ABSTRACT:The present article examines the North American rum-for-captives trade, which like other New World-based trades, relied heavily on sugar cane-derived alcohol. It argues that African consumption patterns played a key role in shaping the American rum-for-captives trade during the years 1730–1807. Most interpretations of the rum trade offer what might be termed a "supply-side" interpretation of the slave trade, with an emphasis on voyage planning and decision making on the part of European and American slave traders. While these were important factors, an examination of the rum trade highlights the important demand-side factors that shaped the slave trade. The most important market for American rum was the Gold Coast, but slave traders still needed to adopt a range of practices in order to cope with the problem of oversupply. The Upper Guinea Coast served as secondary market, but here the expansion of Islam, in part a response to the growing trade in captives, imposed limits on the demand for alcohol. After independence in 1783, American merchants were able to gain access to French and Dutch India goods, which allowed them to diversify their assortment of trade goods, especially after 1793. Carrying textiles in addition to rum helped the United States to become the third-largest carrier immediately before abolition in 1808.
{"title":"American Rum, African Consumers, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade","authors":"S. Kelley","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2018.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2018.0004","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The present article examines the North American rum-for-captives trade, which like other New World-based trades, relied heavily on sugar cane-derived alcohol. It argues that African consumption patterns played a key role in shaping the American rum-for-captives trade during the years 1730–1807. Most interpretations of the rum trade offer what might be termed a \"supply-side\" interpretation of the slave trade, with an emphasis on voyage planning and decision making on the part of European and American slave traders. While these were important factors, an examination of the rum trade highlights the important demand-side factors that shaped the slave trade. The most important market for American rum was the Gold Coast, but slave traders still needed to adopt a range of practices in order to cope with the problem of oversupply. The Upper Guinea Coast served as secondary market, but here the expansion of Islam, in part a response to the growing trade in captives, imposed limits on the demand for alcohol. After independence in 1783, American merchants were able to gain access to French and Dutch India goods, which allowed them to diversify their assortment of trade goods, especially after 1793. Carrying textiles in addition to rum helped the United States to become the third-largest carrier immediately before abolition in 1808.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2018.0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47296575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:Across the Gambia River basin, farmers grew varieties of grains for local consumption and for sale. Maize, millet, and rice formed an important part of a complex social organization. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, the shift to cash crops changed important aspects of this social organization. The cash crop economy, which was highly restrictive, also encouraged social separation and alterations in the gender configurations of the region. The change from a household economy relying on growing grains for consumption to one of producing a legume to sell, which was eased along by the transformation of local spiritual ideas, resulted in alterations in settlement patterns impacting the lives of many female farmers. One particularly interesting area that scholars have noted but is yet to be fully developed is the ways in which religion or spirituality influenced African economic life. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the ways spirituality or religion influenced the growth and the development of what became arguably the most important economic activity in West Africa during the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries as well as gender dynamics in the affected societies.
{"title":"Gender, Spirituality, and Economic Change in Rural Gambia: Agricultural Production in the Lower Gambia Region, c. 1830s–1940s","authors":"Assan Sarr","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0004","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Across the Gambia River basin, farmers grew varieties of grains for local consumption and for sale. Maize, millet, and rice formed an important part of a complex social organization. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, the shift to cash crops changed important aspects of this social organization. The cash crop economy, which was highly restrictive, also encouraged social separation and alterations in the gender configurations of the region. The change from a household economy relying on growing grains for consumption to one of producing a legume to sell, which was eased along by the transformation of local spiritual ideas, resulted in alterations in settlement patterns impacting the lives of many female farmers. One particularly interesting area that scholars have noted but is yet to be fully developed is the ways in which religion or spirituality influenced African economic life. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the ways spirituality or religion influenced the growth and the development of what became arguably the most important economic activity in West Africa during the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries as well as gender dynamics in the affected societies.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41751776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:It is well known that Africa currently has the lowest electricity access rate of any continent, a legacy of minimal colonial investment in electricity distribution. However, that post-1960 access has been highly uneven within and between sub-Saharan African countries, with significant implications for historical economic inequality and growth trends, has largely been left out of existing historical scholarship. This article reviews the history of electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa, examines the evidence for and problems with measuring access historically, and presents four country-specific case studies which identify some of the conditions which enabled growth in access and the consequences for access inequality over time.
