DVS 1203 Political Economy of Africa and Development

THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES

• Colonial Economy is the organization of the

means of production and distribution, the
development of infrastructure and raising of
revenue and expenditure in the colonized
African states during the period of European
colonial rule.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
• A debate surrounds the history of the colonial
economy. To some historians and political
economists, the colonial economic period was
a period of unprecedented prosperity. To
these scholars, there was no exploitation.
Historians like Tidy and Leeming (1988;138)
believe that,
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
• “both economic growth and exploitation took
place in the African colonial economy, not just
in the continent as a whole or even within the
same region but even in the same locality”. In
this view therefore, colonialism had two
hands; one exploitative and the other
developmental.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
• To Walter Rodney and others, colonialism was
a one armed bandit. Political Economists and
Historians of this view don’t agree with the
idea that colonialism was developmental.
• Their view is that colonialism was oppressive,
exploitative and led to underdevelopment of
Africa.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES
• It should be noted that colonial economic
policies were to a great extent similar.
• The colonialists essentially aimed at
development of their own economies through
exploitation of the African economies.
• So whether the colonial economy was British,
Portuguese, Italian, French or German, the
policies were the same or had the same
interests and effects.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• There has also been a distinction between

what have been termed as settler economies
and the peasant economies. Although this
distinction holds in a few aspects, it is limited
as the key features in the colonial economy
were largely the same and involved the same
policies.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

1) Agriculture
This was done in two ways:
• In settler economies like Kenya, Zimbabwe
and Algeria it was plantation agriculture that
was mainly run by foreigners.
• In peasant economies like Uganda peasantry
agriculture under the indigenous farmers was
encouraged.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Cash crop production was emphasized at the

expense of food production. Whether it was
in a peasant or settler economy, colonial
governments supplied “better” seeds,
fertilizers and introduced better methods of
cultivation an aspect that has been advanced
to mean there was “development.”
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• It should be noted however, that for

plantation agriculture to flourish forced labor
was instituted and in case of payment Africans
were underpaid.
• Prices of agricultural products were fixed by
foreigners in their favor. Thus agricultural
development did not serve the interests of
Africans.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• For example in Uganda, the British set up an

agricultural system that would provide raw
materials to their industries. They introduced
the growing of cash crops like coffee, cotton,
tobacco and tea. These cash crops were to
provide raw materials to industries in Britain
and to raise revenue to maintain the colonial
state.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES
• Between 1901-02, government required
229,000 pounds and the tax collection was
74,000 pounds. The deficit had to be financed
by increasing revenue locally.
• Cotton was introduced in 1903 by K. Borup. By
1917 Uganda was the 3rd world producer. Coffee
was introduced in 1907 as a plantation crop and
by 1927 it had become a peasant crop.
 
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Cash crop growing was a forceful venture in

which chiefs were required to actively
participate. Those chiefs who were not active
in forcing people to grow cotton lost their
positions. By 1925 courts were still convicting
those Africans who failed to plant cotton.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• In the Gambia and Nigeria, the British used

peasant farmers to produce ground nuts
which were needed in Britain for the
manufacture of vegetable oils.
• In Tanganyika, the Germans used the Chagga
on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro to produce
Arabic coffee and used the Bahaya in Bukoba
of N.W Tanzania to produce Robusta coffee.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

2) Land Policy
• In settler economies like Kenya, Zimbabwe,
Togo, Algeria and Mozambique, land was
heavily alienated and given to European
settlers. The impact of this was pushing
Africans into reserves and turning others into
landless squatters.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• For example, by 1915 Kenya had about 3000

White settlers occupying 4.5 Million acres of
land which had been taken away from
Africans. The rest of the land was taken over
by the colonizing power as crown land.
• In peasant economies like Uganda, Tunisia,
Nigeria and Ghana, land was left to the African
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Indigenous peasants but in certain instances

crown land was created for example in the
1900 Buganda Agreement. The land policy has
been defended in some circles. It is argued
that alienation made land to go under the
control of the suitable developers.
• Creation of crown land is said to have
eliminated the presence of “idle” land while
leaving land to peasants in peasant economies
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• This contributed to “motivation” and “self

interest” among peasant developers.
• It should be noted however, that these
arguments only sugar coat a bitter pill. For
example, land alienation in some countries
like Kenya, Zimbabwe and Algeria rendered
the population landless and unemployed and
lowered the dignity of Africans.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• The story was true elsewhere and as Semakula

Kiwanuka (1973) puts it “Africans were
collected in reserves as if they were a peculiar
species of mankind.”
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

