African Development in Historical Perspective

This book has been written by Emmanuel Akyeampong who is a professor of history at Harvard University. He has written on social history and on the history of disease and the environment in West Africa. His more recent work has looked at trade and political economy, interests strengthened by his participation in the Harvard working group. Africa and India were devastated by famine and mired in poverty, however are now growing economically. poverty and widespread economic decline following independence in Africa. People of Africa are now returning to the levels of per capita income. Economic problems of Africa were an intense subject of interest for European colonials. Political scientists focused much more on the politics of contemporary Africa.

In a historical perspective, Christopher Ehret argues that as far back as 10,000 BCE, the African continent was on par with the rest of the world in terms of economic development. Agriculture and the development of ceramics emerged around 9,000 and 6,000 BCE, which was early for global standards. As well as domestication of cattle around 8,500 to 7,200 BCE. David Weil suggests that around 1,500 BCE, Africa was not one of the poorest regions but rather quite average. Africa was on par with America in terms of urbanization and technological choice but still lagged behind Europe and Asia. Patrick Manning traces the demographic history of Africa from 1650 to 2,000 CE. Total population provides a proxy for economic development and is of interest given the export of human beings during the slave trade. It shows that Africa had a large population but was growing at a very slow rate. This implies that it went through a sustained stagnation that lasted for 250 years. Before the 1500s Africa had a much higher economic development compared to the Americas, however, due to the trans-Atlantic slave trade which shipped around 12 million Africans to the Americas, enslaved Africans enabled the growth of specialized agriculture and mining, while contributing the Africa’s stagnation.

African countries like Dahomey, which is now modern-day Benin, was hedged in by other countries that were similarly armed. This resulted in continuous conflict. The Atlantic slave trade was the reason for militarizing these societies and absorbing captives of war. However, Thornton notes that the slave trade alone is not the only reason why Africa lacked industrialization. Thornton states that the Industrial Revolution was not state run in Europe but a private enterprise. In Africa, there was warfare, however, what people don’t see is that political leaders sought to protect and promote economic activity. In West Africa, the urban core was to support the merchants and artisans. Military were employed to protect markets and promote trade. In East Africa, it was focused on long-distance trade, which in turn promoted regional specialization and Smithian growth, which is increases in welfare from specialization and exchange. This all resulted in the formation of states demobilizing banditry and transformed warfare into an instrument for public policy. Douglas and Colson suggest that lack of state authority in parts of pre-colonial Africa resulted in a disorder and insecurity of property rights. It is clear that slavery was endemic to Africa until the 20th century and this resulted in economic inefficiency and one of the reasons for the lack of technological change.

In terms of the Culture in Africa, Platteau focuses on the existence of common cultural traits in the diverse cultures of Africa. While Olukoju focuses on one culture which is the Yoruba. Olukoju claims that in the Yoruba culture, the rich are urged to celebrate their wealth, display it, and share it because wealth is a social act and not for just an individual. He also suggests that the values in this culture lead people to trade wealth for status. Platteau agrees with this but also says that the rich have their own defense to avoid this and that is to withdraw from the culture and form their own communities. Nunn’s talks about the impact of early 20th century Christian missions on contemporary values. It showed that Africans that were influenced by foreign missions achieved higher educational attainment. However, for catholic missions, it affected mainly males, while in protestant missions, it impacted both genders but greater for females. Some cultural practices in other societies that achieved growth also contributed to Africa’s decline. Since there was an absence of writing throughout most of Africa, it played a role in limiting the growth of science and in turn Africa’s economies. With the absence of widespread literacy and a print industry, Africa failed to generate widespread technical progress. Africa had the advances in technology but was not able to spread the knowledge throughout the continent.

In fact, the Africa’s encounter with Europe has promoted Africa’s development to some extent and the beginning of trade also promoted the development of African market institutions. Meanwhile, businessman in Africa also started to be active in trade. Trading with Europe authentically stimulated African commercial activities because the cost of transport decreased and European merchants needed more African merchants with economic strength in the West Africa. In the agriculture sector, the engagement with the global market brought the “loss of welfare” for Africa because slave labors did not gain freedom to participate in the production and the income redistribution was not in accordance with the booming trade.

The slave trades as the main cause of Africa’s poverty not only squeezed African labors but also on the further note that distorted the structure of African industries and institutions. As the consequence, the model which the salve trades established actually impeded the constructive creativity of Africa and made African industries form a “pure extraction” model. Slaves were arranged to planting industry and exported to overseas, which hampered their creativity and possibilities hence slaves did not really take part in the market and engaged in low-level planting. From that point, slaves could not be considered as free labor force in the market but more likely to be the “merchandise”, which demonstrates they lost the attributes of the labor forces so the it did not benefit the economic development of Africa.

Similarly, the impact of the colonialism on African continent is also a considerable cause of contemporary Africa. The influence of the colonialism lasted for a long time thus affected the form of institutions to a great extent. For many years the insufficient and imperfect infrastructure greatly limited the development of African economy and it could be attributed to colonialism. Colonists were reluctant to spread the technology in the continent for their greater selfish desires thus a gap between Africa and other societies opened up. Even in West Africa where few European settlers lived, the living conditions have been improved, however, the effects of the colonialism also caused the poverty because the education, institutions and values have been distorted. Foreign occupiers took over the power and invested in the continent, therefore, royal family and traditional leaders’ control has been sharply weakened. Political elites or people with lower political status seek for the greater power through the compromise with colonists. Hence, they relatively gained more power from it because traditional leaders lost their dominance and they were fine with the undermining of the status and absolute power.

Colonialism did not just impede development, it also distorted it. The occupation of Africa resulted in a shift in control over war making, justice, taxation, and expenditures. Africa’s political elites lost power while under colonial occupation, Africa’s political institutions changed during the colonial period. Equal importance, although more difficult to measure, is the impact of slavery on economic institutions. The nature and dynamics of precolonial African states is a important area for future research.