The Royal African Society

Interpreting the Colonial Period in African History Author(s): R. Hunt Davis Source: African Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 289 (Oct., 1973), pp. 383-400 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/721149 . Accessed: 26/08/2011 01:34
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INTERPRETING THE COLONIAL PERIOD IN AFRICAN HISTORY

by R. HUNT DAVIS

Universityof Florida IN RECENT a YEARSmore or less standardinterpretationof the colonial period in African history has developed in general historical circles. Take, for instance, the view put forth by Gordon A. Craig in his textbook on modern Europe: 'One of the keys to the understandingof the problems of the new African nations of the twentieth century is the briefness of the period which intervened between the end of their isolation from the modern world and their admission to statehood. As late as the 1800s, most of Africa was still uncharted and free from alien penetration. Then, with a rush that is still astonishing to recall, the white men arrived and within twenty years had carved all of Africa into dependencies of their home governments. The traumaticeffects of the impact of an advanced industrial civilizationupon a primitive tribal society are still having repercussionstoday....'1 Craig's interpretationis similar to what one finds in many general European history texts. Consequently,it is the only view that most history students ever get of the colonial period. But how sound is it ? Did a sudden confrontation with the modern world traumatize Africans? Was the colonial period too brief to complete the task of transformingAfrica from an era of 'primitive tribal societies' to the 'modern age'? The purpose of this paper, then, is to examine the problems of how best to interpret the period of Europeanrule in Africa. As part of this process, it will analyse earlier and current historical interpretationsof the colonial period and then put forward, if not yet another interpretation, at least a radical change of emphasis, derived from Geoffrey An to Barraclough's Introduction Contemporary History.2 tribes' The 'unrewarding gyrationsof barbarous The European view of Africa that developed congruently with the age of imperialism and still continues in the popular mind, and to some extent in
Dr R. Hunt Davis, jr. is an assistant professor of history at the University of Florida. His main research interests are in the history of education and politics in South Africa. 1. Gordon A. Craig, Europe since 1815 (3rd ed., New York, 1971), pp. 407-8. 2. Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History (Harmondsworth, 1967). 383

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scholarly circles,3is that it has no past. Its history begins with the arrivalof Europeans. This view originated with the ideology of an industrialized, nationalistic,and imperialisticlate nineteenth century Europe that 'sanctioned as naturaland necessary a polarizationof the rulers and the ruled, the bearers and the receivers of culture.'4 The sociological basis of this ideology, it is suggested, consisted of two elements: idealistic sociology, which constructed systems of logically interconnected ideal types, with assigned meanings that made them timeless, for the purposeof interpretingempiricalfacts; and pseudoDarwinism, which sought relations among empirical phenomena, assumed a polygeneticorigin for the world'spopulationand acceptedthe notion of conquest and class conflict dominating political processes. The combination of these two concepts produced a belief in the existence in Africa of distinct Caucasoid and Negroid types, each with its own attributes, to which absolute (and variously ranked)values could be assigned. The combination of idealistic sociology and pseudo-Darwinism clearly underlies one of the earliest scholarly efforts at placing colonial rule in Africa in a historical perspective, that is, Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston's A History of of theColonization Africa by Alien Races. Johnston,one of the leading British empire-builders,said of Africans that: 'The Negro, more than any other human type, has been markedout by his mental and physical characteristicsas the servant of other races .... in a primitive state [he] is a born slave. He is possessed of great physical strength, docility, cheerfulness of disposition, a short memory for sorrows and cruelties, and an easily aroused gratitude for kindness and just dealing. He does not suffer from home-sickness to the over-bearing extent that afflictsother peoples torn from their homes, and, provided he is well fed, he is easily made happy. Above all, he can toil hard under the hot sun and in the unhealthy climates of the torrid zone. He has little or no race-fellowship-that is to say, he has no sympathy for other negroes; he recognizes, follows, and imitates his master independently of any race affinities .. .'5 Obviously born slaves were incapable of creating anything that could be deemed worthy of historical study. Thus, for Johnston the history of the continent consisted of the movement of alien races into Africa over some four
3. See, for example Hugh Trevor-Roper's much-quoted statement that 'Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none, or very little: there is only the history of the Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness ... And darkness is not a subject for history.' 'The Rise of Christian Europe', The Listener, 70, 1809 (Nov. 28, 1963), p. 871. The phrase used in this section's sub-title also comes from this article. For discussions of the exclusion of African history from the purview of the professional historian prior to 1948, see J. D. Fage, 'Introduction', and Ivor Wilks, 'African Historiographical Traditions, Old and New', in Africa Discovers Her Past, edited by J. D. Fage (London, 1970), pp. 1-17. 4. Wyatt Macgaffey, 'Concepts of Race in the Historiography of Northeast Africa', Journal of African History, 7, 1 (1966), pp. 1-2. 5. H. H. Johnston, A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races (Cambridge, 1899; 2nd ed., 1913), pp. 151-2.

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millenia for purposes of settlement, agricultureand commerce.6 These aliens were physicallyand mentally superiorto the indigenouspopulation. The great inflow of Europeans into the continent beginning in 1881, however, added a new dimension and brought to a completionthe long process of the invasion of Africa by alien races. For, possessed of a 'beauty of facial featuresand originality of invention in thought and deed' that made them superior to all other mankind,the Europeanswere embarkedon building a new Africa in which the eventual outcome would be 'a compromise-a dark-skinnedrace with a white
man's features and a white man's brain'.7

