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ENDOGENOUS PROCESSES OF COLONIAL SETTLEMENT. THE SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF EUROPEAN SETTLER FARMING IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Ewout Frankema ,
Erik Green  and
Ellen Hillbom
Ewout Frankema
Affiliation:
Wageningen University
Erik Green
Affiliation:
Lund University Stellenbosch University
Ellen Hillbom
Affiliation:
Lund University
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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.

Resumen

Este trabajo hace un balance de los estudios que tienen por objeto cuantificar los efectos económicos a largo plazo de la colonización europea histórica en el mundo. Se defiende la necesidad de conceptualizar adecuadamente «asentamiento colonial» como un proceso de desarrollo endógeno determinado por la interacción entre los potenciales colonos y los pueblos indígenas. Se llevan a cabo tres estudios comparativos de caso en el oeste, el este y el sur de África, mostrando que el «éxito» o «fracaso» del asentamiento colonial dependía fundamentalmente de las políticas que el gobierno colonial organizase para el acceso del agricultor europeo a la tierra local, pero sobre todo, a los recursos de mano de obra local. Estas políticas se determinaron por los intereses en conflicto de los agricultores africanos y los granjeros europeos, y los gobiernos coloniales, en contra de lo que frecuentemente se supone, no acataron necesariamente (y desde luego no de manera consistente) las demandas de los colonos europeos.

Keywords

Sub-Saharan Africacolonial historysettler farmingcash-crop productionN01N17O10O13África subsaharianahistoria colonialagricultura de colonosproducción de cultivos comerciales
Type
Panorama
Information
Revista de Historia Economica - Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , September 2016 , pp. 237 - 265
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Copyright
© Instituto Figuerola, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2016 

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Footnotes

*

For their comments on previous drafts of this paper, the authors thank the participants of the session on Markets and Trade in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Africa at the Swedish Economic History Meeting 2013 at Lund University, of the seminar Colonial Legacies: Persistence and Long-Run Impact on Economic Growth at Fundación Ramón Areces-Instituto Figuerola de Ciencias Sociales in Madrid, and the session Settler Farming in East and Southern Africa of the African Economic History Workshop 2016 at Wageningen University, as well as colleagues at the Department of Economic History, Lund University and two anonymous reviewers. The authors are grateful for financial support of the Visiting Fellowship Program of the School of Economics and Management, Lund University. Ewout Frankema acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme for the project «Is Poverty Destiny? A New Empirical Foundation for Long-Term African Welfare Analysis» (ERC Grant Agreement no. 313114); and from the Dutch Science Foundation for the project «Is Poverty Destiny? Exploring Long Term Changes in African Living Standards in Global Perspective» (NWO VIDI Grant no. 016.124.307). Erik Green acknowledges financial support from the Swedish Research Council for the project «Development or exploitation: Mapping the development trajectories of large-scale farming in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe (Dnr: 2014-1509).

a

Department of Social Sciences, Rural and Environmental History Group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6700 EW, Wageningen, The Netherlands. ewout.frankema@wur.nl

b

School of Economics and Management, Department of Economic History, Lund University, PO Box 7083, 220 07 Lund, Sweden. erik.green@ekh.lu.se; ellen.hillbom@ekh.lu.se

c

Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa. erik.green@ekh.lu.se

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