THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT: COLONIAL POLICIES AND ADMINISTRATION

Methods used to establish colonial rule in East Africa.

After the partition and scramble for East Africa, the British and Germans used various methods in
East Africa. However, these methods varied from place to place and from time to time as follows:

The European colonialists used Christian missionaries who paved the way for colonisation by
preaching the message of love and brotherhood which convinced the African that it was a sin to
fight against the Europeans.

The signing of treaties and agreements with African chiefs was another method used by Europeans
to colonise East Africa for example the 1900 Buganda agreement, the Masai agreement of 1804,
and several other agreements. These assisted the British to establish their rule.

They used African collaborators and opportunists to conquer and annex areas that were resistant to
colonialists’ rule for example Apollo Kagwa and Semei Kakungulu.

The use of explorers or adventurers for example Speke and Stanley who gave exaggerated reports
to their home governments based on lakes, minerals climate and mountains, which later attracted
colonialists.

Colonialists used the method of divide and rule for example by introducing different religions such
as Catholics, Protestants and Moslems etc. This created disunity against the enemy.

The European colonialists also used the European settlers for example in the Kenya highlands.
These settlers introduced agriculture, which generated funds for their colonial governments.

They built communication lines for example the Uganda Railway which facilitated the movement
of the British troops from the coast to the interior. These were later used to put down rebellions.

They used bribery to make the chiefs and kings of East Africa convinced toward their colonial
policies.

The colonialists used the army of occupation to establish their rule in East Africa. This was effective
in the areas of Bunyoro where the British used the army of occupation. In other words they used
military confrontations for example Kabalega of Bunyoro was attacked by the army and the
Germans attacked the Hehe.

They built administrative posts and forts for defensive purposes against African resistors.

They used chartered companies to establish colonial rule in East Africa for example IBEACO.

The European colonialists also used gifts to the African leaders like chiefs and kings to persuade
their people to accept colonialism.

They used force to suppress resistance all of which maintained law and order.

COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION

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The Germans and British used different administrative policies in East Africa. The Germans applied
direct rule in Tanganyika while the British mostly used indirect rule although in some parts, they
used direct rule.

GERMAN RULE IN TANGANYIKA

On May 25, 1887, the German East Africa Company, under the leadership of Carl Peters took
control of Dar Es Salaam, on the road to colonising German East Africa. The company had Imperial
mandate from Chancellor Bismark, and gained full control of the coastline of what would later be
known as Tanganyika by April 1888. Conquest was not easy, however, and armed resistance began
in August of 1887.

However, by 1898, Germany under the German East Africa Company controlled all of
Tanganyika’s major population centres and lines of communication. At first, the extension of
control was a highly localised process, with military leaders making bargains with individual tribal
units. Early German rule was reliant on bands of gunmen who created a culture of fear to control
compliant tribal leaders. They often engaged in tribal warfare, assisting those they controlled to
defeat other tribes in return for a share of the profits. As Iliffe has suggested, “conquest was not an
event, but a process”.

For the entire period of German rule, mechanisms of control remained unevenly spread across the
country. District officers maintained administrative districts in coastal areas and around towns, and
often exercised complete administrative control and autonomy over those areas, because of a lack
of sustainable communication links to either the metropole or the colonial capital. There was simply
no way for the Governor to exercise the necessary levels of control. Rule was, for the most part,
maintained by force, and it is frequently noted that officials inspired great terror in the people they
controlled.

Over time, German rule inevitably altered. By the late 1890s, the colony had been secured, and
treaties between collaborative indigenous populations were the major way of maintaining control.
As the 1900s wore on, however, local compromises often began to collapse because of the growth
of German military control, and the development of localised conflicts. Throughout the German
period, however, the colony’s history was one of conquest and response: there was no grand scheme,
and plans were lacking, largely because the colony was under the jurisdiction of a trading
organisation rather than a government.

As such, the economy of Tanganyika was entirely restructured from the 1890s – a very difficult
process which had little actual effect until the coming of railway links in the early twentieth century.
European invasion, however, rapidly sped up the process of integrating the Tanganyikan economy
into that of the world as a whole. With integration came the disease epidemics and natural disasters
which characterised the German period.

