• KEY TO UNDERSTANDING
AFRICAN UNDERDEVELOPMENT
• ORIGINS AND MYTHS

• Economic Interpretation- raw materials, minerals and agricultural products
• Missionary Influence and abolitionism (Divide
Religiously)
• Pseudo-Scientific Racism
• European Rivalries
• Cultural Imperialism and Racism

“We have the Maxim Gun,
They Have None”
Hillaire Blazac

“Bula Matari came to represent [the] alien authority…”
Crawford Young describes
Henry Morton Stanley

• Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
• Later film, Apocalypse Now by
Francis Ford Coppola
• Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost

• 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

• 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 Rule o Smaller Powers
• East Africa: Settlers and Imperialism o German Authoritarianism, o White Highlands o British East Africa Company

Origins of Colonialism
Central 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 Treaties
 Sir 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)

• Parallel Rule vs. Indirect Rule- Britain
• Assimilation- France Portugal and
France
• Federations vs. Fragmentation-
Francophone vs. East Africa
• Special Role of Settler Colonies

“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

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

• 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)

• 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

Treasury
Parliament
Secretary of
State for
Colonies
Colonial Office
London
Secretary for
Foreign and
Dominion Affairs

Colonial Office
London
Tanganyika Ghana
Governor or
High Commissioner
Uganda
Executive Council
Legislative Council

Governor
Government Secretary/
Secretariat
Provincial
Commissioner
Provincial
Commissioner
Provincial Officer
District Commissioner
Provincial l Commissioner
Provincial Education Officer

District Commissioner
DAO
Agricultural Demonstrator
District Officer
District Education
Officer
District School
Inspector
DMO DPWD

District Commissioner
District Officer DO
Paramount
Chief
DO

Sub-Chief
Paramount Chief
Sub-Chief Sub-Chief
Head Man
Village
Leader

Parliament and
Cabinet-London
Colonial Office
Commonwealth
And Foreign Office
G overnor and
Colonial Secretariat
Treasury
Colonial Welfare
And Development
Office
Legco
And Execo
Departments
District Offices

Traditional Government
Two Structures
National Systems
Advisors
Native Councils
Paramount
Chief (King)
Traditional Meeting
Place
Sub-Chiefs
Headmen
Judicial System

King’s
Representative
King
Inner Council
Outer Council
Chief Chief
Sub-Chiefs
And Headmen
Chief

• The External Protectorate
• Soldiers, Missionaries and Police
• Settlers: Eastern and Southern Africa

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

Tribal
Secretary
Clerks
Council
Chief
Sub-Chiefs
Headmen
Treasury Court
Police

• 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

• 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

France 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 Executive
And Cabinet
French National
Assembly
( Nominal African
Reps.
Ministry of
Overseas Affairs
French Civil and
Colonial Services

Governor General
Of the Federation
Territorial
Governor
Old Communes:
St. Louis
Rep. in French
Assembly
Secretariat and Staff

Commandant
(Prefect)
Governor
Commandant
De cercle
Chef de subdivisions
District Chiefs
Sub-Chiefs
And Headmen
Commandant

• 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)

• 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

Similarities and Differences:
• Richard Rive
• Chinua Achebe
• Crawford Young

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