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Colonization was confronted with a broad variety of resistance, triggering often, but not exclusively, violent reactions by the colonial power. “From Dias’ first campaigns in 1578, until the 1920s (…) barely a year passed when Portuguese troops did not conduct at least one campaign against Africans in Angola” (Bender 1978: 137f.). “We must distinguish, of course, between (.) wars fought against the incoming whites and later protracted rebellions. In many instances the initial war was fought with the traditional military system” (Ranger 1969: 312). This primary resistance was motivated by the goal of preserving autonomy and sovereignty and was often usually led by traditional elites. We are less interested in the character or amount of resistance, but in the varying impact of colonial violence against these resistance movements, measured with our variable (VIOLCOL). Without denying possible links between different resistance movements, we divided subsequent forms of resistance into two forms: resistance against colonial domination and exploitation on one hand (VIOLRES), by some authors called “secondary resistance”, and violence during decolonization on the other hand (VIOLIND).
VIOLRES measures the resistance against measures of colonial domination such as taxation, expropriation, forced cultivation, forced recruitment or forced labor. This form of resistance is often carried by peasants, workers and/or women or, quite common in sub-Saharan Africa, messianic movements. It is often labeled as “rebellion”, “insurrection”, “revolt”, “uprising” or “mutiny”. It has a time lag to the colonial conquest, although the distinction is not always clear cut: What for some groups is primary resistance can be resistance against domination for other groups, and a variety of motives may converge into one anti-colonial movement. The famous “mutiny” in British-India (1857/58) began as a rising of Indian troops (the “sepoys”), but was also resistance against the annexation of the already dependent states of Jhansi (1853) and Oudh (1856) and, more general, against the “doctrine of lapse” (according to which, in princely states, the sovereignty “lapsed” to the supreme power, i.e. Britain, when the “natural heirs” of the royal line came to an end, thereby ending a long held tradition of adopting heirs), as well as a consequence of the withdrawal of pensions for some local rulers, the confiscation of 20’000 estates (identified as “rent-free tenures”) within 5 years, intrusions into Hindu customary laws and extended British missionary activities. Because the larger part of India has already been in British grip at the moment of its outbreak (the centers of the “mutiny” were in areas that British had ruled for more than a decade), we coded the “mutiny” as resistance against measures of colonial domination (VIOLRES).
The third form of violence (VIOLIND) occurs during decolonization. Having a varying degree of rural and urban mass participation, decolonization movements tend to be led by younger educated elites. Some movements took up armed struggle for independence, while others relied on other means as strikes and demonstrations. Yet others opted for peaceful resistance. We coded for the three variables different levels of colonial violence:
For VIOLCOL and VIOLRES, “moderate colonial violence” is characterized by small numbers of casualities among the local population, limited length of resistance and limited economic effects for the local population. In contrast, “massive colonial violence” caused heavy casualties and persisted for a considerable time. It is often characterized by the purposeful destruction of the sources of livelihood (crops, domestic animals, and/or infrastructure), resulting in years of hunger and misery for a significant part of the population. In Jubaland (today Somalia) for example, there were several cases of resistance against the British. Against one sub-clan of the Ogadeen, “the British responded with imperial vigor. Losses of Somali lives were in the hundreds and literally thousands of livestock were either confiscated or destroyed” (Little 2003: 25). The war of resistance in the Philippines against US-colonialism (1899-1907) should clearly be coded as “massive colonial violence”: 126’000 American troops fought these rebels, and 4’324 were killed. Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20’000, complete villages were resettled in fortified camps, and the population of Luzon was lowered by estimated 13% (Go 2003: 12; Bourdreau 2003: 261). Exports were substantially reduced by the destruction and disturbances. On the other sides, there were also minor rebellions which never spread beyond their local points of origin, “mainly local affairs with weak national alliances and relatively parochial orientations”, without a “truly integrative and national elite leadership” (Bourdreau 2003: 256, 264). The suppression of these is what we coded as moderate colonial violence.
For violence during decolonization (VIOLIND), the armed suppression of isolated acts of violence and/or of riots, strikes or demonstrations were coded as “moderate colonial violence”, while armed wars of independence were coded as “massive colonial violence”.
Peaceful resistance is thus not measured, neither is the psychological impact of colonial violence which is emphasized by Ranger (1969), but not measurable in a comparative perspective. As we are interested in the impact of colonial violence, we are neither considering the casualties among the colonial troops and their expenditures; nor are we considering wars among colonial powers as during WWI or WWII. The total level of colonial violence (VIOLTOT) was measured by adding the values of the three violence-related variables and can thus vary between 0 and 6. Examples for countries with maximal violence are Algeria, Angola or Vietnam, while Fiji, Jordan or Kuwait were not exposed to significant direct, open colonial violence. Most countries are in between.
The level of colonial violence correlates in general positively with the length and intensity of political domination as well as with some indicators of economic transformation (see section 'Descriptive Statistics'). However, violence during decolonization seems to be only influenced by the existence of a plantation economy, not by directly political factors. In general, the level of violence was lower in British colonies than in others. The onset of colonialism in sub-Saharan Africa was usually more violent than in Asia/North Africa (ibid.).
