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Imperial Business in Africa Part I: Sources1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

A. G. Hopkins
A. G. Hopkins
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

This article, which is in two parts, seeks to establish expatriate business history as a necessary and important part of modern African history. Part I surveys some fifty histories of European companies in West, Central and East Africa during the colonial period, and draws attention to opportunities for research on newly-discovered or little known records. Part II will assess the scholarly quality of the studies listed here, and will formulate some propositions regarding the spatial and temporal evolution of the European firms, their organization and policies, and their profitability.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1976 , pp. 29 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

2 See, for example, Amsden, A. H., International Firms and Labour in Kenya, 1945–70 (London, 1971)Google Scholar and Onselen, Charles Van, ‘The 1912 Wankie Colliery Strike’, J. Afr. Hist, xv (1974), 275–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Such as Duignan, Peter and Gann, L. H., Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960. Vol. v, A Bibliographical Guide to Colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa (Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar; Halstead, John P. and Porcari, Serafino, Modern European Imperialism: A Bibliography of Books and Articles, 1815–1972, 2 vols (Boston, 1974)Google Scholar; and Matthews, Noel and Wainwright, M. Doreen, A Guide to Manuscripts and Documents in the British Isles Relating to Africa (London, 1971).Google Scholar

4 A detailed account of the nationalization of the British South Africa Company's mineral rights is given in Faber, M. L. O. and Potter, J. G., Towards Economic Independence: Papers on the Nationalisation of the Copper Industry in Zambia (Cambridge, 1971), Ch. 2.Google Scholar

5 ‘Origins of the British South Africa Company’, in Flint, John E. and Williams, Glyndwr, eds., Perspectives of Empire (London, 1973), 148–71Google Scholar, and Crown and Charter: the Early Years of the British South Africa Company (Berkeley, 1974)Google Scholar, which is based on the British South Africa Company's papers in Rhodes House Library, Oxford.

6 ‘The Northern Rhodesia mineral rights issue, 1922–1964’, unpubl. Ph.D. (London, 1974)Google Scholar. See also his ‘Commercial Concessions and Politics during the Colonial Period: the Role of the British South Africa Company in Northern Rhodesia, 1890–1964’, African Affairs, 70 (1971), 365–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Ernest Oppenheimer and the Economic Development of Southern Africa (London, 1962)Google Scholar. Anthony Hocking has reworked this subject in Oppenheimer and Son (Cape Town, 1973).Google Scholar

8 There are, of course, a number of studies of the Copperbelt apart from the histories written by Bradley and Coleman. A recent example is Berger, Elena L., Labour, Race and Colonial Rule. The Copperbelt from 1924 to Independence (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar. For the international setting see a recent study by the former head of RST, Prain, Ronald, Copper: the Anatomy of an Industry (London, 1975).Google Scholar

9 ‘An Economic History of the Ghanaian Diamond Mining Industry, 1919–1973’, University of Birmingham Ph.D. thesis, 1974.Google Scholar

10 van der Laan, H. L., The Sierra Leone Diamonds (Oxford, 1965).Google Scholar

11 Kaniki, M. Y. H., ‘An Economic History of Sierra Leone, 1918–39’, University of Birmingham Ph.D. thesis, 1973.Google Scholar

12 By Lamb, H. A. of Hatfield Polytechnic (formerly of the University of Ghana).Google Scholar

13 Williams and Tanganyika Concessions Ltd. had no connexion with Williamson's diamond mine in Tanganyika. The story of Williamson's prospecting in the 1930s and his conflict with De Beers in the 1940s is told in Heidgen, Heinz, The Diamond Seekers (London, 1959).Google Scholar

14 Katzenellenbogen was the first scholar to make extensive use of the records of Tanganyika Concessions Ltd. (now Tanganyika Holdings Ltd.). His book does not purport to be business history in the formal sense, but it is a valuable guide to the politics of international commerce in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

