Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:09:51.979Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - New Colonies, Old Tools: Building Fiscal Systems in East and Central Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2019

By
Leigh Gardner
Edited by
Ewout Frankema  and
Anne Booth
Ewout Frankema
Affiliation:
Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands
Anne Booth
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Get access

Summary

East and Central Africa were among the last regions to be colonized by European powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Due to limited trade with the region, along with more fragmented indigenous political organization in many colonies, colonial governments faced a particularly challenging task of establishing fiscal systems which would support the conquest and rule of these territories. This chapter examines the ways they tried to overcome these difficulties, focusing on the histories of the Belgian Congo, Kenya, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Tanganyika and Uganda. In all of these, the imperial powers made use of older tools of colonial rule, including settlement and the outsourcing of government to chartered companies, but the implementation of these were shaped by the circumstances of the period. The chapter argues that these early policies influenced the development of both taxation and public spending during and after the colonial period. In particular, colonial and post-independence governments were more dependent on direct taxation, and faced fierce debates about the distribution of public spending.

Keywords

East AfricaCentral Africasettlersconcessionstaxation
Type
Chapter
Information
Fiscal Capacity and the Colonial State in Asia and Africa, c.1850–1960 , pp. 193 - 229
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Accominnotti, O., Flandreau, M., & Rezzik, R. (2011). The Spread of Empire: Clio and the Measurement of Colonial Borrowing Costs. Economic History Review, 64(2), 385–407.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2012). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. London: Profile Books.Google Scholar
Alpers, E. (1975). Ivory and Slaves: Changing Patterns of International Trade in East Central Africa to the Later Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, D. (2016). The Beginning of Time? Evidence for Catastrophic Drought in Baringo in the Early Nineteenth Century. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(1), 45–66.Google Scholar
Austen, R. (1987). African Economic History: Internal Development and External Dependency. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Barrett-Gaines, K. (2004). The Katwe Salt Industry: A Niche in the Great Lakes Regional Economy. African Economic History, 32, 15–49.Google Scholar
Benton, L. (2010). A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Biginagwa, T. J. (2012). Historical archaeology of the nineteenth century caravan trade in North-Eastern Tanzania: a zooarchaeological perspective. PhD Thesis, University of York.Google Scholar
Birmingham, D. (1977). The Forest and the Savannah of Central Africa. In Flint, J. E. (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 5: from c. 1790 to c. 1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 232–69.Google Scholar
Bowden, S., Chiripanhura, B., & Mosley, P. (2008). Measuring and Explaining Poverty in Six African Countries: A Long-Period Approach. Journal of International Development, 20(8), 1049–79.Google Scholar
Bowden, S., & Mosley, P. (2012). Politics, public expenditure and the evolution of poverty in Africa, 1920–2009. Sheffield Economic Research Paper Series 2012003.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. (2017). Popular Politics in East Africa from Precolonial to Postcolonial Times. In Spear, T. (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–28.Google Scholar
Burroughs, P. (1999). Imperial institutions and the government of empire. In Porter, A. (Ed.), Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. III: The Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 170–97.Google Scholar
Butter, J. H. (1955). Problems of Colonial Financial Policy. East African Economics Review, 2, 24–38.Google Scholar
Chambre des Representants (1937). Rapport annuel l’administration de La colonie Congo Belge. Bruxelles: Les Anciennes Imprimeries van Gompel.Google Scholar
Clarence-Smith, W. G. (2014). The Textile Industry of Eastern Africa in the Longue Duree. In Akyampong, E. et al. (Eds.), Africa’s Development in Historical Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 264–94.Google Scholar