Imported Indian cows spread rinderpest, a cattle plague, in 1891, which killed between 90 and 95%
of the colony’s cattle populations and created mass suffering among the pastoralist populations.
Between approximately two fifths and three quarters of the Maasai in Tanganyika died as a
consequence, and the competition for surviving cattle became increasingly intense.A smallpox
plague also hit in 1893, and killed an estimated 10% of the population of Dar es Salaam; while
locust plagues throughout the 1890s decimated crops and caused widespread famine. Although the

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locusts cannot be seen as a consequence of colonisation, both rinderpest and smallpox can be – and
the impact on both human populations and the economy was understandably great.

On top of this, Germany had no great desire to invest in Tanganyika; and in the early period it did
not have the capital, either. Investment was largely from DOAG, and did not start seeing returns
until 1904. Coffee was the main export of the 1890s, at a time when Europe had very little interest
in it – demonstrating poor planning and the failings of monocropping in one fair swoop. During this
period, DOAG had complete control over land rights, meaning that land alienation for plantation
was common.

Monetisation and taxation were introduced in the 1890s, and this fact demonstrates the growth of
the colonial economy. The Germans placed high priority on the creation of a cash economy, paying
workers in coinage and insisting on this method for tax payment, rather than payment in kind. Tax
proved remarkably easy to collect, with resistance in the early period being limited to areas with
minimal experience of long-term trade, either before or during German rule.

However, the clearest indication of the development of the colonial economy was white settlement,
which grew significantly between 1904 and 1913, so that Tanganyika before the outbreak of the
war had the same number of settlers as Kenya (around 5,000). White settlement of course led to
increased land alienation, and saw frankly ridiculous plantations develop, which demonstrated little
knowledge of the climate or of farming technique of any kind. Coffee, rubber and cotton were the
favourites of settlers, but by 1914 almost all of these plantations had been uprooted to make way
for sisal, a crop used in the production of rope and twine. Sisal flourished in the climate of
Tanganyika and withstood unpredictable rainfall well. Additionally, as it took seven years to
mature, it was excellent at riding out price fluctuations.

Plantation development introduced a truly capitalist economy to Tanganyika, radiating out from the
white settled North East across the colony, and often pulling in Africans as workers. Plantation
work was brutal, despite its relative ease. The pay was generally poor, and workers were housed
and fed badly, often suffering from contagious diseases such as dysentery and diarrhoea. Levels of
brutality can be well gauged in the fact that the Dar es Salaam court convicted 27 Europeans of
brutality between 1909 and 1911, suggesting that these practises were commonplace.

Labour migration was common towards the end of the German period, as those who had been
alienated from their traditional lands sought work on European plantations or in the developing
cities and ports. This caused catastrophe in that it spread plagues and diseases.

Religion was one of the most major ways in which German occupation actively affected the lives
of ordinary Africans in Tanganyika. The more integrated Tanganyika became in to the wider world,
the more its religious culture began to change, and while it is unquestionable that indigenous
religions continued to be practised because of the solutions they provided to ancient evil, they
tended not to have anything to say about the problems raised by colonisation. Islam offered solutions
on both levels; while Christianity triumphed in the explanations it offered to the wider world.

The arrival of Europeans enlarged people’s worlds and made these experiences increasingly
difficult to ignore: traditional religions were often reformulated in order to make sense of new
situations. In many cases, it was claimed that prophecy had foretold the arrival of Europeans,
making the colonial experience in to something that could be explained and controlled. However,

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the dominant tendency was for indigenous religion to lose vitality, especially towards the end of the
German period.

During this time, Islam experienced a coastal revival and in 1912 it was estimated that there were
between 300,000 and half a million Muslims in Tanganyika, although their dedication and
orthodoxy evidently varied greatly. Bizarrely, it seems as though the colonial experience actually
helped to integrate Tanganyika further in to the Islamic world.

Growth in Christianity is obviously the most well-documented change of this period, with many
indigenous people seeming to adapt elements of it and practise it in tandem with traditional religion.
Mission work from Roman Catholics more than Protestants grew significantly during the period of
German rule, and missionaries often believed that they were directly competing with the spread of
Islam. In many areas, they attempted to convert chiefs and tribal leaders as a way to convert
considerably larger populations. By 1913, there were around 80,500 baptised Christians in
Tanganyika: around 2% of the population. It was increasingly difficult for either of these world
religions to adapt to Tanganyika, given that indigenous religious practise had no history of sacred
texts, and in many cases condoned polygamy (etc).

