Colonial West Africa

Collected Essays

Michael Crowder

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135781392
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Originally published in 1978, this volume provides a selection of Michael Crowder's wrtings on the impact of colonial rule in West Africa and African reaction to it from the conquest to independence. Key themes include the impact of European culture on African culture; the resistance of Africans to European conquest; African reaction to colonial rule; the differences between French and British administrative, social and economic politices and the consequences of these differences for those subjected to them; the extent to which Africans accepted the new socio-political strucrrues imposed on them and the point at which they began to take control over them; and finally the importance or otherwise of the colonial period in African history as a whole.

INDEX

Abbas, Ferhat, 287, 289, 290

Abdullahi Abershi, Sarkin Yauri, 154

Abidjan (Ivory Coast), 325; rivalry between Dakar and, 320–1

Aborigines Rights Protection Society, 21

Act of Abolition (1807), 8

Administration, colonial administrative services: role of colonial administrators, 122–50: African context, 123–5; educational background, 125–6; transferability of officers, 127–8; study of African languages, 128; differing functions of officers, 128–30; distribution of administrators, 130; relations with native chiefs, 131; Portuguese in Angola, 131–2; European and African hierarchy, 133; French in West Africa, 134–5, 180, 235–9, 316–17; British in West Africa, 135–7, 138–41, 239–41, 316–17; in Belgian Congo, 137–8; judicial powers, 141–3; socio-economic roles, 143–7; Native Authority system in Bussa, 151–2, 156, 160–75; civilian administration in Borgu, 155–9; in Dahomeyan Borgu, 180–3; Indirect Rule — French and British style, 198–208, 209; role of West African Chiefs, 209–30; policies of colonial powers, 233–5; in Portuguese Africa, 241–4; in Gambia, 260–1; French post-war decentralisation, 286–7; colonial role in uniting different territories under same administration, 319–23

A.E.F. see French Equatorial Africa

Affonso, King of Kongo, 5, 6

African Association, British, 9

African responses and initiatives (to colonialism), 250–7

Agriculture, 18, 19, 123, 244, 245–7; cash crops, 18, 19–20, 112, 123, 144, 237, 244, 245–7, 248, 277; in French West Africa, 112, 237, 238, 275–6; forced labour, 145–6, 147; subsistence crops, 247; in Gambia, 259–60, 262, 263–6

Ahidjo, President of Cameroun, 326–7

Ahmadou of Segou, 48,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• I. West Africa and the Europeans: Five Hundred Years of Direct Contact
• II. Background to the Scramble
• III. West African Resistance
• IV. Bai Bureh and the Sierra Leone Hut Tax War of 1898 (with LaRay Denzer)
• V. Blaise Diagne and the Recruitment of African Troops for the 1914-18 War
• VI. The White Chiefs of Tropical Africa
• VII. The Imposition of the Native Authority System in Bussa: the Rebellion of 1915
• VIII. The French Suppression of the 1916-1917 Revolt in Dahomeyan Borgu
• IX. Indirect Rule: French and British Style
• X. West African Chiefs (with Obaro Ikime)
• XI. West Africa 1919-1939: The Coionial Situation (with J. F. Ade Ajayi)
• XII. Colonial Backwater
• XIII. The Vichy Regime and Free France in West Africa during the Second World War
• XIV. Independence as a Goal in French-speaking West African Politics: 1944-60
• XV. Colonial Rule in West Africa: Factor for Division or Unity?
• Index