Governing the Locals
Question: An imperial power sets up a new system where European officials hold all top jobs, from the Governor down to the district tax collector
DIRECT RULE. (Total control by the imperial country's own citizens.)
Question: The colony is forced to switch entirely to the laws of the ruling country (e.g., the French Civil Code). Local laws are ignored.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (Imposing the imperial country's own laws across the entire colony.)
Question: The imperial power spends a lot of money to hire and pay hundreds of their own people to run the entire government of the colony.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (Requires high spending to hire many European staff to manage everything.)
Question: After the Spanish-American War, the US takes over the Philippines and places an American Governor at the top of a new centralized system.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (Establishing a clear chain of command with an American official at the top.)
he Spanish colonial government in territories like New Spain (Mexico) and Peru staffed nearly all high-level positions (like the Viceroy and Audiencia judges) with peninsulares (men born in Spain). When these colonies fought for independence, they had a severe lack of trained, upper-level local administrators among the Creoles, leading to decades of political instability.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (The lack of strong, impartial, national institutions created a political culture prone to military intervention, constitutional crises, and coups, a pattern that has defined the political history of much of Latin America right up to the modern era.)
Question: An imperial power allows the local kings and chiefs to stay in power, but they must follow orders from a distant European Governor.
INDIRECT RULE. (Uses the existing local rulers to manage the colony.)
Question: The ruling power spends a lot of money to build new schools and courts, but they are all taught in the language of the imperial country (e.g., Portuguese).
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (Heavy spending on European-style infrastructure and language training.)
Question: In the British Raj, the colonial government justified the high cost of its administration by building extensive railway networks, telegraph lines, and state-funded hospitals.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (Building the extensive railway network, telegraph lines, and state-funded hospitals in India was extremely expensive. This contrasts sharply with the low-cost model of Indirect Rule.)
Question: The Dutch allow native princes on the island of Java to continue governing their local population, so long as the princes meet cash crop quotas.
Answer: INDIRECT RULE. (Uses native princes to enforce foreign policies like cash crop quotas.)
Question: In the colony of Rwanda, the imperial power chose to rule by granting all local administrative power and elite education to the minority Tutsi group. Decades after independence, this system of entrenched favoritism contributed directly to one of the worst genocides in history.
INDIRECT RULE. (Today, the Rwandan government has actively tried to dismantle this toxic legacy. The official policy is to de-emphasize ethnic identity to avoid repeating the past.)
Question: The goal is to govern at the lowest cost possible, using the local tax system and local labor, without sending many European administrators.
INDIRECT RULE. (Saves money by making local leaders do the work.)
Question: The imperial power sets up two types of justice: local courts for small, daily issues, and European courts only for large crimes or disputes.
Answer: INDIRECT RULE. (Allows local law to continue for minor issues to keep the peace.)
Question: In the Gold Coast (Ghana), the British refused to spend tax money on European-style schools, instead letting Christian missionaries and local communities run the schools.
Answer: INDIRECT RULE. (By letting Christian missionary societies and local leaders handle the construction, staffing, and day-to-day running of schools, the colonial government avoided the massive expense of hiring European civil servants (teachers) and building a massive state-run school bureaucracy.)
Question: The French remove the Vietnamese Emperor and staff all high positions in French Indochina with French officials.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (Removing the local leader and replacing them with European staff.)
Question: In the British protectorate of Uganda, the colonial power chose to rule through the existing King and local chiefs (the Buganda Agreement). This method immediately made the colonial government financially self-sufficient because the local leaders continued to collect and turn over taxes and resources.
Answer: INDIRECT RULE. (Today, this disparity is visible as deep regional resentment. The historically neglected groups often feel economically marginalized and politically unrepresented by the central government, which has frequently led to political instability, civil wars, and regional secession movements decades after independence.)
Question: The imperial power focuses on the goal of assimilation, trying to make the colonized people think and act like citizens of the mother country
DIRECT RULE. (The goal is for the colony to become culturally similar to the mother country.)
Question: A European power requires local rulers to use existing tribal systems to collect resources like rubber, which creates violence but is very cheap for the European power.
Answer: INDIRECT RULE. (Relies on existing, cheap local systems for resource collection.)
Question: The imperial power uses the existing system of local chiefs to collect taxes from their own people, meaning the imperial power saves money.
Answer: INDIRECT RULE. (Saves money by using local rulers, often for free or cheap.)
Question: King Leopold II of Belgium runs the Congo Free State as his own private, brutal business using only a handful of European overseers.
Answer: DIRECT RULE.
While the Congo Free State (CFS) appears to fit some aspects of Indirect Rule because it used local forces, it is fundamentally a case of Extreme Direct Rule due to the source and nature of its authority:
Direct Authority: The entire state was owned and personally controlled by one European individual, King Leopold II. Every policy, every law, and the entire system of resource extraction flowed directly from Brussels to the agents in the Congo.
Question: The British allowed local Sultans in Malaya to keep control of their land, but compelled them to lease large tracts to British companies for cash crops. This method resulted in the colony being left with a highly unstable, mono-culture economy after independence.
Answer: INDIRECT RULE. (This monoculture meant the colony focused almost entirely on producing one or two things for the European factory, rather than diversifying its own economy. When these colonies finally gained independence, they were left without a stable food supply and with an economy that depended entirely on the fluctuating global price of a single commodity)
Question: In the colony of French Indochina (Vietnam), the French quickly dissolved the existing royal court and sent a French Governor-General to make all political and military decisions.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (This shows the method of removing local authority and staffing all top administrative roles with citizens from the imperial country.)
Question: In the colony of French West Africa, a local person accused of a major crime would be tried in a court where the judge, the prosecutor, and the legal code were identical to those used in Paris.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (This shows the core goal of assimilation, where the laws and institutions of the imperial country completely replace local systems.)
Question: The imperial power sends its own doctors and scientists to the colony, but the locals view them as outsiders who don't understand their culture.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (Locals see the administrators as foreigners who do not belong.)
Question: The French colonial government in French Indochina created state-owned monopolies on salt, opium, and alcohol. French administrators personally ran the factories and sales, outlawing local competition to ensure all profit went directly to the French treasury.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (This shows the method of direct European ownership and management over key economic sectors.)
Question: The French colonial government in Algeria demanded that all schools teach French, making it the primary official language. Decades after independence, the country was left with a powerful, French-educated elite but also with deep political divisions between those who spoke French and those who spoke Arabic.
Answer: DIRECT RULE. (The culture and language were forced on the people for generations causing a divide that continues today.)