The Implementation And Adjustment Of British Colonial System In Southeastern Nigeria(1914-1935)

The colonial system implemented by the British was Indirect Rule system when colonizing Nigeria,which was established in Northern Nigeria and extended to the whole Nigeria colony after 1914.While in Southeastern Nigeria,the implementation of this colonial system fell into a predicament,owing to the different opinions of colonial officers and the fact that the British ignored the peculiar local conditions.Meantime,with the implementation of the colonial system,natives gradually became resentful and started resistances,among which the 1929 Aba Women Tax Resistance Movement warned the British of the failure on implementing the colonial system.By means of investigation and rethink,the colonial government believed that the reason for former failure was that colonial officers didn’t taken peculiar local conditions into consideration thus failed to establish a colonial system appropriate to local conditions.From 1931 to 1935,with the lead of colonial governor Donald Cameron,the British began to adjust the colonial system.The theme of this thesis is the implementation and adjustment of British colonial system in Southeastern Nigeria from 1914 to 1935.Surrounding this theme,the thesis had mainly conducted observation,discussion and analysis on three key issues: first is the cause and appearance of the obstruction the colonial system suffered from in Southeastern Nigeria;second is the interactional relationship between British colonizers and natives in Southeastern Nigeria;third is the evaluation of the implementation and adjustment along with the effect of British colonial system in Southeastern Nigeria.In the process of review and argumentation,this thesis applied three historical research methods: document research,case study,summarizing analysis,and especially placed high value on gathering,arranging and applying related historical documents.Besides the introduction and conclusion,the main structure of this thesis is divided into four chapters.The first chapter describes the basic conditions of Southeastern Nigeria and the preliminary establishment of British colonial rule.The second chapter analyses the implementation and predicament of the colonial system in Southeastern Nigeria from 1914 to 1929 after firstly introducing the structure of British colonial system in Northern Nigeria.The third chapter taking the 1929 Aba Women Tax Resistance Movement as an empirical case,examines the attitude and reaction of natives towards the colonial rule,and then explains the interactional relationship between colonizers and colony natives.The forth chapter explores the rethink of British colonial government and the adjustment also with the effect of the colonial system after 1929,including the individual study of the colonial governor Donald Cameron,who played a dominant role in the adjustment of the colonial system.Through the research above,this thesis believes that,during the whole process of implementation and adjustment,British colonial system in Southeastern Nigeria remained stuck in a failing predicament,which was a joint resultant creation of three historical factors: the divergences of officers’ policies,the peculiar local conditions of Southeastern Nigeria,and the interactional relationship between British colonizers and colony natives.