Colonial Administration Research Articles

The trope of the Native American in nineteenth-century British and American accounts of South East Asia

ABSTRACT The nineteenth century witnessed the expansion of Western colonial power and influence across both mainland and maritime South East Asia, along with the publication of a growing number of books about the region and its peoples by Western scholars, travellers and colonial administrators. This was also a time when pseudo-scientific theories of racial difference were rife and deemed respectable in Western academic and political circles. This article looks at how some British and American authors were inclined to examine South East Asians through the lens of racial theory, and how in the course of doing so were also inclined to compare some South East Asian ethnic groups to the natives of America. In the course of doing so, Native Americans were invariably seen and cast as a homogenous racial group that was then located at the bottom of a hierarchy that differentiated between superior and inferior races. The repeated deployment of the trope of the Native American, as the embodiment of inferiority and savagery, was an instance of racial stereotypes being instrumentalized at a global level as part of a new pan-Atlantic Anglo-American discourse of race and racial difference.

Never (Again) the Twain Shall Meet? Some Reflections on Australian and Papua New Guinean Shared Histories

Ethnographic research with the Kerewo-speakers in the Kikori area of the Gulf Province shows that they refuse the severance of Australia’s and Papua New Guinea (PNG)’s histories. From the Kerewo perspective, PNG’s national independence cannot erase valued social relationships forged through past contact with Australia. Drawing on the work of Frederick Cooper and John Pocock, this article contends that Australia’s and PNG’s shared past should be considered within a single analytical framework that highlights the legacies of colonialism in shaping Papua New Guineans’ perceptions of themselves and their place in the world. For Kerewo, recognising a shared past is a necessary (albeit frustrated) basis for re-forging relations in the present. The efforts of historians today to reconnect these stories is political insofar as it seeks to undo the efforts of colonial administrators – in the pursuit of a self-serving decolonisation process – to forget these links.

Venereal diseases, public health and sanitary measures in the mid-nineteenth-century Madras Presidency

This article discusses the colonial policies around public health, sanitary measures and control of venereal diseases in the Madras Presidency in the 1860s and 1870s, and describes how these policies shaped urban development of Madras. It investigates how British colonial measures to curtail venereal diseases concurred with concerns about ‘public health’ in the 1860s and 1870s in the Madras Presidency and the city of Madras. It questions the extent to which British ‘public health’ policies encompassed the Indian population. Although there is a recent increase in scholarly interest in studying the medical and sanitary history of the Madras Presidency, very few historians have focused on the ways in which colonial morality influenced town-planning and sanitary policies in the area. Earlier, scholars believed that segregation was key to maintaining public health in colonial cities; however, recent scholarship has questioned the notions of ‘dual city’ by highlighting the blurred lines. This article also investigates how far the colonial administration successfully segregated the European population from the Indian population and the Indian labouring and service-providing poor from the non-labouring poor.

Of Rule not Revenue: South Sudan’s Revenue Complex from Colonial, Rebel, to Independent Rule, 1899 to 2023

Abstract This article analyses taxation practices in colonial, post-colonial rebel-led, and independent South Sudan and argues that the ethos of taxation in the region has been and remains primarily oriented around predatory and coercive strategies of rule. This overarching pattern endures because the fundamental structure and rationale of revenue-raising practices, which collectively constitute South Sudan’s revenue complex, have not changed since at least Anglo-Egyptian occupation of the region in 1899. The paper explains how tax collecting as predation began when the first colonial administration deployed taxes to acquire loyalty from customary authorities such as chiefs and sheikhs, who personally benefitted from their taxation powers. From the early 1960s to 2005, armed groups in the region periodically fought against Khartoum-led rule, and rebels extorted taxes from the population to help fuel their war efforts. Taxes in today’s South Sudan, which acquired independence in 2011, are not collected to raise revenue except to pay off the individuals collecting them, and they continue to generate predation. The rise of international aid and windfalls from oil revenues have further diminished taxation’s financial significance for the national government and have altered local authorities’ coercive demands for payment. The portrait that emerges from the practices of South Sudan’s successive war-makers and state-makers is one of taxation wielded as a technology of rule, one of coercion and often extortion, to fulfil the self-interests of tax collectors. The article is based on archival research in Sudanese and South Sudanese national archives, British colonial archives, and 205 interviews conducted in South Sudan.

