“Impossible to Get to Know These Secret Means”—Colonial Anxiety and the Quest for Controlling Reproduction in “German East Africa”

Abstract

Daniel Bendix examines colonial narratives on childbirth-related practices and abortions in “German East Africa.” After the turn of the twentieth century, German administrators, missionaries, and physicians cautioned against a “population decline,” and East Africans came to be considered a resource in need of “protection.” This chapter highlights how East African women were turned into objects of German patriarchal-colonial population and health policy, and discerns possible agency of East African women. The chapter argues that the discussion of women consulting German health facilities for delivery and the problematizations of abortions point to the German colonizers’ anxiety in the face of East African women’s non-compliance with colonial desires.