Did Colonialism Strengthen African Power Structures?

Prompt – European colonists strengthened African political structures by granting limited power to young, eager Africans (despite lack of any traditional status).

It can be argued that colonialists strengthened African political structures to a very small extent, if not to no extent.

Evidence that supports this claim can be seen through France’s system of direct rule in West Africa. Traditional West African power structures were mostly abandoned as the French adopted a highly centralised government in Dakar. This Gouvernement-General was in the image of French government, was staffed at almost every level by French officials and did not consider to integrate pre-existing African rulers into the hierarchy. While it is true that some Africans were granted power by the French, for example Blaise Diagne and Galandou Diouf, they were being elected to French bodies of government like the Chamber of Deputies and the inclusion of Africans into this structure was only in four communes of the hundreds that constituted French West Africa. Additionally, France’s disdain of traditional power structures can be seen in its policies. One such policy is that of assimilation. Although it ultimately failed, it advocated for the complete suppression of African culture and the integration of Africans into the French “civilised” culture. This idea of an “inferior” culture shows that the French would have no interest at all in acknowledging the validity of pre-existing African political structures.

There are, however, some cases which do go against the argument. In indirect rule systems like some of Britain’s African colonies, it can be argued that the British did strengthen African political structures by investing in pre-existing social hierarchies. For example, in Nigeria the British used the Yoruba and Hausa’s social hierarchy to their benefit and gave chiefs power with the agreement they would report to the government. Even though these chiefs were at the bottom of the ladder in terms of the colonial government, this act still gave legitimacy to Nigeria’s traditional power structure. However, there are two problems with this as firstly, young Africans were mostly not empowered by these actions. Besides that, there was a far bigger trend of destroying or delegitimising African political structures which discredits the idea that Nigeria can be seen as representative of broader practices. Britain itself was a proponent of this trend in other countries, like in Kenya or Southern Rhodesia where white settlers gained sizeable traction in their respective colony’s political landscape.

Thus, it is extremely hard to say that European colonists strengthened African to anything more than an extremely small extent as most colonial powers opted for direct centralised rule like France or indirect rule which, in some cases, gave chiefs very limited power like Britain.

2 thoughts on “Did Colonialism Strengthen African Power Structures?”

  1. Cire,
    I like how you included policies such as that of assimilation to prove your point. I agree that colonial powers gave very minimal authority to young leaders. I think, however, that the system of education in French West Africa and British colonies like Nigeria did give the young power, although unintentionally. Most independence movements in both British and French colonies were started by elites, who were educated natives. I therefore think that some power was given to the young which later served to strengthen African political structures. Good job.
    — Tidiane

  2. Hi Cire,
    I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post, especially your paragraph on AOF refined my knowledge of how the French worked with the natives politically. Your mentioning of specific characters relevant to your prompt provides great detail and makes the post more authentic. Your mention of settlers intrigued me. I think you could have added a small paragraph on settler rule itself as I would argue that it had a strong impact on African power structures.

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