Colonialism

It was in the early 17th century that the first white man set foot in what was or perhaps even is the most intriguing land of all Black Africa. It was the age of exploration. European explorers went around the world, visiting various lands and coming in contact with all kinds of people, people that were they knew nothing about. In retrospect that age was the probably the beginning of the diminishing world but it was to lead to perhaps one of the most controversial political systems of all time colonialism by which powerful European countries went into, traded and finally governed various parts of the world that were technologically inferior to them and were thus unable to resist subjugation. Africa, though the birthplace of humanity, had little to offer it. So, it is not surprising that much of it had migrated to lands that were less hostile climatically and had more fertile soil. The people that had remained had not changed much since those days and were still members of various tribes, speaking dozens of different languages some steeped in pagan worship and cannibalism. However, their culture was ancient and mystical and their mission was survival as opposed to the determination of their migrant brothers to develop. This difference was soon to be considered as proof of African barbarianism. It was with casual interest that the first European came to Africa. They returned full of tales of the savage people and their barbaric customs. However, another thing that they had also noticed was the various opportunities of trade available. Africa had a lot to offer in the shape of raw materials, cheap sources of labor, slaves etc. Thus, the trader followed the explorers into the black continent and laid the foundations of colonial rule. A century or so later, European powers were locked in a struggle for occupying more and more land in Africa. Some Africans resisted the takeover, but their spear wielding armies were swept aside by the Maxim gun and the repeater rifle. Much of Africa gave in without a fight, its kings signed away sovereignty with a thumbprint. Many allied with the intruders believing they would help them fight with other tribes. Others were overawed by the technology they saw in the shape of guns and other weapons. Thus, various European powers blast! ed or signed their way through Africa. When the scramble as it is called threatened to cause a rift among the Europeans, they decided to meet and sort out their differences.

This resulted in the partition of Africa by the powers into spheres of influence. This partition was done in a way that displayed the indifference the Europeans felt for the African people. The partition was done by diplomats sitting thousands of miles away by simply drawing straight lines on a map without a thought for the people that they be might separated or the geography. That was perhaps the least of their worries. Posing as parents to the Africans, The Europeans counted them taxed them and ordered into tribes and where there werent any, they created them. The best land was taken for plantations and the minerals dug out and shipped back to Europe. Africans saw little of their lands wealth. The European occupation of Africa was short-lived barely a generation in some areas. Throughout their rule, the European version of politics was kept exclusively for Europe, only a few references were made to it while they lowered the flag. Africa was left psychologically and politically impoverished. Much of it is still so. Modern Africa Floods in Mozambique, threats of famine in Ethiopia, mass murder in Uganda, he implosion of Sierra Leone, and a string of wars across the continent. The new millennium has brought more disaster than hope to Africa. However, a few candles of hope are still flickering or a brief moment in the 1990s there were signs of improvement. World Bank figures showed some economic growth in the continent, enough to take more people out of poverty than in years. At the same time, multi-party democracy spread across the continent and new leaders emerged- Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia. This new breed” wanted to make life better for all their people by providing basic health care and education. They seemed to understand that peace and good government were essential. Though most of them had been socialists, they embraced the free market.

Democracy and liberalization seemed to flourish. There was talk of an African renaissance. It was an illusion. The new leaders became embroiled in wars, some with each other, and the cheerful statistics were the result of good rains and bad accounting. Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole had a growth rate of less than 3% in that period, which just about kept step with the rate of population increase. So no one was getting richer. The figures not to mention the recent crop of disasters and wars–now suggest that Africa is losing the battle. All the bottom places in the world league tables are filled by African countries, and the gap between them and the rest of the world is widening. According to Paul Collier of the World Bank, only 15% of Africans today live in an environment considered minimally adequate for sustainable growth and development. At least 45% of Africans live in poverty, and African countries need growth rates of 7% or more to cut that figure in half in 15 years. Only three countries in sub-Saharan Africa Congo-Brazzaville, Angola and Rwanda–are growing that fast. The first two are oil producers, and oil is notorious for destroying other economic life forms in Africa. Rwanda’s growth is aid-driven. Last year, sub-Saharan Africa as a whole grew by only 2.5%. Most of these countries cannot do better, says the Economic Commission for Africa, because, apart from South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius, they lack the basic structures needed to develop. AIDS deaths are rising, especially among the young urban middle class who could bring about Africa’s political and economic revival.

The next generation will be more numerous, poorer, less educated and more desperate. With most African countries tottering on their feet and some on the brink of collapse, some people ask whether the problem is due to Africas colonial experienceinherent inadequacies of the African? For apologists of colonialism, the answer is simple. Whatever the shortcomings of colonial rule, the overall effect was beneficial for Africa. Ofcourse there had been exploitation but the economic gap between Africa and the West had been reduced. Colonialism had laid the foundations for economic and intellectual growth. It brought enlightenment where there was ignorance. Slavery and other barbaric practices were suppressed. Africans were given a taste of formal education and enjoyed the benefits of modern medicine. Modern communications and new industries were established. Africans were reformed politically as well. Where there had been tribes, there were now modern states. The political turmoil in Africa is not due to colonization but because Africans were unable to take advantag! e of its inherited institutions. Critics of colonialism say that this theory is racist. They maintain that colonialism left Africa poorer than ever. African labor and resources were exploited and Africans never saw the wealth of that their country possessed. Guyanese historian Walter Rodney in his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa contends that under colonialism “the only thing that developed were dependency and underdevelopment.” The African people are survivors. Living in a land where soils are poor, lasting only a few planting seasons, the sun burning harshly, the rain either not coming or washing everything away (Mozambique), the beasts and bugs big and diseases fatal, they have survived the greatest calamities known to man. Besides these indigenous forces of destruction, he also survived the invasion of first the Semantics and then the Caucasian, the Maxim rifle, the slave traders, laboring away for a master that he never knew, imported diseases, mineral exploitation. However, when it was all over and the African people were free, they found themselves unable to survive the huge responsibility of existing on their own. The disease that plagues them is not AIDS, it is dependency.

The most damaging effect of imperialism on the black man was not physical. I f it had been perhaps he would have survived it. It was psychological. The Europeans that had come to Africa had no appreciation for the mystical culture of the Africans. In their minds, all Africans were barbarians with no civilization, culture or religion. They needed to be led out of their ignorance which the Europeans were very happy to provide. Therefore there came with the traders and the explorers, the missionaries who came to give the Africans enlightenment. However, while doing their noble task of educating the African people, they first had to make the people believe that they had to learn and respect all things European and in that way realize the inferiority of their own culture and civilization. The missionaries passed on to their pupils contempt of indigenous culture and civilization. European education and Christianity were thrust upon the natives the material that was taught talked o! f the superiority of the European races. A class of Africans was created that had European education and very little self-confidence. One example: the East African reported recently that a white foreigner had been appointed to head the Kenya Commercial Bank, since `it became clear that the appointment of an indigenous Kenyan might lead to a run on the bank.”

In disrupting pre-colonial political systems that worked for Africans and imposing alien models, colonialism laid the seeds of political crisis. By redrawing of the map of Africa, throwing diverse people together without consideration for established borders, ethnic conflicts were created that are now destabilising the continent. African states were not forged by ethnicity, nationalism and war. They were simply bequeathed by departing imperial powers who left highly centralised, authoritarian states to a tiny group of western-educated Africans who rushed in and took over. The new nation-states were artificial and many were too small to be viable. Fewer than a third of the countries in Africa have populations of more than 10 million. Nigeria, the major exception to this, was imbued with ingredients for its self-destruction. Western multi-party democracy imposed by colonial powers polarised African societies. “It was the introduction of party politics by colonial administration ! that set off the fire of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria,” wrote one Itodo Ojobo in the New Nigerian newspaper in 1986. Some of those states, such as Congo, were established by Europeans as businesses to be milked for profit. Their successors simply continued the practice. Africa has an abundance of valuable minerals and some good land, attracting outsiders to extract the raw materials and ignore the rest. Independence often meant little more than a change in the colour of the faces of the oppressors. The new rulers made few changes on the surface, except to tweak constitutions to favour those in power. The African state, as invented by Europeans, has been neither deconstructed nor reconstituted.

In some places, however as in Somalia it has been destroyed. The new elite proclaimed national unity and denounced tribalism; but they soon found, like the imperial powers before them, that manipulating tribal affiliation was essential to preserving power. It is not just unluckly coincidence that Africa has had such a poor crop of leaders. Colonialism was forced upon Africa. It was a dictatorship in which people had no right to self-determination. However, when it was time to leave, an alien institution was imposed upon the people and they were expected to adopt it obediently. Leaders emerge from a society, and they remain a part of it. Therefore, Africans are just as lost as their leaders. The proof of this can be seen every day in the waiting rooms of Africa’s presidential palaces. Slumped on the sofas will be diplomats waiting for an audience, foreign businessmen often dodgy ones looking for a contract, and members of the president’s family or clan in search of money for school fees or a funeral. Whatever the diary says, most presidents try to satisfy the family first. The demands of Africa are more powerful than those of the outside world. Thus, tribalism is a part of the African and it cannot leave him no matter what the! IMF says. In most countries, a man standing for office tries to demonstrate that he shares the concerns of the common man. In Africa, a politician has to show that he has escaped from ordinary life: that he is a Big Man, powerful and rich, a benefactor far above the people whose support he seeks. Many African leaders grew up in dire poverty, and like to demonstrate their change of circumstances through conspicuous displays of western wealth. Few African palaces have anything in them made in Africa. By personalising power, African leaders have undermined rather than boosted national institutions. The recent apparent spread of democracy in the continent is often a sham. Traditionally, African societies, with a few exceptions such as those of the Somalis or the Ibos in Nigeria, were not very democratic, though many had checks on the powers of the ruler. Today, only a few countries have a middle class, a body of professionals and businessmen with an allegiance to a national entity, laws and institutions, which they regard as greater than the ruler or his party.

