From Slave Trade to Empire

European Colonisation of Black Africa 1780s-1880s

Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781135765880
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

Much has been written about the origins of the great push which led Europe to colonise sub-Saharan Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. This book provides a new perspective on this controversial subject by focussing on Europe and a range of empire-building states: Germany, France, Italy and Portugal. The essays in this volume consider economic themes in addition to the political and cultural aspects of the transition from commerce to colonies.

1 Introduction

A missing link? The significance of the 1780s–1880s

Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau

Much has been written concerning the origins of the great push which led Europe to colonise sub-Saharan Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. It is one of those controversial subjects wherein the issues are such that the debates which arise are constantly renewed.

There is a tradition concerning this subject which, to some extent, still finds some basis in linking imperialism and colonisation, explaining the latter by the spread of the former. However, today, when speaking of the United States of America, we refer to it as an imperial power whereas its influence on the world is not only expressed by direct political domination and lasting territorial occupation, as is generally understood by the idea of colonisation. In addition, although the concept of imperialism is multifaceted (since one can speak of political imperialism as well as cultural imperialism), it is primarily one of these facets – the economy, which has been emphasised, studied and debated. In short, we questioned specifically how economic factors could explain the imperialist and colonialist fever to which the old continent succumbed at the end of the nineteenth century.

This economic theory is based on the supposed interests of Europe for a given period in time, the second age of industrialisation, when it became vital to search for new markets, sources of raw materials and areas suitable for potential capital investment. The dynamics of the growth in production boosted by industrial capitalism seemed to have come up against the weak growth of internal demand. In order to reduce this imbalance, a ‘competitive regulatory system’ as defined by the economists Boyer and Mistral, was set up, forcing the great nations to look abroad for the markets which were lacking at home.¹ At that time, however, being tempted by protectionism to varying degrees, the industrial countries of Europe sought what they needed beyond their own borders, particularly in Black Africa. The relatively obvious coinciding of indications of problems to come and the beginnings of colonialist fever is also enough to stimulate interest and it is not surprising that it has intrigued analysts for a long time. In 1917, in his famous L’impérialisme, stade suprême du capitalisme (Imperialism, the Highest Form of Capitalism), Lenin sought to find a relationship of cause and effect, colonisation being only a logical and inescapable phenomenon, made almost obligatory by the nature of capitalism itself. In the same year, Schumpeter voiced a completely opposite opinion. In his The Sociology of Imperialism,² he wrote that only the vestiges of a pre-capitalist mentality, unfortunately rooted within the ruling classes of the great European nations, were able to go that far because, essentially rationalistic and calculating, capitalism could not result in conquest and war. Despite their conflicting opinions, Lenin and Schumpeter progressed along the same lines: they showed to advantage the limitations of the rose-tinted interpretation of the colonial process which, until then, had often been explained solely by Europe’s philanthropic desire to go and civilise the rest of the world, as illustrated, for example, in Kipling’s famous The White Man’s Burden. But Lenin and Schumpeter only seemed to provide answers to the problem through analysis of economic structures involving Europe alone. This view seemed even more obvious following the Second World War, to the extent that a manual published in one of the leading collections of Presses universitaires de France (Les Grandes Civilisations) could be entitled L’essor industriel et l’impérialisme colonial³ (Industrial Expansion and Colonial Imperialism).

Since then the debate has become much more complex; on the one hand because the nature, importance and limits of the ‘crisis’ which affected industrial Europe for part of the period 1870–80 have been bitterly debated and, on the other, because the importance of the economic variable in the colonial process has been considerably minimised by some writers whose books have become classics. In 1960, in his famous Mythes et réalités de l’impérialisme colonial français, Henri Brunschwig explained the colonial process by combining three main factors:⁴ the nationalist upsurge, advances in economic liberalism and the idea of a clear conscience, a necessary development for the progress of civilisation. Within a context of national competition, the support of an increasingly chauvinistic public enabled various individuals (politicians, academics, geographers and a handful of businessmen financially involved in colonial expansion) to force the country into an absurd economic enterprise. In the end, as far as Brunschwig is concerned, the economic sector played only a secondary role in what was predominantly a political and ideological process, not remotely profitable to the nation. It should also be added here that all too frequently one forgets that the more obvious facts and coincidences can often very easily be countered by other, equally disturbing, statements. Therefore it is perhaps not without interest to note that countries such as Portugal, which were not great industrial powers, were nonetheless interested in the colonial process, while others, with a stronger industrial infrastructure, were far from being totally dependent on this process for their foreign policy. After all, France at the end of the nineteenth century was just as concerned (if not more so) by the effective protection of its agriculture and regulation of imported foodstuffs and animals from the Americas and the antipodes. Concerning historical coincidences, one could agree with Seymour Drescher, that ‘temporal coincidence is the weakest form of causal inference’.⁵

