colonial economies

Colonial Economies

“We are landlords of a great estate; it is the duty of the landlord

to develop his estate.”

(Joseph Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, Birmingham, 1 April 1895)

From Militarism to Materialism

Post WWI World:

European countries focusing less on military conquest, more on material wealth:

- where to find it - how to extract it - how to profit from it

Joseph Chamberlain put it bluntly: colonialism was like ‘developing an estate’ – it was the ‘duty’ of the landlord!

New Images of Africa

1910

1919

http://web2.hmco.com/history/world/bulliet/earth_peoples/2e/students/web_activities/ch32.html (Aux Colonies)

New Images of Africa (cont.)



[H.F. War & J.W. Milligan,Handbook of British East Africa, 1912, xxiii]


Note the interesting social and gender compositionof this photograph.



These tusks of

Ivory do not seem to be

the only

“Trophy” on display!.

http://web2.hmco.com/history/world/bulliet/earth_peoples/2e/students/web_activities/ch32.html (Images anciennes d’Afrique)

Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 59


Both commoditiesand workers!

These stamps identify colonies by their exploitable wealth –

[Brummett et al., eds. Civilization Past and Present, 891]


This French Posteris captioned “Le Porteur”.


Key to Colonial Success: Taxation

Structures put in place to extract and transport wealth -- and to pay for both.

Role of government:- collect taxes - Convince workers to produce wealth

Systems imposed to do both characterized Colonialism everywhere in Africa.

Key to Colonial Success: Transportation

Major limitation:- transportation – or rather the lack of it

- where possible, steamships exploited possibilities of major rivers

River Travel (where possible)

Lady Nyasa, first steamship to plyZambezi and Shire Rivers (BritishEast Africa 1890-1900)

[Moir, After Livingstone, 33

Empress, modernsternwheeler (British East Africa 1921)

[Moir, After Livingstone, 33]

River Travel on the Congo

Even where river travel was possible, parts often had to be carried overland to avoid rapids and

other obstacles. This required African labour.

[Bulliet et al., eds. The Earth and its Peoples, 2nd ed., 234]

Key to Colonial Success (cont.)

As in days of slave trade, most goods moves overland by “porterage (“safaris” or caravans with many porters to carry the goods).

.

Rev. Dennis Kemp, Nine Years at Gold Coast 204.

Stanley with Porters

Frank McLynn, Hearts of Darkness: The European Exploration of Africa plate 13

Cotton Caravan, Mali (West Africa)

Key to Colonial Success (cont.)

Local needs met by head-loading; women were principal workers

Shona women and children transporting grain near Great Zimbabwe, circa 1920. Elizabeth Schmidt, Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870 – 1939. 79

Porterage

African Carriers Receiving Loads (West Africa)[E Isichei, History of West Africa Since 1800, 229]

Porterage

Kikuyu WomanEast Africa (below)

Basotho Women, SouthAfrica (above)

[Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 131] [RHW Shepherd & BG Paver, African Contrasts 1947]

Key Factor shaping Colonial Economy:

Presence or Absence of Europeans: West Africa:

-Agriculture, land, remained in hands of Africans - (Few exceptions ie Cote d’Ivoire, some plantation agriculture practiced)- Europeans in coastal cities, transport, banking, import-export companies-African merchants often shut out

Key Factor shaping Colonial Economy:

- some African peasants benefitted- Indigenous elites profited- others/the rest became workers or migrants.- New economy re-shaped, exacerbated ethnic affinities, class divisions and regional strengths/weaknesses.

Key Factor…. (cont.)

Presence or Absence of Europeans: East, South, North, Central Africa knew sizable European populations.

- Central Africa, attached to companies, company interests; not ‘permanent’.

-Elsewhere, Europeans came as Settlers - came to stay

Key Factor…. (cont.)

-demanded land, transport facilities, African labour

- also protection against African competition

- Settlers looked to colonial governments to assure needs met

- or to give them power to meet needs themselves

Settler Colonialism

Settler regimes everywhere were marked by:

- some form of ‘local government’- restrictions on African land access- special exemptions from taxes (especially transport taxes) - (or) special taxes levied on Africans

Settler Colonialism

-laws specifying forced labour from Africans: -‘taxation’ or in exchange for rights to land- threats of violent punishment, coercion to enforce ‘labour laws’-segregated living- pass laws controlling movement of African labourers

Pass Laws

“Millions of man hoursare spent annually atpass offices, registrationcentres and post-officecounters throughoutSouth Africa.”

This scene could beanywhere in East andSouthern Africa.

[RHW Shepherd & PG Paver, African Contrasts, 57]

Native Land Restrictions

Native Reserve in South Africa, 1940s[RHW Shepherd &BG Paver, African Contrasts, 1947: 19]

Settler Colonialism (cont.)

Settler regimes also marked by:- ongoing political conflict with colonial regime whose interests principally related to ‘indigenous’ not the immigrant ‘Africans’- ongoing social conflict with Africans who resisted laws and restrictions in various ways

Settler Colonialism (cont.)

