Revolt
It was led by the planter Abushiri ibn Salim al-Harthi, who gained the support by both the Arabs of the area and local Swahili tribes. Abushiri's father was an ethnic Arab and his mother a Galla. The rebellion soon spread all along the coast from the town of Tanga in the north to Lindi and Mikindani in the south. The representatives of the German East Africa Company were expelled or killed except for the establishments in Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam.
In February 1889 the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck intervened and appointed Lieutenant Hermann Wissmann a Reichskommissar of German East Africa. Wissmann concentrated a Schutztruppe of German officers and native Askari soldiers, who, with support by the Marine and the British, subsequently suppressed the revolt.
After Abushiri, on his flight to Mombasa, had been finally betrayed to the Germans in December 1889, he was sentenced to death by a court-martial and publicly hanged in Pangani. By an agreement of 20 November 1890, the East Africa Company had to hand over Tanganyika's administration to the German government. It was however not until early 1891 that Wissmann could report back to Berlin that the rebellion had been fully suppressed.
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