World History: The Middle East and Imperialism

Egyptian Revolution of 1919

As we have seen in previous World History posts, the nineteenth and early-twentieth century saw European states becoming powerful and proceeding to colonise the rest of the world. The Middle East is often overlooked in this narrative, largely as formal European colonies, outside of North Africa that is, were not formed until after World War One. When they are discussed it is often viewed through the lens of decline, the famous Ottoman Empire, for example, became known as the 'Sick Man of Europe'. However, Middle Eastern states did not simply see exploitation; states tried to negotiate their power and tried to resist foreign exploitation. If we want to understand exactly why the Middle East has become what it is today, it is important to look at this time period. Today's events are either a direct response to the events which we'll discuss today, or the seeds of today's events were planted during this period. As the Middle East and North Africa were an incredibly diverse region split over several different states we'll largely look just at Turkey, Egypt, and Iran, but we will at times discuss other areas of the region - such as the Arabian peninsula.

The Shift - c.1800

The last decade of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth saw a shift in the Middle East. The same year that the French Revolution broke out Selim III became Ottoman sultan, and he wanted the empire to change. Selim saw the height of the Ottoman empire being under Suleiman, and hoped that, through reform, the empire's strength could be resurrected. In a precursor to what will trouble his successors Selim opened embassies in Europe, and invited Europeans to help create a new military called the nizam-i jedid (new order). Previously, the military and bureaucracy had been controlled by the Janissaries who had become so powerful that they could appoint sultans. Selim's reforms proved short lived. Local landowners, who were taxed to fund the nizam-i jedid, and Janissaries were angered by the reforms and deposed Selim in 1806 to be executed the next year. Meanwhile, another great shock impacted another area of the empire - Egypt. Aiming to both cut British access to India and copy his idol of Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded in 1798. Although welcomed by the more reform-minded elite and traders eager to do business with the French, Napoleon's forces quickly upset the locals. When the French forces were stranded after the British destroyed the fleet in Aboukir Bay they became increasingly willing to loot Egyptian cities, they even desecrated important mosques. In 1801 a joint British-Ottoman expedition wiped out the French forces, and in the ensuing power vacuum an Albanian commander called Muhammad Ali was appointed pasha, governor, of Egypt. Muhammad Ali would radically shape Egypt, but the Napoleonic invasion shattered an image of the secure, albeit decentralised, empire. The Ottoman holdings in the Balkans began breaking off - often with European help - with Greece waging a decade long war from 1821.

Meanwhile, a new power rose in Iran. Originally a Turkish tribe in Azerbaijan the Qajars began expanding across Iran - in 1786 the managed to declare Tehran their capital and in 1796 managed to declare the Qajar dynasty. Following the end of the Safavid dynasty in 1736 Iran had lacked a strong dynasty which allowed the Qajars to take control. The first shah, Agha Mohammad, had to give autonomy to many local rulers and institutions. As the Safavids emerged through a Shi'a religious movement this allowed them to have little opposition from the important religious institutions; the Qajars could not claim this and the Iranian mujtahids would offer an alternate source of power to the Qajar shahs. Agha Mohammad would not reign for long - he was assassinated in 1797. Unlike contemporaries in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, the Qajars would never successfully establish some form of central authority.

Egypt - The First Reforms

Muhammad Ali would establish a dynasty which would rule Egypt, for better or for worse, until the 1950s. Similar to the Ottoman Empire, the Egyptian military and bureaucracy was ran by a class called the Mamluks; like the Janissaries they were the elite of Egyptian society, and became an entrenched class. Unlike Selim III Muhammad Ali would wait until after the dissolving of the Mamluks before creating the nizam-i jedid. After years of slowly chipping away their power, in March 1811 the leading Mamluks were invited for a banquet in Cairo where they were killed enabling Muhammad Ali to dissolve them. With the conservative Mamluks destroyed it allowed Muhammad Ali to reform education, administration, and the military. A European-inspired military and navy were implemented, and attempts to create new military ranks were done through authoritarian means. Expeditions to Sudan were made to enslave 20,000 people in order to create a slave army - brutal treatment and dehumanisation meant that most were killed. As a result, a nizam-i jedid was created in 1822 made out of conscripted peasants, and proved to be the backbone of Muhammad Ali's new army. Expeditions to Sudan were done for gold and slaves, they were sent to Greece in the War of Independence, and even against the Ottomans themselves when they invaded Syria in the 1830s as Muhammad Ali was angered that the sultan had gone back on the promise to award him Crete. Military reforms not the only ones which Muhammad Ali undertook.

Reforms in administration, land, industry, and education were all undertaken. New administrative divisions were created where Muhammad Ali appointed loyalists as governors to rule over Egyptian fellahin (peasants). Furthermore, new government departments were created in War, Navy, Finance, Industry, and Foreign Affairs with specialised schools being established to fill them. It was clear that Muhammad Ali viewed his role in a decentralised Ottoman Empire as being more than just a simple pasha. Similar to Japan and China during this period, students were sent to Europe in order to gain an education, and return to Egypt to serve as bureaucrats. During his rule 311 students were sent to France, Britain, Italy, and Austria in order to fill the new administration. This existed alongside the first Arabic newspaper to be produced in the 1820s, and a printing press to publish educational works in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. This was to create a literate elite in order to guide Egypt to his idealised 'modern' state. The first tentative steps towards industrialisation also began in order to 'make Egypt part of Europe' - the first factories were made, canals and irrigation were repaired to encourage efficient crop production, and state monopolies were established to ensure the state could gain the profits. By the 1840s a third of the labour force were under state control, and 80% of agricultural produce was in state hands. However, Muhammad Ali's plans were hampered by a lack of resources, like coal, to power the heavy industry which he wanted, and the primarily rural nation meant there were few urban workers needed for industrial work. His invasion of Syria came to a crushing end when Britain helped the central Ottoman state the Egyptians, and the ensuing London Convention forced him to reduce the size of his military in return for having his own dynasty. This would begin European dictation of Egyptian affairs.

The Ottomans and Tanzimat

Fuad Pasha

Attempts to reform the Ottoman Empire did not end with Selim III's murder. A later sultan, Mahmud II, worked to slowly undermine the Janissaries so in 1826 he could wipe them out in the 'Auspicious Incident' of 1826. Under Mahmud a reformer called Mustafa Rashid Pasha became increasingly important, so when Mahmud died in 1839 he could greatly influence the new sultan Abdulaziz. Rashid's protegees Fuad and Ali further allowed the Tanzimat reforms to continue after the death of Rashid. In 1839 the two released the Edict of Gulhane beginning a period known as the 'Tanzimat' - reorganisation. The aim of the Tanzimat was to create a 'modern' Ottoman Empire by reorganising different aspects of society. Despite being a top-down reform movement it paved the way for bottom-up implementation of these ideas in later years. Just like in Egypt, new educational, administrative, and military reforms were implemented to placate both internal separatists and to show foreign powers that the Ottomans were modern. The earliest edicts, including equality before the law regardless of religion, guarantees to property, and a new tax system were possibly done to gain British support against the forces of Muhammad Ali. Later reforms involved simplifying taxation, abolishing the death penalty, developing consultative assemblies, and a wide range of new schools. From 1847 a series of new secular schools were created, and foreign religious schools were also opened to create ties between Europe and the Empire. Mainly, these were Protestant and Catholic mission schools, but there was also the Jewish Alliance Israelite Universelle. Although very conservative the first schools for women were opened in 1863 - like many other women's schools at the time it was created with the idea of creating good Muslim wives and mothers. Some upper-class women were able to study abroad, and religious minorities had access to some mission schools. Christians, for example, had access to the American College for Girls, first opened in 1871, until 1891 when it was opened to non-Christians. One of the major Turkish women's leaders, Halide Edip,  was the first Muslim woman to graduate from there. The traditional religious communities, the ulama, constantly criticised this, and proved to be one of the major undermining factors limiting the Tanzimat.