The result of Johnston's work and that of later scholars such as the ethnoto logist C. G. Seligmanswas createa climateof opinion that led most Westerners to think that everything of value in Africa originated outside the continent, usually from supposed Caucasoid sources. In short, there could be little doubt that Europehad broughthistoryto Africa. The only debatewas whether or not Africa benefited from European rule, but it was a debate in wholly Eurocentricterms-was Europeanrule beneficial or harmful in terms of what Europeansdid. Holders of the positive viewpointwould be in heartyagreement with the remarksof Lord Leverhulme, chairmanof Lever Brothers,made at a dinner held by the Liverpool Chamberof Commercein 1924: 'I am certain that the West African races have to be treated very much as one would treat children when they are immature and underdeveloped. We have excellent materials. I don't know better materials anywhere for labour in the tropics than the natives of West Africa but they are not organized .... Now the organizing ability is the particular trait and characteristic of the white man. . . . I say this with my little experience, that the African

native will be happier, produce the best, and live under the largerconditions of prosperitywhen his labour is directed and organizedby his white brother who has all these million years' start ahead of him.'9 Europeansthus were taking up the white man's burden and bringing progress to Africa. Those Europeanswho opposed imperialism did so loudly and often used the exploitation of Africans as one of their arguments against colonial rule. But here too the debate was Eurocentricin its focus. For example, the prominent British socialist, LeonardWoolf, attackedcolonialismon the groundsthat only a small number of capitalistsbenefited from it. For the nations of Europe and
6. Ibid., p. 442. 7. Ibid, pp. 450-1. 8. C. G. Seligman, Races of Africa (London, 1930; 4th ed., 1966). 'The history of Africa south of the Sahara', wrote Seligman, 'is no more than the story of the permeation through the ages . . of the [indigenous population] by Hamitic blood and culture' (p. 8), and the Hamites were 'Europeans' (p. 61). For a criticism of Seligman and other proponents of the Hamitic hypothesis, see Macgaffey, 'Concepts of Race' and Edith R. Sanders, 'The Hamitic Hypothesis, its Origins and Function in Time Perspective', Journal of African History, 10, 4 (1969), pp. 521-32. 9. West Africa, 26 July 1924, quoted in Michael Crowder, A Short History of Nigeria (revised ed.; New York, 1966), p. 264.

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their citizens, economicimperialismwas a failure,and in Africacolonialadministrations dedicated to serving the needs of European capital lost sight of the welfare of the African people. Yet Woolf's fundamentalview of Africans was almost identical with that of Leverhulme. He too considered Africans to be 'savages' who belonged to 'non-adult races' and possessed a 'psychology... [which] has been only the passive agent in the making of... [their] life and history; the active agent has been the beliefs and desires of Europeans.'10 Nearly every white person, in short, whether pro-colonial or anti-colonial, possessed a stereotypedview of Africa that perceived the continent in terms of acephalous societies where people mainly lived in small villages and lacked administrativeand judicial institutions."1 Such views turned the colonial era into what J. F. Ade Ajayi has termed 'a mythical situation more suitable for
legend than for history'.12

This outlook remained dominant until the second world war. It is true that during the inter-warperiod there developed a school of social anthropologyin Britainwhich radicallyquestionedthe earlierassumptionsof absolutesuperiority and inferiority as between European and 'primitive' societies. And during researchwas carriedout on African this period some importantanthropological peoples. But until the 1940s the general basis of this school remained un-historicaland even anti-historical. views of the colonial Currenthistoriographical period the heyday of colonialism most western historians, if they thought During about Africa at all, ignored the contemporaryanthropologicalresearch, and were content with a mythical approachto the colonialera; but the second world war, the emergence of strong nationalist movements aimed at overthrowing rather than reformingthe colonial situation, and the process of decolonization, all combined to invalidatethis approach. Historians started to become aware of Africa, and the earlierassumptionthat Africapossessed no history of its own began to seem rather silly. Furthermore in the same way that imperialism had brought forth a historiographyof its own, so too the termination of the colonial period created a need for historical explanation. The end of colonial rule meant that Africans were to govern themselves. This in turn led African and Afrophilehistoriansto think it necessaryto demonstratethat Africanswere capable of governing states.13 The establishmentof African universities with
10. Leonard Woolf, Empire and Commerce in Africa: a study in economic imperialism (London, 1920; reprinted, New York, 1968). See extracts from pp. 316, 328-31, 333-6, 352-8 in Problems in the History of Colonial Africa, 1860-1960, ed. by Robert O. Collins (Engelwood Cliffs, N.J., 1970), pp. 285-95. 11. Michael Crowder, West Africa Under Colonial Rule (Evanston, 1968), p. 13. 12. J. F. Ade Ajayi, 'The Continuity of African Institutions Under Colonialism', in Emerging Themes of African History: proceedings of the International Congress of African Historians held at Dar es Salaam, 1965, ed. by T. O. Ranger (London, 1968), p. 189. 13. Christopher Wrigley, 'Historicism in Africa', African Affairs, 70, 279 (April, 1971), p. 118. Wrigley adds that as a result, such historians have seen 'state-formation as the dominant and almost the only significant theme of earlier history', an approach that he labels historicism.

