East Africa Company

After his studies, instead of becoming a teacher, Peters moved to London, where he stayed with his recently widowed maternal uncle, Carl Engel, on Addison Road. Engel was a distinguished composer and musical essayist, the brother-in-law of the ophthalmologist Sir William Bowman, and lived the life of a gentleman. During his time in London, Peters was offered the opportunity of becoming a British subject, which he rejected due to his German nationalist sympathies.^[2] Having studied the principles of European colonialism during his foreign sojourn, when Peters returned to Berlin he initiated the Society for German Colonization (Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation), a pressure group for the acquisition of colonies by Germany.

In the autumn of 1884 he proceeded with two companions to East Africa, and concluded in the name of his society treaties with the chiefs of Useguha, Nguru, Ijsagara, and Ukami. Returning to Europe early in 1885, he formed the German East Africa Company.

The German government of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, fearing the effect on relations with the British, was originally opposed to these plans, and had refused any funding when Peters began. Bismarck refused a second time when Peters returned to Germany during the last days of the Berlin Conference of 1884, demanding an imperial charter. Peters threatened the Chancellor successfully by threatening to sell his acquisitions to King Leopold II of Belgium who was eager to expand his territory of Congo. As Bismarck's National Liberal Party allies in the Reichstag parliament were pro-colonial anyway, he finally agreed and the charter was granted. This constituted the necessary beginning for further expansion on the East African mainland in the years ensuing. In 1888, Peters achieved an agreement with Sultan Khalifah bin Said of Zanzibar, who leased his coastal dominions in what was to be Tanganyika to the German East Africa Company.

In the same year Peters began an expedition from the east coast of Africa, avowedly for the relief of Emin Pasha, actually to extend the area of German influence in Uganda and Equatoria. This expedition was not sanctioned by the German government and was regarded by local British authorities as a filibuster (in the 19th century sense of the word). Reaching Uganda in early 1890, Peters concluded a treaty with Kabaka Mwanga II of Buganda in favour of Germany.

He had to leave Uganda hastily on the approach of an expedition commanded by Frederick Lugard, the representative of the Imperial British East Africa Company. On reaching Zanzibar he learned that his efforts were useless, as on 1 July 1890 the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty between Germany and the UK had been signed, whereby Uganda was left as an area of British influence and Peters's agreement with Mwanga became null and void. Meanwhile, the power of his company had ended when the coastal population rebelled in the Abushiri Revolt against the implementation of the lease agreement between the Sultan and the Germans. The German government had to intervene by sending troops commanded by Hermann Wissmann, ended the insurrection, and assumed ownership of the company's possessions as a colony.

Nevertheless, on his return to Germany Peters was received with great honours, and in 1891 published an account of his expedition entitled Die deutsche Emin Pasha Expedition, which was translated into English. He also endorsed the foundation of the Alldeutscher Verband in protest against the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty.

Reichskommissar

On 18 March 1891, he went out again to East Africa as "Reichskommissar for the Kilimanjaro Region" in Moshi, however subordinate to governor Freiherr von Soden, and in 1892 was one of the commissioners for delimiting the Anglo-German boundary with the British East Africa Company in that region. During the same time, Peters, by his brutal behaviour against the local population, provoked a rebellion which was to cost him his office. He used local girls as concubines and, when he discovered that his lover Jagoda had an affair with his man-servant Mabruk, he had both of them sentenced for theft and treason and hanged by a court-martial and their home villages destroyed.^[3] The incident, at first not reported by Peters, provoked resistance by the local Chaga people and again necessitated costly military action. Peters gained nickname "Mkono-wa-damu," or "man-with-blood-stained-hands." After one expedition, a Danish explorer who happened to follow the same path wrote of the aftermath.

"On every side I came on traces of war. In the neighborhood of Obangi I found even villages that had been destroyed by fire, and everywhere skeletons of men, women, and children, those of women and children being especially numerous… It was almost impossible for me to procure the necessary rice for my people, for as soon as we approached the whole populace fled panic-stricken. The natives were terrified at my white face, for the last white man they had seen was Dr. Peters."^[4]

Peters was recalled to Berlin and employed in the Imperial Colonial Office from 1893 to 1895, while official accusations were brought against him of excesses in regard to his treatment of the native population.^[5] In a session of the Reichstag on 13 March 1896 August Bebel, chairman of the Social Democratic Party, finally made the killings public, citing from a self-exculpatory letter by Peters to Bishop Alfred Tucker. Peters denied the authenticity of the letter but had to admit the executions. After three investigations, in 1897, he was dishonourably deprived of his commission for misuse of official power, losing all his pension benefits.