Models Of Colonialism

John L. Comaroff, the author of “Images of Empire, Contests of Conscience: Models of Colonial Domination in South Africa,” starts off with introducing London Missionary Society’s Superintendent, John Philip, who brought up a controversial campaign about the right of “coloured peoples” and their work in a free market. What is also brought up in this article is John Philip’s view of colonialism: “The different members of a state [are] beautifully represented by the members of the human body: … if one member suffers, all the members suffer,” which we may view as “the peculiar vices of all ranks of the inhabitants are the vices of the system.”

William Dodd, a man who didn’t go to school, was forced to mill for 25 years, and lost an arm, shared

The state model prioritizes “Pax Britannica: the pacification of ‘tribes.’” Also, a part of the administration’s obligation is to “‘protect the aborigines’ from internecine war, unscrupulous whites and Boer enslavement.” But this model of colonialism, sooner or later, would involve “imposition of taxes, the limitation of chiefly authority and many more forms of regulation.” It is represented as the exact opposite of enlightened liberal humanism. The second model, settler colonialism, also known as the Boer model, was portrayed by the missionaries with negative terms. They say that the Boers are half-savages for they lack the “true European ‘spirit of improvement’” and hunt and enslave black people. This model was revealed clearly during the Great Trek, when settlers’ protests about abolition. It had the “Boer independence from the state colonialism of Britain and made a new order of relations between the Europeans and the people of the interior.” Their encounters, according to Comaroff, begin with war or alliance and end with subordination of local communities to Boer control. According also to Comaroff, the subordination of local communities can be expressed in four

The civilizing colonialism of the mission, the last model, was more spelled out by Christians compared to the first two models. This model is said to be “more positively comprehensive” and “more finely detailed.” The civilizing colonialism "sought to 'cultivate ' the African 'desert ' and its inhabitants by planting the seeds of bourgeois individualism and the nuclear family, of private property and commerce, of rational minds and healthy clad bodies, of our practical arts of refined living and devotion to God." All of these were entailed by total reconstruction. The evangelists set out some things, not limiting their religious