Introduction

878

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Colonial Encounters in Asia and Africa

1750–1950

image
The Imperial Durbar of 1903: To mark the coronation of British monarch Edward VII and his installation as the Emperor of India, colonial authorities in India mounted an elaborate assembly, or durbar. The durbar was intended to showcase the splendor of the British Empire, and its pageantry included sporting events; a state ball; a huge display of Indian arts, crafts, and jewels; and an enormous parade in which a long line of British officials and Indian princes passed by on bejeweled elephants. (© Topham/The Image Works)
879

In mid-1967, I was on summer break from a teaching assignment with the Peace Corps in Ethiopia and was traveling with some friends in neighboring Kenya, just four years after that country had gained its independence from British colonial rule. The bus we were riding on broke down, and I found myself hitchhiking across Kenya, heading for Uganda. Soon I was picked up by a friendly Englishman, one of Kenya’s many European settlers who had stayed on after independence. At one point, he pulled off the road to show me a lovely view of Kenya’s famous Rift Valley, and we were approached by a group of boys selling baskets and other tourist items. They spoke to us in good English, but my British companion replied to them in Swahili. He later explained that Europeans generally did not speak English with the “natives.” I was puzzled, but reluctant to inquire further.

880

Several years later, while conducting research about British missionaries in Kenya in the early twentieth century, I found a clue about the origins of this man’s reluctance to speak his own language with Kenyans. It came in a letter from a missionary in which the writer argued against the teaching of English to Africans. Among his reasons were “the danger in which such a course would place our white women and girls” and “the danger of organizing against the government and Europeans.”1 Here, clearly displayed, was the European colonial insistence on maintaining distance and distinction between whites and blacks, for both sexual and political reasons. Such monitoring of racial boundaries was a central feature of many nineteenth- and early twentieth-century colonial societies and, in the case of my new British acquaintance, a practice that persisted even after the colonial era had ended.

SEEKING THE MAIN POINT

In what ways did colonial rule transform the societies that it encompassed?

FOR MANY MILLIONS OF AFRICANS AND ASIANS, COLONIAL RULE—by the British, French, Germans, Italians, Belgians, Portuguese, Russians, or Americans—was the major new element in their historical experience during the long nineteenth century (1750–1914). Of course, no single colonial experience characterized this vast region. Much depended on the cultures and prior history of various colonized people. Policies of the colonial powers sometimes differed sharply and changed over time. Men and women experienced the colonial era differently, as did traditional elites, Western-educated groups, artisans, peasant farmers, and migrant laborers. Furthermore, the varied actions and reactions of such people, despite their oppression and exploitation, shaped the colonial experience, perhaps as much as the policies, practices, and intentions of their temporary European rulers. All of them—colonizers and colonized alike—were caught up in the flood of change that accompanied this new burst of European imperialism.

A Map of Time

1750s Beginnings of British takeover of India
1788 Initial British settlement of Australia
1798 Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt
1830 French invasion of Algeria
1840s Beginning of major British settlement in New Zealand
1857–1858 Indian Mutiny and rebellion
1858–1893 French conquest of Indochina
1869 Opening of Suez Canal
1875–1914 Scramble for Africa
1898 United States acquires the Philippines from Spain and annexes Hawaii
1899–1902 Boer War in South Africa
1901–1910 Completion of Dutch conquest of Indonesia
1904–1905 Maji Maji rebellion in East Africa
1910 Japan annexes Korea
Twentieth century Spread of Christianity in non-Muslim Africa
1920s–1947 Gandhi’s leadership of Indian National Congress