Colonial chiefs in a stateless society: a case-study from Northern Uganda

Abstract

From the point of view of both practical administration and Indirect Rule theory, non-centralized peoples posed acute problems for British administrators in Africa. The Lango people of Uganda were an especially difficult case, since their social organization was highly fragmented and lacked even the cohesiveness of a segmentary lineage system. The first government chiefs, appointed from 1912 onwards, represented a measure of continuity with the pre-colonial order, since they were nearly all drawn from the ranks of the clan leaders. But a chief's territory seldom corresponded to any pre-colonial entity, while his wide-ranging executive and judicial powers were a complete novelty. During the period 1920–33 the majority of chiefs in all except the most senior county grade ceased even to be natives of their chiefdoms; this was due partly to the European preoccupation with bureaucratic standards, and partly to the success of the county chiefs in establishing patronage networks of their own placemen. As a result, abuse of chiefly power increased, while the ordinary population became more estranged from the colonial administrative structure. An exposé of maladministration in 2933 highlighted the contradictions of British policy in Lango, but it was not until the 1950s that radical reform along democratic lines was attempted.

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