15 See, for example, Slade, Ruth N., King Leopold's Congo (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Ascherson, Neal, The King Incorporated (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Anstey, Roger, King Leopold's Legacy: the Congo under Belgian Rule, 1908–1960 (London, 1966)Google Scholar; Bézy, F., Changements de structure et conjoncture de l'industrie minière au Congo, 1938–1960 (Leopoldville, 1961)Google Scholar; and Peemans, Jean-Philippe, Diffusion du progrès économique et convergence des prix: le cas Congo-Belgique, 1900–1960 (Louvain, 1969).Google Scholar

16 There is one general guide, now rather dated: Joye, Pierre et Lewin, Rosine, Lestrusts au Congo (Bruxelles, 1961).Google Scholar

17 Cornet, René J., Terre katangaise: cinquantiène anniversaire du Comité Spécial du Katanga, 1900–1950 (Bruxelles, 1950).Google Scholar

18 Union Minière, Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, 1906–1956 (Bruxelles, 1957).Google Scholar

19 Les Cahiers du CEDAF, no. 6 (1973), 1–40.Google Scholar

20 Gouverneur, J., Productivity and Factor Proportions in Less Developed Countries (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar. This study of the relative cost of labour and capital in the Belgian Congo makes extensive use of the records of Union Minière.

21 Forminière, 1906–1956 (Bruxelles, 1957).Google Scholar

22 Companhia de Diamantes de Angola (Diamang), Angola Diamond Company: a Short Report (Lisbon, 1963).Google Scholar

23 I make one exception to this rule in order to draw attention to Penelope Bower's early but still highly valuable contribution, ‘The Mining Industry’, in Perham, Margery, ed., Mining, Commerce, and Finance in Nigeria (London, 1948), 1–42.Google Scholar

24 Turner, G. W. Eaton, A Short History: Ashanti Goldfields Corporation Ltd., 1897–1947 (London, 1947)Google Scholar. I am indebted to A. G. Orchard, Personnel Manager of Lonrho Ltd., for sending me a copy of this booklet and for his helpful response to my enquiries concerning the records of Ashanti Goldfields.

25 Application should be made to The Keeper of Manuscripts, Guildhall Library, Aldermanbury, London, EC2 P2EJ.

26 Le Congo au temps des grandes compagnies concessionaires, 1899–1930 (Paris, 1972).Google Scholar

27 Morel, E. D., Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Flourishing in the Congo (London, 1907)Google Scholar. The history of one independent firm, Abir, which was active in exporting rubber from the Belgian Congo between 1892 and 1913, has been looked at by Harms, Robert, ‘The End of Red Rubber: a Reassessment’, J. Afr. Hist, xvi (1975), 73–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also n. 17 above.

28 See Joye, and Lewin, , Les trusts au Congo.Google Scholar

29 A certain amount of information on Lever's interests in the Congo can be found in Wilson, Charles, The History of Unilever, 2 vols (London, 1954).Google Scholar

30 A summary of the economic situation in Togo on the eve of the First World War is given in Newbury, C. W., The Western Slave Coast and its Rulers (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar. On the Kamerun plantations see Michel, M., ‘Note sur les plantations allemandes du mont Cameroun, 1885–1914’, Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, lvii (1970), 183–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bederman, S. H., ‘Plantation Agriculture in Victoria Division, West Cameroons: an Historical Introduction’, Geography, 51 (1966), 349–60Google Scholar. Edward Norris is currently searching for records of German plantation (and trading) firms in Kamerun before 1914. German attempts to introduce settlers to East Africa were unsuccessful. After World War I a small number of sisal plantations were started in Tanganyika, but they were run by expatriate managers and not by settlers. The leading firm, Wigglesworth & Co. (1895), was British.Google Scholar

31 The authorized version of the history of Firestone, Lief, Alfred, The Firestone Story (New York, 1951)Google Scholar, has two indifferent chapters on Liberia. A rather better account is Taylor, Wayne C., The Firestone Operations in Liberia (Washington, 1956)Google Scholar. There is an unpublished thesis by McWilliam, M. on tea production in Kenya, ‘The East African Tea Industry, 1920–56’ (Oxford B. Litt, 1957).Google Scholar

32 On the last point see Smith, Alan K., ‘Antonio Salazar and the Reversal of Portuguese Colonial Policy’, J. Afr. Hist., xv (1974), 654–68Google Scholar. See also Vail's, Leroy ‘The making of an imperial slum: Nyasaland and its railways, 1895–1935’, J. Afr. Hist., xvi (1975), 89–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which deals with the Mozambique Company in the context of British railway policies in Nyasaland.

