Colonial Reforms and Their Consequences on African Societies

Lessons

Senior 3 · History and Citizenship

Colonial Reforms and Their Consequences on African Societies

4 lessons

Lesson 4 of 4

Consequences of colonial reforms on African societies

25 min

Keeping the borders

In July 1964 the heads of state of the newly independent African countries met in Cairo, a year after founding the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Almost every border between them had been drawn by European governments. They adopted this resolution:

Considering further that the borders of African States, on the day of their independence, constitute a tangible reality; [...] SOLEMNLY DECLARES that all Member States pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national independence.

Source A. Organization of African Unity, resolution AHG/Res. 16 (I), "Border Disputes among African States", Cairo, July 1964. Text: African Union.

Analysing the sources. Colonial borders often divided peoples who shared a language and culture, and joined peoples with different histories inside one state. Yet in Source A, African leaders chose to keep them. They feared that if any border could be changed, every state would face claims from its neighbours and civil wars. So a colonial reform, the drawing of borders, became a permanent part of independent Africa. This lesson asks which consequences of colonial reforms lasted, for whom, and why.

Definition

Consequence: a result of an event or policy. It can be intended or unintended, short-term or long-term.

Legacy: something from the past that continues to shape the present.

Economic dependency: a situation in which a country relies on selling a few raw materials to richer countries, and on buying their manufactured goods.

Divide and rule: a way of governing by encouraging divisions among the governed, so that they cannot unite against the rulers.

Nationalism (in colonial Africa): the movement to end colonial rule and create independent nations.

Planned and unplanned consequences

Figure 1. A consequence matrix. Asking "planned or not?" and "when?" turns a list of effects into an analysis.

Political consequences

New states and borders. Colonial rule replaced hundreds of kingdoms, chiefdoms and village societies with about fifty territories, which became the states of today.
Centralised, top-down government. Colonial administrations ruled by orders, not by consent. Many independent governments inherited the same offices, laws and habits.
Weakened traditional authority. Chiefs who collected taxes and forced labour for the colonisers lost respect; some kingdoms, such as Rwanda's monarchy, did not survive independence.
Nationalism. Colonial schools, towns, newspapers and, after 1945, councils and elections produced the leaders and organisations that demanded independence (Unit 7).

Economic consequences

Dependence on a few exports. Many countries still earn most of their foreign money from one or two crops or minerals, as Ghana did from cocoa.
Infrastructure for export. Railways and roads linked mines and farms to ports, not African regions to each other.
Land and labour. Where settlers took the best land, as in Kenya, land became a cause of conflict; migrant labour separated families for years.
A money economy. Taxes and wages tied almost every household to markets and money.

Social and cultural consequences

Education and health. Schools and clinics brought literacy and saved lives, but reached only a minority and were unequal.
Religion and language. Christianity became the faith of most people in many countries; European languages became languages of government. French, the language of Belgian rule, is still one of Rwanda's official languages.
New divisions. Categories fixed by colonial states, and the ideologies used to justify them, set groups against each other.

Case study: the legacy of colonial reforms in Rwanda

In Rwanda the colonial reforms you studied in Lessons 1 to 3 had consequences that no one in 1930 could have fully foreseen:

The 1926 to 1931 reorganisation gave almost all chiefships to a small group of Tutsi families, while forced labour and the head tax fell on everyone. Most Rwandans, Hutu, Tutsi and Twa alike, lived as poor farmers, but the Hutu majority was excluded from power and higher education.
The identity cards of 1933 to 1934 fixed every person's category, and the false colonial racial ideology taught that the categories were separate "races".
In the 1950s the Belgian administration and part of the Church switched their support to the Hutu elite. Politics was organised around the categories, and from 1959 violence drove many Tutsi into exile (Senior 2).
The First and Second Republics kept the categories on identity cards and used them to discriminate. This divisive ideology, spread for decades, was a long-term cause of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, which was planned and carried out by Rwandan extremists who chose to use it.

Since 1994 Rwanda has removed the categories from identity cards and built policies of unity and reconciliation. Other legacies are also part of daily life: written Kinyarwanda, schools and churches founded by missions, French as an official language, and coffee as an export crop.

Worked example: explaining a choice

Question: Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain why independent African states kept the borders drawn by the colonial powers. (6 marks)

Reason 1. The borders were already a "tangible reality". By independence, each state had its own capital, army, laws and officials inside these borders, as Source A says.

Reason 2. Fear of endless disputes. Almost every border divided some people; if one could be changed, all could be challenged, leading to wars between neighbours and to civil wars.

Reason 3. Unity against outside interference. Source A mentions "extra-African manoeuvres aimed at dividing African States"; leaders believed that respecting borders would keep Africa united.

Conclusion: the borders were kept not because they were good, but because changing them seemed more dangerous.

Tip

Ask three questions of every consequence: For whom? (colonisers, chiefs, elites, farmers, women), for how long? (during colonial rule or still today) and planned or not? Answers built on these questions reach the Analyse and Evaluate levels.

Warning

Avoid two extremes. Don't blame every problem of Africa today on colonialism, as if Africans had made no choices since independence; and don't deny the deep effects that colonial reforms still have. A strong answer shows how colonial legacies and later African decisions together shaped what happened.

Discuss

Source A shows African leaders keeping a colonial legacy on purpose. Rwanda has removed another one, the categories on identity cards. Choose one colonial legacy in your district or country today (a road, a school, a language, a crop, a border). Should it be kept, changed or removed? Give reasons.

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Practice

Define a legacy and give one example of a colonial legacy in Rwanda.
What did the OAU decide about borders in July 1964?
Using Source B, name the two African countries that were independent in 1913.
Give two economic consequences of colonial reforms for African countries.
Explain how colonial education contributed to the end of colonial rule.
Using Figure 1, give one consequence the colonisers planned and one they did not, and explain the difference.
Explain how the colonial identity cards became a long-term cause of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
"The consequences of colonial reforms were mainly negative for African societies." How far do you agree?

Show answersHide answers

Something from the past that continues to shape the present. Any one: French as an official language; schools and churches founded by missions; coffee as an export crop; roads; the borders.
All member states pledged to respect the borders that existed when they became independent (resolution AHG/Res. 16 (I), Cairo).
Ethiopia and Liberia.
Any two: dependence on one or two exports; infrastructure built for export rather than regional trade; land taken by settlers; migrant labour; a money economy.
Mission and government schools trained clerks, teachers and other educated Africans who read about rights and freedom, formed associations and parties and led the nationalist movements; colonial education produced the leaders who ended colonial rule.
Planned: cheap export crops (the colonisers wanted them). Not planned: educated nationalists (schools were meant to train obedient clerks, but their pupils demanded independence). The difference is whether the result served the colonisers' aims or turned against them.
The cards fixed each person's category and, with the false racial ideology, taught that Rwandans were separate "races". After independence, governments kept the categories to discriminate, and extremists spread a divisive ideology for decades. In 1994 the planners of the genocide used this ideology, and the cards at roadblocks, to identify and kill Tutsi.
A good answer weighs both. Negative: forced labour, taxes, land loss, export dependency, divisions such as Rwanda's identity cards, weakened culture. Positive: schools, health care, roads, written languages, and the educated leaders who won independence. Judgement: mainly negative for most Africans at the time, because the reforms were designed to serve the colonisers; some benefits were real but unequal, and several harmful legacies still last.

1Keeping the borders

2Planned and unplanned consequences

3Political consequences

4Economic consequences

5Social and cultural consequences

6Case study: the legacy of colonial reforms in Rwanda

7Discuss