‘The attitudes adopted in colonial policy are always explained by international circumstances’, wrote Brunschwig in 1971, in Le partage de l’Afrique noire. This statement reflects a historiographical change inspired by a book published ten years earlier which aroused passionate debate – Africa and the Victorians by Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher and Alice Denny.⁶ In France, as in the United Kingdom, comparable views were then developed emphasising the role of circumstantial phenomena: changes in nationalism during the last decades of the nineteenth century; the intervention of Léopold II in Central Africa; Franco-Italian rivalry in Tunisia; the Portuguese intervention; or the Berlin conference in 1885. Economic importance was replaced by political importance. Paradoxically, two aspects of the old interpretation were confirmed. First, a reversal of circumstances (one goes from the idea of the determining role of a market crisis to a crisis of international relations), then being caught up in a spiral, an inescapable process from the moment it began, once the signal for the famous Scramble had been given. From which point endless debates have ensued. Some historians, particularly Jacques Marseille, have tried to reconcile politics and economics when studying their stormy relationship with regard to the French colonial empire. Others have looked more deeply into the circumstantial and political perspective of colonial expansion, following the example of Henri Wesseling, a historian interested in the great players on the African scene, trying to understand the conditions in which they made their decisions.⁷ Gradually the mechanisms of the colonial process have been taken apart.

The increasing complexity of the analysis has therefore led to the old, unambiguous theories based on the essential role of only one factor being beaten into shape. However, this process of complication has not yet finished. For example, the role played by Africa itself has been illuminated by a pleiad of studies, amongst which those by David Northrup, Joseph C. Miller, Patrick Manning, Paul Lovejoy, Claude Meillassoux and Emmannel Terray. The process which led from slave trade to legitimate trade, then from legitimate trade to colonisation is more and more taken into account.

As a result, many new issues have been raised, like that of the ‘adaptation crisis’. First pointed out by K. Dike, in 1956, applied by Antony G. Hopkins to the case of Yorubaland (south-western Nigeria) in 1968, and then more clearly formulated by him in a pioneering synthesis devoted to the economic history of west Africa, in 1973, the ‘adaptation crisis’ is a theory following which the ending of the transatlantic slave trade produced dramatic changes for west African rulers previously involved in slave trade. Suddenly lacking the outlets for slaves, they faced a shortage of cash. Therefore, they came up against fierce competition from small plantation holders stimulated by the rise of legitimate trade, as well as from some former slaves. As a result, political instability became more pregnant yet, prompting and facilitating European colonisation. This theory gained support from Martin Klein in 1972. A great controversy followed, supplied by arguments from Ralph Austen and Patrick Manning, as well as by the seminal work by Robin Law.⁸ We now know that the passage from slave trade to ‘legitimate’ commerce was much more a process than a simple transition, that things evolved in different ways according to the different places and times in west Africa, that sometimes a ‘crisis of adaptation’ occurred and sometimes it didn’t, but the debate is still widely open. This controversy shows us that the role played by the Africans in the colonisation process is an important element to be taken into account. This issue, nevertheless, will not be really developed in this volume.

Some deliberate choices have been made, indeed. The first and the most important, since it determines our framework, is to focus on Europe. African historiography has been considerably renewed during the past three or four decades. New issues have also been pointed out regarding the European framework, notably due to the key work by Henri Wesseling and that by William Roger Louis⁹ and Antony Hopkins,¹⁰ but still a lot remains to be done in that field. This is the reason why a return to Europe may be fruitful, and complementary to the other fields of research linked to colonisation and imperialism.

