Chapter Summaries

Bargash bin Said declared slavery and slave trading illegal in Zanzibar, then ordered the Germans expelled and appointed loyalists to carry out the plan. His men forced Mr. Basel to leave Dar es Salaam Port, while Felix's troops were still marching toward the port.

• Bargash bin Said declared that Zanzibar would abolish slavery and prohibit slave trading, despite the ministers' protests.
• Bargash bin Said ordered the Germans driven out of Zanzibar and appointed Abdullah and Katiubu to lead the operation.
• Katiubu ordered Mr. Basel to leave Dar es Salaam Port, and Mr. Basel arranged for an oceangoing ship to carry Austro-Hungarian immigrants toward Tanga Port.
• Mr. Basel and more than twenty armed men left Dar es Salaam under Zanzibari watch as Felix's troops continued marching toward the port.

Felix led the East African Colony Army to Zanzibar City after Bargash bin Said seized power and drove the Germans from the port. Felix’s night assault overwhelmed the palace defenders, and Bargash’s fate remained unresolved as the battle continued.

• Bazer told Felix that Bargash bin Said had imprisoned Sultan Majid bin Said and taken control of Zanzibar, so Felix gathered Bazer’s group and advanced toward the city.
• After an intelligence officer reported that Zanzibar City had no martial law or visible street patrols, Felix planned a nighttime strike on the palace to capture Bargash.
• The East African Colony Army entered the city at night and attacked while Bargash was celebrating his first day in power at a victory banquet.
• Felix’s soldiers blasted open the palace gate with grenades and charged inside, forcing the defenders to flee or scatter through the building.
• Abdullah was captured before he could organize the defense, while the Zanzibar soldiers abandoned their resistance and tried to escape.

Felix’s forces defeated Bargash bin Said’s troops and took control of Dar es Salaam, while Zanzibar’s ministers detained Bargash and tried to curry favor with the invaders. The East African Colonial Government later approved a 1,500-man expedition under Yalman to support Majid bin Said and defeat Bargash.

• The East African Colony Army routed Zanzibar’s forces, captured General Abdullah, and entered the royal palace.
• Finance Minister Ali and the other ministers pinned down Bargash bin Said and denounced his coup.
• Ali welcomed Felix, but Bazer demanded accountability for Zanzibar’s actions, and Felix ordered the ministers to remain in the palace.
• Von der Leyen, Yalman, Svit, and other officials discussed the crisis in First Town and agreed that Bargash threatened the colony’s interests.
• The Colonial Government unanimously approved sending Yalman with 1,500 soldiers to join Felix’s men and conquer Bargash.

The East African Colonial Army restored Majid bin Said to Zanzibar’s throne and placed the sultanate under temporary colonial administration after defeating Bargash bin Said’s coup. Yalman arrived in Dar es Salaam, and the Colonial Government sent news to Ernst, who had not yet received it.

• Commander Yalman led 1,500 Colonial Army personnel into Zanzibar, restoring Majid bin Said and confining him and his ministers to the palace.
• The Colonial Army disbanded Zanzibar’s army, confiscated its weapons, and imprisoned Bargash bin Said, whom Majid bin Said demanded be punished.
• The coup ended within eleven hours, becoming known as “One-Day Politics,” with the East African colony reporting one soldier killed and eight wounded.
• On the third day, Yalman reached Dar es Salaam, praised Felix, and encouraged him not to let the casualties distort his judgment.
• Yalman’s arrival eased the manpower shortage, and the Colonial Government placed Zanzibar under temporary administration and sent word to Ernst in Europe.

Ernst’s Berlin Electric Company began commercializing its durable electric lamps, which were adopted in Berlin and Vienna and made the company famous. He then pursued Russia’s sale of Alaska and, after learning that Zanzibar had been taken, sent a plan to East Africa to secure the colony’s access to the sea.

• Ernst showed Prince Constantin electric lamps that had glowed for more than a dozen hours without failing, and they decided to present them to King Wilhelm I.
• King Wilhelm I approved electric lighting for Berlin after seeing the lamps illuminate the palace hall.
• Franz ordered Vienna to adopt electric lamps, and Berlin and Vienna became the first two cities to replace candle and gas lighting with electric lamps.
• Ernst learned that Tom had contacted Russian intermediaries to persuade the Tsar to sell Alaska, and he insisted they continue the effort.
• Tom delivered a report that the East African colony had taken Zanzibar, and Ernst wrote instructions for resolving the colony’s coastal security problem and sent them to East Africa.

