Colonialism, development and order

In most Africa colonies, including the High Commission Territories, the colonial state looked to indirect rule to create social stability. The political aim of indirect rule was to create effective hierarchical ‘native’ administrative structures ruling over clearly

bounded and essentially homogeneous communities (usual defined as tribes). There is an extensive literature on the way in which early British colonial officials attempted to re-order African society to produce clearly hierarchical bounded communities.45 A

1929 statement by the Secretary for Native Affairs in Northern Rhodesia is frequently cited in this literature. He noted that in 1924 when the Colonial Office took over

44 Baring, E. ‘Economic Developments under the High Commission in South Africa’, African Affairs, 51,2 0 4 ,1 9 5 2 , pp. 222-230. In this article Baring wrote that the migrant labour system was ‘far from favourable to the happy growth of contented African farmers permanently resident on their holdings’. Contrary to my arguments above this statement might be seen as an indication that Baring was opposed to the migrant labour system. It is important, however, to note the audience the 1952 paper was written for. As the article was based on an address to the Royal African Society Baring was probably concerned to create a favourable impression amongst the London Africanist circles who were, on the whole, anti-South Africa and pro-indirect rule.

4 ^ Berry, S. ‘Hegemony on a Shoestring: Indirect Rule and Access to Agricultural Land’, Africa, 62, 3,1992, pp. 327-355, provides a useful review of this literature.

administration from the British South Africa Company ‘the tribes were in a very disorganised state’, but since then tribal organisation had been ‘created’.46

Mamdani argues that the main technique used by the British colonial authorities to create ordered communities was to identify and establish suitable leaders. Aware of the power this new position gave them the chiefs would ensure that the rest fell into

place.47 In line with ‘invention of tradition’ arguments, Mamdani stresses the fixed structure of African society created through colonialism and downplays the

contradictions and ambiguities created through this process and the role of a continuing struggle over the form of African society and the meaning of African customary law.

While I would reject Mamdani’s characterisation of a successful and relatively uncontested re-ordering of African society through colonialism, his concentration on the possibilities for control that colonial ideas about African society presented for chiefly authorities is pertinent.

In Lesotho members of the senior Koena lineage were able to take advantage of the colonial state’s desire to ensure a hierarchical structure of authority with the Paramount Chief at the pinnacle.48 The colonial state also held out development policies as a mechanism for chiefs to maintain control. One of the earliest references to the threat of pasture degradation in Lesotho, the report of a conversation between the Assistant Resident Magistrate and a group of senior chiefs, makes the connection between conservation and political control explicit:

Assistant Resident Magistrate, Thaba Bosiu [Rolland]... I foresee considerable inconvenience will arise from the rapidly increasing wealth and population.

People who have been absent for many years are coming back with the wealth they have acquired and if you chiefs do not observe some arrangements in preventing the formation of new villages, and in setting the arable lands apart leaving enough room for pasturage, the country will not support either people or stock.

Moketse for Chief Moletsane ... I agree with Mr Rolland and others who say that the villages are too small and too much scattered about the country; they should be larger so as to have fewer of them, and thus bring the arable lands more with compass and make the pasture land more open and available.

Chief Tlalele.... but you are spoiling and wasting it (the land) by making separate villages; I say have large villages and when you move the presently widely

scattered huts, plant pumpkins where your gardens (i.e. fields) and pasture land

46 Quoted in Chanock, M. Law, Custom and Social Order, (Cambridge, 1985), p. 112.; also in Berry,

‘Hegemony on a Shoestring’, p. 332; and Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, p. 81.

47 Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, p. 81.

4 8 Moshoeshoe I was o f the Koena lineage or clan. Ian Hamnett notes that according to a 1956 survey

‘not more than about 30 per cent o f the population are Koena, [but] the bulk o f the chieftainship are Koena chiefs’; Hamnett, I. ‘Koena Chieftainship Seniority in Basutoland’, Africa, 35, 3,1965, pp.

