African Colonial History

• KEY TO UNDERSTANDINGAFRICAN UNDERDEVELOPMENT

• ORIGINS AND MYTHS

Colonial Motives• Economic Interpretation- raw materials, minerals and

agricultural products

• Missionary Influence and abolitionism (Divide Religiously)

• Pseudo-Scientific Racism

• European Rivalries

• Cultural Imperialism and Racism

Theme

“We have the Maxim Gun,They Have None”

Hillaire Blazac

Issue: The Crusher

“Bula Matari came to represent [the] alien authority…”

Crawford Young describes Henry Morton Stanley

Further Reading

• Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

• Later film, Apocalypse Now byFrancis Ford Coppola

• Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost

The Scramble for Africa

• Triangular Trade to 1800• Legitimate Trade and Spheres of

Influence• Spheres of Influence (the China Model)• The Role of the Trading Companies

• German East African Company• French West African Trading Company• British East and British South African Companies

The Scramble for Africa

• France, Germany and European Rivalries

• Belgium, King Leopold and the “Congo Free State”

• Congresses of Berlin: 1878 and 1884-85

Origins of Colonialism: 1890-1914

• West Africa: French vs. British and Assimilation vs. Indirect Rule

o From Company Rule to Indirect Ruleo Smaller Powers

• East Africa: Settlers and Imperialism o German Authoritarianism, o White Highlandso British East Africa Company

Origins of ColonialismCentral and Southern Africa

• Jan van Riebeck and the Cape- 1652• Britain- Cape Colony: 1815• Cecil John Rhodes: British South Africa

Company• The Rhodesias and Nyasaland- Company

Rule to 1923• From Federation to UDI

Styles of Colonialism- Tactics and Methods

• Force, Trickery, sub-imperialism (client kingdoms) and Authoritarian Prefectoralism

Carl Peters and his Bags full of TreatiesSir Samuel Baker and his Hungarian Wife

Stimulate alliances and rivalries among different ethnic and religious groups

• Use of Indigenous Forces: Create African Armies

• Use puppet rulers, appoint chiefs in “stateless systems, use District Commissioners (Prefects)

Patterns of Colonial Rule

• Parallel Rule vs. Indirect Rule- Britain • Assimilation- France Portugal and

France• Federations vs. Fragmentation-

Francophone vs. East Africa• Special Role of Settler Colonies

Discussion

“Do Things Fall Apart in Africa After 1870?

The Colonial Administrative State

• Integration- Algeria and Lusophone• Overseas territories and provinces-

France• Colonial Office and the Overseas

Governor• Cultural Sub-Nationalism: Buganda,

Ashanti and South Africa

British Colonialism

Sir Frederick Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London: 1922).

Types of Territories• Without European Settlers- Nkrumah and the

Mosquito

– Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone

• Without European Settlers- Protectorates– Uganda, Zanzibar, Nyasaland

• With European Settlers (No Home rule)

– Kenya, Tanzania, Northern Rhodesia

• With European Settlers (Home rule)

– Rhodesia, South Africa, South West Africa (after 1920)

Colonial Processes

• Oxbridge Generalists• Major Ralph Furse and Gentlemen

Administrators• LEGCO, EXECO and Unofficial Advisors

(Europeans, Arabs and Indians, and Late a few Africans)

• “Multi-racialism” vs. Ornamentalism

British Colonial Structures

Parliament

TreasurySecretary of

State for Colonies

Secretary for Foreign and

Dominion Affairs

Colonial OfficeLondon

Structure of British Colonialism

Colonial OfficeLondon

Ghana Tanganyika Uganda

Governor or High Commissioner

Executive Council

Legislative Council

Colonial Administration

Governor

Provincial Commissioner

Provincial Commissioner

Provinciall Commissioner

Provincial Officer

Government Secretary/Secretariat

Provincial Education Officer

District Commissioner

Colonial Administration

District Commissioner

DAO District EducationOfficer DMO DPWD

District Officer

Agricultural Demonstrator District SchoolInspector

Colonial Administration

District Commissioner

District Officer DO DO

ParamountChief

“Tribal” Administration

Paramount Chief

Sub-Chief Sub-Chief Sub-Chief

Head Man

Village Leader

Colonial Structures-1956Parliament and Cabinet-London

Colonial Office Commonwealth And Foreign Office Treasury

Colonial WelfareAnd Development

Office

Governor and Colonial Secretariat

LegcoAnd Execo

Departments

District Offices

Traditional GovernmentTwo Structures

National Systems

Paramount Chief (King)

