History: Colonialism in Africa

Rick Politician
March 7, 2002
History 152
As Colonialism entered Africa, it brought with it new ideas about government, economics and social structures.  From the 1880’s to the 1960’s, Colonials wove these new ideas into the fabric of African society creating a hybrid of European and African ideals.  With this new society countless unfamiliar burdens as well as opportunities arose for Africans.  The opportunities and burdens brought by Colonialism were split unequally among gender because the more opportunities African men received from the colonial institutions, the more burdens were laid upon African women.
African men suffered through many new duties and burdens under colonial rule.  Many rights we take for granted as American citizens such as life, liberty and property were taken from or denied to Africans by the colonial governments.  Colonialism in Kenya provides some clear examples of this.  Towards the end of the 19th century, “the government alienated about 7 million acres of land, including some of the most fertile land in Kenya.” (Kanogo, p. 8)  The Kikuyus farmers who were native to this land were burdened with supporting their families without the land that had been in their partrilineage for generations and without the knowledge on how to earn a living doing anything else.
Furthermore, the colonial British government in Kenya introduced “Hut and Poll taxes…These would ensure that Africans were unable to become self-sufficient and would have to seek wage employment to meet their cash needs.”  (Kanogo, p. 9)  The colonial government not only kicked the native Kikuyus off their land, but forced them to pay taxes to the government too. In addition to losing their land and paying taxes, many colonial governments required African men to work a certain number of days every year on social project like building roads and railways.  (lecture, 1/15/02)  With all of these economic burdens, many African men were brought down into the depths poverty.
Along with the economic oppression, the African men were also burdened with a white hierarchy that generated inequality and racism.  In the extreme, African men were faced with “the torture chambers and horror farms of Malan’s South Africa,” and “ruthless brutality in the Rift Valley Police Force” that opened fire on a crowd of African protestors.  (Itote, p. 39-40)  Although horrible, these burdens on African men were not as prominent as the day to day racism employed by the colonial governments.
African men were treated as lesser beings. Colonial rulers offered the Africans no rights or respect and tried to keep them living in fear.  There were beatings of servants, police raids in the middle of the night and floggings “teaching them [Africans] how to behave.” (Oyono, p. 75)  These were some of the burdens African men lived with under colonial rule.
The colonial governments also burdened the Africans by keeping them from rising socially in society.  The Africans “attempts to provide education for their children were variously criticized and vetoed by a government that gave them no financial help.”  (Kanogo, p. 92)  Colonialism had burdened the African men with supporting the whites with taxes, labor and servitude and the white colonial rulers were unwilling to let go of this support.
Although the burdens created for African men by colonialism are numerous and negative, colonialism also brought with it many positive opportunities. Colonial governments and missions often provided some schooling to African youth as well as some form of health care.  Schooling frequently led to jobs as clerks in the colonial government.  These jobs provided African men with a steady salary independent of their lineage.  African men were now free to earn a living outside their father’s profession as a farmer or hunter.
            The missions and new colonial culture also offered misfits of the African societies a new African colonial society that would accept them.  The converts were considered by the tribes to be “the excrement of the clan…It was a good riddance.”  (Achebe, p. 143)  The idea of acceptance was an opportunity many African misfits could not resist.
As the colonial governments instituted an indirect rule policy in governing the Africans, chiefs and other officials were needed by the colonial government to directly rule over the Africans.  Some chiefs rose the a wealth level high enough to own a home consisting of two “houses and seven stately rondavels(superior huts)” as well as owning a herd of “fifty cattle” and “five hundred sheep.”  (Mandela, p. 15-16)
Many African men took up the opportunity offered by colonials to enter into the colonial army.  African soldiers were often well taken care of living in “a spacious and luxurious recreation hall” supplied with “razor blades, toilet soap, sweets, cigarettes…and a lot more things.”  (Kakembo, p. 2)  These living conditions and amenities were high above what most other African men were used to.  Furthermore, when the soldier returns home he “becomes a center of worship to everybody except those whose girls have fallen for him.”  (Kakembo, p. 2)  Joining the ranks of the colonial army provides an African man with the opportunity to earn money, wisdom and popularity among his people.
Colonialism provided many new jobs for African laborers.  Men left for months at a time to work in tin, gold or diamond mines.  “All the younger married men go out several times in order to obtain means of paying tax and procuring the various household goods they require.”  (Schapera, p. 150) Money could be used for clothes, manufactured goods, bride-wealth, school fees or for food during famines.  Going away also made men more attractive and worldly in the minds of the women and allowed them to escape overbearing chiefs and parents. (lecture, 1/24/02)  Colonialism created many opportunities for African men socially and economically.
Colonial rule burdened African women as well.  Not only directly like with the African men, but many of the opportunities for African men added to burdens the African women already suffered under colonial rule.  As the African men left their families to go work in mines or towns far away, African women were left at home to take of and feed their families.  One mother writes to her son who works in Johannesburg “I have nothing left to say except starvation…The whole day, my child, we sit at the store hoping to get a little corn (as relief rations).”  (Schapera, p. 152)  The taxes and new wants created by colonialism pushed these men into leaving their homes in search of work and now the women are the ones forced to take care of everyone.
African women had other direct burdens from colonialism.  Women lost much of their political power.  Before the missionaries came, African tribes had priestesses who were respected and considered powerful.  (Okonkwo, p. 49)  With their male dominated church and government, as the colonial society merged with the African society, the African women lost much of their power.
The colonial governments also forced women to work on government projects.  One example in Kenya of the women having “to terrace their land in the reserves…caused great hardship and considerable social and family upheaval.”  (Itote, p. 37)  These women had to take care of the family, grow crops, raise cattle and, on top of their usual duties, perform the labor-intensive task of terracing the sides of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  The burden of terracing made it almost impossible for them to keep up with their other tasks.
Further burdens placed on the African women developed through the halting of female circumcision.  Many of the rituals and customs associated with female circumcision were a vital part of their social system.  In one Kenyan tribe the other young women that a female went through circumcision became her girlfriend for life, or “riikamates.”  (Wanjiku, p. 61)  They “straightened each other’s behaviors if they saw one of the group doing things that were wrong.”  Without this tight-knit group of friends to look out for one another, women would have to figure out everything on their own, make all their own mistakes and not have the protection of their “riikamates.”  The rituals associated with circumcision also taught girls how to behave socially as a woman within the tribe and about reproduction.  Not having these benefits of female circumcision, African women lacked social guidance and were burdened with looking for knowledge in other places.
Although overshadowed by the burdens, colonialism did bring some important opportunities for African women.  In regards to female circumcision, colonialism brought a society where uncircumcised females were the norm.  This slowly gave women the opportunity to decline the ritual and still be accepted as a woman.
Schooling offered more opportunities for African women.  It not only gave women a chance to learn, but also to gain a personal sense of individualism and equality.  Some women even go “pick cotton on the farms, but a fair number enter domestic service in the towns.”  (Schapera, p. 149)  Having their own income, they could buy some things they wanted or even become independent from men and their families all together.