Detribalized African

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1 Why did the colonial authorities perceive the ‘detribalized African’ as a threat to the social order? To this day, the conventional image of pre-colonial (and sometimes contemporary) African political and social structures is a tribe with a male elder serving as the society’s chief. 1 Whether this is rooted in fact or a remnant of Orientalist associations of the African continent with primitivity and backwardness, the connection of African societies to tribalism has withstood the passage of time—despite this very connection being a European invention. 2 From their earliest encounters with the African continent, Europeans were reliant on the collaboration of African leaders (like chiefs) and created a framework for understanding and administering African societies through these chiefs. As such, to Europeans, a detribalized African undermines and uproots the entire basis of European colonial administrators’ authority since allegiance to the tribe and chief was the vital precursor to allegiance to colonial authority. More terrifyingly, the detribalized African served as a remnant of African society prior to European colonialism. It is important to first specify what the (ideal) African social order under European colonial rule was. As the partition began, British colonial administrators in Buganda hoped to “strengthen the authority of the king while ‘acquiring…a controlling influence’ over him.” 3 It would have been nearly impossible—or incredibly costly in both force and finances—for Britain to blankly and directly assume authority over all of the Ganda, so they wished to take advantage of pre-existing political structures and simply assert themselves at the top. Thus, the social order that benefitted them most would be European colonial powers as the supreme authority, then tribal leaders and chiefs who govern the African masses in Europe’s interest, and lastly, the African general populace whose blind devotion to their chiefs would be transferred upstream to the European powers. Any threat to the social order would therefore be a direct threat to the establishment and persistence of European control over the continent.

2 This order, however, incorrectly assumes fixed tribal allegiances and the enlarged scope of African tribal leaders’ authority. “Administrators believed that every African belonged to a tribe, just as every European belonged to a nation.” 4 Unlike national identities, tribal identities were fluid with “most Africans mov[ing] in and out of multiple identities, defining themselves at one moment as subject to this chief, at another moment as a member of that cult.” 5 Because colonial administrators connected African tribes with their conception of nations and viewed tribe allegiances as fixed, they also viewed tribal leaders’ authorities as more absolute than they were, bringing their ideas of “imperial monarchy” to Africa. 6 Conversely, it was under this new colonial social structure that offered African chiefs “for practical purposes more power than they had in pre-colonial days.” 7 These flawed assumptions meant that in order for European colonial powers to maintain the social order their rule rested on, they would have to first create and then defend it through, most notably, the invention of tradition (like tribes). Despite the stark contrast in the way British and French colonial leaders treated African chiefs, both relied on (and perhaps took for granted) the chief’s authority and the subjects’ compliance as the basis for their own authority. For the British, “the goal of ruling through traditional political units on whom local self-government could be devolved was maintained” while the French “placed the chief in an entirely subordinate role to the political officer.” 8 Prioritizing efficiency in ruling over legitimacy, the French chose chiefs who appeared the most loyal to them—resulting (ironically) in these chiefs being less effective over their citizens than British ones. 9 By becoming “mere agents of the [French] administration,” African chiefs in French territories saw their power diminish and “were resented in most parts of French West Africa” which greatly undermined French authority. 10 By breaking the pre-existing political units and appointing chiefs to new ones, the French further “detribalized” the African masses by

3 disturbing the legitimacy of African chiefs, thus damaging their own legitimacy. The British, by using an “advisory relationship between the political officer and the native authority…that corresponded to a pre-colonial political unit,” were able to maintain more order and control than the French (even if implicitly the advisory relationship was unequal). 11 The French colonies reveal the fragility of this new social order and how its success would have to rely more on new institutions and structures (or at least exaggerated versions of pre-existing structures) than the former ones. As seen through the French colonies, the detribalized African was a threat to European control because the tribe was a European invention stemming from European control that required constant reinforcing. Europeans had created the fixed tribe and tribal allegiances (albeit loosely inspired by their conceptions of pre-colonial political and social orders) and depended on this as the foundation of their control; as such, the tribe needed to be reinforced repeatedly in order to become legitimate—meaning just a few detribalized Africans could undermine the whole fledging system. As Ranger points out, “tribes are not so much survivals from a pre- colonial past but rather largely colonial creations by colonial officers and African intellectuals.” 12 In their colonial endeavor, European administrators had to convert the detribalized African society into a tribalized one to more effectively enforce their authority. On a rudimentary level, companies, people, anything is easiest to manage when it is more structured and organized. Detribalized Africans were threats to the colonial social order because they reflected African society prior to European colonialism, when tribes and allegiances were fluid (and thus more difficult to manage). 13 As with the Afro-European partition, slave trade, and cash crop exporting economies, Europeans did not act unilaterally and had African collaborators who made the invention of the

