ART DISCUSSION 4

The European 'Scramble', colonial CHAPTER 21 conquest and African resistance in

east, north-central and west Africa

The Eur()j)ean background

The 'Scramble for Africa'

Ever since the emergence of 'legitimate commerce' in place of the Atlantic slave trade, European merchants had been increasingly interested in gaining control over the trading systems of the African interior. By the early 1870s they were pushing up the major rivers of the western coastline. But they still generally recognised African authority and operated through alliances with local African rulers. Apart from British and Boers in south Africa, the French in Algeria and nominal Ottoman rule in north Africa, foreign incursion into tropical Africa was generally confined to small coastal en­ claves (see Map 21.1). The authority of the Arab rulers of Zanzibar did not extend much beyond the adjacent coastal towns and islands of east Africa. Portugal had long maintained claims to an African empire in Mozambique and Angola, but their authority extended little beyond coast or river valley. In west Africa the French had pushed up the Senegal valley in support of French trading interests, but theirs was still at this stage a narrow riverine colony. The British meanwhile controlled Sierra Leone and a small coastal colony at Lagos; and they were on the verge of annexing the Fante states of coastal modern Ghana. But even with these foreign incursions, the vast majority of the African continent remained under indigenous African rule in the early 1870s.

Between 1880 and 1900, however, the whole tone and tempo of Afro­ European contact changed. By the end of the century a massive colonial onslaught, known as the European 'Scramble for Africa', had brought most of the continent within the sphere of some European colonial empire. But what led to this dramatic turn of events, and how was it possible that independent Africa was apparently so quickly overrun? Historians have argued long and hard over the relative importance of various 'causes' and no doubt they will continue to do so. It is only possible here to refer to some of the principal background factors.

Britain's position as the leading industrial nation in the world had remained unchallenged until the second half of the nineteenth century. During this time it suited Britain to promote a policy of European 'free trade' in Africa. That is, no one European nation was to interfere with the right of another to freely trade in Africa. In practice this meant British domination of Africa's external trade. For Britain produced the cheapest European manufactured goods in the largest quantity and had the largest merchant navy for shipping them to Africa. By the late 1860s, however, it was becoming clear that France, Germany and the United States had caught up with Britain in terms of industrial technology and manufacturing. By the

301

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302

- The German eagle swooping over Africa: a British cartoonist's view of German ambitions in Africa, Punch 1890

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187Os western Europe's f~ries ~er~p._roducing s_o man~~h_~~t _!bey were runn ing out of people to sell them to. With thajr hQme market§. saturned,-E urt>eean riiaruitictiire.L3,,.<M.~JJ1eiiJ:i.aa ts_tumed more and .JllO>e

c::....,___ - - -- -to Kfnca. Cloth, clothing, alcohol, guns and metal manufactured goods ~ere-pmired into the continerii: m se.arch of new market~. With European inaustrial and trading competition approaching more equal terms, 'free

303

The 'Scramble' takes off

trade' gave way to 'protectionism' . B!itain's main _rradiqg_riyals._Er.ance, and later Germany, realised that_the way to be_at.British competition ~ as to - ~--~----- . --.___. -~ tab1isnco ornes or 'protecte<!' a~ i~ A..fufa I;rom these the trade of

other European nationals could be excluded or heavily taxed. A further economic factor in the scramble was the European belief that

vast stretches of the African interior contained huge quantities of untapped wealth and raw materials. The tropical forests of western Africa had already proved a valuable source of vegetable oils. Ivory was a fast-wasting asset, but rubber from the tropical forests was about to enter a boom. And finally, the discovery of huge quantities of diamonds and gold in southern Africa in the 1870s and 1880s heightened expectations for the whole of the continent.

Even less-industrialised European nations joined in the rush to stake a claim to part of Africa. Theirs was in anticipation of quick profits or to safeguard markets for the future. European partition of the continent would clearly only happen once. The possession of colonies in Africa became a point of national prestige within Europe.

The rapid colonial congueg_of Africa~ only pqs_wJe, however, be­ cause ol two important factors. In the first place colonists were ab~ _ to exploit traditional and longstanding rivalries between African states. Thus some African rulers ac'Zepted a.European alliance or -treaty of 'protection' in the beli~f that it would prQJect_!hem from tr~ditional African enemi~s. It was only when those traditional enemies had been brutally conquered that the full implications of European 'protection' became clear. No African leader knowingly and willingly signed away his birthright, though this was how the 'protecting' European power usually chose to interpret the treaties.

In the second place, Europe gained an important ad~antage in mil~ y technology. In earlier centuries African rulers had generally been able to ho1a their own against invading European armies. They built up their own arsenals of muzzle-loading guns and made skilful use of more traditional weapons and guerrilla tactics. In the 1870s and 1880s, however, African armies were rapidly overtaken by ad~ ces in_European weaRO!!fY. Firs-t came the breech-loading repeater rifle, to be followed ~ 1889 by the M~ -gun, _th~.r.14's first highlr mobile modern_machin~ n. Posses­ sion of the Maxim-gun transformed European military fortunes in Africa. Its use was often crucial in the final crushing of resistance. Old, outmoded European guns had for years been freely sold to Africans, but restrictions were placed upon the sale of the latest models. Though most African armies of resistance acquired a number of breech-loading rifles, none acquired a Maxim-gun. The British anti-imperialist poet Hilaire Belloc summed up his countrymen's position in the famous sarcastic couplet:

Whatever happens we have got The Maxim-gun; and they have not.

