Mahdist faith and the legitimation of popular revolt in western Sudan

Africa ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 390-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lidwien Kapteijns
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Border Area ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Source Materials

Opening ParagraphThis article is based on a wider study of the history of the western Sudan, in particular the border area between the historical sultanates of Dar Fur and Wadai (Kapteijns, 1985). The period under discussion is 1882–1930, from the successful struggle against foreign domination led by the Sudanese Mahdi to the firm establishment of British colonial rule in the western Sudan. The theme which this article explores for this area and period is that of popular revolt and Islamic (specifically Mahdist) ideology. The source materials for this study consist of Arabic correspondence from the Mahdist archives, oral data and British and French colonial records.

‘Natural Justice, Equity and Good Conscience’: History, Politics and Law in Nigeria, 1900–1966

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-25
Author(s):  
Katherine Isobel Baxter
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Good Conscience ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Indirect Rule

Chapter One provides an account of the history of colonial and postcolonial Nigeria, focusing particularly on politics and law. The chapter recounts the long history of British colonial presence in West Africa and explains the introduction of indirect rule as a system of colonial government from the turn of the century. Some of the impacts of indirect rule are considered through reference to Obafemi Awolowo’s memoir, Awo, and Chinua Achebe’s novel, Arrow of God. The chapter also sketches out the divisions that indirect rule fomented and the resistance to which it gave rise. Finally, the chapter explains the implications of indirect rule for the implementation of law in Nigeria both during colonial rule and following independence.

Self-Rule and the Problem of Peoplehood in Colonial India

2019 ◽  
Vol 114 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
NAZMUL S. SULTAN
Keyword(s):  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
Indian People ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Indefinite Future

This article theorizes the colonial problem of peoplehood that Indian anticolonial thinkers grappled with in their attempts to conceptualize self-rule, or swaraj. British colonial rule drew its legitimacy from a developmentalist conception of the colonized people as backward and disunited. The discourse of “underdeveloped” colonial peoplehood rendered the Indian people “unfit” for self-government, suspending their sovereignty to an indefinite future. The concept of swaraj would be born with the rejection of deferred colonial self-government. Yet the persistence of the developmentalist figuration of the people generated a crisis of sovereign authorization. The pre-Gandhian swaraj theorists would be faced with the not-yet claimable figure of the people at the very moment of disavowing the British claim to rule. Recovering this underappreciated pre-Gandhian history of the concept of swaraj and reinterpreting its Gandhian moment, this article offers a new reading of Gandhi's theory of moral self-rule. In so doing, it demonstrates how the history of swaraj helps trace the colonial career of popular sovereignty.

scholarly journals “Imperium in Imperio”: The Corporation, Mining, and Governance in British Southeast Asia, 1900–1930

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
DAVID BAILLARGEON
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
State Model ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Corporate Ventures

This article examines the history of mining in British Southeast Asia during the early twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the histories of the Burma Corporation and the Duff Development Company, which were located in British-occupied Burma and Malaya, respectively. It argues that despite being represented as “rogue” corporate ventures in areas under “indirect” colonial rule, the contrasting fates of each company—one successful, one not—reveal how foreign-owned businesses operating in the empire became increasingly beholden to British colonial state regulations during this period, marking a shift in policy from the “company-state” model that operated in prior centuries. The histories of these two firms ultimately demonstrate the continued significance of business in the making of empire during the late colonial period, bridging the divide between the age of company rule and the turn toward state-sponsored “development” that would occur in the mid-twentieth century.

Primary Materials

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-583
Author(s):  
Nida Rehman
Keyword(s):  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Model Improvement ◽  
Garden Plants ◽  
The City ◽  
Primary Materials

Abstract This article explores plants, seeds, soils, and other nonhuman actors as archival and architectural agents within the history of Lahore's urban landscape, as seen from the ground. It traces the halting efforts of the Agri-Horticultural Society of Punjab to enact regional improvement through the development of agricultural and botanical expertise at the advent of British colonial rule in the province, focusing on the materialization of this work in the society's gardens in Lahore. Foregrounding the contingencies of everyday garden making and maintenance, the article posits nonhuman ecologies as a materially diverse and ephemeral architecture and archive of landscape. It argues that, in helping assemble and modulate the society's efforts to model improvement, conduct plant testing, and develop an ornamental garden, plants, seeds, and soils become unlikely and sometimes unruly aesthetic and historical actors, furthering but also unsettling improvement discourse while relocating its historical effects from the region to the city, and providing new readings of the colonial urban landscape.

scholarly journals Muhammed ben Yusef: From a “Golden Cell” to the First 5-year Plan (Commemorating the 65th Anniversary of Independence of the Kingdom of Morocco)

2020 ◽  
pp. 56-67
Author(s):  
Nikolay N. Dyakov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political History ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Liberation Movement ◽  
65Th Anniversary ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
French Protectorate ◽  
In The Beginning

Muhammed b. Yusuf (1909–1961) — a key person in political history of Morocco in the middle of the 20th C. With his intronization in the beginning of the French colonial rule Muhammed b. Yusuf started in his biography a long and winding road from a puppet sultanate as an instrument of the French Protectorate, to the leadership in the liberation movement, becoming a symbol of nationalism and a father-founder of the independent Moroccan statehood restored in 1956.

