Carl Peters was a German explorer and colonial administrator. He was a major promoter of the establishment of the German colony of East Africa and one of the founders of the German East Africa Company. He was a controversial figure in Germany for his views and his brutal treatment of native Africans, which ultimately led to his dismissal from government service in 1897.
Peters circa 1895
The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in 1871, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Bismarck resisted pressure to construct a colonial empire until the Scramble for Africa in 1884. Claiming much of the remaining uncolonized areas of Africa, Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French. The German colonial empire encompassed parts of several African countries, including parts of present-day Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, as well as northeastern New Guinea, Samoa and numerous Micronesian islands.
An East African Askari soldier holding Germany's colonial flag
Groß-Friedrichsburg, a Brandenburg colony (1683–1717) in the territory of modern Ghana
The Thetis, one of the ships of the East Asia Squadron
Woermann-Linie factory in Cameroon. From the 1830s, German shipping participated in trade with Africa and established factories there. From the 1850s, trade and plantation agriculture were undertakend by German companies in the South Seas. Some of these economic enterprises eventually formed the basis for the regions' conversion into German colonies.