The aftermath of the 1860 Revolt

The Tanzimat also aimed to create a united Ottoman state. Although the millets, quasi-autonomous communities for minorities, still remained in existence the Tanzimat reduced their autonomy in order to create loyalty solely to the sultan. A key part of this was the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman lands - soon enough Romania and Bulgaria would also break off from the empire. There was also another issue that if Christian communities were attacked it would give foreign powers even more excuses to intervene. During the Tanzimat period the Crimean War broke out as France and Russia clashed over who could intervene in Ottoman affairs. This was particularly frightening for Ottoman officials when looking at Mount Lebanon. The region had long been a site of refuge for religious dissidents, especially Christian Maronites and the Druzes, and the Egyptian invasion would cause clashes. Muhammad Ali's son Ibrahim was placed in charge of Syria - back then a region consisting of modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine. The clashes caused resentment which spilled over during the Tanzimat. Maronites became increasingly wealthier thanks to new educational institutes and commercial ties with Europe. The resentment broke out into communal violence in 1860 and to avoid French involvement Fuad Pasha himself went to Mount Lebanon to see that Muslims who killed Maronites were punished. A new political system was made, a mutasarrifiyyah, that was partially guaranteed by European powers. This effectively showed the flaws of the Tanzimat. The reliance on foreign powers meant that the Ottomans became increasingly in their debt. The period came crashing down in 1876. When Abdulaziz tried to reassert his power a political crisis caused his resignation and the introduction of a new constitution, but his successor, Abdul Hamid, was firmly against reform.

Reformers and Radicals

Al-Afghani

Throughout the 1800s new ideas started being spread. In the Arabian peninsula the Wahhabi movement began emerging. Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was educated in Mecca and Medina during the 1700s, and began preaching that Muslims had to return to the teaching of Islam, in the words of Albert Hourani, 'understood by the followers of Ibn Hanbal: strict obedience to the Qu'ran and Hadith...and rejection of all that could be regarded as illegitimate innovations.' Local chieftain Muhammad ibn Sa'ud started supporting the Wahhabi thought, and his presence along key trade routes allowed the spreading of his polito-religious forces, so much so that in 1803 he captured Mecca. As Wahhabi thought declared that the Ottomans were not the protectors of Islam the sultan sent Muhammad Ali to destroy the movement. Although military defeated, Wahhabism became ingrained in the region, and set the stage for the modern Saudi state's religious ideology. Meanwhile, in Iran, emerged Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. Kumari Jayawardena has placed great emphasis on al-Afghani's rhetoric inspiring anti-imperialist and liberatory ideas in the Islamic world during this period. Living across states across Europe and Asia, largely as he kept on being exiled, he called for Pan-Islamic unity and anti-absolutism. In al-Urwah al-Wuthqa he said that Islam had fallen into decadence and stagnation, so they had to abandon superstition and unite with one another. Especially among young Muslims his advocacy against accepting the status quo was well received. An Egyptian student of his, Muhammad Abduh, became a key figure in Egyptian law arguing that modernity and Islam were not mutually exclusive.

There were secular movements to emerge as well. In Turkey a group of scholars, inspired by French writing, formed a group named the Young Ottomans. The key figures in this were Namik Kemal, Ibrahim Sinasi, and Ziya Pasha who all lived in France due to oppression back at home. Sinasi himself even took part in the Paris Revolution of 1848, and in 1862 began a Turkish journal criticising the regime. In particular, they said that all people, regardless of ethnicity and faith, should be welcomed as equal citizens into Ottoman society. The Young Ottomans themselves remained in exile for most of their lives, but their writings would inspire new generations of radicals and reformers. Among them was Fatima Aliye who in 1892 wrote the novel Muhadarat, (Womanhood), stating that traditional culture held women back, and she would help found A Newspaper for Ladies, one of the key early feminist regular publications. In 1889 the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) was formed to resist the Ottoman sultan's repression. They are now better known as the Young Turks. Unlike earlier movements they were firmly secular, nationalist, and pro-West, so much so that some of their rhetoric shows the xenophobia Westerners had towards the Middle East. Ahmad Muhtar stated that 'Either we westernize, or we are destroyed', while Abdullah Cevdet would write 'There is no second civilization; civilization means European civilization and it must be imported with both its roses and thorns.' The Young Turks also proudly called themselves Turkish, something which had previously been used as an insult.

Egypt - Becoming a Colony

Opening the Suez Canal

Despite earlier defeats Egypt tried to rebuild itself, its rulers adopted the title 'khedive' - a distinguished title in Persian. One of the key rulers was Khedive Ismail who had the view that 'Egypt was part of Europe.' He began an expansive and ambitious project designed to bring Egypt closer to Europe, at times quite literally. Capitulations, something which also emerged in the Ottoman Empire and Iran, allowed foreign subjects to not exempt from Egyptian law, instead they answered to the laws of their own country. In order to enter the European market Ismail invested heavily in cotton production during the American Civil War, and it quickly collapsed after the end of the war. A series of new schools aimed to craft an elite along European lines. In 1872 the Dar al-Ulum was formed to retrain religious school graduates along European lines, in 1868 the School of Languages was reopened as a more elitist and European institution, and in 1873 Ismail's wife Jashem Afet Hanum formed the Suyfiyya Girls School which soon had 400 pupils. Most famously is the creation of the Suez Canal. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps was given a concession to construct the canal, and when Ismail became khedive he invested a large fraction of Egypt's wealth into the construction. To much pomp and international celebrations the Suez Canal was opened in 1869, but Ismail had bankrupted the country. With over 60,000 being conscripted to work on the canal this reduced crop output, and taxes for peasants rose by 75% within three years. A negotiation for money with landowners gave him a quick reprieve, but weakened the state's leverage over the landlords. In 1875 he was forced to sell his 44% shares in the canal to Britain, but this didn't stop Egypt from being declared bankrupt in 1876. In 1879 the debts forced him to abdicate in favour of Tawfiq, and soon enough a rebellion broke out. Ahmad Urabi was a fellahin who became important in the army, and was seen as an authentic voice for the Egyptian people. In January 1881 Urabi led a mutiny against a law preventing Egyptians from rising in the army, but it soon evolved into a movement against autocracy and imperial domination. With popular support, 'Egypt for the Egyptians', Urabi was brought into government. Britain and France disliked such a popular nationalist being in power, and used a nationalist riot in June 1882 in Alexandria to invade. Urabi was exiled to Sri Lanka and Britain established the 'veiled protectorate' of Britain.

