Colonial Economies

1. 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)

2. 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!

3. New Images of Africa 1919 1910 http://web2.hmco.com/history/world/bulliet/earth_peoples/2e/students/web_activities/ch32.html (Aux Colonies)

4. New Images of Africa (cont.) http://web2.hmco.com/history/world/bulliet/earth_peoples/2e/students/web_activities/ch32.html (Aux Colonies)

5. New Images of Africa (cont.) [H.F. War & J.W. Milligan,Handbook of British East Africa, 1912, xxiii]

6. New Images of Africa (cont.) Note the interesting social and gender compositionof this photograph. http://web2.hmco.com/history/world/bulliet/earth_peoples/2e/students/web_activities/ch32.html (Aux Colonies)

7. New Images of Africa (cont.) These tusks ofIvory do not seem to be the only “Trophy” on display!. Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 59 http://web2.hmco.com/history/world/bulliet/earth_peoples/2e/students/web_activities/ch32.html (Images anciennes d’Afrique)

8. New Images of Africa (cont.) These stamps identify colonies by their exploitable wealth – Both commoditiesand workers! [Brummett et al., eds. Civilization Past and Present, 891]

9. New Images of Africa (cont.) This French Posteris captioned “Le Porteur”. http://web2.hmco.com/history/world/bulliet/earth_peoples/2e/students/web_activities/ch32.html (Aux Colonies)

10. 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.

11. Key to Colonial Success: Transportation • Major limitation: • - transportation – or rather the lack of it • - where possible, steamships exploited possibilities of major rivers

12. 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]

13. 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]

14. 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). • .

15. Stanley with Porters Frank McLynn, Hearts of Darkness: The European Exploration of Africa plate 13

16. Cotton Caravan, Mali (West Africa)

17. 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

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

19. Porterage Kikuyu WomanEast Africa (below) Basotho Women, SouthAfrica (above) [RHW Shepherd & BG Paver, African Contrasts 1947] [Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 131]

20. 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

21. 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.

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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]

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

28. 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

29. 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)

30. The Settler World Muthaiga Country Club(British East Africa) [Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 16] GovernmentHouse, Nairobi [Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 21] Nairobi Street(date? C. 1920? ) [Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 21]

31. Africans in the ‘Settler’ World Karen Blixen and herServants [Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 78] Blixen’s Servants: headedby Farah, a Somali, Kikuyu farmhands. [Isak Dinesen’s Africa, 79]

32. 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

33. Travel and Tourism [HF Ward & JW Milligan, Handbook of British East Africa, 1912 iv,iii]

34. Travel and Tourism (cont.) [HF Ward & JW Milligan, Handbook of British East Africa 1912, 280,1]

35. Service to the ‘African World’ [HF Ward & JW Milligan, Handbook of British East Africa,1912, xi,xii]

36. Merchants of the ‘African World’ [HF Ward & JW Milligan,Handbook of British EastAfrica 1912, 289, 309]

37. 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

38. 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

39. “Les Impots”: taxes in kind Levying taxes in kind (produce) was one way to extract wealth.

40. 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)

41. Rubber in Nyasaland The Vizara Rubber Estate, 1921 [Moir, After Livingsonm 184]

42. Cotton in East Africa ‘Natives’ Ginning Cotton on European Estate [F. Moir, After Livingstone, 64]

43. Tobacco Curing, East Africa “Natives” Taking Tobacco from Curing Barnon European Estate [F.Moir, After Livingstone, 65]

44. Sisal Plantation [HF Ward & JW Milligan, Handbook of British East Africa 1912, 62]

45. 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

46. 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

47. 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

48. 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)

49. 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)

50. 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