33 Frechou, H., ‘Les plantations européennes en Côte d'lvoire’, Cahiers d'Outre-Mer 8 (1955). 56–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 The starting point for this subject is Huxley, Elspeth, White Man's Country: Lord Delamere and the Making of Kenya, 2 vols (London, 1935)Google Scholar. See also the same author's later work, Settlers of Kenya (London, 1948)Google Scholar, and a commissioned study by Hill, Mervyn F., Planters' Progress: the Story of Coffee in Kenya (Nairobi, 1956).Google Scholar

35 Clements, F. and Harben, E., Leaf of Gold: the story of Rhodesian Tobacco (London, 1962)Google Scholar. See also the commissioned optimism of Davies, W. T., Fifty Years of Progress: An Account of the African Organisation of the Imperial Tobacco Company (Bristol, 1958)Google Scholar; and for Northern Rhodesia in particular, Haviland, W. E., ‘The Economic Development of the Tobacco Industry in Northern Rhodesia’, S. Afr. jour. Econ. xxii (1954), 375–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Minute by Antrobus, , 20 Dec. 1907 on Egerton to Elgin, 12 Nov. 1907, C.O. 520/49.Google Scholar

37 Minute by Antrobus, , 3 Nov. 1908 on Egerton to Crewe, 26 Sept. 1908, C.O. 520/66.Google Scholar

38 One study, which deals only with Nigeria, is Cowley, E. J., ‘Development of the Cotton Growing Industry in Nigeria with Special Reference to the Work of the British Cotton Growing Association’, Empire Cotton Growing Review, 43 (1966), 169–95Google Scholar. The British East Africa Corporation (1906) received financial assistance from the BCGA in its early days but because it soon expanded its activities beyond promoting cotton growing, it will be mentioned with the trading firms (see below p. 42).

39 The Association's extensive records, covering the period 1906–66, have been deposited in the University of Birmingham Library.

40 The Uganda Company Limited: the First Fifty Years (Kampala, 1953).Google Scholar

41 ‘The Economic Imperialism of the Royal Niger Company’, Food Research Institute Studies, 10 (1971), 69–88.Google Scholar

42 Records of the (Royal) Niger Co., covering the years 1888–1930, are now in Rhodes House Library, Oxford.

43 2 vols (London, 1954).Google Scholar

44 (London, 1968).Google Scholar

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48 Kaye, E. D., Public Relations Dept., UAC International, to A. G. Hopkins, 11 Sept. 1975Google Scholar. I should like to express my gratitude to Mr Kaye and his colleague, Arden-Clarke, P. A., for their patient and constructive responses to my various enquiries.Google Scholar

49 The company's historical records used to be kept in their Liverpool offices, but are now in the Rhodes House Library, Oxford.

50 John Holt: a British Merchant in West Africa in the Age of Imperialism (Oxford D.Phil., 1959).Google Scholar

51 Grisman, K. J. to Hopkins, A. G., 11 June 1975.Google Scholar

52 In 1919 Cadbury and Fry formed a joint buying agency on the Gold Coast called the British Cocoa and Chocolate Co. Ltd.

53 In 1972 Cadbury–Schweppes Ltd. generously donated many of Cadbury's historical records to the University of Birmingham. The remainder are at present in the company's archive at Bournville.

54 Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine, ‘L'impact des intérêts coloniaux: SCOA et CFAO dans l'Ouest Africain, 1910–1965’, J. Afr. Hist, xvi (1975), 595–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 Baillet, E., Les établissements Maurel et Prom (Bordeaux, 1923)Google Scholar. I owe this reference to William Schneider, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

56 Of Bordeaux University.

57 DrCoquery-Vidrovitch, informs me that this study, which is based mainly on published material (especially balance sheets and annual reports), will be completed by the end of 1975.Google Scholar

58 Afrique noire occidentale et centrale: l'ère coloniale, 1900–1945 (Paris, 1964)Google Scholar, and Afrique noire de la colonisation aux indépendances, 1945–1960 (Paris, 1972).Google Scholar

