Both the British and the French engaged in divide and rule tactics throughout the colonial period. Initially, during the period of conquest and pacification, they engaged in divide and conquer by supporting one African chiefdom or kingdom against another and encouraging dissident groups within African polities. Once colonial rule was established, they shifted to policies of divide and rule, pitting powerful rival chiefs against one another and supporting dissident groups within chiefdoms and kingdoms against their rulers. Samori fought the French from 1882 - 1885 when he concluded a peace treaty with them. A year later, however, he discovered that the French were supporting his rivals within his Empire and so he broke the treaty. He resumed fighting them from 1888 to 1898 when he was eventually captured and exiled to Gabon where he died in 1900. Once they establised their control over African territories, the British instituted what they called a policy of "Indirect Rule," which meant that they ruled their African colonies through traditional chiefs. Where chiefs refused to cooperate, they were removed and replaced with warrant chiefs. In stateless societies that had only councils of elders as their administrative body, the British imposed chiefs who had no legitimacy. The French on the other hand had a policy of "Assimilation" in the four communes of Dakar, Goree, St. Louis and Rufisque and what could be called direct rule in the rest of French West and Equatorial Africa. They gave traditional rulers very little powers. In essence, however, all European colonial policies were more or less the same in Africa. They all engaged in divide and conquer, then divide and rule. When nationalist agitation was started by the educated elite just before and after the Second World War, the colonial administrations tried to drive a wedge between educated and uneducated Africans by insisting that traditional rulers were the true rulers of Africa and labelling the educated nationalists "detribalized Africans" who had no legitimacy to speak on behalf of their people. I hope this answers your question.
> Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:25:43 -0500
> From:
[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: [G_L] Africa’s Political Skeletons – Part One
> To:
[log in to unmask]>
> Please refreshen my memory.At what juncture was "Divide and rule"
> initiated? Was that not the strategy used to conquer Samori ? Who came
> up with that ? Was the French or British ?
> hous
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Baba Galleh Jallow <
[log in to unmask]>
> To: GAMBIA-L <
[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Mon, Nov 26, 2012 1:57 pm
> Subject: Re: [G_L] Africa’s Political Skeletons – Part One
>
> No Kejau, Africans did join both before and during the
> conquest. European traders and companies had a presence on the coast of
> Africa long before the onset of colonialism and had developed close
> relations with local traders and rulers willing to do business with
> them. From around the middle of the 1400s when the Atlantic Slave
> Trade was started on a small scale by the Portuguese, there was a
> constant European presence on the coasts of Africa. Only a few European
> administrators, military officers and commanders were on the ground
> throughout the colonial period. Once the colonizing project was being
> contemplated, the Europeans started recruiting and training Africans
> and developing their armies. It did not take them long to recruit
> sizeable numbers of men with the help of local chiefs and traders. One
> irony of European colonialism in Africa is that the Europeans
> represented what has been called "a thin white line" on the continent
> throughout the colonial period. Only a handful of Europeans actually
> lived in Africa. The colonial administrative machinery was largely
> manned by Africans - from chiefs, to clerks, interpreters, secretaries
> and other minor officials. The exception was the setller colonies -
> like Kenya, Rhodesia, South Africa - were large numbers of Europeans
> settled and actually ran the colonial administration. And even in
> settler colonies, the armies and police were largely composed
> of African servicemen, with Europeans holding only a few senior
> positions. In the case of South Africa, black South Africans
> represented the backbone of the brutal military and police forces that
> enforced Apartheid throught its existence.
>
> Baba
>
>
> Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:22:23 +0100
> Subject: RE: [G_L] Africa’s Political Skeletons – Part One
> From:
[log in to unmask]> To:
[log in to unmask]>
> interesting Dr. Baba that the European Armies were largely composed of
> African soldiers. Do you mean after the initial conquest as they could
> not have join before the conquest. This must be the same trend we see
> now African and Arabs joining western armies en mass and looking down
> at everyone else especially those who join the African armies.