- ongoing fear: Africans outnumbered Europeans in all settler colonies; Africans learned to prey upon that - ongoing, increasing competition from Africans in agriculture and commerce, often the result of education- ongoing racism (fuelled by all of the above)

The Settler World

Muthaiga Country Club(British East Africa)

[Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 16]

GovernmentHouse, Nairobi


Nairobi Street(date? C. 1920? )


Africans in the ‘Settler’ World

Karen Blixen and herServants


Blixen’s Servants: headedby Farah, a Somali, Kikuyu farmhands.


Settler Colonialism: (cont)

Settler Society as “African” market:- European residence (whether temporary colonial troop participation, big game hunting or permanent plantation owners, commercial agents) created market for products, services.- European merchants, travel agents, real estate developers, industrialists targeted the new ‘European African’ as a growing, affluent constituency

Travel and Tourism

[HF Ward & JW Milligan, Handbook of British East Africa, 1912 iv,iii]

Travel and Tourism (cont.)

[HF Ward & JW Milligan, Handbook of British East Africa 1912, 280,1]

Service to the ‘African World’

[HF Ward & JW Milligan, Handbook of British East Africa,1912, xi,xii]

Merchants of the ‘African World’

[HF Ward & JW Milligan,Handbook of British EastAfrica 1912, 289, 309]

Taxes in ‘Money’ and ‘Labour’

Initially, produce was extracted ‘in kind’, as in the cotton of French West Africa but more generally, ‘taxation’ as it related to supporting the costs of colonial administration and infrastructure took two forms:

- money- labour

Taxes in ‘Money’ and ‘Labour’

- To earn money, people forced into labour in new ‘cash economy’- To build roads, railroads, ports, Africans forced into labour for little or no pay

“Les Impots”: taxes in kind

Levying taxes in kind (produce) was one way to extract wealth.

Cash Cropping

Much African wealth lay in agriculture:- Cotton (West, East Portuguese Mozambique)

- Peanuts (West)

- Rubber (West & central)

- Cocoa (West Africa—e.g., Cote d’Ivoire)

- Coffee (East)

- Sisal (East)

- Sugar (Southern)

- Grapes/Citrus Fruits (North, South)

- Tobacco (East/Southern)

- Grains (West, East, South, Central, North)

Rubber in Nyasaland

[Moir, After Livingsonm 184]

The Vizara Rubber Estate, 1921

Cotton in East Africa

[F. Moir, After Livingstone, 64]

‘Natives’ Ginning Cotton on European Estate

Tobacco Curing, East Africa

[F.Moir, After Livingstone, 65]

“Natives” Taking Tobacco from Curing Barnon European Estate

Sisal Plantation

[HF Ward & JW Milligan, Handbook of British East Africa 1912, 62]

Cash Cropping: needs

“Cash Crops”: - not for local consumption

- needed chemical ‘inputs’ such as fertilizers - needed transport to market (infrastructure)- needed a market- needed land (the same land)- needed labour, usually low-paid labour

Cash Cropping: impact

Cash cropping advantageous in short term, less so in long term:

- as more village land, family labour invested in cash crops, less went to producing food crops (food shortages)- less local, regional food subsistence meant growing dependency on imported foodstuffs- meant more need for cash, more vulnerability to import fluctuations and price variability

Cash Cropping: impact

For example, sisal production in East Africa:

- main market in 19th century: twine for farmers in Europe and North America- soon after introduction of sisal production in Tanganyika, market dried up as cheaper alternatives became available http://www.ntz.info/

gen/n00570.html

Cash Cropping: impact (cont.)

- land used intensively (often without needed expensive fertilizers): became exhausted - necessitated expansion to produce same quantity of commodity- roads, railroads built to get produce to markets - African labour “recruited”, removing it from other domestic work (including agriculture)

Cash Cropping: impact (cont.)

-expanding cash cropping often outstripped local labour supplies- necessitated labour movement: “migrant workers”- exacerbated regional differences: worsened conditions in poorer regions, created virtual labour reserves of whole areas (eg West African sahel, regions surrounding South Africa)

Colonial Wealth

No matter what kind of wealth, no matter how it was extracted, no matter how profits (to Europe) were accrued:

-colonial governments sought to recover costs from Africans themselves - taxes were the key

Colonial Wealth

African societies fundamentally changed in process of adapting to colonial economy:

- class structures - gender relations- basic subsistence- relationship to markets

(dependency on external factors eg world pricing)

Looking to External Markets for Food

“Grocers’ shops designed to serve urban Africans reflect the change in diet of the urbanized African, who isbecoming more and more a purchaser of Europeanfoodstuffs.” (South Africa – but could be anywhere)

[RHW Shepherd & BG Paver, African Contrasts, 61]

Cash Cropping: Impact (cont.)

- change in crops grown, labour use affected family structures, traditional economies, customary gender and age roles-change in land use away from ‘usafruct’ (land to each family according to need, ability to exploit) to land available on the market- meant land to those who could afford it, none to those who could not

Cash Cropping: Impact (cont.)