The Dinshaway Hangings

Lord Cromer was made 'counsel-general' of Egypt, a polite term for the governor as officially the Ottomans still ruled in Egypt. Cromer had a low view of the Islamic states, his diaries from his time in Iran are full of phrases such as 'Oriental despotism.' While some of Cromer's policies can be considered progressive - such as banning the usage of whips - only the wealthy benefited from British rule. Cotton mills were discouraged, as it could compete with British cotton production, but cotton growing was encouraged making fellahin increasingly indebted. Cromer had also been an official in the British Raj, and viewed education as a way that nationalists could be created. As a result he tried to limit the implementation of higher education, and cut funding to build new schools. Only after Cromer left his position was the Egyptian University in Cairo created in 1908. Cromer was further well known for his despotism. While he opposed the construction of schools he was in favour of building prisons, and eagerly used forced labour to enforce his building projects. In 1906 British officers went pigeon shooting, something very dangerous for local peoples who heavily relied on pigeons for their livelihoods. At the village of Dinshaway soldiers clashed with villagers and two soldiers were injured - one died later, largely from heat stroke. Cromer came down hard. The 52 villagers were tried, 34 were convicted, and four were hanged with the remaining 30 being flogged. This caused a national outrage so bad that Cromer was forced to resign. Mustafa Kamil, editor of the paper al-Liwa, formed the Watani Party, made mostly of urban men, to campaign for Egyptian freedom. Following the First World War, when Egyptian lawyer Sa'd Zaghlul formed the wafd, delegation, Egyptians hoped his presence at Versailles could allow the Allied powers to hear their plight. Britain responded by arresting the Wafd's leaders and exiling them to Malta. An uprising, largely led by women, then broke out in 1919 which only stopped when Zaghlul was allowed to attend Versailles.

Iran's Troubles

Rebels in the Constitutional War

The shah through most of the 1800s, Nasir al-Din (1848-1896), like his contemporaries tried to reform the state. However, this was hard for several reasons. Mainly, it was due to the Qajar dynasty having little formal power outside of Tehran. As stated earlier, tribes and religious institutes remained powerful politically and militarily. Through this it was also hard to make them pay taxes so there was a serious lack of funds. When taxes were paid it wasn't to the state. Instead the religious councils collected the zakat taxes, and instead they used it to fund schools. Early on the Cossack Brigade was created in 1879, but it was small at around 3,000 and was dominated by imported Russian officers. An institute of higher learning, the Dar al-Fun, was created in 1851 which was staffed by Europeans, but it remained an extremely elite institute. An observer in the 1870s reported that there were only 70 students. All this was not helped by Nasir al-Din himself - the public widely viewed him as doing nothing and living a life of luxury. Like elsewhere, Iran became a debtor state as foreign states, largely Britain and Russia, began extracting more and more concessions devastating local economies. The bazaaris, merchants, were especially affected as they now were pushed out by European companies. In 1890 Britain was given exclusive right to control Iran's tobacco crop. Al-Afghani, who was an adviser to the shah, resigned and nationalist protests broke out. In 1891 the religious bodies intervened when a Shiraz mujtahid declared that using tobacco went against the Hidden Imam, if anyone was reluctant to join the protests now enthusiastically did so. The shah rescinded the concession within the year, but it did not help him and in 1896 he was assassinated. The Qajars continued to face colonial exploitation; in something which will shape Iran's history William Knox D'Arcy in 1909 was granted oil concessions forming the Anglo-Persiab Oil Company, now called BP. Seeing revolution in 1905 break out in Russia protests broke out demanding economic equality, education, and democracy. From 1906 to 1911 a small scale civil war broke out over whether Iran would have a Madjles, a parliament. Throughout the First World War it would be occupied by the Allied powers to secure their access to the oilfields, and the second Madjles was dissolved. Within a decade the Qajar dynasty was ousted in favour of Reza Khan Pahlavi, a colonel in the Cossack Brigade.

Abdul Hamid and the Young Turks

The end of the Tanzimat was followed by decades of authoritarian rule by Sultan Abdul Hamid, known as 'the Butcher' or 'Red Sultan' for his cracking down on nationalist and reformist/republican movements. The cautious advocacy of secularism, 'Ottomanism' or 'laicism', of the Tanzimat was replaced by an advocacy of Pan-Islam to work for him domestically and internationally. The Ottoman sultan also claimed the title of caliph, so he emphasised this to ensure loyalty to him from his Muslim subjects and as a bargaining chip with foreign powers. There was an implication that, as caliph, he could encourage revolts in their Muslim-majority colonies, so they had to give him concessions. To show that he was a representative of Pan-Islam, but also continuing some Tanzimat policies, the Hijaz railway was constructed connecting Medina to Damascus, and 51 new secondary schools were constructed in the Asian provinces. However, there were subtle limits to this. The schools were taught along European lines and were centralised - this limited the impact religious institutions had on education. Railways were also constructed connecting Istanbul to Vienna creating the renowned 'Oriental Express', and ties were created with Germany. A Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad was formed as a result, and Kaiser Wilhelm II even performed two state visits. However, Abdul Hamid was not known for peaceful rule. Political opponents were often forced to go into exile to avoid repression, and the CUP were largely based elsewhere until the 1900s. Nationalism also resulted in brutality. Despite his advocacy for Pan-Islam, Arabs became distrustful of Ottoman rule when Abdul Hamid replaced influential Arabic families who were pro-Tanzimat with his own supporters - something seen as 'Turkifying' the Arabic areas. Throughout the 1890s Armenian nationalist uprisings resulted in Abdul Hamid massacring Armenian villages, and Greece declared war in 1897 thanks to the repression of an uprising on Crete. He was also almost assassinated in 1905 by Armenian nationalists. His repression led to the growth of nationalism across the empire - when the First World War broke out Arabs soon revolted to create their own state and Armenians also attempted to ally Russian troops.

Troops stationed in Salonika, the Third Army, were sympathetic to the CUP and opposed the sultan, so they staged a revolt in 1908 inspired by Ottomanism. Abdul Hamid won some support back for allowing elections, a demand of the troops, but a counterrevolution broke out to restore the sultan's power. The Third Army formally deposed him, and to keep with Ottomanism, sent a delegation consisting of two Turks, an Armenian, and Jewish officer were sent to inform the sultan of his deposition. However, the CUP was heavily divided between liberals and conservatives which was made worse when Balkan states in 1912 took over the European lands. In 1913, a triumvirate under Enver, Talat, and Jamal Pasha (they were unrelated, until the Ataturk era your job title was your family name), took control. They would move between authoritarianism and reformism which helps explain why it became to embrace a specifically Turkish identity. For example, Arabs saw the replacement of Hamidian era notable Arabic families as further attempts to Turkify the empire. Through this, we can see why in the First World War they began seeing the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian population as a fifth column beginning a genocide - a topic for a later post.

Aftermath and Conclusion

Women in Egypt, 1919

The events which we have discussed today have set the stage for the Middle East's history up until today. Nationalism would lead to genocide of Armenians and the breaking up of the Ottoman Empire, however, the legacy of European intervention meant that many of the former parts of the empire became colonies. The aspirations of Arab nationalists to create a united Arabic nation was squashed by the Sykes-Picot Agreement dividing the area between British and French colonies - these colonies would later be further divided. The reformist movements would bring to power new movements which would shape today. The new Pahlavi dynasty in Iran would continue to grant foreign powers concessions spurring an anti-imperialist movement - from both Leftists and Islamic forces (sometimes they were the same). From the CUP emerged the reformist Mustafa Kemal, later known as Ataturk, and, according to Serif Mardin, would complete the ideas set forth in the Tanzimat. Since then the divide between Kemalism and its opponents have been a characteristic of Turkish thought. The Middle East as we know it began to take shape during this period, for better or for worse.