> Cheers,
> Kejau
> >
> > Indeed Kejau. The single most important reason for Africa's
> failure to
> > protect herself from colonialism is the fact that European armies
> had
> > superior firepower. There was widespread resistance to colonial
> > encroachment and the African armies far outnumbered the European
> armies
> > which, by the way, were composed largely of African soldiers.
> Samori
> > fought the French for almost eight years before he was tricked
> into laying
> > down his arms and then captured and exiled. Thanks for the
> feedback.
> >
> > Baba
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 09:10:06 +0100
> >
> From:
[log in to unmask]> > Subject: Re: [G_L] Africa’s Political Skeletons – Part One
> > To:
[log in to unmask]> >
> >
> > Thanks for this installment, Dr. Maudo Baba. It seems that the
> only reason
> > we were colonized was that we lacked superior weapons and it was
> not the
> > armies that failed us, but our industries and our pacifism. For if
> we had
> > the fire power invented decade before by the European scientist,
> Samori
> > and his warriors would have fended the invaders off our shores and
> that
> > would have taught them and ourselves that African is not for
> scrambling.
> > Cheers.
> > Kejau
> >>
> >> Africa’s Political Skeletons – Part One
> >> By Baba Galleh Jallow
> >> Perhaps the single most visible legacy of colonial rule in
> Africa is the
> >> nation-state. The end of the slave trade in the early to
> mid-1800s gave
> >> way to the rise of legitimate trade, the trade in goods and
> commodities
> >> Europeans needed for the growth and success of the Industrial
> >> Revolution.
> >>
> >
> From being commodities of trade themselves, Africans became producers of
> >> commodities for sale to European traders. The more industries
> developed
> >> in
> >> Europe, the more Europe sought out sources of raw materials
> for their
> >> factories. And the more goods the factories produced, the more
> Europeans
> >> saw the need for stable overseas markets to which they would
> export
> >> their
> >> finished products. A combination of these factors initiated a
> search for
> >> both sources of raw materials and markets for finished
> products in
> >> Africa.
> >> As the 1800s drew to a close, Europeans grew increasingly
> frantic in
> >> their
> >> search for raw materials and markets in Africa, which led to
> the
> >> beginnings of a barely concealed rush for territories on the
> continent.
> >> What has become known as the scramble for Africa was greatly
> accelerated
> >> after France’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the Germans
> during the
> >> Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. In order to salvage her
> battered
> >> dignity,
> >> France turned to the development of an overseas empire by
> annexing
> >> territories in Africa and elsewhere. Soon afterwards, France’s
> >> traditional
> >> rival Britain joined the scramble for Empire, followed by
> Italy, Germany
> >> and Belgium. So frantic did the grab for African colonies grow
> that the
> >> European countries were close to all-out war over parts of
> Africa by
> >> 1883.
> >> Seeing a chance to both manage the crisis and play a leading
> role in
> >> international politics, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of
> Germany convened
> >> the Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885 at which the contending
> European
> >> powers laid down ways and means of partitioning and colonizing
> the
> >> continent without coming to blows among themselves. The
> conference
> >> lasted
> >> from November 1884 to January 1885, when the assembled European
> >> countries
> >> signed the Berlin Act laying down rules and procedures for the
> orderly
> >> partitioning and colonization of Africa.
> >> The Berlin Act set out four major rules for the partitioning
> of Africa.
> >> One, any European country making claim to an African territory
> must
> >> inform
> >> the others to see if there was a counter claim. In case of a
> counter
> >> claim, the matter was to be settled peacefully. Two, once a
> European
> >> country claims a territory, it must proceed to effectively
> occupy that
> >> territory. Three, all European countries were free to extend
> their
> >> territory as much as they could without encroaching on another
> European
> >> country’s territory. And four, the Congo and Niger rivers,
> which were
> >> hotly contested in the early stages of the scramble, were open
> to free
> >> navigation by all European countries. European countries
> proceeded to
> >> either forcefully annex African territories or sign “treaties
> of
> >> protection” with African rulers as a way of laying claim to
> their
> >> territories. Those rulers that resisted encroachment were
> defeated or
> >> otherwise “pacified” through superior European fire power.
