Rwanda Under German and Belgian Colonial Rule (1897-1962)
Senior 4 · History
Rwanda Under German and Belgian Colonial Rule (1897-1962)
Lesson 2 of 4
25 min
In 1918 the Belgian Ministry of Colonies published a book of photographs, Les Campagnes Belges d'Afrique 1914–1917, to celebrate its army's victories in East Africa. One page shows Rwanda.
Analyse it. The page is propaganda for a Belgian audience: a commander on horseback, disciplined troops, a captured capital, and Rwandans placed as onlookers at the side. Notice what it does not show. To feed and supply this campaign, the Belgian occupation force drafted 20,000 men from Ruanda-Urundi as porters for its advance towards Mahenge, and only about one third came home; many died of hunger and disease. The war, the soldiers' seizure of food and heavy rains also caused a severe famine at the start of Belgian rule. The source is good evidence of how Belgium wanted its conquest to be seen, and a reminder to look for the people outside the frame.
Definition
Mandate: a former German or Ottoman territory that the League of Nations gave a member state to govern, with a duty to develop it; Ruanda-Urundi was a Class B mandate of Belgium from 1922. Trust territory: the same idea under the United Nations after 1946, with a clearer promise of self-government. Ruanda-Urundi: the Belgian-ruled territory made of today's Rwanda and Burundi.
Chiefdom and sub-chiefdom: the uniform administrative units created by the Belgian reforms. Forced labour: work that people were made to do for the state or its chiefs, such as carrying loads, building roads or growing set crops. Ubuhake: a cattle-clientship contract between a patron and a client, abolished by Mwami Mutara III Rudahigwa in 1954.
From 1924 the Belgians began to sideline the monarchy for good, and between 1926 and 1931, under Governor Charles Voisin and the Resident of Rwanda, Georges Mortehan, they remade Rwanda's government.
Human Rights Watch's history explains why this mattered. In the old system, people who felt exploited by one official could seek protection from a rival or move elsewhere. The reforms removed the rivals, the Belgians restricted changes of residence and banned new settlement in the forests, and chiefs now enforced new colonial demands, such as building roads and planting cash crops, often for their own profit. European administrators generally overlooked abuses by chiefs who delivered taxes, roads and coffee. The one escape left was emigration: from the 1920s thousands of Rwandans went abroad, many to Uganda and the Congo.
Musinga resisted Belgian control and refused to be baptised; the Belgians also accused him of disloyalty. On 12 November 1931 they deposed him, with the support of the Catholic bishop, Léon Classe, and on 16 November installed his son Rudahigwa as Mwami Mutara III. Musinga died in exile in the Congo in 1944. The Belgians had shown that the Mwami ruled only with their consent.
| Area | What Belgian rule brought |
|---|---|
| Identity | In the 1930s every Rwandan was registered as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa, and adults had to carry identity cards stating it; categories that had been flexible became fixed (unit 8) |
| Economy and labour | Cash crops, above all coffee; roads built with compulsory labour; taxes; restrictions on movement |
| Famine | The Rwakayihura famine (1928 to 1929) killed tens of thousands; the Ruzagayura famine (October 1943 to December 1944), caused by drought and made worse by sending food to the Congo for the war effort, killed between 36,000 and 50,000 and drove several hundred thousand people to emigrate |
| Education | Left mainly to Catholic missions; an elite secondary school, the Groupe Scolaire d'Astrida (Astrida was the colonial name of Butare, today's Huye), opened in 1929; as late as 1961 fewer than 100 people from Ruanda-Urundi had studied beyond secondary school |
| Religion | Mutara III was baptised in 1943 and in 1946 dedicated the country to Christ, followed by a wave of baptisms |
| Status | In December 1946 the United Nations made Ruanda-Urundi a trust territory, under the Trusteeship Council (unit 8) |
| Reform | In 1954 Mutara III abolished ubuhake, the cattle-clientship contract; historians judge that it had little practical effect |
Belgian rule was far more intrusive than German rule. It built roads, spread cash crops and mission schools, and took Rwanda into the world economy. But it also made the territory pay for itself through coffee and forced labour, failed to prevent terrible famines, kept higher education for very few, removed the Mwami's independence, and, through the chief reforms and identity cards, turned social categories into rigid, unequal classifications. Human Rights Watch concludes that by giving the Tutsi aristocracy a monopoly of office, "the Belgians set the stage for future conflict in Rwanda".
Warning
Do not write that "the Tutsi ruled the Hutu" under Belgium as if every Tutsi held power. The Belgian reforms gave office to a small aristocracy; most Tutsi, like most Hutu and Twa, were ordinary people who paid taxes and did forced labour. Name the group precisely: "the chiefs", "the aristocratic lineages", "the Belgian administration".
Tip
Belgian rule in four C's: Chiefs (the reforms of 1926 to 1931), Cards (identity registration in the 1930s), Coffee (and forced labour to pay for the colony), Church (schools, Classe, the 1946 dedication).
Important
Discuss. Under the mandate, Belgium had a duty to develop Ruanda-Urundi and prepare it for self-government. Using the evidence in this lesson, how well did it meet that duty by the 1950s? Consider roads and coffee, famines, schools, and who could hold office.
Practice
Key points
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the analysis, the diagram, the table and the exercises. This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Quick check
Put these Belgian-era events in order, earliest first.
Tap the cards in the right order.