59 However, mention must be made of the Union Trading Company (1921), whose origins go back to the Basel Mission Trading Company (1859), which was concerned mainly with the Gold Coast. A lengthy, descriptive history has been written by Wanner, Gustaf, Die Basler Handels-Gesellschaft A. G., 1859–1959 (Basel, 1959).Google Scholar

60 G. L. Gaiser: Hamburg-Westafrika (Hamburg, 1949).Google Scholar

61 ‘Bremen und Westafrika’, Jarhbuch der Wittheil zu Bremen, xv (1971), 45–92Google Scholar and XVII (1973), 75–148.

62 Information concerning access to these papers can be obtained from the Staatsarchiv der Freien Hansestadt Bremen, 53 Bremen, President-Kennedy-Platz 2.

63 On the Uganda Company, see above, p. 37Google Scholar

64 ‘History of the Imperial British East Africa Company’, University of London Ph.D., 1955.Google Scholar

65 (Cambridge, 1972).Google Scholar

66 The African Lakes Company (1881) was descended from the Livingstonia Central African Co. (1878)Google Scholar. It became the African Lakes Trading Corporation in 1893 and the African Lakes Corporation in 1894. A substantial study of the first twenty years of the company's history has been made by Macmillan, Hugh W., ‘The Origins and Development of the African Lakes Company, 1878–1908’ (University of Edinburgh Ph.D., 1970).Google Scholar

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68 Including van Zwanenberg, R. M. A. with King, Anne, An Economic History of Kenya and Uganda, 1800–1970 (London, 1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 Few of the company's records have survived: those which remain relate mainly to the late nineteenth century and to the first decade of the twentieth century. For further details see the list of sources in Hugh Macmillan's thesis cited above, n. 66.

70 I am grateful to Sir Percival Griffiths, who is writing a history of the Inchcape group, for providing me with an outline of the contents of his book and for summarizing the state of the records relating to Smith Mackenzie.

71 Air transport has been dealt with comprehensively by McCormack, Robert L., ‘Aviation and Empire: the British African Experience, 1919–1939’, Dalhousie Ph.D., 1974.Google Scholar

72 Lords Inchcape and Kylsant.

73 Sir Alfred Lewis Jones in England and Adolf Woermann in Germany.

74 Leubuscher, Charlotte, The West African Shipping Trade, 1909–1959 (Leyden, 1963)Google Scholar. For a recent study of the economics of shipping, with comments on the conference system, see Bennathan, E. and Walters, A. A., The Economics of Ocean Freight Rates (London, 1970).Google Scholar

75 The Trade Makers (London, 1973).Google Scholar

76 Information obtained by Edward Norris from the companies concerned.

77 Blake, George, B.I. Centenary, 1856–1956 (London, 1956).Google Scholar

78 The authorized biography is by Bolitho, Hector, Lord Inchcape (London, 1936).Google Scholar

79 See n. 70 above.

80 Murray, Marischal, Union Castle Chronicle, 1853–1953 (London, 1953).Google Scholar

81 The best general study, though confined to the British colonies, is still Newlyn, W. T. and Rowan, D. C., Money and Banking in British Colonial Africa (Oxford, 1954).Google Scholar

82 Fry, R. H., Bankers in West Africa (London, forthcoming 1976)Google Scholar. MrFry, informs me that his study covers the period 1891–1965Google Scholar and draws on company records, notably minutes of Board meetings and some files of correspondence. On the origins of BBWA see Hopkins, A. G., ‘The creation of a Colonial Monetary System: the Origins of the West African Currency Board’, African Historical Studies, 3 (1970), 101–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83 Crossley, Julian and Blandford, John, The D.C.O. Story (London, 1975).Google Scholar

84 The First Hundred Years of the Standard Bank (London, 1963).Google Scholar

85 Tyson, Geoffrey, 100 Years of Banking in Asia and Africa (London, 1963)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Mr J. Hinkin, Secretary's Dept., Grindlays Bank Ltd., for his assistance on this question.

86 Banque du Congo Beige, 1909–1959 (Bruxelles, 1960).Google Scholar