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The domestic economy:structure and functionTo begin at the beginning is logical. It is also particularly desirable in the presentcontext, given the now widespread recognition of the importance of writing theindigenous history of Africa. It is precisely at this point, however, that the historianofAfrica faces the greatest difficulty with regard to source material. In the first place,there is a shortage of evidence, especially in the case of the forest zone, whereindigenous written records were virtually un known before the nineteenth century.Secondly, the sources which do exist have rarely been used to study the history ofthe domestic economy in the pre-colonial period, that is before about 1900.1 Possessing only a bare patchwork of data, it is hard to avoid presenting a composite pictureof the 'traditional' economy. Lacking a coherent chronology, it is harder still toescape a static, timeless account of the local economy in the centuries before thecoming of European rule.

These remarks, though necessary as a guide to the limitations of the presentchapter, are not intended to strike an immediate note of anti-climax, still less to setthe tone for the whole of the discussion which follows. On the contrary. there issome room for optimism, even within the bounds set by the current state ofknowledge. There is a certain amoun t of evidence, though it may not measure up to theDomesday Survey;2 there is a variety of secondary sources, some of which havesuffered an extraordinary and totally unjustified neglect;3 and there is a great deal1 Raymond Mauny's, Tableau geographique de I'ouest tifricain au moyen age, Dakar I96 I, is a valuable exception, but even this work says more about trade than about agriculture, though the latter was the basis of the economy in most parts of West Africa. Briefly, it can be said that for the period down to the eighth century the historian isreliant on archaeological, linguistic and botanical research. From the eighth century onwardsthe flow of information begins to increase, mainly as a result of records kept by Arab travellers,though this evidence is patchy and refers chiefly to the region known as the Western Sudan.After the fifteenth century, with the arrival of Europeans, the volume of material relating tothe forest zone also starts to grow, but is confined. before the nineteenth century, largely tothe coastal area.

3 One book in particular must be accorded, quite undeservedly, the title of the least usedsecondary work in the field of West African economic history. This is Lars Sundstrom's TheTrade ej Guinea, Lund 1965, which is a mine of information about the internal trade of WestAftica in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. TIllS study has hardly been noticed even byspecialists.

The domestic economy; structure andjunctionwllich historians can learn from t he pioneering work carried out by scholars in otherhsciplines."

It is possible, simply by making use of existing knowledge, to advance some way!llwards achieving two aims. First, there is sufficient evidence to reconstruct at least,III (Judine of the pre-colonial economy, a nd to note a few of the more important,hronological developments and regional variations. At the same time, it must beelllphasised that this chapter is no more than a beginning. Those who are provoked.'Illite righdy, by its shortcomings, are invited to undertake the research needed to..liminate them. Second. this oudme, thoug h incomplete, leads to a reappraisal of!II(' myths. ancient and modem. which have grown up about the African past, and,Illdced, about underdevelopment in general. Unfortunately, neither a lack of

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An Economic History of West Afti(fJparts of the world. On the one hand there is the myth of Primitive Mrica, whichpictures the inhabitants of the continent as living, like Alfred Marshall's savages,

under the dominion of custom and impulse; scarcely ever striking out new linesfor themselves; neve r forecasting the distant future; fitful in spiteof their servitudeto custom; governed by the fancy of the moment; ready at all times for the mostarduous exertions, but incapable of keeping themselves long to steady work.6This state of affairs prevented what Western observers regarded as progress, bothmoral and material. Acc ording to this interpretation, Africa's release from barbarismwaited until the close of the nineteenth century, when the Europeans came, likecavalry over the hill, to confer the benefits of Western civilisation on Kipling's

New caught, sullen peoples,Half devil an d halfchild.On the other hand, there is the newer, more fashionable, myth of Merrie Mrica,

which has come to the fore during the past ten or fifteen years. On this view the precolonial era was a Golden Age, in which generations of Mricans enjoyed congeniallives in well-integrated, smoothly-functioning societies. The means of livelihoodcame easily to hand, for foodstuffs grew wild and in abundance, and this goodfortune enabled the inhabitants to concentrate on leisure pursuits, which, if somesources are to be believed, consisted of interminable dancing and drumming. 7 TheEuropeans, so it is alleged, disrupted a state of harmony : cohesion based on sharedvalues was replaced by artificial unity backed by force, and ruthless exploitationreduced the indigenous peoples to a degree of poverty which they had not known inthe past. The Merrie Mrica myth is closely associated with what might be termed, indeference to West Mri ca's oldest political party, th e True Whig interpretation ofMrican history.8 This interpretation sees the present states and rulers of West Africaas direct descendants of those of the pre-colonial era. It follows from this assumptionthat the traditional order has to be described with an approving eye i f history is tofuI61 its contemporary function of legitimising the present. Mrican slave tradersbecome proto-nationalists, and large empires are acclaimed because their examplecan be used to combat the centrifugal tendencies which have been a common, andsometimes tragic, feature of he post-colonial period.

6 Alfred Marshall. Principles ofEcotWmics, 8th ed_. 1938. pp. 72]-4.7 Films and travel brochures provide an important and neglected source for those interested in the history of ideas, for both reflect, and in some cases reinforce, stereotypes. Forexample, Horizon Travel Ltd invited those thinking of taking a foreign holiday in 1972 tovisit the Gambia. where 'the drum beat of black: Africa captivates and enthrals you as youwatch ths: happy-go-lucky natives danceat the drop of a hat, as twilight descends on Bathurst'.Similarly, films designed to encourage foreign tourists to England give the impression that thepopulation is divided roughly equally between Yeomen of the Guard and morris dancers. Herbert Butterfield in The Whig Interpretation of History, 1931, was the first to identifythe historical school which made use of past events in order to justify and reinforce the CUlTentpolitical regime. 11le True Whig Party was founded about 1870, and has been in power inLiberia more or less continuously since then.

Iv

The domestic economy: structure andjunctionThe foregoing survey of established approaches to Mrica's economic past will beused in this chapter as a point of departure for what is hoped will be a more satisfactory appraisal of the nature of underdevelopment in the pre-colonial period, andone which takes account of the interests of the ninety-nine per cent of the population

who were neither proto-nationalists nor rulers. The ir history is certainly not that ofprimitiv e savages, as will soon become abunclandy clear, but it cannot be fitted intothe congenial schema provided by the Whig interpretation either. Someof the olderarguments caricatured here have already been demolished by others, and there is nopoint in attacking them at great length. They will be noted simply to direct nonspecialists to what is now generally regarded as a mor e accurate point of view. Otherinterpretations, especially those, mosdy of recent origin, that are still a matter ofdebate among specialists, will be dealt with more fully and accorded the criticalrespect they deserve.The analysis presented in this chapter is divided into four partscovering the following topics: natural and human resources; production ; the in ternal distributive system; and conclusions about the constraints operating on the localeconomy.

1 Natural and human resourcesHistorians commonly treat the natural environment as a 'backgroun d' to the eventswhich are their prime concern. This approach, while quite acceptable for politicalbiography or diplomatic studies, is less satisfactory in the case of economic history.Indeed, West Mrica's economic past is the record of a continuous dialogue betweengeography and history-from the very beginnings ofagriculture to the introductionof modem ndustry. The sketchofnatural resources provided here s to be seen merdyas a preface to a story of interaction that can be followed later on in this and subsequent chapters.9 The brevity of the present oudine is intended to lend support to itsmain purpose, which is to deny that the physical environment is immutable,or that it has determined the course of Mrican history.From Dakar to Lake Chad, a distance of over two thousand miles, there extends abelt of undulating grassland studded with trees. This area, known as the WestemSudan, forms a corrido r about 600 miles wide. To the north lies the Sahara desert,which reaches out about on e thousand miles towards North Africa. To the south,and almost touching the sea, stretches a belt of ropical forest, again running fromwest to east, but covering no more than 20 0 miles from north to south even at itswidest, and punctuated in the middle (roughly between Accra and Por to Novo) bythe savanna. Winter never comes to West Africa, so low temperatures are noobstacle to plant growt h, and rainfall is the chief physical-determinantof the character and extent of the vegetation. The amount of rainfall decreases from the south.

Readers who require more geographical information are referred to the mollUD1etlt21work of schobnhip by W. B. Morgan and J. C. Pugh, West Africa, 1969. which should alsobe consulted with reference to subsequent sections of the present chapter and to Chapters 6and 7.

