Title 3. ESTABLISHMENT OF COLONIAL ECONOMY.pdf ✅

0 www.msomibora.com HISTORY NOTES FORM THREE TOPIC 3 ESTABLISHMENT OF COLONIAL ECONOMY MsomiBora.com
1 www.msomibora.com ESTABLISHMENT OF COLONIAL ECONOMY The Meaning and Objectives of Colonial Economy Colonial economy refers to the production and consumption patterns established in the colonies by the colonial masters with the aim of serving the interest of maximizing capitalist profit through exploitation of cheap labour, raw material, areas for investment, and market in Africa, the colonial states played vital role in establishing and controlling colonial economy. Features of colonial economy Colonial economy had several features which differ from the pre-colonial economy in the following ways: i. Colonial economy was import-export oriented economy; it specialized in exportation of raw materials from Africa to Europe for their industries and importation of manufactured goods to Africa. The external demands influenced what and how much to be produced in the colonies, the colonial states had to ensure that production is effected as cheap as possible. ii. Monoculture economy, they specialized in production of one major crop, for example Mauritius specialized in the production of sugar, Ghana produced cocoa, Liberia produced rubber, Zanzibar produced cloves, Zambia and Zaire were dominated by the production of copper. iii. Colonial economy had very limited capital, the establishment and development of colonial economies depended on the local revenue and capital. iv. Colonial economy was dominated by European monopoly companies, the African middlemen were not allowed to participate in the trade, the African role was to only to provide cheap labor in the colonial economy.
2 www.msomibora.com v. Monetization. This was facilitated by the banking sector, insurance and legitimate trade. In order to facilitate the exploitation of African resources by creating the links between the periphery and the metropolis vi. Weak and scattered working class, most of the working c lass were cheap laborers based largely on racism and segregation, the Africans were at the bottom of the hierarchy paid less with poor working conditions followed by the Asians and on top were the Europeans with all the privileges. vii. Colonial economy involved small scale and large-scale production viii. It was exploitative in nature, that is Africans were highly exploited. ix. It went together with introduction of tax. This tax went to the colonial government. THE TACTICS USED TO ESTABLISH COLONIAL ECONOMY Before the coming of Europeans, Africans had been practicing local subsistence economies which were geared to sustain the members of the society, colonial economy was new to Africans, and hence Africans were not ready to accept without opposition in order to establish colonial economy Europeans had to use different techniques which have been categorized into three major categories namely: Creation method, destruction method and preservation method. A. CREATION METHOD Colonial rulers introduced new things which did not exist in African traditional economy but were very vital in the