Zimbabwe, which should have such a middle class, has shown in recent weeks that, apart from a few brave judges, officials consider their allegiance is owed to the president, not to the state. There are elections in Africa, but little democracy. Some rulers, like Uganda’s Mr Museveni, argue that party elections are actually bad for Africa, because parties divide people along ethnic lines. Aid donors have finally reject! ed Mr Museveni’s no-party democracy, and are sceptical of Ethiopia’s opposite experiment with parties based on ethnicity. Nor have other African countries taken up these ideas. The aid donors, whose support is essential for African rulers, demand multi-party democracy on a western model. But they have applied it inconsistently. Cynics call it donor democracy just enough fair voting and respect for human rights to satisfy the aid donors. Certainly, there would be few elections in Africa were it not for outside pressure. Yet democracy does not have much to offer Africa. Democracies there are no more stable than dictatorships, and civil wars are just as common. In the economic sphere, autocracies may find it easier than democracies to keep to IMF and World Bank conditions such as tight money supply, low inflation and fewer civil servants. Sudan, an international pariah with no democracy and no international assistance, is doing as well as anyone these days, with a current growth rate of more than 7%. Much of Africa is ruled more by rainfall than politics. Another phenomena that not only colonialism but present day Imperialism has created is that of a shell state. The African ruler finds himself trapped. He wants power and control; but the outside world makes demands about democracy, human rights and good governance, which weaken his position and could cost him his job. If he cannot use the treasury as his private bank account and the police as his private army, he tries to create alternative sources of wealth and power.

This is why more and more African rulers are turning their countries into shell states. On the outside, these have all the trappings of a modern state: borders, flags, ministers, civil services, courts. Inside, they have been hollowed out. The supreme master of the shell state was Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, which was renamed Congo when he was thrown out in 1997. During Mobutu’s 35-year rule, Zaire had ministers and a cabinet, ministries and governors, officials and diplomats. These appeared to make up the structure of a government. In fact, they were Mobutu’s personal networks, through which he stole the wealth of Congo. In the early 1990s, the Ministry of Mines in the capital, Kinshasa, was empty except for one floor. Its officials used their positions for the perks: an office with a telephone, perhaps a car. During office hours, however, they engaged in other business. On the top floor, the minister presided, protected by a couple of soldiers (A little sweet for us, please,” they would ask each visitor), and a secretary. The waiting room was packed with Zaireans coming to beg favours, many of them relatives, and half-a-dozen Europeans clutching bulging briefcases. They were there to bribe the minister for mining permits. He could keep the money for himself, unless Mobutu called him to ask for cash; in which case, he would have to disgorge some of his takings.If Mobutu thought someone was becoming too powerful, he would sack him or even jail him. Once back in favour, however, he might be posted to another lucrative feeding ground. The state treasury probably never saw a cent; the people we! re robbed, often directly and brutally, by junior officials, soldiers and policemen in the street. When Mobutu was under pressure to democratise in the early 1990s, he urged his unpaid army to go and loot. They did, destroying what was left of the country’s commerce and creating chaos–which Mobutu promptly used as an excuse to postpone elections and make his rule indispensable. There are parts of Liberia that appear to be normal functioning institutions of a conventional state. Some ministers are not corrupt, and Mr Taylor himself can talk to visitors well enough about his worthy aims for the country. The visitors are often impressed. But are they right to be? What is happening on the surface may be no clue to the way the country is run behind the scenes. Mr Taylor recently passed a law that gives him the right to dispose of all “strategic commodities”.

These are defined as all mineral resources, all natural forest products, all art, artefacts and handicrafts, all agricultural and fishery products and anything else the president chooses to call strategic. Liberia is, in fact, Charles Taylor Inc. In Kenya and Zambia, powerful politicians, not necessarily the presidents, use their political positions to amass fortunes which they then use for political ends. They work through hidden networks, with their placemen in key positions in important ministries. Kenya still has the remains of a credible civil service, which, though corrupt, still handles the country’s official paperwork. At the same time, a hidden network intervenes and blocks whatever is inconvenient for the men who are really in charge. Zambia has such a network too, more powerful than the state. It is hard to say who is responsible for Africas ills. It is just as hard to give a balance-sheet on colonialism. What is unequivocal is that it was an imposition of alien rule. Whatever may have been its pluses and minuses, colonialism was a dictatorial regime that denied peoples right of self determination. It brought death, pain and humiliation to millions of its victims. To meet their economic and administrative needs colonial powers built some infrastructure, like railway to carry export commodities, and they educated a few Africans to help them run the colonies. But nowhere in Africa were positive contributions made to any substantial extent. Countries like Nigeria and Ghana, which were among the better endowed colonies were left with only a few rail lines, rudimentary infrastructure and a few thousand graduates. This was better than others. For instance, the Portuguese left their colonies with very little. At independence in 1975, Mozambique had only three dozen grad! uates. If the legacies of the different colonial powers were rated by Africans today, the powers that bequeathed the greatest amount of western culture to its colonies would likely score most votes.

Only reactionary aristocrats in northern Nigeria would today thank the British for keeping out western education in their region. It is clear to most northerners that they were placed at a disadvantage to the south by the educational gap between the two regions. When Flemish missionaries in the Belgium Congo learnt African languages to teach local children in their mother tongues, the children did not thank them. Young Congolese protested repeatedly and demanded to learn French because this was the way to gain access to the wider world. It is impossible to say what would have been the shape of contemporary African history had colonial rule never taken place. Some Western historians have argued that most less developed regions of the world, particularly Africa, lacked the social and economic organisation to transform themselves into modern states able to develop into advanced economies. “If they had not become European possessions the majority would probably have remained very much as they were,” wrote Cambridge historian D.K. Fieldhouse. African nationalists dismiss this claim. “It is not true that Africa couldnt have developed without colonialism. If it were true, then there is something wrong with the rest of world which developed without it,” the late Nigerian politician Moshood Abiola told a conference in 1991. Africans point out that Japan, China and parts of Southeast Asia were never colonised, yet they are today major world economies. These countries, however, had certain attributes in the nineteenth century that enabled them to adapt more easily to modernisation than might have traditional African societies in the same period. The Asian nations had more educated labour force and were technologically more advanced. Most importantly, their ruling classes were more ideologically committed to social progress and economic development. It is, of course, a presumption that modernisation is desirable. The fact that western society is more complex than traditional African society does not necessarily mean that it is better.

Complexity does not equal human progress. Pre-colonial African societies were materially less developed than societies in other regions of the world, but they were no less balanced and self-contained than any elsewhere. Africans were no less happy or felt less accomplished than Europeans or Japanese. Who is to say whether people living in agrarian societies are less developed as human beings than inhabitants of industrialised ones? However, had Africa not been colonised, the likelihood is that its elite would still have wanted to consume the products and services of western industrial nations. It is unlikely that African chiefs and traders would have been content with the simplicity of communal life to shut off their communities from Western advances. If during the slave trade, rulers and traders happily waged wars and sold fellow humans to buy beads, guns and second-hand hats, one can only imagine what they would have done if faced with offers of cars, televisions, MacDonalds etc. Undoubtedly, without colonisation African societies would still have sought industrialisation and western type modernisation, as have peoples in virtually every other region in the world. As there is no basis to assume that Africans would have independently developed electricity, the motor engine and other products of advanced technologies, it is fair to suppose that if Africa had not been colonised it would today still have to grapple with problems of economic development. Africa would have needed to import western technology and therefore would have had to export something to pay for it. Like other pre-industrial societies, African nations would invariably have had to trade minerals and agricultural commodities for western manufactures. So Africas position in the international economy, particularly as a producer of primary products for industrialised countries, should not be blamed solely on colonialism. It is largely a function of unequal development. Therefore, it would be fair to say that the exploitation of colonised Africa was far greater than its development. The states that were created were artificial and threw together diverse people and separated tribes. This has resulted in a series of wars that have rocked Africa and consumed much of the money that could have been used for development. African never saw any of its wealth as indigenous industries were not developed and all the mineral resources were shipped off to be used in Europe.

The only positive effect that colonialism had was in the social sector with the abolition of slavery, cannibalism and the spread of the knowledge of western medicine. Much of Africa is still a slave to the West. It is dependent on it for financial aid. The West in return for aid is doing Africa another wrong; it is forcing its own political system on it once again. It ha to realize that Africa needs to develop its own programmes and policies. Aid is ambiguous in its effects. In the Horn of Africa, for example, the aid that helps to rescue famine victims also benefits Ukrainian arms-dealers. It has to realize that Africa needs to develop its own programmes and policies. More than anything, the African people need to regain their confidence in themselves and each other. Only then can they end wars and build political institutions that they believe in. Introduction It was in the early 17th century that the first white man set foot in what was or perhaps even is the most intriguing land of all Black Africa. It was the age of exploration. European explorers went around the world, visiting various lands and coming in contact with all kinds of people, people that were they knew nothing about. In retrospect that age was the probably the beginning of the diminishing world but it was to lead to perhaps one of the most controversial political systems of all time colonialism by which powerful European countries went into, traded and finally governed various parts of the world that were technologically inferior to them and were thus unable to resist subjugation. Africa, though the birthplace of humanity, had little to offer it. So, it is not surprising that much of it had migrated to lands that were less hostile climatically and had more fertile soil. The people that had remained had not changed much since those days and were still members of various tribes, speaking dozens of different languages some steeped in pagan worship and cannibalism. However, their culture was ancient and mystical and their mission was survival as opposed to the determination of their migrant brothers to develop. This difference was soon to be considered as proof of African barbarianism. It was with casual interest that the first European came to Africa. They returned full of tales of the savage people and their barbaric customs. However, another thing that they had also noticed was the various opportunities of trade available. Africa had a lot to offer in the shape of raw materials, cheap sources of labor, slaves etc. Thus, the trader followed the explorers into the black continent and laid the foundations of colonial rule. A century or so later, European powers were locked in a struggle for occupying more and more land in Africa. Some Africans resisted the takeover, but their spear wielding armies were swept aside by the Maxim gun and the repeater rifle.

