U.S. Indian Affairs, British Imperial Africa, and Transcolonial Dialogues over Conservation and "Native Development" in the 1930s

Abstract

Throughout the 1930s, as technical officers from multiple territories in British imperial Africa toured the United States to study federal soil conservation efforts in the wake of the Dust Bowl, they made particular observations of programs among southwestern Native American populations and conferred with colleagues in the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs (OIA). These previously unexplored exchanges extended far beyond purely technical matters: they became significant opportunities for both British imperial and OIA officials to reflect comparatively on America's enduring settler colonialism, colonial situations in eastern and southern Africa, and parallel state agendas of "native development." This article focuses on three case studies—involving visitors from colonial South Africa and Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Kenya to various reservations and Pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona—to reveal how officials used these transcolonial dialogues to articulate their particular interests in and promote their preferred approaches to managing colonized peoples and their landscapes.