The sources I have used are as follows:
-William Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, Sixth Edition, (Boulder, CO: 2016)
-Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, (London: 1991)
-Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, (London: 1986)
-Betty Anderson, A History of the Modern Middle East: Rulers, Rebels and Rogues, (Stanford, CA: 2016)
-Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, (Berkeley, CA: 1988)
-Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, (Cambridge: 2008)
-Serif Mardin, 'Ideology and Religion in the Turkish Revolution', International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2:2, (1971), 197-211
-Nicole Pope and Hugh Pope, Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey, (Woodstock, NY: 2004)
-Yaseen Noorani, Culture and Hegemony in the Colonial Middle East, (New York, NY: 2010)
-John Galbraith and Afaf Latfi al-Sayyid-Marsat, 'The British Occupation of Egypt: Another View,' International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 9:4, (1978), 471-488
-A.G. Hopkins, 'The Victorians and Africa: A Reconsideration of the Occupation of Egypt, 1882,' The Journal of African History, 27:2, (1986), 363-391

Thank you for reading, and next time we'll be looking at settler colonialism in Australia and New Zealand. For other World History posts we have a list here, and for future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Facing Mount Kenya, Anthropology, and the Forging of Identity

Kenyatta on the cover of the first edition

Identity has always been, and always will be, something every changing. This can range from how we identify as an individual, to how a nation identifies as itself. In 1938, Jomo Kenyatta, the future first president of Kenya, wrote an anthropological text called Facing Mount Kenya which was intended as the first anthropological text written on the Kikuyu by a Kikuyu. Kenyatta was frustrated how European anthropologists wrote, and therefore attempted to determine, what Kikuyu culture was, but he had other motives in writing Mount Kenya. His book was an attempt for Kenyatta himself to formulate the identity of his own people, and establish himself as an influential representative of the Kikuyu.

Anthropology and Empire in Kenya

Mt Kenya was a key feature in the geography and local belief

Empire was more than just armies from Europe arriving in Africa, extracting resources, and ruling over the African populace until independence after the Second World War. I discussed this in a previous World History post about colonialism and imperialism. In the words of Helen Tilley, Africa became a 'living laboratory' where informal agents of empire, (including missionaries, merchants, and anthropologists), helped shaped language, culture, and faith - often with aid from local allies. Although identities existed prior to colonialism, they were far more fluid before the arrival of colonial rule. Different ethnicities married, traded, and communicated, and colonial era sources from Kenya indicate that circumcision could determine your identity. It was possibly for a Kikuyu mother to have one Kikuyu child and one Masai child as a result; Kenyatta himself in Facing Mount Kenya would proudly state that his grandmother was a Masai. However, European colonialists interpreted identity and culture in rigid categories - you were one thing and only one thing. This is especially true for anthropologists. Ostensibly for 'scientific research' anthropologists, relying on local agents from the cultures which they studied, aimed to 'understand' cultures while assisting colonial rule. It was not uncommon for anthropologists to criticise colonialism, but not because they disagreed with colonialism. Instead, they viewed their work as assisting colonial rule - their research was seen as allowing an understanding of colonised cultures to be presented to officials who could then rule more effectively. It is no coincidence that colonial officials became amateur anthropologists - such as C.W. Hobley and H.R. Tate in Kenya. Their work forged rigid boundaries and categories steeped in Orientalist views - Africans were seen as being conservative, homogenous, and rooted in superstitious. This increased after the First World War when British policy wanted to preserve 'traditional' culture, so anthropologists became the determiners of what 'tradition' was. This was even criticised by members of the colonial government. Secretary of Native Affairs of Tanganyika, Philip Mitchell, in 1930 would criticise anthropologists for assuming the static nature of society, ‘People…and customs and customary law are in a state of continuous development’.

Kenya was a unique case in the British colonial empire. It had both a large white settler population, while also encouraging 'indirect rule' for different ethnicities, referred to as 'tribes'. The polarising nature of Kenya as a colony meant that a variety of Kikuyu, and other ethnicities, lived very different lives. While some lived in what is seen as a 'traditional' villages, others moved to the cities, like Nairobi, to work in the new urban, capitalist economies. These Kikuyu were often criticised as being 'detribalised' as they had forsaken 'tradition' for an urban life. Before the First World War Christian missionaries had played an influential role in educating rural Kikuyu, so we also saw the emergence of Christian Kikuyu communities. A push and pull atmosphere emerged as missionaries, after even 1918, tried to enforce Anglo-Christian ideas onto communities who had mixed their own culture with Christianity. It would be primarily urban, Christian educated Africans who would form the first nationalist groups in Kenya - such as the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA). Another major part of life in Kenya was tenancy in the 'White Highlands'. Central Kenya had fertile land, so white settlers, and later some South Asians, would oust Africans from their land, and many were forced to squat on white farms or became labourers for white farmers. Over 12,000 square miles of fertile land was expropriated for white settlement creating a large, often unemployed, rural population. The growth of cities were linked to this - from 1938 to 1952 Nairobi's population doubled as rural communities moved there for work.

Jomo Kenyatta

Jomo Kenyatta in the 1960s

Jomo Kenyatta was born to a rural Kikuyu family in the 1890s, and lived in what could be considered a 'traditional' Kikuyu life. That is until 1909, when he joined the Church of Scotland Mission at Thogoto, learnt English, and lived away from his rural home in the 'Kikuyuland'. The Scottish Missions remained zealous in their desire to convert Kenya to Christianity, so Kenyatta's education was filtered through a religious lens - in Mount Kenya he would refer to the Kikuyu god, Ngai, in similar words to how missionaries referred to the Christian god. Kenyatta, like many other Kikuyu, would blend his own beliefs with that of Christianity - despite being educated and raised by missionaries he chose to go through the irua initiation ceremony at aged 13 which missionaries loathed as it involved circumcision. After leaving school he would move to the cities and become involved with the KCA in 1922. Although anti-imperialist, the KCA had a conservative view towards women, and particularly irua, which Kenyatta would clash with. Women had to undergo irua, which included clitoridectomy, if they wished to enter adulthood, however, female genital mutilation can cause serious health problems, and even death, for women. In 1929 the 'Circumcision Crisis' broke out. The Thogoto Church at Nyeri hoped to wipe out irua by refusing communion to anyone supporting the ceremony - the church lost 2,250 out of 2,500 members. The KCA argued that irua was an integral part of Kikuyu culture so had to be defended at all costs, whereas Kenyatta viewed it as dangerous and that with 'proper education' could be eradicated. Kenyatta's progressive attitude towards women would unfortunately end here. Regardless, in 1929 the KCA had hopes that Kenyatta could represent them in London, hoping that having a voice in the capital their grievances could be aired. In 1929 Kenyatta made his way to London.