3) Labor Policies
These included forced labor and regional
division of labor.
• Forced labor was on public projects as well as
private plantations. Europeans used forced
labor on the false belief that native society in
Africa always recognized the value of forcing
labor for common purposes.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• On regional division of labor some areas were

gazetted as labor camps. For instance Kigezi
and Northern Uganda in Uganda and Western
Kenya served as sources of labor. Also
countries surrounding South Africa were
earmarked as sources of miners for the South
Africa mines.
• In certain instances labor became a hired
commodity but still underpaid.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Generally labor policies bred misery. In French

Equatorial Africa women and children were
taken as hostages to force men for work.
Flogging, death, brutality and disease were
the order of the day.
• Forced labor was also practiced by Leopold II
in Congo Free State where brutality was used
in forcing Africans to collect wild rubber.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• The Portuguese forced Africans to work on

plantations in their colonies of Angola,
Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe.
• The forced laborers were called Contratados
or Contract Workers who were given contracts
of 6 to 18 months. They were whipped,
underfed, paid small wages, badly housed and
treated like slaves.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

4) Taxation
Taxes such as gun and hut taxes were
instituted. Taxation served administrative and
revenue generation purposes. They were
collected in cash and in kind. For instance in
the Congo, Leopold II collected tax in form of
rubber and ivory and these items were on
high demand in Europe.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• The pneumatic rubber tyre technology for

bicycles and cars had been discovered. Failure
to deliver levy in rubber was punishable by
death.
• In Malawi, discriminative taxation was
instituted to act as a labor-recruiting device
for plantations.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• In Uganda the British administration

introduced taxation by forcefully encouraging
the planting of cotton, ensured that there was
no excuse for failing to pay it.
• At the turn of the 20th century, a hut tax was
introduced and this was followed by a poll tax.
 
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• The system was designed,

 To drive Africans into the wage labor in which
the European planters and government
depended.
 To force Africans into the market economy
through the growing of cash crops required by
the centre (Britain)
 To raise revenue for the government.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• The Africans were subjected to other taxes.

For example, in Buganda and other cotton
growing areas they had to pay Busulu (an
annual rent paid to the landlord), and in other
districts they were obliged to provide free
labor or its cash equivalent.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES
• All these taxes diminished the cash available to
the Africans and consequently affected their
ability to enter into ventures which required a
substantial capital investment.
• It was indeed partly because of this high rate of
surplus appropriation from the colonial
government that a class of rich peasants was
not developed.
 
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Since government revenue went into

providing social services and financing general
developmental projects both of which were
beneficial to the immigrant community than
to the Africans, the taxation system was a
means of transferring income from the African
peasants to the colonial bourgeoisie.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

5) Industrialization
In this case processing and import substitution
industries were emphasized. Africans were
employed in such plants but it should be
noted this does not justify the claim that
industries served Africans. It was because
labor was needed to enhance Africans’ own
exploitation.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Manufacturing plants were unevenly

distributed deliberately or otherwise. They
were concentrated where European settlers
were many for example Kenya and South
Africa. Uganda that had few settlers had few
factories.
• Import Substitution industries also
concentrated on the production of consumer
goods such as soda, beers, soap e.t.c.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• This is because these goods were bulky to

import. It should be recalled that Africans
knew little about the consumption of such
items for they were strange to them.
• Processing plants were intended to reduce the
bulk of raw materials for massive channeling
of such products overseas.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• The industrialization policy focused on

destroying local production and traditional
industries by replacing them with imported
goods.
• Bark cloth making in Uganda was destroyed
and replaced with cotton made clothes. The
traditional hoe was replaced with an imported
hoe. Traditional technology was thus destroyed
and lost.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• That is why it has been argued that the so

called industrialization was the real evidence
of exploitation as it led to the
underdevelopment of Africa, destroyed the
indigenous industrialists and the
innovativeness of the African people.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Thus, by the time of independence these

categories of industries existed in Africa but
could not lead to independent economically
self sustaining economies.
 
