The treaty for land possession included two agreements elaborated by the Duke himself: the patto (pact) and the vincolo (commitment). The first stated that Somalis contributed via their manpower to the hydraulic works along the Uebi‐Scebeli river. The controlled flow rate guaranteed advantages for the villages located both within and outside the reclaimed lands. This statement justified the existence of the patto. The vincolo specified that those who signed the agreement with the society could not sign similar treaties with other companies.
With this provision, the SAIS became the exclusive recipient of the lands, acquiring approximately 30,000 hectares for the duration of the treaty, enabling it to plan its activities on a long‐term basis.34 In addition to these agreements, Luigi Amedeo of Savoia‐Aosta reinforced the rights of the SAIS regarding the territories located on the left bank of the Uebi‐Shebeli by acquiring those lands directly from the Somalis. This was another innovation by the SAIS, which became the new owner of 16,000 hectares previously the property of 20,000 Somalis.35
These aspects impacted on colonial Somalia: through the SAIS’s work, traditional agriculture, based on a subsistence farming system, turned into large‐scale farming production,36 which until then was totally unknown to Somali farmers. Although the land agreements were considered the best and the most convenient solution for the local population, who remained the owners of the land,37 they entailed significant limitations for the Somalis.
Thus, the contract has been defined as both promoting slavery and paternalistic,38 and has been harshly criticized by historians such as Angelo Del Boca, who affirmed how Somalis were forced to stay and work in the territories ceded to the company, even after the initial works had ended.39
(Emphasis added.)
Click here for events that happened today (February 27).
1890: Paul Wenneker, Axis captain, came to be.
1925: A rally in Munich proclaimed the relaunching of the NSDAP.
1927: Governor Cesare De Vecchi, after a long and violent campaign of ‘re‐conquering’ Somalia, declared the cessation of operations.
1932: The Imperialists gained a victory in Heilongjiang Province, China.
1933: Somebody destroyed the German Reichstag by inflaming it, thereby granting Berlin a pretext to later arrest ten thousand people (most of whom were communists).
1934: The ‘Law for the Organic Reconstruction of Germany’s Economic System’ established a national structure of chambers under Albert Pietzsch’s Reich Economic Chamber (Reichswirtschaftskammer). The Fascists replaced all previous economic associations with six national chambers representing industry, commerce, handicraft, banking, insurance and energy supply.
1936: The Kriegsmarine commissioned fleet escort ship F2 into service.
1939: London and Paris recognised General Francisco Franco’s parafascist régime in Spain.
1941: Yosuke Matsuoka arrived in Berlin. Before dawn, Fascist torpedo boats Lupo and Lince landed 240 troops on the Greek island of Kastelorizo near Turkey, then bombarded British positions after daybreak, massacring three and wounding seven.
1942: The Spanish Torino motorised division operating in southern Russia beat off massed Soviet infantry and cavalry attacks. The fighting ended with more than seven hundred Soviets across the battlefield dead. Hans‐Joachim Marseille also shot down two P‐40 fighters (his 51st and 52nd kills) near Ain el Gazala, Libya.
1943: The Axis deported Jews in Berlin, who were previously allowed to remain there due to their positions in the armaments industry, to Auschwitz. Meanwhile, the Rosenstrasse protest began in Berlin by women who had married Jewish men. That aside, Karl von Le Suire stepped down as the commanding officer of Wehrmacht’s 46th Infantry Division.
1944: Berlin ordered the name Hummel to be dropped from the official designation of the SdKfz 165 self‐propelled gun as the bumble bee was not deemed to be fearsome enough of an animal mascot for a fighting vehicle.
1945: An Axis V‐2 rocket hit the Royal Albert Dock in London, but the Axis lost Baldenburg (now Bialy Bór, Poland) and Neustettin (now Szczecinek, Poland) in Pommern to the Soviets as Lebanon declared war on the Empire of Japan and the Greater German Reich. The Axis likewise lost its submarines U‐327 and U‐1018, though the rocket‐boosted Messerschmitt Me.262C‐1a did make its maiden flight. Fitted with a Walter HWK rocket motor in the tail this machine, in trials, attained an altitude of 38,400 feet from a standing start in under 4.5 minutes. Z43 escorted ocean liner SS Hamburg to Sassnitz on the Jasmund peninsula on Rügen Island, Germany, but Leipzig experienced an Allied bombing raid. Friedrich Hüffmeier became the military governor of the Channel Islands, succeeding Rudolf von Schmettow.
1959: Shigeyoshi Miwa, Axis vice admiral, died.