Endogenous Processes of Colonial Settlement. The Success and Failure of European Settler Farming in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This paper comments on studies that aim to quantify the long-term economic effects of historical European settlement across the globe. We argue for the need to properly conceptualise «colonial settlement» as an endogenous development process shaped by the interaction between prospective settlers and indigenous peoples. We conduct three comparative case studies in West, East and Southern Africa, showing that the «success» or «failure» of colonial settlement critically depended on colonial government policies arranging European farmer’s access to local land, but above all, local labour resources. These policies were shaped by the clashing interests of African farmers and European planters, in which colonial governments did not necessarily, and certainly not consistently, abide to settler demands, as is often assumed.

Settler farming, agricultural colonisation and development in Katanga (Belgian Congo), 1910-1920

“…However, it is also very clear that state aid alone is not a guarantee of success. This conclusion is consistent with other studies (Frankema, Green & Hillbom, 2016).…”

“…A second group of researchers analyses the economic situation, the political and economic policies of the colonial authorities towards white settler farmers. In a recent comparative study based on three pairs of comparisons each focused on a crop (Ghana and Ivory Coast for cocoa, Tanzania and Kenya for coffee, and Malawi and Zimbabwe for tobacco), Ewout Frankema, Erik Green and Ellen Hillbom conclude that the long-term success of settler agriculture required sustained political support and their research shows that when native agriculture proved to be more efficient and cheaper, political support for European settler farming could disappear quickly (Frankema, Green & Hillbom, 2016). Many other studies also conclude that agricultural colonisation could have only been successful with help from a wide range of government measures that were advantageous to the white, European farmers and plantation owners.…”

“…If European farmers failed to succeed in obtaining sufficient influence and were unable to command the necessary financial and material support, the chances of success for expensive agricultural colonisation were small. The colonial government was then more inclined to opt for an agricultural system that relied heavily on local African farmers (Frankema, Green & Hillbom, 2016). In French West Africa and Portuguese West and East Africa, settler farmers also struggled with the dynamism and agency of the local farmers.…”

An Economic Rationale for the West African Scramble? The Commercial Transition and the Commodity Price Boom of 1835–1885

“…The marketing boards were initially intended to stabilize volatile commodity prices and African farm incomes, but the revenues derived from the increasing margins between marketing board purchase prices and world market prices were kept in metropolitan funds and were not channeled back directly into the development of local agriculture (Meredith 1986; Havinden and Meredith 1995). In the settler colonies, where government interventions in markets for labor and land had been more pervasive and biased against African smallholders, colonial policy reforms removed some of the restrictions in the hope to revive commodity exports (Frankema, Green, and Hillbon 2016).…”

An anatomy of colonial states and fiscal regimes in Portuguese Africa: long-term transformations in Angola and Mozambique, 1850s-1970s

“…There is a burgeoning literature at the crossroads of comparative politics, economic history and institutional economics which focusses on the comparative histories and legacies of European imperialism. One of the major debates in this literature juxtaposes the relative importance of distinct metropolitan visions and policies against the role of indigenous societies and local endowments in shaping the colonial state and economy (Young 1994, Sokoloff and Engerman 2000, North et al 2000, Acemoglu et al 2001, Easterly and Levine 2012, Frankema et al 2016.…”