Collabo-
ration and the Rule of Difference: The Rehoboth Basters under German Rule,
216 • Conclusion, 239
part two: samoa
chapter 4 “A Foreign Race That All Travelers Have Agreed to
be the Most Engaging”: The Creation of the Samoan Noble Savage,
by Way of Tahiti [243]
The Idea of Polynesian Noble Savagery, 243 • Europeans on Polynesia in the
Wake of Wallis and Bougainville: The Tahitian Metonym, 247 • Polynesia and
Tahiti in German Eyes, 1770s–1850, 261 • Nineteenth-Century Social Change
in Polynesia and the Increasing Attractiveness of Samoa, 280 • Nineteenth-
Century Samoa: From Lapérouse to the Germans, 288 • The Evolution of Euro-
pean and German Representations of Samoa, 298 • Precolonial Guidelines for a
Future Native Policy, 307
chapter 5 “The Spirit of the German Nation at Work in the
Anti podes”: German Colonialism in Samoa, 1900–1914 [317]
Salvage Colonialism, 317 • The Sources of Native Policy in Samoa, 341 • Class
Distinction and Class Exaltation, 350 • Conclusion: Resistance and the Limits
on Colonial Native Policy, 355
part three: china
chapter 6 The Foreign Devil’s Handwriting:
German Views of China before “Kiautschou” [361]
Europe’s Cathay, 365 • Sinomania, 367 • German Views of China in the Era
of Sinomania, 376 • The Rise of Sinophobia, 384 • German Sinophobia, 400 •
En Route to Qingdao: Speaking of the Devil, 403 • Multivocality in German
Representations of China at the End of the Nineteenth Century, 421 • Toward
“German -China”, 426 • Transition, 429
chapter 7 A Pact with the (Foreign) Devil: Qingdao as a Colony [433]
Bumrush the Show: Germans in Colonial Kiaochow, 1897–1904, 433 • Shaken,
Not Stirred: Segregated Colonial Space and Radical Alterity during the First
Phase of German Colonialism in Kiaochow, 1897–1904, 446 • German Native
Policy in Kiaochow, Compared, 458 • Early Native Policy and the Haunting of
Sinophobia by Sinophilia, 461 • The Seminar for Oriental Languages and Ger-
man Sinology as a Conduit for Sinophilia, 467 • Rapprochement: The Second
Phase of German Colonialism in Kiaochow, 1905–14, 470 • Explaining the Shift
in Native Policy, 490 • Conclusion, 506
chapter 8 Conclusion: Colonial Afterlives [509]
Appendix 1: A Note on Sources and Procedures [519]
Appendix 2: Head Administrators of German Southwest Africa, Samoa, and Kiaochow [525]
Bibliography [527] Index [605]
illustrations
maps
1 Southwest Africa [xxx]
2 Oceania [xxxi]
3 Samoa [xxxii]
4 Shandong Province (1897–1914) [xxxiii]
5 German colony of Kiaochow ( Jiaozhou) [xxxiv]
6 Qingdao (ca. 1911) [xxxv]
figures
1.1 The German colonial empire in 1914 [4]
1.2 The People of the German Colonies Pay Homage to the Kaiser [35]
2.1 Cape Khoikhoi (1595) [85]
2.2 Cape of Good Hope (1669) [85]
2.3 A Man and Woman at the Cape of Good Hope (1627) [87]
2.4 Clothing and Weapons of the Hottentots (1660) [87]
2.5 The Young Males receiv’d into the Society of Men (1731) [93]
2.6 The Apparel of the Hottentot Woomen (1731) [93]
2.7 Narina, a young Gonaquais [98]
2.8 Head of a Housouana woman [98]
2.9 Female Hottentot [98]
2.10 A Hottentot captain, in his ceremonial dress [99]
2.11 Klaas, The Author’s favorite Hottentot [99]
2.12 A Gonaquais Hottentot [99]
3.1 Hendrik Witbooi [148]
3.2 Samuel Maherero [150]
3.3 Theodor Leutwein [152]
3.4 Lothar von Trotha [161]
3.5 Namibians at the 1896 Berlin Colonial Exhibition [169]
3.6 Shark Island concentration camp (ca. 1904–5) [174]