Growth of Public Health Care System in British India

The public healthcare system in India founded during colonial rule. At that time various researches and surveys were done, medical topography was prepared, legislations for public health were brought and various commissions were set up to monitor British troops by the colonial administration. Gradually this led to the foundation of public healthcare system in India. The period of 19th century and early 20th century India witnessed the development of new trends in medical systems and a transition from surveys to microscopic studies in medicine. The history of disease and their prevention in the colonial context traces back the epidemiology of infectious disease.

L’espace public à Algér : le désintérêt privé (beylick) comme produit du contrôle public

Public spaces in Algeria are characterized by the strong lack of interest among people who rely entirely on public authority. Not any tendency here to make of it a common good. The purpose of the paper is to exhibit the extent of popular indifference from in situ observations in Algiers and to explain this attitude through historical analysis. Indeed, the collective imaginary and practices have not always been insensitive to public spaces. On the contrary, in traditional rural society, public spaces were perceived as a continuity of domestic space. The peasant was obliged to take charge of its maintenance as well as for his home, his intimate space. To understand the later behavioural evolution, we must refer to the Ottoman and colonial domination processes. Each period had its own way of considering public spaces, but the urban management systems have always been based on a discrimination policy against natives and a strict control of the public spaces to the point of making them appear as the State property in the collective mentality. This perception of a grabbing of public spaces by the Turkish governor (Beylik) and later by the French colonial administration (for security reasons) has led amongst city dwellers to a feeling of exclusion and a disaffection that still characterize their attitude today.

Science Advisory to Governments and Regional/Sub-Regional Organizations in West and Central Africa

Science advice to governments and regional and sub-regional organizations in West and Central Africa has been reviewed. The objectives were to analyze its evolution and characterize the sources of advice. During the colonial period, it was by the colonial administrations and for their needs. At independence, in general, the new nations (particularly French speaking) entered into agreements with the former colonial powers to develop science, technology and innovation capacity for sustainable development. English speaking nations sought more partners outside the colonial experience. Colonial research institutes were increasingly transformed into national research institutes/institutions with national development mandates. Governments increasingly turned to science advice from consultants, inter- ministerial committees, advisory bodies, ad hoc experts’ groups, or a combination of these. Regional/sub-regional organizations sought advice from consultants, ad hoc technical experts’ groups, advisory bodies or a combination of these. Increasingly, science advice is delivered by Africans. Science advice by science academies is most rigorous. The arrival of more science academies, with varying links with governments, indicates that evidence-based science advice is growing in the region.

“Moderate” vs “Extremist” Muslims? How a decontextualized distinction can trigger a contradictory assessment of security and radicalization in Malaysia

Abstract This article demonstrates how the application of a broad and decontextualized distinction between “moderate” and “extremist” Muslims can undermine our assessment of an Islamic identity, security, and radicalization. It compares how this distinction has been used by the British colonial administrators (in Raffles, Crawfurd, Marsden, and Swettenham) in nineteenth-century Malaya and by Malaysia's Prime Ministers (Mahathir, Badawi, and Najib) in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. This comparison demonstrates that both groups, despite their very different backgrounds (Western non-Muslim and Muslim non-Western), introduced a similar distinction between “moderate” and “extremist” driven more by socio-political objectives than by religious ones. Furthermore, the article stresses the importance of considering the socio-political and contextual dimensions of Islamic identity before attempting to explain the process of radicalization and its implications for security. Such an approach discourages reference to broad categories such as “moderate,” “extremist,” “Islamism,” or “Salafism,” and allows for discussion of their contextual and socio-political connotations.