Bronislaw Malinowski

London would prove an influential time for Kenyatta. In the capital he managed to broaden his horizons engaging in everything from political debates to acting to (much to the chagrin of the KCA) living with prostitutes. He could easily meet anti-imperialist thinkers and activists in London, and he quickly built up ties with a wide range of anti-imperialists including the left-wing of the Labour part and even Gandhi! He was at home everywhere - historian Martin Meredith described him being equally at home in a theatre and a working-class pub. An important contact he made, which would forge some of his legend during the independence movement, was with Trinidadian Marxist George Padmore. A journalist and author, until the 1930s he worked as a recruiter for the Soviet Union - he would discuss communism and anti-imperialism with African anti-imperialists, like Kenyatta, and help them to the Soviet Union where they would be trained in political theory, organisation, and even armed rebellion. Kenyatta spent some time in Moscow but soon left. He disliked the USSR's criticisms of nationalism, and George Padmore viewed him as a reactionary, especially due to his attitude towards women. Kenyatta returned to London and enrolled in the London School of Economics in 1933. There he would meet anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, who would later write the introduction to Facing Mount Kenya. Malinowski was one of the most influential colonial-era anthropologists, but by the time he met Kenyatta he had become increasingly critical of empire and imperial anthropology. Kenyatta wanted anthropology to challenge colonialism, so he made common ground with Malinowski. In 1938, he managed to bring together his essays on Kikuyu culture and write the first text on the Kikuyu by a Kikuyu: Facing Mount Kenya.

Facing Mount Kenya

Kenyatta aimed to challenge notions that the Kikuyu were backwards and incapable of ruling themselves which had been presented in anthropological texts written by colonialists. To achieve this he presented a lived experience of Kikuyu culture, economy, politics, and faith in order to show that they were not too dissimilar from what Europeans knew, or show that they were not 'savage' as previously thought. For example, Kenyatta discussed fondling by young lovers called ngweko which had been heavily criticised by missionaries as being lustful and sinning. Kenyatta instead argued that there were many rules as apart of ngweko, boys could not fully undress girls as an example, with there being a deep social stigma for violating these rules. He even went as far as to criticise British courtship as there were no confirmed societal rules as the Kikuyu had. Europeans were not the only intended audience for Facing Mount Kenya. Kenyatta was keen to make sure that he would be an influential figure in the KCA or any future anti-imperial organisations, so he wanted Facing Mount Kenya to position himself in this role. For one, Kenyatta was keen to distance himself from, and outright denounce, 'detribalised' Kikuyu who were hiding in Nairobi and trying to forget their own heritage. He emphasised his own rural childhood and upbringing; he proudly stated that his ‘grandfather was a seer and a magician…I served a kind of apprenticeship in the principles of the art’. 

A common theme in colonial writing was an emphasis on Africans being locked in superstition - C.W. Hobley stated that there were over forty thahu, (curses), that he equated to sin. Causes for someone to contract a thahu could range from incest to a dog dying in a village (which Hobley stated was the worst one), and the wasting effects of the curse was due to the guilt of the individual with it. We see an Orientalist approach to this - with over forty curses being caused by things as innocuous as broken pots you get the impression that the Kikuyu were perpetually fearful of being cursed. However, Kenyatta hardly mentions curses in his text, and states that ‘a curse from a dying father or mother is the most dreadful thing that can be befall a son or daughter’. A far cry from a dead dog. Instead, Kenyatta tried to show that Kikuyu belief in thahu was as much grounded in rationality as Christian views of sin.

From Bantu Beliefs and Magic

One homogenous feature of Kikuyu culture was irua – circumcision. Irua was both the most central and controversial aspect of Kikuyu culture during the colonial period. How one was circumcised determined your cultural identity (whether you were Kikuyu, Masai, or Kamba), it served as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, and, according to African-American anthropologist Ralph J. Bunche, irua created a strong bond between those circumcised at the same time. This bond, sometimes referred to as a rüke, could supersede family loyalties. Irua ceremonies were also a large communal affair with possibly days of celebrations happening. However, thanks to high mortality rate during childbirth, constant pain, and other health risks an interventionist colonial state wished to eliminate the practice. Irua consequently became a focal point for nationalist discourses. Kenyatta viewed support for irua as being integral to legitimacy among Kikuyu nationalists, so his earlier criticisms were soon abandoned. He even downplayed the seriousness by stating that his own mother had no issues giving birth, and he would compare the operator to a 'Harley Street surgeon' - something Malinowski would criticise him for stating in the introduction. 

Furthermore, Kenyatta would homogenise the actual ceremony itself. All communities performed irua, but each one would modify the ceremony in their own way. The ‘central pillar’ of the Kikuyu home was, in reality, highly flexible. Kenyatta would say it was a great taboo for males to see female circumcision, and that the collecting of sticks, which were used in the ceremony, from a specific tree was highly gendered. Boys were meant to shake the tree branches and girls pick up the fallen branches. In contrast, Bunche made no reference to the gendered stick collection, and the local chief, Koinange, even threatened to remove his daughters from the ceremony if Bunche was barred from viewing it. Koinange, in private, admitted to him that ‘it does [not do] the girl any good to be circumcised…Most people accept circumcision blindly as an old custom’. Meanwhile, colonial official and amateur anthropologist C.W. Hobley was immediately allowed to view the ceremony and take photos. Different ideas of community in the form of irua were ignored in Kenyatta’s account – to appear as a people ready for self-rule fluidity of culture was ignored.

Moreover, Kenyatta silenced alternate ideas of home and community throughout Mount Kenya. Kikuyu society was patriarchal but women played an important role in local communities – Koinange implied this by suggesting that girls were capable of deciding whether to be circumcised or not. However, Kenyatta only stated his own opinion on irua, no women’s opinions were mentioned. Female agency is entirely silenced in Kenyatta’s account – Padmore did view Kenyatta to be fairly reactionary with his views and Bruce Berman also described him as a ‘conservative reformer’ for this reason. Homosexual identity is entirely erased. Particularly in pre-colonial times there was the practice of mugawe where male religious figures would occasionally cross-dress, or engage in same-sex relations. Christian missionaries, and later colonial officials, rigorously enforced anti-homosexuality laws and attitudes which continue to this day. Kenyatta went as far as to say that due to there being less of a taboo towards sex and the existence of ngweko, it ‘makes it unnecessary’. The only identity Kenyatta was unwilling to erase was ethnic – he proudly admitted that his paternal grandmother was a Masai – but even then, he downplayed the fluidity of this identity. Mount Kenya erases different ideas of the home in favour of just one – Kenyatta’s.

Conclusion

Facing Mount Kenya shows how identity can be changed and shaped, how it is never fixed. Mount Kenya helped solidify Kenyatta's role in the nationalist movements, and he became the head of the Kenya African Union (KAU) in 1944. The KAU would be the most influential nationalist movement in Kenya, and Kenyatta himself would be called 'the Hero' and 'Great Elder' for his role in it. Although Kenyatta would have little to do with the Mau Mau Uprising he was arrested by the British as a possible scapegoat, and as he was seen as the most influential figure in the nationalist movement. When Kenyatta became president of a newly independent Kenya it was his vision of Kikuyu society which would continue on throughout the independence era - for better or for worse. Facing Mount Kenya shows how identity is never fixed and can be used for various reasons.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Ralph J. Bunche, ‘The Irua Ceremony among the Kikuyu of Kiamba District, Kenya’, The Journal of Negro History, 26:1, (1941), 46-65

-C.W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, (London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1922)

-Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu, (London: Secker & Warburg, 1938)

-Louis Leakey, ‘The Kikuyu Problem of the Initiation of Girls’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 61, (1931), 277-285

-Bruce Berman, ‘Ethnography as Politics, Politics as Ethnography: Kenyatta, Malinowski, and the Making of Facing Mount Kenya’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 30:3, (1996), 313-344

-Martin Meredith, The State of Africa: A History of the Continent since Independence, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2005)

-Derek Peterson, Creative Writing: Translation, Bookkeeping, and the Work of Imagination in Colonial Kenya, (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2004)

-Thomas Spear, ‘Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa’, The Journal of African History, 44:1, (2003), 3-27

-Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: Colonialism and Imperialism

One of the most influential aspect of history which shaped the present day was the rise of European, and later American and Japanese, empires in Africa and Asia. We briefly looked at colonialism when we discussed Britain in India and the rise of modern capitalism, but today, we will look at this in greater detail - especially the European empires in Africa. One of my specialities is colonialism in Africa, which I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on, so this post will primarily look at the impact of colonialism and imperialism on Africa. However, we shall still look at other regions as a means of cross-comparison - such as India and southeast Asia. Colonialism would greatly shape the history of the world, and its impact is definitely felt today; especially as in many areas colonialism continues.

