2. Introduction
2.3 British Colonial Rule (1919-1961)
Germany's loss in the First World War ended her colonial interlude in eastern Africa. Britain occupied German East Africa during the war that
113 I. N. Kimambo and A. J. Temu, A History of Tanzania, (Dar es Salaam: East African Publishing House, 1969), p. 132f.
114Ibid. , p. 142.
ended in 1918, and renamed it Tanganyika in 1922 when the League of Nations consigned Tanganyika to the British empire.116 Tanganyika was not a colony in the formal sense but an internationally mandated territory to be administered in the interests of peace, order and good government and of the material and moral wellbeing of its inhabitants.117
The coming of British rule was greeted with mixed feelings. The chiefs and the majority of the Hehe, who did not like the Germans, were pleased to see the Germans leave. Not knOWing the character and attitude of the new master, however, left them unsure about the future. The immediate victims of the change were those who had worked for the Germans in the war, in offices and in the plantations.
The first five years of British rule in Tanganyika was used for reconstruction, not only after the destruction caused by the First World War but also because of an influenza epidemic that had hit the territory. In addition, the territory was subjected to a monstrously debilitating famine. The lingering economic effects of the Maji Maji uprising in the southern and eastern regions also needed to be addressed.
The British policy in Tanganyika still resembled, if in somewhat less brutal fashion, the early German policy, which had viewed the country as a resource serving European needs. Development was not aimed at benefiting the African population directly; Africans received very little education and were generally excluded from middle-level or high-level positions in government and business. Tanganyika's economy was
115Ibid., p. 151.
116 Rodger Yeager, Tanzania: An African Experiment, (Boulder: Western Press, 1982), p. 11.
117 Ibid.
organized to meet Britain's post-war needs, which were best served by integrating the economies of Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda.118
The British never altered their view of Tanganyika as a source of raw materials and trade for the British economy, but the significance of that approach became increasingly apparent as Britain tried desperately to rebuild its war-battered economy. This seems to have led to a more active British role in Tanganyika's affairs after 1945. The underlying philosophy of British policy remained the same: growth was concentrated in the agricultural products and raw materials export sector; an unequal system of education and income was maintained on the basis of race. An informal but effective colour bar prevented Africans from rising in the public service. The economic sector was blocked by an Asian entrepreneurial elite, which was encouraged by the colonial authorities partly to provide a socio-economic buffer between them and the African community. The local political level was still dominated by conservative native authorities that reacted unsympathetically to demands for change.119 The British assumed that the chiefs enjoyed power and influence in local areas and that they could be successful vehicles for helping to put into practice British policy. What the British did not realize was that any power the chiefs enjoyed stemmed from the belief of the people that their interests were being represented. IneVitably, the relationship of the chiefs with the British won the people's confidence in the chiefs and brought the people to see the chiefs as nothing more than employees of the British.
118C. George Kahama, The Challenge for Tanzania's Economy(London: James Currey, 1986), p. 1.
119 Ibid., p. 18.
Like the Germans, the British introduced indirect rule120 in three ways:
they recognised the local chiefs (mutwa), so that colonial laws could easily be transmitted through them; they established Native Courts that dealt with customary law issues; and they established Native Treasuries, which assisted in collecting taxes from the people. This strategy enabled the British to unite the chiefs in the country.
Governor Byatt believed that there was no alternative to this practice:
It is beyond the bounds of possibility that a single European officer can properly administer his district or sub-district except with the assistance of the tribal chiefs as intermediaries, and it is therefore the policy of this Government to support and strengthen the authority of chiefs among their people rather than to acquiesce in its decay. In any case, it is a policy which no doubt would be forced upon us at some future stage of social evolution, when the people begin to demand some voice in the regulation of their own affairs; and the early chaos which resulted in some districts where tribal authority was entirely destroyed by the Germans is ample demonstration of the unwisdom of adopting their conception of the government of native people. 121
In Tanganyika, the lack of a dominant ethnic group and the relatively widespread use of a single language facilitated the transformation of local anger and frustration with British policy into an integrated national movement. Unfortunately, one British policy enjoyed a success that not even the unified strength of mind of the people to become independent could overcome: the creation in the Tanganyikan
120 Lord Lugard F. D. author of a book entitled, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1923, used tribal rule in the implementation of British policy in Nigeria. Aspects of the indirect rule system has been a continual policy of British colonial rule since it was first used with the Catholic Scottish highland tribes by Protestant Britain in the 17th century. In South Africa indirect rule goes back to Theophil Shepstone who was called by the English government to take charge of the native department, an office of no ordinary importance and responsibility, when 1000 Africans had to be managed, their disputes settled and judgements awarded.
