You will notice I said *SINCE the British left there have been a TON of issues; America is a bad example of a British Colony, the ‘good’ resulting countries (Aust., Canada, NZ) were the only ones ‘let go’ (and still consider the ‘queen’ as their Monarch) that have done well. *.
I was simply pointing out the differences in styles of rule, and while you are correct that all Empires used a system of direct AND indirect rule, British ‘masters’ were different; and prefered indirect rule (with direct benefits). Others were not so systematic about their decisions.
Well, I interpreted your statement that “The biggest issue isn’t how the British treated the country (though that WAS an issue) but rather how they allowed them to rule themselves (and who the picked to be ‘in charge’), and pent up agression over it” to mean that you were drawing some inference as to outcome based on whether a country experienced direct or indirect rule.
I’m saying that was an issue, but the bigger issue (for British colonies specifically) was the method of local rule.
There were a number of colonies where a ‘tribe’ or ‘group’ was given control over a rival group (often with historical animosities); and then the ‘ruling’ group gained a priviliged life (with respect to the rival group). Once the British left (and stopped enfocing the ruling group), all heck broke loose. Some recovered, some didn’t
All colonies were ultimately about extracting wealth for the mother country. In a few cases 9like America) the mother country actually sent out people to settle the place. I’d say in those cases (USA, Canada, Australia0, the resultant countries made out pretty well. but as in Africa, nobody really wanted to live there-the idea was to set up plantations, open factories, mine for gold, etc., and extraxct the wealth. What happened to the natives was of minor concern-which is why when belgium left the Congo, chaos resulted. On the other hand, colonies like the falkland islands had no native population, so as an independent state, it would probably be OK. I mentioned jamaica 9once a British colony)-I think its been indepoendent since about 1958? It looks like very little was done to the infrastructure-whether that was the fault of the British 9or the subsequent governments0 is hard to tell.
EEMan, give me some examples of what you’re talking about. I’m not convinced there’s any kind of correlation. At a minimum, there’s the difficulty of countries like India that had regions of direct rule, and regions of indirect rule. Plus, this business of the favored class or tribe does not really have anything to do with direct or indirect rule, nor was it a uniquely British approach – the French did exactly the same thing.
I’m being unclear, please forgive me. I have two points (one of which has 2 points of it’s own):
British colonies tended be have a system of indirect rule (that is a governer was set up, but most of the colonies were allowed a significant amount of local rule). (This also occured to a less consistant extent with other European Empires)
The issues that occured with British colonies (as far as ‘making it’)
a)had less to do with point 1) than with
b)how the local rule was accomplished.
(don’t know if that is really anymore clear, sorry if it isn’t)
An example, ok:
In Botswana, the British (more or less) picked the Ngwato to be the ‘over all’ controllers of the area (though the 8 kingdoms were kept somewhat in tact); then during ‘independance’ there were a number of issues (many steming from ‘who was in charge’ (or ‘sympathizers’) and the attempted annexation to South Africa). The Ngwato (esp the Chief, drawing a blank on his name) were looked at as the cause of their issues, which caused internal (as well as external) strife.
The most famous example (I would guess) would be the Hutu-Tutsi conflict (though I believe Rwanda was a Dutch Colony) where the ‘empire’ picked a group (which didn’t exist previously, from what I understand) to rule over the other. After independance (and since) there has been lasting strife, not because they had direct or indirect rule, but rather of the method of indirect rule.
Setting aside the British, there seems to be general consensus that colonial rule was a bad thing because although it left institutions, it deprived people of self-determination. Is this correct?
That’s what the Left-Wing Brigade at Uni tell me, although I’m on record as saying I think Imperialism is a good thing and the world would probably be a better place if the British and French were still running things (with some adjustments, of course…)
Well, the comparison group for this poor benighted group of countries include places like Ethiopia, Rwanda, Congo, Angola, Chad, the Central African Republic, and so forth. By comparison Nigeria, Kenya or Zambia are shining success stories and even Zimbabwe and Uganda don’t look that bad. For now.
And Somalia is a bit of an interesting case since it seems to be separating into ex-Italian Somalia and ex-British Somaliland, which is apparently marginally less hellish.
However I think it’s safe to say that in general arguing about whether it was better to be a colony of the English, French or whoever is like arguing about whether it is better to have TB, Plague or Syphilis. However you rank them, None Of The Above is always going to be the winner by a mile.
Martini Enfield - out of curiosity, for which countries did being colonised work out better than the alternative of having some foreigners regularly turn up, buy and sell some stuff, talk a lot and then sod off home without killing anyone?
Right, and never mind what those blasted natives think, anyway. Here’s another thing to think about: colonies are expensive. They always cost more to the metropolis than they brought in. So you’re going to have to make them pay, and that means working the wogs work harder, for less money. Sounds like a winning platform.
Slaphead, yours is a partial comparison group, and the picture would be somewhat less dire if you were to throw in some of the ex-French colonies. I’d be willing to go along with the notion that the Portuguese, Belgian and Spanish colonies came out worse than the French or British ones. But in the case of the Spanish and Belgian colonies, you have the small sample size problem, and in the case of the Portuguese, they simply held onto their colonies later than anyone else. So again, as comparisons go, you have to make allowances for these factors. And also, not all African countries were created equal as far as resources. The French got a disproportionate share of those Sahelian ones that could only wish sand were an exportable commodity.
It might even be debateable whether some of those countries qualify as ex-colonies. I get the impression that the French never quite grasped the concept of decolonisation, but then I’ve never really paid much attention to that neck of the woods.
Well, they got it back again in the long run – but by that time they were very different cultures and societies than they would have been if allowed to develop in their own way. Is that good or bad? Probably depends on the society in question. If the Spanish had not destroyed the Aztec Empire . . .
Also, in some cases the conquest phase of colonial rule involved a lot of deaths in the native population. Some peoples and cultures were exterminated entirely, others almost entirely. There are no Gaunches left in the Canary Islands; no Indians left in the Caribbean; the only Indians in Florida, the Seminoles, emigrated there in the 18th Century after the indigenous Timucuans had all succumbed to war and disease; the Tasmanians were wiped out by a quite intentional program of genocide; etc., etc. Even the Highland Scots . . .
A few British conservative historians choose to ignore the myriad harms we did, but instead spout on about the supposed “benefit” of British imperialism - that the British legacy in most places is: the railways, education, common law, and the civil service.
To a certain extent, I think they do have a tiny point, though only in comparison to other former colonies. In many - though by no means all - former British colonies, the Brits left a structure in place whereby a country could run itself along British lines, if it chose to do so. Whereas in former Dutch, Spanish, French, Portuguese colonies, the residual infrastructure seems to have been a lot weaker.