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theirown departments historyfurther of implieda needto shiftthe focalpoint to activities the historical of African fromthe studyof European develophistory African statesareseeking mentof African independent societyitself.14 Finally, fromthe African thatwhichis relevant the process nationto of to discover past awareness the ethnoof ined witha growing building.15All of this,whencomb has to centricbias of much of historical scholarship, led historians lookmore at the critically the African period. past,including colonial fromthe Threedivergent of periodhaveemerged interpretations the colonial on all around central the works African bodyof recent question history, revolving the in of whether precolonial the colonial or periodwasthe morecrucial shaping Africa. The earliest view, and one thatis still important, independent argues thatthe colonial withtheAfrican created decisive a break past.16 Another period haveresponded this positionby statingthatthe colonial to groupof historians must be set in the perspective Africanhistoryas a whole and that of period the continuity as with the past is as important change. The thirdpositionis that of the 'radical who aremoreconcerned with the aspectof the pessimists', that relatesto post-colonial Africa. They arguethat the colonial problems Africain a manner thathas left the greater powersdeveloped partof the continentin a stateof dependence the former on mothercountries whichcanonly be changedby world-wide The radicalpessimiststhus share revolution.1 with the firstgroupof historians beliefthat the colonialperiodis the most a in Africanhistory,but they approach this positionfrom such a important different a thatthey constitute third'school'. angle The concept the colonial of as a break withearlier period representingdecisive erasof African reststo a considerable extenton the studyof economic history contribution JackGoodyhas madea significant history. In this connection, in a recent thatcompares tradeandmarkets, systems production, the the of paper and the militaryorganizations pre-colonial of Africaand medievalEurope.s1
14. See for example, J. D. Fage, 'Continuity and Change in the Writing of West African History', African Affairs, 70, 280 (July, 1971), pp. 236-51. Fage views 1948 as the crucial date in this shift and cites K. O. Dike's Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830-85 (Oxford, 1956), as 'the first fruit of the new university-based approach to the history of Africa'. 15. See J. F. Ade Ajayi, 'The Place of African History and Culture in the Process of Nation-Building in Africa South of the Sahara',Journal of Negro Education, 30, 3 (Summer, 1961), pp. 206-13. An informative debate over the existence of a nation-building school of Tanzanian historiography appears in a series of three articles in African Affairs: Donald Denoon and Adam Kuper, 'Nationalist Historians in Search of a Nation: the "New Historiography" in Dar es Salaam', 69, 277 (Oct., 1970), pp. 329-47; T. O. Ranger, 'An Answer', 70, 278 (Jan., 1971) pp. 50-61; Denoon and Kuper, 'A Rejoinder', 70, 280 (July, 1971), pp. 287-8. 16. For instance, the American Historical Association has promoted this viewpoint in Philip D. Curtin, African History, Service Center for Teachers of History, Publication Number 56 (Washington, D.C., 1964). 17. The term 'radical pessimist' comes from T. O. Ranger, 'Introduction', in Ranger, Emerging Themes, p. xxi. Also, see Gerald L. Caplan, 'Review of A History of East and Central Africa to the Late Nineteenth Century, by Basil Davidson, Origins of Rhodesia, by Stanlake Samkange, and Colonialism in Africa, 1870-1960, Vol. I, The History and Politics of Colonialism, 1870-1914, ed. by L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan', Africa Report, 15, 2 (Feb., 1970), pp. 36-9. 18. For note 18, see next page.

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He concludes that patterns of trade were similar as were, to a lesser extent, military organizations,but that there was a great gap between the agricultural technologies of medieval Eurasiaand Africa. Since social systems are closely tied to economic capacities, 'Africa [which made little use of even elementary machines] was unable to match the developments in productivity and skill, stratification and specialization, that marked the agrarian societies of early medieval Europe'. By extension, the colonial impact of an industrialized Europe on an Africa with a rudimentary technology was to have profound consequencesfor all spheres of human activity. While Goody takes a neutral stance on the reasons for the colonial period being decisive, many observers take either a Eurocentric or an Afrocentric approach to the problem. The more conventional Eurocentristsusually take the approachthat the colonial period was both necessaryand, on balance, good for Africa. Roland Oliver stated the matter succinctly: 'For the integrationof East Africa with the generalprogressof mankindin the world outside, a drastic simplificationof the old politicaldiversitywas an inescapablenecessity. It was a problem which, judging by historical precedent, only a period of colonial tutelage could solve.'19 Two historianswho take an even more adamantview of the supposed necessity of the colonial period and the benefit that Africa derived from it are L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan. Their argumentfor the positive nature of colonial rule runs as follows: 'It is difficult to assess the Europeans'imperial record as a whole. Contemporary discussion on the subject indeed bears some resemblanceto the interminabledebates concerningthe war-guilt question after the First World We do not share the widely-held assumption that equates War.... colonialismwith exploitation. Neither do we believe that profits necessarily imply exploitation ... We thus take a more favourableview of white . . entrepreneurship ...
We should also be more inclined than some ... to stress the immigrants' We also argue that European technical and technological contributions ....

immigrationto Africa, while occasioningall manner of new social problems, representedat the same time a much-needed transferof modern skills. We accordinglyinterpretEuropeanimperialismin Africa as an engine of cultural transfusionas well as of political domination. We thus regardthe European era as most decisive for the future of Africa. We likewise look favourablyon many of the Europeans'political achievements .... In our own view, for instance, the pacification and administra-

tive unification of a huge territory such as Nigeria-a country never previously united under the same flag-was in itself a major achievement.
18. Jack Goody, 'Economy and Feudalism in Africa', Economic History Review, Second Series, 22, 3 (Dec., 1969) pp. 393-405. 19. Roland Oliver, 'Epilogue', in History of East Africa, Vol. I, edited by Roland Oliver and Gervase Mathew (Oxford, 1963), p. 456.