II

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An Economic History oj West Africa The domestic economy: structure andJUnctionwhere it mig ht exceed 10 0 inches a year, to the north , where it migh t be non--existentin some years. It is this variation which largely explains th e great contrast betweenthe humid forest and the dry, bare desert, and also the t endency for vegetation zonesto run in parallel bands from west to east. This alignment is not seriously modifiedby changes in altitude, for only rardy does the land rise much above two thousandfeet. The main vegetation zones have been present since about 3000 B.C., and are theproduct of a drying- out process which started ten or twelve thousand years ago.Before then, and beginning approximately seventy thousand years ago, there wasan era of reduced temperatures and higher rainfall that encouraged Mediterraneanvegetation and human settlement in parts of West Africa which are now desert.It used to be thought that this environment was naturally well endowed andpotentially very rich. Huntington , whose theories achieved considerable popularityin the 19208 and 19308, incorporated this belief n to his explanation of the economicbackwardness of the tropics. According to him, 'low mentality, inertia, disease orthe relative ease of life in a tropical climate may prevent people from having newideas or putting them into execution.'lO There were tw o main reasons why opinions

of this kind came to be held about West Africa. In the first place, early Europeanobservers seem to have regarded the luxuriance of the tropical forest as an indicationof the general fertility of the region. Secondly, the long association between theWestern Sudan and th e gold trade encouraged the view that the savanna was a richand desirable area. 1 In the 1940S and 19505, however, a different interpretationbegan to emerge, partly, it is interesting to note, as a result of the failure of a numberof post-war colonial projects for improving tropical agriculture. Tropical soils, soit was said, were inherently infertile, raising agricultural productivity was a difficulttask, and the development prospects of the tropics were, in consequence, ratherbleak. 1:! Today, geographers are agreed that the problem is much more complexthan was suggested by earlier writers, and that a great deal remains to be learnedabout the properties of tropical SOils.13However, there is sufficient evidence to showthat the alleged natural richness of the tropical environment, and the associated ideathat life on the equator is relatively easy, are both myths. It is now recognised thatsavanna soils tend to be low in organic and mineral content, and are easily eroded,while the rainfallof the area, besides being scanty, is also subject to marked seasonalvariations. The forest zone has deeper soils, but these, too, are frequently low innutrients, especially phosphorus. Beyond this point there is considera ble uncertain tyabout the relationship between climate and soils in the tropics and the developmentpotential of the area.Comparing the natural r e s o u r c e ~ and climates of different parts of world inorder to draw conclusions about whether they stimulatedor retarded the economic

10 Ellsworth Huntington, Mainsprings o!Cillilisation, New'York, 194$, p. 4.11 The gold trade is dealt with in Chapter 3. The alleged wealth. of the Western Sudanplayed a part in shaping European attitudes towards West Africa in the nineteenth cm.tury,as is noted in Chapter 413 Pierre Gourou. The Tropical World, 4th ed., 1!)66.

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An Economic History ofWest Ajimprogress of particular societies is a tempting but Wlprofitable exercise-rather liketrying to decide if life is more difficult for penguins in the Antarctic or camels in theSahara. All that can safely be said is that the peoples of the Wlderdeveloped cOWltrieshave much more in common than divides them. Their activities, whether in temperate or tropical zones, centre on the production of the goods and services needed forsurvival at low levels of income. To achieve this end each society adapts to, and atthe same time tries to mould, its environment. '!he natural endowment of a particular region may set broad limits, Wlder a given technological, social and politicalregime, to the kinds ofactivities which are carried out at anyone point in time, butthere is stiI1 room within these limits for experiment and change. It is likely, to take aWest African example, that the forest was once more extensive than it is today, andthat partof the savanna was derived from it by the action ofman.14 Arise in population in the savanna, through natural increase or migration, encouraged the clearingof additional land by burning the forest. Once this occurred, fire-resistant grassesinvaded the area, and a new type of agriculture evolved, associated, in some cases,with the keeping oftivestock. Man's experiments, on occasion, have pushed backthe bOWldaries which previously constrained his activities and achievements. Suchwas the case with the neolithic revolution based on the invention of agriculture andon the domestication of animals, and with the industrial revolution which began inEngland in the late eighteenth century.The physical environment has not been an immutable determinant of man'sactivities either in West Africa or in other parts of the world. Natural resources anddimate may help to identify the particular type of Wlderdevelopment which existsin one region rather than another, but do not, by themselves, explain the phenomenon of Wlderdevelopment itse1 An enquiry into the causes of the poverty andwealthofnations should begin by rejecting the assumption that man and his environment can be treated as distinct entities having a fixed relationship, for man is anessential and dynamic element in geography no less than in history. SDemography is, or, more accurately, should be, a central theme in African economic history, for the greater part of the continent's gross 'national' product was,and still is, derived from the application of human power to the land. It now seemslikely that Africa, so long regarded as a borrower rather than a lender in worldhistory, was the original home of man, and it has been established recendy thatpeoples of negro stock were present in parts of West Africa about eleven thousandyears ago.16 Migrations and intermarriage (which still continue today) have helped

14 Even this statement oversimplifies a complex problem, on which research is only justbeginning. See the preliminary study by W. B. Morgan and R. P. Moss, 'Savanna and Forestin West Africa', Africa, 35, 1965. pp. 286-93.1& The approach adopted in the foregoing paragraphs owes a great deal to two complementary articles: June Helm, 'The Ecological Approach in Anthropology', American JournalofSociology, 67,1962, pp. 630-9, and W. B. Morgan and R. P. Moss, 'Geography and Ecology:

the Concept of the Community and its Relationship to Environment', Annals ofthe Association.,fAmerican Geographers, 55, 1965, pp. 339-50 18 J. D. Clark, The Prehistory ofAfi*a, 1970, pp. 16.4-9.

The Jomestic ea1nomy: structure andJunaio"to develop a wide variety of commWlities in the region.1T In the discussion thatfollows, West Africa's human resources will be considered in two parts, the firstdealing with the size, quality and distribution of the population, and the second withthe ways in which the labour force was organised.Serious efforts to assess the numbers of people in West Africa date only from thestartof he twentieth century, when the total population was reckoned to be aboutthirty-six millions. Extrapolation from this figure, which is itselfan informed estimate rather than a precise calculation, is risky, though it has been suggested on thisbasis that the population was roughly twenty-five millions in 1800. However. evenifthe total relating to the beginning ofthe colonial period is taken to apply to a much("artier date, it can still be said that the population ofWest Africa was small in relationto the size of the region and to the land suitable for cultivation. Terms such as over-population' and 'Wlderpopulation' contain a number of difficulties, and imply theexistenceofan' optimum' population, which is a rather elusive concept.18 Nevertheless, the indications are that overpopulation was not, in general, one ofWest Africa'sproblems. On the contrary, it is likely that West Africa can stand as an example ofWlderdevelopment in an Wlderpopulated area.111 Put at its simplest, the evidencesuggests that in aggregate terms there was more land available than there was labourto cultivate it. Even today, when the population is well over twice as great as it wasat the beginning of the twentieth century, land shortage bas yet to become a majorproblem, except in certain localities.The foregoing generaUsationsrequire amplification. To begin with, it is important to recognise that sparse population and Wlderpopulation are not necessarilyidentical. The small number ofpeople in a given area may well be accoWlted for bythe inadequacy of its natural resources. The population of the Sahara is sparse, butthe region cannot be said to be Wlderpopulated. There is some evidence that in WestAfrica low population densities, especially in parts of the Western Sudan, wererelated to poor soils and to a lack of biological essentials, such as water and salt. lOInareas where the land could have supported greater densities, an explanationofWlderpopulation is to be sought primarily in the influences affecting rates of fertility andmortality, though it is also likely that political constraints on the movement ofpeoples played a part in preventing the colonisation of particular localities. Litde isknown about the factors which governed fertility in African societies, though it doesseem that child-rearing practices reduced the number of possible births in some

11 For futthcr details see the classification adopted by Morgan and Pugh, West Afrka.pp. 17-3Z, which seems to be the most helpful one f or economic historians.18 E. A. Wrigley, Population lIII4 HistMy. 1969, p. 36. .19 The implications of his ob$ervation are considered, from an economist's point of view,

by Gerald K. Helleiner. 'Typology in Development Theory: the Land Surplus Economy(Nigeria)'. Food Research Institute Studies, 6, 1966, pp. 181-94. For an exhaustive, geographicalstudy of he phenomenon ofunderpopulation see G. Sautter, De l'Atlantique aujleulle Congo:une glographie du sous-peup1ement, 2 vols. Paris 1968.20 For a general survey see Boleslaw Dumanowski, 'The Influence of Geographical Environments on the Distribution and Density of Population in Africa', Africana Bulletin, 9, 1968,PP9-33.

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AnEconomic History ofWest Africa

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The domestic economy: structure a,ld fimction'(llIllllunities, but there is evidence to indicate that mortality fr om diseases such as1I1;llaria, smallpox and trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) was high. It has been

r ~ t a h J i s h e d that these diseases are of great antiquity in West Africa,21 and that therew('rc severe epidemics of smallpox, meningitis and plague, It has been suggested, for,'x,Huple, that epidemics and famine greatly reduced the population in the centralof the Western Sudan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.22 Next, it is necessary to correct the impression, which is still widespread outside

I he ranks ofdemographers, that underpopulation is an exceptional condition requiri l l ~ special explanation. This view derives from the assumption that there is a normal!(.II t/('ucy for population to press against the limit of resources in accordancewith theprilldple that 'natu re abhors a vacuum'. This idea was fust popularised by Malthus,"ud it has received support in recent years because the popul ation in many under.lcvdoped countries is undoubtedly growing rapidly. However, the population'(')(plosion' is a comparativel y modem event inworld history. Pre-industrial populat IOns were small: underpopulation was at least as common as overpopulation down10 the nineteenth century, and was certainly not peculiar to West Mrica or even toI\frica as a whole. India and Latin America were underpopulated until at least the1)('[.;inning of the twentieth century, and so, too, were countries of white settlement,

~ 1 I . : h as North America and Australia. The no tion that underpopulation is in someways preferable to overpopulation is equally common, but is also witho ut foundaI lo l l . Underpopulation may be the result of especially hig h rates of mortality, and itpresents serious obstacles to the development of a market economy, as will become ('ar later in this chapter.