In 1879 the French threw down a challenge to European ' free trade' in Africa. They started constructing a railway from Dakar to link their colony of Senegal with the upper Niger valley. In this way the French government hoped to gain control of a huge protected market across the Sahelian and savannah regions of west Africa. In 1882 they proclaimed French protecto­ rates over Porto Novo and the north bank of the lower Congo. The former

304

(a) The French in w est and north-central Africa

lay between Lhe BriLish coastal colonies of Gold Coast and Lagos, and thus broke Britain's near-monopoly of west Africa's south-facing coastline. The latter opened up the whole question of 'free trade' on the navigable Congo river. Stanley had already established claims along the south bank on behalf of the 'Internacional Association', which was a front for King Leopold of the Belgians. The British responded by supporting Porruguese claims to Angola and the Congo mouth. By this time it was becoming clear that Briuin's 'temporary' occupation of Egypt was likely to be fairly perma­ nent, much to the annoyance of French investors in the country (see pp. 282-4). The German leader, Bismark, saw the direction in which Anglo­ French rivalry was leading and decided to act while there " 'as still some of Africa left to colonise. In 1884 he proclaimed German protectorates o,·er Togo, Kamerun (Cameroon) and South West Africa (Namibia). He then invited the major European powers to Berlin to discuss the issue of maintaining free navigation along the Niger and Congo rivers.

The Berlin West Africa Conference (1884- 85) was an attempt by Euro­ pean Icade~ to add some kind of intemattonal £uropean ~reement 10 the

carving-up of Africa •hat was alreadx under w~y. It dionot decide on any colonial boundaries as such, but it did settle two important principles. In the first place iL_Lecognised Leopold's so-called 'International Associ?tion' as the legitimate authority in the Congo basin. Tri return.the Belgian king agreed 10 a ow uropean ra ers "'!d missionaries free access to the area. Based on this Berlin recognition, Leopold proclaimed his own eersonal kingdom, !he 'Congo Free State', in 1885. Secondly, the Be.rlin Conference agreed that a ~~ean cJaim_to any ~rt of Africa would onlx be recog-_ ~ d J?y other European governments i!.t was 'effectively occup~ ~ that particular European power. This was a deliberate tactic by Bismark to undermine British claims to -Vague informal 'spheres of influence'. Within days of the ending of the conference in February 1885 Bismark put this principle into practice. He proclaimed a German protectorate in the hean of Britain's east African 'sphere of influence'. The grounds on which he claimed • effective occupation' were that a German agent, Peters, had re­ cently travelled the region and collected a handful of 'treaties' from local rulers. The result of Bismark's proclamation was the colony of 'German East Africa', later renamed Tanganyika (modern mainland Tanzania).

A series of European treaties during 1890- 91 confirmed many of the internal colonial boundaries of the African continent. Sahara and Sahel were still largely not defined and most of the territory 'acquired' was far from being 'effectively occupied' by Europeans. Africans did not lightly lay down their independence and the 1890s was a period of wide.spread African resistance to European conquest.

Conquest and resistance

The French coloniution of Senegal had been built originally around the ~ iW rts of Dakar and St Louis. In the 1850s and 1860s Governor Louis Faidherbe had extended Fr~ ch control up the Senegal valley tQ.. secure French_trading interests and to forestall i:he westward expansion of the I ukolor empire. He achieved these conquests by building up a highly­ disciplined Senegalese army, locally recruited and trained in the use of the

305

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most up-to-date weaponry from Europe. It was this Senegalese arrr commanded largely by local Afro-French officers, which provided t French with their main frontline troops fo r the conquest of western Afri in the 1880s and 1890s.

Between 1879 and 1881 the French began an aggressive policy of wid spread colonisation in west Africa. They pushed towar~s the upper Nigt building a series of forts between Senegal and Bamako. They start1

-- constructing a railway along this route, thus hoping to draw off throu€

r S;,negal the bulk of the trade of the western Sudan.

The principal opponents of French expansion in the western Sudan we,

Lto the Tukolor empire under the rule of Ahmadu Seku, the son and successc al-Hajj Umar, and the new expanding Mandinka empire of Samori (se

pp. 230-32). Both Ahmadu and Samori initially tried diplomacy rather tha military conflict with the French Senegalese army. The main weakness o Ahmadu and Samori was that they could not unite in their opposition t, this new foreign intrusion from the west. They had for too long been rival for power in the western Sudan.

Ahmadu concluded an alliance with the French which he believed se­ cured him French recognition of the Tukolor empire. By 1883, however the French, in defiance of the treaty, had constructed a line of forts righl across southern Tukolor as far as Bamako (see Map 21.2). Ahmadu sci!! showed his good faith in the alliance. In 1885-87 he supported the French in their war against Mahmadu Lamine's Muslim state of Futa Bondu, between upper Gambia and Senegal. But it soon became clear that the

21.2 West Africa in the era of the 'Scramble'

306

~R \.RC.\.Qe.Rt \.Q. tb_e_ W.e.s.t African resistance to F rench conquest. Note the French use of African troops.

French never had any intention of respecting_ treati_es with indep_en.dem west African states. rt er ranco- u1:olor treaty in 1887 gained the empire little more security, and two years later the French launched an assault upon Tukolor's border fortresses. As was to happen so often over the next decade, French use of artillery firing explosive shells proved decisive in securing them-;ictory over opposmg west African forces. But even after the French took Segu in 1890, Ahmadu's army refused to

surrender. They conducted a fighting retreat as far as Masina where they held out until 1893. Ahmadu was only -finally defeated because the French were able to exploit political divisions within the empire. They formed an alliance with Ahmadu's brother whom they made puppet ruler of Masina once Ahmadu had been removed. Though Ahmadu died in exile in Sokoto, many of his scattered forces moved south to join Samori and so continue the unequal struggle against the invading infidel.

Samori was France's single most formidable military opponent in west­ ern Africa. He commanded an army of 30 000 men, mostly footsoldiers, but containing an elite corps of cavalry. They were well-armed with muskets and rifles, imported from Sierra Leone or manufactured and repaired by his own Mandinka metalworkers. In addition the state was strengthened by a unifying sense of Mandinka nationalism which recalled the glories of the ancient Malian empire.

After initial border dashes in the early 1880s a Mandinka-French treaty was concluded in 1887. This was supposed to secure Samori's northeastern boundary along the line of the N iger. But _as with their Tukolor treaties, the French regarded such alliances as only temporary tactics. At this crucial period in Mandinka-French relations Samori's grip on the region was c_ritically weakened. His army suffered heavily in an exhausting siege of the Sikasso capital on his northeastern border. And in 1888 he was faced with an internal revolt against his abortive attempt to force-convert the Man­ dinka to Islam.