Legacies of Colonial Violence in Contemporary Transitional Justice: Memories of Mau Mau, the ‘Kapenguria Six’ and the ‘Ocampo Six’ in Kenya

ABSTRACT∞ This article assesses the enduring impact of colonial violence in responses to modern conflict by transitional justice mechanisms. It presents an example of how societies continue to be structured by racial and colonial injustice and how this influences contemporary transitional justice. This is done through an analysis of the popular memory of the Mau Mau insurgency from 1952 to 1960 in Kenya, the trial of the six Kenyan nationalists known as the ‘Kapenguria Six’ by the British colonial administration and the trials of six Kenyans alleged to be most responsible for orchestrating the 2007–2008 post-election violence in Kenya, known as the ‘Ocampo Six’ before the International Criminal Court (ICC). In the Kenyan context, the influence of memories of colonial violence enabled the promotion of political agendas and arguably coloured public debate surrounding the two Kenya cases before the ICC. Transitional justice mechanisms such as the ICC do not operate in an ahistorical vacuum and international criminal trials as a form of transitional justice may be contested where there is no genuine accountability, redress or reparations for victims of colonial crimes. However, the juxtaposition of colonial crimes and the ICC prosecutions in Kenya also raises important questions relating to accountability for historical crimes in former colonies, the temporal limitations of transitional justice mechanisms and their unequal application.

Agents of the Settler State: Incarcerated Filipino Workers, Conjugal Migration, and Indigenous Dispossession at the Iwahig Penal Colony

Abstract: This essay examines a conjugal migration program at the Iwahig Penal Colony in the early twentieth-century Philippines that was designed by American colonial administrators and built by incarcerated Filipino men. The penal colony was part of a settler colonial project that was pushing to transform Indigenous spaces into terrains primed for the influx of land-seeking migrants from Hispanicized islands. Before the prison was opened, Indigenous Tagbanua lived at the site, which had never been governed by Euro-American colonizers. US officials cast Tagbanua families as impediments to development. The penal colony's incarcerated men were from lowland areas that had come under colonial rule for centuries. Colonial administrators saw their labor, conversely, as the linchpin that would turn the land, and eventually the entire island, into a terrain for commercial agriculture. Bureaucrats worked to transport women to Iwahig who had been in romantic relationships with prisoners before their arrests in order to support this project. Even though only 10 percent of incarcerated men were ever joined by their female partners, state agents cynically characterized the nuclear families formed through conjugal migration as institutions that sat at the foundation of the penal colony's settler colonial goals. Ultimately, American colonizers used these logics to confiscate Indigenous land that they identified as "underutilized," and integrate it into the colonial political economy.

The communist movement in Nghe-Tinh and political parties in the French Indochina (1930–1931)

The article analyzes the experience of the French Colonial Empire of the 1930s in ensuring internal security in the Indochina region. The social, economic and climatic causes of political unrest (1930–1931) in the northern part of Annam, namely in the two provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh (Nghe-Tinh), are examined. The characteristics of the three ideological directions on which the political parties of Indochina are based are given. The development of the peasant movement and the creation of alternative administrations in villages to replace colonial ones are demonstrated. The new institution for a number of villages will be the Soviets, under the leadership of the Indochina Communist Party. The view is reflected of the colonial administration of Indochina on socio-economic problems. The adjustments in the French colonial army are presented in the form of sending additional contingents, as an example, the arrival of the 4th battalion of the Foreign Legion from Algeria to Indochina. The attention is paid to the key source under the title: «Contribution to the history of political movements in French Indochina». It testifies to a victorious turning point for the French administration in suppressing armed uprisings in Indochina. The document is a transcript and represents the testimony of Vietnamese who were members of the Indochina Communist Party. The despite the difficulties for France in maintaining internal security in the Indochina region by 1931, order in the colony was almost restored.

“Hands across the sea”: Strikes, solidarity and diverging outcomes in port cities in Britain and Australia in the late nineteenth century

This article advances the historiography of port cities, waterfront trade unionism and imperial solidarity by comparing two distant places that, despite their colonial connections, are rarely juxtaposed: Britain and Australia. It investigates the relationship between the metropole and the periphery via the Great Dock Strike of 1889 in London (a 5-week dispute that ended in victory for the dockers) and the Australian Maritime Strike of 1890 (a 12-week strike that ended in defeat for the workers). This research shows how the responses to the strikes from the other side of the world reflected the characteristics of port cities and their waterfront workers. They were also largely determined by three neglected themes - the extent of colonial ties, the uses of the new telegraph network, and the impact of trade cycles - and how these themes influenced each other. The first theme develops and complicates Bernard Porter’s argument that Britons were indifferent towards imperial affairs. On the one hand, this article confirms his position by showing the asymmetry of imperial relations between the outward-looking Australians and the mainly inward-looking Britons. On the other, it demonstrates how imperial connections led to solidarity, and how Britain’s working-class leaders embodied an elitist imperial mindset. In doing so, this article draws new parallels between Britain’s working-class leaders and colonial administrators. Despite their different roles and educational backgrounds, both groups - imbued with a sense of imperial superiority - demonstrated a similarly paternalistic approach in their work overseas. Therefore, imperial solidarity in port cities is a prism through which the prevalence and impact of the British imperial ethos - a far wider subject - can be illuminated and assessed.