There isno reason to suppose that the qualityof the labour force differed materiallyfmm that of other pre-industrial societies.liI3The average expectation oflife at birthwas probably around thirty-five years, much as it was in medieval Europe, and as itI ('mains in parts of West Mrica today. The number of hours worked in farming and."sociated activities was low, perhaps averaging about half the day throughout theyear, and sometimes rather less.24 However, it would be wrong to conclude eitherI hat there was massive underemployment in traditional Mrican societies, or tllatAfricans suffered from a special disability, chronic lethargy, In the first place, the,ivcrage number of hours spent in farming was substantially less than the average\pcnt in productive employment as a whole, because farmers also engaged in other"divities, such as craft production and trading, on a part-time or seasonal basis.:-iC'coudly, it has been shown that the energy costs of common agricultural tasks in

21 It has been argued that the tsetse fiy. which transmits trypanosomiasis, is as old as manhimsel See Frank L. Lambrecht, 'Aspects of the Evolution and Ecology of Tsetse Flies andTrypanosomiasis in Prehistoric AfriCan Environment', joumal of African Hisiory, S. 1964,Pl' l-Z4.2. Sekene-Mody Cissoko, 'Famines et epidemies a Tombouctou et dans Ill. boucle duNiger duXVI" au XVIII" sil:des', Bulletif! de I'IFAN, B, 30, 1968, pp. 806-21.

23 See, for example, D. C. Coleman, 'Labour in the English Economy of the SeventeenthCentury', Economic History Review, 8, 1956, pp. z8D-9S.24 Rowena M. Lawson, 'The Traditional Utilisation of Labour in Agriculture in the LowerVolta, Ghana', Economic Bulletin ofGhana, IZ , 1968, pp. 54--61.

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An Economic History of West AfricaWest Africa are severe, and that about half the day is needed for recuperation,especially in communities where malnutrition and disease are common. 25 Hunter'sremarkable study of Nangodi demonstrates that the majority of the populationsuffers a serious loss in body-weight in the critical period before the harvest, whenfood is short, yet when energy is needed to gather the cropS.28 Where there WaJunderemployment in West Africa, in the sense that the labour force, thoug h healthy,was working below capacity in all occupations, it was due to lack of opportunitiesrather than to a culture-hound leisure preference, for preference implies choice, andchoice was often absent. The 'lazy' African is in reality usually either debilitated orwithout a market for his labour-or both.

The distribution of human resources provides an impor tant due to the ways inwhich natural resources were utilised. West Africa's small population was spreadunevenly thro ughou t the region. This inequality was partly a reflectionof the naturalendowment of the various microenvironments: fertile and healthy areas wereobviously more attractive than those which contained poor soils and fatal diseases.27More impressive, and in sharp contrast to the old, determinist viewpoint, is thedegree to which the distribution of settlements was the result of the agricultural,commercial and political activities of man.Man's inventiveness in discovering and adopting different types of crops had aprofound effect on the carrying capacity of the land. Root crops, for example,produce about ten times as much weight offood per unit of land as cereals, and arecapable of supporting greater population densities. The fact that roots are grownmainly in the forest has helped to compensate for some of the less attractive featuresof that region. The\:xpansion of trade was responsible for concentrat ions of population in some unlikely places, such as the Sahara, where complex settlements with asmany as 10,000 inhabitants developed in the prcxolonial era.28 Inter-state conflictsalso had a major influence on the distribution of population. Fugitives from aggression were sometimes compelled to seek sites which cou ld be defended easily, thoug hin othe r respects they were inhospitable. Islands of settlement were found in remote

,2 ' P. G. Phillips, 'The Metabolic Cost of Common West African Agricultural Activities',Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 57, 1954, pp. 12-20..8 J. M. Hunter, 'Seasonal Hunger in a Part of the West African Savanna: a Survey ofBodyweights in Nangodi, N.B. Ghana', InsJitute

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An I/ronomit lUst!)" oj West Africato be overemphasised. Towns and large villages were a common feature of theWest African landscape in the pre-colonial era. Admittedly, their occnpationalstructure differed from that ofmodem cities in that they were primarily places whereagriculturalists gathered for non-agricultural purposes, above all for defence andtrade. Many African urban dwellers commuted daily to their farms outside the townwalls, whereas in the Western world suburban man travels into the city centre towork in industry and commerce.This evidence shows what is not in dispute, namelythat West African towns were not industrial towns in the modem sense, but it cannotbe used to argue that they were essentially different from the towns which existed,for instance, in late medieval Europe. African towns not only sheltered farmers, theyhoused specialised personnel, such as craftsmen, transport contractors, hoteliers andmerchants; they were focal points for the exchange of goods ofallkinds; and theywere important administrative and religious centres. Indeed, some towns on theSahara-savanna border concentrated on trade to such an extent that they were almostentirely dependent on extemal supplies for their basic food requirements. Like theircounterparts in the medieval world, West African toWQS were wealthy enough tosupport a small, leisured group, and they encouraged, indirectly, the developmentofa 'high' culture, as witness the now famous 'bronzes' ofIfe and Benin, and the centreof Muslim scholarship in the legendary city of Timbuctu.35There is one final aspect of the distribution of population which needs to bestressed, namely its mobility. The movement of the labour force, whether in longwaves of several generations, or whether seasonal (or even daily), far from being anovelty introduced by colonialism, was an established feature of the traditionaleconomy. Even the now ustly-celebrated migrationof the farmers who founded theGold Coast cocoa industry at the turn of the present century should be seen, in thecontext ofWest African history as a whole, as a relatively small movement in termsofnumbers and distance. Legends of the originsofWest African peoples, which havebeen traced, in some cases, as far back as the eighth century, all emphasise theimportance of mobility as a means of escaping alien control or of acquiring newwealth in the formof land, gold or salt.36 Besides those who were forced, for politicalreasons, to live in cramped conditions, there were others who gained from thesecnrity which resulted from the expansion of state power, whether in the savannakingdoms, such as Mali and Songhai, or in the forest states, such as Benin andAshanti. During the dry season, when labour demands on the farm were light andtravelling conditions were at their best, the roads came alive with traders and porters,and the towns bulged with noisy and acquisitive visitors. As will become apparentlater on, migration made economic sense, for it reflected the prevailing land-labourratio and the differential spatial distribution of market opportunities.The organisation ofthe labour force is central to an understandingof the utilisationofnatural resources. The work force ofpre-industrial societies is usually regarded as

35 Ife and Benin brass work is thought to date from the thirteenth century. Timbuctu,founded in the twelfth century, had become a noted seat oflearning by the fourteenth century.36 See the studies by Dorjahn and Tholley, Gueye, Holas, Kup, Niane, Pageard, Pecie andSellier, and Rjad listed in the bibliography.

20

The domestic economy: structure andjunctionI 'f 'liP. !lased on unspecialised and inefficient family labour, whereas industrial "lIlIlries are said to organise their workers on the basis of contract instead of kin.1,,1', lo ;lllocate tasks according to skills rather than social obligations, and to be'''II, h(y rtficient. Itwill be contended here that the labour force in pre-colonial Africa'\! ,U l IIore varied, more flexible and more efficient than is customarily supposed, and,11;11, fII tllis respect at least, the contrast between 'primitive' and 'modem' societies"H !lrcll exaggerated. .. hc most important economic unit in virtnally allWest African societies was, and,1111 i' , lhe household. The household was not always identical wi th the family, and.v i4 'Illite capable of adapting its size and skills to meet changing circumstances and,,' I fc.ile new opportunities. Each household approximated to the optimum size forII,, IIlmlitions in which it operated. A large household could divide itself nto several{1II .. lIrr units, though without necessarily breaking up the family too. Netting's,-,,-m II has demonstrated that small households predominated among the Kofyar,.j , r t l ! ral Nigeria because they were best suited to the system of intensive agriculturewh .. Ia prevailed in the area.31 The household was also capable of expanding.1l,yhl1rn's study of Cameroon, for example, has suggested that the demand for, "1.1 bhour was a principal cause of the existence and growth of polygynousL,,"dlCS.3u Households of all sizes were usually in a position to mobilise additional',h"\lf at times of peak demand. Communal labour was used by the Yoruba (int ~ ' l t . n l a ) to prepare and weed farms, and by the Adioukrou (in the Ivory Coast) to, "!,I"it groves of palm trees. Many African societies distinguished between the1,11"'IU' of men and women, though the line was not always drawn at the same

In Bamenda (Cameroon) women were especially important in farming,""hn ' IS in Yorubaland they spent much moreof their time trading. However, thereW U .' (onsiderable degree of occupational specialisation, both seasonal and perma!I f l it, which cut across divisions of sex. In any case, it is by no means clear that the.'IVI\I')11 oflaoour between men and women represented a serious misallocation of1'"111.111 resources. Although the spread ofIslam from the eighth century onwards, II< "urag-cd a more restrictive attitude towards the activities of females, African''!I IIICII alljusted to this situation with characteristic ingenwty by devising a marketII.,: ~ y ~ l e m which was based on the compound rather than on the village sqnare.311

' l ! . tTl ' is no evidence to show that the household labour force was inefficient, and.1 hml to envisage organisational changes which would have cut production costs.., ~ : I c : t t l y improved the range, quality or volume of output. It is noteworthy thattil' household, far from dissolving under the impact of Western capitalism in the'\VI'llIieth century, or for that ~ t t e r surviving to obstruct economic progress,

" Robert McC. Netting, Hitt Fdrmers ofNigerid, Seattle 1968. A similar thesis is developedLv hrlle B. Taeuber, 'The Family ofChinese Farmers', in Family and Kinship in Chinese Society,,.1 Maurice Freedman, Stanford I970 pp. 63-85.

