FORM 5 HISTORY 1 – COLONIAL ECONOMY AND SOCIAL SERVICES AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR

METHODS USED BY THE COLONIAL POWERS TO ESTABLISH THE COLONIAL
ECONOMY IN AFRICA

The colonial economy was established through recreation, destruction and preservation.

A.
Creation:-It was a method established by European to Introduce new element that were not existed in the native areas.

Under creation new elements were introduced by the colonial powers on the traditional

African     economy.     These     elements     include     the     following:-

1. Land alienation, By occupying method and dividing land. Example: North Tanzania, high land were created as production area while south and central

 

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Tanzania     were     created     as     labour     reserve.

Land alienation involved the grabbing of land from the Africans as a way of getting areas where the growing of cash crops and mining activities could take place. It was the fertile land and land with minerals in large quantities that was taken by the colonialists. Land alienation was common in settle colonies such as Kenya and Zimbabwe.

1. Taxation.
   

 

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The colonial powers introduced taxation as an indirect way of getting cheap labor. To pay taxes the Africans had to sell their labor on the colonial farms, in this way the colonialists acquired both cheap labor and cash crops that were needed as raw materials in Europe. Example: hat tax , matiti tax and head tax.

1. Forced cash crop production.
   

 

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The colonial powers forced Africans to produce cash crops such as coffee, cotton and sisal which were needed as raw materials. The Africans produced cash crops at the expense of food crops; this explains the widespread occurrence of famine in colonial Africa.

1. Introduction of the monetary system.
   

 

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The colonialists introduced money as a medium of exchange; to get money the Africans had to sell their labor on the farms thus the colonialists obtained both the cheap labor and cash crops which were the needs of the colonial economy.

-Exchange of goods or service by using coins or paper money.

1. Destruction- Greate forced labour, labour were completed to work in the collonial farmers, Forced labour was required to reduce costs that were needed in public services. Africa chiefs were forced to produce labour at low cost.
   

 

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The colonial powers destroyed Africans traditional industries, by this policy all industries were to remain in Europe and Africa was to be a source of markets for European manufactured goods and a producer of raw materials. The traditional industries were destroyed in two main ways i.e. force and competition.

1. Force
   

 

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Here different laws were passed by the colonial government that threatened the African from engaging in industrial activities for example in the Congo one would have his arms chopped off if he engaged in industrial activities.

1. Competition
   

 

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Here the colonial powers imported high quality products from Europe in order to destroy the markets for the local products.

They Introduced processing Industries

C.
Preservation

The colonialists preserved some elements of the pre–colonial African economies.

1.The basic tool of production remained to be the hand hoe except that this one was imported. There were no improvements in the tools of productive force.

1. The pre – capitalist relations of production were preserved for example the feudal relations of production, but these served the interests of the colonialists.
2. The basic unit of production remained to be the family; this limited the division of labor and also hindered the development of science and technology.

 

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COLONIAL ECONOMY

The colonial economy refers to all production and consumption activities found in Africa during the colonial period. The Second World War which took place between 1939 and 1945 had a significant impact on the capitalist powers and they spent huge sums of money financing the war, it is estimated the loss of Second World War was $ 13,849,000,000.

The destruction of the capitalist economies forced the European powers to introduce various changes in the colonial economy.

Conolonial economy was anchored on five important sectors namely:-

1. AGRICULTURE
2. MINING
3. PROCESSING INDUSTRIES
4. COMMERCE
5. TRANSPORT

 

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1.
AGRICULTURE:

The main aim of colonial agricultural policy was to promote the production of cash crops for export, to feed the industrial of the metro Politician states, integrate the Africans into capitalist system through growing cash crops in which they wail sell, stimulate capital investment and maximization of pro by buying African crops at low prices and paying to wages.

Three types of Agriculture were established namely settle economy, plantation economy, and peasant economy

1.
PEASANT AGRICULTURE ECONOMY

This involved the small – scale production of cash crops by individuals for purpose of coming cash and providing food for survival colonial rule.

The peasant and cash crop forms of agriculture were area transferring part of subsistence farming to the cash sector but the create part of the pre-colonial system of product social control unchanged.

In Ghana, Ivory Coast and western Nigeria, the British colonial administration wanted the peasant to devote much of their time and energy to the cultivation of cocoa and coffee.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PEASANT AGRICULTURE:

1. It was based on land units which were very small bed of the big are as being directly populated
2. There were individual ownership of land
3. There were intercropping in order to maintain various and cash crops at the same time
4. Elementary tools such as hoes and arrows were used as instruments of labour.
5. There was hardly any use of scientific methods of farming.

