ABSTRACT
The late 19th century "Scramble for Africa" marked the last great wave of European colonization. The target of the Scramble was the landmass between the Sahara and the Limpopo. To these equatorial African colonies, late colonialism brought a host of lessons from previous colonizing experiences, particularly those in 19th century Asia. Direct rule was based on the presumption of a single legal order. That order was formulated in terms of received colonial ("modern") law. Its other side was the non-recognition of "native" institutions. In contrast to this, indirect role came to be the mode of domination over a "free" peasantry. Land was turned into a communal — "customary" — possession. In a colonial context, direct rule was necessarily unstable. Its claim to a single legal order and an equality of rights in a multiracial context was premised on a massive exclusion of "natives' (the "uncivilized') from the regime of civil power and civil rights.