,n William D. Reyburn, 'Polygamy, Economy and Christianity in the Eastern Cameroun',"'.111;",1 Anthropology, 6,1959, pp. I-I9

"W I'olly Hill, 'Hidden Trade in Hausaland', Man, 4, 1969, pp. 392-409, has studied this, v I rill as it operates today.

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An Economic History oj West Afi'iC4became a dynamic agency for the development of new export crops and for theexpansion of internal uade. Households could change their sac and suffer seriowlosses, but they rarely went out of business. It is suggested, speculatively, that thetenacityof thehousehold as a unitofproductioncan be explained partly by viewingits labour force as a Xed overhead rather than as a variable cost.40 In practice overheads were kept low because all members of the household beganworking at a veryearly age and remained in employment until they became infirm or died, whilethose who were unemployed could be maintained relatively cheaply. The householdwas highly competitive because family labour was costless (in the formal sense ofnotreceiving a wage) and could be used to the point where its marginal product waszero.fol Traditionalroles proved to be flexible. In the twentieth century, forexample,men became more involved in farming than they had in the past. Furthermore, themuch-maligned extended family, far from being a 'drag on development', oftenprovided the funds whichenabled enterprising individuals and groups to launch new iundertakings, and it offered them a refuge i f their ventures failed. The large house- fhold and the extended family undoubtedly placed obligations on successful enUe- Ipreneurs, but they wually had the skill to balance private interest against the clai.m.s ' fof their kinsmen.42 J

AllegatioDS.about the inefficiency of the uaditionallabour force are the productnot only of an inadequate appreciation of the historical evidence relating to Africa,butalso ofan exaggeratedsense ofthe superiority and modernity oflabour organisation in Europe. Yct it is not hard to show that Western reality diverged from theWestern ideal, though it s the latter rather than the former which has been used tojudge the performance of the underdeveloped countries. The household firm, forinstance, remained an important unit of production in England long after the indwtrial revolution. In the latenineteenth century the vast majority ofmanufacturingfirms continued to be family businesses, though they also used conuacted labour.'3Today, the family firm is prominent in retailing and farming. and often employslittle or no additional help. The extended familyalso proved to be a dynamic force in IIEurope. as the examples of the Rothschilds (in banking) and the Cadburys andPilkingtODS (in indwuy) make clear.'" Restrictive practices based on 'uadition' are if.0 As was the case with the Russian peasant farm in the late nineteenth century. SeeJames

R. Millar, fA Reformulation of A. V. Chayanov'. Theory of the Peasant Fam!. Economy', iEamomk Developmmlll:lld C u l t u r a l ~ , 18, 1970, pp. al9-29

.1 The Europeans who tried to establish plantations in West Africa in the early years of hetwentieth century found themselves at a disadvantage because they bad to employ paid labour,and they coul d operate profitably OO1y while the marginal product of labour was greater thanthe wage which bad to be paid. t.m E. Waynt: Na&iger, 'The Effect of the N'JgCrian Extended family on Entrepreneurial 1Development'. P.tI.Itwmk Development anti Cultural Change. 18, 1969, pp. 25-33 ! P. L. Payne, 'The Emergence of the Large-scale Company in Great Britain. 1870-1914'.

&onomic History Ittview. 20, 1967, p. 520... Even in America, t he heartland of advanced capitalism. the extended family is still an iimportant. if negJected. institution. See R. Hill, Family Development ,,, Three GetmatitmS. New *York 1970.

The domestic economy: structure andJunction.'ill "I ." nl ill the 19705 by trade unions and professional organisations. Femalei .1.,,", III.IY well be underused to a greater extent in England than in West Africa.I Ii I. 1'1'.H'tice among certain social classes, Christians and agnostics alike, to ",,,,, , ,heir women to the home mainly for cultural reasons, it being considered,. ,.1 \. , ,C rdlcction on the husband ifhis wife has to go out to work. Those women

I .. ,I.. Iry to make use of their abilities still experience discrimination. In 1971,, , .,' I 'W" Inlildred years after the beginningofthe industrial revolution, the London... hdlange voted for the third time in four years not to admit women toli n tiilu>"lup.U; .

I", ,.II labour was organised on the basis of multifunctional domestic units.., ,1.1'""11 1 labour was provided mainly by slaves, though a small number of hired

,,,,I. w s used as well. Travellers to African states in the pre-colonial period esti.,' ", .11 h(" !lumbersofslaves at between a quarter and one halfof the total population.I" , I"d.

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An Economic History of Wt'st Africaslaves held senior civil and military positions. These powerful 'trusties' oftenpossessed numerous slaves of heir own. Others were found i n skilled jobs, such ascraft manu&cture. The majority, however, performed work which was usuallymenial, sometimes gruelling and occasionally dangerous.48Slaves were employedas domestic servants, they acted as carriers, they maintained oases and cut rock saltfrom the desert, they laboured to build towns, construct roads and clear paths, theywere drafted as front line troops, and they were common in all types of agricultural.work. Farm slaves were not used, as inmany other partsof the world. to produce anexport surplus, but rather, as in Songhai in the fifteenth century, to provide foOOstuiIS for leading state officials, for their immediate circle ofdependants, and for thearmy. Agricultural slaves were essential to societies which were not themselvesspecialist food producers. The fertile valley ofTamourt in Mauritania. for example,has been the granary of Saharan nomads since the fourteenth century, when they:first enslaved the negro cultivators of the region.49The question now arises as to why the shortage oflabour in certain partsofWestAfrica was remediedby enslavement and by an enforced redistnbution of the region'shuman resources. Countries which have faced a labour shortage during the industrial era have often been able to employ machinery instead. Indeed, high labour costshave sometimes provided an incentive for the introduction of advanced technology.50 However, West African entrepreneurs, living in a pre-industrial, preNewtonian world, were unable to adapt in this way. An alternative solution, andone which was open to them, was to attract labour by paying wages. Many goodsand some services were bought and sold for money, so it is incorrect t o assume, as issometimes done, that Africans failed to devise an acceptable means ofpayment. It issuggested here that the use ofslave rather thanwage labour was a matter ofdeliberatechoice on the pan of African employers.51 As noted earlier, the scarce factor ofproduction in West Africa was labour rather than land. In these circumstances therewas a natural tendency towards dispersed settlement and extensive agriculture, since

U There was no sharp division of labour betweenmale and female slaves, bu t it s probablytrue to say that women were used principally in domestic' work, craft production and agri-culture. However, not all women occupied subordinate positions. Some, such as the famousMadamTinubu ofAbeokuta, struck a blow for women's equality by buying large numbers ofmale slaves.

1$ Charles Toupet, 'La vallee de la Tamourt en Naaj: problemes d'a:m6nagement', BuUeti"de Z'IPAN, B, :&0, 1958, pp. 68-no.110 AJ has been suggested was the case in North America in the nineteenth century. SeeH. J. Habakkuk, Amerlciltl andBritish Technology in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge 19

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An Economic Histtny of West Africato pay. Administrators in both British and FrenchWest Mrica faced a labour shortage during the early part of the colonial period, and they resorted to the use offorcedlabour. even though they were committed to th e abolition of slavery. The colonialmind resolved this paradox by declaring slavery to be uncivilised, and forced labourto be a necessary way of instructing primitive people about the advantages ofmodernity.

The diverse nature of slavery. reflected prevailing conditions of supply anddemand in West Mrica. Since labour was relatively scarce, the cost of replacingslaves was high, and owners had a strong motive for maintaining at least a proportionof their slaves in reasonable condition and encouraging them to breed. Wheresupplies were abundant, as was to be the case in the Caribbean, employers had littleincentive to invest in the long-term welfare of their slaves. The result was that slaveswere un' at full capacity and treated as chattels. The demand for labour in WestAfrica was also m uch m ore varied than in the Caribbean, and the differential treatment whic h slaves received was related to some extent to the roles assigned to them.Moreover, slaves in West Africa, besides being inputs in the product ive system, performed an important political function. Mricans measured wealth and power inmen rather th an in acres; those who exercised authority were man-owners ratherthan landowners. In some circumstances obedience could be coerced, but in othersit was judged advisable to secure support by offering slaves a modest stake in theexisting political system.