Origins

The EIC logo

We saw the origins of nineteenth century imperialism taking root centuries prior when we looked at earlier colonialism. Europeans, initially Spanish and Portuguese, formed trading alliances in Asia and Africa in order to benefit from new resources. In 1510 Portugal captured the city of Goa in India, and formed a 'factory' - an armed fortification where trade could take place. They were later joined by the English, later British, East Indian Company (EIC), French East Indian Company, and the Dutch Vereenigte Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC). These trading companies formed alliances with local rulers in order to better monopolise trade in regions - when the British edged France out of India during the Seven Years' War in 1765 the Mughal Emperor granted the EIC the legal claim to collect tax in Bengal. These alliances were not limited to India - the VOC made alliances with Indonesian rulers to monopolise spice, and the Portuguese made alliances with the Kongo Kingdom to gain access to gold, slaves, and rubber. The Atlantic Slave Trade emerged due to this formation of trade-based alliances - the kingdoms of Dahomey and Asante traded slaves, ivory, and gold in vast quantities in return for firearms and textiles. In turn, they would use the slave trade to give them the edge over states further from the coast. Walter Rodney argued that this would begin the underdevelopment of Africa - the African economy would be devoted to supplying slaves for the benefit of Europeans limiting their ability to develop their own economy. As the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth mercantilism gave way to industrial capitalism and modern capitalism. Industrial production required large quantities of raw materials which slavery and empire offered. As described by Shashi Tharoor: Britain's Industrial Revolution was built on the destruction of India's thriving manufacturing industries. The Bengal textile exports were estimated to be worth over 6.5 million rupees until 1753 amounting to a quarter of global trade in textiles; a sizeable rival to Britain's growing industrial economy. Imposing duties and tariffs of up to 80% (according to Tharoor) was designed to wipe out the competing industry. 

Empire in Africa developed for similar reasons. After the decline of the slave trade in the early-1800s European powers tried to develop 'legitimate commerce' in order to replace the now illegal profits from slavery. As in India and southeast Asia, imperial rule in Africa began not from formal agents of power (like colonial bureaucrats and the military), but by informal agents of power like traders, scientists, and especially missionaries. We shall discuss some of this later, but traders and missionaries were vital in the development of colonialism. A concept of Africa being a 'land of darkness' requiring salvation mixed with growing secularism in Europe and America, so Christian missions ventured inland to 'save' Africa. Often Christian missions claimed to be doing more than just spreading the gospel - aiding trade, spreading medicine, or even fighting slavery. The topic of my dissertation, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) was formed in 1857 with the purpose to 'fight slavery' and 'spread the Light of Christ'. Antislavery, often mixed with anti-Arab racism, was a prominent feature of UMCA reports. Industrial steamships allowed better transport by the 1850s, and better medicines allowed some form of protection against diseases like malaria. This would pave the way for the 'Scramble for Africa'. The 'Scramble' was sparked thanks to the Berlin Conference of 1884/5. Wanting to enrich his small nation, and himself, King Leopold II of Belgium founded the International African Association, and hired explorer-missionary Henry Stanley to traverse the Congo in 1876. Along the river, Stanley would form treaties with local leaders and form trade depots so Leopold could claim sovereignty over the region and the lucrative production of ivory and rubber. However, France found out so began their own project by sending out Pierre de Brazza in 1881. Often these treaties left out that African leaders had to cede their land - when Tio chief Makobo signed one with Brazza in 1880 he thought it was a defence pact against the Belgians. Fearing being left out German chancellor Otto von Bismarck called a conference in Berlin inviting the major European powers, and the US, who would then carve up Africa.

Orientalism

The Snake Charmer (1880), an Orientalist painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904

In this post I want to look at a socio-cultural history of colonialism, but in order to do so we have to look at an important idea - Orientalism. In 1978, Palestinian theorist Edward Said published his groundbreaking work Orientalism. He argued that Occidental perceptions of the Middle East were subjected to power relations - 'The Orient was Orientalized not only because it was discovered to be “Oriental” …but because it could be…made Oriental'. Colonialists came to the Middle East with preconceived notions, and a belief that their own culture was superior. Misunderstanding of colonised culture made it appear decadent and barbaric. Said's theory has been highly influential - my own writing has been inspired by his. However, it does have its flaws. For one, Said wrote about the Middle East only - it does not map neatly onto other areas of the world. Gayatri Spivak has also identified an important critique in her landmark work, Can the Subaltern Speak?. Post-colonial theorists had focused on indigenous sources to break out of imperial narratives, but these sources were written by indigenous elites so sidelined the voices of 'subalterns' - those excluded from hegemonic power. Lebanese Marxist Mahdi Amal further critiqued Said by arguing that there is little class analysis of Orientalism; Said largely discusses high culture sources, and pays little account to how class came into colonialism. Nevertheless, Orientalist theory is important, and as we shall see, Orientalist views influenced how colonised regions are seen to this day.

Forging Identities

Ganesh became widely worshipped thanks to British rule in India

As argued by Jean and John Comaroff, 'Colonialism was simultaneously, equally, and inseparable a process in political economy and culture'. Ideas of culture, faith, and even ethnic identity were subjected to change under colonial rule. Informal agents of power, especially missionaries and anthropologists, were integral to the formation of these ideas. Moreover, local elites were deeply involved in this - elites had to manage both local ideas and the wants of colonial officials. For example, Nicholas Dirks has discussed how modern caste developed under British rule. Pre-colonial caste was subject to change, and although Brahmans were supposed to supersede Kshatriyas, in reality Kshatriyas held greater power. Kshatriyas worked with the British, according to Dirks, to place themselves in power. This is further prevalent in Africa. In East Africa identity was subject to change - in what would become Kenya the only difference between a Kikuyu and Maasai in certain areas was due to how you were circumcised, it was possibly for a parent to have one Maasai child and one Kikuyu child. Missionaries and anthropologists were important in reifying and categorising identity. Helen Tilly has discussed how Africa became a 'living laboratory' for anthropologists where they could debate the lives of local peoples. Links between ideas which they knew were forced onto indigenous culture, and ideas of one group could be forced onto a different group. An example can show this well. Leading UMCA bishop Edward Steere in 1869 when in Magila, northern Tanzania tried to convert the local peoples to Christianity. Steere argued that they had no concept of a soul, despite belief in spirits, but disliked a local idea of 'kizuli' which was seen as an immortal breath. He found it 'a puzzle...how the breath could be immortal' and that kizuli was 'thoroughly and hopelessly heathenism'. He instead used an idea from Mbweni, Zanzibar for the soul writing that 'the people understood "Roho" to mean 'the heart'. I did not know it before. However, I suppose that the heart is a very fair analogue for the soul. It is a very great deal better than "Kizuli"'. Despite 'Roho' being from an entirely different culture, it was applied to mean the 'soul' and today local languages, and Swahili, uses 'roho' to mean this.

