Roberts A.D. The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 7: from 1905 to 1940
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA AND LIBERIA
Northern Territories
of
the Gold Coast. Both diseases were
common to West Africa, but they were rapidly disseminated by
the new transport system.
In the
mid-1920s, bubonic plague
struck the port cities and spread
to
the hinterland where cases
persisted into
the
following decade. The removal
of
African
hill-settlements
to the
more infectious lowlands,
for
ease
of
administration, and the breakdown of rural isolation resulted in
the spread of such diseases
as
sleeping-sickness and onchocerciasis,
problems for which the government medical services were totally
inadequate.
Epidemic diseases whose true origins were obscure, economic
instability, uncertainties created
by a
growing awareness
of
alternative life-styles and beliefs, the breakdown
of
indigenous
social and political institutions: all created tensions within local
societies which gave rise not only
to
an increase
in
accusations
of witchcraft and movements to eradicate
it
but also the growth
of pentecostal churches. Even
in
peripheral rural areas,
as
amongst the Tiv of central Nigeria, stress intensified; traditional
leaders appear to have encouraged witchcraft fears as a means of
buttressing their declining power, while missionaries denounced
indigenous beliefs as evil and the British administration prohibited
trial by ordeal and other anti-witchcraft measures as repugnant.
In Yorubaland the Aladura or prayer churches broke new ground
in areas of Christian doctrine and expression, effecting a reinter-
pretation and fusion
of
Christian and indigenous beliefs and
practices, validated
by
visions reinforced
by
Bible study and
Anglo-American evangelical literature. Often founded
by
pro-
phets and healers who were themselves mission-educated and
committed churchmen, these so-called syncretic churches attracted
a following amongst the legions
of
clerks and artisans
of
the
growing urban centres. A high proportion of the congregations
were literate, and though few
in
number they were
far
from
peripheral
in
terms of society and Christianity
in
West Africa.
During the 1920s these pentecostal groups began
to
take
on
institutional form, with buildings, office-holders
and
liturgy,
which led in turn to numerous amalgamations and schisms.
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, I929-I940
BRITISH WEST AFRICA, I929-I94O
Having gradually climbed out of the post-war economic crisis of
the early 1920s, West Africa was rocked
by
the more sustained
depression
of
the 1930s. But for
a
brief rally
in
1935-7, the net
barter and income terms of trade were to remain below levels of
the 1920s until after
the
Second World War. Producer prices,
which had reached
a
peak during the 1928-9 buying season, fell
steadily throughout 1930 and
1931.
Initially many farmers refused
to sell their produce, anticipating higher prices. As buying power
was directly linked
to
export income, imports
and
commerce
declined. African shopkeepers
and
petty entrepreneurs with
already low overheads had little room
for
economies and went
under. Their place was frequently taken by Syrian and Lebanese
traders, favoured
by
both government
and
commercial firms
because they were more dependent and thus amenable to pressure.
Many
of
the more substantial African and expatriate businesses
were taken over by the oligopolists: in 1932 Unilever, the parent
company of UAC, acquired G. B. Ollivant, thereby increasing its
share
of
Gold Coast cocoa exports to almost half the total. Such
large European companies, which
had
established ties with
consumers or were part of vertically integrated corporations, were
less affected by the collapse
of
the commodity market: they cut
costs by closing less remunerative branches, reducing personnel
and raising prices
of
imports.
They also sought to control prices and eliminate costly compet-
ition by establishing buying agreements, a practice intermittently
attempted on a more restricted scale since the 1900s.
In
1930 the
United Africa Company and the other seven largest shippers
of
Gold Coast cocoa, including the chocolate manufacturers Cadbury
and Fry, entered into an agreement not
to
compete against each
other
in
the purchase
of
cocoa but each
to
buy
a
fixed share of
the total crop. The cocoa farmers blamed this 'pool'
for
falling
producer prices. Particularly hard
hit
were the rural capitalists,
who had invested in export production
at
the expense of subsis-
tence agriculture; they were dependent upon cash income
to
purchase food
and
services. Hence wealthy farmers like John
Ayew used their local power to mobilise the poorer farmers and
chiefs
in
support
of
another hold-up, during the 1930-1 buying
season.
Yet
rural allegiances were confused
by the
continuing
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA AND LIBERIA
rivalry between the chiefs and the wealthy farmers. Besides, the
primary interests of the chiefs lay not in cocoa production per
se
but in buying, land sales, rentals and litigation. Nana Ofori Atta
and many
of the
more influential chiefs united with local
entrepreneurs, led by A. J. Ocansey, to form the Gold Coast and
Ashanti Cocoa Federation. Ostensibly representing producer
interests and allied with the farmers' associations but dominated
by 'moderate' chiefs and the urban bourgeoisie, the federation
attempted to provide an alternative to the European buying pool.
