<p>The death penalty in sub-Saharan Africa remains a contentious issue: twenty-eight states have abolished the penalty, and twenty-one retain it. This paper situates the use or disuse of capital punishment as a legacy of colonialism. Colonialism created conditions of ethnic fragmentation and economic vulnerability that prevented a meaningful transition to democracy at independence, resulting in weak states that relied on state violence to maintain power. Differing forms of colonial governance impacted the centrality of the death penalty to state power, and this paper addresses the distinction between direct rule and indirect rule in explaining why British Africa tends to retain the death penalty and the rest of Africa has tended to abolish.</p>