The African immigrant factor in Southern Rhodesia, 1890-1930 : The origin and influence of external elements in a colonial setting

摘要

The founding of the colony of Southern Rhodesia created a pluraludsociety quite in keeping with the Furnivall model and very muchudcharacterized by dissensus, conflict and coercion as features of generaludinteraction between the dominant and the subordinate strata of thisudnewly founded society. In reality, a three-tier social segmental systemudevolved in the new society, with the foreign African elements representingudan interpolating median between the dominant white settler classesudand the subject African indigenous societies. Introduced, at first, asudsimple menials, military auxiliaries and necessary adjuncts to missionaryudenterprise, the foreign Africans, then largely from South Africa,udwere gradually reinforced in their numbers by numerous other immigrantudgroups brought into the country later, at various stages, as labourers,udbut with various degrees of success. The Abyssinians, Somalis andudArabs from North East Africa and Aden, for example, failed to provideudSouthern Rhodesia with a perennial external source of labour supplyudeither because these recruits would not accept employment under theudchattel labour conditions prescribed by Southern Rhodesia's repressiveudcolonial setting or because of the reluctance of the territory'sudcolonist employers to reform these conditions in question. Indianudlabour supply would not materialise because the plan obviously ranudcounter to the relatively liberal political philosophy of the colonialudgovernment of India at Simla; a philosophy that was expected to takeudinto consideration issues of relevance to universal British imperialudcitizenship and trusteeship. Chinese labour supply raised so muchudcontroversy and fragmented the white colonial front in Southern Rhodesiaudso seriously that it had to be abandoned. The Mfengu settlement schemeudwas only a temporary success, as far as its labour value was concerned.