Cooperatives and Neighbourhood Clientage Exchange

Abstract

During the 1950s Native Authorities’ budgets expanded in line with the economic development of the territory as a whole. Native Authority clientage practices were reportedly flourishing. But amidst the boom, the colonial state was experimenting with various alternative forms of local government, based on the English model. This experimentation precipitated the Native Authorities’ decline, although at the time colonial officialdom denied that this was their objective. TANU, never overtly anti-chief during the independence struggle, nonetheless unsentimentally did away with the Native Authorities in 1963. Chiefs retained ritual functions in many areas. Some were wealthy or educated men who could find status and material rewards elsewhere, but the chiefs as a group and the Native Authorities as an identifiable social force vanished. It is questionable if Native Authorities would have lasted even if officialdom had been more supportive of them.