241-251.

ought to be. Every man that asks the chief for leave to form a village gets it at once and places it in the middle of what ought to be reserved for pastures.49 In the 1940s and 1950s the Ward Chiefs of Mokhotlong and Qacha’s Nek both enforced villagisation programmes. This process was justified on the grounds of

development/conservation but I would argue had as much to do with the C hiefs concerns about maintaining control over far-flung mountain villages.50 Certainly one of the aims of the programme was to break-up communities labelled as being the home of stock thieves.51

While colonial authorities in Africa modelled themselves as the trustees of African society, they, in turn, ascribed to chiefly authorities the role of trustees of customary law and communal land. Rural (community) development interventions were logically channelled through the trustees of community resources. In 1951 Basil Davidson interviewed L.H. Collett, the Basutoland Agricultural Officer in charge of the massive lowland contour bank building programme. In response to a question about how they had managed to implement the scheme successfully, Collett replied:

The tribal system. We can’t do anything without that. We explain the methods to the chiefs, and the chiefs pass down our orders to the villages and see that the orders are carried o u t52

As custodians of customary law, chiefs were able to claim new legislation introduced in the name of conservation or development as customary matters to be tried in their courts. Colonial conservation regulations were enforced not through the colonial civil legal system but through the customary courts. In 1932,776 people were convicted in customary courts in Malawi for offences against the Forest Laws, 387 for violating Township Regulations and 227 for breaches of the tobacco and cotton uprooting rules.53 In Lesotho, Baring argued that the myriad minor offences that would cumulatively cause an environmental disaster would go unpunished if the authorities had to try the

49 Extract from the Minutes of a Public Meeting held at Maseru, 2 October 1874, Cape o f Good Hope, Blue Book (Native Affairs, 1875, G21), quoted by Sheddick, Land Tenure, p. 66-67.

50 This contrasts with the situation in Northern Rhodesia where Bemba Chiefs were not generally amenable to the colonial state’s attempts to enforce a minimum size to villages: ‘When admonished that their authority would dwindle if they permitted their “subjects” to scatter, Bemba chiefs blandly countered that “the greater the number of villages, the greater the prestige o f the ch ief’.’

Berry, ‘Hegemony on a Shoestring’, p. 340, citing Ranger, T. The Agricultural History o f Zambia (Historical Association o f Zambia Pamphlet 1, Lusaka, 1971).

51 In 1952 Bowmaker reported that a village established near the Koakoatsi Pass was known to be ‘a haunt of stock theives’. He continued: ‘This no doubt will be seen to by Chief Matlere when a village re-grouping scheme is effected’. LNA 2476/11, Bowmaker, ‘A report on a visit to Mokhotlong from 6 - 2 8 March 1952’.

52 Collett in Davidson, B. ‘Crisis in the Protectorates’, New Statesman and Nation, 25 August 1951.

53 Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, p. 123.

cases ‘in due form before a major court’. Offences needed to be dealt with quickly,

‘near the scene’ and in ‘accordance with native law and custom’.54

As I will discuss in more detail in chapter 7, the Paramount Chief of Lesotho was given the power to make rules and order for the ‘peace, good order and welfare of his

people’.55 Many of the areas in which the Paramount Chief could issue Orders related to agricultural development or conservation policies including the right to issue Orders to ‘regulate grazing’ and ‘prevent soil erosion*.56 This Proclamation appears to be a more or less exact repetition of 1927 Native Authorities Ordinance enacted in

Tanganyika. As in Lesotho, the initiative for these new orders came from the colonial state but they were reported as being locally formulated and imposed by the relevant

‘Native Authorities’ in response to local conditions and needs. 57

Conservation and development interventions were enacted through customary law in chiefly courts, but colonial administrators, in particular District Commissioners, supervised their activities and tried to act as arbitrators in disputes over the meaning of customary regulations. When the Paramount Chief in Lesotho instructed Ward and Principal Chief that they must implement grazing control policies in the areas under their jurisdiction, it was the District Commissioners who pressurised individual chiefs to enact the new ‘customary’ regulations.58