A Systemic Functional Analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman

This paper is about the systemic functional analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, on the basis of the postulate that African classical literary works connote some significant functions. The methodology used in this analysis is the mixed method approach, which is a combination of both quantitative and qualitative linguistic data. Two extracts are therefore selected from the play on a qualitative basis, taking into account the relevance of the exchange in terms of information and the characters involved in the exchange. These are split into numbered and analyzable units referred to as clauses in which the various mood components are meticulously and quantitatively identified. The results reveal that the extracts are essentially concerned with propositions, that is, the exchange of information about the rite. Some services are realized through proposals. Modal variables are profusely used in the extracts under consideration, highlighting interlocutors’ various attitudes and judgments regarding the traditional ritual of the king’s horseman death. The analysis of the exchange has uncovered the pecking order defined by the colonial administrators whose behaviors are profoundly marked by prejudices regarding the rite. Thus, Soyinka’s play functions as a tool for information and education about the African worldview.

The Nigerian Navy, 1956-1966: Manpower And Platform Development And The First Court Martial

This paper examined the establishment of the Nigerian Navy and the circumstances surrounding its origin. It narrated the conditions that led to the first naval court martial, examining if there was any ethno coloration in the event. The research also studied the sources, as well as the nature of its early development within the first ten years of its existence. The research in addition analyzed the impact of the British or colonial government on the creation of the Nigerian Navy. The study relied heavily on documentary data and lightly on oral data. The oral data were based on unstructured interviews with few former senior naval officers; and the documentary data were sourced from colonial government annual departmental reports, correspondence, books and magazines. The oral data were transcribed for analysis. The documentary data were subjected to textual and contextual analysis. The researcher found out that the emergence of the Nigerian Navy was the result of interplay of forces such as the ex Royal naval officers, Nigerian nationalists and the colonial administrators. It examined the first court martial.

French Colonial Policies in West Africa: Power Dynamics, Cultural Impositions and Economic Legacies

The complex dynamics of French colonial policies in West Africa during European imperialism played a crucial role in streamlining administrative procedures and consolidating control over the indigenous African population. This colonial framework not only imposed a distinct sense of identity on African communities but also created deep stratification within these societies. Implementing the direct rule system, an essential aspect of French colonial administration, facilitated imposing laws and regulations that often marginalized traditional authority structures. As a result, a symbiotic relationship emerged between the African colonies and France, with the former serving as essential suppliers of resources crucial for sustaining France's growing industrial enterprises. This paper delves into the intricate nuances of the French colonial policies and their enduring impact on West Africa. By critically examining the assimilation and association policies, the study elucidates the power dynamics, cultural impositions, and economic implications that characterized the colonial experience of French colonies in West Africa. Unpacking the complexities of the colonial governance framework highlights the systemic disparities and cultural alienation perpetuated by the French colonial apparatus, underscoring the persistent socio-economic challenges and cultural subjugation that continue to shape the contemporary West African landscape. By exploring historical injustices and postcolonial complexities, the study emphasizes the urgent need for a holistic and inclusive approach to postcolonial development, advocating for preserving cultural heritage and promoting equitable socio-economic progress within the region.