> While there
> >> were instances of fierce and protracted resistance by African
> rulers
> >> like
> >> Samori Toure, superior firepower meant that Europe was able to
> >> effectively
> >> subdue and colonize the entire African continent by the end of
> the first
> >> decade of the 20th century.
> >> This meant that by the outbreak of the First World War in
> 1914, the
> >> political map of Africa had been transformed into a series of
> colonial
> >> territories that became the basis for the present day
> nation-state
> >> system
> >> on the continent. African colonies had most of the trappings
> of European
> >> nation states: they had clearly defined boundaries and
> institutions such
> >> as legislatures and judiciaries modeled on the European
> system. However,
> >> while the bare structure of the nation state system was in
> place, the
> >> substance of national sovereignty was clearly absent. The
> rights and
> >> freedoms enjoyed by European publics were not extended to the
> subject
> >> peoples of colonial Africa. Indeed, in a lot of cases, colonial
> >> administrators enforced laws in African colonies that had long
> been
> >> extinct in their countries back in Europe. Moreover, even as
> late as
> >> 1939
> >> when the Second World War broke out, no European country was
> seriously
> >> contemplating the idea of independent African nation states.
> Indeed, it
> >> was only after the end of the Second World War in 1945 that
> countries
> >> like
> >> Britain and France started seriously thinking about preparing
> their
> >> African colonies for self-rule, a process they anticipated
> would take at
> >> least fifty years to complete.
> >> As fate would have it, over 90% of African countries became
> independent
> >> by
> >> 1965, only twenty years after the end of the Second World War.
> The new
> >> African nation states had all the trappings of European nation
> states,
> >> from a national flag to a national anthem and legislative,
> judicial and
> >> executive branches of government. However, like the colonies
> they
> >> replaced, these new nation states lacked the substance of
> >> nation-statehood. Their beautifully written constitutions
> looked just
> >> like
> >> European constitutions, with the rights, duties and
> responsibilities of
> >> citizenship neatly laid out in black and white. It now fell to
> the new
> >> governments to flesh out these skeletal nation states with the
> substance
> >> they needed to function effectively. Sadly, almost all of them
> failed in
> >> this very important task and for this reason, the great
> majority of
> >> African countries remain mere political skeletons to this day.
> The
> >> rights
> >> and freedoms for which African independence was sought and
> attained
> >> remain
> >> elusive for the great majority of Africans as the new nation
> states
> >> remain
> >> mired in the aura of colonial authoritarianism. We will
> examine some of
> >> the reasons for this failure and its consequences in our next
> >> installment.
> >>
> >> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> >> To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to
> the
> >> Gambia-L
> >> Web interface
> >> at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
> >>
> >> To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to:
> >> http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
> >> To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
> >>
[log in to unmask]> >> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> >
> >
> > --
> > www.vollensolutions.com
> > Tel: 66900249
> > Mob: 91255698
> > Email:
> >
>
[log in to unmask]¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> > To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the
> Gambia-L
> > Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
> > To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to:
> > http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To
> contact the
> > List Management, please send an e-mail to:
> >
[log in to unmask]> > ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>
>
> --
> www.vollensolutions.com
> Tel: 66900249
> Mob: 91255698
> Email:
[log in to unmask]>
>
> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤To
> unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
> Web interfaceat: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
> To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to:
> http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-lTo contact
> the List Management, please send an e-mail
> to:
[log in to unmask]¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>
> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
> at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
>
> To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
> To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
>
[log in to unmask]> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