The German explorer, adventurer, and colonizer Carl Peters (1856-1918) was primarily responsible for putting a vast area of East Africa under German domination.

Carl Peters was born in Neuhaus near the mouth of the Elbe River. As a schoolboy, he exhibited a streak of romanticism; he dreamed of far-off lands and of the ways in which to achieve personal glory by emulating David Livingstone, Sir Richard Burton, Heinrich Barth, and other explorers of Africa.

In 1883 Peters returned home after a long visit to Britain, during which he had become infected with the fever of imperialism. He contemplated colonial adventure with new enthusiasm, spoke and wrote of the importance of colonial acquisition to the health of the new Germany, and in 1884 finally managed to persuade a number of older men of influence to join him in founding the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation (German Colonization Society).

The society...