AdvisorsNative Councils

Traditional MeetingPlace Judicial System

Sub-Chiefs

Headmen

Imperial Systems

King

Chief Chief Chief

King’s Representative Inner Council

Sub-Chiefs And Headmen

Outer Council

Parallel Rule

• The External Protectorate

• Soldiers, Missionaries and Police

• Settlers: Eastern and Southern Africa

Origins of Indirect Rule

INDIRECT RULE THEORISTS

• Lord Lugard and Northern Nigeria

• Theophilus Shepstone in Natal

• Sir Donald Cameroon in Tanganyika

"Tribal Administration“and Indirect Rule

• Traditional vs. “Tribal” Rule

• Modification of Parallel or Dual Rule

• Goal: Legal/Rational Model

• Modification of Tradition

• Training of tribal administrator

Indirect Rule System

Chief

Tribal Secretary Treasury Court

Police

Council

Clerks

Sub-Chiefs

Headmen

French Colonialism

• Meaning of Assimilation

• Direct Rule• Use of Traditional Authorities as French

Administrators• Replacement of Traditional Authorities by Soldiers• In Practice Assimilation was Association• British and French administrative Practice not that

different in rural Africa

French Colonialism

• The Concept of Permanent Association

• Goal a French Language Union (Political Economic and Social)

• Paris and A Single, highly centralized system- World Wide

• Facade of Direct Rule

French Colonial StructuresFrance Overseas: Indochina, Caribbean

North Africa: Tunisia, Morocco, the Department of Algeria

L’Afrique Occidentale Francaise (AOF)

L’Afrique Equitoriale Francaise (AEF)

The Mandates: Togo, Cameroons

French Colonial Structures

French ExecutiveAnd Cabinet

French National Assembly

( Nominal AfricanReps.

Ministry of Overseas Affairs

French Civil andColonial Services

French Colonial Structures

Governor GeneralOf the Federation

Territorial Governor

Secretariat and Staff

Old Communes:

St. Louis

Rep. in French Assembly

French Colonial Structures

Governor

Commandant(Prefect)

CommandantDe cercle Commandant

Chefde subdivisions

District Chiefs

Sub-ChiefsAnd Headmen

French Decolonization

• The Concept of the French Union• France and World War II: French Africa

and Vichy• Socialist Governments and Socialist

Empires• Collapse of Federation, the Loi Cadre of

1956• DeGaulle and the 1958 Referendum

SMALLER COLONIAL POWERS• Germany: Lost Colonies: German East Africa,

German South West Africa, Cameroons and Togo

• Belgium: Monarch’s Private Property (Congo Free State) Rwanda, Burundi- Primary Education, Church, Mineral Extraction

• Portugal: Post-Revolutionary States. Four Centuries of Neglect, Massive Amounts of Settlers Post-WWI and WWII-Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde

SMALLER COLONIAL POWERS

• Italy: National Grandeur, Battle of Adowa, Mussolini- Italian Somaliland, Eritrea, Libya, Ethiopia (1937-1940)

• Spain: Colonial Remnants of Slave Trade- Spanish Morocco, Spanish Sahara, Spanish Equatorial Guinea

• Holland: From Cape Colony to Dutch Republics Orange Free State, Transvaal, French Protestants, Germans-South Africa (Apartheid)

Themes of Colonial Rule

• Psychological Dependence and Revolution

• Racial animosity and “love-hate” cultural links (Indians, Arabs, Europeans)

• Absence of Core State• Nationalism as a Product of Colonialism• Gender, Race and Class debates

Discussion

Similarities and Differences:

• Richard Rive

• Chinua Achebe

• Crawford Young

NEXT WEEK

“Seek ye first the political kingdom, all else will follow”

Kwame Nkrumah