Colonial Reforms and Their Consequences on African Societies
Senior 3 · History and Citizenship
Colonial Reforms and Their Consequences on African Societies
Lesson 2 of 4
25 min
Frederick Lugard, whom you met in Lesson 1, explained the purpose of colonial economies in his book of 1922:
Let it be admitted at the outset that European brains, capital, and energy have not been, and never will be, expended in developing the resources of Africa from motives of pure philanthropy; that Europe is in Africa for the mutual benefit of her own industrial classes, and of the native races in their progress to a higher plane ...
Elsewhere in the book he described the trade he had in mind:
Trade in the African tropics assumes at present its most simple form — the exchange of raw produce for manufactured goods.
Source A. Frederick Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, 1922. Public domain text, from the Internet Archive.
Analysing the source. Lugard is unusually honest: Europe was in Africa first for the benefit of its own "industrial classes". He claims the benefit was "mutual", but his phrase "the native races in their progress to a higher plane" shows the racist belief, common among colonisers, that Africans were less advanced and needed European guidance. A historian checks a claim of "mutual benefit" against the evidence: who decided what was grown, who did the work, and where the profits went.
Definition
Cash crop: a crop grown to be sold, often for export, rather than eaten by the farmer's family; for example coffee, cotton or cocoa.
Hut tax / head tax (or poll tax): a tax charged on every dwelling or on every adult man, usually payable in money (sometimes in labour or produce).
Forced labour (French corvée; in Rwanda akazi): work that people were made to do, often unpaid, under threat of punishment.
Land alienation: the taking of African land for European settlers, companies or the colonial state.
Migrant labour: work far from home, for example in a mine, by people who leave their families for months or years.
Infrastructure: the basic structures an economy needs, such as roads, railways, ports and telegraph lines.
| Economic reform | How it worked | An example |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes in money | A hut tax or head tax, usually payable in colonial money, so people had to sell crops or work for wages | The British hut tax in Sierra Leone led to the Hut Tax War of 1898 |
| Forced labour | Africans were made to work, often unpaid, on roads, railways, plantations and public works | Compulsory labour in the Belgian Congo, set at 60 days a year, lasted until independence; France abolished forced labour on 11 April 1946 |
| Compulsory crops | Farmers were ordered to grow export crops, or food crops chosen by the administration | Cotton in the Belgian Congo; coffee, cassava and sweet potatoes in Ruanda-Urundi |
| Land laws | The best land was reserved for European settlers or companies | Kenya's "White Highlands", reserved for Europeans from 1902; South Africa's Natives Land Act of 1913, which left Africans about 7% of the land at first |
| Mines and migrant labour | Mines needed tens of thousands of workers, recruited from wide areas | Copper in Katanga; gold on the Witwatersrand in South Africa |
| Railways and roads | Lines ran from mines and farming areas to the coast, not between African regions | The Uganda Railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria, begun in 1896 |
Table 1. Six economic reforms. Sources: the Wikipedia articles in the credits.
Figure 1. Colonial economies were built to send raw materials out and bring manufactured goods in. Lugard described this exchange in 1922 (Source A).
Where a tax could be paid only in colonial money, it became one of the most powerful economic reforms. Before colonial rule many African families grew or made almost everything they needed, and paid tribute to their rulers in goods or labour. A money tax forced every household to find cash each year. There were only two ways: sell a cash crop to a European trading company at the price it offered, or work for wages on a settler's farm, in a mine or on a railway. In this way, a tax turned subsistence farmers into producers for the world market and into a supply of cheap labour, without any law ordering them to work.
You studied Rwanda's colonial economy in Senior 2. In summary, the Belgian administration:
Many Rwandans escaped these burdens by leaving. They went to work on farms in Uganda and in the copper mines of Katanga, in the Belgian Congo, where some were recruited by the mining companies. Late in the colonial period, some burdens were lifted: in 1954 Mwami Mutara III Rudahigwa abolished ubuhake, the cattle-clientship contract, with Belgian approval.
Worked example: explaining an economic policy
Question: Explain how colonial taxation forced Africans into the colonial economy. (6 marks)
Point 1. Money was required. Hut and head taxes had to be paid in colonial money, not in goods or labour, so every household needed cash.
Point 2. Two ways to get cash. Families had to sell cash crops, such as coffee or cotton, to European traders at the prices they offered, or send men to work for wages.
Point 3. A supply of cheap labour. Men left home for mines, plantations and railways, sometimes far away, as Rwandans did in Katanga and Uganda (Source B). Settlers and companies gained the workers they needed.
Link each point to an example and to the result for Africans.
Tip
Remember the six levers with "Tax, Toil, Crops, Land, Mines, Rails". For each lever, ask who gained and who paid.
Warning
Don't write that railways were built "to develop Africa". Look at where they ran: from mines and farming areas to the ports. They were built to carry exports out, not to link African regions with each other, which is why many African countries still have poor rail links with their neighbours.
Coffee came to Rwanda as a compulsory crop. Today it is grown by farmers' cooperatives and sold as a speciality product around the world. What has changed, and what has stayed the same, in the place of coffee in Rwanda's economy? Who decides the price today?
Practice
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