Clay, G. F. (1945). Memorandum on Post War Development Planning in Northern Rhodesia. Lusaka: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Constantine, S. (1984). The Making of British Colonial Development Policy, 1914–1940. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. (2009). Africa and the Africans in the Nineteenth Century: A Turbulent History. London: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
De Roo, B. (2016). Colonial taxation in Africa: a fiscal history of the Congo through the lens of customs (1886–1914). PhD Thesis, University of Ghent.Google Scholar
De Roo, B. (2017). Taxation in the Congo Free State: An Exceptional Case? (1885–1908). Economic History of Developing Regions, 32(2), 97–126.Google Scholar
Easterly, W., & Levine, R. (2016). The European Origins of Economic Development. Journal of Economic Growth, 21(3), 225–257.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. (1972). National Income Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom 1855–1965, vol. 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fjeldstad, O-H., & Therkildsen, O. (2008). Mass taxation and state-society relations in East Africa. In Bräutigam, D., Fjeldstad, O-H. & Moore, M. (Eds.), Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries: Capacity and Consent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 114–34.Google Scholar
Flandreau, M., & Zumer, F. (2004). The Making of Global Finance, 1880–1913. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Fourie, J., & von Fintel, D. (2014). Settler Skills and Colonial Development: The Huguenot Wine-Makers in Eighteenth-Century Dutch South Africa. Economic History Review, 67(4), 932–63.Google Scholar
Frankema, E., Green, E., & Hillbom, E. (2016). Endogenous Processes of Colonial Settlement: The Success and Failure of European Settler Farming in Sub-Saharan Africa. Revista de Historia Economica, 34(2), 237–65.Google Scholar
Frankema, E., & Jerven, M. (2014). Writing History Backwards or Sideways: Towards a Consensus on African Population, 1850–2010. Economic History Review, 67(4), 907–31.Google Scholar
Frankema, E., & van Waijenburg, M. (2012). Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965. The Journal of Economic History, 72(4), 895–926.Google Scholar
Frankema, E., & van Waijenburg, M. (2014). Metropolitan Blueprints of Colonial Taxation? Lessons from Fiscal Capacity Building in British and French Africa, c. 1880–1940. Journal of African History, 55(3), 371–400.Google Scholar
Frederick, K. (2017). Global and Local Forces in Deindustrialization: The Case of Cotton Cloth in East Africa’s Lower Shire Valley. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 11(2), 266–89.Google Scholar
Gardner, L. (2010a). An Unstable Foundation: Taxation and Development in Kenya, 1945–63. In Branch, D., Cheeseman, N. & Gardner, L. (Eds.), Our Turn to Eat: Politics in Kenya Since 1950. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 52–75.Google Scholar
Gardner, L. (2010b). Decentralization and Corruption in Historical Perspective: Evidence from Tax Collection in British Colonial Africa. Economic History of Developing Regions, 25(2), 213–36.Google Scholar
Gardner, L. (2012). Taxing Colonial Africa: The Political Economy of British Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gardner, L. (2017). Colonialism or Supersanctions: Sovereignty and Debt in West Africa, 1871–1914. European Review of Economic History, 21(2), 236–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hailey, W. M. H., & Royal Institute of African Affairs (1938). An African Survey: A Study of Problems Arising in Africa South of the Sahara. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Havinden, M., & Meredith, D. (1993). Colonialism and Development: Britain and Its Tropical Colonies. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harms, R. (1975). The End of Red Rubber: A Reassessment. Journal of African History, 16(1), 73–88.Google Scholar
Hogendorn, J. S., & Scott, K. M. (1981). The East African Groundnut Scheme: Lessons of a Large-Scale Agricultural Failure. African Economic History, 10, 81–115.Google Scholar
Iliffe, J. (1979). A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, D. K. (1987). Islands of White: Settler Society and Culture in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1939. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Kettlewell, R. J. (1965). Agricultural Change in Nyasaland: 1945–1960. Food Research Institute Studies 5.Google Scholar
Koponen, J (1994). Development for Exploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884–1914. Helsinki: Raamuttutalo Pieksämäki.Google Scholar
Lugard, F. J. D. (1922). The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. London: W. Blackwood and Sons.Google Scholar
McCracken, J. (2012). A History of Malawi, 1859–1966. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