Societies which made extensive use of slave labour exhibited two concurrenttendencies. On the one hand, th e influxofnew slaves and the presence ofslaves whoseethnic origins limited their chances of integration, created a dispossessed and potentially disaffected group . Discontented slaves occasionally rose against their masters:one of the earliest known slave revolts in West Africa occurred in I59I, when theruler of Songhai's slaves asserted themselves after their owner and his troops hadbeen defeated by the Moroccan army. On the other hand, there was a trend towardsassimilating slaves into society by offering th em certain rights in return for loyalty.The Hausa (in northern Nigeria) distinguished between the bayi, who had beencaptured or bought, and who had few rights, and the cucenawa, who, as secondgeneration slaves, occupied a position that was closer to serfdom than to chattelslavery. In attemptin g to strike a balance between total exploitation and an entirelyfree community of farmers, employers were expressing their appreciation of theneed to develop a subtle form of dependent labour, one which was mo re profitablethan hired labour, yet which was also capable of fulfilling extra-economicfunctions.

The foregoing assessment of ;lavery points to amendments to commonassumptions. concerning the nature of pre-industri al societies. In the first place, andcontrary to the beliefof the substantivist schoolof anthropologists, th erewas a longestablished labo ur market in Mrica. The fact that this market too k the form of slavelabour rather than wage labour was the result of a deliberate choice based on anelementary, but broadly accurate, cost-benefit analysis, that is to say on principleswhich the substantivists regard as peripheral or non-existent in 'traditional' societies.

The domestic economy: structure andfunctionI" interpret slave-raiding as an expression of what Balandier has calle d'economo, that is an economic game played for social ends, is to misunderstand, or atI.,lsI to oversimplify, the motives underlying the need for an unpaid, dependent!.dHlIJf force. Secondly, the existence of slave labour provides evidence of the'tH"lualities which were present in pre-co lonial society. Tradit ional societies are said1" Ilave levelling mechanisms which'playa crucial role in inhibit ing aggrandisementhv illdividuals or by special social groups'.55 These mechanisms take the form of, (( cd loans levied on those whose incomes show signs of rising above the average,

1 " J ~ l i l l g and free gifts, and result, so it is claimed, in a 'democracy of poverty'.1i6,'II('sc ideas fit neatly with the notion of Merrie Africa, but they fail to recognise thatIl.IlIollal income, though small in aggregate terms, can still be distributed unevenly,IIld they are not supported in the case of West Africa by satisfactory historicalVidence. From early times wealth was achieved th rough the labour of slaves. In the(,ll'venth century there were merchants in Awdaghost, on the Sahara-savanna1II.lrgill, who possessed more than one thousand slaves; elsewhere, and in lateri "lIll1ries, even larger slave owners were found. These were the men who could.. fI(,rd expensive items, such as meat, wheat or yams, salt and luxuries from abroad,who, like the Fulani conquerors in the Guinea highlands, lived 'la vie de chati , I I I ' , t l7 The poor, who are often presumed not to have existed in pre-colonial West

to con tent themselves with carrion, inferior grains or cassava and im-I,('[reet salt substitutes, and at times of extreme need free men h ad to place themselves.,r members of their family in pawn to wealthy creditors.58 Thirdly, the theory thatpre-industrial societies owe their cohesiveness to freely-accepted and equally-sharedv;llucs ignores the possibility that the interests of dependent labourers may not be1I1('ntifted completely with those of their masterS, and it fails to appreciate that',.Iidarity can be the result of compulsion. Elements from both conflict and funcwl/Ialist approaches a re needed if change and stability in pre-industri al societies areI" be understood.

') Production1 his section will begin to examine the productive activities which resulted from the1111 ('raction ofnatural and human resources in the pre-colonial period. The aim of thedl'Ulssion is both descriptive and analytical. Description is needed because general

l t i ~ L O r i e s of West Mrica scarcely mention domestic production, and deal only wi thnn Manning Nash. Primitive and Peasant Ecorwmic Systems. San Francisco 1966, p. 35.0 . Manning Nash, 'The Social Context of Economic Choice in a Small Society', Man, 219.

"}OJ, p. 190..,7 E, F. Gauthier, L'Afrique ""ire occidentale. Paris, 1943, p. 171 For a clear statement of economic and social inequalities at the beginning of the six

t{ ' ( ' I1 th century see Walter Rodney. A History of he Upper Guinea Coast. 1545-1800, Oxford")70 , pp. 34-8. The system of pawning, by which debts were repaid by providing free labourtor a specified period, is one which needs further research.

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An Economic History of West Africatrade, especially foreign trade. Analysis is required to rdate the information presented here to the myths (outlined at the beginning of the chapter) of a static, inflexible, uni form, and essentially simple, subsistence economy. It will be argued thatthe indigenous economy experienced major historical changes; that it was capableof accepting and initiating novd types of activity; that it exhibited regional andoccupational diversity; and that its organisation was complex. This analysis, it issuggested, points to the need to revise a number of standard explanations of economic backwardness in 'traditional' societies.

Throughout their history, most West Africans have won their living from theland. Agriculture was the chief activity in the greater part of the region, as it was inother pre-industrial societies, and today foodstuffs still account for the largest shareof the value of the goods and services produced each year by West Mri can countries.Moreover, agriculture remains, as in the past, the 'mat rix in whi ch all other indigenous economic activity is set.'59 I t is not, and it was not, necessary to give up farmingin order to enter occupations such as craft manufacture and trade, which are frequendy undertaken on a part-time or seasonal basis. On the contrary, a n agriculturalsurplus often made it possible to finance additional types of productive enterprise.For the past five centuries the staple foodstuffs have been grains, such as millet(mainly sorghum and pennisetum), maize, rice and fonio (hungry rice), and roots,chiefly yams, cocoyams, cassava (also known as manioc) and plantains. These cropsare grown in association with a variety oflegumes, bulbs and fruit. Cereals tend topredominate in the savanna, and roots in a large part of the forest, a division whichreflects the physical requirements of the crops and the geographical differencesbetween the two regions. Rainfall is particularly importa nt in this context. In thesavanna rainfall is sparse and falls in a period of three to five months, which explainswhy the main crops are annuals, such as cereals. In the forest rainfall is greater andspreads over about seven months of the year, which means that perennids, such astree crops and a number of roots, can be grown. These generalisations requirequalification. In the first place, there is a considerable overlap between these regions,where combinations of cereals and roots are grown. Secondly, there are localvariations withi n the two major regions themsdves, the most important being inthe forest, where there is a distinction between the pr edominand y rice-growing areain the west, and the predominan dy yam-dominant area in the east, the dividing linebeing the Bandama river in what is now the Ivory Coast. The reasons for this distinction are not fully understood. It may have a physical basis, the soils and low er rainfallof he eastern region being better suited, perhaps, to yams than to rice, and it maybe the result of cultural differences between the peoples of the forest.6oIf the latterinterpretation is correct, then the distinction between the western and eastern partsof the forest can be said to represent a striking example of the variable nature ofhuman reactions to broadly similar environmental conditions.

Be Polly Hill, 'Some Characteristics of Indigenous West African Economk F.nterprise',Economic Bulletin of Ghana, 6, 1962, pp. 3-14.so This suggestion has been made by J. Miege. 'Les cultures vivrieres en Afrique occidentale',Cahiers d'Outre-Mer, 19S4, pp. 2S-S0.

The domestic economy: structure andfunaionAgriculture is such a pervasive and 101lg established activity in West Africa that it

I' ("asy for economists, and even historians, to take its existence for granted. Yet the,Iornesticationof plants and animals, the 'neolithic' revo lution whi ch Gordon Childedid so much to ducidate,61 was one of the great events in world history, and one ofthe outstanding achievements of the indigenous inhabitants of Africa. AgricultureIlrovided more assured suppliesoffood; it made possible the creation (and appropriaIIon) of a surplus; it stimulated a degree of urbanisation and specialisation; and itpermitted an increase in population, since the maximum size no longer depended.,n the numbers that could be supported at the leanest time of the year by hunting,lIId gathering.The origins of the food-producing revolution in West Africa have been the subI("ct of considerable controversy among specialists.62 The established view of theI11:ljOrity of archaeologists, headed by Clark, is that agriculture began in the savanna

f( lund 2000 B.C., following the diffusion of ideas and plants from Egypt. However,.,I*ctions to this interpretation have been raised from several quarters during theIJst ten or fifteen years. Murdock, an ethnographer, has argued that agriculture beganIIldependendyin West Mrica abo ut 5000 B.c.Porteres, a botanist , has also suggestedtll;!t West African agriculture was an independent development, but considers thatII originated between 2800 and 1500 B.C. Wrigley, a historian, has advanced a case10 show that certain kinds of agricultural practices originated in West Africa, and,h;lt the forest may have been an independent centre of origin. These arguments,Ihough often speculative with regard to dates and evidence, have bro ught to thefi)re hypotheses which are beginning to receive serious attention. The diffusionistIheory, once unquestioned, is no longer stated with confidence, and the latest;Irchaeological research has tended to stress both the antiquity a nd the var iety of prehistoric agriculture in West Africa.S3 (f, as seems likdy, new archaeological discoveries are made in the near future,, urrent views will almost certainly need radical revision. At the moment, and forI,resent purposes, it can be said that West African agriculture, besides being of prehistoric origin, did not lag far behind primary centres of origin, such as the NearI : l s t ; that at this early date the main staples were millet, rice and fonio in the savanna,;lI1d yams and the oil p alm in the forest; that while external contacts were of greatImportance there is evidence to suggest that there was a n indigenous, West Mri canneolithic agriculture; and t hat the assumption that agriculture devdoped earlier in, he savanna than in the forest must be regarded as dubious.