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4 tribe possible. As John Illife writes, “Europeans believed Africans belonged to tribes; Africans built tribes to belong to.” 14 As African chiefs’ power were solidified and expanded under the tribal system, by appealing to these “traditions”, those in power could maintain, justify, and expand their power—whether that be men, elders, or chiefs. “Paramount chiefs and ruling aristocracies…appealed to ‘tradition’ in order to maintain or extend their control over their subjects.” 15 Once the notion of tribes became more legitimate, the detribalized African became a threat to African chiefs and to European colonial administrators—making the persistence of the tradition of the tribe beneficial to both Africans and Europeans in power. Europeans (and their African collaborators) “sought to tidy up and make more comprehensible the infinitely complex situation which they held to be a result of the ‘untraditional’ chaos of the nineteenth century.” 16 European nations wanted to establish order upon African societies that would benefit and enable them to rule and had to create structures that would allow them to do so. “The [colonial] state had to convert its superior coercive force over Africans into a legitimate authority accepted by Africans and therefore mediated through their own pre-existing or emergent relations of power.” 17 European colonial administrators had to align and structure their authority similarly to the chief’s so that it could be accepted as legitimate and then restructured to fit European interests. As Sara Berry writes, “company officials were afraid the dispersal of the population would erode the authority of Bemba chiefs, making them useless as agents of company rule.” 18 While Europeans required the collaboration of African chiefs, they viewed them as subservient and servile to colonial authority. Chiefs “were legally constituted as ‘Native Authorities’… empowered (and required) to raise revenue, spend money—all under the supervision of British officials, who…had the power to appoint and depose chiefs themselves.” 19 This differed greatly from the pre-existing “fundamentally

5 democratic relationship between the chiefs and their people” as Europeans gave “the former autocratic powers that they had not enjoyed in the precolonial past,” which ironically upset the relationship between chief and subjects. 20 The invention of the tribe (and other traditions) allowed Europeans to colonize Africans not only politically, economically, and socially, but psychologically and culturally as well. Instead of having to continuously impose force that was costly monetarily and in terms of manpower, Europeans could create African traditions like the tribe that (after a period) could be self-sustaining. It was in early years, however, when the African tribe was most fragile, a detribalized African posed the greatest threat to the establishment and expansion of the tribe as a political and social structure. As Ranger and other historians have noted, tribes are largely colonial creations, which mean detribalized Africans are also threats because they represent African society prior to European colonialism when the tribe was not the be-all end-all. 21 Under this new social order, the African masses were subservient to African chiefs who were subservient to colonial rulers, composing the ideal (but in actuality very flawed) political and social structure Europeans wished to rule through. As such, a detribalized African would have no place in this social order and would more dangerously have no allegiance to the colonial power, thus undermining and negating any authority the colonial power might have.

6 Notes

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1 Terry Ranger, ‘The invention of tradition in colonial Africa’, in E. Hobsbawm & T. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983): 250. 2 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 250. 3 A.D. Roberts, ‘The Sub-Imperialism of the Baganda’ Journal of African History 13, (1962), 443. 4 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 250. 5 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 248. 6 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 212. 7 M. Crowder, ‘Indirect Rule French and British style’, Africa , 24:3 (1964): 198. 8 Crowder, ‘Indirect Rule’, 199. 9 Crowder, ‘Indirect Rule’, 199. 10 Crowder, ‘Indirect Rule’, 200-1. 11 Crowder, ‘Indirect Rule’, 199. 12 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 248. 13 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 250. 14 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 252. 15 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 254. 16 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 249. 17 B. Berman and J. M. Lonsdale, ‘Coping with Contradictions. The Development of the Colonial State, 1895-1914’, Journal of African History , 20 (1979): 490. 18 S. Berry, ‘Hegemony on a Shoestring: Indirect Rule and Access to Agricultural Land’, Africa , 62:3 (1992): 340. 19 Berry, ‘Hegemony’, 338. 20 R. Gocking, ‘Indirect Rule in the Gold Coast: Competition for Office and the Invention of Tradition’, Canadian Journal of African Studies , 28 (1994): 422. 21 Ranger, ‘Invention of tradition’, 250.