Much of Africa gave in without a fight, its kings signed away sovereignty with a thumbprint. Many allied with the intruders believing they would help them fight with other tribes. Others were overawed by the technology they saw in the shape of guns and other weapons. Thus, various European powers blast! ed or signed their way through Africa. When the scramble as it is called threatened to cause a rift among the Europeans, they decided to meet and sort out their differences. This resulted in the partition of Africa by the powers into spheres of influence. This partition was done in a way that displayed the indifference the Europeans felt for the African people. The partition was done by diplomats sitting thousands of miles away by simply drawing straight lines on a map without a thought for the people that they be might separated or the geography. That was perhaps the least of their worries. Posing as parents to the Africans, The Europeans counted them taxed them and ordered into tribes and where there werent any, they created them. The best land was taken for plantations and the minerals dug out and shipped back to Europe. Africans saw little of their lands wealth. The European occupation of Africa was short-lived barely a generation in some areas. Throughout their rule, the European version of politics was kept exclusively for Europe, only a few references were made to it while they lowered the flag. Africa was left psychologically and politically impoverished. Much of it is still so. Modern Africa Floods in Mozambique, threats of famine in Ethiopia, mass murder in Uganda, he implosion of Sierra Leone, and a string of wars across the continent. The new millennium has brought more disaster than hope to Africa. However, a few candles of hope are still flickering or a brief moment in the 1990s there were signs of improvement. World Bank figures showed some economic growth in the continent, enough to take more people out of poverty than in years. At the same time, multi-party democracy spread across the continent and new leaders emerged- Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia. This new breed” wanted to make life better for all their people by providing basic health care and education. They seemed to understand that peace and good government were essential.

Though most of them had been socialists, they embraced the free market. Democracy and liberalization seemed to flourish. There was talk of an “African renaissance”. It was an illusion. The new leaders became embroiled in wars, some with each other, and the cheerful statistics were the result of good rains and bad accounting. Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole had a growth rate of less than 3% in that period, which just about kept step with the rate of population increase. So no one was getting richer. The figures not to mention the recent crop of disasters and wars–now suggest that Africa is losing the battle. All the bottom places in the world league tables are filled by African countries, and the gap between them and the rest of the world is widening. According to Paul Collier of the World Bank, only 15% of Africans today live in an environment considered minimally adequate for sustainable growth and development.’ At least 45% of Africans live in poverty, and African countries need growth rates of 7% or more to cut that figure in half in 15 years. Only three countries in sub-Saharan Africa Congo-Brazzaville, Angola and Rwanda are growing that fast. The first two are oil producers, and oil is notorious for destroying other economic life forms in Africa. Rwanda’s growth is aid-driven. Last year, sub-Saharan Africa as a whole grew by only 2.5%. Most of these countries cannot do better, says the Economic Commission for Africa, because, apart from South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius, they lack the basic structures needed to develop. AIDS deaths are rising, especially among the young urban middle class who could bring about Africa’s political and economic revival. The next generation will be more numerous, poorer, less educated and more desperate. With most African countries tottering on their feet and some on the brink of collapse, some people ask whether the problem is due to Africas colonial experienceinherent inadequacies of the African? For apologists of colonialism, the answer is simple. Whatever the shortcomings of colonial rule, the overall effect was beneficial for Africa. Ofcourse there had been exploitation but the economic gap between Africa and the West had been reduced. Colonialism had laid the foundations for economic and intellectual growth.

It brought enlightenment where there was ignorance. Slavery and other barbaric practices were suppressed. Africans were given a taste of formal education and enjoyed the benefits of modern medicine. Modern communications and new industries were established. Africans were reformed politically as well. Where there had been tribes, there were now modern states. The political turmoil in Africa is not due to colonization but because Africans were unable to take advantag! e of its inherited institutions. Critics of colonialism say that this theory is racist. They maintain that colonialism left Africa poorer than ever. African labor and resources were exploited and Africans never saw the wealth of that their country possessed. Guyanese historian Walter Rodney in his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa contends that under colonialism “the only thing that developed were dependency and underdevelopment.” The African people are survivors. Living in a land where soils are poor, lasting only a few planting seasons, the sun burning harshly, the rain either not coming or washing everything away (Mozambique), the beasts and bugs big and diseases fatal, they have survived the greatest calamities known to man. Besides these indigenous forces of destruction, he also survived the invasion of first the Semantics and then the Caucasian, the Maxim rifle, the slave traders, laboring away for a master that he never knew, imported diseases, mineral exploitation. However, when it was all over and the African people were free, they found themselves unable to survive the huge responsibility of existing on their own. The disease that plagues them is not AIDS, it is dependency. The most damaging effect of imperialism on the black man was not physical. I f it had been perhaps he would have survived it. It was psychological. The Europeans that had come to Africa had no appreciation for the mystical culture of the Africans. In their minds, all Africans were barbarians with no civilization, culture or religion. They needed to be led out of their ignorance which the Europeans were very happy to provide.

Therefore there came with the traders and the explorers, the missionaries who came to give the Africans enlightenment. However, while doing their noble task of educating the African people, they first had to make the people believe that they had to learn and respect all things European and in that way realize the inferiority of their own culture and civilization. The missionaries passed on to their pupils contempt of indigenous culture and civilization. European education and Christianity were thrust upon the natives the material that was taught talked o! f the superiority of the European races. A class of Africans was created that had European education and very little self-confidence. One example: the East African reported recently that a white foreigner had been appointed to head the Kenya Commercial Bank, since `it became clear that the appointment of an indigenous Kenyan might lead to a run on the bank.” In disrupting pre-colonial political systems that worked for Africans and imposing alien models, colonialism laid the seeds of political crisis. By redrawing of the map of Africa, throwing diverse people together without consideration for established borders, ethnic conflicts were created that are now destabilising the continent. African states were not forged by ethnicity, nationalism and war. They were simply bequeathed by departing imperial powers who left highly centralised, authoritarian states to a tiny group of western-educated Africans who rushed in and took over. The new nation-states were artificial and many were too small to be viable. Fewer than a third of the countries in Africa have populations of more than 10 million. Nigeria, the major exception to this, was imbued with ingredients for its self-destruction.

Western multi-party democracy imposed by colonial powers polarised African societies. “It was the introduction of party politics by colonial administration ! that set off the fire of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria,” wrote one Itodo Ojobo in the New Nigerian newspaper in 1986. Some of those states, such as Congo, were established by Europeans as businesses to be milked for profit. Their successors simply continued the practice. Africa has an abundance of valuable minerals and some good land, attracting outsiders to extract the raw materials and ignore the rest. Independence often meant little more than a change in the colour of the faces of the oppressors. The new rulers made few changes on the surface, except to tweak constitutions to favour those in power. The African state, as invented by Europeans, has been neither deconstructed nor reconstituted. In some places, however as in Somalia it has been destroyed. The new elite proclaimed national unity and denounced tribalism; but they soon found, like the imperial powers before them, that manipulating tribal affiliation was essential to preserving power. It is not just unluckly coincidence that Africa has had such a poor crop of leaders. Colonialism was forced upon Africa. It was a dictatorship in which people had no right to self-determination. However, when it was time to leave, an alien institution was imposed upon the people and they were expected to adopt it obediently. Leaders emerge from a society, and they remain a part of it. Therefore, Africans are just as lost as their leaders. The proof of this can be seen every day in the waiting rooms of Africa’s presidential palaces. Slumped on the sofas will be diplomats waiting for an audience, foreign businessmen often dodgy ones looking for a contract, and members of the president’s family or clan in search of money for school fees or a funeral. Whatever the diary says, most presidents try to satisfy the family first. The demands of Africa are more powerful than those of the outside world. Thus, tribalism is a part of the African and it cannot leave him no matter what the!

Discuss Forster’s portrayal of Imperialism in the novel a passage to India A passage to India by E. M. Forster is a novel which deals largely with the political, economic and social takeover of India by the British Crown. The novel deals widely with colonialism and more specifically, imperialism. Forster presents the theme in question through the lives and minds of the characters from both the Indians and the English people. There is no subjective undertone to the novel and we see clearly how each character feels, politically correct or not.

Forster successfully presents different scenarios and relationships with the assistance of symbolism and imagery, for us to imagine and determine a path to where it may lead; based on the concerns the book shows us. The narrative plays host to an array of themes and consequences present for both parties. The way in which Forster captures the imperialist ideology against the backdrop of a wondrous India and its people has been done so to give the reader a completely unbiased focal on the themes, but still create an enduring curiosity to how the back-story will affect the current affairs.

With the thought on imperialism, rather than take the novel on a tangent of complete political movement, Forster chose to focus on people, relationships and the development of characters. Through this liberal approach it allows the reader to delve into the matter with an open mind, to develop own opinions and comments. To allow for all sides and notions to be represented, Forster seemed to develop a character for each.

The idea that Indians would be facing an uphill battle trying to forge friendships with the English was represented in characters such as Hamidullah who implies that possibly both races can be friends but never under the current circumstances, and represented less progressively in Mahmoud Ali who presents a stubborn anti-British attitude. The ignorance of the British arrival in India is not unnoticed in the characters of Adela and more extremely in Ronny, who not only suffers from ignorance but has adopted the belief that he is superior to all Indians.

Towards the beginning of the novel, or before the pinnacle turning point in the novel, Dr. Aziz and Fielding appear to be the level headed characters representing both races. Dr. Aziz is introduced in the opening chapters venting his frustration about the way the English treat him and other Indians, but never resorts to derogatory remarks or insults. He always appears to maintain a clear outlook to how he feels and why. Fielding, a British Official working in India demonstrates a humanitarian attitude towards Indians and treats them with kindness.