Von der Leyen pressured Sultan Majid to accept a treaty that made Zanzibar a dependent state of the East African Colonial Government and ceded its mainland territories. Majid and his ministers signed the East-Zanzibar Treaty, giving the colony control of Zanzibar’s security and leaving Zanzibar with only limited autonomy.

• Von der Leyen presented Sultan Majid with treaty terms that transferred Zanzibar’s mainland lands, disbanded most of its military, and gave the East African Colonial Government the right to station troops on Zanzibar Island.
• Von der Leyen offered to relocate Dar es Salaam’s slave market to Zanzibar Island and let Zanzibar continue operating it.
• Sultan Majid consulted his ministers, who urged him to sign so they could regain their freedom and preserve their businesses.
• Sultan Majid and his ministers signed the East-Zanzibar Treaty, ceding all mainland territory and limiting the Royal Guard to two hundred men.
• The East African Colonial Government gained Zanzibar’s mainland territories and assumed responsibility for the sultanate’s security while largely leaving its internal affairs alone.

Kross negotiated with Count Sergei to have Russia sell Alaska to the Hohenzollern Conglomerate, while disguising Ernst’s willingness to buy the territory as the whim of an eccentric boss. The chapter left Sergei eager to secure the sale after Kross offered him a large bribe tied to the purchase price.

• Kross confirmed with Count Sergei that Russian ministers wanted to sell Alaska because it cost money to maintain and Russia was focused on reforms and Central Asia.
• Kross offered Sergei a 20,000-ruble meeting gift and asked about buying Alaska for several million rubles, but Sergei demanded ten million US dollars.
• Kross argued that Alaska was a nearly worthless wilderness and hinted that his boss had an eccentric interest in acquiring distant lands.
• Sergei threatened that Russia would sell Alaska to the Americans, and Kross offered him 300,000 rubles if he secured a sale for no more than 15 million rubles, plus bonuses for lowering the price.
• Sergei accepted the offer and promised to handle the negotiations.

Sergei persuaded Tsar Alexander II to sell the northern part of Alaska to the Hohenzollern Conglomerate for five million rubles while retaining the more habitable land south of 56 degrees North Latitude. Alexander II accepted the proposal, seeing it as a way to ease Russia’s burden while preserving a foothold in North America.

• Sergei explained to his accomplices that they would profit by convincing the Empire to sell Alaska cheaply to the Hohenzollern Conglomerate.
• Sergei and the ministers proposed the sale to Alexander II, who questioned how the Conglomerate had learned of Russia’s plans.
• Sergei offered five million rubles for only the territory north of 56 degrees North Latitude, leaving the warmer southern region under Russian control.
• Sergei argued that Russia could abandon its harsh northern lands, relocate settlers south, and retain a base for future expansion while avoiding British pressure.
• Alexander II agreed with Sergei’s reasoning after the ministers supported the proposal.

The Hohenzollern Conglomerate bought Alaska from Russia, making it an overseas territory under Prince Constantin, and Ernst planned to keep the region closed while removing Russian settlers and foreign merchants. He consolidated Alaska and Zanzibar under the House of Hohenzollern's Hechingen Royal Territory and decided to send an East African Colony Army unit to Alaska.

• On March 13, 1867, the Hohenzollern Conglomerate and the Russian government signed the Alaska transfer agreement for 7 million rubles, placing the colony under Prince Constantin's name.
• Ernst arranged installment payments and terms requiring Russians in Greater Alaska to move to Lesser Alaska, and he planned to bar foreign merchants and explorers from Greater Alaska.
• Ernst and Prince Constantin named their territories in Alaska and Zanzibar the House of Hohenzollern's Hechingen Royal Territory, covering roughly 2.8 million square kilometers.
• Ernst chose to keep East Africa focused on plantation agriculture and population growth rather than mining, to limit foreign attention and strengthen the colony before the scramble for Africa.
• Ernst decided to send an East African Colony Army unit to Alaska to help the new Alaska Colonial Government remove Russians and foreign merchants.

On March 11, 1867, the East African Colonial Government renovated Mombasa’s port using Chinese and Austrian Empire workers alongside temporarily requisitioned slaves. The improvements boosted the port’s capacity as the colony prepared for increased trade and transport.

