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Consequences of Britain's imperialism in Africa
Consequences of Britain's imperialism in Africa
Consequences of Britain's imperialism in Africa
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Imperial Reckoning
Caroline Elkins is a professor of history and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya is a sober recounting of Britain’s attempt at imperialism in Kenya. Not just a British-version of colonialism in Kenya, what sets this book apart from accepted histories of colonialism in Kenya is Elkins’ deviation from the accepted version of the Mau Mau rebellion.
Imperial Reckoning presents the Mau Mau rebellion from the point of view of the Kikuyu and explores the atrocities they faced during the uprising. The Mau Mau rebellion is normally presented as a brutal and savage uprising by the Kikuyu. The Kikuyu committed
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violent murders on innocent British colonials living in Kenya. This, and coupled with their refusal to disavow Mau Mau oaths while under detainment have been used as evidence of Kikuyu savagery. However, Elkins asks readers to reconsider this assumption and examine evidence against the numerous atrocities committed by colonial forces. Elkins lays the foundation for the uprising by examining land in Kenya. For the Kikuyu, land was fundamental to being Kikuyu (14). Given the British’s imperial habits in other parts of the world, land was fundamental to empire. In Kenya, the British saw an African population for labor, and land that would meet their needs for imperialism (15). Elkins explains the social hierarchy that emerged in Kenya: landed British colonialists at the top, African tribal chiefs somewhere in the middle, and landless African laborers at the bottom. The Kikuyu had previously been a stateless society, governed by councils of elders and lineage heads (18). Elkins argues that Kenya was colonized to exploit the country’s natural resources and labor (55). The Kikuyu had used the land to meet their needs without restriction. In time, the Kikuyu, under the influence of London-educated Kenyan native Jomo Kenyattta, would foment a rebellion known as Mau Mau. As the rebellion unfolded, the governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, and Thomas Askwith would devise methods of detainment and rehabilitation to quell Mau Mau. Elkins lists many administrative and governmental measures taken to punish the Kikuyu: repressive laws, taxation, imprisonment, legal floggings, and terror. For Baring’s part, his State of Emergency produced communal punishment, curfews, control of mass and individual movements of people, confiscation of land and property, censorship and banning of publications, disbanding of all African political organizations, control of labor, suspension of due process, and detention without trial. Straying from the traditional argument that the Kikuyu were the brutal party, Elkins describes the manners in which Mau Mau suspects were subjected to upon intake and detention. During the screening process upon intake, suspects would be interrogated in order to elicit information and confess Mau Mau affiliations (63). There were two outcomes for the Kikuyu after the initial screening process. The first would be deportation to Kikuyu reserves, which was territory set aside especially for the Kikuyu people, but land that could not agriculturally sustain the amount of Kikuyu sent there. The second outcome of screening was deportation to a detention camp. These camps were used for the Kikuyu who refused to confess Mau Mau oaths or affiliations. It is generally at this part of Imperial Reckoning where Elkins upholds her thesis and begins her assault on the “paternalism” of the British in Kenya. She begins to explain in severe detail the conditions in the Kikuyu reserves and detention camps. Kikuyu would be subjected to extreme humiliation upon arrival at detention camps. Strip searches, sanitation dips, and brutal beatings greeted the Kikuyu (134). In addition, the British supposed Africans had lower health and sanitation standards, permitting disease to run rampant (143). Several compounds held designation as the place where “hard core” Kikuyu would be sent. There, Kikuyu were met with intense pain and degradation as the foundation of camp life (156). The vituperation experienced by detainees is incredibly unimaginable. I think Elkins provides an interesting and normally silent account of life in the detention camps of Kenya. Despite the terror of camp life, the detainees created their own social world and rules to survive their detention. Survival and resistance strategies abounded. For instance, in order to speak without subjecting themselves to beatings, some Kikuyu would feign mental illness and pretend to speak to the wall or yell incoherently. It was only the Kikuyu who could understand, thus undermining the constant control they were normally subject to while in the cruelty camps. Elkins examines the rehabilitation methods as put forth by Askwith. Under Askwith’s plan, detainees would be offered domestic and agricultural classes, education, and other skills that would ease assimilation into British civilization. After intense research, Elkins was able to find little if any evidence of rehabilitation taking place in detention camps. When British officials were questioned about the rehabilitation process, they would either lie or completely fabricate rehabilitation measures. I think it is here that the British erringly regard their imperialist measures as to the benefit for Kikuyu society. But from the Kikuyu point of view, rehabilitation was non-existent. As detention camps came to represent unimaginable repression and brutality for the Kikuyu, Governor Baring instituted a new policy of villagization.