-exacerbated inherent differences in wealth and ability- produced class of people deprived of access to land- forced to live by renting out their labour: salaried workers

Mineral Extraction

Mineral deposits barely tapped:- gold (West – ‘Gold Coast’, South)- diamonds (West – Sierra Leone, Central, South)- copper (Central, East)- tin (West)- phosphates (Sahara)-coal (West)- all required infrastructure and labour - most required significant capital investment

Gold Mines in South Africa

Boer Republic: Gold Mines 1888

[B Davisdon, Africa: History of a Continent, 282]

Gold Mines in South Africa (cont.)

Underground work:dangerous andunhealthy. Rationwas one Europeanto twelveAfricans (photo 1940s)


Diamond Mining, Kimberley

Diamond Workers in iron “mittens” beingexamined for stolengems (South Africa)

[Freund, The Making ofModern African Society Since 1870, Illus. # 9.]

Labour: a universal need

No question as to ‘who’ was to extract wealth: issue was how to make Africans into workers?

- nomadic peoples (Saharan camel, cattle herders; cattle herders of East, Southern Africa): forcibly sedentarized- peasants: West Africa, taxes meant to force peasants to grow cash crops; East, South, meant to push peasants off their land, onto European farms and plantations

Forced Labour

All colonies, policies forced Africans to work: -interpreted as forms of taxation, sometimes as ‘civic duty’, sometimes as paid labour. -local leaders tasked with delivering required workers.-debated whether labour ‘recruitment’ should be private (industry, European farmers) or government controlled

Forced Labour (cont.)

Issue was both economic and political:- governments worried industry competition would drive wages beyond what colonial regime could pay- farmers, miners simply wanted workers - colonial governments concerned with overall colonial labour situation

Forced Labour (cont.)

Issue was both economic and political:- feared creating internal systems of “have” and “have-not” regions; could cause costly political, welfare problems-indentured labour from India, China used in East, South Africa (mines, sugar plantations, railroads)- solution rejected by West African governments

Forced Labour and Migration

Migrant labour everywhere:- West Africa sahel fed coastal farms, plantations (peanuts, rubber, cocoa, rice)-Sahara fed towns on both shores (North, West Africa) - East/Southern Africa fed regional plantations, mines (Belgian Congo (Katanga), Southern Rhodesia, South Africa (Johannesburg)- Central African villages moved to serve mines, railroads

Forced Labour and Migration (cont.)

Impact of Migrant Labour system:- created ‘labour reserves’: women, children, elderly, sick survived but no development took place- created uprooted labour force dependent on urban ‘services’ but not part of urban culture- distorted normal family/gender relations

Forced Labour and Migration (cont.)

- undermined ethnic, political loyalties

- made creation of ‘workers’ with common interests difficult, union activity hampered- neither colonial regimes nor employers had long-term commitment or responsibility for worker maintenance

Labour Reserves

“With hundreds of thousands of men engaged in mining

and industrial areas, the cultivation of tribal lands is

largely in the hands of women (South Africa) .”[RHW Shepherd & BG Paver, African Contrasts, 54]

South African Mine Workers

Migrant workers were required to live in compoundsor barracks that they shared with dozens of otherminers. They slept on concrete slabs stacked aroundthe room.

[Brummett, et al., eds. Civilisation, Past and Present, 896]

Dependency on Urban Services

Cooking the morning meal for labourers drawn intothe European town for work (South Africa).


Slavery and Colonial Labour

Slavery was key ‘labour’ issue:- usually main labour force supporting local economies-most labourers recruited by colonial forces were slaves or ‘former’ slaves: “blind-eye” policy - administrative need for local elites meant acknowledging claims to ‘dependents’- slavery underpinned domestic, often political structures

“Villages de liberte”

[E Isichei, History of West Africa Since 1800, 229]

Slavery in Transition

Colonialism also offered new opportunities:

- colonial troops - urban domestic labour, food preparation and marketing, prostitution- wage labour (even if some portion returned to ‘masters’ or ‘chiefs’)- Sale of skills formerly belonging to their master (eg., slaves who wove, dyed cotton in West Africa)

From Slave to Worker

[postcard, Female cotton workers Segu c.1930R. Roberts, Two Worlds of Cotton, 1800-1946, 1996]

Slavery versus Forced Labour

Questions to ask:- Was forced labour merely slavery in disguise?- Did colonialism entrench forms of exploitation worse than traditional systems?- Was solving ‘the labour problem’ and adhering to rhetoric of ‘freedom and equality for all’ an inherent contradiction of colonialism?

Slavery, Forced Labour and Legacy

-worst systems thought to be Portuguese and Belgian but…

- British and French often not significantly different- all colonial powers accused, at one point or another (and as recently as 1950), of abuse of African labour by international agencies- remains contemporary issue in many countries (eg Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Sudan)

colonial economies

Documents

xxiiinew images of africa

history of west africa

colonial success cont

colonial economieswe

aux colonieskey

great estate

principal workersshona

british prime minister