• The East African Colonial Government began repairing Mombasa’s harbor and port infrastructure after gaining control of the city through the East-Zanzibar Treaty.
• Mitrovic directed Chinese workers as they cleared damaged foundations and rebuilt wharf structures with cement.
• The colony employed only immigrants who knew some German as workers or soldiers, giving them higher status and wages than farmers.
• By dusk, workers had renovated more than half the port, widening roads and reinforcing the docks with crushed stone and construction waste.
• The renovations increased Mombasa’s transport capacity by about half, positioning it to become East Africa’s leading port after the Suez Canal opened.

Ernst arranged for Siemens Company and Berlin Electric Company to lay a submarine telegraph cable connecting East Africa to Europe so he could strengthen communication and control over the colony. Three months later, the line was complete, allowing messages between the colony and Berlin to arrive the same day.

• After the East Sang War exposed how slowly messages traveled between East Africa and Europe, Ernst decided to build a telegraph connection to the colony.
• Ernst partnered Berlin Electric Company with Siemens Company to lay a route from East Africa through Egypt and Trieste, then connect it to existing European telegraph lines.
• A German-flagged cable ship began laying the difficult sea section from East Africa toward Egypt, while workers carefully lowered the cable into the Indian Ocean.
• The cable-laying work proceeded without major accidents, and the full line was completed three months later.
• Messages between Berlin and the East African Colonial Government could then be sent the same day, strengthening Ernst's ability to direct the colony.

Masharoo Town grew from a small settlement into a thriving agricultural village, where Anthony and immigrants from Germany, the Austrian Empire, and China established a tobacco plantation. The East African Colonial Government planned a much larger plantation to supply the Hohenzollern Tobacco Company and encourage settlement in Kenya.

• Anthony led the first group of immigrants to Masharoo Town, where they built temporary homes and began developing the area.
• After a month, Masharoo Town had more than four hundred residents and a thousand-mu tobacco plantation along the river.
• The East African Colonial Government planned to establish a fifty-thousand-mu tobacco plantation near Masharoo Town to supply the Hohenzollern Tobacco Company and attract more immigrants.
• Anthony took pride in becoming Masharoo Town’s mayor and led residents in working the fields.
• Residents from Germany, the Austrian Empire, and the Far East shared farming knowledge and learned one another’s languages as they worked together.
• The East African Colonial Government reinforced negative impressions of the region’s native people among the immigrants.

Ernst assessed the East African colony’s population problems and planned ways to reshape its population and secure its territory. The Colonial Government’s immediate priority became expelling local Black natives west of the Great Lakes while continuing to attract immigrants.

• The East African colony’s population reached around 200,000 immigrants, while two to three million indigenous natives remained across the territory.
• Ernst identified gender imbalance, an excessive proportion of Chinese immigrants, and the large native population as the colony’s three main problems.
• Ernst planned to fund a wedding company to bring women, especially Armenians from the Ottoman Empire, to East Africa under the guise of matchmaking.
• Ernst decided to keep recruiting immigrants from Europe and the Americas, though he saw no immediate solution to the colony’s ethnic imbalance.
• Ernst made gathering and deporting Black natives to Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda the colony’s main task for the coming year, hoping conflict with local states would weaken them.
• The East African Colonial Government shifted its priority from expansion to securing its existing territory and filling it with immigrants.

The East African Colonial Government launched a year-long purge campaign against native communities, ordering settlements to arrest, encircle, and destroy tribes in their regions. Kagongo Town mobilized more than a thousand temporary soldiers, and the campaign spread into widespread fighting across the Lake Tanganyika region and the colony.

• The East African Colonial Government assigned immigrant settlements regional tasks for its purge campaign against native communities.
• Kagongo Town staff posted the government order, and townspeople gathered after a soldier sounded the assembly call.
• Mayor Go announced the purge order while Military Commander Carson translated it for the crowd.
• Kagongo Town and its villages recruited over a thousand temporary soldiers and armed them.
• Kagongo Town joined Kigoma authorities in the campaign, and gunfire spread across the Lake Tanganyika region and the colony.

A. Thor’s colonial soldiers chased and captured a group of native East Africans after crocodiles blocked their escape across a river. The chapter then explained how the colony planned to drive many tribes westward and leave them to destabilize inland states, while Ernst considered using Leopold as a worse comparison for his own colonial rule.

• A. Thor and his men pursued fleeing natives across the grasslands after destroying their tribe.
• The fleeing natives reached a river, where crocodiles dragged several swimmers underwater.
• The remaining natives surrendered, and A. Thor ordered his soldiers to bind them and take them back.
• The East African colony drove other resisting tribes toward inland regions, hoping they would fight local states and weaken them.
• Ernst considered helping Leopold gain a worse reputation so that Ernst’s own actions would seem less abhorrent by comparison.