He did fulfil! these duties with great ability during the mid 19th century. See also Jeff Guy, An accommodation of patriarchs: Theophilus Shepstone and the foundations of the system of Native Administration in Natal, in Colloquium Masculinities in Southern Africa, University of Natal, Durban 2-4 July 1997 Vol. 1.
121Tanzania National Archives, Native Administration Policy 1929 -1926, File No. 777.
economy of a deep, structural dependence on external relations, especially with Uganda and Kenya.
The basic lack of attention given to education for Africans before independence in Tanganyika was consistent with Britain's apparent strategy of reducing the possibility of a mass movement for independence and keeping the country in a highly dependent position:
independence would hardly seem a realistic possibility without a sufficient number of educated leaders who could oversee the country's primary institutions. Just as it happened in the church, after independence, the impact of the British strategy became quite clear in the controversy that erupted within the country over the transfer of jobs from Europeans to Africans. The government's speed of Africanisation seemed too slow in the eyes of the unions and employees who saw themselves as the natural beneficiaries of the change.122
Education had been established on fairly clear racial lines: separate schools were established for Africans, Asians and Europeans.
Europeans and Asians enjoyed a system of six years of primary school and six years of secondary school. African children faced a more uneven system of four years of primary school, four years of middle school, two years of junior secondary school and two years of senior secondary school.123 This fragmentation was undoubtedly formulated to create a number of points at which education could be considered complete, thus creating a greater number of opportunities for compelling children to leave school. Each point of transition from a lower to a higher form provided an opportunity for restricting the
122Thomas Jesse Jones, Education in East Africa (New York: n. d.), 23-24.
123 Ibid.
movement of African children through the system and for controlling the educational pyramid.
To magnify the problems that already existed, curricula were generally oriented towards developing clerical skills for the few Africans who would enter the modern sector to provide assistance to the non- Africans holding middle-level and upper-level positions. This education system not only created a structure that would bring about African dependency upon well-trained non-Africans, but also effectively created an elite system as was outlined in the 1924 annual report of the Education Department:
... an educational system which will provide for African needs and at the same time produce a virile and loyal citizen of the Empire... where character, health, industry, and a proper appreciation of the dignity of manual labour rank as of the first importance...the school... is the center of all Government propaganda work.124
Based on the above objectives, the African education was planned to shape and produce Africans who could work for, support and accept the colonial administration. In the first place, the British colonial education policy was primarily intended for the children of chiefs, sub- chiefs and headmen.125 The colonial government feared that if the African educated class became independent of the tribal authority, there would be a danger of political agitation against that authority and later against the central colonial government. It was important to prevent what had happened in India from taking place in Tanganyika.
Also since the government had introduced colonial rule through tribal
124 Marjorie Mbilinyi, "Peasant Education in Tanzania", in The African Review: A Journal of African Politics, Development and International Affairs, Vol. 6 No. 2 1976,
p.237.
125 Minutes of the Tanganyika Administrative Conference of1924, pp. 31-32, in Tanganyika National Archives, Oar es Salaam.
chiefs, it was appropriate to educate them so that they could effectively carry out the colonial instructions and orders.126
Africans resented this system and criticized it. Actions taken by the British government, such as the setting of industrial wages, the close control of union activity and political organizations, the extraction of agricultural surplus through cooperatives, and the development of a racially divided education system, produced a reaction among the people of Tanganyika that fed the peaceful movement for independence. This consciousness not only affected the nation but, as we shall see later on, played a role in the missionary work. In light of the above, both the Germans and the British government perpetuated racial and ethnic divisions and the missionaries who established mission fields and worked on ethnic lines also adopted this strategy.
These racial divisions brought about political awareness as we shall see in the following section.
2.4 The movement towards political independence in