In 1891 the French invaded from the north. Samori had no desire to meet the French Senegalese army in full open battle for he had no answer to their heavy artillery and machine-guns. Instead he ordered a 'scorched-

307

earth' policy as he conducted a tactical withdrawal from the capital Bissan­ dugu. The result was devastating for the heartland of the empire as standing crops and whole villages were left in smouldering ruins. But it meant that the French army ran short of supplies and had to abandon their invasion in 1892. Realising the insecurity of his military position, Samori then com­ menced an amazing undertaking. Between 1892 and 1894 he shifted his entire empire to the east, to a region on the northern borderlands of modern Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. But even here there was no peace for the Mandinka for they themselves were now foreign conquerors and faced the internal opposition of a subject people. Further retreat eastwards was blocked by Asante, which fell to the British in 1896. Unable to secure a protectorate from the British, Samori was fo rced to fight it out with the French. In spite of being cut off from their Sierra Leone arms-suppliers, the Mandin ka army still scored some important victories over the French. ln the end it was famine which finally defeated Samori's troops in the mountains north of Liberia in 1898. Samori gave himself up to the French and was exiled to Gabon, where he died aged seventy in 1900.

In the central Sudan the main resistance to French conquest was led by Rabin ibn Fadl Allah, the conqueror of Borno. Originating from the Nile valley of the eastern Sudan, Rabin rose to prominence as the military commander for a Sudanese raider-trader who dealt in ivory and slaves. Following the founding of the Mahdist state in 1885 (seep. 284) Rabih set up his own military state in the Bahr el-Ghazal. The basis of his power was the army, the core of which was highly mobile cavalry, armed with impor­ ted rifles, which he used to raid and subdue the surrounding countryside.

Seeing himself as a disciple of the Mahdi, Rabih gradually pushed his conquests westwards until, in 1893, he reached Lake Chad and conquered the state of Borno. There he set up a form of military dictatorship which was in many ways fairer and less corrupt than the rule of the Bomo aristocracy which had preceded it. Taxes were at least fixed and charged only once a year. And most of the state's income was spent on the army and defence rather than on personal luxuries for the ruler. But Rabih remained a foreign conqueror and for most of his short reign he faced internal opposition to his rule. Villages were constantly raided by the army for supplies of food which led to a serious decline in agriculture. The main threat to Rabih's rule, however, came from invading French forces which, by the end of the century, were challenging his independence. The French knew little about Rabih and were surprised by the strength of his resist­ ance, but in April 1900 two major French armies converged upon Borno. Though Rabih himself was defeated and killed, the struggle was continued by his son, Fadl Allah ibn Rabih. H e withdrew the remnants of his fo rces into northeastern Nigeria, hoping for British recognition as the ruler of Borno. But the British offered him no protection. He was pursued by the French and killed in battle in 1901.

Dahomey was conquered by a French Senegalese army in 1892- 94 in a move which was initially welcomed by many Yoruba as a liberation from Dahomeyan tyranny. Cote d ' Ivoire was proclaimed a French colony in 1893, but its military subjugation was not so easily achieved. There was no centralised authority for the French to overthrow and it was more than twenty years before the numerous forest-chiefdoms were forced into submission.

308

(b) The British in west Africa

An incident in the West African resistance to British conquest. Note the British use of machine guns.

Although the jkitisb .did not c.Q.D.qyer so much territory as the French, they ended up with two of the wealthiest states in the re ·on, Gold Coast ~J and Nigeria. Both ofthese were based on_£oastal trading encJ.!yes in which the British were already well-established.

In the early 1870s the British acquired a trading monopoly_ along the Gold Coast, having boug t out ihe last r emairung Dutch anctDarush tfading _fqns. Now they were in a position to charge customs dutieson imports and exportS without fear of losing trade ro Dutch or Danish competition. This provided finance for a colonial administration, and in 1874 they proclaimed a colony over the coastal Pante states.

On a number of occasions earlier in the century the British bad done battle with Asante, who wanted to prevent foreign domination of the coastal trade. In order to assert their new authoritet the coast, therefore, the ~riJish invaded Asante in 1874, d~feated the Asance,army and ~ their capital umasi. On this occasion, wishing to avoid the expense of formal colonial administration, the British withdrew their fo rces from Asante. By 1895, however, under the rule of Asantehene Prempe, Asante power had revived. At the same time the British found it necessary to assert their claims to the Gold Coast hinterland in the face of French advances against Samori. So in 1895-96 the British again invaded the Asante kingdom. In the face of British military superiority the Asante military leaders tactically avoided battle. The kingdom was occupied and a British Protectorate was proclaimed over most of the region of modern Ghana. But the Asante army had remained intact and in 1900 they seized their opportunity and rose against the British. In the war that followed, the Asante scored a number of victories and nearly expelled the British from Ghana. Eventually, however, British reinforcements arrived from Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The Asante army was overcome and the colony of Gold Coast was proclaimed.

Until the 1880s the only official British possession within what was to become Nigeria was a small coastal colony at Lagos. By the time of the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, however, the British had obtained a virtual trading monopoly over alm-oil exports fro'm the Niger Delta and the lower Niger nver. Several Britis trading companies had been united by George Goldie into the N ational African Company. This company alone controlled virtually all the palm-oil exports between the N iger/ Benue confluence and the Delta. Goldie was thus able to keep prices down and secure large profits for the company. After Berlin the British government

309

Plunder at Benin, 1897

quickly affirmed its position in the region by declaring a Proteccorate over the Delta. At the same time she granted a royal charter (document of approval) to Goldie's company to rule the lower Niger in the name of Britain. The company now became known as the Royal N iger Company. Rival African traders like the men of Brass were excluded from the oil trade by force. And Delta merchant princes, such as JaJa of Opobo, who refused to trade on British terms, were threatened with gunboats and deposed.