India-Pakistan Relationship: A Case of Perpetual Instability

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanzeela Khalil
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Personal Involvement ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Two Sides

The study aims to dispassionately analyze what the future holds for Indo-Pak relations. The two sides have maintained strained relations since their independence from the British Colonial rule in 1947. It appears unlikely that India will change its course of action owing to the US support and resultant dismissiveness towards Pakistan’s peace overtures. The current security situation between India and Pakistan is presumed to be unprecedented because of Prime Minister (PM) Modi’s history of personal involvement in actions against Muslims and Pakistan. Therefore, the improvement in bilateral relations cannot be expected until the time some major compromises are made by the leadership on both sides. The lack of convergence in how each side views its security along with a long history of mistrust, are the root causes of this strained relationship. Although the broader dynamics of the Indo-Pak relationship cannot be analyzed in isolation from the very presence of nuclear weapons in the region; however, the occurrence or non-occurrence of crisis between India and Pakistan is not primarily subject to the presence or absence of nuclear weapons. The actual causes of conflict remain the non-resolution of outstanding disputes. To this end, India lacks a demonstrable and consistent political will to resolve conflicts through a spirit of accommodation, compromise, and reconciliation.

Mountstuart Elphinstone in South Asia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shah Mahmoud Hanifi ◽  
William Dalrymple
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Conducting Research

Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859), Lowland Scottish traveller, East India Company civil servant and educator, was one of the principal intellectual architects of British colonial rule in South Asia. Imbued with liberal views, such that Bombay's wealthy founded Elphinstone College in his memory, he pioneered the scholarly, scientific and administrative foundations of imperialism in India.  Elphinstone's career was launched when he was picked to lead the inaugural British diplomatic mission to the Afghan court. His Account of the Kingdom of Caubul (1815) became the main source of British information about Afghanistan. He is best known for his periods as Resident at Poona and Governor of Bombay in the 1810s and 1820s, when he instituted innovative and lasting policies in administration and education while also conducting research for his extremely influential History of India (1841).  This volume examines Mountstuart Elphinstone's intellectual contributions and administrative career in their own right, in relation to prominent contemporaries including Charles Metcalfe and William Moorcroft, and in the context of later historical study of India, Afghanistan, British imperialism and its imperial frontiers.

Language Policy in Tanzania

Africa ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyndon Harries
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
National Language ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Original Intention ◽  
British Rule ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Republic ◽  
African Writers ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphIt is generally understood that Swahili is the official national language of the Republic of Tanzania. Perhaps because the concept of a national language has never been clearly defined within the Tanzanian context, there is some misunderstanding in the minds of many Tanzanian citizens as to the factual linguistic situation in their country. Certainly at the time when the country became independent and Swahili was first proclaimed a national language, it was proclaimed as such in opposition to English. The original intention was eventually to replace the language of the former colonial rulers, English, with Swahili. Comments by responsible African writers support this original intention. For example, Professor Ali Mazrui in an article published as recently as 1967 commented on the comparatively mild and smooth conclusion of British colonial rule and contrasted this with the anti-British language policy in Tanganyika after independence. ‘While Kenya had a violent anti-British insurrection and Uganda had its moments of rioting and boycotting against this or that aspect of British rule, the nationalist movement in colonial Tanganyika sometimes seemed to be almost Anglophile. Yet that old Anglophile Tanganyika has now become, in the area of language policy, anti-English’.

History and Legitimacy: Aspects of the Use of the Past in Precolonial Dahomey

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 431-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Major Power ◽  
The Past ◽  
Slave Traders ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The Subject

The kingdom of Dahomey (or Fon) was probably founded during the first half of the seventheenth century, but emerged clearly as a major power only in the early eighteenth century when its king Agaja (ca. 1716–40) conquered its southern neighbours Allada (1724) and Whydah (1727), thereby establishing direct contact with the European slave-traders at the coast. Dahomey then remained the dominant power in the area until it was itself conquered by the French in the 1892–94. The kingdom ceased to exist as a political entity when its last king was deposed by the French in 1900, but a degree of institutional continuity has been maintained through the performance of rituals at the royal palace (now a museum) in the capital city Abomey. The history of Dahomey from the 1720s onwards is relatively well documented from contemporary European sources, enjoying in particular the unique distinction of being made the subject already in the eighteenth century of a published book—Archibald Dalzel's History of Dahomy (1793). There is also a rich and coherent corpus of narrative traditions relating to the kingdom's history, best known in the classic recension published in 1911 by the French colonial official Le Herissé, which is in fact merely a translation (and in some measure an abridgement, omitting some detailed material) of the account given to him by a single Dahomian informant, Agbidinukun, the chef de canton of the cercle of Abomey under French colonial rule and a brother of the last independent king of Dahomey, Behanzin (1889–94).

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