| Colonialism: Indirect Rule Some colonizers, esp. England, practiced indirect rule in their colonies. Indirect rule = the administration of colonies by using the existing traditional leaders to govern the people. Was cheaper and easier than bringing a complete European administration to the colony; also, local people already respected/obeyed the traditional leaders. DID NOT simply perpetuate traditional politics, though: --traditional authorities became paid employees of the colonial government, which decreased their co-dependence with the local population--could exploit people more. --traditional authorities acquired new powers that they never had before, like taxation or conscription of labor. In some ways, became more powerful than before. --Europeans sometimes created new traditional offices where few or even none existed before. Number of chiefs actually increased over time. Of course, anthropologists contributed to this system by studying the local traditional politics, identifying the leaders and their powers, and reporting this information back to the colonial administration. Other consequences: --usually one group was favored over others for political offices, so created a new dimension of inequality and tension between groups --sometimes had to force local people to take European offices--even captured children to train them for colonial administration --trained a generation of assimilated local people, who were usually the political leaders at the beginning of political independence of colonies...but not always for long. Often toppled by more "nativistic" or traditionalist leaders, who often represented only one ethnic group rather than the whole society In France, one other major difference in colonial rule: considered colonies to be an overseas territory of France, not just a colonial dependent So, (1) did not ever expect colonies to achieve independence, thought they would always remain part of France, and (2) at least in theory treated local people like French citizens or potential French citizens. In Africa, this meant less racism, since Africans could become "black Frenchmen." Racism is a distinctly English concept, and introducing race into African and other cultures created new kinds of identities and inequalities that did not exist before. For instance, in Sri Lanka, the dominant group was the Sinhalese (Buddhist), and the dominated group was the Tamils (Hindu). British colonial administrators, as well as anthropologists, linguists, and historians who studied the colony determined that the Sinhalese were "Aryan" people, while the Tamils were "Dravidian"--Aryans were considered to be more like Europeans and superior, Dravidians darker-skinned and inferior. So Sinhalese adopted this superior attitude--that they were more like Europeans and that they were better than the Tamils. Also, the simple fact that Europeans studied them made them more proud to be who they are, increasing their cultural chauvinism. |