BRITISH INDIRECT RULE IN KENYA AND UGANDA

By definition indirect rule was a method of colonial rule in which the colonialists used the local
chiefs to rule on their behalf. The chiefs were only supervised by the British. In other words it was
a method of colonial administration in which the local and traditional institutions were left in office
to run the day to day administrative duties but only supervised by those whites.

The British indirect rule was a system of colonial administrators, native chiefs and head men were
used by the British to implement their subjects. This system of administration was mainly used in
centralised states for example in Uganda; it was used in Buganda and in western parts of Kenya and
some parts of Tanganyika.

Why the British used indirect rule.

Firstly, this system was found to be strategically easy because it depended on the use of traditional
rulers who were easily accepted by the masses. Indirect rule sought to use local chiefs because they
were the accepted leaders of people. It was therefore a convenient means of using Africans as
instruments for implementing British policies. By this, the British would avoid African rebellions.

Secondly, the system was economically cheap. Since the traditional chiefs would be paid in form
of petty gifts like old clothes or some simple salary and presents, it was found to be economically
cheap and less costly to the British. The British lacked enough funds to cater for the costs of
Administration. The use of local leaders since their salaries were lower than those required by the
British Europeans solved the problem.

Thirdly the British public had a belief that African societies were static and their political institutions
fixed. It was assumed that African population was barbaric, conservative and hated change. The
possible means of enhancing change in such societies without causing disaster and disintegration
would be using influence from the top through kings and chiefs. In places where such strong leaders
were absent warrant chiefs had to be appointed.

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Fourthly, the system was also preferred because there was shortage of white personnel. So the
British wanted Europe to rule indirectly hence they resorted on the traditional chiefs who were
readily available.

Fifthly, the British feared immediate African response. So they used African chiefs as shock
absorbers which their manpower capacity would not easily shoulder. African shock absorbers: the
colonial economic policies being unpopular and exploitative, they received a lot of resentment from
the masses and to minimize this, the colonialists sought to use the indigenous rulers. The colonialists
would remain behind the curtains of such unpopular orders.

Another factor is that the traditional rulers understood their people better and spoke the same
language or similarly related languages. Therefore the British thought that African chiefs could
effectively promote their policies because of this double advantage.

To the British who were the great supporters of this system argued that it acted as a means of
imparting skills of leadership to African chiefs. Lugard had similar experiences in Nigeria and India.
This system had effectively worked in Canada as well.

The British feared resistance from overthrown chiefs. There were chiefs who were defeated and
others demoted from their prominent positions so the British thought that these people would rise
into rebellion in order to protect their sovereignty.

The system created disunity among the African and this served the interests of the British better
because of divide and rule.

The British knew that at one time Africans will have to rule themselves and therefore, it was meant
to prepare them for self rule.

A belief in social Darwinism theory: British public had a confirmed feeling that their social and
cultural institutions were highly developed for Africans and if imposed would only serve to cause
misunderstandings and disintegration of African societies. In this way indirect rule was seen as a
way of effecting change and bringing Africans into a closer contact and harmony without trouble.

This system was suitable for British administration plans of their colonies. The British claimed that,
unlike the French, colonies were separate entities that were supposed to have their own
administrative systems. The British were not to have at least in theory uniform laws drawn from
London for every British protectorate,

The existence of well developed African institutions such as in Buganda and Northern Nigeria
provided a framework for an efficient administration. Besides, the British feared the danger of
dismantling the local administrative set up. The use of these institutions was the best way of
avoiding trouble with strong African leaders.

The physical difficulties in colonial Africa also favoured the use of traditional chiefs. The thick
forests the tropical diseases; wild animals, hostile tribes and lack of transport all made it difficult to
employ the British at local levels. The British could only reach the grassroots through their accepted
local leaders. The local chiefs would withstand harsh conditions.

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Indirect rule was the best method of ruling the illiterate masses of Africa. Since they could not be
mobilised through the radio and the press, the use of African leaders seemed a workable solution.
It was also a way of solving the language barrier between the British and their colonial subjects.

Lord Lugard also adopted indirect rule as a way of preparing Africans for eventual self- government.
This could be achieved by allowing African leaders to exercise their responsibility.