However, lacking the fiscal and commercial resources to oppose
the combined power of UAC and Cadbury-Fry, the federation
was eventually persuaded to sell part of its cocoa stocks to UAC,
thereby effectively breaking the hold-up. The cleavage of African
interests along lines of economic function precipitated
a
major
political crisis, manifest in the destoolment of numerous chiefs.
Rural resentment against the sub-elite of brokers and clerks was
encouraged by British propaganda, which sought to channel rural
disaffection away from the expatriate firms and colonial chiefs.
Both in the Gold Coast and in Nigeria, governments sought
to
impose
a
measure
of
control
by
fostering official farmers'
cooperatives, which tended
to
serve the interests
of
expatriate
buying firms as bulking and buying agencies, rather than those
of the farmers. Throughout British West Africa the volume of
exports surged to new heights as producers struggled to maintain
their standard
of
living, though their annual value seldom
exceeded the levels reached in the 1920s.
Since most people's incomes depended on the cultivation of
export crops for declining returns, the opportunity cost of labour
also declined. This stimulated mining, which relied
on
labour-
intensive methods. Most mines were able to ride out the depression
by forcing down wages:
in
the early 1930s daily rates
for
the
20,000 unskilled workers in the Nigerian tin mines fell from
is
to 5d per day, yet there was no shortage of recruits and miners'
strikes proved ineffective. The inflated world price
of
gold
encouraged alluvial production by 'tributors'
in
Nigeria: from
1934
to
1936 exports averaged £250,000.
In
the Gold Coast,
mining contributed
a
third
or
more
to
exports from 1933, and
employed upwards of
30,000
men. The value of gold exports rose
steadily throughout
the
decade,
and in
1939 reached £6m,
equalling those of Southern Rhodesia. Diamond exports remained
at the levels of the late 1920s, but the territory became the world's
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA,
1929-1940
third
largest producer of manganese; this was worth over £im in
1937.
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone underwent a mineral revolution.
In 1926, in the hope
of
reducing the country's dependence on palm
products, the government had undertaken a geological survey
which
led to the discovery of iron ore, gold, diamonds and
platinum. In 1927 the African and Eastern Trading Company
(later
part
of the United African Company) secured a 99-year lease
over
the iron deposits and in 1929 joined with the Northern
Mercantile and Investment Corporation to obtain a loan of
£500,000
from the Colonial Development Fund to exploit them.
Like
the early loans to the Gold Coast, the fund was linked to
a 'buy British' policy: its primary objective was to support
industry and reduce unemployment in Britain. UAC and NMIC
formed the Sierra Leone Development Corporation
(Delco),
transferring their original mineral rights at a handsome profit.
Exclusive
rights to mine and deal in diamonds were granted to
Sierra Leone Selection Trust, a subsidiary
of
Consolidated African
Selection
Trust. Gold production, which was mostly alluvial, was
open to Africans, but they had to be literate, and foreign
licence-holders were joined only by a few wealthy Creoles. When
the colony's export values began once more to rise in the
mid-1950s,
this was due chiefly to minerals, which from 1935
accounted for over half the total. By 1937, mining directly
contributed 22 per cent of total government revenue. Yet as this
amounted to just over £im — no more
than
the value of diamond
exports — the gain was not impressive, and the bulk of mining
profits either went to shareholders or was reinvested abroad: it
has been calculated
that
over 80 per cent of the proceeds from
Delco
sales went to British business, while less
than
18 per cent
remained in Sierra Leone as government revenue and wages.
20
True to orthodox economic principles, British colonial govern-
ments reduced expenditure to meet falling revenue. Between
1929
and 1931, the revenue of the Gold Coast
fell
by one-third.
There was a general increase in customs duties, though to protect
British industry the ad valorem
rate
on imperial cotton goods was
reduced while a discriminatory duty was imposed on increasingly
competitive
Japanese
cottons. Various expenditures were
trans-
ferred from the central treasury to the accounts of the local native
20
Ankie
M.M.
Hoogvelt
and
Anthony
M.
Tinker,
'The
role
of
colonial
and
post-colonial
states
in
imperialism
— a
case
study
of the
Sierra
Leone
Development
Company',
journal
of
Modern
African
Studies,
1978, 16, i,
67-79.