Other factors have been even more neglected and remain virtually unexplored. This is the case for the type of cultural systems of representation at work behind the ideologies which favoured colonisation. Let us take one example amongst many, Jules Ferry’s argument on the virtues of emancipation and civilisation through colonisation, or even the necessity that France of the Third Republic had to open up colonial markets for its industry. Brunschwig has shown that this theory is groundless. However, it is another issue to study the origins of Ferry’s arguments; why they were put together in one way rather than another; and why some of his contemporaries found the arguments plausible. The players in the political, as in the economic, game, do not always operate in the same rational way, and sometimes their arguments do not correspond either to their acts or to the reality of their thoughts. To study the genesis of these arguments would perhaps reveal certain myths linked to the colonial process. Without this, the myths will inevitably survive. They can be seen even today in school and sometimes university books, where Ferry’s arguments continue to be taken literally, as if they really revealed the hidden side of the colonial process. This leads to the confusion of the reasons for this process with the arguments which were employed to justify it. Here we are still faced with a much-neglected question concerning the cultural beliefs behind the political action concerning colonisation.

However, perhaps we can try to enrich the debate in another way, not only by multiplying the angles of approach but also by re-centring the arguments in terms of time and space. Despite the extreme diversity of national attitudes concerning colonisation, we still too often tend to generalise based on just one single and often specific experience, that of the British. It is deliberate that Great Britain is referred to only briefly in this research. I thought that trying to account for the originality of the national attitudes in Europe would be of greater use than focusing on a well-known model. Four other states are widely represented here – Germany, France, Italy and Portugal – each by historians from these different countries. In other respects, it seemed that the fact of presenting the colonial move as an inescapable process which was strongly linked to particular circumstances could partly be explained by the period generally chosen to be studied. The majority of work on European penetration into Africa rarely analyses beyond the 1780s–1880s. In these circumstances, it is difficult to distance oneself from an analysis which centres primarily on the mechanisms and dynamics of colonial expansion. It is difficult to confirm whether the factors listed in order to explain the European colonial fever at the end of the nineteenth century are really new or, if they are older, how they could have evolved or reformed. A third choice was made, chronological: to study a sufficiently long period; a period which is too often forgotten, between the end of the slave trade and the premise of the Scramble. How far back should one go? The choice of the 1780s seemed logical enough. In fact, this was the period when the number of signs indicating a change in Europe’s attitude to Black Africa increased: the peak period and questioning the slave trade, the beginnings of political economy, the start of a debate concerning interests in legitimate trade between Europe and Africa, the first expeditions into the African interior (for example, it was in 1803 that Mungo Park was sent by the Colonial Office to go up the River Niger and explore means of establishing commercial relations with the people of the region).

How can a better understanding of relations between Europe and Black Africa during the long transition period between 1780 and 1880 help us? Definitely not to provide ready-made answers. Perhaps to try and develop the formulation of certain questions regarding the colonial process in general: what common points and what differences can be established between the way in which the European states regarded Black Africa between the 1780s and the 1880s and the earlier forms (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) and later forms (imperialism in the true sense) of European expansion? How does the colonisation phase of sub-Saharan Africa differ or not from previous periods, when European and African traders appeared on an equal footing? Many and sometimes opposing forces were assembled in different ways during the period 1780–1880. Can one nevertheless consider that it constitutes as much a period in itself (and not just a long, inarticulate transition between two periods), as the colonial periods both before and after it? In this case, how could we really define this period which, while being absent from the treaties in the history of colonisation, was certainly not without effect on the long history of European expansion?

Second, a better understanding of this transition period could perhaps help us to re-evaluate the role of the different variables in play in the colonial process at the end of the nineteenth century. This raises many questions. In the long term, can we see here a change in the way of looking at the economic potential of Black Africa? How did Black Africa–Europe economic relations evolve during the long century which preceded the Scramble? Did economic interests really only play a role after the beginning of the colonial process, as Brunschwig has emphasised, or were they also present beforehand? What were the real interests? Were they representative of capitalists losing momentum, grasping at monopolistic situations, or did they herald this new, more financial-style capitalism that Paul Leroy-Beaulieu described in his famous De la colonisation chez les peuples modernes. Was it economically useful for Europe to colonise Black Africa? What agreements or disagreements is it possible to emphasise between the colonialist argument, the reality of Europe/Africa trade and the progress of European influence on the ground? Could the establishment of special, economic relations with Black Africa only have been made through political domination? If not, why and how was the path to colonisation finally taken?