Failure of Assimilation: this proved to be impossible because Africans remained Africans (insisted
on their cultures). Africans greatly failed to turn into black Europeans. Thus for the purpose of
security and minimizing African resistance and create efficiency with effectiveness in exploitation
of African resources indirect rule had to be adopted.

How indirect rule was practised.

Indirect rule was most successful in centralised states like Buganda. Here, it was applied at the
level of local governments but not at the level of central governments because such offices were
reserved for the whites.

The African chief was the main actor at local levels like districts and counties. Policies were got
from the central government and were passed to lesser chiefs who in turn passed over the policies
on the local man.

The lesser chiefs operated at the lowest levels for example the sub-county chiefs, village headmen,
parish chiefs and clan elders. Therefore they provided basis of political authority.

Grades of chiefs used in various parts of Uganda included, County chiefs, Sub-county Chiefs, Parish
chiefs.

The duties of chiefs were collection of taxes, implementation of government policy, promotion of
law and order in their areas among other functions.

The British used Buganda agents like Semei Kakungulu in the East, Nuwa Mbaguta in the West,
James Miti in Bunyoro and Apollo Kaggwa in Buganda

The chiefs also presided over the native law courts and applied African laws to rule the masses. But
in case there was resistance, from the local people, then the British would step in.

The African chiefs acted as agents to collect taxes for the local treasury for example in Buganda,
the local treasury was based at Entebbe.

The British colonial government appointed and posted a resident Governor to Uganda and Kenya.
It was this governor who appointed district officials to protect British interests in the interior.

In parts like Kigezi, Acholi, Bunyoro and Karamoja, the British used direct rule rather than indirect
rule hence Baganda agents were mainly used to administer these areas. It is this that led to the
Nyangire revolt of 1907.

In other areas like Busoga, Toro and Ankole where agreements were signed, the foundation, of
traditional institutions of Kingship were also weakened.

In other segmentary decentralised areas like Teso, Lango, Bugisu, Bunyoro, Bukedi, Bugwere, and
Busoga, The British created new rulers who were often the foreigners. They used Kakungulu and

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Ganda agents to promote British colonial interests yet they were foreigners in eastern Uganda. Thus
the British did not allow local institutions to develop.

It can therefore be summed up that the British indirect rule was one way of ruling directly just like
the Germans did in Tanganyika. The only difference was that the British were moderate in their
administration unlike the Germans.

Problems faced by the British during implementation of indirect Rule.

In decentralised societies, they found a problem of single accepted authority at the top. It was thus
difficult to get individuals to use the councils of elders which were too weak to implement British
policies.

The British created chief Achia to solve the problem of lack of single accepted authority in some
societies like Karamoja. He was to restrict movement of Karamojong and their cattle so as to meet
the British demands. Chief Achia was however killed hence the problem of elders continued.

The frequent wars of resistance especially in Bunyoro for example (Nyangire rebellion of 1907)
Acholi (the Lamogi rebellion) of 1911-1912 and resistance in Karamoja and later the Yakan revolt
in West Nile. To a large extent, these hindered the implementation of indirect rule.

There was lack of trained manpower especially then that only forty trained personnel had been for
the Ugandan colonial administration.

The system faced the problem of administration costs more especially the British colonial
government never wanted to use the British tax payers money to finance the administration of
Uganda.

At times, the British failed to understand the social organisation of the people. Instead they
introduced social laws which people rejected because they were harsh. As a result, the people did
not understand the British.

The policy implementers also faced the problem of foreign geography and diseases especially in the
interior. This worked against indirect rule.

Where African chiefs were strong, they did not want to co-operate with the British at all. This was
true with Chief Awich of Payera in northern Uganda.

Also some chiefs never wanted to hand over the taxes collected to the British treasury and it caused
financial problems.

Associated to the above, such errant chiefs embarked on fulfilling their personal needs other than
serving the British interests. Kakungulu in Bukedi was aiming at creating his own political kingdom
until he was demoted. Most African chiefs lacked formal education and skills and could not do the
job as expected. They failed to understand English and could not read.

There was a problem of language barrier where African chiefs could not communicate effectively
with their colonial supervisors. The Ganda chiefs also had problems with their subjects.

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What can be said in conclusion therefore is that much as the said indirect rule registered some
failures in non-kingdom areas, it was to a large extent very successful especially in kingdoms areas.
And it eventually became successful the whole of East Africa.