Between 1892 and 1902 most of the vast inland territory of modern Nigeria was gradually brought under British rule. But much of the region .\lad to be taken by force, for the various Nigerian peoples fought bard against their conquerors. Like the French, the British used African soldiers for the bulk of their frontline troops. Under the command of British officers these were turned into highly disciplined, full-time professional battalions, equipped with the latest rifles, heavy artillery and machine­ guns. And traditional lack of African unity in the region meant that British forces were able to take on one African state at a time. Most of Y orubaland was conquered in 1892-93, though the Royal Niger Company did not manage to conquer Ilorin, the Yoruba province of Sokoto, until 1897. Meanwhile it took the British two years to oust Nana, ruler of Benin River, from his defensive position in the forest swamps. The state of Benin City was taken in 1897 after fierce fighting. Tragically the Oba had resorted to a multitude of human sacrifices in the hope that spiritual forces would be persuaded to intervene and save the ancient kingdom. The British ruthlessly sacked the city and looted its most valued treaures (see illustra­ tion).

The Sokoto Caliphate was overcome between 1900 and 1903. The orga­ nisation of the empire as a federation of semi-independent emirates meant that the British general, Lugard, was able to attack first one emirate and then another. The massed charges of H ausa cavalry were no match for Lugard's disciplined squares of riflemen and machine-gunners, and the

310

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walls of their cities were easily breached by British artillery. In 1903, with only Sokoto itself remaining unconquered, Caliph Anahiru conducted an orderly hijra, withdrawing eastwards cowards the modern republic of Sudan.

In the end the British in Nigeria, like the French in Cote d'Ivoire, faced some of their toughest opposition from those small groupings of 'stateless' peoples who had no large centralised authority that could be overthrown. Thus the British spent years of exhaustive campaigning in the forest coun­ try of southeastern N igeria. It was 1910 before all the villages of Igboland were finally forced to accept the reality of British overrule.

French claims to the Congo basin stemmed from a treaty concluded in 1880 between the French explorer de Brazza and the Tio chief Makoko just north of Malebo Pool (see Map 21.3). De Brazza claimed that Makoko ceded his sovereign rights to France. We have no clear record of Makoko's understanding of the agreement. If indeed he did agree to any form of French 'protection', it is possible that he sought a European ally in the face of encroachment from Leopold's agent Stanley. Nicknamed bula matari,

21.3 The Congo Basin and Angola in the era of the 'Scramble'

311

Leopold II, King of the Belgians

'breaker of rocks', Stanley was busy using forced labour to build a road from Boma to the Pool. His reputation during his violent descent of the river in 1876-7 was well-known to the peoples of the lower Congo. It is likely, therefore, that Makoko saw Stanley's return to the region in 1879 as a direct threat to the safety of his people.

At Berlin in 1884-5 the French used de Brazza's treaties to establish claim to territory north of the lower Congo. In the late 188Os de Brazza was sent out to conclude further treaties in the region. He used a small Senegalese force to push French claims and plant administrative and trading posts up the lower Congo and its northern tributary, the Ubangui. No large-scale African resistance was organised at this stage and, with no major African kingdom to conquer, initial French presence in the region was not unduly aggressive. Treaties were signed in exchange for trivial 'gifts' of metal goods, cloth and alcohol and it is unlikely that their implications were explained or realised by the African chiefs concerned. By the early 189Os the French had established their equatorial colonies of Gabon, Moyen ('Middle') Congo and Ubangui-Chari (modem Central African Republic). Widespread African resistance came later when private French companies were granted authority to exploit the region (see pp. 337-8).

South of the French sphere the bulk of the Congo basin fell to the ~ian king Leopold and hi~ 'Co~g~ ree ~ tate'. ~s~ate ~~ onlt_'free' in the sense that it was not subject to any government control from Europe. It ~as the~ personal empire- of Le-;;pold himself. It was in reality

· anytni"ng but free for its African population who suffered undeL.Le.opold OJle of the continent's most o ressive colonial regimes. The nature of this regime and the opposition it provoked will be discussed in Chapter 23. It is sufficient to record here the initial establishment of colonial authority in the region. According to the Berlin Conference and subsequent European agreements the authority of Leopold's Congo state extended over most of the Congo basin south of the Ubangui and as far as the Zambezi water­ shed. The main potential opponents of Leopold's authority within this vast equatorial empire were Tippu Tip's Swahili/ Arabs in the east and Msiri's Yeke kingdom in the southeast region of Katanga (modern Shaba).

Tippu Tip's Swahili/ Arab federation dominated the Lualaba/Lomani region, which covered about a third of Leopold's potential Congo state. Tippu Tip attempted to head off the Free State challenge from the west by claiming that he owed allegiance to the sultan of Zanzibar. By the late 188Os, however, the sultan of Zanzibar's authority had been seriously curtailed by British and German action in east Africa (see below). It was clear that Tippu Tip would receive no diplomatic protection from that quarter. In 1887 Tippu Tip was persuaded to throw over his supposed allegiance to Zanzibar and to accept the governorship of the Free State's eastern provinces. This solution saved both sides a costly war and was of great advantage to the Free State. The region's profitable ivory trade was no longer drained off towards the Zanzibari coast. From now on it passed westwards, through Free State merchants' hands and subject to Free State customs dues.

The arrangement may have kept Tippu Tip in power but it did not suit his fellow Swahili/ Arab merchants. They resented the restrictions placed upon their raiding activities and in particular the intrusion of rival Euro­ pean traders and the increasing presence of the Free State's motley mer-

312

(d) British and Germans in East Africa

cenary army. The latter, the Force Publique, was officered by Europeans of various nationalities and was recruited from the local African population anxious to avenge the oppression of Swahili/Arab raiders. Relations were severely strained by the time Tippu Tip retired to Zanzibar in 1891. The following year the local Belgian officer launched an all-out attack upon Swahili/ Arab strongholds. There followed eighteen months of particularly savage warfare before Swahili/ Arab resistance was finally overcome.

Meanwhile in the south, when it came to confrontation, Msiri's Yeke kingdom of Garenganze offered little effective resistance. Leopold was awoken to the region's great potential mineral wealth by the British South Africa Company (see following chapter) which sent its agents to Bunkeya in 1890. Msiri realised only too well the meaning of their treaties and he promptly sent them packing. When Leopold's own agents arrived in 1891 Msiri refused to allow the hoisting of the Free State flag, declaring, ' I am the master here, and so long as I live, the Kingdom of Garenganze shall have no other.' In the dispute which followed, a Belgian officer promptly shot him dead. Perhaps suprisingly there was no attempt to avenge Msiri's death, apart from the spearing of the man who shot him. Famine was in the land. The region was wracked by several years of drought and Msiri's increasingly tyrannical rule in recent years had robbed him of his former loyal support.