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Imperialism, accordingto our interpretation,acted as a means of cultural transformation. Among other things, the whites brought to Africa modern forms of education,medicalfacilitiesand a host of economic '20 techniques..... In contrastto this version of the Eurocentricview, with its emphasis on the of positive contributionof colonialism,the Afrocentricinterpretation the decisive nature of the colonial period stresses the African r61le. In some instances this has produceda view of the colonial period as being completely disruptiveof the fabric of African life and therefore totally negative in its effect. It is a view characterized by novelists and politicians as much as by historians. For example, Chinua Achebe's novel, ThingsFall Apart,21describes a functioning and viable society that disintegratesin the face of white missionaryand administrative intrusion. While scholars such as Michael Crowder have argued that colonial rule did not much affect ordinaryAfricans,22 Achebe, through his hero insists that it affectedAfricansociety and cultureto its core. Support Okonkwo, for Achebe's view comes from the political scientist Abiola Irele, who has stated that 'the establishmentof colonial rule in Africa brought with it a drastic reordering of African societies and human relations' and 'created in varying measure all over Africa a state of cultural fluctuation.' This in turn led Africans in a search for new values that produced popular movements such as religious independencyand nigritude.23 Some African political leaders, among them Leopold Sedar Senghor and Julius Nyerere, have also accepted the concept that the colonial period separated Africa from its past. They then argue that the process of nation-building necessitates recapturingthat past.24 For them, the era of Europeanrule thus emerges as an iron age that has fallen between two golden ages.25 Afrocentric views of the colonial period that regard it as decisive do not necessarily imply that it was totally destructive in its impact and that there exists a need to recapture the African past in order to build a new society. Rather, the approachcan be one that emphasizes,as in fact Irele does, African
20. L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, 'Introduction', in The History and Politics of Colonialism, 1870-1914, edited by L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, in Vol. I of Colonialism in Africa, 1870-1960, edited by L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan (5 vols; Cambridge, 1969-) pp. 22-3. Also see their Burden of Empire: an appraisal of western colonialism in Africa South of the Sahara (New York, 1967). 21. Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (London, 1962). 22. Crowder, West Africa, passim. 23. Abiola Irele, ' Ngritude or Black Cultural Nationalism', Journal of Modern African Studies, 3, 3, (1965), pp. 322-5. 24. For Senghor, see his Nationhood and the African Road to Socialism, trans. by Mercer Cook (Paris, 1962), especially pp. 99-108. He argues that to build a new nation it is necessary to return to Negro-African cultural roots. The theme of recapturing the African past, with its socialism, runs through much of Nyerere's Freedom and Socialism, Uhuru na Ujamaa: a selection from writings and speeches 1965-1967 (Dar es Salaam, 1968). 'Education for Self-Reliance', pp. 267-90, for example, argues for the need of reinstituting education which has the proper purpose of preparing the young to live in and serve their society. 25. R. Cornevin, 'The Problems and Character of African History', in Ranger, Emerging Themes, p. 76. Cornevin attributes this description of the colonial period to Robert Delavignette.

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initiative in societies that have been decisively altered by Europeancolonialism and that have become part of a world economy with a materialand social base that differs fundamentallyfrom that of the precolonial period as a result of 'the new division of labor, the new modes of production and the system of distribution of material goods and political power'.26 Among historians, a leading proponent of this position is A. Adu Boahen. He argues that 'by its disruption of the existing political organizationand its creationof the present independent states, by its generationof the new classes of Africans, by its introductionof cash-economyand above all by its spread of education and the Western way of life, colonialismhas launched Africa on a course of development that is fundamentallydifferentfrom its earlierpatterns.'27 The legacy of colonialism has both its positive and negative aspects, many of which will have a permanenteffect, but Africa's future will depend largely on what Africans do with this legacy. The contrast between Boahen's Afrocentric approach and the Eurocentric approach described above is well illustrated by his view of the process of decolonization. Noting that some scholarsstate that events in the metropolitan countries and the United Nations precipitated the terminal assault on the colonial system that began in the late 1940s, Boahen argued instead that it was the emergence of political parties in colonial Africa, with their wide-ranging activities, that initiated the process of decolonization. Furthermore,'independence was not handed to most African countries on a golden platter; it was fought for. Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Banda, Kaunda became detainees or prison graduates before they became Prime Ministers or Presidents.'28 In short, the initiative for decolonizationlay with Africans and not with others. Gann and Duignan's reply to Boahen is that the second world war, the pressure of a so-called conscience vote on the home governments, the lack of a concerted colonial policy in Africa, and the failure of the colonial powers to formulate long-term plans should receive more emphasis than African political parties.29 A counter-argument the Afrocentricside has emergedin responseto those on who have viewed the colonial period as the most decisive one in determining the shape of modern Africa, whether from an Afrocentric or a Eurocentric standpoint. It emphasizesthat the colonial period must be set in the perspective of African history as a whole. A prominent exponent of this position is J. F. Ade Ajayi, who has criticized those who study the European impact and the African response to colonialism without any reference to the internal
26. Archie Mafeje, 'The Ideology of "Tribalism",' Journal of Modern African Studies, 9, 2 (1971), p. 258. 27. A. Adu Boahen, 'The Colonial Era: conquest to independence', in The History and Politics of Colonialism, 1914-1960, edited by L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, Vol. II of Colonialism in Afrzca, pp. 523-4. 28. Ibid, pp. 516-9. 29. L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, 'Epilogue' in Gann and Duignan, Colonialism, 1914-1960, p. 527.

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history of Africa and its peoples. The correct historical context for a full assessmentof the colonial period 'is not the history of the colonizationof Africa or the history of Africanreactionsto Europeancolonization,but Africanhistory as such.'30 Ajayi's position is very much in agreement with that of Basil Davidson, who has asserted: 'African development has run in an unbroken line from its most distant origins until the present. The Africansare the children of their own past in just the same sense as all other major groupingsof humankind,so that even those intrusions or interruptions which have seemed most traumatic and significantof change, such as the colonial period, were in truth no more than episodes or stages in a long continuity of growth.'31 The colonial factor, writes Ajayi, did not simply assume dominance over all others that had previously affected African history, among which he included ecology, economic factors unrelatedto the trade with Europe, quality of leadership, and political problems and opportunities at different periods. These elements continued to be present and furthermoredid not simply become subordinate to the European factor in African developments after the arrival of whites.32 Ajayi thus argues for a basic cultural continuity in African history. Change of course is the essence of history, and Africans, in common with the rest of mankind,have had to adapt themselves and their institutions to change. Historians of the colonial period, therefore, should not be concerned with whether or not African institutions survived or were disruptedby colonial rule, for that question is outdated. They should focus instead on the manner and methods of Africanadaptationto the changerepresentedby the colonialperiod.33 It is evident that Ajayi has the same Afrocentricapproachas Boahen, but the two arrive at differentinterpretationsof the importanceof the colonial period. In addition, it might be noted that the debate between those who argue for continuity and those who argue for disruption parallels the debate between
30. J. F. Ade Ajayi, 'Colonialism: an episode in African history', in Gann and Duignan, Colonialism, 1870-1914, p. 499. 31. Basil Davidson, A History of East and Central Africa to the Late Nineteenth Century (New York, 1969), p. 3. Elsewhere, however, Davidson has written that although the colonial period was little more than a brief episode when 'viewed across the skylines of history', nevertheless 'the skylines of history are distant, and to Africans those fifty or sixty years of foreign domination have been tremendous and traumatic. . . . the impact of those years was always massive. . . . [and] left Africa with everything to build or rebuild. Many fragments of the "old society" remained. But all too clearly they could never be put together again'. Which Way Africa?: the search for a new society (3rd edition; Harmondsworth, 1971), p. 16. 32. Ajayi, 'Colonialism', p. 501. 33. Ajayi, 'Continuity of African Institutions', p. 192. This article parallels the one in Gann and Duignan. For an anthropological view of the cultural unity and continuity of black Africa, see Jacques Maquet, Civilizations of Black Africa (New York, 1972) and Africanity: the cultural unity of Black Africa (New York, 1972). A political argument for cultural continuity comes from Amilcar Cabral, 'Identity and Dignity in Struggle', Southern Africa, 5, 9 (Nov., 1972), pp. 4-8.