Effects of Indirect Rule

A lot of criticism has been advanced against indirect rule as a policy part of which included the fact
that indirect rule encouraged parochialism among the natives and their rulers which made it difficult
to eradicate even during the post-independence period.

Indirect rule also greatly retarded progress of self-governance for the Africans by excluding the elite
society from participating in government i.e indirect rule as a policy perpetuated European rule
rather than African self-rule. It is little wonder therefore that the policy greatly registered
resistances from the elite class in areas such as Nigeria, Ghana among others where it started from.

It also imposed petty British autocracy on the people under the guise of the training their African
traditional rulers for self-governance. However, it would be noted that the African rulers were not
given real lessons of leadership but activities like supervision of grass cutting, being punished for
their independent views, dictate upon them how to impose taxes, appoint chiefs all in the names of
expert advice of the colonial officer.

In other words all that this policy did was to represent interest of the British government and
therefore with or without British officials working directly or indirectly the difference was more of
a myth than a reality as Adu Boahen rightly concludes:

“Indirect rule in reality was the most indirect method of ruling directly”.

It should however be noted that indirect rule had its own weakness for example it contributed to the
collapse of African traditional authority. Like in Buganda, after 1900 agreement, the Kabaka lost
powers in making laws, collecting tax revenue and controlling land. The Lukiiko also lost its
traditional role in society.

BRITISH IN KENYA

In 1886 and 1890 Britain reached agreements with Germany that delineated a boundary between
British territory in Kenya and German territory in Tanganyika (part of present-day Tanzania) to the
south. The Imperial British East Africa Company was chartered in 1888 to administer Kenya, but
the company soon found itself losing large amounts of money through its vain attempts to extend
control over the interior. In 1895 the British government formally took over the territory, which was
renamed the East Africa Protectorate. Its western neighbour was Britain’s Uganda Protectorate, and
the border between the two lay just west of the site that would become, in the late 1890s, the new
city of Nairobi.

Although the boundaries of the British protectorate were set, the British actually controlled little
more than the Kenyan coast at the beginning of the 20th century. The British conquest of the Kenyan
interior was gradual and incremental, taking second place to Britain’s construction of a railway
connecting Mombasa with Lake Victoria. The railway was completed in 1901. In 1902 Britain
decided to merge Uganda’s Eastern Province with the East Africa Protectorate; thus the Lake
Victoria basin and the western highlands became part of Kenya. By 1908 the British administration
had brought the southern half of present-day Kenya under its control. Northern Kenya, then

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inhabited largely by nomadic peoples, did not come under British authority until well after World
War I (1914-1918).

In their colonial conquest, the British followed a policy of divide and conquer, allying with some
African groups against others. The Masai, who had suffered a series of 19th-century civil wars over
water and grazing rights and had lost much of their livestock to disease and drought, were one group
with whom the British allied in order to impose their rule. To aid colonial administration, the British
divided Kenya’s Bantu-, Nilotic-, and Cushitic-speaking peoples into ethnic classifications based
on linguistic variations and locality. Thus, specific ethnic subgroups, called “tribes,” were created
in a form that had not existed previously. The ethnic groups were assigned to live in separate areas
of the colony. Within each subgroup, colonial administrators designated one “chief,” who became
responsible for collecting taxes levied by the colonial state.

To help make the new railway profitable, the colonial government encouraged the settlement of
European farmers in Kenya. After 1902 white Europeans (mostly from Britain and South Africa)
took up residence in the highlands. Land for European settlement meant the loss of land for some
of Kenya’s peoples, most notably the highland-dwelling Kikuyu. Many of the Kikuyu who lost land
were forced to move onto European farms and estates as squatters and labourers, or to seek
employment in urban areas such as Nairobi. By the time World War I ended in 1918, European
settlers, desiring inexpensive farm labour, had convinced the colonial government to adopt
measures that essentially forced Africans to work the farms. These included new, higher taxes on
Africans, who, lacking money, were obligated to work the settlers’ farms in order to pay them. By
this time, the settlers had achieved considerable political influence in the territory, which was
changed to a colony and renamed Kenya in 1920. The colony of Kenya was administered by a
British governor, who was advised by an elected Legislative Council. Black Africans were not
allowed to vote and were denied representation in the council until the mid-1940s, when a small
number of blacks were nominated to the council. The colony’s small Asian and Arab populations
were given several seats in the council in the 1920s.