Odebiou led the defeated Koge Tribe into the Kingdom of Karagwe after fleeing the East African colony. He used the soldiers’ halted pursuit to convince his people that the gods had revealed a Promised Land to the northwest, and led them onward with his authority restored.

• The East African colony’s forces defeated the Koge Tribe and drove Odebiou and just over a thousand survivors northwest to the Kingdom of Karagwe’s border.
• Odebiou noticed the colony’s soldiers had stopped pursuing the tribe and pretended to receive divine guidance during a ritual.
• Odebiou told his tribespeople that the gods had directed them toward a Promised Land northwest, where the soldiers would not dare follow.
• The Koge Tribe cheered for Odebiou as a divine emissary, and he led them toward the Kingdom of Karagwe while the colony soldiers watched in confusion.

At Dar es Salaam Port, Mark Virian accepted a shipment of Armenian women from Azam, who bargained for a higher price. The East African colony distributed the women as rewards for Chinese soldiers and immigrants, encouraging them to join the purge campaign.

• Azam presented Armenian women to Mark Virian and praised their health and ability to endure hard work.
• Mark Virian agreed to take the batch at the original price of one Armenian woman for seven native slaves, then offered Azam ten additional slaves as a concession.
• Azam accepted the deal while concealing that acquiring the women had cost him almost nothing.
• The chapter explained how Ottoman officials seized Armenian women and exchanged them through Zanzibar merchants for East African slaves.
• Mark Virian’s men numbered the Armenian women and arranged for them to be sent throughout the East African colony.
• The colony used the women as rewards for Chinese immigrants who performed well and enlisted in the purge campaign.

After Hungary gained equal status with Austria, Ernst secured Hungarian nobles’ cooperation to relocate non-Magyar populations to East Africa. He then warned Franz against actively defending Hungary’s other ethnic groups, leaving Franz to consider how to avoid provoking the Hungarian government.

• Ernst found the Hungarian government more receptive than Austria to his immigration plans, and Hungarian nobles permitted him to relocate non-Magyar residents to East Africa.
• Ernst continued large-scale immigration from Austrian territories and gained broad permission to move other ethnic groups from Hungary.
• Ernst went to Schönbrunn Palace and asked Franz how he intended to handle Hungary’s ethnic groups.
• Franz said he would treat all his subjects equally, but Ernst urged him not to make substantive promises to Hungary’s lower classes.
• Ernst warned Franz that openly challenging the Hungarian nobles would inflame tensions and weaken the Habsburg central government.

Ernst explained to Franz that a mysterious sense of mission drove him to develop East Africa, where he felt free to shape a new society beyond Europe’s constraints. In Trieste, Jean Degou reassured prospective immigrants that East Africa’s ports offered better conditions than the countryside, while young Serb Krik considered his future there.

• Franz questioned Ernst about why he supported the Hungarians, and Ernst bluntly said he wanted to encourage immigration to East Africa.
• Ernst described East Africa as a blank canvas for his ambitions and told Franz that an inexplicable force guided his work there.
• In Trieste, Jean Degou and Phil Moore discussed migration, Europe’s growing population, and the hardships facing factory workers.
• Krik, a fifteen-year-old Serb from the Hungarian countryside, asked Jean Degou whether East Africa was truly a suitable place to settle.
• Jean Degou described the ports he had visited and said their conditions were better than those in the European countryside, reassuring the immigrants.

Ernst planned to organize East African agriculture into large estates focused on crops suited to each region, using agricultural exports to build capital for future industrialization. The chapter ended with animal husbandry and perishable produce awaiting better preservation and transportation technology.

• Ernst compared East Africa’s land, rainfall, and population with Argentina’s and concluded that large-scale agriculture could drive development.
• Ernst rejected smallholder farming and planned to use his ownership of the land to establish uniformly managed estates staffed by agricultural workers.
• The colony assigned wheat to several inland and southern regions, rice to eastern coastal districts, and millet and animal husbandry to northern and central areas.
• Ernst identified sisal, oil crops, rubber, tea, cotton, and coffee as major cash crops, with cloves and pyrethrum as additional options.
• Ernst postponed large-scale livestock, flower, fruit, and vegetable production because preservation, technology, and transportation remained inadequate.