 

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FACTORS THAT FAVORED PEASANT AGRICULTURE:

1. Dense population made it difficult for land alienation to be used. Hence, settler and plantation agriculture impossible
2. Centralized Kingdom proved to be tough on the establishment settler agriculture
3. There was always a labour supply problem when the economy favored only one crop.
4. Peasant agriculture was cheaper in the production of materials and settlers needed big capital, land, modern equipment

 

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SETTLER ECONOMY:

This involved production by foreigners. These foreigners usual presented the interests of the metropole (i.e. their main interest were mining and agriculture in the colonized countries).

The promotion of agricultural production was to go hand in hand with white settlements in Africa, especially in those areas that were fertile.

Settlers settled in big numbers in central Africa (Malaysia, Zambia, Zimbabwe), South Africa, parts of French equatorial Africa, French West Africa, and in East Africa (Kenya).

FEATURES OF SETTLER ECONOMY:

1. Land alienation with differently issue land ordinaries, in 1900 the land occupation ordinance was enacted in Zambia.

 

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The ordinance required that Europeans who had been allocated land must occupy and use that land or otherwise they would pay taxes for leaving such land redundant.

In Kenya in 1597, the land regulation office set as vacant land for European settlements, in 1902, the owner land ordinance allowed the commissioner to sell or give crown land to the Europeans, and large scale land alienation in Kikuyu began.

1. Forced labour: The French, German land Portuguese follow a similar policy of forced labour and unpaid labour.

 

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Forced labour was required to reduce costs that were needed in public services. In Zimbabwe in 1897, the Nature egulation Act was passed, forcing African chiefs to produced labourers at law coast.

1. Taxation: the hut tax was introduced in Malawi in early 1890 in Zimbabwe in 1898, and in Zambia in 1900. In Kenya the Hut Tax was introduced in 1980, and poll tax in 1910.

 

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The intention of the tax was to cover administrative expansion ways by which Africans would be forced to work in European farms and mines in order to raise money to pay their taxes.

(iv)Migrant labour were transported from far away places to work in settler plantations.

(v) The development of infrastructures to serve the settlers.

1.
PLANTATION AGRICULTURE

1. Was a very distinctive from of cultivation in which specialized commercial crops were grown.
2. It employed large of number of unskilled lobourers who more brought to supervise and work. On the other hand, plantation agriculture extended monoculture during colonialism.

 

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1. In West Africa, French settlers owned Senegal groundnuts and cocoa farms. German settlers owned Dohomey palm oil and the fire stone Rubber Company of the U S A opened its plantation in Liberia in 1926. The other plantation in Tog were owned by the German and other in Ghana and Nigeria were owned by the British.
2. In east Africa, Kenyan tea, pyrethrum and effect were owner by British seltters. Sisal plantation in Tanga and Morogoro are owned by Germans and sugarcane plantation in Uganda were owned by the Indians (mujidival).
3. In Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, plantations were by the British while in Mozambique and Angola plantations were owned by the Portuguese.

 

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CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANTATION AGRICULTURE

i. They were larger estates covering over 100 acres each ii. Production was mainly for export and market oriented iii. The government ensure a constant supply of cheap laborer, they needed intensive labour

1. Plantation were scientifically- managed and involved the use of machine and fertilizer for qualitative and quantitatives out put to meet the demands of the metropole.
2. Larger land was needed for commercial agriculture. This was led to land alienation

 

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2.
MINING

1. Mining was very important and one the pillars of the colonial economy, it accelerated the exploitation of Africa

 

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1. In West Africa there were coal mines at Enugu, tin mines in jos plateau in Northern Nigeria and gold mines in Ghana, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and Silver in sierra leone
2. In central Africa, there was gold and coal in southern Rhodesia, copper, tin, zinc and lead in the Belgian congo, copper and leadin Zambia and diamond and oil in Angola
3. In East Africa, there was diamond in mwadui , gold in Geita and Musoma (Tanganyika) and copper in kilembe (Uganda)

 

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3.
TRADING COMPANIES.

i) Under colonial rule, there emerged many companies that claimed to import and export goods into and out from African colonies, some were huge companies some were petty companies and some were fake companies but all of them come to exploit African resources. ii) Among these were very big companies including.

• Companies franchise Afriques occidental (C.T.A.O)
• Socrete commercial Quest African (S.C.Q.A)
• The United African Company (U.A.C)
• Ronrho

 

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iii) In East Africa

• Smith maokenzie (ascothah Company of maennon)
• Ralli Brothers
• Leslie and Anderson – Broke Bond iv) These companies were responsible for expatriating great amounts of wealth from Africa

 

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v) Many of these companies started during the slave, They engaged in the following works:

• They bought raw material cheaply in Africa and exported
• They insured the property of the seltters.
• They imported manufacture goods.
• They invested in mines and plantations.

 

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