As the novel develops and further embarks into the theme of Imperialism, these two characters allow us to see how this factor can affect and damage morals, relationships and opinions. The characters are almost representatives of the theme in question and they take the reader through the journey of the rise and fall, the pros and cons and the damage imperialism and colonialism as a whole can cause. The portrayal of Imperialism in the novel is largely unbiased from Forster himself.

In the novel Forster exposes all emotions and attitudes from both races, because the novel is not written from the perspective from one race, or one side – it is written from the perspective of people – all anxiety and true emotion is exposed with little room for covering up British snobbery or submissive Indians, all is advertised. The ignorance on both parties is available, whether or not the ignorance is justified or not is irrelevant as it is all personal opinions. As Hamidullah says” They all become exactly the same, not worse, not better. I give any Englishman two years, be he Turton or Burton. It is only the difference of a letter.

And I give any English woman six months. All are exactly alike. ” Ch. 2 page 8; His feelings towards English appears bitter being that he was once treated with respect as a guest in England but in his own country due to Imperialism he is the enemy, the disobedient and the inferior, he seems exhausted and could possibly have at one point enjoyed the company of Englishmen when he was a visitor in their own country. It is evident now that he feels all Englishmen are hopeless, in the end they all conform to the Imperialistic movement and behaviours which encourage racism and a general bad attitude to the Indians.

Hamidullah notably gives English women a much shorter tether probably being that they only communicate on a personal or sociable level and have no need for professional pleasantries before adopting the imperialistic traits. Forster himself having lived in India is divulging an exaggerated experience of his time there, he is magnifying issues which are completely evident in the force of Imperialism but had never been acknowledged in this way before. There will always, like with any topic be novels which contribute mere nods to the opposition with a main focus on the protagonists encounters, this is not what Forster set out to do.

His approach, although himself anti-imperialist is very liberal in that he highlights and presents the Englishman, his “undeveloped heart” and narrow-mindedness to an unknown world to which he must adapt, or mustn’t as the story goes. An issue what can also be questioned in the novel is if Imperialism itself is the problem, or the way in which the British conduct themselves when India, under Imperialistic ruling. The behaviour of the British can be summoned on many different tangents from Imperialism. The topic of race and supremacism is rooted throughout the novel as a side note to the bigger picture of Imperialism.

It is clear from the novel that with British ruling an automatic entitlement to superiority is present, as said by Mrs Turton to Adela. Adela being a somewhat open minded individual displays no major signs of racism or gives the notion she is superior to the Indians, but nonetheless Mrs Turton imposes an extremely heavy remark on her as it were quite trivial – “You’re superior to them, anyway. Don’t forget that. You’re superior to everyone in India except one or two of the Ranis, and they’re on an equality. To say such a racist remark so unintentionally demonstrates the notion that Indians are to submit to the British because that’s the way it is. There is no method in the madness of allowing Imperialism to develop further division with racism and disrespect to the host and their country. This deterioration is evident in the relationship between Dr. Aziz and Fielding. The relationship between Fielding and Dr. Aziz is almost a representation of the Imperialistic time, and how it developed. From the beginning of the novel the reader understands both characters have equal respect for one another and their races.

There is an understanding of differences but maturity to overcome these nonsensical differences and forge a friendship. This can be seen in light of Imperialism, where there was a forced unity of cultures, this could forge new friendships, allow cultures to sample the traditions of others and increase quality of life and become cultured. Instead, a stubborn and adamant behaviour from the British forged nothing but resentment between both races and begun the belief that the take-over of the land equated to no equality.

Translated into the novel, the incident which saw Dr Aziz face trial for the accusation held against him by Adela in the caves shows us where the friendship deteriorated, the relationship between both races which came to be, which was condemned by Hamidullah in the beginning had begun to conform to what Imperialism appeared to represent. After Adela dropped her accusation against Aziz, and everything was as it was in the beginning of the novel it was suggested Aziz and Fielding should resume their friendship but on reflection Aziz agrees with Hamidullah – there is no room for friendship between the Indians and the British.

Their relationship, unlike that of the many other characters was not superficial. There was true equality amongst the men, noting definitely their differences but not considering they were of inferiority or superiority to one another. They represent both cultures as well as equal men but the ever present Imperialism is there to collapse any bridge of friendship, as Aziz implies there will be no friendship until the British have left, or left on the principles in which they arrived.

At the end of the novel Fielding questions Aziz as to why they cannot be friends, because they both want to be? This shows the reader that there is still a sense of naivety in Fielding that he and the rest of the British have to work on. They do share the same perspective as the Indians, the problems which have arose and how they can be resolved is seen by Aziz. Aziz knows that there is no room for friendship, at least not now – “they didn’t want it, they said in their hundred voices ‘No, not yet,’ and the sky said ‘No, not there” Ch. 37.

And so it can be seen that the theme of Imperialism throughout Forster’s novel is seen from many dimensions, the idea of Imperialism, and colonialism can be seen to be infected, the unnecessary behaviours which they have assumed go hand in hand with Imperialism have to be stopped. The portrayal of Imperialism by Forster as said is a very liberal and open minded approach in that he has exposed all dimensions and has no shied away from the resting fact of what should be questioned – Imperialism, or the way in which the British conduct themselves behind the wall of Imperialism.

What they consider acceptable and what is not. The novel in its entirety delivers an excellent insight from all perspectives into the system. The reader is left with Forster’s own personal experiences and sometimes his own personal statements throughout the novel whilst being given the opportunity to identify the flaws in the system for themselves. Forster, E. M A Passage to India, 1994

Colonialism as the colonization of consciousness’: using at least two case-studies from different periods, discuss how an interest in religion may contribute to understandings of colonial and imperial encounters. David Bliss 1 May, 2013 university of Leister Word count: 2,984 Introduction An Interest In religion may contribute to understanding of colonial and Imperial encounters by providing a window into the daily lives at colonies that can augment other sources or stand on its own.

Both historical and archaeological evidence is available from periods of colonialism and this evidence can help us understand how effective these efforts were at impacting the lives of both the colonizers and colonized, and the relations between colonial and Imperial forces. Colonial history Is by no means homogeneous and each case needs to be looked at In Its own light – taking Into account the motives of all players, the geography, and pre-existing systems.

Indeed, even at a certain location, the results varied. This paper examines how religion interplay with colonialism and what was the impact on certain cases to colonizers and the colonized in terms of the ‘colonization f consciousness’. It will attempt to define this term, and then provide examples with varying degrees of relevance on understanding the colonial/lamellar Interplay. Defining the question What is studied? Religion is one area of study in understanding colonial and imperial encounters.

It has been identified as one of the three “M”s of imperial encounters: merchants, missionaries, and military (Choppy 2002:45). It provides a more-rounded understanding of colonial and Imperial encounters than as disparate observations. Through religious buildings and Iconography, burials, and the physical trappings of elisions orders and their representatives that are Important material expressions of religion, we have physical remains that, along with historical documents, give us insight into the lives of the colonized and colonizers.

Religious historical and material remains of past societies provide a source of information for the workings of the sacred In social life and, for the purposes of this paper, the workings of how colonial life altered natives and colonists. There has been ritual practices and symbolic systems. This continual interest in religious life has contributed to important theoretical innovations, such as the Comforts colonization f consciousness framework (ROB 2011). What is meant by ‘an interest in religion?

Archaeologists often assume that ritual is a form of human action that leaves material traces, whereas religion is a more abstract symbolic system consisting of beliefs, myths, and doctrines (Insole 2004). This perception began to change with the advent of more practice-oriented approaches to the anthropology of religion (Boggling 2007). In this paper, I view an ‘interest in religion’ as the historical documents and material evidence created by religious agents.

It can certainly be argued that many of those are secular in nature rather than religious, UT the purpose of this paper is not to define religion, but to look at a broader ‘interest in religion’. In the cases of colonial encounters, the evidence we have is heavily related to missionaries and their mission of conversion in the form of direct historical documents and direct material evidence. Colonialism has been one of the most significant phenomena in the history of humankind in the last three hundred years or so.

Religious evidence shows us that Christian missionaries were associated with imperialist expansion and can shed light on the understanding of these encounters. It seems probable, then, that missionaries were significant intermediaries in the construction of global Imperialism in its universalistic dimension. “Colonization of consciousness” is a process termed by Comfort & Comfort in their study of South Africa (Comfort and Comfort 1991). It is a merging of two words that are, in themselves, broad in interpretation and combined are more-so.

As George Miller wrote in 1962, “Consciousness is a word worn smooth by a million tongues. ” It is used in many contexts and many interpretations of those contexts. Colonization is broad concept that is not a simple process to define either. For the purposes of this paper, I will use the definition by Lane: Colonization of consciousness is “the adoption of and adherence to a particular set of beliefs that come to be manifested in the daily workings of a society and the everyday practice of its members” (Lane 2001).

This does not mean a complete replacement of pre-existing beliefs and way of life (Williams and Chairman). Colonization of consciousness involves a changing of the daily life. Colonialism and imperialism “colonize consciousness” by shaping everyday life at a global level, influencing language spoken, the clothes worn, food eaten, and over time, arts and culture (Blatant and Burton 2005:1). Answering the Question In some instances, military actions were lock-step with imperial interests, but in many this is not the case. Studying religion will not provide a full understanding of the colonial/imperial interplay.

Historian Andrew Porter identifies three separate literatures within which the role of religion has conventionally been considered: imperial historiography, imperial histories of religious/ecclesiastical developments, and, finally, regional or colonial histories (Porter 2004). He sees a need to bridge the historiography gulfs’ arising from their relative discreteness. By viewing these missions and empire was more variable and complex than is commonly acknowledged (Keenan 2004: xii-iii). The writings of missionaries often provide an alternative reading to narratives written by colonial employees and military.

By studying mission texts, physical evidence, and ritual evidence, we can see how the daily lives of the colonized and colonizers changed through their interactions. Religious texts shed light on the relationship between colonial and imperial encounters either as agents of those encounters, such as missionaries in China or as hire-parties such as in the colonizing of the Yucatan; at times, in a foreign environment, with foreign languages, laws, and customs to navigate – those both of the colonizer and the colonized – missionaries’ writings provide an insight into the frameworks of the colonial governments amongst which they worked.

