ABSTRACT
Between 1885 and 1906 most of what is now described geographically as West Africa was formally occupied by four European powers: France, Britain, Germany and Portugal. The myth that Africans accepted colonial occupation passively is easily exploded by the opposition of such states as Dahomey, the Tokolor empire and Ashanti to any form of European penetration other than for purposes of trade. This chapter examines how far the colonial powers in any meaningful sense by their ‘tutelage’ did integrate West Africa into the modern world. The colonial stereotype of the African became that of a people saved from themselves by the benevolence of their colonial rulers. The conviction of the European powers that the territories they conquered in the late nineteenth century were not ‘occupied territories’, or even lands that were essentially foreign, but a special kind of territory which they described as colonies,8 had an immense impact on the Africans they ruled.
