The administration of French Oceania, 1842-1906

Abstract

Colonial administration is the product of foresight and circumstance from colonial policy, as generally conceived in Europe, and from the existing institutions of a colonial society, are framed the answers of the administration to national and local needs. Where policy is fragmentary, the administrator is thrown back on to his own judgement of what answers are the most fitting (or the most convenient). At this point, his own conception of the role of the colonial Power, based on precedent or conformity with practice elsewhere, and his knowledge of local conditions from a secondary colonial policy. The distinction is important and sometimes overlooked. The ambiguity of the content of “policy”, by the time instructions from abroad have been transformed into executive action at several removes from the original draughtsman, has brought reprimand to administrators and conformation to many generalizations in writing on colonial history. There are always social and geographical factors in the colonial situation to be borne in mind. Where the people of the territory have evolved a culture different from the administrator’s, he may well be forced to acknowledge the superiority of much in the indigenous political and social structure for the needs of the native majority. Or he may seek to change the structure on prompting from the metropolis or according to his own humanitarian or bureaucratic ideals. The introduction of new conceptions of law and authority, in accord with principles professed by the administering power, has been characteristic of French colonial policy. The origin and nature of these changes and modification to them under circumstances peculiar to each territory form the history of French colonial administration. In broader perspective, France, like other colonial powers, has had to contend with problems arising from general European contact with native societies. European expansion for trade, conquest or evangelism has not for long been separate from the expansion of European forms of justice and government. Change begets change: and the imported administration perpetuates and is subject to economic, religious and cultural factors which are no less important for the historian than form the indigenous social and political structure.