Evidence needs to be viewed critically when looking to religion to understand colonialism. Large churches housing many native members does not mean their beliefs or daily lives were any different than before. Detailed textual accounts of conversions and missionary successes may not reflect the true consciousness of the datives as that may not have been the goal of the texts or that they written with bias. In many cases, such as Africa and the Yucatan, the number of missionaries was extremely small and the entire operation relied on the perception of success back home.

It stands to reason that narratives and official documents idealized the missionary mission and success. We simply cannot be sure how successful the impact of conversion as an act had on changing the consciousness of the population in any significant way or how large a role missionaries actually played in colonization, or that the role was as an agent of empire. To add to the ambiguity, direct texts from native population are often not available to balance these accounts.

Historical archaeologists have made major contributions to the understanding of the religion and ritual of peoples who have remained underrepresented (or misrepresented) in the historical record, such as colonized peoples (Hanks 2010). What we also do have evidence of in some cases, such as the Yucatan or China, is the impact Western religion had on contemporary residents. Case Study: Tsarina South Africa: 19th Century In Southern Tsarina – chiefly the Dilating and Erelong, Christian missions have laded a role in shaping African consciousness.

Although the Christian missionary activity exercised over the South Africans presented itself in purely religious terms, the impact it had and the way it substantially changed the everyday life of the subjects of colonization shows how it was in fact tightly bound with the discourse of modern imperialism itself and how it stepped across the religious sphere and affected other spheres of life. The European colonization of Africa was often less a directly coercive conquest than a persuasive attempt to colonize consciousness, to make people by redefining the taken-for-granted surfaces of their everyday worlds.

This is evident in the colonial evangelism among the Southern Tsarina (Comfort and Comfort 1991 : 29). On the one hand, the missionaries openly used all the resources and techniques at their disposal to make an impact on the Africans; that is, to convert people through reasoned argument and bend chiefs to their wills, to affect the power embedded in the practices of their culture, practices that were gradually inculcated into the natives even as they refused to hear the gospel and struggled to MIT the impact of colonization on their communities.

The material record from missions can be examined as a reflection of the idea of changing cultural imagination and reordering of a conceptual universe. Religion again places a central role here, suggesting “of the many aspects of the material record that might reflect native conceptual gains, the most revealing are in the record of Christianization process”… But again stressing “archaeologists must be careful not to adopt the simplistic approach of colonial Catholic priests and interpret the material culture of mission ties as manifestations of wither acceptance or rejection of Christianity’ (Comfort and Comfort 1991 : 29).

Although resistance to this mission existed, expressions of resistance do not preclude the colonization of consciousness. A complete replacement of the daily life and beliefs of a host society is not required to bring about a colonization of consciousness. In fact, new forms of defiance to imperial rule could be argued as well to be a change in daily life brought on by the missionaries and imperial agents. The missionaries played a political role in colonizing the natives ND serving as agents for the crown through which the Tsarina were reworked to the measure of capitalist civilization.

However, what has to be kept in mind is that primarily the missionaries’ side is heard and they have every reason to exclaim their success in converting the consciousness of the Tsarina. In the historical evidence, the Tsarina have little voice to share their side of the story (Comfort 1986). Studying religion in this case alone would not offer a complete picture. Imperial history tells another story of bringing representative government to chiefdoms that, over time, exulted in coercion by British force.

The colonial wars stemming from imperial ambitions on trade-routes to India and mineral deposits would not be seen through solely a religious lens. Imperial ideas of the time that pitted European countries against each other who all felt a right to own ‘new territories’ is an aspect of the colonial/imperial relationship that an interest in religion alone would not evidence. Still, an interest in religion contributes to the study of colonization in South Africa and helps our understanding of the dynamics between colonial and imperial forces.

Case Study: 19th and 20th Century Missions to China There are fundamental differences between Tsarina society and a large-scale bureaucratic state like China in the nineteenth century. Many of the elements identified by the Comforts as part of the package of capitalist modernity introduced by the missionaries–the plow, money, a sense of property, and taxation had already existed in China. Moreover, while it certainly felt the impact of Imperialism, China was never colonized.

Also, unlike the British missionaries who played a decisive role (according to the Comforts) in mediating modernity to the Tsarina, the influence of he missionary body in China can seldom be separated from other avenues – commerce, publishing, officialdom, and contacts with Japan-by which foreign imperial ideas and institutions were being filtered into the empire (Dunce 2002). Nevertheless, the changes undergone by Chinese society between the mid-nineteenth century and mid-twentieth century can be seen as a transition from “tradition “to “modernity” and attributed a decisive role in the process, for good or ill, to the Western impact.

This history. In the first half of the twentieth century, works written by missionaries and heir supporters claimed for the missions a great deal of the “credit” for bringing China into the modern world. Chinese nationalist critiques from the asses, charged missionaries with imperialism or “cultural invasion,” usually meaning that Christian conversion and missionary education were intended to facilitate imperialist economic and political control by making the Chinese people docile.

In contract to this, Wang Liking argues that American missionaries, rather than being tools of cultural or other imperialism, were actually engaged in “cultural exchange,” making a significant nutrition to China’s modernization in the late King period (Dunce 2002). Changes in China parallel to those identified by the Comforts as part of the colonization of consciousness, such as the introduction of aspects of a Western imperial way of life.

A study in these mission efforts reveals the attempted imposition of western imperial beliefs in the form of campaigns against foot binding, opium consumption, and views toward gender relations –all of which involved missionaries to some degree and show Western imperialistic attitudes at the time that the West has a right to impose TTS way of life on another culture. We can see that these transformations so closely associated with the emergence of the Western nation-state can be viewed in terms of a “colonization of consciousness”.

Missionaries were the field-agents of the change in Chinese life. In the end, missionaries’ role as agents of imperialism or as agents of cultural exchange depends on the observer. What can be stated is that in this instance of more passive introduction of foreign culture and ideals, missionaries maybe greater agents of change than in more aggressive imperial efforts. Case Study: Yucatan: 16th Century Missionaries at times found themselves openly at odds with imperial interests.

In the Yucatan, the church and imperial interests frequently clashed. Studying religion gives us a window into this relationship and the nature of colonization in this case. Missionaries had to walk a fine line between looking out for the souls of the ‘converted’ and the imperial desire for conquest of resources and the native labor needed to exploit those resources. Church documents and diaries point to a separation in motives between church and state where the state clearly sought to regulate life’ and the church sought to protect the natives.

In this case, the limited number of friars and the promise of wealth that the colonies brought meant that the friars had little say in the regulation of life enacted by the crown’s agents (Cascaras 1961). In the case of the Yucatan, it was not the missionaries who altered daily life for the ‘converts’ as much as it was the crown. An interest in religion can point to heavy handedness of the crown and the ultimate subjugation that followed. While this process is evidenced in non-religious sources, details of the encounters are filled-in by religious evidence.

Amman-Spanish interaction was a mixing of traditions and practices. We see in the architecture of missions that they were influenced by the local materials and techniques. We also see in evidence for food and drink at missions that local everyday lives of the Mayans influenced the Spanish as they used native ceramics and reported to have native women cooking (Cascaras 1961). Undoubtedly Spanish and imperial society is evidenced today through religion and the quotidian. Interactions between the Spanish and natives have ultimately created a shared culture.

In the Yucatan, that is evident through the religion of the region today. Religion came packaged with foreign imperial domination and its acceptance in modern day Yucatan points to the impact of cultural change as a result of colonialism. Conclusion Colonialism has been one of the most significant phenomena in the history of humankind in the last three hundred years or so. Religious evidence shows us that Christian missionaries were associated with imperialist expansion and can shed light on the understanding of these encounters.

It seems probable, then, that missionaries were significant intermediaries in the construction of global Imperialism in its anniversaries dimension. Colonization of consciousness is “the adoption of and adherence to a particular set of beliefs that come to be manifested in the daily workings of a society and the everyday practice of its members” (Lane 2001). The study of religious amounts to more than Just an analysis of religious change. It gives us a view into the broader consciousness. To varying degrees, in all case studies here Christian missions have played a role in shaping consciousness.

Evidence needs to be viewed critically when looking to religion to understand colonialism. Large hurries housing many native members does not mean their beliefs or daily lives were any different than before. Detailed textual accounts of conversions and missionary successes may not reflect the true consciousness of the natives as that may not have been the goal of the texts or that they written with bias. The historiography examined here demonstrates how inseparable the assessment of the missionary impact is from broader questions of how to historicist nationalism and modernity.

The case studies presented show how a study of religion can shed light onto the interplay between colonial and imperial encounters. While in some cases, such as Southern Tsarina, the religious agents in the field were representing imperial interests. In other cases, such as Colonial Yucatan, they were at odds with the imperial powers. These different cases result in a different light they shed on an understanding of colonial encounters. In both, the religious information needs to be treated as part of a portfolio of sources for analysis.

In the past, civilizations have been created. For example the Roman Empire was a very successful one. The Romans discovered many Ideas that we as a civilization, still use today. The empire did not appear over night. It took many years for It to obtain Its foothold In the world. To start building a collocation many people are needed for the task. People such as civil servants and workers are required.

Call servants are seed to create a government that Is stable enough to create Jobs for people, keep the peace, and uphold laws. Workers are required to build buildings and service the city In any way necessary. These people will provide homes for the residence and public offices for the civil servants. Once there are basic buildings, a town center should be built so that people can gather for public speeches and other information they might need. A form of currency should also be created so that people can make money from the jobs that they do.

The government can use this currency to help the people start their lives. This currency would be used to buy and sell goods. Eventually this will create an economy. Once a stable city has been built, a voting system should be put in place to allow the people to vote on changes in the city. An example of a change would be that the people might want a new street put in. They would then be able to give a vote to the government which will then go with the majority of the votes. The government will have the choice to make a change or not make a change pending on their budget.

