European colonial rule in Africa

Abstract

The era of European colonial rule in Africa was relatively brief. Most of the colonies conquered or annexed after 1885 were independent less than eighty years later. Yet this brisk episode produced a massive disruption of African societies and left a legacy of strong, centralized, authoritarian governments. European colonial states differed dramatically from the traditional political systems Africans had developed during their long precolonial history, and not surprisingly most Africans regarded them as the imposition of an unfamiliar, unwanted, and unnecessary means of governance. Within a generation of colonization, their discontent began to be organized into movements that soon demanded political equality and ultimately independence, but by then the European ideas of strong, protective governments had become so deeply entrenched that, ironically, on independence leaders of the new postcolonial states perpetuated colonial-style government, the very system they had vowed to dismantle. Even today the administrative structure in most African states has changed little from that bequeathed to them by their European conquerors. Although European influence inheritance differed according to the traditions of law and government introduced by French, British, Portuguese, Belgian, German, and Italian officials into their African colonies, the diverse methods of administration employed by these imperial rulers shared some fundamental features in the governance of their colonies.