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MOVING BEYOND COLONIAL CONTROL? ECONOMIC FORCES AND SHIFTING MIGRATION FROM RUANDA-URUNDI TO BUGANDA, 1920–60

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2019

MICHIEL DE HAAS
MICHIEL DE HAAS*
Affiliation:
Wageningen University
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Abstract

Migration was a crucial component of the spatially uneven formation of labour markets and export-oriented economies in colonial Africa. Much of this mobility was initiated by migrants themselves rather than by colonial authorities. Building on analytical concepts from economic history and migration theory, this study explains the changing composition and magnitude of one such uncontrolled migration flow, from Ruanda-Urundi to Buganda. Migrants’ mobility choices – when to migrate, for how long, and with whom – proved highly responsive to shifting economic opportunity structures on the sending and receiving ends. Initially, large differences in terms of land and labour endowments, socio-economic structures, and colonial interventions, combined with substantial scope for price arbitrage, created large spatial inequalities of opportunity and strong incentives for circular male labour migration. Over time, however, migration contracted as opportunities in Ruanda-Urundi and Uganda converged, not in the least as a result of large-scale mobility itself.

Keywords

labour migrationcolonial policyeconomic historyUgandaRwanda
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 379 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Corinne Boter, Shane Doyle, Andreas Eckert, Leigh Gardner, Ewout Frankema, Hilde Greefs, Dácil Juif, Doreen Kembabazi, Niek Koning, Sven van Melkebeke, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, Aidan Russell, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable input on the manuscript. I thank Ashley Rockenbach for sharing some archival finds in the Kabale District Archive (Uganda), and Pim Arendsen for assistance with the maps. I acknowledge the financial support of the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (ERC Grant Agreement no. 313114) as part of the project ‘Is Poverty Destiny? A New Empirical Foundation for Long-term African Welfare Analysis’. Author's email: michiel.dehaas@wur.nl.

References

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58 AAB RWA 352 Gatsibu Resident to Ruanda Resident, 20 May 1925; Kisenyi Resident to Ruanda Resident, 29 May 1925

59 Online appendix Table 2.

60 Dorsey, ‘Rwandan colonial economy’, 121.

61 Dorsey, ‘Rwandan colonial economy’, 91, 121; AAB RWA 352 Kigali Resident to Ruanda Resident, 11 June 1925

62 Hanson, Landed, 165–232.

63 The abolition was also due to international pressure to scale down forced labour after scandals in Kenya. Twaddle, ‘Ending’, 144.

64 Powesland, Economic, 33.

65 For wages, see Online appendix. For cloth prices, I have used import prices for unbleached cloth from the Uganda Blue Book for 1919 and 1925.

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71 The assumption of a well-functioning currency market appears reasonable in light of the available evidence. Import prices for cloth from British India in Uganda and Ruanda-Urundi closely followed the official exchange rate. While no consumer price series are available for comparison, if anything we may expect prices to have been slightly higher in Ruanda-Urundi than in Uganda, considering that most textiles were imported via the East African harbours, and had to be transported over railway and road via Tanganyika Territory. The market for currency itself appears to have been quite functional, although currency traders probably made substantial profits. Dorsey cites evidence ‘that currency speculation was so profitable to some Africans that [in the late 1920s] the Union Minière had difficulty recruiting workers in eastern Ruanda.’ Dorsey, ‘Rwandan colonial economy’, 92–3. By 1943, South Asians controlled at least some of the currency exchange at the border, charging a commission of 10 to 15 percent. UK National Archives (henceforth UKNA) CO 536/209/6 Morgan to British Consulate, Costermansville 2 Apr. 1943. Data from Online appendix Table 2.

72 AAB RWA 352; Rukira Resident to Ruanda Resident, 26 May 1925.

73 AAB RWA 352 Gatsibu Resident to Ruanda Resident, 20 May 1925.

74 AAB RWA 352 Kisenyi Resident to Ruanda Resident, 29 May 1925; Rockenbach, ‘Contingent’, 37, 42, 76.

75 Gahama, Le Burundi, 373.

76 Rapport 1921 cf. KDA 70 AGR Veterinary Relations with Belgian Territory, 1922; KDA 151 Veterinary Relations with Belgian Ruanda, 1937; AAB RWA 352 Kigali Resident to Ruanda Resident, 11 June 1925; AE/11 3300 1935 Les famines du Nord Est de l'Urundi.

77 Rather than cotton textiles, migrants wore cheap garments from locally made bark-cloth. V. Nakazibwe, ‘Bark-cloth of the Baganda people of Southern Uganda: a record of continuity and change from the late eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Middlesex University, 2005), 194–6.