McGregor Ross, W. (1927). Kenya from Within: A Short Political History. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R. (1992). International Historical Statistics: Europe 1750–1988. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mkandawire, T. (2010). On Tax Efforts and Colonial Heritage in Africa. Journal of Development Studies, 46, 1657–69.Google Scholar
Mosley, P. (1983). The Settler Economies: Studies in the Economic History of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1963. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mungeam, G. H. (1966). British Rule in Kenya, 1895–1912: The Establishment of Administration in the East Africa Protectorate. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Newbury, D. (2012). The Continuing Process of Decolonization in the Congo: Fifty Years Later. African Studies Review, 55(1), 131–41.Google Scholar
Okia, O. (2017). Virtual Abolition: The Economic Lattice of Luwalo Forced Labor in the Uganda Protectorate. African Economic History, 45, 54–84.Google Scholar
Pallaver, K. (2016). From Venice to East Africa: History Uses and Meanings of Glass Beads. In Hofmeester, K. & Grewe, B. S. (Eds.), Luxury in Global Perspective: Commodities and Practices, c. 1600–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 192–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peemans, J.-P. (1975). Capital Accumulation in the Congo under Colonialism: The Role of the State. In Duignan, P. & Gann, L. H. (Eds.), Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960: The Economics of Colonialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 165–212.Google Scholar
Pim, S. A., & Milligan, S. (1938). Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into the Financial and Economic Position of Northern Rhodesia. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Prestholdt, J. (2004). On the Global Repercussions of East African Consumerism. American Historical Review, 109(3), 755–81.Google Scholar
Reid, R. (2002). Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Reid, R. (2002). Past and Presentism: The ‘Precolonial’ and the Foreshortening of African History. Journal of African History, 52, 135–55.Google Scholar
Simson, R. (2017). (Under)privileged Bureaucrats?: The Changing Fortunes of Public Servants in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, 1960–2010. PhD Thesis, London, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Slade, R. (1962). King Leopold’s Congo: Aspects of the Development of Race Relations in the Congo Independent State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stengers, J., & Vansina, J. (1985). King Leopold’s Congo, 1886–1908. In Fage, J. D. & Oliver, R. (Eds.), The Cambridge History of Africa: vol. 6 from 1870 to 1905. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 315–58.Google Scholar
Turton, E. R. (1974). The Isaq Somali Diaspora and Poll-Tax Agitation in Kenya, 1936–41. African Affairs, 73(292), 325–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uganda. (1961). Uganda Census 1959. Entebbe: Ministry of Economic Affairs.Google Scholar
USDA. (1965). The Agricultural Economy of Tanganyika. Washington, DC: USDA.Google Scholar
Unomah, A. C., & Webster, J. B. (1977). East Africa: The Expansion of Commerce. In Flint, J. E. (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 5: from c. 1790 to c. 1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 270–318.Google Scholar
Vail, L. (1983). The Political Economy of East-Central Africa. In Birmingham, D. & Martin, P. (Eds.), History of Central Africa, vol. 2. London: Longman, 200–50.Google Scholar
Van Waijenburg, M. (2018). Financing the African Colonial State: The Revenue Imperative and Forced Labor. Journal of Economic History, 117(469), 543–568.Google Scholar
Van Zanden, J. L., & Prak, M. (2006). Towards an Economic Interpretation of Citizenship: The Dutch Republic between Medieval Communities and Modern Nation-States. European Review of Economic History, 10(2), 111–45.Google Scholar
Wood, A., & Jordan, K. (2000). Why Does Zimbabwe Export Manufactures and Uganda Not? Econometrics Meets History. Journal of Development Studies, 37(2), 91–116.Google Scholar
Woods, W. (1946). A Report on a Fiscal Survey of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. Nairobi: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Wrigley, C. C. (1976). Kenya: The Patterns of Economic Life 1902–1945. In Harlow, V. & Chilver, E. M. (Eds.), History of East Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 209–64.Google Scholar
Wynne-Jones, S., & Fleisher, J. (2012). Coins in Context: Local Economy, Value and Practice on the Ast African Swahili Coast. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 22(1), 19–36.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×