Also the government will have to issue taxes to the residence of the city, so they can have a stable amount of income. The poor will not how to create a civilization By Justine-Chasing very successful one. The Romans discovered many ideas that we as a civilization, still use today. The empire did not appear over night. It took many years for it to obtain its foothold in the world. To start building a civilization many people are needed for the task. People such as civil servants and workers are required.

Civil servants are used to create a government that is stable enough to create Jobs for people, keep the peace, and uphold laws. Workers are required to build buildings and service the city in any way necessary. These people will provide homes for the residence and public offices for the civil servants. Once there are basic buildings, a town center should be from the Jobs that they do. The government can use this currency to help the people put in place to allow the people to vote on changes in the city.

The British colonization of Kenya destroyed the culture and economy of the native people, but it established a democratic government and left Kenya a more modernized country. During the 1880’s through 1914, the start of WWI, was an age of imperialism. One place that felt victim to this imperialism was Africa. At this time Africa was a wholly unmodernized continent. The reason the Europeans went after Africa was the introduction of the idea of social Darwinism and the “white man’s burden”.

Social Darwinism is the belief that only the strongest and the most cunning can make it to the top of the social ladder, and it was the White Man’s Burden to step in for these undeveloped countries and lead the Africans for them. So the European powers set out taking all of Africa piece by piece until the start of WWI. After this period there were only 4 African countries left independent, compared to a modern day 50 countries. Britain was one of the most powerful countries at this time and took tons of land all over the world for trading and exports. Kenya is a country founded on over 70 different cultural groups, and each one has their own language and cultural traditions. When the British came into Kenya, they knew very little to none of the culture of the Native Kenyan people. This of course led to numerous problems between the two peoples. One of the biggest problems created was how much land the British took. The Massai people lived in the rift valley, and were a nomadic tribe. When the British came in, they figured that the land that the Massai weren’t living in, wasn’t being used and took it for themselves. Because of this, the Massai could no longer live their nomadic lifestyle and were forced to move to the cities, primarily Nairobi. This overpopulated the city and led to mass homelessness and unemployment, and therefore these people could no longer pay the British taxes. The British took advantage of this and employed these people to work on streets and railroads. As the British took more land, more natives were forced to move to the city. So the British began to employ these people to work on their farms.

Due to all these changes, the economic state of the country changed from one where everyone had a home and job in their own tribe and enjoyed fairly good standards of living, to one driven by foreign consumerism and trade. These economic disruptions were not the only result of the settler’s lack of knowledge of the Kenyan People they had a profound Social effect as well. When the British first came they were afraid of two things of the Kenyans. Firstly they thought that the Kenyan people were savage and, without supervision and control, would resort to fighting over the slightest problem. They also feared that the Kenyan people may unite against the British and repel them form the country. To prevent either of those from happening, they established “Tribal Boundaries”. These boundaries separated each tribe into their own separate province or district, which was easier to manage and watch over. These boundaries had a more dramatic effect that the British could know. Before the British came the economy was mostly agricultural, with a few tribes taking jobs as merchants allowing trade between the tribes. With these Boundaries in place, no Kenyan was allowed to cross any border without accompaniment of a white man. This prevented most, if not all, of the normal economy the native Kenyans had. Without the other tribes to trade with, the individual tribes had to become more self sufficient and focus more on having enough food to survive, than worrying about the British. People that couldn’t get any land, or failed at farming had to work on British civil works project, and on their plantations and in their mines.

Despite all the negative impacts that the British colonization had, there were undoubtedly some benefits Kenya gained. There are some obvious ones, such as improved transportation via streets and railroads, and established trade routes with other countries. Other than those though, there were some major contributions made that still effect the country today. One such contribution was the Lyttleton Multiracial Constitution, which was imposed after the Mau Mau crisis, as a way to appease the kikuyu rebels.

This constitution was the first step on the way to establishing a better relationship between the natives and the settlers. This constitution, created by the British, established a council, made up of legislators elected by all the people of Kenya, which would make decisions on the future of the country. This was established because the numerous cultural groups of Kenya had trouble agreeing on decisions for the country, as each tribe wanted changes to better their own tribe. The British established this to help the native Kenyan people, instead of taking advantage of them.

This went a long way toward bettering the relationship between the two peoples. 6 years later the Macleod Constitution was established. This created an African majority in the council that gave the Kenyan’s more power over the Settlers. It also gave each tribe a share of the power in the council, much like the state representatives we have in our congress; each tribe had a different share of the power based on size. The tribes with more people had more representatives in the council, and therefore more power. With these two constitutions, the Kenyan people were well on their way to becoming an independent nation. Even after all the work the Europeans had done to try to establish an orderly government in Kenya, only 4 years after it was established a Tyrant took over and dominated the country up until we know it today. After Kenyatta died, Daniel Arap Moi took his place as president. At this time the constitution was weak and at its most basic level. Moi took advantage of this as established himself as ruler for life of Kenya. There were multiple attempts both at his life, and his positions as president, but none were ever successful.

Only in 2002 did his reign end, with the election of Mwai Kabaki. Mwai improved the country a great deal in all areas of life. He established trade routes with other countries, and welcomed foreign investment. By 2004 he had raised over $1 billion (American dollars). Unfortunately, the amount of money invested in Kenya has gone down as more countries begin to invest more into Uganda and Tanzania. Today, Mwai Kabasi still rules as president of Kenya.

• Mau Mau Uprising Creats Havoc in Kenya, October 20, 1952.
• 2003 in History Resource Center, database on-line, Gale Group.

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Saroosh . H. Khan American Evolution or Revolution? The theme has been subject to excessive discussion over the course of more than two centuries encompassing the existence of the United States. Although it has been taught for as long in our schools and classrooms and all other educational institutions that the year 1776 Anno Domini marks the year of American Revolution, but amidst historians and intellectuals the dilemma to whether to call it a revolution or an evolution has never been out of question. Reader!

Doesn’t it enthrall one that a single word could bifurcate scholars and create factions amongst the erudite. ?Por que (why? ) there must be a reason and there is! The answer is simple yet rational: Perspective. Albert Einstein, (the famous physicist) most remembered by his theory of relativity, concluded that distance and time were not absolute. History resides in the same niche. It is more than a chronological account of past events of a period or a livelihood or development of a people, an institution, or a place. But what it is not is absolute.

It is always left upon interpretation, scrutiny, analysis, probing and pondering. The perception or perspective gained through such rigorous processes is also subject to the base of a historian. It is very uncommon to find historians sharing their bases of initial learning and therefore the effect of their own era, age, surroundings and upbringing must also be taken account of. A revolution, defined by Encyclopedia Britannica is: a major, sudden, and hence typically a violent alteration in government and in related associations and structures.

On the other hand Oxford dictionary defines an evolution as: the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form. Let us decide upon the usage of the word Revolution, which one can venture out to say, could be dated from the year 1775 with its ignition being the battle of Lexington and Concord and culmination being the ratification of the constitution of the States in 1782. Seemingly easy doesn’t it? It doesn’t really respond to how fundamentally did the thoughts, ideals, ideology and mindset of a 2. 5 million inhabitants change and led to he chain of events that became known as the American Revolution. What I believe is that no people in the course of history have ever rebelled against a certain state, condition or ideology without a buildup of grievances, resentment or a gradual shift of attitude towards accepting a better socio-dogma. Let’s go back to the early 17th century when immigrations began to take place into the New World. Herds of folks comprising of German, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Jewish descent and not to mention the French Huguenots, began pouring into the lands in order to escape from the fetters of the Old World.

They did not have any more an appetite for its rituals, its doctrines, its curbing of civil liberties, and mostly the cost of living in it. One can even say at this particular time, that they were revolting as a denouement of the evolution of the aforementioned causes. So it would be appropriate to say that a 17th century Europe was in revolution. Let’s go further with this theory and say that the immigrants reaching the New World were revolutionaries. Almost 150 years of Pax Americana (used strictly in context with the time period and not according to current usage) so to say was enjoyed by the colonists.

During this time, some changes irrevocably did take place. This is evident from the fact that the language that the majority of the immigrants originally spoke had evolved into a different dialect. So from this we can also entrust upon the belief that alongside linguistics political and socio-economic changes did also take place. A political change that actually began with the migrations was the rise of a political ideology known as Republicanism. Technically ruled by Great Britain or more accurately looked over, the colonies practiced the policy through their town halls and city councils.

Very famous examples of such republican instruments were the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Massachusetts Assembly. These were regulated by either representative or direct democracy. The symbol of democracy at the time was looked upon as the House of Commons in England, however it did seem a bit more than contradicting to have the Buckingham Palace towering high in the very country. The colonists did give their allegiances to the monarch but because of the fact that it was kind of conditional. Although they did not realize it nor was it formally declared but they remained docile because they were never tampered by British legislations.

They had during this time, created their own principles, created their own system of jurisprudence, law, justice, methods of trade, commerce, education, agriculture etc. When after the French and Indian war, the British began actively participating in the earlier enumerated colonial components of society; it would’ve obviously been not received glad handedly by the Colonists as it did not. Let’s now examine the economic evolution that took place to ensure America’s Independence. The 150 year old period was in terms of trade and commerce coined as a period of salutary neglect.

For the colonists it brought economic prosperity and industrialization. For the British it was shooting themselves in the foot. Intentional lax in order to show the appreciation for economic freedom while regulating the policy of mercantilism. Does it make any sense? One would question Robert Walpole’s sanity between all of this; however he is not our subject of concern. What you shall so sow so shall you reap; a very old and passed around saying isn’t it? But it does make sense in the context. The British for a very long period of time followed the policy and the colonist enjoyed its benefits.

Smuggling was nothing out of the blue, very common. Other European nations also benefitted from it, the Colonial agriculture products such as hay, wheat, barley, maize and cotton were valued highly in foreign markets. When the British annoyed at Colonial stubbornness to pay taxes, passed the writs of assistance; there was an outrage. There had to be one, like it did, smuggling was not put up with anymore and a flow of revenue generation created as a result of foreign trade stagnated. How were the merchants to run their businesses without the freedom of trading being allowed to them as it had always been?

