Divisive Colonial Policies in Rwanda
Senior 4 · History
Divisive Colonial Policies in Rwanda
Lesson 2 of 3
25 min
On 21 September 1927, Bishop Léon Classe, head of the Catholic Church in Rwanda, wrote to the Belgian Resident, Georges Mortehan, who was reorganising the chiefs. Classe argued that the young Tutsi would be a great help in advancing the colony, and that the Hutu would much rather receive orders from the Tutsi, whom he called "natural chiefs", than from commoners. In 1930 he warned again that removing the Tutsi from power would bring anarchy and anti-European communism.
Bishop Classe's letter of 1927 and statement of 1930, as summarised and quoted on Wikipedia.
Analyse it. Notice who is writing to whom: the leader of the Church advising the head of the colonial administration on who should govern Rwandans. Notice the assumption: that one category of Rwandans was born to rule. And notice the motive in 1930: fear of disorder and of communism, that is, fear for European control. A year later, in 1928, Mortehan barred Hutu and Twa from any role in the administration. The letter is evidence of how colonial and clerical power worked together, and of the racial ideas from lesson 1 being turned into policy.
Definition
Clerical: to do with the clergy, the priests and bishops of a church. Divide and rule: governing by setting groups against each other. Identity card: an official document that every adult had to carry; from the 1930s it recorded each Rwandan as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa.
Monopoly: control of something by one group only, such as public office or higher education. "Ethnic" is written in quotation marks in this unit because Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were social categories within one people with one language and culture, not separate ethnic groups in the usual sense.
| Policy | What happened | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Office for one group | The reforms of 1926 to 1931 removed Hutu and Twa, and many Tutsi outside the aristocratic lineages, from chiefly office and replaced them with Tutsi aristocrats; from 1928 Hutu and Twa were barred from the administration | A Tutsi monopoly of public life for a generation; power-holders identified with one category |
| 2. Schools for one group | Government schools in Kigali under the Germans taught Tutsi pupils; the Belgians kept administrative careers and higher education mostly for Tutsi, through schools such as the Groupe Scolaire d'Astrida (1929). Only a few Hutu could study, in Catholic seminaries | An educated class drawn almost only from one category; a small Hutu counter-elite formed in the seminaries |
| 3. Identity cards | In the 1930s every Rwandan was registered once as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa: about 84% declared themselves Hutu, about 15% Tutsi and 1% Twa. Adults carried cards; children were registered at birth | Flexible categories became rigid; some Europeans began to call them "castes" |
| 4. A Church that took sides | Bishop Classe promoted the Tutsi aristocracy, helped depose Musinga (1931) and choose Mutara III; missionaries wrote the first histories of Rwanda with the colonial myth (lesson 1) | Church authority gave the division moral weight; when the Church later changed sides (lesson 3), it again spoke the language of race |
Was this a deliberate policy of "divide and rule"? Human Rights Watch's historians argue that the Belgians "were not implementing a 'divide and rule' strategy so much as they were just putting into effect the racist convictions common to most early twentieth century Europeans". In other words, the colonisers believed their own myth. The effect was the same or worse: by giving one category a monopoly of power, they "set the stage for future conflict in Rwanda". The ruling elite, influenced by European ideas, stressed its separateness and supposed superiority, while Hutu, officially excluded from power, "began to experience the solidarity of the oppressed".
Remember also who did not benefit. Most Tutsi were not chiefs: they were ordinary people who paid taxes and did forced labour like their neighbours. The policy made a whole category look like the ruling class, which later made all its members targets.
After the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Rwanda chose to build a shared national identity. Programmes such as Ndi Umunyarwanda ("I am Rwandan"), which you studied in S2, ask citizens to face this colonial history honestly and to see themselves first as Rwandans.
Warning
Do not blame "the Tutsi" or "the Hutu" as whole groups for colonial policy. Colonial officials and missionaries designed it; a small elite of chiefs benefited from it; most Rwandans of every category bore its burdens. Write about specific actors: Classe, Mortehan, the Belgian administration, the aristocratic chiefs.
Tip
Four roots of division: "O-S-C-C". Office (chiefs from one group), Schools (education for one group), Cards (categories fixed in the 1930s), Church (Classe's influence and the colonial history).
Important
Discuss. An identity card that recorded a category decided, in 1994, whether many people lived or died. What should a state record about its citizens, and what should it never record? How does recording identity in law change the way people see themselves and each other?
Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre, "Rwanda ID Document | Archive Friday", a short film about an identity document in the centre's collection. Note how a category written on a card in the colonial era became, in 1994, a matter of life and death.
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
What does Bishop Classe's letter of 1927 best show?