{"title":"Electricity Access Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1950–2000","authors":"Hanaan Marwah","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0008","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:It is well known that Africa currently has the lowest electricity access rate of any continent, a legacy of minimal colonial investment in electricity distribution. However, that post-1960 access has been highly uneven within and between sub-Saharan African countries, with significant implications for historical economic inequality and growth trends, has largely been left out of existing historical scholarship. This article reviews the history of electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa, examines the evidence for and problems with measuring access historically, and presents four country-specific case studies which identify some of the conditions which enabled growth in access and the consequences for access inequality over time.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41521617","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:Luwalo was a type of "traditional," unpaid forced labor used during the colonial period in the Uganda Protectorate until the mid-1940s. After the passage of the International Labour Organization's Forced Labor Convention in 1930, the British Colonial Office put pressure on the various colonial administrations to phase out forced labor. In Uganda the administration eventually abolished luwalo. With the looming prospect of abolition, the administration was forced to assess the monetary value of luwalo to better determine the scale of a new tax that would replace the labor. This paper examines this episode of forced labor abolition in the Uganda Protectorate to highlight two points regarding the use of unpaid traditional forced labor during the colonial era in Africa. First of all, although luwalo was construed as an artifact of tradition that was in some ways outside the market, the administration's own appraisal of luwalo showed that the unpaid labor actually served as an important revenue generation stream for the various local administrations within Uganda Protectorate, contributing tremendously to their base revenues. Secondly, despite the ideological and administrative effect of the Forced Labour Convention, the abolition of luwalo in Uganda shows that forced labor was not so much abolished as converted into an extractive tax. Even before abolition, the administration was, essentially, converting luwalo into a tax through the progressive extension of commutation payments paid by African males in order to avoid the work. With abolition, the administration simply made real what was already apparent by shifting the burden of the financial loss of luwalo onto the backs of Africans through a new Native Administration Tax. This virtual abolition of luwalo was a reflection of its economic importance.
{"title":"Virtual Abolition: The Economic Lattice of Luwalo Forced Labor in the Uganda Protectorate","authors":"O. Okia","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Luwalo was a type of \"traditional,\" unpaid forced labor used during the colonial period in the Uganda Protectorate until the mid-1940s. After the passage of the International Labour Organization's Forced Labor Convention in 1930, the British Colonial Office put pressure on the various colonial administrations to phase out forced labor. In Uganda the administration eventually abolished luwalo. With the looming prospect of abolition, the administration was forced to assess the monetary value of luwalo to better determine the scale of a new tax that would replace the labor. This paper examines this episode of forced labor abolition in the Uganda Protectorate to highlight two points regarding the use of unpaid traditional forced labor during the colonial era in Africa. First of all, although luwalo was construed as an artifact of tradition that was in some ways outside the market, the administration's own appraisal of luwalo showed that the unpaid labor actually served as an important revenue generation stream for the various local administrations within Uganda Protectorate, contributing tremendously to their base revenues. Secondly, despite the ideological and administrative effect of the Forced Labour Convention, the abolition of luwalo in Uganda shows that forced labor was not so much abolished as converted into an extractive tax. Even before abolition, the administration was, essentially, converting luwalo into a tax through the progressive extension of commutation payments paid by African males in order to avoid the work. With abolition, the administration simply made real what was already apparent by shifting the burden of the financial loss of luwalo onto the backs of Africans through a new Native Administration Tax. This virtual abolition of luwalo was a reflection of its economic importance.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41338558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:This article proposes to give a new answer to one of the central questions in African and global economic histories: how West Africa contributed to economies outside the region. Recent studies have highlighted that consumers played a significant role in the processes of trade and production. The article combines this consumer-led perspective with a new set of quantitative and qualitative data. Trade figures drawn from the British and French trade statistics reveal the peculiar demand for Indian indigo-blue cotton textiles, called guinées, in Senegal compared with other regions of West Africa in the early nineteenth century. This finding revises Joseph Inikori's argument about the triumph of British cottons in West Africa. Subsequently, this article places the consumption of guinées within the wider context of commercial networks in the trade in gum arabic in the lower Senegal River region and analyzes the social and ecological factors that underpinned the persistent demand for guinées among local consumers, taking into account the continuation of local textile production in West Africa. In so doing, this article argues that consumer behavior in Senegal mattered not only for the gum trade and but also conditioned a part of global trade networks that extended from South Asia through Western Europe and reached Africa in the early nineteenth century.
