ABSTRACT
To appreciate the function of colonialist fiction within this ambience, we must first distinguish between the ‘dominant’ and the ‘hegemonic’ phases of colonialism as well as between its material and discursive ideological practices. Throughout the dominant phase, which spans the period
from the earliest European conquest to the moment at which a colony is granted ‘independence’, European colonizers exercise direct and continuous bureaucratic control and military coercion of the natives: during this phase the ‘consent’ of the natives is primarily passive and indirect. Although we shouldn’t overlook the various forms of native ‘co-operation’ – for example, in the traffic of slaves – the point remains that such co-operation testifies less to a successful interpellation of the native than to the colonizer’s ability to exploit pre-existing power relations of hierarchy, subordination and subjugation within native societies. Within the dominant phase (to which I will confine the scope of this paper), the indigenous peoples are subjugated by colonialist material practices (population transfers, and so forth), the efficacy of which finally depends on the technological superiority of European military forces. Colonialist discursive practices, particularly its literature, are not very useful in controlling the conquered group at this early stage: the native is not subjugated, nor does his culture disintegrate, simply because a European characterizes both as savage.
