Virtual Summit Submission

William & Mary
History and European Studies

Biography

Oscar Linehan-Siu is a History and European Studies double major at William & Mary in his senior year. He began studying the German language as a freshman and has spent two summers abroad in Germany studying first as an enrolled student for at the Freie Universität Berlin International Winter and Summer (FUBiS) and then independently as a Tyler Fellow. This summer, Oscar spent seven weeks in Germany, primarily in Frankfurt am Main, where he reviewed primary sources held in the colonial archive at the Goethe-Universität in preparation for an honors thesis in history analyzing the development of settler colonial ideology in the German Empire. In between hours writing, Oscar enjoys filling various roles on the school rowing team including Treasurer and Head of Team Fundraising. In the future, Oscar hopes to pursue a career that brings together different communities around the world.

Project

The Development of Settler Colonial Ideology in the German Empire (1879-1914)
This honors thesis will use primary source documents written by German theoreticians of colonialism to trace the development of settler colonial ideology over the course of the German Empire. Although the German colonial empire emerged only in 1879 and its overseas holdings were diminutive in comparison to the country's importance in European great power politics, the legacy of German colonialism reverberates to this day in both Germany and the areas it colonized. This is particularly true in Namibia, Germany's only settler colony, where the German military committed genocide against the Herero and Nama people between 1904-1908. The first chapter will analyze pamphlets written by influential organizers and propagandists of the German colonial movement written between 1879-1887, exploring the motivations behind their words and the influence of their ideas on one another. The second chapter will discuss German conversations surrounding settler colonialism in Southwest Africa between 1879-1914, how concepts of German identity developed over the period, the challenges Germany faced settling the area, and the contradictions which emerged as German settlers interacted with Africans. The third chapter will trace the development of racial ideology in Germany between 1879-1914 as it pertains to people living in Africa. It will explore the racial ideology present in colonial literature between 1879-1914, the problem African resistance posed to the German settler colonial project, and the diverse policies German colonial thinkers proposed as solutions to the "native problem." I will finalize the final paper in May.