Hence there was an outcry by the merchants who went bankrupt as a result of such legislation. Ah! One cannot expect the theme to be talked about without the mentioning of taxes somewhere or another. The country was not at all familiar with taxes; once again it is necessary to mention that when we talk about being not being tampered for almost 150 years it is meant more than it sounds. Citizens in Britain were obliged to pay taxes, however their brethren in the New World were not. I do at times believe that absolute freedom corrupts absolutely, there should be some harnesses or bridles put on in order to let ivility root in or in this case for rule to sustain. When suddenly exposed to direct taxes such as Stamp Act and Sugar Acts why would it not cause havoc with in the colonists? It would lead to acrimony towards the crown like it did, it would lead to mass protests like it did and would lead to severing of ties like it did. In the beginning I wrote about how a historical event is subject to independent interpretation. How historians may or may not agree on something because of the different elements molding the shape of the basis for their knowledge.

I must confess that it is not arbitrary and applies to myself as it does to any other individual. I believe that evolution without revolution is lame and revolution without evolution blind, very similar to what Einstein said about religion and science. One thing is for certain though, nothing is by nature revolutionary. There has to be friction to beget fire. During the 150 year period evolutionary changes in political beliefs, social policies and economic mechanisms did take place otherwise the colonists would’ve never armed themselves to teeth and hoisted the flag of revolution.

Although the first European settlers in America could not have survived without their assistance, it was not long before the Native Americans were viewed as a problem population. They were an obstacle to the expansion plans of the colonial government and the same to the newly formed United States. The Native Americans were dealt with in various ways.

During expansion some were outright exterminated through war while others forcibly made to relocate to lands deemed less than ideal. The idea was to make them vanish – out of sight, out of mind. Though their numbers in terms of population and tribal groups dwindled, they persisted and continued to be a problem in the eyes of the federal government. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the United States government instituted a new way to wage war against the Native Americans. This involved assimilating their children through government-run boarding and day schools.

Federal policy-makers were sure that by giving the Native American children an American-style education, they would eventually evolve into “Americans” and return to their reservations, but forsaking their previous culture, traditions and way of thinking. The federal government assumed that as the aged died off and, with the children assimilated, within a few generations at most, there would be no need for reservations or Indian policy, thus accomplishing the original goal of making them vanish.

There is little doubt that assimilation through education failed on almost all fronts, but through my research I hope to uncover some positives for the Native American children, especially those affected by late nineteenth century Indian policy which removed them from their families and, in some cases, sent them into an alien world hundreds of miles away. Throughout the history of, especially, European imperialism, “the relationships between indigenous peoples and colonizers usually proceed through a series of phases. Generally speaking, the first phase involved the establishment of colonies which meant the disruption of Native societies and usually the displacement of people. In most cases, there was some degree of violence and if complete domination was not swift, treaties were drawn up by “resetting territorial boundaries in order to maintain a degree of order. ” Because resource and land acquisition was the main goal of the colonizers in the first place, treaties seldom lasted and violence continued. In most cases, the next phase in colonialism to lessen violence and restore order was to try assimilation. Assimilation could mean turning the indigenous population into a work force or perhaps a marginalized group of ‘others’ who speak the colonizers language…” As colonial expansion kept growing in North America, assimilation was attempted on several levels. Attempts were made at outright Native American removal from their lands and, when that did not work, religion was probably the most widespread “weapon” of the colonizers to subdue the Natives. Priests, Catholic and Protestant, (usually backed by an armed force) were more often than not unsuccessful in their attempts to force civilization on the Natives.  Assimilation by this means was further complicated because of competing religions. Natives who embraced Catholicism offered by French or Spanish colonizers further distanced themselves from British colonizers and vice versa. European wars of the 17th and 18th centuries between Catholic and Protestant powers carried over into the North American colonies and the Native Americans were situated in a no-win situation. As a result of victories in these wars, not only did 1. Holm, Tom. The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs. pp. 1-2. 2. Findling and Thackeray, eds. Events that Changed America in the Seventeenth Century. p. 72. the British resent Native Americans who fought against them in the wars, they crept deeper into Native American territory until their defeat in the American Revolution. Now, what had been colonial expansion in America turned into national expansion of the newly created United States. As the eighteenth-century came to a close and the major players in expansion had changed, policy toward Native Americans stayed essentially the same it had been under the British.

Early in the nineteenth-century and the Louisiana Purchase in hand,”… (Thomas) Jefferson, much as he struggled with the issue (Indian policy), could simply not envision a future for the United States that included a place for ‘Indians as Indians. ’ As president, Jefferson tried to design an Indian policy that would humanely assimilate Native Americans into the new republic, but his vision of national expansion turned out not to have any room for Native Americans. [4] Those who refused or resisted assimilation would be forcibly pushed westward to lands deemed unfit for anything by most Americans. [5] As expansion increased further West, the Native Americans faced another subtle weapon in addition to religion from the government in its attempt to subdue them – American-style education. Years of violence, forced removal to Indian Territory and forced religious indoctrination had failed to solve what the federal government referred to as “the Indian problem. [6] the Native Americans may not have flourished in their new land, but they survived and would not go away. As a result, American policy shifted from trying to vanquish the Indians to trying to make them vanish. Starting as an experiment in the early nineteenth-century and continuing until it became 3. Hightower-Langston, Donna. Native American World. p. 365. 4. Conn, Steven. History’s Shadow. p. 3. 5. Garrison, Tim Alan. The Legal Ideology of Removal. p. 7. 6. Ninkovich, Frank. Global Dawn. p. 185. olicy in the last quarter of the century, new Indian policy would be to extinguish Native American cultures through an American-style education of the young. The thinking was, educate the Native American children to American culture to assimilate them and, for the time being, contend with the adults on reservations. The idea behind this was, after a few generations, the adults would die off and the new generations of American educated, assimilated “citizens” would survive, but not their old cultures and ways of life.

The balance of this paper will focus on the assimilation through education policy. “In 1794 the nation made its first Indian treaty specifically mentioning education, and many more treaties would contain similar offers and even demands for compulsory schooling of tribal children. In 1819 Congress provided a specific ‘civilization fund’ of $10,000 for the ‘uplift’ of Indians, and the assimilationist campaign continued to employ legislation, treaty making (until 1871), and other expedients to achieve its goals.

Initially the United States government through its office/ Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), depended upon Christian missionary societies, but by the later nineteenth century the government dominated the educational effort, having established a loose system of hundreds of day schools, on-reservation boarding schools, and off-reservation boarding schools, BIA and missionary schools together to Christianize, ‘civilize’, and Americanize Indian children: the rigidly ethnocentric curriculum aimed to strip them of tribal cultures, languages, and spiritual concepts and turn them into ‘cultural brokers’ who would carry the new order back to their own peoples. ” 7. Coleman, Michael C. American Indians, the Irish, and Government Schooling. pp. 1-2. The idea of targeting Native American children for ’civilization training’ actually began in the seventeenth-century in New England where Native children were separated from their families and situated in “praying towns. ” A Christian education was aimed at the children “because they (the colonists) believed (Native American) adults were too set in their ways to become Christianized. ” From this early attempt at assimilation through education, Native American education developed into fairly formal on-reservation schools run by churches and missionary societies, with limited funding by Congress.

These schools were made possible after such actions as the Indian Removal Act which concentrated Native Americans in Indian territories and under somewhat more control of the federal government. These mostly denominational schools offered the only American-style, limited as it was, education until after the American Civil War. “… after the conflict (Civil War) the nation developed the Peace Policy, an approach that gave schools a renewed prominence. The carnage of the war encouraged reformers to find new ways to deal with Native nations other than warfare. ”Under this peace, the federal government was to provide the necessary funding for “schools, administrators, and teachers. ”There was some funding for the policy by Congress, but not nearly enough.

With limited funding, day schools were established on reservations. One-room schools were the norm where “government officials encouraged a curriculum of academic and vocational subjects, and sometimes the Office of Indian Affairs paid a reservation carpenter, farmer, or blacksmith to offer courses. ” 8. Keller, Ruether, eds. Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. pp. 97-8. 9. Trafzer, Keller and Sisquoc, eds. Boarding School Blues. p. 11. 10. ibid. p. 11. 11. ibid. p. 12. About the same time these one-room schools were being established, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Edward P. Smith submitted his annual report favoring boarding schools over day schools.

In his report “Smith stated that the use of English and the elimination of Native languages was the key to assimilation and civilization. ” In a plan for national system of Indian schools (October 18890 sent to the Secretary of the Interior, a successor of Smith’s, Thomas J. Morgan, offered the following: When we speak of the education of the Indians, we mean that comprehensive system of training and instruction which will convert them into American citizens, put within their reach the blessings which the rest of us enjoy, and enable them to compete successfully with the white man on his own ground and with his own methods.

Education is to be the medium through which the rising generation of Indians are to be brought into fraternal and harmonious relationship with their white fellow citizens, and with them enjoy the sweets of refined homes, the delight of social intercourse, the emoluments of commerce and trade, the advantages of travel, together with the pleasures that come from literature, science, and philosophy, and the solace and stimulus afforded by a true religion. Carlisle Indian Industrial School Ten years prior to Commissioner Morgan’s report, Richard Henry Pratt, a former United States Army officer who had commanded a unit of African American “Buffalo Soldiers” and 12. Trafzer, Keller and Sisquoc, eds. Boarding School Blues. p. 12. 13. Prucha, Francis Paul.

Documents of United States Indian Policy. p. 177. Indian scouts in Indian Territory following the Civil War, began his own quest of assimilation through education. In 1879, he “secured the permission of the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Shurz, and Secretary of the War Department McCrary to use a deserted military base as the site of his school. ” Using this site in Pennsylvania, he felt that he could take Native American children from the reservations and by distancing them from tribal influences, turn them into Americans. With the site secured and community support behind him, the next step was to recruit students.

