The town was founded by German colonialists when the territory was part of German East Africa in 1900. A garrison town, it was named after the local tribe Wa-Arusha, who are known as Larusa by the Maasai.
The German military fortress, called a Boma, armed with a mounted Maxim machine gun, was completed in 1901. The first commander was First Lieutenant Georg Kuster - derogatorily referred to in Swahili as "Bwana Fisi" meaning "Mr. Hyena". After 1903 Arusha quickly developed into a significant trading and administrative center, with about two dozen Indian and Arab shops clustered along what is today Boma Road.
In 1904 the German Imperial authorities established a European colony here with the sponsored settlement of Boer refugee families, mostly of German descent, in the aftermath of South Africa's divisive Anglo-Boer War. The Germans arranged for the Boers to be taken by boat to Tanga, from where they traveled to Arusha by ox-wagon. When the oxen all succumbed to tsetse-borne disease, the Germans provided the Boers with teams of (forced) local laborers. In August 1905 they reached the Arusha district and met the Pieter Joubert trek, which had just arrived. For their immediate sojourn they set up camp on the farm of Mr. Nelie von Landsberg.
After 1906 the government sponsored German peasants to develop smallholdings at Leganga on southeastern Meru between Usa River and Maji ya Chai. Several Evangelical Lutheran settlers had already become established west of Arusha town when the government decided to settle German refugees from southern Russia. Forty people were recruited at a cost of 7000 marks each, and each family was given fifty hectares to grow wheat, maize, and vegetables.
In 1907 Margaret Trappe, great-grandmother of Ohio industrialist Kenyon Painter, made her home in German East Africa. An accomplished horsewoman, she was the first female professional hunter ever listed. The Trappe family built their home on the slopes of Mount