78 Chrétien and Mworoha, ‘Le cas’, 654.

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81 AAB RWA 352 Administrateur Territorial Biumba, 14 June 1938; Gatsibu Resident to Ruanda Resident, 20 May 1925; Rukira Resident to Ruanda Resident, 26 May 1925; AAB RWA 352 Shangugu Resident to Ruanda Resident, undated (estimated 05/1925) AEII/3301 Vice-Gouverneur Général Ruanda-Urundi, 1 Mar. 1943.

82 Buell, The Native Problem, 462–3; Gahama, J. Le Burundi, 44–9.

83 J. Higginson, ‘The making of an African working class: the Union minière du Haut Katanga and the African mine workers, 1907–1945’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 1979).

84 Governor-General of Ruanda-Urundi, cited in Lyons ‘Foreign bodies’, 134.

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87 Newbury, Cohesion, 279.

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90 AAB AE/II 3300 Moulaert à Hymans, Octobre 1929; Pedersen, Guardians, 248–49.

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92 Ibid.

93 Richards (ed.), Economic, 36; KDA LAB 1 10i Survey of Banyaruanda Complex 1950, Section II; Uganda, Labour Report 1930

94 AAB AE/11 3300 1935 Les famines du Nord Est de l'Urundi.

95 See Desforges, Defeat, 234–35.

96 Dorsey, ‘Rwandan colonial economy’, 166–205; Hatungimana, Le café; Van Melkebeke, ‘“Changing grounds”’, 82; Van Melkebeke, ‘Divergence’.

97 Underlying data are in Online appendix Table 2.

98 AAB RWA 352 Ruanda Governor, 19 March 1931; AAB RWA 352 Gatsibu Governor to Ruanda Governor, 20 May 1925; ‘Repatriement des émigrés Banyarwanda de l'Uganda’, 21 Nov. 1930; Orde-Browne, G. S. J., Labour conditions in East Africa (London, 1946), 89Google Scholar; KDA (ADM) 112 ‘Native Affairs Repatriation’, Provincial Commissioner, Western Province, Masindi, 4 Apr. 1949; KDA LAB.1 10i ‘Survey of Banyaruanda Complex 1950’, section I.

99 Newbury, Cohesion of Oppression, 155.

100 AAB RWA 352 ‘Retraite des Chefs’ Entre-Nous, May 1937.

101 Ibid., also see Chrétien, ‘Le cas’; Codere, H., The Biography of an African Society, Rwanda, 1900–1960: Based on Forty-eight Rwandan Autobiographies (Tervuren, 1973), 257Google Scholar.

102 Underlying annual figures are in Online appendix Table 3.

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104 Uganda, Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Labour Situation in the Uganda Protectorate, 1938 (Entebbe, 1938)Google Scholar; Uganda, Second Report; KDA LAB 1 10i Survey of Banyaruanda Complex 1950, Section II; Powesland, Economic; Richards (ed.), Economic. Figures on migration can be found in Online appendix Table 1.

105 Chrétien and Mworoha, ‘Le cas’, 658.

106 Data in Online appendix Table 2.

107 Even in a wider British Africa perspective, Uganda's wage decline during the Great Depression was particularly steep. Frankema and van Waijenburg, ‘Structural’.

108 Cited in Chrétien and Mworoha, ‘Le cas’, 654

109 Uganda, Report of the Committee, 31; Uganda, Second Report, 20–21, 25, 30; Rutubajuka, ‘Migrant labour’, 38–40; Ahluwalia, Plantations, 110–20; Powesland, Economic, 11

110 Wrigley, Crops and Wealth, 59.

111 Lyons, ‘Foreign bodies’, 138. Wrigley, Crops and Wealth, 59.

112 On the expansion of Robusta coffee cultivation in Buganda see Richards, A. I., Sturrock, F., and Fortt, J. M. (eds.), Subsistence to Commercial Farming in Present-Day Buganda (Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar.

113 Uganda, Report of the Committee, 49. Cf. Richards (ed.), Economic, 63.

114 Uganda, Second Report, 7.

115 KDA (ADM) 112 Native Affairs Repatriation Labour Commissioner to the Provincial Commissioners, Buganda, East and West, 5 Dec. 1930. Also AAB RWA 352 Administrateur Territorial Ruanda, 17 June 1938; AAB BUR 261 Administateur Territorial Ruyigi, 16 Mar. 1933; Tothill, J. (ed.), A Report on Nineteen Surveys Done in Small Agricultural Areas in Uganda with a View to Ascertaining the Position with Regard to Soil Deterioration (Kampala, 1938), 33Google Scholar; RWA 352 ‘Emigration vers l'Uganda’, Apr. 1937.

116 Singiza, D., La famine Ruzagayura (Rwanda, 1943–44): causes, conséquences et réactions des autorités (Bruxelles, 2011)Google Scholar.

117 Uganda, Second Report, 2, 38.

118 UKNA CO 536/209/6 Letter from Laballe, stationed in ‘Masaku, Tanganyika’ (sic; should be: Masaka, Uganda) to Mr. and Mrs. Lawson in Dublin 7 Sep. 1942.