The crucial importance of this Katanga region to the future colony of the Congo was revealed the following year when Free State officers visited a local copper mine and carried samples of the copper back to Europe.

In terms of her own industrial development Portugal was weak, com­ pared with her fellow European colonists in Africa. But because of this very weakness, Portugual could not afford to lose her ancient claims to colonies in Africa. Manufacturers needed their own protected markets for they could not compete in the open market with their more powerful European rivals. Portuguese industrialists therefore pushed their govern­ ment into more assertive action to try to make good her claims to the vast inland hinterland of Angola.

Portugal had not the wealth to mount huge effective armies of occupa­ tion. So, in attempting the conquest of Angola, she adopted the old technique of exploiting local rivalries. Punitive expeditions were often little more than African raiding parties, locally recruited from political rivals, armed with Portuguese guns and officered by Portuguese ex-convicts. Bakongo, Mbundu, Ovambo and Chokwe continued to defy Portuguese tax-collectors until _well into the twentieth century. This was partly because of the great rubber export boom of 1890-1905, which enabled Africans of the interior to buy guns from Portuguese traders. It was only with the collapse of the rubber trade in 1910 and the ban on arms sales to Africans in 1912 that the Portuguese were finally able to make their authority felt throughout their colony of Angola.

Until the 1870s British policy in east Africa had been to support the sultan of Zanzibar's claim to much of the coastal territory of modern Kenya and Tanzania. This policy gave British merchants and missionaries free access to the region while preventing rival Europeans from gaining a foothold on the mainland: all at no expense to the British government. By the time of the Berlin Conference, however, this policy no longer ensured British

313

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h 1-·or my JArt I cao~t M't- • b" a ~upuJ ~rchty <..an. >OI be 3boli•bt,I rr.tn,ly '-"""' It is c,lci 3, "All " ,111p,d. \ftC'r .a11. tht J>ubht. i; the m:1--tc.r of tbt- bu"'•nh'4i. If the

bhc can t1nl) ~ ~ot to under ·~nd 1ha.t it nc:,~r tips,~ , w:u- Qt .ill th.u u «lint) 1ip,5 the pro;mc.tor-th.c cl.cc,. nosyn."lf) two1~.c-e will go."

•• ·rh,e, pul,hc. can ncu~r be RQC lO cmde.rstar,d &n)"thin.-," ..itd 1be l'ot"t ~1-n,,1,hc~n,..

"If~ ~implf" e1H•o;;,h. 1'be "'attcr ~)S the ~ttlurant trltpt, u,r fo,r lht.: hn'.~ prinl«i·tt of ••1~.ng in hit, rhl,.mr.\nL

nu,- t11t~• •tu, h ~•tt"li 10 th~ proprietor' i1 taltn Iron, 11.c ,p~ ~iveo by tht" 1> 1bLc. 1i.e- '> '1.cn1 ,s nn tndiga11y ro ~ .-.vtf:r a.~ 3.1'1 npoitit Ml on the J>eUtic. The only .,.,..•.:,00 \'rho prt.r.1, •• ,ht: rCSCl\u-:uit r,ropriccor, and he ton •111ftt t1:dl c: r.f'>ulth •i1.hout ,1..

o:.. l.)fm', it ''On~ dtc •a) ou:r of n ,., M Q1o)'. s.t.ort t~

t,,ur-n:-.1,"t· .. I h,.,o \\'.lCdled rb..11 l ,.1>ndoo ~~uraat

A ND II' f-l I TE OCl'ot:I R I 0, I S,,i

u ,h,. public ,~uH 1..1p ~uh h, o.od atw-~~• 1\.,1 ptll 11p •i1h it. the: ~ praum.,bl) en du ft()(h11':.

0 Elf"( l<-nt r' ,.ud o,e Pocr; U Q f.1lC • .,rtntl'OU'l·t m,µ.u,1011 ..c:I udu1-1ia.in It 1,bo11r> "Jitn: }pc.tr- ht".tttc ;..._•,

• • 1 do ri<>t o ,hplain or 1bc: fe'Wld -t1one. 1 aauplam f the &OJ}rem.,cy o( lilt' 1':-tt:1ur.,rtt J)ntpnct(l'r. Arty t~·o~-Of1)

h3.Jfptnn) lt.:ltt2n roof«t,c'lft('r'• rriTC-'liohtoe,n.room ,lun\,,. 1 W ~ ri~l\, to ,n• le up a noticr eh.at • J•,po arc ooi aJl,,.,ti io ,h,, S3.\.oon,' II\ orc:l~r co forct- tbc cu~ou~r to ta.kt- th, pror- IC:lor'. ptftft} racket of Pf" cilrncc-, et:U •• ~ ci,:-1.r. am pay !il).J>rftt,.C fOI' ti ·n\.:\l Sftn o( tb,n~ 'Q'OUlcf be •mpni ~tblc if the proprietor d1<l not /11,:v Lb~t he •a.s tn'"ttr o tbe ru.;itmn.•

' 111,. ,s \'C:~)' .;loon1r." ,.,id tht" Eminttll ...(:t'$0fl

•'and ) ou tc-JI ut 1h;1t 11tcu: i.,, nu hope- t~c. n~" ,r W\

abuh..hcd llps, •e: )hwSd i;<I tu.her 1,ncei: nod ,w 3d, :rntiigc H

• 1 1 Uun't ,j,;l) dnt )"C>U •ou!,I J;tt no ad,;i_~f" ,._,_

"""'IJ gr< 1bt, ••r-•dy cn·iLty of ., club .crnnl. 1>hich, \\ h:at \/)Lt \\,1n1."

•· \...: "b.11 \\c>Jld the ,raitc,. get~• ul,..,J 11>< Ord,n.U)· \f,,10.

