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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2018

Ewout Frankema ,
Jeffrey Williamson  and
Pieter Woltjer
Ewout Frankema
Affiliation:
Ewout Frankema is Professor, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: ewout.frankema@wur.nl.
Jeffrey Williamson
Affiliation:
Jeffrey Williamson is Professor, Harvard University and University of Wisconsin, 350 South Hamilton Street, Madison, WI 53703. E-mail: jwilliam@fas.harvard.edu.
Pieter Woltjer*
Affiliation:
Pieter Woltjer is Postdoctoral Researcher, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands.
*
Dr. Woltjer is the corresponding author. E-mail: p.j.woltjer@gmail.com.
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Abstract

We use a new trade dataset showing that nineteenth century sub-Saharan Africa experienced a terms of trade boom comparable to other parts of the “global periphery.” A sharp rise in export prices in the five decades before the scramble (1835–1885) was followed by an equally impressive decline during the colonial era. This study revises the view that the scramble for West Africa occurred when its major export markets were in decline and argues that the larger weight of West Africa in French imperial trade strengthened the rationale for French instead of British initiative in the conquest of the interior.

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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 231 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2018 

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Footnotes

We are indebted to Paul Rhode and Ann Carlos, whose help has guided us to substantially improve the article. Furthermore, we are grateful to Gareth Austin, Luis Bértola, James Fenske, Leigh Gardner, Jens Andersson, three anonymous referees, and the participants of the African Economic History Workshop, the RIDGE Workshop on Comparative studies of the Southern Hemisphere in global economic history and development, the Workshop on Colonialism, Growth and Development in the Southern Hemisphere, 1800–2000, and seminar participants at Oxford University, Warwick University, and Wageningen University for their comments on earlier drafts. We are responsible for all errors. We acknowledge financial support from the European Research Council (ERC Grant Agreement no. 313114) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO VIDI Grant no. 016.124.307). We thank Loes Oudenhuijzen, Jasmijn Appels, Rolinde de Haan, and Rens van Baren for excellent research assistance.

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