Anthropologists built upon what earlier informal agents of power had started, especially after the First World War in Africa, and used local peoples to formulate their ideas. At times colonial officials acted as amateur anthropologists as it would directly benefit themselves. How better to govern people than to 'study' them. Of course, this was heavily dehumanising and intrusive to the peoples being subjected to these anthropological studies. C.W. Hobley was an administrator in Kenya and wrote about the Kikuyu in Bantu Beliefs and Magic (1922), while Charles Dundas around Kilimanjaro wrote about the Chagga in Kilimanjaro and Its People (1924). We see these Orientalist depictions of African culture in these works. Dundas wrote that Chagga creation stories resembling Christian creation stories had to be due to an 'ancient Semitic connection' as Christian missionaries had only been in the region for a few decades; a perception that Africans were rooted in tradition meant that they surely could not have belief subjected to change from recent influences. Not only does Dundas ignore the presence of Islam along the coast and centuries of trade with the Middle East possibly introducing these ideas, but he contradicts himself by stating that white Europeans are ruling in the Chagga afterlife. Similarly, Hobley exhibits these views. He lists over sixty 'curses' called thahu, which he compares to sin, which the Kikuyu rigidly live by - one of the things which can implement a thahu is a dog knocking over a pot - with the worst being a man seeing a girl undergoing circumcision during irua, the ceremonial rite of passage. However, African-American anthropologist Ralph J. Bunche was allowed to see it in 1941, and local chief, Koinange, even threatened to take his daughters from the ceremony if Bunche was barred from seeing it. 

Forms of Colonial Rule

Colonial rule took many different forms across even the same empires. Rule by companies often predated formal rule - the EIC in India until 1857, the VOC in Indonesia until 1799, and the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR) until 1906 in the Congo. As we have already looked at, capitalism and imperialism marched hand-in-hand so they positioned themselves as a way to extract resources from colonised regions. Formal rule which replaced company rule built upon these institutions - these companies attempted to 'reform' indigenous cultures at the same time trying to make a profit. Company rule could end due to loss of profit (with the VOC), mismanagement (the VOC and the EIC's inability to deal with the 1857 Indian Rising), or brutality (with the ABIR). The Belgian Congo became synonymous with colonial brutality. To maximise rubber production (from 100 tons in 1890 to 6,000 in 1901) Leopold oversaw long work hours in poor conditions enforced through violence. Individuals, including pregnant women and children, were forced to work over 80 hours a week with the viboko (hippo-hide whip) hanging over them. In 1904 Roger Casement issued a report called King Leopold's Rule in Africa detailing the atrocities, such as the depopulation of the Bolobo mission station which saw its community decimated from 40,000 to 1,000, and the brutal mutilations as punishment for fleeing forced labour. Casement's book featured the infamous photo by Alice Seeley Harris of a man called Nsala in Wala district mournfully looking at a severed hand and foot, the only remains of his five-year-old daughter. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902) depicts an ivory collector, Marlow, working for ABIR going insane with greed and power.

Nsala looking at his daughter's foot and hand

'Indirect rule' was a common form of colonial rule. This was coined by Frederick Lugard in The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa to describe a form of rule where the British, and other colonial powers, would rule through local elites. Lugard would govern in Nigeria operating through local leaders, like the former Sokoto rulers. This was not limited to Africa - France ruled through Vietnamese and Cambodian kings and the Dutch ruled through Indonesian sultans as well. This was a cost effective way to rule large areas cheaply - Britain barely had a few dozen individuals operating in Nigeria. Settler colonialism saw large communities of white settlers displace indigenous peoples from their land in order to establish their own communities. We saw this in South Africa, Rhodesia, Algeria, Australia, the American West, Taiwan, and Hokkaido to name a few notable examples. Today, white families still hold the majority of land in Zimbabwe and South Africa. African settler colonies saw indigenous Africans being reduced to tenant farmers who had to find work on white farms. Indirect rule could be mixed with settler colonialism - Kenya is a good example of this. The colonial government seized over 7 million acres of land to form the White Highlands while, simultaneously, implementing indirect rule for larger ethnic groups - like the Kikuyu. A further form of colonialism, which still exists today, is informal empire; foreign powers could exert varying economic and political power over weaker states. At times this paved the way for formal colonial rule - Britain and France used Egypt's debts to build the Suez Canal to exert control, the US used American plantations in Hawaii to overthrow the monarchy, and Japan used railways and political influence to informally control Korea and north China before formally annexing them. China is the perfect example of informal empire. British opium imports were used to justify a war in 1839 resulting in Britain taking 'treaty ports', like Hong Kong, where Britain could exert free control. Other powers including France, Russia, Germany, and Japan similarly carved up China forming their own treaties granting them political and economic influence.

Adaptation to Empire

The Masasi Church

Empire greatly shaped the demographics and cultures of the colonised peoples. Indentured servitude created a significant Indian diaspora across the world. Regular famines under British rule put incredible strain on communities, so Indians - especially Bengalis, Tamils, and Gujaratis - engaged in indentured servitude to escape famine despite the brutality of the labour system. As a result, South Africa, east Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania developed significant Indian populations. The Uganda Railway, constructed in 1895, was primarily built with Indian labourers. Eventually, thriving and successful Indian communities, over 84,000 in Uganda by 1940, emerged. White farmers in Kenya, after 1929, became angered that Indians, like Mohamed Ahmed, were gaining enough wealth to own land, so campaigned the colonial office to prevent their land ownership. Those from wealthier families, or in the right circumstances, could use imperial structures to become deeply involved in the colonial project. The UMCA heavily relied on Leonard Pesa and Cecil Majaliwa to convert Africans, and they too infused racism to Africa in their rhetoric; Pesa said that 'evils would tend to disappear' under European rule. Meanwhile, Mohandas Gandhi became a lawyer and travelled to both South Africa and Britain; future president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, was educated at Makerere College; and Senegalese president Leopold Senghor managed to attend university in Paris. Work and demographics shifted thanks to imperialism. Increased urbanisation meant that primarily rural cultures became involved in urban economies, or economies geared towards industrial consumption. For example, industrial peanut production became important to Senegal, so much so that women began singing folk songs about how peanuts were more dependable than men. Koreans moved to cities like Tokyo and Osaka to work in industry forming vibrant Korean communities. While in the metropole there were discussions of reforming work this was not the case in colonial states. Corporal punishment and forced labour remained common - the Congo Free State was only targeted as it went beyond 'acceptability'. 

