Colonial Economies 1750-1914

]]Economies of Coercion: Forced Labor and the Power of the State]]

• Forced labor was often used to meet the demands of the colonial state 🡪 Examples:
  • Building railroads
  • Constructing government buildings
  • Transporting goods
• Most infamous cruelties of forced labor = in the Congo in the early 1900s
  • Governed by King Leopold II of Belgium
  • Forced villagers to collect rubber 🡪 they had daily rubber quotas
  • If rubber quotas were not met, villagers were tortured and/or killed
  • Shot, ears/limbs cut off, tied up with ropes around their necks, dragged away, etc.
• Several colonial states used “cultivation systems”
  • Peasants were required to cultivate 20% or more of their land in cash crops such as sugar or tobacco to meet their tax obligation
  • Cash crops sold to government contractors at fixed, low prices
  • Cash crops are resold in the world market for a very high profit

]]Economies of Cash-Crop Agriculture]]

• In some places, colonial rule created conditions that facilitated and increased cash-crop production to the advantage of local farmers

• Example: British authorities in Burma encouraged rice production among small farmers

  • Ended the prohibition on rice exports
  • Provided irrigation and transportation facilities
  • Passed laws that encouraged private ownership of small farms

• Results of these policies in Burma:

  • Population boomed 🡪 in Burma AND in other parts of Asia
  • Rice exports soared
  • Small farmers able to buy their own land, build nice homes, buy imported goods, etc.
  • Standards of living improved sharply

• Profitable cash-crop farming = in the southern Gold Coast

  • British territory in West Africa
  • Modern-day Ghana
  • African farmers themselves developed this export agriculture
  • Planted cacao trees in huge quantities and became the world’s leading supplier of cocoa by 1911

• Problems with this success:

  • Labor shortage = led to employment of former slaves who were exploited
  • Labor shortage = led to migration of workers from the interior of Africa to the Gold Coast 🡪 caused ethnic and class tensions
  • Some men married women for their labor power, but didn’t take care of them
  • Many colonies only specialized in one or two cash-crops 🡪 hurt them when world market prices dropped

]]Economies of Wage Labor: Working for Europeans]]

• Millions of colonial subjects across Asia and Africa sought employment in European-owned plantations, mines, construction projects, and homes

  • Needed money
  • Lost land they needed to support their families
  • Sometimes forced by colonial authorities

• European-financed plantations in Southeast Asia that grew sugarcane, rubber, tea, tobacco, and so on employed hundreds of thousands of workers

  • Workers = subject to very strict control
  • Often housed in barracks
  • Paid very little (and women made even less)
  • Disease was common 🡪 high death rates

• Even more land taken from local people in Africa than in Southeast Asia

  • Ex: South Africa in 1913 🡪 whites were 20% of the population, but controlled 88% of the land

• “Squatters” = Africans who stayed and worked for the new landowners as the price of remaining on what had been their own land

• Another source of wage labor for many = mines

• Major tin mines in Malaysia

  • Miners = mostly impoverished Chinese workers
  • Worked on strictly-controlled 3-year contracts
  • Horrible living conditions
  • Rampant diseases
  • Dangerous work = many accidents
  • High death rates

Major gold and diamond mines in South Africa

• Workers = mainly impoverished Africans
• Recruited on short-term contracts
• Lived in all-male prison-like barracks surrounded by barbed wire
• Forced to return home periodically so they didn’t establish a permanent family life near the mines

]]Large Colonial Cities]]

• Examples: Nairobi, Cairo, Singapore, etc.

• Racially segregated

• Often unsanitary

• Greatly overcrowded

• Seen as meccas of opportunity for people all across the social spectrum

• Western-educated people found opportunities as: teachers, doctors, professional specialists, clerks in European business offices, workers in European government bureaucracies, etc.

• Working-class elite = skilled workers on railways or in ports

  • Also included workers in factories that processed agricultural goods or manufactured products such as beer, cigarettes, furniture, etc.

• Urban poor worked as: construction workers, rickshaw drivers, food sellers, domestic servants, prostitutes, etc.

]]African Women and the Colonial Economy]]

• In pre-colonial times African women:

  • Were active farmers
  • Were responsible for planting, weeding, and harvesting
  • Prepared the food
  • Cared for the children
  • Were allocated their own fields with which they could feed their families
  • Were involved in local trade activity
  • Enjoyed some economic independence

• Under colonial rule = men moved into wage labor or cash-crop agriculture

• This put A LOT more responsibility on women:

  • Total responsibility for domestic food production
  • Had to also supply food to men in the cities
  • Took over traditionally male tasks 🡪 breaking the ground for planting, milking cows, supervising the herds, etc.

• Result = many men and women began to live separate lives and develop different cultures

  • Men in the cities working for wages
  • Women in the villages focusing on subsistence agriculture

• Many married couples no longer lived together

  • Women started to build closer relationships with their own family instead of their husband’s

• Many women became the heads of their households

]]Assessing Colonial Development]]

• Clear results of economic development within European colonies in the 19th-20th centuries:

• (1) Colonial rule facilitated the integration of Asian and African economies into a global network of exchange

  • More land and labor = devoted to production for the global market

• (2) Nowhere did a breakthrough to modern industrial society occur

• (3) The appearance of some elements of modernization

  • Modern administrative and bureaucratic structures
  • Schools 🡪 used to train the intermediaries that were so crucial to colonial rule
  • Communication and transportation 🡪 railroads, motorways, ports, telegraphs, postal services
  • Modest health care provisions 🡪 part of the “civilizing mission” \n