445
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA AND LIBERIA
authorities and municipalities. Extraordinary and development
expenditures were eliminated. One obvious economy, the conver-
sion
of the relatively high interest loans of the early 1920s to lower
prevailing
rates, thereby reducing the burden on the public
treasury, was rejected; colonial authorities argued
that
it would
be unfair to bondholders, mainly British, who would suffer a loss
of
income. On the other
hand,
colonial and native authority
reserves which were invested abroad could not be realised
without considerable loss. Hence they were left intact
rather
than
used to offset revenue deficits. In fact, after the initial years of the
depression,
there
were modest annual increases in the colonial
reserves.
Recurrent expenditure, being mainly devoted to salaries
and allowances, was trimmed by substantial retrenchments of
Africans
as
well
as Europeans. In numerical terms, it was the
low-income
government daily-paid employees who bore the
brunt
of retrenchment, declining in the Gold Coast from 20,239
in 1929 to
12,572
in 1930. One long-discussed palliative, the
Africanisation
of the colonial administrative service, continued to
be rejected on racist grounds, though much
of
the work previously
undertaken by British officials was delegated to African subord-
inates whose salaries and conditions were frozen at the top of the
junior staff grade. In the technical departments, job reservation,
though not salary differentials, increasingly broke down.
The
cumulative effect of the depression and the European
response, which tended to shift the burden on to Africans,
worsened
relations still further. Deterioration of wages and
conditions resulted in strikes by both skilled and unskilled
workers,
notably on gold mines in the Gold Coast in
1934-7.
In
Lagos
the colonial oligarchy was confronted in 1933 by the
chilling
threat
of
a police strike. The' ringleaders', many of whom
were
non-indigenous Kru from Liberia, were tried and
malcontents were dismissed. In 1934 in
Lagos,
drivers went on
strike against the Lebanese-owned Zarpas
transport
company.
They
were rebuked by Macaulay's Lagos Daily News:' At this time
of
economic depression, workers ought to know
that
there
are
many unemployed ready to take their place if they foolishly go
out on strike.'
21
Scab labour and police action against pickets
21
24
July
1954. Cf. A.
Hughes
and R.
Cohen,
'An
emerging
Nigerian
working
class:
the
Lagos
experience,
1897-1939',
in P.
Gutkind,
R.
Cohen
and J.
Copans
(eds),
African
labor
history
(London,
1979),
48.
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, I929-I940
broke
the
drivers' strike.
In an
attempt
to
protect
the
railways
from more competitive African-owned motor transport, licensing,
road inspection and restrictive legislation were introduced.
The
Gold Coast Carriage of Goods Road Ordinance
of
1936 provided
'not for licensing but for the prohibition of the carriage of specific
goods over scheduled roads'.
22
The result was a series of fruitless
boycotts
and
petitions
by
lorry owner-operators. Class
and
sectional interests divided African response,
yet
reality
was
increasingly
at
variance with British assertions
of
inherently
superior political and economic competence.
The
ogu
umunwanyi,
the Ibo Women's War
of
1929,
or
as
the
British labelled
it, the
'Aba riots', exemplified
the
gulf which
separated
the
British oligarchy from their African subjects.
Traditionally women had exercised considerable formal,
as
well
as informal, influence in Ibo public life, to the extent of redressing
grievances
by
collective action
or the
public chastisement
of
offenders, ' sitting
on a
man'. Such political solidarity rested
on
women's institutions such as the mikiri or ' meeting' and market
networks which cut across the more parochial ties of lineage and
village. This was not appreciated by the colonial authorities who
concentrated power, hitherto diffuse, in the non-indigenous office
of warrant chiefs. In 1928 the British introduced direct adult-male
taxation and native treasuries in eastern Nigeria, in an attempt
to
establish administrative uniformity by bringing the warrant chief
system into line with northern Nigerian practice. At first, taxation
provoked only minor opposition, but at Owerri
a
young district
officer's over-zealous efforts to collect information on women and
property raised fears that women were about to be taxed. The fall
in
the
producer price
of
palm kernels,
a
'women's crop',
had
struck at the economic basis of
an
increasingly assertive stance by
Ibo women, while many were already helping their menfolk pay
existing taxes:
the
warrant chiefs
had
inflated
the
earlier
tax
census, having equated their own prestige with population.
In
addition, women were particularly resentful
of
the chiefs' abuse
of authority, being victims
of
both economic and sexual exploit-
ation.
At
Oloko
in
Owerri Province,
a
mass protest by women
secured the dismissal of the warrant chief and written assurances
that they would
not be
taxed. News
of the
'victory' spread
throughout Owerri and Calabar Provinces, and women were soon
22
Kay and Hymer, Political
economy,
194.