The devdopment of agriculture was not a sudden event, nor did it place suchdemands on the allegedly liprited capacities of the indigenous p'eople as to cause

61 What Happened in History. 1942.6' For a useful survey of the literature see M. A. Havinden, 'The History of Crop Cultivation in West Africa: a BibliographicalGuide', Economic History Review, 23.1970 , pp. S32-SSEighteen important articles from the Journal ofAfrican History have been selected by J. D. Fageand R. A. Oliver and published under the tide Papers in African Prehistory, Cambridge 1970 e3 Clark himself has taken account of this work in his latest book. See J. Desmond Clark,The Prehistory ofAfrica, 1970, pp. 199-206.

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An Economic History oj West AjriclJthem to drift throug h subsequent centuries in a state oflassitude, bereft of initiativeand ripe for colonial rule. ConnectiOll$ with other parts of the world remainedstrong, and the Bow of plants and seeds continued. Asian yams, cocoyams, bananas,and plantains reached West Africa by way of the Near East between the first an d theeighth centuries A.D. By the time the first written records become available, it isclear that agriculture was well established th rough out West Africa. In the tenthcentury al-Muhallabi, writin g of the Kingdom ofKanem (north-east of Lake Chad)reported that 'the length of their land is a fifteen days' journey through habitatioll$and cultivatioll$ all the way . Millet chiefly is cultivated in the land, and beans,also wheat. Most of the ordinary people spend their time cultivating and lookingafter their cattle.'64 In the thirteenth century, if not before, the ruler of Kanemmaintained an experimental farm, which grew a variety of cereals and fruits. Whenthe Portuguese arrived on the coast of West Africa two centuries later, they foundthat upland a nd swamp rice were widel y cultiva ed in th e western part of the forest,and that yams were the main staple in the east. The English traveller, Jobson, whovisited the Gambian coast in the seventeenth century, noted that 'the generall Trad e

from which none but the Kings and principall p'ersOll$ are exempted, is Husbandry,whereto. '. . the people of all sizes after their abilitie are subject'.65

The coming of the Europeans in t he late fifteenth century led to the introductionofa number of crops which are now regarded as typical of West African agriculture.The most important of these were maize, cassava, groundnuts , tobacco and, lat er on,cocoa, as well as a varietyof fruits. The principal sourceofsupply was South America,and the two main channels of diffusion were a direct ro ute from Brazil, and anindirect route via Iberia, both of which were established by the Portuguese. Therehas been some debate over th e timing of the introduction of one of these crops,namely maize. According to one school of thought, maize was present in WestAfrica before the Europeans made contact with America. This is a possibility whichhas not been proved, and the balanceof the evidence favours the vie w expressed herethat maize was imported from South America.

The effect which these crops had on the local economy, though mo re importantthan the precise timing of their arrival, has yet to attract serious historical attention.The spread of Asian and American crops was undoubtedly a lengthy process, and isstill going on today, but the slow pace of change should no t be taken as evidence th atindigenous farmers were unreceptive to new opportunities. First, it took time forknowledge of foreign seeds and plants to spread throughout the region as a whole.Second, new crops were tried out cautiously because no community was going toplace its established food supplies at risk thr ough the hasty adopt ion of untestednovelties. Third, the rateofdiffusion was sometimes inhibi ted by technical problems.Cassava, for example, though introduced in the sixteenth century, did not begin tospread rapidly until the close of the eighteenth century, when it became known how.. Quoted in Roland Oliver and J. D. Fage. A Short History r.if Africa, Hannondsworth1962, p. -47.as Quoted in Basil Davidson, The 4frican Past, Harmondsworth 19

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The domestic economy: structure andfunctionAn Economic History of West AfricaTo demonstrate that African farmers were flexible in their attitude towards theadoption of new crops is certainly a step forward. Nevertheless, it could still beargued that the indigenous system of cultivation was primitive, that technologyremained crude, that the rules governing land tenure shackled enterprise, and thatfor these reasons agriculture was stuck virtually at subsistence level. An examination

of these beliefs, which have been nourished by repetition in textbooks of economicdevelopment, will show that they rest on evidence which is either incomplete ormisinterpreted.Colonial officials formed a generally unfavourable impression of the capabilities

of African farmers. They looked at unoccupied land and thoug ht that i t was unusedor spare territory, which Africans, through lack of skill or initiative, were incapableof developing. They not ed the absence, especially in the forest, of the neat, hedgedfields which we re so familiar to them at home, and concluded that the standard offarm management was poor. They pointed to the lack of the plough, and decidedthat local farmers were uninventive. These observations, recorded in reports overmany years, influenced policies during the colonial era, and can still be found in somesecondary works today. However, an account of traditional farming which is confined to shifting cultivation and to allegedly wasteful slash and b urn techniques,though i t accords well with Trevor-Roper' s notion of Mrican history as the story ofthe 'unrewarding gyrations of barbarous tribes',88 scarcely doesjust ice to the complex reality revealed by geographical research. Indeed, according to Morgan andPugh's authoritative work, no less than seven headings are needed to classify theleading systems of cultivation practised in WestAfrica.89These are : shifting cult ivation; rotational bush fallow; rotational planted fallow; mixed farming; permanentcultivation; tree cultivation; and floodland and irrigated farming. All seven systemswere in use by about the sixteenth century, an d were almost certainly present longbefore then.

Shifting cultivation involves the periodic movement of settlement. Virgin land,or land having abundant secondary vegetation, is cleared with the aid of fire, andthe resulting irregular, tree-studded plots are cropped for o ne or two years beforebeing abandoned, as the community moves on to new land elsewhere. Shiftingcultivation ma y well have been the principal system of agriculture in West Africaduring prehistoric times, but today (and contrary to a common assumption) it isdominant in only a few areas. Th e chief method of cultivation in recent centurieshas been rotational bush fallow, which is widespread in savanna and forest, and isused for growing both cereals and roots. In this system settlement is fixed, and theland under cultivation rotates over a defined area of fallow grasses or woody plants,though the woodland itself i f not allowed to regenerate. Cleared l and is usuallycropped for between three and six years (though in the rice-growing forest lands ofthe west one or two years is the norm), and the period of fallow ranges from four toten years. The relatively long cropping period entails careful farm management andII Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Rise ojChristian Europe, 1965, p. 9. 18 W. B. Morgan and J. C. Pugh, West Africa, p. 100.

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An Economic History of West Africtlthe useofannual rotations, cro p mixtures and successions.70 Rotatio tW planted fallow is a distinct, but comparativ dy unimportant, system, which differs from rotational bush fallow in that the fallow cover is selected and ddi berately planted. Mixed farming involves a combination of cultivation and animal husbandry. Only a few communities, suchas the Serer of Senegal, employ mixed farming as their principal system of production, tho ugh other groups, suchas the Fulani, may keep cattle and cultivate the land without fully integrating the two activities. Where permanent cultivation is practised, the same land is farmed annually and is rardy allowed to revert to fallow. Few communities rdy on permanent cultivation for the greater part of their suppliesof food, but mo st have some small plotsnearthevillage orcom-pound,which are kept under cropscontinuously.71Tree cultivation, like permanent cultivation, is found in conjunction with other systems, especially rotational bush fallow. The most important tree crops in the pre-colonial period were the oil palm, the kola t ree and the shea tree, allofwhich are indigenous to West Africa. Floodland and irrigated cultivation is found in restricted areas, such as the south-west coast, where swamp rice is grown, and on the flood-plains of the Nig er and Senegal rivers, where millet, maize and rice are cultivated.