The goal of villagization was to contain, control, and discipline Mau Mau women (240). British colonialists considered Kikuyu women the foundation of Africa. Elkins describes villagization as detention camps in all but name. Women faced forced communal labor, public terror, torture, and malnutrition. Many women also had the responsibility of caring for and providing for children. These villages were surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Villagization served to disrupt the supply line between women and the remaining forest fighters, thus helping to root out Mau Mau …show more content…
(250). The most brutal detention camps were reserved for hard-core male Mau Mau suspects. These men experienced a form of violent and systematic brutality officially sanctioned by Governor Baring (328). Under the tutelage of district officer Terrance Gavaghan, Kikuyu men were under a perpetual atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that intended to break them of their Mau Mau support (244). Gavaghan’s compound, Mwea, was the site of indescribable sexual and physical abuse, public torture, and violence. After reading Imperial Reckoning, it is hard to imagine any other perspective of Mau Mau that could be believably brought forth other than inhumane violence. Elkins convincingly argues and provides evidence that British colonial leaders repeatedly “obfuscated the facts, skirted the issues, and lied” (332). Interestingly, Elkins points to Jomo Kenyatta as being implicitly complicit in the cover up of British brutality in Kenya. Kenyatta refused to speak of the past that Mau Mau suspects lived through. Elkins argues that he sacrificed the past Kenya for the future Kenya. Mau Mau men, women, and children have never been memorialized. No African loyalist of British official was prosecuted (360). Part of what makes Imperial Reckoning so clarifying for history, is Elkins’ use of sources to formulate and construct her narrative.
Not satisfied with the limited available British sources, Elkins conducted oral testimonies of not just Kikuyu who lived through the Mau Mau rebellion, but also the interviews of British officials complicit in the adherence to colonial policy in response to the uprising (374). Elkins admittedly struggled with the believability of the Mau Mau suspects harrowing ordeals in camps and on the reserves. However, she was struck with the consistency of oral testimonies over time and space. Elkins was also able to corroborate the oral data with what survived in the written record after the British denial and
cover-up. British imperialism operated under a cloak of protective civilization. I think this book, better than any other this semester, demonstrates how the British continually justified imperialism by holding on to paternalism. The British believed they had a duty and moral obligation to redeem the heathens of the world (5). Elkins found little evidence of the British in Kenya as paternalistic reformers. Imperial Reckoning serves as evidence of the British’s brutality. The author’s investigative skills are impressive. Despite the British’s attempts to cover-up notorious atrocities, Elkins presents a view from the Kikuyu side. In the end, the British won the long, hard war against Mau Mau, but lost the war for Kenya (353).
Mr. Dedan also told us that British forced labor onto Kenyans, what up their tribes, and took away their culture. He said in order to defend themselves from the mistreatment by the British they needed any use violence. Barbara Castle was also a witness for the defense. She was a member of the British Parliament. She told us she went down to Kenya to investigate the allegations about the British police bragging about brutally killing the Kenyans.
Since the 1880?s, when European nations colonized Africa, Europe had almost complete control over the continent, but this changed during the 1950?s and 60?s. By 1958, ten African countries had gained their independence, and sixteen more joined the list in 1960 alone. Although these nations? gain of independence demonstrates the ability of blacks to overpower their white oppressors, Baldwin argues ?The word ?independence? in Africa and the word ?integration? here are almost equally meaningless; that is, Europe has not yet left Africa, and black men here are not yet free? (336). While black people had been legally free in the United States since 1863, two decades before the European colonization of Africa, they were still not truly free, almost a century later.
Rowlandson, Mary. A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.In Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives. Ed. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
As a scholar invested in the progression of the field of Native American material cultural studies, I consistently recondition my understanding of both epistemology and the appropriate ways to approach cultural circumstances of the so-called “Other” through personal encounters and the shared experiences of my contemporaries. My own ethical position is forever fluid, negotiated by both Native and non-Native sources as I attempt to find ground in what exactly I intend to do (outside of an occupation) with the knowledge I accumulate. Perhaps the most vulnerable facet of existence in the world of academia is the ease that comes in the failure to compromise one’s own advancement for the well-being of those being studied. Barre Toelken is an encouraging exception to this conundrum, considering his explicit analysis of both Navajo and Western ethics in the case of the Hugh Yellowman tapes. His essay argues for an approach that surrenders the fieldworker’s hypothetical gain to the socio-emotional needs of subjects’ epistemological structure and, most intriguingly, he treats ethnographic materials as praxis rather than data. After years of apprehension with the objectifying habits of cultural anthropology, a discipline internally dithered by the bickering of Science vs. Humanities, I am finally moved to disengage from such authoritatively based methods altogether as a result of Toelken’s example.
These stories have a continued overlapping influence in American Fiction and have remained a part of the American imagination; causing Americans to not trust Native Americans and treat them as they were not human just like African Americans. In conclusion to all these articles, Mary Rowlandson and John Smith set the perception for Native Americans due to their Captivity Narratives.
Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with “savages.” Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages…” is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. “A Narrative of the Captivity…” is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through namely, their actions and the way in which they lived went against the religious code to which she is used; contrastingly, Benjamin Franklin sees the Indians as everything but savages-- he believes that they are perfect due to their educated ways and virtuous conduct.
