Our Kind of Savage

He knew how he was supposed to feel about the Kolo tribesmen. He was supposed to think they were savages, but a step up from the savages of the plains. Savages with potential. This sentiment was practically an official chapter of the officer's manual.

He had heard the expression so many times from his superiors—Our Kind of Savage—that it had come to sound like law. He didn't dare—yet—tell anyone, but he was coming to see that the conventional wisdom re: the Kolo was quite incorrect. Not the part about their potential, but the part about their savagery. These were the same men who designated one among each party to club the timi fish they caught, so only one man would need to seek atonement. The same men who offered up a tenth of their omotu harvest to avoid war with neighboring tribes. Yes, when war came anyway, they were ruthless. But these were not savages. (His school mates had been ruthless too. How many bloody brawls had he witnessed as a lad?) These Kolo were citizens, as god-fearing and law-abiding, in their way, as any Englishman.

Conley knew this now, and the knowledge was interfering with his duties. Unclear to begin with, his duties—it had been suggested by his ever-helpful superiors—involved drawing the Kolo into line. Seducing them, as it were, with a vision of British salvation. Cooking pots, machetes, metal arrowheads, mass-produced sandals: the Kolo would have a near-endless supply of these and other goods, if only they would act as the King's emissaries and help the King claim the outlying regions. Everyone would win. A true bargain. No rape of the savage here.

Conley knew he wasn't the man for the job, his knack for the language notwithstanding. He knew the Kolo deserved every bit as much sovereignty as the British. They were not a people specially made for colonization. They were proud and upright. Allies, perhaps. Subjects, doubtful. Conley could not betray them.