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those who favour a survivalistview and those who favour a catastrophicinterpretationof Afro-Americanhistory.34 Those who are making a case for continuity do not deny the far-reaching changes that occurred during the colonial era. Ajayi, for instance, notes the significanceof the loss of sovereignty,the introductionof Christianity,western education,and western social, religious, and political ideas, and the suppression of African practices that were judged incompatible with European Christian traditions. To repeat, however, such developments represented only a new historicalfactor, for the colonial period was but 'one episode in the continuous flow of Africanhistory'.35 Over againstthose who stress the progressivenature of European rule, Ajayi further maintains that in many respects colonialism tended to be a conservativeforce that acted as a brakeon the processof historical change. Since the overriding interest of colonial administrationwas stability and not reform, there tended in many areasto be less change than in the nineteenth-centuryera of the radical Muslim and Christianreformers.36 Michael Crowder has made the essentially conservativenature of colonialism a major premise in his detailed study of West Africa under ColonialRule. The basic theses underlyinghis analysis are the brevity of colonial rule and the smallness of its impact on the peoples of West Africa. He then proceeds to argue that Africans did not need the stimulus of colonial occupationto become integrated into the modern world. Noting Henri Brunschwig's contention that 'Africa contained the seeds of its own modernisation,' Crowderclaims that 'to a large extent the administrativesystem [of the colonial period] retarded rather than speeded up . . . [Africa's integration into the modern world] and that it was African reaction to colonial rule more than anything else that achieved it.' Major efforts by the colonial powers at modernizationdid not take place until after the second world war, and then only involuntarilydue to pressure from African critics.37 Crowderand Ajayi thus differ markedlywith Oliver, Gann, and Duignan over the issue of the European contributionto African progress toward modernity during the colonial period. However, just as in the earlier part of this century the original Eurocentric assumption of the white impact on Africa had its critics-such as Woolf-as which is well as its apologists,so there has emergeda more recent interpretation both Eurocentric and highly critical. The major adversaries of those who emphasize 'African activity, African adaptation,African choice, [and] African initiative' are today likely increasinglyto be, in the words of T. O. Ranger,31 not 'the discredited colonial school' but the 'radical pessimists'. He notes how these, having become disillusionedwith the apparentinability of independent Africato develop itself, to achieveunity, or to free the still white-dominated
34. For a discussion of this debate, see Orlando Patterson, 'Rethinking Black History', Africa Report, 17, 9 (Nov.-Dec. 1972), pp. 28-31. 35. Ajayi, ' Continuity of African Institutions', pp. 194-6; ' Colonialism', pp. 502-3, 506. 36. Ajayi, 'Colonialism', p. 505. 37. Crowder, West Africa, pp. 7-9. 38. For note 38, see next page.

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territories in the south, have turned to a Fanonesque analysis of African nationalism. The radicalpessimists have posed what to Rangerseems 'to have become the fundamentaldebate both of contemporaryAfrican politics and of much of African historiography. Can Africa help itself or is it powerlessuntil the whole pattern of the world has been changed by revolution?' Radical pessimists find themselves doubting the long-term ability of African peoples to shape their own destinies. Under such an approach, Africans once again become the objects rather than the subjects of history, and the perspective on the colonial period is thus essentially a Eurocentric one. In large measure, therefore, the radical pessimists have taken up the anti-colonial arguments of the period before the second world war, for, while given an impetus by recent events, the underlying premises of their position are generally Marxist ones.39 The core of radicalpessimism is economic. Its orientationis Third World ratherthan just African. Simply put, the argumentruns somewhatas follows. The poor countriesof the world, which were until recently part of the European colonial system, have supposedlybecome independent. In real terms, however, they are not, for they are incapableof pursuing an independentcourse of action owing to their remaining economically subordinate to the capitalist system. The reality of the Third World is as an appendageof the West. It is in a state of arrestedeconomic developmentthat in turn has producedconstantturmoil.40 By definition, this is neo-colonialism,which, to quote Oginga Odinga, is 'not yet Uhuru'.41 According to Andre Gunder Frank, who bases his analysis on Latin America, neo-colonialism, or rather underdevelopment,is the product of the colonial structure of world capitalist development. What the colonial situationamountedto, then, was the developmentof underdevelopment, it is for an integral part of the same historical process that generated capitalism.42 Their analysis leads the radical pessimists to conclude that only worldwide revolution which sweeps away the capitalist system can end neocolonialism. A radical pessimist analysis of Africa's current world position appears in a recent article by Samir Amin.43 He sets forth four periods in African history:
38. Ranger, 'Introduction', Emerging Themes, p. xxi. 39. See, for instance, the 'Introduction' in Imperialism and Underdevelopment: a reader, edited by Robert I. Rhodes (London, 1970), p. xi, which states that 'the central theme of this volume is the assertion that the colonial experience is of crucial significance in the is studied as the historical process Colonialism... analysis of underdevelopment. which created underdevelopment. The underdeveloped country is seen as a colonial society whose structure has been determined by hundreds of years of European and, more recently, United States domination.' Not all recent Marxist writing on imperialism, however, takes a radical pessimist or Third World position. For opposition to such an interpretation, see Ernest Mandel, 'The Laws of Uneven Development', New Left Review, 59 (Jan.-Feb., 1970), pp. 19-38 and Bob Rowthorn, 'Imperialism in the or Rivalry ?', New Left Review, 69 (Sept.-Oct., 1971), pp. 31-54. Seventies-Unity 40. Sean Gervasi, 'Western Strategy in Southern Africa', Southern Africa, 5, 8 (Oct., 1972), p. 5. 41. Oginga Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru: an autobiography (New York, 1967). See especially his last chapter, 'Obstacles to Uhuru', pp. 253-315. 42. For note 42, see next page. 43. For note 43, see next page.

