The other Mr Wilberforce: role conflict and colonial governance in Sierra Leone 1878-1913

This article considers role conflicts for Africans who occupied leadership positions in the colonial governance structure of the Sierra Leone Protectorate in the late nineteenth century. In particular it examines the source of conflicting identity issues for Western-educated or mission-converted indigenous leaders. It focuses these general issues through the example of the Rev. D.F. Wilberforce, who was both a missionary and a colonial appointee to a paramount chieftaincy. Wilberforce exemplifies the kinds of problems faced by colonial appointed chiefs, problems exacerbated by his role as an American missionary. It examines the pressures inherent in the contradictory roles he was required to fulfil. More generally it suggests that economic shifts in agricultural practice resulting from the late colonial desire to make West African colonies self-funding exacerbated already declining relations between the colonial authorities and indigenous rulers in the Protectorate. It examines the way colonial governments dealt with traditional governing practices vested in native social organizations and societies; how colonial paranoia about African secret societies allegedly involved in 'ritual murder' and 'cannibalism' compromised the colonial government's understanding of traditional authority structures; and how this influenced the exercise of political and legal control over these organizations and over supposedly recalcitrant native rulers.