.. ·1 he} ,hc:)ul.d ,:ct thtny slnlling• ., w«k... uTbirty ih1li,n.,, ! sa,J chc: )l('tc Doy. _.Tbt

mt. rn<•rr of .Loi<>cuc- and :,u,J..c;,, the »,:iht) or Jbe p11ln IITtl,ms-, the tcmr1o4.:r or Job, lhl" snule or A Vt:uu • th• !io"t-;iJ> ch-,u,,· of a ctob ~":I.tit :md all at thiny .tulhngl.\10 K \UO

The palace of Zanzibar after bombardment, 1896 as shown in a British magazine of the rime

supremacy in the region. The sultan's power was negligible when faced with a determined European challenge. As we have already seen above, Germany declared a protectorate over the Tanganyika mainland in Febru­ ary 1885. The British and German governments settled betwe~n t~em t,!ie northern and southwestern boundaries of 'German East Afnca1 m 1886 and 1890, while a narrow coastal strip was officially leased from the sultan of Zaqzibar (see Map 21.4).

Bismark gave the administration of the territory to a private commercial company whose violent demands for taxation and labour soon provoked spirited resistance within the colony. A Swahili/ Arab rising in 1888 was joined by reinforcements from the H ebe and the Yao, and the German colonists were nearly expelled from the territory. The rising was only

314

0

N

BRITISHt .._ Mt Elgon

0

highlan n

Kilimanj MAASAI A

EAST AFRICA

' do NYAMWEZI tr:

• Tabora .,

GERMAN \ ','t"" Dar es Salaam

EAST AFRICA SWAHILI

~ (1898) ,·; HEHE ~ (Resistance

~ 1888-9)

• YAO (1899)

Kilometres

200 400 Lake Malawi

21.4 East Africa in the era of the 'Scramble'

finally overcome at the end of 1889 after the German government ..had ta):c.eo direct control of the colony and brought out imperial reinforce­ ments.

The Germans continued to face widespread resistan_ce t~ heir authority in the 'f'aoganyil<:an_interior and for years their trading caravans had to. be heavily guarded by military patrols. In southern-central Tanganyika, the Hehe conducted a successful campaign of guerrilla attacks against German patrols and trading caravans which lasted until 1898. Finally, facing defeat, their leader, Mkwawa, chose suicide rather than surrender. In the far southeast the Yao held out until 1899. The Maasai in the north were considered serious potential opponents but their power was rudely shat­ tered by the spread of the deadly cattle disease, rinderpest, which wiped out most of their economic livelihood. Initial conquest in east Africa gave the Germans only a short breathing space. In the early 1900s they were faced once again with widespread armed resistance in what has become known as the 'Maji Maji rising' (see p. 340).

In an Anglo-German treaty of 1890 the region of modem Uganda was confirmed as falling within the British sphere. The British began by grant­ ing the administration and exploitation of their sphere to a private mer-

315

chant company, the Imperial British East Africa (IBEA) Company. The Company sent Captain Lugard (of later Nigerian fame) to establish their authority in the most powerful kingdom of the region, Buganda. Lugard persuaded Kabaka Mwanga to accept British overrule. As we saw in the previous chapter, Mwanga was the leader of a Christian faction at the Baganda royal court. The Muslim Baganda and their Swahili/ Arab mer­ chant allies had recently been ousted and had retired to the rival kingdom of Bunyoro. With few government resources at his disposal, Lugard allied himself fumly with Buganda and in particular the Christian aristocracy. He used Baganda levies in a campaign against Bunyoro and their Muslim allies in 1891 and established forts in Toro and Nkore.

The British government formally took over the administration of the territory from the Company in 1894. Kabalega of Bunyoro continued guerrilla warfare against the occupying British forces for a further four years. The British faced mutinies in their army and had to import troops from India before they were finally able to overcome resistance in the territory in 1898. Kabalega and Mwanga, who had recently fallen out with the British, were deported to the Seychelles. The importance of Baganda support to British overrule was symbolised by their calling the whole territory of the Protectorate 'Uganda'.

Within Kenya the British, who took over the territory from the IBEA Company in 1895, faced an early rebellion from the coastal Swahili and their neighbours. Known as the 'Mazrui rebellion' it started as a succession dispute within the Mazrui clan in which a local IBEA official had inter­ vened against the wishes of the Muslim majority. It soon developed into a general coastal rebellion against British overrule which it took the colonisers nine months to crush. Following this rebellion the British abandoned their attempts to rule the coastal towns through the local aristocracy. Instead they promoted Zanzibari and Omani Arabs to positions of local power in the Kenyan coastal towns.

Meanwhile there was little effective resistance to the initial establishment of British authority in the Kenyan interior. The !BEA Company had regarded it as little more than a route to Uganda. The Nandi had offered a brief challenge to Company trading caravans in 1894, but this had been defeated. Significantly, from an early date the Company began to raid the Kikuyu for labour and for food. But the full effects of British rule did not begin to be felt within the country until the building of the Uganda railway and the beginnings of European settlement in the central highlands in the early l 900s.

316

The nature and impact of colonial administration

Historians have for years argued over the merits and demerits, similarities and differences, of the French and British 'systems' of colonial administra­ tion: French 'Assimilation' and British 'Indirect Rule'. In recent years less emphasis has been given to the theory and more to the impact on the majority of African colonial subjects. At the local level, and from the point of view of the African subject majority, all 'systems' of colonial administra­ tion were remarkably similar in practice.

( The French originally sought to 'assimilate' their colonial subjects into cultural Frenchmen, regardless of their skin colour. They were to have the

< full legal and political rights of French citizenship, including the right to ~ send representatives to the French parliament in Paris. This may have

worked in the mid-nineteenth century while their tropical African colonies consisted of a mere handful of trading posts on the coast of Senegal. But once large-scale colonisation of the continent began in t~e later nineteeth century, the French abandoned 'assimilation' for all but the citizens of the original four Senegalese towns (Dakar, St Louis, Goree and Rufisque) and a select few highly-educated, French-speaking Africans. The French con­ tinued to hold up potential 'assimilation' as an ideal which all Africans should strive for. But French authorities made the educational qualifica­ tions for African 'assimilation' extremely difficult to achieve. And .few Africans sought the status, for it involved a total rejection of their Afri~an 11ersonality and culture. By the 1930s die assimilated of the 'Four Com­ munes' of Senegal numbered 50 000, while the few additional 'selectively assimilated' Africans never numbered more than 500. The remaining 15 million population of France's tropical African empire were classified as sujets ('subjects'), and as such were denied virtually any legal or political rights at all.

