Resident (title)

From ArticleWorld

A Resident or resident minister or a colonial resident was an official representative of his country who acted like an ambassador of his country to generally those parts of the world that his country had colonized.

Nomenclatures

Officials, who were posted abroad to the colonies in positions lower than the ambassador, were generally called Resident Ministers, while Colonial Residents were posted as minor ambassadors to colonial entities of parent countries. In the garb of helping the local rulers, the residents indirectly ruled these small vassal states. A similar title with similar powers was that of the Political Agent.

European colonies

Most of the colonies belonged to the British, followed by the Dutch, the French, and to some extent the German and the Portuguese.

England’s African colonies included the Tanzanian archipelago, Zanzibar and kwaZulu (Zululand). They sent their residents to Asia - to the Indian princely states of British India, to Burma and to Ceylon after taking over from the Dutch. The English posted their resident in Maldives and also in Afghanistan. In Europe, the British posted their residents in Greece and elsewhere - in New Zealand and Cook Island.

The Dutch sent residents and numerous lower rank officers to what they called the Dutch East Indies and islands which now comprise the Indonesian archipelago.

The French posted residents in their colonies at Ivory Coast, French Guinea and Gabon. The islands of Wallis and Futuna had a long line of French Residents till about the mid 20th century. The French also posted a Resident Superior to Upper Volta (present Burkina Faso) for a short while, during late 1930s. Unlike the other powers the French did not believe in indirect rule but instead preferred the Jacobean tradition of strict direct rule.

The German Reich was represented in Wituland (Deutsch-Witu) for a period of five years in the late 1880s, after which it gave over ownership to the British. Residents of Urundi (present Burundi) and Ruanda were also German.

The Portuguese posted residents for a period of four years to Cabinda (present Angola).