As we saw when we looked at India, reforms were subject to being contested. Ostensibly benevolent reforms - like medicine and education - were often used to increase colonial power. Frantz Fanon in A Dying Colonialism would explain how colonial medicine was distrusted as it was linked to colonial powers, and the fact that colonial doctors ignored the needs of colonial patients. Censuses in India to prevent female infanticide were used to keep tract of peoples, bringing women into education were used to reinforce female domesticity, and medical programmes, while healing patients physically, could cause major mental damage. Janice Boddy has discussed how the Wolff sisters in 1930s Sudan tried to reform female circumcision and midwifery. Part of their reforms placed more emphasis on the midwife to make birth safer; by doing so they inadvertently took agency away from the mother. Colonised peoples did adapt colonial changes, everything from faith to language. In Singapore 'Singlish' emerged combining English, Malay, Tamil, Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese is a notable example. As France placed emphasis on making Africans citoyens noirs formally educated Africans could use French courts to improve their own rights. 

Race and Sex

An infamous Pears' Soap ad depicting The White Man's Burden

Our next post will be about racism so we'll discuss it more there, but it is vital to understand empire. Race thinking was integral to how empire was structured. Certain ethnicities, called 'races' or 'tribes', were deemed superior so colonial powers chose to rule through them - in Rwanda and Burundi Germany, and later Belgium, declared the Tutsi to be 'natural rulers' so had to rule over the Hutu. In India, the Public Service Commission in 1886 declared that the British Raj was made up of 'passive' Hindus, 'lawless' Muslims, 'manly' Punjabis, and 'effeminate' Bengalis. As early as the 1810s a woman called Saartjie Baartman was kidnapped from South Africa and forced to perform in a freak show, shaking her hips to accentuate her large buttocks. When she died she was even put on display in a museum. Racial scientists would use Saartjie Baartman to formulate their eugenics and social Darwinist theories. Human zoos emerged across the worlds including at the 1878, 1889, and 1900 Parisian World's Fair which featured a 'Negro Village', and a Japanese exhibition depicted 'savage' Ryukyuans, Taiwanese, Koreans, and Ainu. Anne McClintock has emphasised the intersection between commodity capitalism and colonial racism. Soap, in particular, was used with it being linked to 'white civilisation' against 'unwashed black savagery'. Pears' Soap regularly featured Africans becoming white thanks to soap, proudly proclaiming that it was doing its part in 'The White Man's Burden'. Ann Stoler has linked racism to the fragility of white identity, especially with the idea of interracial relations. Originally, concubinage had been allowed in Dutch Indonesia, however, this changed by the early-twentieth century for fears of 'racial impurity' and mixed race children, the 'fruits of a regrettable weakness'. White women were seen as tempting non-white men, due to white male fears of racial mixing. In 1926 in Dutch New Guinea rape or attempted rape of a white woman by a non-white man would result in the death penalty. The rape of a non-white woman by a white man would not result in death, however, indicating a fear of white prestige being challenged.

Resistance to Empire

A colonial depiction of the death of Major-General Gordon during the Mahdist War

Empire was never simply accepted by colonised peoples. Many of those who resisted colonialism have since become icons of national history since independence. For example, the queen mother of the Asante Kingdom, Yee Asantewaa, in 1900 led a rebellion against British rule in what would become Ghana laying siege to Kumasi. When we looked at India we discussed the 1857 Indian Uprising - growing anger over over-reach by British rule and mismanagement sparked a rebellion. However, British divide-and-rule policy, divisions among the rebels, and British armaments meant it was crushed. Violent resistance to colonial rule could vary in different ways. Some, like the Anglo-Zulu War, was a clear-cut case of trying to prevent colonial rule. Some was due to political misrule. In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad declared himself to be the Mahdi in Sudan calling for a restoration of Islam and the purging of the corrupt Ottoman and Egyptian rulers. In 1884 the Mahdi defeated the British, and it took until 1899 for British rule to be re-established. Putting down rebellion was incredibly destructive. In German South-West Africa, modern Namibia, the German settlers and soldiers dispossessed and abused the Herero and Nama communities. In January 1904, a hundred Herero horsemen arrived at Okahandja to solve an inheritance dispute, but the local commander, Lieutenant Ralph Zurn, declared an uprising was underway. What followed was the German colonial army under General Lothar von Trotha issuing an extermination order resulting in the massacre of the Herero and Nama peoples. In January 1904 the Herero population was around 80,000 - by December 1905 it was about 15,000. It was to be the first genocide of the twentieth century, and sadly it would not be the last. Non-violent resistance could also take place. Gandhi and other Indians began non-violent protest against South African segregationist policies, something which would pave the way for his satyagraha protests against British rule in India. Japan tried to replace Korean with Japanese, so Koreans formed Korean language societies in the cities. The destructive schooling system for Native Americans and First Nations in the US and Canada aimed to destroy indigenous culture by taking them from their families, and raising them in abusive boarding schools. They were taught Christianity, and were beaten if they spoke their own languages. Children managed to resist by fleeing back home, and the Ghost Dance movement emerged in the 1880s to revitalise Lakota culture. It took a massacre by the US army to crush this movement. All these aspects of resistance would pave the way for future anti-colonial resistance and decolonisation.

Legacies and Conclusion

The legacies of colonialism is intrinsically felt today. Racism and Orientalist views of the former colonised world still persists today - from movies like Aladdin to how the news presents events in Africa and the Middle East. The political boundaries formed by colonial rule, and what happened in them, touches every country to this day. Divide-and-rule policies has caused deep ethnic and religious divides in Nigeria, India, and Pakistan to name a few. The legacies of German and Belgian rule in Rwanda regularly led to massacres after independence resulting in genocide in 1994. With colonies geared towards supplying the metropole with raw materials this ensured that after independence this is still the case. Zambia's economy was geared towards the export of copper, but when copper prices plummeted in the 1970s it devastated the Zambian economy. For this reason, former colonies, or informal colonies, remain tethered to their old colonial overlords, or new powers. Even now, former French African colonies have to pay a tax to France as 'gratitude' for bringing them 'civilisation'. One of the reasons why liberal democracy has largely failed to take root in most of Africa, as well as other colonies, is that there was no history of democracy before independence, and they simply have not been allowed to. We shouldn't really discuss the legacies of colonialism and imperialism, instead we should discuss how it evolved thanks to decolonisation.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavour, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2015)

-Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India, (London: Hurst & Company, 2017)

-Edward Said, Orientalism, (London: Penguin, 1978)

-Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, (New York, NY: Routledge, 1995)

-Richard Reid, A History of Modern Africa, 1800 to the Present, Second Edition, (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)

-Jean and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997)

-A.E.M. Anderson-Morshead, The History of the UMCA, 1859-1896, (London: Office of the UMCA, 1897)

-Charles Dundas, Kilimanjaro and Its People, (London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1924)

-C.W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, (London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1922)

-Ralph J. Bunche, 'The Irua Ceremnony among the Kikuyu of Kiamba District, Kenya', The Journal of Negro History, 26:1, (1941), 46-65

-Thomas Spear, 'Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa', The Journal of African History, 44:1, (2003), 3-27

-Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011)

-Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late-Nineteenth Century, (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1995)

-Ann Stoler, 'Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Cultures', American Ethnologist, 16:4, (1989), 634-660

-Kwasi Kwarteng, Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World, (London: Bloomsbury, 2011)

-Nicholas Dirks, Castes of the Mind, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001)

-Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, Trans. by Haakon Chevalier, (London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1959/1980)

-Marius Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, (Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002)

-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, (London: Penguin, 1902/1956)

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. The next World History post will look at the origins of modern racism. For other World History posts please see our list. For other blog posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.