{"title":"Indian Textiles and Gum Arabic in the Lower Senegal River: Global Significance of Local Trade and Consumers in the Early Nineteenth Century","authors":"Kazuo Kobayashi","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0005","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article proposes to give a new answer to one of the central questions in African and global economic histories: how West Africa contributed to economies outside the region. Recent studies have highlighted that consumers played a significant role in the processes of trade and production. The article combines this consumer-led perspective with a new set of quantitative and qualitative data. Trade figures drawn from the British and French trade statistics reveal the peculiar demand for Indian indigo-blue cotton textiles, called guinées, in Senegal compared with other regions of West Africa in the early nineteenth century. This finding revises Joseph Inikori's argument about the triumph of British cottons in West Africa. Subsequently, this article places the consumption of guinées within the wider context of commercial networks in the trade in gum arabic in the lower Senegal River region and analyzes the social and ecological factors that underpinned the persistent demand for guinées among local consumers, taking into account the continuation of local textile production in West Africa. In so doing, this article argues that consumer behavior in Senegal mattered not only for the gum trade and but also conditioned a part of global trade networks that extended from South Asia through Western Europe and reached Africa in the early nineteenth century.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44566930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:The causes, course and consequences of the unilateral declaration of independence [UDI] by Southern Rhodesia have generated a large scholarly literature. Less frequently accounted for is the growth of the Colony's secondary industrial sector, for a time the most sophisticated in Africa north of the Limpopo. Almost entirely lacking is analysis of the relationship, structural and political, between the two. Without an already existing secondary industrial base, UDI would have been impossible if not unthinkable. While some attention has been paid to the political attitudes of industrialists, no serious attempt has been made to identify the composition, capitalization, ownership, or product range of the manufacturing sector in the first half of the 1960s. In placing the two side by side, this article seeks to cast new light on the business and political dynamics shaping Central Africa during the era of decolonization.
{"title":"Secondary Industry and Settler Colonialism: Southern Rhodesia before and after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence","authors":"Ian Phimister, V. Gwande","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0007","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The causes, course and consequences of the unilateral declaration of independence [UDI] by Southern Rhodesia have generated a large scholarly literature. Less frequently accounted for is the growth of the Colony's secondary industrial sector, for a time the most sophisticated in Africa north of the Limpopo. Almost entirely lacking is analysis of the relationship, structural and political, between the two. Without an already existing secondary industrial base, UDI would have been impossible if not unthinkable. While some attention has been paid to the political attitudes of industrialists, no serious attempt has been made to identify the composition, capitalization, ownership, or product range of the manufacturing sector in the first half of the 1960s. In placing the two side by side, this article seeks to cast new light on the business and political dynamics shaping Central Africa during the era of decolonization.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45401395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the rise and fall of African indigenous entrepreneurs' economic solidarity in Lesotho between 1966 (independence) and 1975. It rebuts the historical metanarrative that the black African indigenous entrepreneurs (the Basotho) lacked adequate entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen and economic solidarity. Using historical records and oral histories, this article demonstrates that there is sufficient historical evidence to argue otherwise. Rather, Basotho traders became victims of sinister political and economic interests of the first postcolonial government, which acted to protect interests of minority European traders—a common phenomenon in postcolonial Africa. Furthermore, the article makes two significant contributions—first to the growing literature on the history of African business and entrepreneurship, and secondly, it uses the constructed economic history of Basotho entrepreneurs to critique the dominant nationalistic and geo-political view that Lesotho's position as landlocked by South Africa is predominantly responsible for the country's sluggish economic growth, poverty and lack of economic independence.
{"title":"The Rise and Fall of African Indigenous Entrepreneurs' Economic Solidarity in Lesotho, 1966–1975","authors":"Sean Maliehe","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the rise and fall of African indigenous entrepreneurs' economic solidarity in Lesotho between 1966 (independence) and 1975. It rebuts the historical metanarrative that the black African indigenous entrepreneurs (the Basotho) lacked adequate entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen and economic solidarity. Using historical records and oral histories, this article demonstrates that there is sufficient historical evidence to argue otherwise. Rather, Basotho traders became victims of sinister political and economic interests of the first postcolonial government, which acted to protect interests of minority European traders—a common phenomenon in postcolonial Africa. Furthermore, the article makes two significant contributions—first to the growing literature on the history of African business and entrepreneurship, and secondly, it uses the constructed economic history of Basotho entrepreneurs to critique the dominant nationalistic and geo-political view that Lesotho's position as landlocked by South Africa is predominantly responsible for the country's sluggish economic growth, poverty and lack of economic independence.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49574071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent years, important contributions have been made to improve our understanding of household size and composition worldwide. Most of this scholarship, however, has focused mainly on Europe, Asia, and the Americas, paying little attention to Africa. In this article, I contribute toward filling this gap in the literature by studying the urban population of three main towns in Mozambique and their surrounding areas in the 1820s: the island of Mozambique, Inhambane and Tete. To do this, I use the first known and comparable population counts available for these towns that include disaggregated data at the household level. The study is divided into three main parts. First, I explore the outstanding value of these source materials for the general understanding of the behavior of urban populations in pre-colonial southern Africa, as well as the context of the production and the producers of these sources, their coverage and the criteria adopted during production. Next, I examine the profile of the population living in these three urban centers. To conclude, I analyze the household size, structure and composition among the free population living in these three towns and their outskirts.