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA AND LIBERIA
besieging native courts
and the
residences
of
both chiefs
and
British officials
to
protest against injustices
and the
alleged
women's tax. Some government buildings, particularly native
courts, were burned; chiefs and their functionaries were driven
off and their property looted; and
in
some areas women appear
to have attempted to capture authority from the warrant chiefs.
23
The British panicked; large contingents of troops and police were
drafted into
the
area, and
in two
clashes between troops
and
women demonstrators, fifty women were killed and another fifty
wounded. Whatever illusions
the
people may have harboured
about the British not firing upon women were„shattered. News
of the slaughter spread rapidly, yet localised disturbances persisted
well into 1930.
Nor
was the
Women's
War an
isolated incident. Similar
resentment against imposed chiefs, their disregard for traditional
values
and the
deterioration
of the
economy, resulted
in the
contemporaneous though less well known
haakaa
anti-witchcraft
movement among the Tiv
of
central Nigeria. Official enquiries
into both movements opened the way for
a
major reappraisal of
indirect rule, particularly
as
applied
to
chiefless societies.
The
resulting reforms, initiated under Sir Donald Cameron (governor
1931-5), introduced the concept of collective responsibility in the
form
of
councils
of
elders
and
notables,
as a
basis
for
native
administration.
The
British however dismissed
as
ridiculous
demands by Ibo women for
a
place on the native courts and
for
the appointment
of a
female district officer. British sexist
stereotypes
of
the non-participation
of
women
in
politics
and
economy were transposed to Africa: the women's behaviour was
regarded as irrational and men were suspected of having secretly
organised and directed them. Moreover, the 'Cameron reforms'
undermined still further the political position
of
non-elders, Ibo
women and Tiv younger men, by failing to provide any legitimate
scope
for
collective action, their principal basis
of
power. Such
'working misunderstandings' were typical
of
British rule
in
Africa, the success of which has too often been measured by the
frequency with which political crises punctuated the system.
The dramatic growth
of
pentecostalism
and the
numerous
" Judith Van Allen, '"Aba riots" or Igbo "Women's War"? Ideology, stratification,
and the invisibility
of
women',
in
N.
J.
Hafkin and E.
G.
Bay (eds),
Women
in Africa:
studies
in
social and
economic change
(Stanford, 1976), 59-85.
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, 1929-1940
religious 'awakenings' of the 1930s were far more pervasive
manifestations of the extent to which large-scale economic and
cultural forces impinged upon peoples' lives and called for
explanations beyond the realm of parochial spiritual forces. The
failure of
the haakaa
anti-witchcraft movement to alleviate tensions
within Tiv society was followed by a Christian 'awakening' in
1934-6:
bush 'Bible-schools' founded by former mission pupils
sprang up independent of missionary endeavour, while the South
African Dutch Reformed missionaries were overwhelmed to find
their churches suddenly overflowing after twenty years of hitherto
fruitless evangelism. In Yorubaland, people flocked to the Aladura
churches. While drawn to specific congregations by the charisma
of individual prophets and preachers or by rumours of miraculous
cures,
their quest was fundamentally spiritual; they were attracted
by the universalist assertions of Aladura theology. In contrast to
the earlier generation of educated and often culturally alienated
or isolated Aladura converts, those of the 1930s were more often
illiterate with strong ties to indigenous culture. Hence they
continued to adhere to the corpus of indigenous beliefs, which
they brought with them into the church, indigenising it in the
process.
Simultaneously a new political consciousness was emerging.
The older elitist politics of participation and co-operation were
giving way to new political parties which actively sought the
support of a wider sector of the population through more
assertive economic and political demands. Unlike their more
parochial precursors, this new generation of politicians brought
to the British West African scene a broader world outlook born
of long residence and education abroad. Since the previous
century, increasing numbers had gone to Britain and the United
States in search of education and employment, encountering overt
racism, the phenomenon of poor whites and stimulating new
ideas.
Through foreign student associations, the most famous
being the West African Student Union founded in London in
1926,
they forged contacts with blacks from other parts of Africa,
the West Indies and the United States, acquiring an awareness of
their common plight. During the depression many emigrant
Africans returned. In 1933 Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, having achieved
academic distinction in America, accepted the editorship of
A.
J.
Ocansey's African
Morning
Post in Accra. Under Azikiwe, the
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA AND LIBERIA
Morning Post
brought to West African journalism a bold new style,
championed reform and helped launch him on
a
political career
ultimately leading to the presidency of an independent Nigeria.