The question now arises as to whether there is any unifying principle linking thesedifferent methods of agriculture. Gourou's contention that the system ofland use isdetermined chiefly by soils and climate is unsatisfactory because rotational bush ffallow, the d ominant system in West Africa, is practised over a wide range of gea-graphical conditions, while shifting cultivation was used in parts of Europe, a itemperate zone, as late as the nineteenth century.72 Boserup's stimulating argumentthat systems of cultivation are determined basically by population density also Jneeds qualification, for different systems can be found in parts of West Africa which ido not show marked demographic variations.73 It is suggested here that land use is ibest understood in terms of a continuum ranging from virgin land to permanent Icultivation, and containing a number of subdivisions at intervening points, these 'being decided by the length of the fallow period. Rotational bush fallow occupiesone of these intermediate spaces. The length of the fallow period represents anadjustment to some or all of the following variables: population density; the availability offertiliser; and the range of crops. The concept of a continuum ofland use isbest illustrated by the two extremes ofshifting cultivation and p ermanent cultivation.

VO Rotations make certain that demands on the soil are varied from year to year;mixtures, that is growing several crops on the same plot and in the same season, ensure ahigh density of plants and economy of weeding; and successions, t hat is planting crops oneafter another during the same season, spread labour requirements and ptovide a more evenflow of foodstuffs by staggering the harvests.n For a study of the ways in which commtmities combine various systems of land use,including permanent agriculture, see W. B. Morgan, 'The Zoning of Land Use around RuralSettlements in Tropical Africa', in Environment and Land Use in Africa, ed. M. F. Thomas andG. W. Whittingron, 19/>9. pp. 301-19.'1'1 Pierre Gourou, The Tropical World, 1954.va Ester Boserup, The Conditions ofAgricultural Growth, 1965.

The domestic economy: structure tlndfimctioncultivation and other forms of extensive agriculture were found where

" , " " ' (, f all of the following conditions prevailed: a low population density; a short,t1.' .,1' t;':rtiliser; and an insufficient variety of crops. Where population was sparse,",II.lllt! abundant, farmers realised that it was important to maximise output per.. . III I 1hef than out put per acre. European observers, obsessed by the notion (derivedI. d" IIwir own experience) tha t outpu t per acre was a priority of universal applic.1,1111 y, fjilcd to grasp the principles underlying shifting cultivation. Yet clearing the1.",1 hy huming the u ndergrowt h was the quickest and cheapest llleth odin terms ofI ,I" ii i costs, and had the added advantage of returning mineral matter to the soil"I,,,lIy. Output per man hour under this system was extremely high, whi ch partly, 'I .I,HII' its tenacity in the face of alternative methods which, though technically"'I'I"lOr, increased overall costs and reduced net return s to the farmer. Where there., " ,hortage of manure, a long period of fallow was needed to restore nutrients t o.Ill ,,,.1. This deficiency was common in various parts of West Africa, but wasI'''' It 1Iiarly marked in the forest, where disease and the difficulty of maintaining\' 1" 111(' severely restricted animal husbandry. Where there was a lack of variety ind.. I lOpS available, the number of rotations was limited, the soil soon became. o ~ H ~ t e d , and farmer! were forced to move on to new land. European commenta

.. . Wl'rc scandalised by this 'wasteful' means of cultivation because they failed to'I'I',rn;lt e that unused land was an integral part of a method of cultivation whichillv"IVtd the maintenance of long fallows, and that to use it for another purpose

I UI l II ;IS European plantations) was to risk dislocating the indigenous system of\',. ,dnction.

I 'mnancnt cultivation, at the other end of the continu um. was found chiefly in11 '\ where population was relatively dense, where there was a regular supply ofI. ",hscr. and where a considerable variety of crops was available. This system wast'" 1 ( 1 to achieving hig h returns per acre rather than (or as well as) per man hour, and" "lIIonstrates the abili ty of African farmers to adjust factor proportions in or der toH l,lCVC opti mum results with the resources at their disposal. Animal manure andI" " \C hold refuse were used as fertilisers, and crop mixtures, rotations a nd successions.\ .J(- employed to ensure that as much use as possible was made of cleared land.

I I I I C I l ~ i v c agriculture was not an important mode of product ion in what, in terms of""omic and political development, are usually regarded as the most advanced......s of West Africa. On the contrary, it was dominant among some of the most

"'lIlcrpdvileged and least powerful of West African peoples. For example, the... l..lhitants of the Mandara uplands (on the bord er between Nigeria and the Camer-developed a system of intensive agriculture which included soil conservation,II ... usc of fertilisers, cro p rotations, the planting and protection of trees and animalI"handry. A British official, who was sent to inspect the area in 1939 with a view to' I I I proving its agriculture. reported that t he methods in use already included' practic. 11 y every principle that Agricultural Departments throug hout Africa are trying toI I \ t i l into the "ba ckward " peoples. 7. What is particularly interesting about this case

7. Stanhope White, 'The Agricultural Economy of the Hill Pagans of Dikwa Emirate,( :ameroons (British Mandate )', Empire Journal ofExperimental Agriculture, 9, 1941, pp. 66-7.

1.1

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An Economic History ofWest AfriC4is that permanent agriculture was not a result of favourable soils or climate in themicro-environment, but was the outcome ofpolitical pressures, for the dense settlement and the relative immobility of the inhabitants were brought about originallyby a desire to escape the predatory attentions of more powerful slave-raidingneighbours.Historians and economists are inclined to rank agricultural systems in linear progression from 'backward' to 'advanced'. However. the idea ofan agricultural leaguetable can be very misleading.. Different systems of cultivation, iilcluding thosecommonly regarded as advanced, co-existed in pre-colonial West Africa, as theydid in pre-industrial Europe. None was anachronistic, for each was subtly adaptedto particular circumstances. Furthermore, to equate permanent agriculture withmarket activity, and shifting cultivation with subsistence farming, is tempting, buttnistaken. The methods varied, but the economic goals of both systems were oftenthe same.It is hoped that enough has been said to indicate that Africans were expert farmmanagers. Nevertheless, it could still be argued that agriculture remained stuck in asubsistence groove because indigenous farmers failed to invent or adopt the technology needed to raise productivity. This contention s usually based on assumptionsabout the role of the plough. White has shown that the plough played a crucial rolein the development of European agriculture from the sixth century onwards,76 andGoody has argued that its absence from Mrica south of the Sahara helps to explainsome major economic and political contrasts between the two continents.76 To citethe plough as an example of the technological disparity between Europe and Africais to draw attention to an important, if undisputed, fact. To imply that the presenceof the plough would have transformed the development potential of West Mrica isto advance a very different case, and one that is open to question.Mrican farmers relied on simple tools, such as the digging stick, the hoe and thematchet. though a hand plough, which, technically, was half-way between a hoeand a simple mouldboard plough, was used in the Gambia at an early date. It ispossilbe that West Afiicans did not employ the heavy, European plough becausethey did not know of its existence. This explanation is unsatisfactory because WestAfrica had long-standing and close connections with North Africa. where ploughsother than the simple, scratch plough, were common. Perhaps West Mricans wereaware of the existence of the plough, but, being stuck in a 'traditional' society, wereunwilling or unable to adopt progressive techniques. This, too, must be regarded asan unlikely explanation in view ofthe arguments developedso far in connection withthe o r ~ s a t i o n of the labour force, the history of agriculture and the variety ofsystems of cultivation. 'It is suggested here that the plough was not used in West Africa because it wasunsuitable, or too costly, or both. The plough is of greatest use in areas where soilsare heavy and land cannot be cleared by fire. These conditions are more typical of

fa Lynn White. Meditllal Technology and St>d4l Change, Oxford 196:1, pp. 39-57. fi t Jack: Goody, Tedmology, Tradition. and the SUIte in Afrka, 1971, pp 2.S and .",.

The Jomestic economy: structure andfunctionIlumpe than of Africa. Moreover, draught animals are needed to work a plougheffectively. Draught animals could not survive in the forest, where, in any case, theplough was ill-suited to the dominant pattern of irregular, tree-studded plots.Ploughing in thesavanna couldeasily lead to soil erosion, as experiments undertakenIII French West Africa during the 19205 amply demonstrated. All the same, the1,lough could have been wed in some parts of West Africa. where the soils were notlikely to erode easily, where draught animals were available, and where cereal cultiviition favoured the creation of a field-type landscape. The plough was not adoptedIn these areas because its greater cost did not guarantee a more than proportionateIncrease in returns. Ploughs and draught animals were expensive to buy, and thetter were also expensive to maintain. The plough can prepare more land in a shorterlime than can manual labour, but this achievement often involves a fall in outputper man hour,77 and, in some cases, in output per acre as well.'l8Parmers' incomes need to rise some way above the level needed for sllbsistencehefore they can afford to adopt new techniques, such as the plough. Even so, ;:\ morevanced technology will be wed only ifi t s more profitable than existing methodst)f production. or if it is essential to ensure survival. Neither of these conditionsilppears to have applied to pre-colonial West Mrica, which, like India. developed ardatively simple technology. but one that was well suited to its requirements. 79 Ifploughs had been available in West Moo in the pre-colonial era. they would haveheen treated as conversation pieces rather than as agricultural implements. Indeed,I hat is just what many of them became during the colonial era, when officials tried10 convert Mricans to the use oftechnically superior, but economically unrewarding,(arm implements. It is as well to remember that virtually the whole of the massiverxpansion of domestic foodstuffs and export crops which occurred during thetwentieth century was produced with the aid of traditional tools. To suppose thatI he failure to adopt a more complex agricultural technology was a cause of under,Ievelopment in Mrica is to put plough before ox, and invention before need.It remains to see whether or not the system ofland tenure which prevailed in thepre-colonial period inhibited the development of natural resources. According toPedler, 'land, an essential factor of production, has been prevented by custom andlaw from coming under the influence ofeconomic forces' ;80 and it is still common,

" Boserup. The Conditions ofAgril:utturat Growth, pp. 3a-,..T, Peter M. Weil, 'The Introduction of the Ox Plow in Central Gambia', in 4frican FoodProduction Systems, ed. Peter F. M. Mcloughlin. Baltimore 1970, pp. Z51-Z.'0 For a comparative analysis on similar lines see hfan Habib, 'Potentialities of CapitalisticDevelopment in the Economy of Mughal India',Jounud ofEconomic Hiswry, Z9. 1969, pp. 6z-,..

