The earliest inhabitants of what is now Rwanda were the Twa, a group of aboriginal pygmy hunter-gatherers who settled in the area between 8000 BC and 3000 BC and remain in Rwanda today.Between 700 BC and 1500 AD, a number of Bantu groups migrated into Rwanda, and began to clear forest land for agriculture. Historians have several theories regarding the nature of the Bantu migrations.
BackgroundTHEORYone theory is that the first settlers were Hutu, while the Tutsi migrated later and formed a distinct racial group, possibly of Cushitic origin
Alternative Theorythe migration was slow and steady from neighboring regions, with incoming groups bearing high genetic similarity to the established ones and integrating into rather than conquering the existing society.
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Colonial Era
The Berlin Conference of 1884 assigned the territory to Germany and began a policy of ruling through the Rwandan monarchy; this system had the added benefit of enabling colonization with small European troop numbers.European colonists, convinced the Tutsi had migrated to Rwanda from Ethiopia, believed the Tutsi were more Caucasian than the Hutu and were therefore racially superior and better suited to carry out colonial administrative tasks
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