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the pre-mercantilistperiod (earliest days to seventeenth century); the mercantilist period (seventeenthcenturyto 1800); integrationinto the full capitalist system (1800 to 1880-90); colonization (1880-90 to the present). The continent's dependence on the capitalist world began with mercantilism when reduction to the function of providing slave labour for American plantations started to shape Africa according to foreign needs and thus cost Africa its autonomy. The colonial period, however, developed current African dependence with tenfold vigour. The colonial system sought to have Africa produce exports on the best possible terms for the metropole. In moving toward this position it organizedAfrica into the three macro-regionswhich constitute the present pattern of the continent: Africa of the colonial trade economy (West Africa and the Sudan); Africa of the concession-owningcompanies(the Congo River basin); Africa of the labour reserves (eastern and southern Africa). Everywheretraditionalsociety disintegratedin the face of the demands of the capitalist system, leaving in its place not a society that was moving toward modernity but rather a dependent society that 'was complete, peripheral,and hence at a dead end. It consequently retained certain "traditional" appearances which constitutedits only means of survival.'44 More widely known and more popularized(at least in Americancircles) than the economicargumentof radicalpessimismis the psychologicalone. Colonialism involved the mental as well as the political and economic subjugationof the colonized, a subjugationthat did not end with the independencemovements of the late 1950s and early 1960s.45 All too frequentlya black bourgeoisiewith an outlook similar to that of the former colonial masters replaced the European rulers, leavingthe masses as economicallyoppressedas ever. Until the colonial peoples are free of their mental imprisonment,which includes a sense both of
42. Andre Gunder Frank, Latin America: underdevelopment or revolution (New York, 1969), pp. x, 3-17. Frank has played a central role in developing contemporary Marxist theory on the economic relations of imperialism, but his ideas are now coming under criticism from within Marxist circles. Two articles by Ernesto Laclau have been important in this regard. In 'Argentina-Imperialist Strategy and the May Crisis', New Left Review, 62 (July-Aug., 1970), pp. 3-21, he challenges Frank's assumption that imperialism means nothing but backwardness, famine, and misery throughout the underdeveloped world. Argentina provides an example of industrial development in a dependent country. More recently, in 'Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America', New Left Review, 67 (May-June, 1971), pp. 19-38, Laclau argues that Frank defines feudalism and capitalism primarily in terms of the process of exchange, thereby ignoring fundamental Marxist theory, 'which maintains that feudalism and capitalism are, above all, modes of production' (p. 20). 43. Samir Amin, 'Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa: its origins and contemporary forms', Journal of Modern African Studies, 10, 4 (1972), pp. 503-24. For a fuller and more detailed historical analysis of Africa from his viewpoint, see Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London, 1972). Rodney's major historical periods are down to the fifteenth century, 1500-1885, and 1885-1960, thus differing somewhat from Amin's periodization. 44. Ibid, pp. 511, 506, 520. 45. The classic exposition of the psychology of the colonial relationship is that of O. Mannoni, Psychologie de la Colonisation (Paris, 1950), translated by Pamela Powesland into English as Prospero and Caliban (London, 1956). Mannoni's study was of course written before the era of independence, and did not pursue the question of continued post-colonial psychological dependence.

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inferiority and of alienation, it will be impossible for them to throw off the economic shackles of neo-colonialism. The most prominent exponent of the psychological argument in its political dimension is, of course, Frantz Fanon. As Elie Kedourie has noted, Fanon regardedcolonialism as having spawned a diabolical and inhuman society, and only with its total eradicationcould men be led to sanity and happiness. True decolonizationneeded violence. Fanon came to view violence as a cleansingforcethroughwhich the colonizedman could find genuine freedom and escape the current situation of false decolonization in which the indigenous bourgeoisie governed their countries through agreements reachedwith the metropolitanpowers.46 Thus, from both the economic and the psychological perspective, the focal point of African historiography for the radicalpessimists should be not African initiative but instead the more crucialprocess which led Africanpatternsof developmentto become dependent upon alien interests.47 GeoffreyBarraclough's History' and the colonialperiod 'Contemporary The debate over the importanceof the colonial period in African history is dependent in large part on the views of colonialismheld by the variousparticipants. On the one hand there are the historical apologists for European rule who take a Eurocentricview of the colonial period. On the other hand there are the opponents of colonialismwho attack it from either an Afrocentricor a radicalpessimist position. A new perspectiveis perhapsneeded on the colonial period, one that focuses on the essentials of the process of change in Africa since the late nineteenth century but at the same time avoids interpretations that revolve around a pro-colonial anti-colonial debate. In attempting to develop such a perspective, I wish first to examine the ideas of Geoffery Barracloughand others concerning historical analysis of the recent past and then to apply these ideas to an interpretationof the colonial period in African history. Geoffery Barracloughintroduces his Introductionto Contemporary History by stating that 'we live today in a world different, in almost all its basic preconditions, from the world in which Bismarcklived and died.' He then proceeds to examinehow these changes have occurredand to analysethe formative influencesand qualitativedifferenceswhich distinguishthe contemporary world. In order to do this he sees the need for a new frameworkand new terms of reference that will reflect the underlying structuralchanges which have taken place since Bismarck'sday.48 A new period of history-in short, contemporary history-has come into existence, separatedby a real gulf from the period of 'modern' history. To understand and justify the study of contemporary
46. Elie Kedourie, ed., Nationalism in Asia and Africa (New York, 1970), pp. 139-42; Martin Staniland, 'Frantz Fanon and the African Political Class', African Affairs, 68, 270 (Jan., 1969), pp. 4-25. Kedourie also presents on pp. 488-539 an essay by Fanon on 'Concerning Violence', taken from his The Damned (Paris, 1963), pp. 29-74. 47. Caplan, 'Review', p. 38. 48. Barraclough, Contemporary History, p. 9.

