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The Devonshire Declaration: The Myth of Missionary Intervention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Robert M. Maxon
Robert M. Maxon*
Affiliation:
Moi University
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Extract

It has long been accepted that the Devonshire Declaration of 1923 represented a clever compromise by which the British government was able to extricate itself from a longstanding controversy surrounding Indian claims for equality with European settlers in Kenya through a statement that African interests were to be paramount in that colony. There can be no denying that the doctrine of African paramountcy proved an effective solution to the Colonial Office dilemma caused by attempting to balance the conflicting claims of the Kenya Indians and settlers. Yet another widely-stated view, that the doctrine of African paramountcy and other specific details included in the declaration were provided to the Colonial Office by British missionary and church officials, specifically J. H. Oldham and Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury is, quite simply, a myth. The Colonial Office had no need for Oldham and Davidson to devise a settlement for it; officials there had decided the main principles that they would use in making a policy statement long before Oldham entered the Indian question in May 1923. What the Colonial Office officials actually got from the missionary leader, in addition to useful phraseology, was the vital support they needed to sell the policy announced in the White Paper to influential public opinion in both Britain and India. This was a most significant achievement, and it is time to recognize Oldham's contribution for what it was rather than perpetuate an interpretation that has no basis in fact.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 18 , 1991 , pp. 259 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1991

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References

Notes

1. E.g., Roberts, Andrew, “East Africa” in Roberts, A. D., ed., The Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge, 1986): 7: 678–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This view was first suggested by Oliver, Roland, The Missionary Factor in East Africa (2d ed.: London, 1965), 260–62.Google Scholar The myth has since been propagated by, among others, George Bennett, J. S. Mangat, Ronald Robinson, Robert Gregory, and John Cell. Bennett and Mangat cite Oliver as their source for this interpretation. See Bennett, George, “Settlers and Politics in Kenya” in Harlow, V. and Chilver, E. M., eds., History of East Africa (Oxford, 1965): 2: 299Google Scholar; Bennett, George, Kenya: A Political History (London, 1963), 52Google Scholar; Mangat, J. S., A History of the Asians in East Africa c. 1886 to 1945 (Oxford, 1969), 127Google Scholar; Robinson, Ronald, “The Moral Disarmament of African Empire 1919-1947,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 8 (1979), 93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gregory, Robert C., India and East Africa (Oxford, 1971), 240Google Scholar; Cell, John W., ed., By Kenya Possessed (Chicago, 1976), 50.Google Scholar

2. In fairness to Oliver, it should be pointed out that at the time he published The Missionary Factor he was unable to examine the CO archives for 1923 as a result of then fifty-year rule.

3. Memo by Parkinson, 25 August 1919, CO 533/219.

4. Cabinet Minutes, 13 February 1922, CAB 23/29.

5. Minute by Bottomley, 12 April 1920, on Bowring to Milner, confidential, 28 February 1920, CO 533/230.

6. Memo by Parkinson, 25 August 1919.

7. Only the strong protests of the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, caused Milner to alter his extremely pro-settler scheme at the last minute, to concede the right of communal elections, rather than appointment of representatives by the Governor, to the Indians. The Indians rejected that system and the fact that they were to receive only two seats to the Europeans' eleven.

8. Later Lord Halifax.

9. Churchill to Coryndon, telegram, confidential, 5 September 1922, CO 533/287.

10. Coryndon to Churchill, telegraph, immediate, confidential, clear the line, 21 September 1922, CO 533/282.

11. Devonshire to Coryndon, confidential, 14 December 1922, CO 533/289. Wording very similar to this formed the CO statement of principle in the Devonshire declaration. It read: “His Majesty's Government cannot but regard the grant of responsible self-government as out of the question within any period of time which need now be taken into consideration.” Britain, Great, Indians in Kenya, Cmd. 1922 (London, 1923), 11.Google Scholar Clearly enough, the CO did not obtain this portion of the declaration from Oldham.

12. Devonshire to Coryndon, secret, 14 December 1922, CO 533/289.

13. Coryndon to Devonshire, telegram, 11 January 1923, CO 533/292; Coryndon to Devonshire, 15 January 1923, CO 533/292.

14. Devonshire to Coryndon, telegram, 18 January 1923, CO 533/292.

15. Coryndon to Devonshire, telegram, 27 January 1923, CO 533/292.

16. Coryndon to Devonshire, telegram, pesonal and secret, 3 February 1923, CO 533/293. Coryndon to Devonshire, telegram, personal and secret, 12 February 1923, CO 533/293.

17. “Minutes of a Conference on Indian Policy in Kenya held in the S of S's Room…, 21 February, 1923,” CO 533/293. The key factor, of course, was that the only troops available to quell any European uprising were African. The Colonial Office and India Office leaders recognized the political impossibility of using such troops against the settlers.

18. Minute by Bottomley, 15 April 1922, CO 533/287.

19. Churchill to Northey, draft despatch, June 1923, CO 533/287.

20. Devonshire to Coryndon, 9 Janaury 1923, CO 533/289.

21. “Minutes of a Conference.”

22. Ibid.

23. Minute by Masterton-Smith, 27 February 1923, on “Minutes of a Conference,” CO 533/293.

24. Devonshire to Coryndon, 9 January 1923.

25. Ormsby-Gore to Coryndon, 5 May 1924, Coryndon Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS afr. 633.

26. “Memorandum of the Kenya Situation by the Kenya Indian Delegation,” enclosure in Varma to Devonshire, 22 May 1923, CO 533/305.

27. Minute by Bottomley, 28 April 1923, CO 533/303.

28. Gregory, , India and East Africa, 237.Google Scholar

29. Oliver, , Missionary Factor, 260.Google Scholar

30. The Times, 9 May 1923. Spencer, Leon P., “Christian Misisons and African Interests in Kenya, 1905-1924” (Ph.D., Syracuse University, 1974), 461.Google Scholar

31. Spencer, , “Christian Missions,” 461–62.Google Scholar

32. Archbishop of Canterbury to Devonshire, 29 May 1923, CO 533/305. The ARchbishop also suggested the appointment of a Royal Commission to settle the Indian question, but the Colonial Office was not in favor of such a course.

33. This is Spencer's view. Spencer, “Christian Missions,” 463.

34. Oldham to Masterton-Smith, 1 June 1923, CO 533/303.

35. Oldham to Masterton-Smith, 11 June 1923, CO 533/303.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid. In fact the Devonshire Declaration provided for a single missionary representative to be appointed, whereas Oldham had called for two or more.

38. Oldham to Masterton-Smith, 11 June 1923.

39. Oldham to Masterton-Smith, 15 June 1923, CO 533/303. Oldham induced Andrews to write to Labour leader Ramsay Macdonald.

40. Coryndon to Ormsby-Gore, 15 July 1923, Coryndon Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford, Mss. Afr. 633.

41. Delamere to Masterton-Smith, 17 July 1923, CO 533/306.

42. Meeting of the Cabinet, 23 July 1923, Cabinet Papers CAB 23/46.

43. The choice of title for the policy announcement was very much in line with previous Colonial Office treatment of the issue. In November 1922 and February 1923, Bottomley had produced memoranda setting out at length the background and dimensions of the controversy. On both occasions he titled the document “Indians in Kenya.” The 1923 title was thus very much a product of past Colonial Office treatment of the question, just as was the settlement announced. Bottomley, “Indians in Kenya” 6 November 1922, CO 533/289; Bottomley, “Indians in Kenya,” draft memorandum for Cabinet, 8 February 1923, CO 533/303.