In Frethorne's letter home to his parents, he draws a revealing picture of the deteriorating relations between the English settlers and the Indians that is consistent with the history of Jamestown in the period between the two attacks on the colony by the Powhatan chief Openchancanough. Both attacks were in retaliation for specific incidents of murder and depredation on the part of the English, but were responses, more generally, to English expansion into native lands and the resulting erosion of native life ways. The writer's candor about his own experience is compelling. He used vivid details to describe his discontent, deprivation, and discomfort. The small specifics of daily life (quantities and kinds of food, items of clothing, catalogs of implements) and the data of survival and death (lists of deceased colonists, trade and barter statistics, numerical estimates of enemy Indians and their military strength, itemized accounts of provisions, and rations...
The Kenyan feminist and environmental activist, Wangari Maathai, explores the legacy of colonialism and oppression in her native country through her moving 2006 memoir, Unbowed. Maathai explains that over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Africa experienced a massive influx of white settlers. In an effort to solidify control over recently acquired colonies, many European powers had encouraged large numbers of their ethnically white citizens to make a new home on the African continent. As a result, thousands of native Africans were displaced. Maathai’s ancestors, the Kikuyu and Maasai peoples were among them. The majority of these forced dislocations took place in the highland regions. The rich soil and temperate climate of this area had proven attractive to native African peoples for centuries; and it seemed the new British settlers found it equally tempting. After most of the land’s original occupants were transported to the Rift Valley region of western Kenya, settlers began taking advantage of the highlands’ vast natural resources. The land was essentially ravaged as ancient forests were clear-cut in order to make room for agricultural plots. The introduction of the plantation system, with its non-native plant species, large-scale hunting, and systematic recruitment of Africans as field laborers, signaled the next phase in the oppression of native Africans (Maathai 6-9).
When people mention imperialism and colonies, images of fleets of early European ships and powdered wigs come to mind. But the reality is, imperialism is not a thing of the past. Jamacia Kincaid knows firsthand the effects a foreign occupation can have on the lives of those in a country under imperial control. Kindcaid’s home Antigua, a Caribbean island, was a British colony until it’s fairly recent independence in 1981. In her essay, she recalls what it was like growing up under English rule. Through her use of various rhetorical devices, she conveys her feelings of contempt and bitterness.
After reading many of the adventures written by H. Rider Haggard and his intrepid explorer and hunter, the questionably honorable Allan Quartermain; one gets the skewed vision of the native African while at the same time viewing the ‘pseudo’ superiority of the European exploiter. Quartermain gives the impression that he respects the Africans in his employ while considering them to be naught but children needing guidance; a typical British and American view of anyone different than themselves. In the perusal of the assigned reading for this unit one’s eyes are opened to a wider worldview and understanding of the phrase by Marcy, “To the victor belongs the spoils.”
A. Adu Boahen's African Perspectives on Colonialism neatly classifies African responses to European colonialism during both phases of invasion and occupation during the 19th century with precise labels according to their nature or time period. However, the reactions can also be loosely grouped into two diametric characterizations: peaceful and violent. Although creating this dichotomy seems a gross generalization and oversimplification of the colonial African experience, it more importantly allows for a different perspective- one that exposes the overwhelming success of the typically peaceful or pacifist reaction in contrast to the little gain and large losses of the violent response.
For this assignment I chose to write about Jomo Kenyatta. After reading chapters three and four of Khapoya’s book, it was hard to imagine an Africa that wasn’t under colonial rule. I can only comprehend on a very basic level the impact colonialism had on the Africans economically, physically, and mentally. It is inspiring to read further and discover the immense, calculated, and passionate efforts that many Pan African leaders played in the years that followed. I found Jomo Kenyatta to be particularly interesting. For many reasons, Kenyatta is considered one of the most significant leaders of the Pan African movement in the twentieth century. Kenyatta had a clear vision of what he wanted for Kenya (or Africa as a whole), he was prepared for the path he would have to take, and he accomplished much for the country and continent as a whole.
The Web. 25 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. "Nationalism in Africa - African Nationalism After World War II." Colonial, Pan, Rule, and Nkrumah.
The New Imperialism and the Scramble for Africa 1880-1914. Jeff Taylor, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.
Colonialism is a situation whereby a dominant imperium or center carries on a relationship of control and influence over its colonies (Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory, n.d.). In this drama, Aidoo not only tells a disobedient child’s story, but she actually reveals a very important historical moment in Ghanaian history through the personal tragedy of Anowa and Kofi Ako. Anowa in this drama represents Africa. Her destruction represents Africa’s fall which was as a result of the actions of selfish men (represented by Kofi Ako) who only cared about amassing wealth to the detriment of their fellow Africans’ wellbeing, thereby betraying Africa as a whole.... ...