Yet however much Azikiwe might criticise the
'
pussyfooting hat
in hands... Uncle Toms',
24
like the majority of the new generation,
he was no less wedded to
a
bourgeois nationalist approach.
Of a different mould was the Marxist trade unionist,
I.
T. A.
Wallace-Johnson. Born into
a
modest Creole household near
Freetown, and educated in a mission school, Wallace-Johnson had
a varied career, working successively in the Sierra Leone customs
department, as a clerk with the carrier corps throughout the First
World War and as a seaman with the Elder Dempster Line during
the 1920s, when he appears to have joined the Communist Party.
With Frank Macaulay, a son of Herbert Macaulay, he was active
in founding the Nigerian Workers' Union. He could boast
of
contacts with left-wing British parliamentarians and international
organisations.
In
1930 he attended the First International Trade
Union Conference
of
Negro Workers
in
Hamburg, Germany,
along with prominent Africans such
as
Johnstone (Jomo)
Kenyatta and the Gambian,
E. F.
Small. Through the Negro
Worker,
a
journal inaugurated
by
the conference
to
raise
the
consciousness
of
black workers, he was able to maintain
a
sus-
tained attack on the colonial system. In
193 3
Wallace-Johnson was
deported from Lagos
for
trade-union activities. He moved
to
the Gold Coast where
he
was
to
establish himself as
a
major
political leader, directing his appeal to the sub-elite of white-collar
workers
and the
urban proletariat.
He
was
to be
primarily
responsible for injecting Marxist concepts, albeit often couched
in simplified terms, into the anglophone West African political
vocabulary.
The reaction of the Gold Coast government was inept. In 1934
Governor Thomas introduced
a
Sedition Bill
to
stifle press
criticism and ban the Negro Worker. Simultaneously, proposals
were announced for direct municipal taxation
in
Sekondi, Cape
Coast and Accra
to
finance improved waterworks,
an
amenity
viewed by many as primarily for the benefit of the elite. Popular
opposition
to
taxation and the threat to the press led
to
public
demonstrations
and
mass meetings. Alarmed
by
Wallace-
Johnson's more strident denunciations, the
Gold Coast
Independent,
a prominent establishment newspaper, launched a counter-attack.
24
West African Pilot, 15 November 1936,
4.
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, 1929-1940
In turn the diverse factions led by Wallace-Johnson, Azikiwe, W.
E. G. Sekyi and others joined to form the West African Youth
League; in 1936 they also helped to elect a radical lawyer, Kojo
Thompson, to the legislative council as member for Accra. Soon
afterwards Wallace-Johnson and Azikiwe were tried for sedition,
for an article in the
Morning Post
criticising European civilisation,
Christianity and imperialism.
25
The government's case was weak
and was ultimately overruled, but appeal to the Privy Council
proved costly. The Youth League disintegrated in the absence of
strong leadership and more moderate reformers captured the
opposition initiative. Azikiwe and Wallace-Johnson departed,
carrying their message to Nigeria and Sierra Leone respectively.
The action which the Gold Coast government mounted against
its critics was facilitated by the support which it received from
the established African middle class, but also by the brief
economic recovery of the
mid-1930s.
Both the world and producer-
price for cocoa climbed throughout 1935-6 and 1936-7. As a
result, though the Youth League had branches in many towns in
the cocoa-belt, response came mainly from the sub-elite of clerks,
teachers and brokers; it failed to establish links with the farmers'
associations or to reflect the concerns of rural capitalists. By the
time prices began to fall at the beginning of the 1937-8 season,
Wallace-Johnson had already been removed from the scene and
the Youth League was in disarray. Sekyi, Ocansey, Danquah and
others failed to associate their political and economic demands
with those of the rural population.
The farmers blamed the price collapse on the latest cocoa
agreement, which in November 1937 had brought together
thirteen major exporters, representing 94 per cent of Gold Coast
cocoa exports. The agreement was intended to lower costs by
reducing the role of African cocoa brokers. Consequently when
the farmers staged
a
hold-up, they enjoyed the support of the large
brokers. Moreover the chiefs, many of whom were themselves
brokers, were also mindful of the popular hostility which had
followed their defection during the previous boycott and they
thus lent their support. Ofori Atta emerged as one of the principal
spokesmen against the firms. Not only was the boycott effective
throughout the Gold Coast; it spread to the Yoruba cocoa region
15
Leo Spitzer and LaRay Denzer, 'I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson and the West African
Youth League',
International Journal
of African Historical Studies, 1973, 6, ), 441.
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