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history, the basic structuralchanges which have moulded the present era must be clarified. These changes are basic because they provide the context for political action. Among the changesthat have taken place are Europe's altered position in the world, the r61e of the United States and the Soviet Union as of super-powers,the end (or transformation) the old empires, the reawakening of Asia and Africa, the readjustment of relations between light and darkskinnedpeoples, and the atomic energy revolution. While there are differences of opinion about the significanceof each of these developments,the combination of all of them provides contemporaryhistory with a distinctive quality that sets it off from the precedingera.49 The forces that produced the basic structuralchanges were the interlocked movements of the industrial and social revolution and the new imperialismof the late nineteenthcentury. The industrialand social revolutionservedboth as a solvent and as a catalyst by creating our present-day urban and industrial society. The new imperialism spread the revolution which had originatedin western Europe and the United States to the rest of the world. Thus, 'by the end of the nineteenth century it was evident that the revolutionthat had started in Europe was a world revolution, that in no sphere, technological, social, or political,could its impetus be checkedor restrained.'50 In terms of chronology, the years centring on 1890 serve as the watershed between modern and contemporaryhistory. The change-overdid not take place at once, and a period of transition was needed throughout which the forces of the old order retarded the break-through the new. But by 1960the transitionperiodwas completed, of for new issues were now the majorissues facing the world. This had not been the case a few years earlier. Barracloughdoes caution, however, 'that the world which has emerged is neither sharplycut off from the world out of which it emerged nor simply a continuationof it; it is a new world with roots in the old.'51 While it is Barracloughwho provides the principal analyticalframeworkfor the interpretationof the colonial period that I wish to suggest, there are also thesis. Among others who have contributedideas supportiveof Barraclough's them is Carl Bridenbaughwho, in his 1962 addressto the AmericanHistorical Association,focused on what he termed 'the greatestturning point in all human history', namely, the 'great mutation' (a term he borrows from biology) that has taken place in the nature of human existence during the twentieth century: 'The Great Mutation, or historical change, has taken place so rapidly' and life has sustained such sudden and radicalalterations(in the long course of time) that we are now sufferingsomething like historicalamnesia. In the present century, first Western civilization and now the entire globe have witenvironmentanda materialistic nessedthe inexorablesubstitutionof an artificial
49. 50. 51. Ibid, pp. 13-7. Ibid, pp. 25, 50, 64. Ibid, pp. 24-30.

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environment spiritual and worldviewthat outlook life for the old natural on and linkedus so irrevocably the RecentandDistantPasts. So pervading to and has has said complete beenthis change, so complex life become-I almost it overwhelming-that now appearsprobablethat mid-nineteenth-century with fifth-century Greece or America Western Europehadmorein common than with their socially, mentally,spiritually) (physically,economically, that into ownprojections the middleof the twentieth century. Is it possible of so shorta time can so alterthe condition man?'52 majorintent was to discuss the questionof how AlthoughBridenbaugh's for with historians dealadequately the pastin light of the GreatMutation, can in ourpurposes has joinedBarraclough puttinghis fingeron the key feature he life of twentieth-century as it existson a world-wide scale. to the Anotherhistorianwho has contributed significantly understanding with the past is Peter Laslett. His worldand its relationship contemporary in with changes social We basically study, The World HaveLost,is concerned world which in structure. The world we have lost, that is the traditional was cameto an end afterthe Tudor-Stuart period,53 aboveall a patriEngland of until the arrival the archalsociety. It remained in its basicinstitutions so industrial but revolution has ceasedto be patriarchal vestiges exceptfor certain and in its emotional societywith predisposition.The collapseof patriarchal the comingof industrialization, not the rise of capitalism, the pointof is and in critical change. 'Time waswhenthe wholeof life wentforward the family, in a circleof loved,familiar size. all faces,knownandfondledobjects, to human Thattimehasgonefor ever. It makesus verydifferent fromour ancestors.'54
The transformationfrom pre-industrialto industrialEnglish society was complete by 1900.55 In place of what people considered to be an eternal and unchangeable society there came into existence a society which 'is open to change, is expected indeed to change of itself, or if it does not, to be changed, made better, by an omnicompetent authority.'56 A changing society in turn made social revolution possible for the first time. Thus, the social history of England during the twentieth century has been one of revolution. Perhaps the most prominent feature of this revolution has been something approaching in a total transformation the position and outlook of women."7 While Laslett's
52. Carl Bridenbaugh, 'The Great Mutation', The American Historical Review, 68, 2 (Jan., 1963), pp. 316-7. 53. Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost (New York, 1965), p. 26. The years 1700-10 form 'the final decade of the old world for our purposes' (p. 60). 54. Ibid, p. 21. 55. Ibid, p. 200. 56. Ibid, p. 4. 57. Ibid, pp. 219-28. '"Revolution" as meaning a resolution of unendurable social conflict by reshaping society as a whole has been rejected here as impossible in preindustrial times' (p. 162). Between 1710 and 1900, the patriarchal nature of English society was undermined, but at the start of the twentieth century social relationships were still in the shape of a pyramid. From that date, however, English society began 'to look something more like a pear, tending to become an apple' (p. 220).

