By La Sorbonne Paris, graduate Vincent Rosso

1. THE DUAL MANDATE, FREDERIC JOHN
LUGARD
Oral presentation

2. CONTENT
• John Frederic LUGARD
• Born in an English family in
India (1858)
• Became the first colonial
Governor of Nigeria

3. SOURCE
• The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, 1922
• Justification of the colonial occupation of Africa
• Justification of the British conquest and
administrative style.
• The idea that there is an instrumental view of
colonies

4. THESIS AND MAIN IDEAS
• Disapproved with the oppressive nature of colonialism ideology
• Disapproved the fact that the Old system overlooked freedom
and liberty of the indigenous structures.
• His administrative pattern stands for an independent Africa
(“self-rule) / free from the British metropole = praises a
decentralized model of administration.

5. THESIS AND MAIN IDEAS
• Globally, his work The Dual Mandate in BritishTropical Africa => advocating and
asserting the foundations of British colonial policies in Africa
• pro-colonizer = consolidating Britain’s imperial superpower
How does it proceed?
• Justifying Britain’s imperial behavior and strategy by saying that Christianity
needed to be spread.
• Empire’s duty to erase and get rid of barbaric state of the colonies (archaic)
• Missionaries, local chiefs and local people needed to be protected from each
other and foreign powers + Imperialism was the solution for this.

6. EXPLANATION
1. Context of Rivalry with other European colonial powers (name French colonial
Empire that is a push factor of partition in Africa
2. Evokes the aspects of colonization and the need for a modernization
3. Implicit reference to the Indirect government and the theory of the Indirect Rule
4. Shift in political administrative style (Old system « crown colonies » vs. A modern
style)
5. Concludes by admitting the benefits of the colonial enterprise

7. LIST OF EXTERNAL REFERENCES
• By “indirect rule” is meant the policy of ruling African
communities through their own chiefs.
• 20 years ago Lord LUGARD wanted to abandon the direct rule:
“to substitute the direct rule of the British Officer, is to forgo
(to renounce) the high ideal of leading the backward races, by
their own efforts, in their own way, to raise themselves to a
higher plane of social organization”.

8. Objections to the Old system:
“it is a cardinal rule of British colonial policy (…) that the interests
of a large native population shall not be subject to the will either of
a small European class or of a small minority of educated and
Europeanized natives who have nothing in common with them and
whose interests are often opposed to theirs” (LUGARD).
=> For a more adequate, ad hoc representativeness of the
local population.

9. ADVANTAGES OF INDIRECT RULE
• Invisibility of the colonial presence
• Relied on local administration (local chiefs, local political allies and
collaborative elites) => Status of self-governance
• Reinforcing order factor
• Serves the British weaponry / soldiers recruitment to fill deficiency

10. All in all, the strategy of Britain’s colony political administration =>
“the secret of British authority was to keep their conquered peoples in
more or less separate compartments, and to restrict to a minimum the
horizontal connections between them” (cf. Unfinished Empire, J.
DARWIN, p. 221)

11. Who is the author talking to?
What is the goal?
What is the motivation of the author? What is the
main idea that is advocated?

12. CONCLUSION
• Contextualization
“Crown colonies government” (decentralized system with “official members”
selected form the executive officer.
≠
self-governed colonies (autonomous, usually described as "self-governed colonies")

13. CONCLUSION
• Context of purely essentialist ontology (reducing to the colonies to the very
essence of subjects that must undergo the method of the direct rule /
dehumanizing subalterns)
• Shift in the perception of the settler status quo = can no longer be reduced
to its authoritative superiority.
• Mission to open up Africa to civilized world, assert a transition towards a
new political order.

14. CONCLUSION
• parallel with what some scholars called “colonial essentialism” (cf. Umar
BELLO, Colonial Essentialism in Lord LUGARD’s The Dual Mandate, Critical
Textual Analysis).
• Essentialism: the essence or "whatness" of something. In the context of race,
ethnicity, or culture, essentialism suggests the practice of various groups deciding
what is and isn't a particular identity. As a practice, essentialism tends to overlook
differences within groups often to maintain the status quo or obtain power.
Essentialist claims can be used by a colonizing power but also by the colonized as
a way of resisting what is claimed about them.

15. THE DUAL MANDATE
• Empire building had a double motive for Lugard, hence the Dual
Mandate.
• He believed that indirect rule pattern would help to:
• to maintain law and order (administrative level)
• As a former soldier he valued law, order and stability above all, then it would
enhance a Pacifist logic in the colonies.