119 UKNA CO 536/209/6 Orde Browne to Scott 30 Sept. 1942; Parliamentary question.

120 UKNA CO 536/209/6 The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society to The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1 Feb. 1943.

121 UKNA CO 536/213/4 Author unknown, 13 Jan. 1944; Governor of Uganda to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 14 Dec. 1943.

122 New agricultural technologies brought in by returning migrants may have also facilitated greater agricultural productivity. See Leurquin, Le niveau de vie, 30, 69, 343.

123 Rwanda's coffee cultivation benefited from returning migrants’ experience with the crop in Uganda. Van Melkebeke, ‘Changing grounds’, 163.

124 See Online appendix Table 2.

125 On colonial investments, B. Paternostre de la Mairieu, Le Rwanda: son effort de développement, 154–204; Rockenbach, ‘Contingent’, 182–4. See wages data in Online appendix Table 2. In the early 1950s, a mere 6 per cent of interviewed migrants stated that avoiding labour obligations was their reason for coming to Buganda. Richards (ed.), Economic, 266; also Chrétien and Mworoha ‘Le cas’, 656.

126 Brixhe, A., De katoen in Belgisch-Congo (Bruxelles, 1953), 109–16Google Scholar. Prices of locally produced cloth for the years 1948–60 are shown in Online appendix Table 2.

127 On the strikes see Thompson, G., Governing Uganda: British Colonial Rule and its Legacy (Kampala, 2003), 246–67Google Scholar. De Haas, ‘Measuring’, 620–21.

128 Wrigley, C., ‘The changing economic structure of Buganda’, in Fallers, L. (ed.), The King's Men: Leadership and Status in Buganda on the Eve of Independence (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar.

129 AAB RWA 352 ‘Etat des mouvements des indigènes du Ruanda a l'Uganda, enregistrés à Kakitumba’; KDA LAB.1 files 3i, 3ii and 3iii ‘Emigrant & Immigrant Kabale Labour Camp 1949–1957’.

130 AB RWA 352 ‘Emigration saisonnière vers l'Uganda et le Tanganyika Territory’, 13 Oct. 1938, Richards (ed.), Economic, 135, 265.

131 Ibid., 267.

132 Both are likely to be underestimates, since ethnic identities were fluid and numerous migrants declared themselves Ganda or Kiga. See Doyle, ‘Parish’; Uganda, Census 1959, 19.

133 Uganda, Second Report, 2; Uganda, , Third Report of the Labour Advisory Committee: Supervision of Labour and Other Matters Relating to Conditions of Employment in Uganda (Entebbe, 1944)Google Scholar.

134 Leiden African Studies Centre, 675.57 United Nations Committee on Rural Economic Development of the Trust Territories, ‘Study of population, land utilization and land system in Ruanda-Urundi’, 16–17; Chrétien and Mworoha, ‘Le cas’, 665.

135 UKNA CO 536/213/4 Visit to the Belgian Mandated Territory at Ruanda-Urundi, 6–8 Jan. 1945.

136 This is, perhaps, one reason why during the 1950s schoolchildren in Ngozi (Burundi) sang that ‘those who go to Buganda are complete idiots.’ Chrétien and Mworoha, ‘Le cas’, 664.

137 Doyle, ‘Parish’; Richards (ed.) Economic, 161–93; Rockenbach, ‘Contingent’, 81–124.

138 Richards (ed.), Economic, 196.

139 Ibid., 194–200; also Rockenbach, ‘Contingent’, 107–20.

140 Gravel, P., Remera: a Community in Eastern Ruanda (The Hague, 1968), 111–17Google Scholar; Richards (ed.), Economic, 266. By the early 1950s, tax rates in Ruanda-Urundi had converged with those in Uganda. Richards (ed.), Economic, 67–8.

141 Numerous migrants signed a contract with a recruiter for one of the South Asian sugar plantations or other expatriate firms in Ruanda-Urundi or at the border, only to disappear in the countryside once in Buganda. UKNA CO 536/213/4 Unknown author on 24 May 1946; FO 371 File 1016 Governor of Uganda to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 17 Jan. 1949; CO 822/1631 Minutes of the Ninth interterritorial conference on migrant labour from Ruanda-Urundi, 16–17 March 1959.

142 AAB RWA 352 Migration des indigènes Banyarwanda vers les Colonies Britanniques, 23 May 1947.

143 Since the majority of political refugees lived outside refugee camps in western Uganda, it is likely that this estimate includes Rwandan refugees as well, which means that the number of earlier migrant families who had returned is even greater than the figure suggests. It should also be noted, however, that a share of the settled migrants likely identified as Ganda in the census.

144 Tensions between rural immigrants and local populations developed in many parts of Africa. See Boone, C., Property and Political Order in Africa: Land Rights and the Structure of Politics (Cambridge, 2014), 91–176Google Scholar.

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