Emily Park
During the late 1800s in what is known as the “Scramble for Africa”, Europeans journeyed to Africa with the goal of nation building and acquiring new territories. Unfortunately, the Europeans’ goal of colonizing societies was hampered by African response, which had varying and nuanced degrees of opposition. Two strategies stand out along opposite poles of a continuum, amid the various ways that the Africans responded to European imperialism: from acquiescence to hard resistance against colonial rule. In both strategies, Africans displayed varying levels of agency to attempt control of their own lives.
European Colonization
Historian Walter Rodney argued how Europeans asserted significant power over Africans, which entails taking control of other groups. As an example, European governments appointed their own “chiefs” to govern the Africans. Instead of representing the interests of the Africans, the chiefs instead promoted European interests, eradicating African culture from the continent. Additionally, Africans were culturally oppressed and were “othered”, defined as the Europeans’ objectification of them as “savages” to justify their conquest. Through the implementation of European chiefs and the cultural oppression of Africans, Europeans wiped out Africans’ political autonomy.
For the subjugated, power can paradoxically entail actions to assert resistance, independence, and self-interest, a condition known as agency.
African Responses - Acquiescence to Hard Resistance
In spite of colonial oppression, Africans exhibited agency and strove to create a better life for themselves through a varying continuum from acquiescence to hard resistance. On one end of the continuum, one of the most prominent examples of acquiescence was the Africans’ choice selection between German and English schools. In German schools, exams consisted of questions about European geography, German literature, and the reasons for European goodness. African students were educated through a Eurocentric lens; exams excluded questions about African history and culture. As a result, many Africans abstained from attending German schools, opting to attend English schools instead. Africans also asserted agency through territorial residence selection. In many colonies, Africans were fed up with the forced labor, taxation, and harsh punishment of imperialism. Thus, thousands left the Ivory Coast; and more than 14 thousand people migrated from Misahohe to Ghana, because Ghana had more favorable living conditions for Africans. In both cases, Africans demonstrated agency to craft a more hospitable life for themselves, despite being oppressed within various colonial systems.
In rarer cases, Africans purposefully acquiesced to the colonial system because it was an enabler of social mobility. Administrative clerks epitomized this within the imperialist class structure. Formerly enslaved, clerks were a type of colonized bourgeoisie, who could enjoy and showcase coveted material items such as Dubonnet wine and rifle ownership. Nothing was forced on the clerks: they made their own decisions to buy items, show them off, and build social-class reputations.
The middle part of the continuum entailed passive resistance or organized attempts at reformation. Africans living in rural areas participated in absenteeism, feigned illness, work slowdowns, incompliance with orders, and rejection of the “civilizing” missions. Africans also fought against the colonial system by seeking reforms to positively change society. One of the most prominent reformers of the time was female pioneer, Adelaide Smith Casely Hayford, who created schools for women. Under colonial rule, the European education system expunged African culture. Adelaide realized that African pride, self-love, and culture had to be instilled in schools through formal teaching. Her agency to spearhead the teaching of African culture in schools bettered society by increasing access to reformed African-centric education.
On the polar other end of the continuum, uneducated, rural Africans did not have the same tools and access as the educated. They did not have soft, nuanced choices for demonstrating agency. Instead, they responded more viscerally, violently and directly through rebellion or "by their feet". The first form of violent resistance was the use of armed rebellions and insurrections to overthrow colonial governments. Discontent with colonial taxation, land alienation, forced crop cultivation, Eurocentric-education, and abnegation of African culture, led to armed revolts against the colonial system. These rebellions were widespread throughout the African continent, but occurred primarily in rural areas. Conceivably, bellicosity and waging war due to indignation are extreme expressions of individual and collective agency. But the uprisings were quickly quelled by European power. Not only did individuals rebel, but institutions partook in rebellion in organized fashion. Many independent African Christian churches went against colonial rule, including the Kimbanguist and Kitawala. Kimbanguist churches aimed to migrate Africans out of colonial territories. The Kitawala churches took a more violent approach of direct action by trying to insurrect colonial rulers.
Takeaways
Colonization for Africans was not just about subjugation; it was also an opportunity for some. Yet, the range of reactions by Africans is complex, multi-faceted, nuanced, and may be conveyed across a continuum of compliance to outright insurrection. The African response exemplifies and incites a broader discussion of what agency, a form of the human spirit, means amid invading forces of hegemony and imperialism. Colonization in and out of Africa accounts for a large part of human history and an estimated 80% of modern day countries have been colonized.
What the African response teaches us is that people are not politically powerless even when subjugated. The conquered can craftily devise strategies for their own survival (hence, displaying agency) that appear docile to their conquerors to outright fighting back by waging war. Thus, the African response to colonialism also serves as an intriguing study on the adaptability and will of the human spirit amid inauspicious conditions.
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