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analysis differs somewhat from that of Barraclough-for instance, he does not distinguish between the first and the second industrialrevolutions,nor does he accept the notion of a watershed between the industrial and pre-industrial eras-they nonetheless are complementaryin sustaining the view that there is a fundamental discontinuity between our world and that which preceded the twentieth century. How do the ideas of Barraclough,Bridenbaughand Laslett provide a new perspective on the colonial period in African history? Do they not simply confirm the view that the era of Europeanrule provided a decisive break with the Africanpast ? The answeris that the second question no longer seems large enough to be relevant. These historians, but particularly Barraclough,are viewing the twentieth century in a global perspective. Proponents of the decisive break argument, on the other hand, are looking at the colonial period almost wholly within the context of the relationship between Europe and Africa. Furthermore,they view Europe in terms of continuity and Africa in terms of discontinuity, rather than recognizing that the Great Mutation has made the discontinuity of the twentieth century virtually as revolutionary for Europe as it has for Africa. The argument for continuity is also largely irrelevant,if one accepts the concept of contemporary history. African history before 1880-90 remained largely separate from modern history, despite the integrativeforces of the pre-colonialcentury.58 After 1960, African history is an integral part of contemporaryhistory, as is that of every other area of the world. While the new Africa has roots in the old, it is nonetheless fundamentally different. If historians are to understandpresent-day Africa, therefore, they must focus primarilynot on the continuity with the Africanpast but rather on the new structuralfeatures that now separate Africa from its past. The work of Barraclough,Bridenbaughand Laslett provides an antidote for radical pessimism also. The world has passed through a watershed, a Great Mutation, but the radical pessimists have failed to perceive this, for in their anti-capitalist arguments they have emphasized the element of continuity in history (despite viewing the colonial period as providing a decisive break). As Barracloughhas noted, the causal or genetic approach, which originated with nineteenth-century German historians and then permeated much of historical scholarship, is no longer suitable for historians who wish to understand contemporary history and its relationship with the preceding era. Historians should cease attempting to demonstrate the continuity of history and instead focus on the differentpatternsthat constitutethe past.59 To restate the earlier question, how do the ideas of Barraclough and Bridenbaugh provide a new perspective on the colonial period in African
58. See Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, Africa and Africans (revised edition, Garden City, N.Y., 1971), pp. 277-327; and Robert W. July, A History of the African People (New York, 1970), pp. 175-83 for discussions that date the beginning of modernization in Africa at or about 1800. 59. For note 59, see next page.

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history? The leading feature of contemporaryhistory has been industrialization. It in turn has led to the permeationby industrialprocesses of all facets of human life. Africa has experienced its share of this phenomenon, as Ousmane Sembene suggests in his novel about the workerswho struck on the Dakar-Niger railway line for five months beginning in October, 1947:
'And so the strike came to Thies.

no longer drifted above the savanna,they realizedthat an age had ended.... Now the machine ruled over their lands, and when they forced every machine within a thousand miles to halt they became conscious of their strength, but conscious also of their dependence. They began to understandthat the machine was making of them a whole new breed of men. It did not belong to them; it was they who belonged to it. When it stopped, it taught them
that lesson. '60

....

.When

the smoke from the trains

Next to industrialization,urbanizationstands as the most prominent aspect of the revolution that was taking place.61 Towns were not new to Africa, but what was new, in Thomas Hodgkin's words, was 'the great amorphoussqualid urbaine'.62 While for most of the continent the great growth of agglomdration cities took place after the second world war, in South Africa large-scaleurbanizationdatesfrom the late nineteenthcentury. Anotherimportantconfiguration of the contemporaryera, and one that was generallyabsent from pre-industrial society, has been large-scale poverty. This has been described by, among others, Basil Davidson. 'The situation in most colonies on the eve of independence-and therefore in the early years of self-rule-can .
. .

be summarized

in one short phrase: acute and worseningpoverty.' This poverty has resulted from the demise of rural Africa, which propelled many men into the migrant labour force. The wages paid to migrant workers,however, have been insufficient to alleviate poverty. 'At best, these men could be said to be subsidizing ruralpoverty; at worst, they were merely survivingas individuals.'63 A further feature of contemporaryhistory has been the revolt of Africa and Asia against the West. Barraclough notes that
59. Barraclough, Contemporary History, p. 17. Ernest Laclau, in 'Feudalism and Capitalism', also faults Frank, and by extension the other radical pessimists, for their emphasis on continuity. He argues that greatly expanded productivity of labour has led to a change in the nature of metropolitan exploitation of the satellite countries. The relationship remains one of dependence but not necessarily one of underdevelopment. 'It seems to me more useful', he writes, 'to underline these differences and discontinuities than to attempt to show the continuity and identity of the process, from Hernan Cortes to General Motors' (p. 37). Yet Laclau still views the twentieth century in terms of underlying continuity, because for him the basic change was from the feudal to the capitalist mode of production in the seventeenth century (p. 27). 60. Ousmane Sembene, God's Bits of Wood, trans. by Francis Price (Garden City, N.Y., 1970), p. 74. In this novel and in films such as 'Tauw', Sembene also examines in detail the collapse of the patriarchal society. 61. Barraclough, Contemporary History, p. 53. 62. Thomas Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial Africa (New York, 1957), p. 64. 63. Davidson, Which Way Africa ?, pp. 83, 87-88.

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'the change in the position of the peoples of Asia and Africa and in their relations with Europe was the surest sign of the advent of a new era, and when the history of the first half of the twentieth century, which, for most historians, is still dominatedby Europeanwars and Europeanproblems, by Fascism and National Socialism,and by Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin-comes to be written in a longer perspective,there is little doubt that no single theme will prove to be of greater importance than the revolt against the west.'64 To this extent, then, developmentsin Africa have been at the very core of the events that have shaped contemporaryhistory. The colonial period thus was decisive in African history, not, however, because it was the colonial period, but because it coincided with the era of transition from modern history to contemporaryhistory. Historians of Africa therefore should perhaps stop labelling the years from the late nineteenth century to 1960 as the colonial period, and instead term them the period of transition from traditional to contemporaryAfrica. Its major feature was not colonialismbut ratherthe spread of a world revolutioninto Africa.
64. Barraclough, Contemporary History, pp. 153-4.

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