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

6) Education
• Educational institutions were instituted by
mainly Christian missionaries. Africans were
allegedly given skills for not only economic but
also social and political development.
• It should be noted however that the products of
the educational institutions could best make
house boys, house girls and clerks. They could
not make engineers.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• The curriculum was dominated by the teaching

of the bible and religion that was devoid of
practical skills. What is clear is that this
historical education displaced the relevant
African practical indigenous education.
• In turn it created people who were intimate to
European ways of life, which turned them into
exploiters of fellow Africans on behalf of the
colonialists.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• The medium of instruction in schools was

either English, French, Portuguese e.t.c The
pupils and students forgot their local
languages and punishments were set for
speaking vernacular.
• The curriculum emphasized European values
rather African values e.g. pupils were taught
European history, Geography of Europe,
literature e.t.c.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• In Portuguese, French and Italian colonies,

education served the purpose of assimilation
and turning Africans into “black Europeans”. It
can therefore be argued that colonial
education was for the under development of
Africans and make them worshippers of the
European cultures, languages, curriculum and
way of life.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

7) The Creation of the Import-Export Economy

The colonialists emphasized vertical division of
labor that installed vertical exchange. Africans
were made to consume what they did not
produce and produce what they did not
consume.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Cash crops were introduced and Africans

encouraged to produce and export them. In
turn they would import European
manufactured goods. Exports were under
priced while the imports were over charged.
• The creation of the export-import economies
meant the incapacity of African economies of
being integrated and self-sustaining. This can
be termed as under development.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

8) Development of “Legitimate” Trade

• This was developed to replace the so called in
human slave trade. This “new” trade is said to
have ushered in a period of peace and stability
as it eliminated the raids and the accompanying
miseries of slave trade.
• Moreover some African traders did strike a
fortune in the new trade e.g. selling of palm oil
in Nigeria made some African traders rich.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• “Legitimate” trade was dominated by

European trading companies. These
transferred repatriated profits instead of
investing them in Africa. They paid low prices
for African goods and charged highly for
imports. Worse still this trade culminated into
the exchange of value for no value.
• Imports that included beads, cloth, necklaces,
bangles and neck ties were exchanged
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

for gold, copper, diamonds, cotton, coffee,

cocoa and other valuables.
• Therefore the so called “legitimate” trade led
to under development and exploitation.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

9) Transport Systems
• These included railways, roads and marine
services. It has been pointed out by some
scholars that this development created an
economic boom.
• But they were also important for military
reinforcements.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES
• As Roland Oliver and Fage (1988: 182) put it that
“reinforcements could now be brought … in a matter
of weeks if not days.”
• The transport lines linked up economically powerful
areas for instance mining and agricultural productive
areas. They also pointed towards the coast and thus
acted as sucking tubes for African resources.
• The development of the transport system also
enhanced forced labor another evil altogether.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• In the Congo, it enabled massive land

alienation to reward companies involved in
railway construction.
• In Togo the spirit of exploitation was so high
that the railway lines were named after the
products they were to carry. Thus we had the
iron line, the palm oil line, the coconut line
and the cotton line.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• For example the construction of the Senegal-

Niger railway started in 1881 and was
completed in 1893 with the aim of collecting
ground nuts to the coast from the interior
• In Ghana, a railway line was built from the Port
of Sekondi to Kumasi in Central Ghana
between 1898 to 1903. This was to facilitate
the transportation of cocoa and gold from the
interior to the coast.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• In East Africa, the construction of the Uganda

Railway started in 1896 from the Port of
Mombasa to Kenya and Uganda with aim of
transportation of primary products e.g. cotton
and minerals from Uganda, coffee and
pyrethrum from Kenya to the coast.
• Under the colonial system of economic
exploitation, areas of low agricultural and
mineral potentials were neglected.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• For example, N & NE regions of Kenya, N. E

Uganda-Karamoja, N. Ghana, N. Niger and
Western Tanganyika had no minerals and no
agricultural potential. They were therefore
neglected in the railway construction and
remained economically underdeveloped.
• It is therefore hard to separate the exploitation
of Africa from the development of the
transport systems.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

10) Exploitation of Minerals

• The colonial economy exploited Africa’s
minerals like gold, copper, diamonds e.t.c. The
minerals were exported to the European
industries for processing.
• For example copper from Kilembe would be
transported to Jinja for smelting, taken to the
coast in Mombasa and shipped to Europe to
manufacture final products.
 THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

• Africans were abused, exploited and under

paid in these mines. For example in the Togo
mines, Europeans are reported to have
benefited far more than the Africans.
• Companies paid workers very miserable wages.
African skilled and semi skilled geologists like
those of ancient Zimbabwe were ignored. The
exploitation of minerals led to the under
development of Africa.
 Guiding Questions
1) “What has been called colonial development
can best be described as colonial under
development”. Discuss this assertion in line of
the colonial economies in Africa.
2) Discuss the view that colonial economic
policies were designed to exploit and under
develop Africa.
3) Critically analyze the effects of the colonial
economic policies on Africa.
 Guiding Questions Cont’d
4) “The colonial economy in Africa can best be
summarized as that of exploitation,
appropriation and domination.” Discuss the
validity of this statement with relevant
examples.