The French broke up the large pre-colonial states like Dahomey, Tuko­ lor and Futa Jalon and made use of African chiefs at the lower levels of local government. District and village chiefs were appointed or dismissed at will by provincial French administrators. It was the duty of these French­ appointed 'chiefs' to collect taxes, recruit labour, especially forced corvee labour, and to suppress rural African opposition. Any who failed to perform to French satisfaction were replaced. As a result many of these so-called 'chiefs' had little if any 'traditional' chiefly title. Their qualifica­ tion for office was more likely to be an ability to speak French than familiarity with the language and customs of their 'subjects'. They became in effect French government officials, denied any independent religious or legal authority. In this way the French effectively destroyed African cus­ tomary law. The law to which Africans were most commonly subjected

354

Lugard, colonial administrator

Chief with government insignia of appointment, southern 'Rhodesia', 1920

was the indigenat. This notorious colonial law entitled French provincial administrators to imprison any African sujet indefinitely and without charge or trial.

In north Africa the French ruled the settler-colony of Algeria as though it were a part of mainland France, though with the important distinction that the majority Muslim subjects were denied the rights of citizens. In the neighbouring 'protectorate' of Morocco the French ruled in theory in the name of the sultan, their own nominee. In practice they were occupied for most of this period in military conquest of the peoples of the mountainous interior.

The British, too, made use of 'traditional' African ~lers at local govern­ ment lever,Eut_£_ ey_ raised the practice to a 'theory' of colonial administra­ tion. They called it ' Indirect Rule'. Thetheory was most clearly formulated oy Lugard, former Governor of Nigeria, in his book The Dual Mandate in Bntish Tropical Africa, published in 1922. Lugard described the system of government he had worked out for the administration of the Sokoco ernirates of Northern Nigeria. He recommended its application to all Bri­ tish tropical African colonies. ' Indirect Rule' was believed by the British to

be the cheapest and most effective way of administeringvast populations stretched over even vaster territories with the minimum of EuroEean personnel.But "<Indirect Rule' was far from being a clear-c~t~ ystem~ lts

-application varied enormously from colony to colony. Like the French, wherever possible the British used ' traditional' Africaii\

rulers to carry out the basic functions of local government, in particular the 1 collection of taxes, the recruiting of labour and the controlling of potential I African unrest. Uncooperative chiefs were dismissed and suitable replace­ ments were found. In this case the British paid slightly more attention than the French to a candidate's 'legitimate' claim to the chieftaincy. Neverthe­ less, the British had no scruples about inventing new chieftaincies in former 'stateless' societies, such as the Igbo of N igeria and the Kikuyu of Kenya, where chiefs had previously not been known above the local village level.

355

7.= sultan of Sokoto, :n cooperation with whom Lugard evolved his system of 'Indirect Rule'

Unlike the French, the British made greater use of African 'customary law'. Chiefs were allowed to judge local civil disputes and to try minor

· ·criminal cases, though they were never allowed to try serious criminal cases or any dispute involving a European. British attention to 'customary law', however, was not because of any particular respect for things African, but rather because of its administrative convenience. The chief performed a whole range of legal duties which would otherwise have been costly and inconvenient to the colonial administration. And retaining the chief as the mediator between ruler and ruled, helped blunt the impact of colonial over-rule. When the chief was presented with unpopular colonial laws to enforce, it was the chief who received the full weight of local African hostility. At the same time British colonial administrators did not hesitate to adapt, change and if necessary invent African 'customary law' when it suited their own purposes.

The whole colonial emphasis upon the role of chiefs exaggerated so­ called 'tribal' differences. The very word 'tribe' was deliberately used in a derogatory sense by European colonists who looked down upon African societies as 'primitive' and 'inferior'. The British based their local adminis­ tration upon what they saw as a series ·of minor but totally separate pre-colonial chiefdoms. In order to make this a reality, they emphasised differences of dialect and redefined them as totally separate languages. They described customary differences of dress, housing and religious prac­ tices in terms of rigid 'tribal' distinctions. In many pre-colonial African societies there had been considerable overlap between the peoples, lan­ guages and customs of a region. Where competition and conflict between groups had existed it was for political power or economic advantage rather than simply because they were of different 'tribes'. Indeed, it has been argued that colonial authorities invented 'tribalism'. By insisting on the strength of 'tribal' differences and rivalries, colonists made it more difficult

356

for Africans to achieve unity in opposition. This was particularly so among the rural population of settler colonies such as Southern Rhodesia where each 'tribe' was isolated in its own separate ' reserve'. The British in particular thus made use of the age-old imperial maxim: 'divide and rule'.

Portuguese administrative policy was similar to the French in principle. A tiny number of select individuals who had adopted Portuguese language and culture were classified civilisado (later renamed assimilado) and were excused the tax and labour demands made of their fellow African subjects. But they were never allowed the kind of voting rights in local or central government enjoyed by French assimilated 'citizens' in Senegal. The civ ili­ sados were only ever a very small minority, in this period mostly of mixed-race origin. They lived in the towns and worked as clerks, teachers and petty traders, totally divorced in culture and outlook from the major­ ity 'indigena' population.

The Belgians used a mixture of French and British systems for their colonial administration. They recognised the cultural ' assimilation' of a tiny minority of mission-educated Africans, known as evolues, but like their Portuguese counterparts, these were never allowed any participation in local politics. Education above rudimentary primary level was actively discouraged. Appointment and use of chiefs in local government was fairly arbitrary, dependent upon local circumstances and administrative convenience. On the other hand, where there still existed a clearly defined pre-colonial authority structure, as in Rwanda and Burundi, this was utilised in a form of controlled 'indirect rule'.

