German New Guinea : the annual reports

Abstract

In 1885 the Neu Guinea Compagnie was granted sovereign powers over German New Guinea, comprising the north-eastern part of the New Guinea mainland, known as Kaiser Wilhelmsland, and the Bismarck Archipelago. This territory, with some significant extensions, it continued to administer until 1899 when German New Guinea came under the direct administration of the Reich. German New Guinea: The Annual Reports collects together all the official reports of the company's administration and of the fifteen years of direct imperial rule. The publication of the complete set of reports makes this collection of important historical source material easily accessible for the first time to students both of general Pacific history and of German colonialism. Their publication in an English translation makes them more readily available to the people of Papua New Guinea themselves, who have perhaps the greatest interest in these records of a crucial stage in their history. By skilful editing and translating Peter Sack and Dymphna Clark have produced a manageable text that giv.es the reader a view through the eyes of German officials of the problems of the growing colony and a sense of some of the difficulties with which they were most preoccupied: communications, health, choices of crops, recruitment of suitable staff and relations with the indigenous population.