He headed to the Dakota Territory where he was tasked to bring back Native American children to Carlisle. Aided by a teacher/interpreter, Pratt was able to bring back the first class of 82 students. Unfortunately, when he got back to Pennsylvania, necessary basic living supplies previously promised to them by the Bureau of Indian Affairs were not to be found. “The children slept on the floor in blankets. ”[15] In time, some funding was secured privately from “former abolitionists and Quakers who were eager to be involved in his success and who often visited the school. ” Using his military background, the school (for both boys and girls) was modeled after a military academy.

Instilling discipline and a sense of “time” was important to Pratt if he was to make progress with the children and, as one of his former teachers commented on the children, “they have been systematically taught self-repression. ” Although that first recruiting class consisted of only 82 students, by the time the school was at full operating capacity (the school survived 39 years), enrollment averaged 1000 students. 14. Landis, Barbara. “Carlisle Indian Industrial School History. ” Other Indian Schools Similar types of federal Indian boarding schools were located in the West. They may have been physically closer to reservations, but had the same ideals and philosophy of Carlisle.

With military-type discipline, children were ‘encouraged’ to leave their Native American culture behind and accept Americanization. One of the best known of these schools, the Haskell Indian Institute, was located in Lawrence , Kansas.It differed from most Indian schools in the East in that, after a few years (and graduates) it, like other western Indian schools began to staff itself with former students in teacher and, in some cases, administrative roles. Another Native American school of note was the Flandreau Indian School, opened in 1893 in eastern South Dakota primarily for Ojibwe and Dakota students in its early years. Like Haskell, its main function was industrial education for boys and domestic science for girls.

No matter which school the children attended, Carlisle, Haskell, or Flandreau, there were common problems faced by the children: “initiation (into the white man’s universe), discipline, and punishment, along with overall problems – and achievements – of pupil adjustment. ” Some children absolutely resisted Americanization – a favorite form of resistance was arson and those who, at least on the face of it, accepted “the white man’s ways” were often subjected to rejection by their peers or elders or suspicion by non-Indians. 18. Warren, Kim Cary. The Quest for Citizenship. p. 15. 19. ibid. p. 15. 20. Child, Brenda J. Boarding School Seasons. p. 7. 21. Coleman, Michael C. American Indians, the Irish, and Government Schooling. p. 8. Conclusion

Throughout my research there was a common theme in the sources I used – one group trying to impose its will on another. I realize that most of this paper has seemed like an indictment against, first, the European colonizers, then the European-American expansionists and, finally, the Americans in their treatment of Native American peoples, despite what may have seemed, at least some of the time, noble intentions. Sobeit. Actions by Native Americans against non-Native Americans have almost always been reactionary. Throughout history this was evident. In early colonial America, fighting between the French and English (initially in Europe and other parts of the world) spilled over into North America ‘to the contested margins of their empires. Native Americans in league with the French initiated what became King William’s War when they helped massacre British settlers of Schenectady, New York, on February 9, 1690. The Native American motive for participating probably was not to see further expansion of French territory into Native American land, but more likely a response to years of violence committed by the British toward them. Moving ahead a couple of centuries, it seemed like the united States government still held to the mindset that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,’ not necessarily dead in a physical sense, but dead in a cultural sense. Continued expansion westward was problematic for the federal government because every time there was another “push”, there always seemed to be Native Americans in its way.

Violence in many forms against the Native Americans to try to vanquish them had little success, so new policy, though experimental at first, was implemented in the nineteenth-century and gained support of so-called reformers. The new 22. Bobrick, Benson. Angel in the Whirlwind. pp. 18-19 policy was designed, not to vanquish the Native Americans, but make them vanish. To make them vanish, again not so much physically, but culturally, the federal government adopted policies demanding assimilation. This assimilation would be accomplished by educating the Native American young in a way that would “Americanize” them. After their Americanization the young would take their training either back to the reservation or mainstream America, leaving their Indian culture behind, thus making the Indian culture gradually vanish.

To this end, “the federal government began its boarding school program for Native Americans during the late nineteenth-century as part of a crusade by a coalition of reformers who aimed to assimilate Native Americans into dominant Anglo-Protestant society through education. With a fervor that was partly evangelical and partly militaristic, the creators of the boarding school system hoped that through education, they could bring about a mass cultural conversion by waging war upon Native American identities and cultural memories. ”The negatives of the new Native American assimilation/education program far outweighed the positives. The Native American children were cast into what was essentially a whole new world very alien to them. One seemingly small example of this change was the wearing of shoes.

Some children had never worn shoes in their lives, but were suddenly forced to wear them. The children were disciplined harshly for speaking anything but English in the schools; harassed by peers, reservation elders and, sometimes, suspicious non-American Indians depending on the degree they accepted assimilation; taught trades and skills that were becoming obsolete; and, probably worst of all, so psychologically confused, many were later unable to function on the reservation or in the white man’s world. Bloom, John. To Show What an Indian Can Do. p. xii On the positive side of boarding schools, many children were removed from situations of abject poverty and given room and board.

The food and living arrangements were totally foreign to them, but it was better than they had previously known. Moving the children from the reservations also kept them quarantined from the disease prevalent there. One of the benefits of completing their boarding school experience was that many graduates later began to staff the schools, especially in the West, somewhat lessening “white” influence and the school’s ability (and will) to make cultures and ways completely disappear, a positive for the Native Americans, but a prime example of the failure of the schools to carry out federal policy. Though most of the education the children was rudimentary, at best, but in some cases students embraced learning and took their education to the next level.

They went on to more formal schools and used their training and education back on the reservations to become leaders with a better understanding of the Native American/American relationship, while others infiltrated local, territorial, state or federal Indian agencies once manned only by white bureaucrats, most who were ignorant when it came to dealing with Native American problems. Assimilation had failed as a governmental policy and, as more and more educated Native Americans left the reservations and adapted to the white world, while retaining fundamental culture and ways, and was replaced by acculturation. Acculturation was not a federal policy, it describes a necessary survival tool used by the Native American to preserve what little was left of their cultures and ways of life.

Instead of their educations making them subservient to their master (the federal government), education allowed those Native Americans with the desire and wit to attain respect. Gaining this respect from both their own people, as well as the “white’ American people took time, but with it came, little by little, more agency and the ability, right and courage to have a say in how their lives were to play out. As bad a reputation as they have had in the past and even to this day, the fact that reservations still exist shows the unwillingness of some Native Americans to let their traditions die. The popularity of Indian art, jewelry and music serves to keep the cultures going.

Just as the early settlers of the West found out, they are everywhere, though in decreasing numbers, and will not go away.

Works Cited

1. Bloom, John. To Show What an Indian Can Do: Sports at Native American Boarding Schools. Minneapolis, MN, USA, University of Minnesota Press, 2000. http://site. ebrary. com/lib/apus/Doc? id=10151303

2. Bobrick, Benson. Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution. New York, NY, USA, Penguin Books, 1998.

3. Child, Brenda J. Boarding School Seasons; American Indian Families, 1900-1940. Lincoln, NE, USA: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. http://site. ebrary. com/lib/apus/Doc? id=10015709

4. Coleman, Michael C. American Indians, the Irish, and Government Schooling: A Comparative Study. Lincoln, NE, USA: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. http://www. netlibrary. com. ezproxy1. apus. edu/urlapi. asp? action=summary&v=1&bookid=184858

5. Conn, Steven. History’s Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago, Il, USA: University of Chicago Press, 2004. http://www. netlibrary. com. ezproxy1. apus. edu/urlapi. asp? action=summary&v=1&bookid=262649

6. Findling, John E. and Frank W. Thackeray, eds. Events that Changed America through the Seventeenth Century. Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Press, 2000. http://www. netlibrary. com. ezproxy1. apus. edu/urlapi. asp? action=summary&v=1&bookid=77716

7. Garrison, Tim Alan. The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations. Athens, GA, USA: The University of Georgia Press, 2002. http://www. netlibrary. com. ezproxy1. apus. edu/urlapi. asp? action=summary&v=1&bookid=103178

8. Hightower-Langston, Donna. Native American World. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. , 2003. http://netlibrary. com. ezproxy1. apus. edu/urlapi. asp? action=summary&v=1&bookid=79081

9. Holm, Tom. The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs: Native Americans and Whites in the Progressive Era. Austin, TX, USA: The University of Texas Press, 2005. http://site. ebrary. com/lib/apus/Doc? id=1010671

10. Keller, Rosemary Skinner, Rosemary Radford Ruether and Marie Cantlon, eds. Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Bloomington, IN, USA: Indiana University Press, 2006. http://www. netlibrary. com. ezproxy1. apus. edu/urlapi. asp? action=summary&v=1&bookid=171513

11. Landis, Barbara. “Carlisle Indian Industrial School History. ” http://home. epix. net/~landis/histry. html

12. Ninkovich, Frank. Global dawn: the Cultural Foundation of American Internationalism, 1865-1890. Harvard University Press, 2009. http://site. ebrary. com/lib/apus/Doc? id=10402533

13. Prucha, Francis Paul, ed. Documents of United States Indian Policy. Lincoln, NE, USA: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. http://www. netlibrary. com. ezproxy1. apus. edu/urlapi. asp? action=summary&v=1&bookid=53529

14. Trafzer, Clifford E. , Jean a. Keller and Lorene Sisquoc, eds. Boarding School Blues: Revisiting American Indian Educational Experiences. Lincoln, NE, USA: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. http;//www. netlibrary. com. ezproxy1. apus. edu/urlapi. asp? action=summary&v=1&bookid=162267

15. Warren, Kim Cary. The Quest For Citizenship: African American and Native American Education in Kansas, 1880-1935. Chapel Hill, NC, The University of North Carolina Press, 2010. http://site. ebrary. com/lib/apus/Doc? id=10425421