Effects of Belgian colonisation

1Why this matters

Colonial rule is sometimes defended because it built roads, schools and hospitals. A historian has to weigh those changes honestly against who paid for them, who benefited, and what lasting damage was done. This lesson sorts the effects of Belgian rule into political, economic, social and cultural effects.

2Political effects

• Loss of sovereignty. Real power lay with the Belgian Resident and, above him, the governor in Usumbura and the government in Brussels.
• A weakened monarchy. The Mwami became an instrument of colonial rule. A Mwami who resisted, like Musinga, could be removed.
• Politicised identities. Governing through a narrow group of chiefs, and fixing every person's label on an identity card, turned social categories into rigid political identities. (Lesson 4 looks at this in detail.)

3Economic effects

• Forced labour and compulsory crops. Rwandans were made to build roads and dig anti-erosion ditches without pay and to grow set crops. Chiefs who failed to meet targets were punished, and they in turn pressed ordinary farmers harder.
• Coffee became Rwanda's main export, and tin mining began. Profits flowed mainly to Belgian companies and the colonial treasury.
• Famines. Weather, forced labour and demands on farmers' time contributed to severe famines, above all Ruzagayura (1943–1944), when tens of thousands of people died and many more fled.
• Labour migration. Large numbers of Rwandans left to work in Uganda and the Belgian Congo, and Belgium also moved Rwandans to work and settle in the Congo.
• Roads and towns. A road network grew, built largely with forced labour and designed to move crops and officials.

4Social effects

• Christianity spread rapidly. In the 1930s so many chiefs and ordinary people were baptised that the period became known as the "tornado" of conversions. Mutara III Rudahigwa was baptised in 1943, and the Catholic Church became the most powerful institution after the state.
• Western education was run almost entirely by missions. The Groupe Scolaire of Astrida (today Huye), founded in 1929, trained clerks and assistants for the administration, and for decades most of its places went to the sons of Tutsi chiefs. At independence very few Rwandans had completed secondary school.
• Health. Hospitals, dispensaries and vaccination campaigns reduced some diseases.

5Cultural effects

• Rwandan religious practices, such as kubandwa, were discouraged or banned, and royal rituals lost their place.
• European dress, languages (French) and values gained prestige, and some Rwandan customs came to be seen as "backward".

Worked example: a balanced judgement

Question: "Belgian rule benefited Rwanda." How far do you agree?

Some changes brought lasting services: roads, a growing number of schools and hospitals, and vaccination. But forced labour, compulsory crops and whipping built much of this infrastructure, and it was designed to serve colonial needs. Education reached only a small elite, chosen on the basis of the colonial "race" theory. Most seriously, Belgium fixed Rwandans into ethnic categories and ruled by dividing them, which fed the violence of 1959 and after. The benefits were real but limited, and the costs were severe and long-lasting, so the statement cannot be accepted without major qualification.

Practice

Solution. A severe famine in 1943–1944 during which tens of thousands of Rwandans died. Colonial demands on farmers' labour and crops made it worse, and many people fled to neighbouring territories.

Solution. Any two of: forced labour; compulsory crops; coffee as the main export; tin mining; taxes in money; labour migration; roads built with forced labour.

Solution. Founded in 1929, it trained Rwandans to serve the colonial administration. Most places went to the sons of Tutsi chiefs, so it shows how colonial education served a narrow elite and deepened divisions.

Solution. Rwandan religious practices such as kubandwa were discouraged or banned, or European dress and language gained prestige over Rwandan customs.