Practicing Imperialism – 0506b
Your
team has been appointed to run her Majesty’s Royal Crown Colony Rumitland. You are English officers in the Department
of Colonial Affairs. Your job is to
write a report back to the Foreign Office of Britain, to the Secretary for
Colonial Affairs, explaining your plans for running Rumitland. He would like to know how you will deal with
each of the issues listed in the situation below and how Rumitland can be
turned into a place that does not lose money for Britain.
There
are 200,000 Rumit people living in a basically square piece of coastal land
about 70 miles long and 70 miles wide.
Most of the Rumit live in small nomadic villages of 2,000 or fewer
people, though about 60,000 live in the capitol city of Tsew Elttaes.
The
nomadic Rumit keep cattle and build three semi-permanent encampments per
year. At each encampment they let their
cattle graze for a while before the village moves to a new spot and lets the
grasses recover in the last spot. The
cattle-keeping Rumit require large amounts of open space and clear pathways
across which to move their herds. The
cattle-keeping Rumit people have a tribal religion, speak only Rumit, and are
poor and primitive by British standards.
Tsew
Elttaes is coastal trading city. The
people there are significantly richer than in the nomadic villages. Some of the citizens of Tsew Elttaes are
Muslim and a few have converted to Christianity as a result of recent
missionary activity. A few of the residents
of Tsew Elttaes speak English and more speak the regional trading language of
Swahili. There are small tea garden
plots in the area around Tsew Elttaes.
Tsew Elttaes used to serve as a source of slaves before the slave trade
was abolished, and has failed to recover economically from the end of the slave
trade. The residents of Tsew Elttaes
are not seen as true Rumit people by the cattle-keeping Rumit.
Rumit
has large amounts of coal and copper in its hills. The hills of Rumitland are about 50 miles from the ocean coast,
beyond a fairly barren savanna.[1] The land near the rivers and along the coast
of Rumitland, where the cattle usually spend the summer, would make excellent
cropland for tea and cotton.
The
chief of the Rumit people is from the cattle-keeping Rumit and is named
Netaeb. For six years he opposed
Britain in a bloody war, but he recently admitted defeat and signed a peace and
occupation treaty allowing Britain to take over, as long as the Rumit retained
the right to move their cattle as they pleased. He signed over the hills to the Queen of England. During the war, about forty British soldiers
and one hundred white settlers and missionaries died. Perhaps 20,000 Rumit people died during the fighting, mostly from
starvation and destruction of their herds.
Netaeb 's son, Flaubert, was educated by missionaries, speaks both Rumit
and English, and is a Christian.
Flaubert is distrusted by the Rumit of all types. He lives in Tsew Eltteas and his father
doesn't talk to him.
A
group of about 20 nomadic villages living close to the hills have refused to
abide by the treaty signed by Netaeb.
Approximately 600 rebel soldiers under the leadership of a young warrior
named Efre have continued to attack Europeans who enter their territory. Netaeb has refused to use his soldiers
against Efre, saying that Efre and his people are the problem of the British.
British
settlers and Christian missionaries want access to Rumitland, particularly the
rich lands along the coast and rivers.
Coal and copper mining companies have offered to build a railroad to the
hills and start mining, but they demand that the right of way of the railroad
be protected from the nomadic Rumit and from Efre.
The
people of your team have 600 British soldiers armed with machine guns and
howitzers, a 300-man construction unit, 30 trained police officers, 2 judges,
and 5 lawyers at your disposal to control the Rumitland colony.
[1] Savanna = a tropical or subtropical grassland containing scattered trees and drought-resistant undergrowth