Indirect rule

Indirect rule was used by various colonial rulers such as: the French in Algeria and Tunisia, the Dutch in the East Indies, the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique and the Belgians in Rwanda and Burundi.

Through this system, the day-to-day government and administration of both small and large areas were left in the hands of traditional rulers, who gained prestige and the stability and protection afforded by the Pax Britannica (in the case of British territories).

The theory behind this solution to a very practical problem (referred to as 'The Native Question' by Mahmood Mamdani in his work Citizen and Subject[5]) of control by a tiny group of foreigners of huge populations is laid out in Lugard's influential work, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa.

This economic question coupled with the shortage of or lack of European personnel in Africa at the time, convinced the British that it would be cheaper to use the traditional institutions to achieve the same objective.

[8] Indirect rule was cheaper and easier for the European powers and, in particular, it required fewer administrators, but had a number of problems.

In many cases, European authorities empowered local traditional leaders, as in the case of the monarchy of Uganda, but if no suitable leader could be found (in the traditional Western sense of the term), the Europeans would simply choose local rulers to suit them.

[9] This was the case in Kenya and Southern Nigeria, and the new leaders, often called "warrant chiefs", were not always supported by the local population.

[10] From the early 20th century, French and British writers helped establish a dichotomy between British indirect rule, exemplified by the Indian princely states and by Lugard's writings on the administration of northern Nigeria, and French colonial direct rule.

[20][21] While making more subtle distinctions, this model of direct versus indirect rule was dominant in academia from the 1930s[22] until the 1970s.