African rulers rejected the civilizing mission as a plunder of independence

Evidence

Then the messenger asked Gordon why he had come to Mtesa’s land to dethrone the king, saying, in the king’s own words, we are satisfied with our condition. We never sent you a complaint, nor a plea for help, and we can do without this civilization of yours that plunders our happiness and our present independence. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 588

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the colonized subject’s own testimony that ‘civilization’ was recognized as plunder even at the moment of expansion, preserved accidentally in the colonizer’s own narrative.
• SHARE: Share with anyone studying African resistance rhetoric or the civilizing mission.