{"title":"Counting People and Homes in Urban Mozambique in the 1820s: Population Structures and Household Size and Composition","authors":"Filipa Ribeiro da Silva","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0001","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, important contributions have been made to improve our understanding of household size and composition worldwide. Most of this scholarship, however, has focused mainly on Europe, Asia, and the Americas, paying little attention to Africa. In this article, I contribute toward filling this gap in the literature by studying the urban population of three main towns in Mozambique and their surrounding areas in the 1820s: the island of Mozambique, Inhambane and Tete. To do this, I use the first known and comparable population counts available for these towns that include disaggregated data at the household level. The study is divided into three main parts. First, I explore the outstanding value of these source materials for the general understanding of the behavior of urban populations in pre-colonial southern Africa, as well as the context of the production and the producers of these sources, their coverage and the criteria adopted during production. Next, I examine the profile of the population living in these three urban centers. To conclude, I analyze the household size, structure and composition among the free population living in these three towns and their outskirts.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47822890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article contributes to the emerging field of African financial history. Although there has been work on Britain's sterling arrangements in its colonies, very few studies examine the specific experiences of particular colonies within the sterling area. Foregrounded by an account of the establishment of Southern Rhodesia's monetary and banking system, this article focuses on that colony's experiences during the post-Second World War period when Britain established and eventually dismantled its discriminatory sterling area as a way to bolster post-war economic recovery. This coincided with the rise of economic liberalism as the United States became more prominent in global financial arrangements while the colony of Southern Rhodesia sought political and economic independence to operate in this emerging world order. Because the Salisbury agreement was so crucial to the recovery of London, Southern Rhodesia was forced to remain within the discriminatory sterling area until the mid-1950s. Thereafter, as Britain retreated from empire and abandoned discriminatory sterling, it became interested in a majority-ruled Rhodesia. However, the white minority government retaliated, interested in maintaining political power. The article unpacks how the political and economic development of empire and its aftermath in the post-war period to 1962 was so inextricably intertwined with Rhodesia's political, financial, and economic development.
{"title":"British Sterling Imperialism, Settler Colonialism and the Political Economy of Money and Finance in Southern Rhodesia, 1945 to 1962","authors":"Tinashe Nyamunda","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This article contributes to the emerging field of African financial history. Although there has been work on Britain's sterling arrangements in its colonies, very few studies examine the specific experiences of particular colonies within the sterling area. Foregrounded by an account of the establishment of Southern Rhodesia's monetary and banking system, this article focuses on that colony's experiences during the post-Second World War period when Britain established and eventually dismantled its discriminatory sterling area as a way to bolster post-war economic recovery. This coincided with the rise of economic liberalism as the United States became more prominent in global financial arrangements while the colony of Southern Rhodesia sought political and economic independence to operate in this emerging world order. Because the Salisbury agreement was so crucial to the recovery of London, Southern Rhodesia was forced to remain within the discriminatory sterling area until the mid-1950s. Thereafter, as Britain retreated from empire and abandoned discriminatory sterling, it became interested in a majority-ruled Rhodesia. However, the white minority government retaliated, interested in maintaining political power. The article unpacks how the political and economic development of empire and its aftermath in the post-war period to 1962 was so inextricably intertwined with Rhodesia's political, financial, and economic development.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48510335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article analyzes the ways in which the Sierra Leone Company, a chartered trading company, attempted to persuade Africans to relinquish the slave trade in favor of an export trade in crops and other natural commodities. Company efforts to reform African economic activity led to increasing levels of travel and investigation on the upper Guinea coast in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The article examines how abolitionists constructed their case for reform in Britain, as well as the strategies deployed to implement their plans on the coast of West Africa. With scant first-hand knowledge of Africa, the directors of the Sierra Leone Company relied on the testimony of European rather than African informants. As a result, Company plans devised in London were misinformed and misdirected. From the early 1790s, Company employees based at Freetown undertook a series of short and long distance journeys to gather intelligence on the potential for cultivation and trade. Although Company ideas for the development of a "just and honourable commerce" were unsuccessful, their policies continued to influence debate on West Africa in the nineteenth century.
{"title":"\"A Just and Honourable Commerce\": Abolitionist Experimentation in Sierra Leone in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries","authors":"Suzanne Schwarz","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2017.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2017.0000","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the ways in which the Sierra Leone Company, a chartered trading company, attempted to persuade Africans to relinquish the slave trade in favor of an export trade in crops and other natural commodities. Company efforts to reform African economic activity led to increasing levels of travel and investigation on the upper Guinea coast in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The article examines how abolitionists constructed their case for reform in Britain, as well as the strategies deployed to implement their plans on the coast of West Africa. With scant first-hand knowledge of Africa, the directors of the Sierra Leone Company relied on the testimony of European rather than African informants. As a result, Company plans devised in London were misinformed and misdirected. From the early 1790s, Company employees based at Freetown undertook a series of short and long distance journeys to gather intelligence on the potential for cultivation and trade. Although Company ideas for the development of a \"just and honourable commerce\" were unsuccessful, their policies continued to influence debate on West Africa in the nineteenth century.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2017.0000","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41603216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：