ABSTRACT
Rwanda and Burundi (colonial Ruanda-Urundi) became German colonies in 1885 during the Scramble for Africa but only a limited attention had been paid to the development of these remote areas as German East Africa or Cameroon were valued more for their access to the sea and further economic potential. This chapter focuses on specific issues of demography, migration, and labor force which the Belgians had to solve since the early 1920s until 1950s. In both Rwanda and Burundi, Belgians had to gain sympathies and collaboration of local elites in order to develop the system of forced labor by which the colonies differed from the Belgian Congo or neighboring British Territories in East Africa. Historical contacts with Arab and Persian traders and recent early twentieth-century labor migration from South-East Africa were the main ways of spreading Islam not only in Tanzania, but in the Great Lakes region as well.