Lack of space bas confined'this discussion to the case of the plough. However, the argumentdeveloped here could also be used to explain the relative unimportance of irrigated agriculturein West Africa. Geographical considerations aside, irrigated agriculture will not be widespreadin areas where extensive agriculture is possible because of its high eapital and maintenancecoSU. Th e wells and irrigated works found in parts of he Sahara and savanna were operatedby slave labour. When slavery declined in the twentieth century. so, too, did the wells andoases because of he high cost of employing wage labour.

80 F. J. Pedler. Economic Geography of West Africa, 1955. p. Z15.

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An Economic Hist0'l of West Afiicaespecially in non-specialist works, to find indigenous lalld la w summarised simply as'communal' ownership. measured against the presumed advantages of individualtenure, and finally condemned as a primitive obstruction to economic devdopment.A full review ofAfrican land laws is impossible here, but some general observations,based on recent research, need to be made in order to correct a few of the more widespread and mistaken assumptions.81In the first place, the conventional dichotomy between backward, communalownership and advanced, individual tenure is very misleading. African land laws, no .

less than indigenous systems of cultivation, vaned greatly even within restrictedareas, and ranged from land that was indeed communally owned and worked, toland that was hdd virtually as freehold.82 Households frequently made use ofcommon land and individual holdings simultaneously, as they did in medievalEurope. Ifindividual tenure is to be the criterion of a progressive systemofland law,then there was und oubtedly an element of modernity in t he rules governing the useand disposal of land in West Africa. Secondly, even if it is acknowledged that thegreater part of the land was, in some sense, owned communally, it would be wrongto conclude that this arrangement was a. barrier to progress. Under s y s t e ~ ofextensive agriculture, such as shifting cultivation and rotational bush &llow, it wasimportant for the farmer to secure the general right to cultivate land within a givenarea, but the actual ownership ofa specific plot, w hich was destined to lie fallow for anumber of years, was not a matter of great significance. Usufructuary rights weremore crucial, and these were clearly delineated and could of ten be inherited. Fu rthe rmore, the household or individual concerned usually had a clear title to the cropsproduced on communally-owned soil, and received guarantees regarding tenure.In other words, it was the product of the scarce factor, labour, which was doselydefined, whereas rights over land, which was in general an abundant resource, wereless specific. Where population was dense and the period of fallow short or non-existent, as was tlle case with permanent cultivation, then claims on individual plotsbecame stronger, and in these circumstances freehold tenure, pledging, and even thesale of and were recognised in customary law.

It is important to note that methods of acquiring, holding and disposing of landdiffered not only spatially, but also thr ough time. As yet, however, little attentionhas been paid to the historical development of African law in t he pre-colonial period,and mo st research in this field has focused on the effect of the introduction ofEuro-pean law in the twentieth century on indigenous legal systems. An interestingexception, and on e which is mentioned here in the hope tha t it will prompt furtherresearch, is Gueye's study of the legal consequences of the establishment of Muslim

81 Readers who wish to coruider this subject further should begin by looking at the excellent\ collection of papers in African Agrarian Systems, ed. Daniel Biebuyck, 1963., 82 For two of many cases where individual tenure was common see Ronald Cohen, 'FromEmpire to Colony: Bomu in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'. in Colonialism in4frica, J870-J960. 3. ed. Victor Turner, Cambridge 1971, p. 100, and Olga Linares de Sapir.'Agriculture and Oiola Society', in African Food Production Systtms. ed. Peter F. M. Mcloughlin,Baltimore 1970, pp. 207-8.

The domestic economy: structure andfonctionI I I I { ' in Fouta Toro (now part of northern Senegal) at the dose of the eighteenth'CIllury.83 Gueye shows how Muslim law, by establishing the equality of all maleh.. lrs, contributed to the fragmentation of holdings, encouraged a greater degree oftIIdividual exploitation ofIand, and led to the migration of heirs whose inheritanceW.IS too small to provide them with a living.84 This study provides a glimpse of thelIIovement and dynamism of pre-coloniallegal history, and it serves as a reminderI hal the concept of traditional law, like the concept of the traditional society, is a, 1 IIv("llient fiction which achieves order at the expense of reality.

III summary, indigenous land laws were neither irrational nor antediluvian, bu t""tTl ' a reflection of the conditions governing agricultural production in WestAI I IC\. There was a factor market in land, thoug h it was very limited. The explanaII ! ,n of this limitation is not that Africans were busy maximising social ramer than,' I Illlomic values, bu t that land was not scarce enough to acquire a market value.11.Il,seholds (and individuals wit hin households) had scope for enterprise in securing.11111 ( ~ x p l o i t i n g land within the dominant, so-called communal system of property.,wllcrship. Those who claim that indigenous land laws were a constraint on develop- \lIil'lIt must explain bow it was that these laws were o n s i s ~ e n t with a widespread andI ~ I ' i d expansion in the production of export crops during the early part of me, IIlonlal per iod. African systems ofland tenure undoubtedly underwent important, 1,.1Ilgesin the twentieth century,but these were a consequence and not a prerequisiteI.t export growth.Animal husbandry, the other feature of Childe's neolithic revolution, is at least.1\ old in West Africa as agriculture. Pastoralists first appeared in the Sahara about\(lOG B.C., and are known to have kept both long- and short-horned cattle, as well." slK'ep and goats. Animal husbandry was not indigenous to West Africa, and is,I"'light to have been introduced from Asia via Egypt, thou gh there may also have(w,'1t a North African centre of domestication. Cattle, goats and sheep remained the"i"St important livestock, though different breeds and different animals were intro. l l l lTd in subsequent centuries.85A survey of sources relating to the period betweenIIIC Il'llth and the sixteenth centuries shows that animal husbandry was already well.1,'vcloped in those parts ofWest Africa which are major centres today. 86 In contrastII .,wiculture, which was practised throug hout West Africa, animal hllsbandry was"gllificant only in the nor thern part of me Western Sudan and the southern part of

., Youssouf Gueye, 'Essai sur Ies causes et les coruequences de la micropropriere au FoutaI . o', Bulletin dt 1'1FAN, B, 19, 1957. pp. 28-42 .t It would be interesting to know whether .there was a connection between these migrants..... 1 the development of groundnut farming in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For a.lImparative study of the relatioruhip between dispossessed heirs, migration and innovation(among the Basques) see Leoruu:d Kasdan, 'Family Saucture, Migration and the Entrepreneur',I :mnparalilll' Studies in Sodety andHistory, 7. 1965, pp. 345-57 The role of camels, horses, oxen and donkeys will be considered in section 3 of this h ~ p t e r . Tadensz Lewicki, 'Animal Husbandry among Medieval Agricultural People of Western.lId Middle Sudan'. Acta EJhnographica, 14. 1965. pp. 165-7&.

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An Eamomic History of West AfiicaLivestock were kept for their meat, milk, manure, hides and, in the case of sheel>.for their wool. The belief diat Mricans refused to sell their cattle rests on a mis-understanding of the way in which the pastoral economy operated. It is clear froll!numerous sources that the cattle trade long antedates the coming of the Europeans

in the fifteenth century, and was certainly not a result of the presumed disintegrationof tribal' values in the twentieth century. Admittedly, o nly a small proportion ofthe herd was sold, but this was not because oflimitations imposed by a pre-capitalistvalue system. Cat tle in pastoral societies were not simply a consumption good, huewere also its main stock of capital. Returns "on capital took the form of sales of milkand m:inure to farming communities. It is not surprising that the herdsman took care'to conserve his capital, for cattle were a lon g term investment, and one which couldeasily be lost th roug h disease, as happened for instance in the late nineteenth century,when rinderpest decimated herds in many parts ofthe continent. Cattle were indeedhighly prized, but their function as a status symbol derived from society's appreciation of their economic worth. The man who possessed a large nu mbe r of cattle wasrespected not for his unthinking devotion to ascribed values, but for his skill incontrolling a major resource.88

,The concept of a neolithic revolution is useful for focusing attention on developments which are of fundamental importance in world history. but the term I evolution' can be misleading if it is interpreted to mean that previous ways of securing alivdihood, notably by gathering, hunting