Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"By the time the Scramble for Africa was over, some 10,000 African polities had been amalgamated into forty European colonies and protectorates. . . . A reshuffle of territory occurred as a result of the First World War. . . . Administration was thus kept to a minimum; education was placed in the hands of Christian missionaries ; economic activity was left to commercial companies. The main functions of government were limited to maintaining law and order, raising taxation and providing an infrastructure of roads and railways. There seemed to be no need for more rapid development. Colonial rule was expected to last for hundreds of years. . . . In much of Africa, therefore, the colonial imprint was barely noticeable. . . . With so few men on the ground, colonial governments relied heavily on African chiefs and other functionaries to collaborate with officials and exercise control on their behalf. The British, in particular, favoured a system of ‘indirect rule’, using African authorities to keep order, collect taxes and supply labour, that involved a minimum of staff and expense." [The Fate of Africa, p. 2-13]