Indigenous Clockmakers, Schedules, and Quantitative Time in the Spanish Colonies (16th Century)

Abstract During the 16th century, the term “Cemilhuitlapohualtepoztli” meant “clock” to the indigenous peoples of Mexico. They had formed this neologism out of three words from the Nahual language: “cemilhui” (the passing of a day); “tlapoaliztli” (to count); and “tepoztli” (bell or iron). This linguistic evidence, in conjunction with other documents found in Spanish and Latin American archives, show that autochthonous people came into early contact with these mechanisms and promptly assimilated quantified time. Historiography often claims that the Catholic Church imposed this kind of time among indigenous societies, however, this paper demonstrates that indigenous peoples appropriated a more precise and quantified time in the offices of the colonial administration, either by working as clockmakers or by producing “timetables” and calendars. This process allowed, on the one hand, the global synchrony between the Old and the New World, and on the other hand, the coordination of collective temporalities and local calendars.

“The Leaves of Our Flag Surrounding the World”: Barbara B. Smith and the Sovereign Voices of a Pacific Trust Territory, 1958–1964

Abstract This article explores the songs and dances recorded by Barbara B. Smith in the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the former US-administered region of Micronesia. The article examines Smith's collaborations with Micronesians in Hawai‘i in the late 1950s and early 1960 as well as her 1963–1964 recording project undertaken across the Trust Territory. In exploring Micronesian voices within the political machinations of the time, the article investigates the entanglement of ethnomusicology within the American colonial administration of the Pacific. With the 1963–1964 recordings as a window into this period, I listen for Indigenous autonomy that sounds out from these historical reproductions. I contend that the broader contribution of 1960s ethnomusicology in Micronesia lies in the sonic chronicle of sovereign voices, in which communities sang together and past American colonial interventions in the Pacific.

The Function of Classical African Literary Works: A Systemic Functional Analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman

This paper is about the systemic functional analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, on the basis of the postulate that African classical literary works connote some significant functions. The methodology used in this analysis is the mixed method approach, which is a combination of both quantitative and qualitative linguistic data. Two extracts are therefore selected from the play on a qualitative basis, taking into account the relevance of the exchange in terms of information and the characters involved in the exchange. These are split into numbered analyzable units referred to as clauses in which the various mood components are meticulously and quantitatively identified. The results reveal that the extracts are essentially concerned with propositions, that is, the exchange of information about the rite; while some services are realized through proposals. Modal variables are profusely used in the extracts under consideration, highlighting interlocutors’ various attitudes and judgments regarding the traditional ritual of the king’s horseman death. The analysis of the exchange has uncovered the peck order defined by the colonial administrators whose behaviors are profoundly marked by prejudices regarding the rite. Thus, Soyinka’s play functions as a tool of information and education about African worldview.

Colonial Roots of the Contemporary Economic Crisis in Subsaharan Africa (SSA): The Case of Nigeria and Tanzania

Tanzania is a low-income oil-importing developing country, with characteristics that typify the vulnerability of a Third World economy, with external debt payment crisis. Nigeria on the other hand, is a mineral-rich oil-exporting country also enmeshed in debt crisis. Sadly, Nigeria has been the region’s largest borrower. Both countries have different economic development strategies. While Tanzania with initial socialist bent, capitulated to the conditionalities of multilateral agencies, Nigeria on the other hand followed the path of a mixed economy and later reverted to the capitalist economic mode. This discourse examines the colonial roots of the economic crisis in both Nigeria and Tanzania. The study also x-rays the impacts of British colonial administration on Nigeria and Tanzania, and the political and economic systems that evolved in these colonies. The work found out that the imposition of indirect rule, which meant the superimposition of the colonial method of government on the various indigenous emirates, kingdoms, and tribal chieftaincies in Nigeria and Tanzania was for economic exploitation. The work submits that the underlying motive of colonialism was to ensure the effective and unchallenged exploitation of the colonies for the benefit of British capitalists, and the indirect rule system was intended as the best way to accomplish this end. This exploitation has however continued unabetted into the present-day neo-colonial exploitation aided by both Nigerian and Tanzanian collaborators.

The economic and political development of African states in the historical context of the decolonization process

The study of decolonization has long been dominated by political history, focused on formal emancipation of nations at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, societies subject to European colonial administration. The article reveals the reasons for the emancipation of colonised nations and the construction of a new social and economic order in the world. It also presents the relationship between decolonisation and the new global economic hierarchy. In fact, decolonisation did not change anything in the economic and political relations between former metropolises and former colonies, similarly at the cultural level, where the language of the coloniser still dominates in the official sphere and in education.