The spread of Islam in tropical west Africa

We saw in the previous chapter how European conquest opened the gates for the spread of Christian mission influence. Ironically the period of consolidated European colonial rule witnessed a parallel and even greater spread of Islam in tropical west Africa. The colonists' use of Muslim emirs under the guise of 'indirect rule' strengthened the position of Islam in the northern savannah regions. European colonial rule may have ended the nineteenth-century period of conversion by conquest. But by confirming Islamic rulers as ' traditional' African authorities, it eased the gradual con­ version of the mass of their 'subject' people. In places like the Sokoto province of Ilorin, for instance, Muslims were only recent conquerors. European over-rule confirmed this position and eased the mass conversion of the Yoruba of Ilorin.

In addition, the reorientation of trade away from the desert prompted Muslim penetration of the southern savannah, forest and coastal zones of west Africa. During the colonial period Islam became an important element in all the major ports such as Lagos, Dakar, Freetown, Conakry and Accra. blam had an adyaruagejn that, unlike hristianit , it was not associated d.in with the Euro ean co oma ower. Furthermore, Is . not insist on the abandonment of imµonaw can C\!~tomary ractices such ~ a.my. Qnder European colonial rule, Islam thus had greater success than Christianity: m terms ofnumbersof new converts. In Senegal, where Islam had a long 7raditio'ii; Muslim brotherhoods fl~urished, uninterrupted by colonial authority. And across the continent in Sudan the British

357

T «gos :\farina in about 191'.;

positively discouraged the work of Christian missionaries in the northern half of the country as likely to disrupt the relative calm of existing Islamic domination. As it was, the British had problems suppressing a serious 'Mahdist' revolt in Darfur in 1921-22.

African nationalism and protest movements in the interwar years

African acceptance of colonial domination in this period was anything but calm. Large-scale open rebellion was now less common, though an impor­ tant and little-known exception was a rebellion by 350 000 Baya in French Equatorial Africa in the late 1920s. The slaughter that accompanied the violent suppression of this revolt in 1928-31 was one of the great atrocities of colonial rule in tropical Africa.

Independent Christian Churches continued to spread. In the Belgian Congo, Simon Kimbangu founded his own Church in 1921 and declared himself a prophet. He preached that God would soon deliver the Con­ golese people from colonial oppression. Though the Belgians quickly im­ prisoned him, 'Kimbanguism' persisted through the 1920s and 1930s with his followers refusing to pay taxes or grow export crops for the govern­ ment. Periodic revivals of Kimbanguism occurred at times of drought and particular rural hardship. Kimbanguists believed in the imminent and mira­ culous return of their Prophet Kimbangu, though the latter in fact re­ mained in prison until his death in 1951.

On the whole, Africans in the interwar years were learning how to come to terms with the new order, and in due course how to overthrow and transform it. Formation of workers' unions was still in its infancy and all forms of trades union activity was proscribed as illegal. Nevertheless, workers staged a number of spontaneous strikes for better pay and work­ ing conditions. The more significant of these were on the mines and railways of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gold Coast in the 1920s and on the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia in 1935 and 1940. The cocoa farmers of Gold Coast gave an early demonstration of the potential impact of effec-

~

358

Marcus Garvey in his formal uniform as 'Provisional President of the United States of Africa'

tive African unity. D uring the First World War they withheld their cocoa ~Fi'arves s untilprices offered by ~oastal mercbanrs were increased. They ;ubsequently formed a cocoa farmers' federation aoa used the~ ~e ~cries again in the 19]0s,. -- - -

Meanwhile, all over tropical Africa in the 1920s and 1930s Africans were forming self-help welfare associations and these were U§~increasingly to

y r~~ga.inst specific l&a1mjustices. At the same rime in the ..£9!:,tS and administrative towns- of east, west and central Africa, rhere was a steady growth- of- a new educated African elite : clerks, interpreters, traders, teachers and clergymen. These people were particularly conscious of the social and economic injustices of colonial society and their own exclusion from the politics of their country. Few as yet, however, outside Algeria and T unisia and the coastal cowns of British west Africa, thought in terms of political independence as the solution to their problems.

An important influence upon the educated elite was the Pan-African movement which was awakening a new self-confidence among blacks in north America and the Caribbean in the 1920s. Within Africa itself the most influential of the Pan-Africanist voices was that of Marcus Garvey. Jamaican-born founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association

359

and the widely circulated newspaper The Negro World, Garvey never visited Africa himself. Yet, his flamboyant style and confident preaching of 'Africa for the Africans' and the expulsion of all Europeans, was an important inspiration for many young educated Africans who were to rise to prominence in the nationalist struggles of the 1940s and 1950s. Similarly, French-speaking writers from the Caribbean and west Africa developed a new sense of black self-respect through amovement known as Negritude. Thus the writings of the Senegalese poet Leopold Senghor celebrated the African's 'blackness' and adeep pride in the ancient cultures of Africa. Negritude was an important psychological boost in a time of European cultural dominance, aclear rejection of French 'assimilation' policy. -It was only in Egypt that the rising wave of African nationalism achieved

any substantial po itical gains in this period. The rapid rise of Egyptian nationalism in 1918-19 was prompted by the oppression which Egyptians had suffered from British demands for food, animals and labour during the war. Peasants, lawyers, civil servants, landowners, Christians and Muslims displayed arare spirit of unity in their demands for an independent Egypt. The lead was taken by agroup of intellectuals who formed apolitical party known as the Wafd, under the leadership of Sa'ad Zaghlul. When the British failed to respond to the Wafd's demands, demonstrations, strikes and riots forced their hand. But the British managed to defuse the situation by agreeing to adeclaration of Egyptian independence in 1922. Sultan Faud became King of Egypt and a form of parliamentary government was established, In practice the British army remained in occupation of Egypt and the real source of power behind the throne. Then in the 1930s the 'Muslim Brotherhood1 awoke anew generation of young Egyptians to a wider Islamic 'nationalism', Their immediate appeal was a reaction to European influence and materialism and the political corruption of parlia­ ment and monarchy.