United States Ambassador to Burundi

The part of Africa that is now Burundi and Rwanda was a feudal monarchy headed by a mwami (king) and a ganwa, a feudal hierarchy of Tutsi nobles and gentry until 1890. In that year the Germans attacked the nation and attempted to subdue it with armed force. Eventually the Germans backed an attempted coup d’état against the king, Mwezi Gisabo. The coup was unsuccessful, but Gisabo was eventually forced to concede and agreed to German suzerainty. The Germans then helped him suppress the revolt. Thus Burundi became part of German East Africa in 1890. In 1915 during The Great War, Belgian troops from Zaire drove the small number of Germans out of Burundi and took control of the country. After World War I Germany lost its overseas possessions and the League of Nations mandated Burundi and its southern neighbor, Rwanda, to Belgium as the territory of Ruanda-Urundi in 1923. The western kingdoms of Ruanda-Urundi were stripped from the old colonies and given to British-administered Tanganyika. The Belgians administered the territory through indirect rule, building on the Tutsi-dominated aristocratic hierarchy. Following World War II, Ruanda-Urundi became a United Nations Trust Territory with Belgium as the administrative authority.