African Response to Colonial Rule
Senior 4 · History
African Response to Colonial Rule
Lesson 3 of 3
25 min
In 1898 the British writer Hilaire Belloc published a comic poem, The Modern Traveller, mocking the boastful adventurers of the Scramble for Africa. One character, "Blood", sums up his confidence in two lines:
"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not."Hilaire Belloc, The Modern Traveller (1898).
Five years earlier, at the Battle of the Shangani on 25 October 1893, during the British South Africa Company's war against the Ndebele, about 700 soldiers with five Maxim guns had driven off some 5,000 Ndebele warriors.
Analyse it. The poem is satire: Belloc is laughing at men like "Blood", not praising them. But it shows how the British public understood their victories, as a matter of machinery. Is that the whole truth? Modern historians argue that the Maxim gun's power has been exaggerated by popular myth: it was deadly in pitched battles, such as the Matabele wars, but much of its effect was psychological. And at Adwa in 1896, an African army with modern rifles beat a European army. So technology matters, but it cannot be the only explanation. This lesson weighs the others.
Definition
Indifference: a response in which a society neither collaborated with nor openly resisted the colonisers, often because it had little contact with them, did not yet feel their rule, or chose to wait. Divide and rule: a colonial strategy of using rivalries between Africans to weaken them. Askari: African soldiers who served in colonial armies, for example the German Schutztruppe.
Scorched earth: destroying crops, stores and villages so that an enemy, or a whole population, cannot survive. Pitched battle: a battle fought in the open between two armies in fixed positions.
| Reason | Evidence from this unit and the last |
|---|---|
| Superior weapons | Maxim guns at the Shangani (1893) and against Shona strongholds (1896 to 1897); Lugard's Maxim guns in Buganda (1892) |
| Control of the arms trade | At the Brussels Conference of 1890 the colonial powers agreed to stop sales of guns and other weapons to Africans |
| Disunity and rivalries | Rwanda's court used German force against northern rebels (1911 to 1912); Buganda's Protestant and Catholic parties fought each other |
| African soldiers on the colonial side | Colonial forces such as Germany's Wissmann troops in East Africa were African soldiers (askari) led by European officers |
| Local scale and poor coordination | Risings were usually limited to one people or region; the Ndebele rising started early, before the planned date |
| Natural disasters | Drought, locusts and rinderpest weakened the Ndebele and Shona before 1896 |
| Loss of leaders | Nehanda and Kaguvi executed (1898); Muhumusa held in Kampala until 1945; Mwanga exiled to the Seychelles (1899) |
| Brutal colonial methods | In German East Africa the Maji Maji rising of 1905 and the famine that followed caused up to 300,000 deaths |
| Failed religious promises | Bullets did not turn to water, which could break morale after the first defeats |
The exception proves the rule. Ethiopia won because it reversed most of these weaknesses: it was united under Menelik, had imported modern rifles in large numbers, fought a pitched battle on its own ground against a smaller army, and its enemy made mistakes.
Between collaboration and resistance lay a third response. Many communities neither signed treaties nor took up arms. Historians suggest several reasons:
Consequences: indifferent communities often avoided the destruction suffered by resisters in the short term, but they had no say in the terms of colonial rule, and they could not escape it once taxes, labour demands and new chiefs arrived. A careful historian also asks whether "indifference" is the right word, or whether quiet avoidance and waiting were strategies of their own.
Warning
Do not say Africans lost "because they were primitive" or "because they had spears". Many African armies had firearms, and Ethiopia had modern rifles. Explain defeat with evidence: control of the arms trade, divisions that colonisers exploited, African soldiers in colonial armies, disasters, and brutal methods such as famine.
Tip
Reasons for failure: "WARDS of LIFE". Weapons, Arms ban, Rivalries, Disasters, Soldiers (African askari) and the Loss of leaders, Isolated (local) risings, Failed promises, Extreme methods (famine and scorched earth).
Important
Discuss. Was African resistance a failure? It did not stop the conquest, except in Ethiopia. But it raised the cost of conquest, shaped how colonisers ruled, and was remembered: Zimbabwe's war of independence (1964 to 1979) is also called the Second Chimurenga. Should success be judged only by the result at the time?
E-Chronicle, "Was African resistance to colonial rule a success or a failure?". Note each argument for success and for failure, then decide which you find stronger, with evidence from this unit.
Practice
Key points
Further reading
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the analysis, the spectrum diagram, the table and the exercises. This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Quick check
Ethiopia defeated Italy at Adwa. What does this case show about the reasons other resistance failed?
