Review

Reviewed Work(s): Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African Employees in the

Making of Colonial Africa by Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn and Richard L.
Roberts
Review by: Paul Swanepoel
Source: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute , 2008, Vol. 78, No. 3
(2008), pp. 462-463
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African
Institute

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29734357

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462 BOOK REVIEWS

wholly about violence against non-combatants, in the broadest sense of that

term; as Lovejoy asks at the beginning of his chapter, 'What does civilian mean
in the context of the slave trade?' We could similarly ask, 'What does civilian
mean in the context of the Rwandan genocide?', or indeed in the context of
civil wars characterized by deep-rooted social violence in Sudan, Sierra Leone
and Liberia.
Nonetheless this is a valuable introduction to a worthwhile subject. Besides
the somewhat odd subtitle-'slavery days' is curiously vague-there are a
number of typographical errors which do not, however, significantly detract
from the merits of the collection.

RICHARD REID
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London

BENJAMIN N. LAWRANCE, EMILY LYNN OSBORN AND RICHARD L.

ROBERTS (eds), Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African employees in
the making of colonial Africa. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press
(hb ?30.95-978 0 299 21950 X). 2006, 344 pp.

This edited collection contains selected papers from the Eighth Stanford
Berkeley Symposium on Law and Colonialism and examines the wider roles
of African intermediaries in the making of modern Africa. It covers a broad
geographical and chronological area, and fills a significant gap in colonial
historiography by focusing on the roles of African civil servants who staffed
the lower echelons of colonial bureaucratic structures.
In a masterly and lengthy introduction, Lawrance, Osborn and Roberts
provide excellent synopses of each of the chapters; more importantly, they
situate the collection within mainstream academic debates about the nature of
the colonial state. These include questions about 'collaboration and resistance;
the invention of tradition; the production of knowledge and "expertise" in
colonial settings; the role of language and education; and the relationship
of colonialism to the production of differentiation by gender, race, status,
and class' (p. 4).
The book is divided into two chronological sections, the first on the
formative period of colonial rule c. 1800-1920, and the second on the period
c. 1920-60. There was a significant difference between the lives of
intermediaries who worked during the period following European conquest,
and those who worked during the maturation of the colonial state. In this
respect, Osborn's chapter on the downfall of two African employees in French
Guinea provides an excellent example of the end of the formative period of
colonial rule. It signalled the point at which the relationships between colonial
masters and intermediaries during the phase of conquest became incompatible
with the 'bureaucratic agendas of occupation' (p. 20).
The collection begins with Levine's examination of a Xhosa interpreter and
intermediary in the early nineteenth century, who successfully established a
'space for himself in the interstices between the colonial and African worlds'
by acting as an intermediary between a mission station and a Xhosa chief
(p. 38.) The power of the translator is reinforced in McClendon's account of
Theophilus Shepstone, a 'white interpreter' who shrewdly used his linguistic
skills for political ends. Lawrance highlights the role of a different kind of
intermediary: the socially mobile letter writers during the British occupation

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 BOOK REVIEWS 463

of Togo during the First World War, who conveyed legal matters on behalf
of illiterate litigants. Like interpreters, they 'functioned as intermediaries in a
multivalent legal environment: they negotiated access to the judicial tribunal'
(p. 95). Pratten provides a variation on this theme in a vivid and fascinating
account of the role of a district clerk, Usen Udo Usen, in the investigation of
a series of ritualistic 'man-leopard' murders in southern Nigeria. The murders
were characterized by copycat mutilations of leopard-style attacks, and Usen
constantly shifted between the roles of colonial investigator and respected
community leader, losing and gaining allies as a result. Eckert provides a
useful comparison to Usen in his depiction of a chief in late colonial
Tanganyika who exemplified a class of African employees he terms 'cultural
commuters', a group torn between the Western world and the 'old Africa' of
bush villages and primitivism. The collection also includes two chapters on
clerical writing, a scarcely explored area of colonial historiography. J?z?quel
examines the role of African clerks in codifying customary law in French West
Africa, while Austen provides two autobiographical sketches by African clerks.
Their work signals the importance of future research into the production of
knowledge by Africans during the colonial period. Ginio's chapter on the role
of assessors, or local judges, in French West Africa illustrates the 'colonial
contradiction' that faced colonial powers; they realized the need of enhancing
the assessors' prestige and independence while wishing to retain tight control
over them at the same time. Echoing Ginio are two studies on the power
and influence of African court elders in western Kenya. Shadle identifies two
sets of intermediaries: the elite Africans who advised the colonial authorities
on whom to select as elders, and the court elders themselves. His work
is complemented by Amutabi's case study of a single African court. The
chapter is well-researched, using both archival and oral sources, but tends
to conflate the judicial and administrative departments, which maintained
distinctly separate identities during the colonial period. Significantly, both
chapters reveal the endemic corruption in the courts, which underscores the
importance of their research in understanding the corruption and inefficiency
of the post-independence Kenyan judiciary.
The unique position of intermediaries meant that they occupied positions
of considerable influence over the implementation of policy and the creation
of knowledge, and this groundbreaking collection is a welcome addition to
the growing body of literature on law and colonialism in Africa. One of the
greatest strengths of the collection is its detailed descriptions of individuals'
lives. At the same time, the book addresses a number of broader issues about
colonialism and provides a more nuanced understanding of the inner workings
of the colonial state.

PAUL SWANEPOEL
University of Edinburgh

JAN-GEORG DEUTSCH, Emancipation without Abolition in German East Africa,

c. 1884-1914. Oxford: James Currey; Dar es Salaam, Mkuki na Nyota;
Athens, OH: Ohio University Press (hb ?55.00-978 0 852 55986 4 and
pb ?17.95-978 0 852 55985 7). 2006, 320 pp.

As indicated by its title, Jan-Georg Deutsch's study of slavery under German

rule in mainland Tanzania has a very clear argument. When the Germans took
over this territory, it contained over 400,000 slaves, concentrated along its

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