There are, therefore, many questions which define the problematical framework of this research. The first part is devoted to a global weighingup of the economic relations between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa as well as the role that the slave trade continued to play in these relationships until a fairly late date.

David Eltis opens the debate by indicating a whole series of major differences between the colonial period and that when economic relations between Europe and Africa revolved around slave-trading. It was not simply a break in time of nearly half a century between these two periods, there is also a difference in nature. At the time of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans were trading partners with Europeans and they freely played a decisive role in the organisation and development of trade. The demand for slaves varied from one region of Africa to another which explains why only 5.2 per cent of the slave ships for which we have sufficient information, went to trade in more than one region of Africa to stock up with slaves. Natural factors, such as the presence of deepwater anchorages, islands, rivers and breaking waves, could affect the slave trade. However, what had been advantageous in the eighteenth century (for example, islands where shelter from African attack could be negotiated) were no longer so from the moment the English sent battleships to suppress the slave trade (the islands were then directly under threat from British cannon and the trade preferred to take refuge on the mainland, particularly using the estuaries). Moreover, a site like Ouidah, with no port and difficult access, was one of the most important slave-trading sites and, although nearer Europe than all the slave-trading regions and therefore more likely to generate shorter, less costly voyages, Senegambia made only a very modest contribution to the development of the slave trade. Which all goes to show that the local, political conditions influenced the slave trade much more than the natural environment. As elsewhere in the world, trade in Africa required stability, whether assured by a powerful state or by lineage groups. The nature of the state was of no consequence, nor did it have to be transformed into a warring nation to produce slaves (because it could just as well purchase them). A detailed analysis of the organisation of the slave trade and its development within each of the main regions of Atlantic Africa, enabled us to come up with one conclusion: ‘trade thrived where African political conditions allowed it to thrive’. The slaves also played an important role through their revolts; they forced the ship-owners to take on more crew members to oversee them. This increased the cost of the trade and consequently limited the number of slaves eventually transported. Overall, Eltis contributes ‘to moving Africa towards the role of agent in shaping the direction and composition of the slave trade’. If we add that the slave trade remained important and profitable for the African powers for a long time (throughout the history of the Atlantic slave trade, nearly half of the captured slaves were transported after 1775), we can only subscribe to Eltis’ conclusion that ‘except for the very important factor of European racial attitudes, the direct connection between the slave trade era and the colonial partition of most of the African continent . . . does not appear to have been very direct’.

David Richardson’s contribution first of all completes that of Eltis. In fact, Eltis shows that, in the nineteenth century from a methodological point of view based on a regional analysis of things, four-fifths of the Atlantic slave trade were sent from only nine embarkation points. He also emphasises the need for more detailed research at local level; and it is in fact, at this level that Richardson intervenes, by analysing the evolution of credit relations between 1700 and 1891 in the two sites of the Bight of Biafra, Bonny and Old Calabar. In both cases, credit granted by Europeans (particularly by the English) in the form of an advance of goods, played an important role in the rise of the slave trade. On each occasion there was a fairly rapid conversion between slave trade and legitimate trade, always aided by European credit. The study of these two sites clearly brings out the interest in continued European influence. Richardson begins by breaking down the mechanisms at work behind the credit circuits which, in Old Calabar, evolved around the ‘institutions of human pawnship’ and in Bonny, around ‘two canoe houses’. However, in both cases, the role of the lineage groups was of primary importance. Supporting Eltis regarding the role played by African agents in the slave trade, Richardson writes that ‘each system represented an effectively adaptive use of local practices by Anglo-African trading partners in order to promote international exchange’. Despite the continuation of their illegal trade, the ban on the slave trade destabilised this system, made profits scarce, and consequently increased ‘the competition for rents’ within the local élite. At the same time, other regions of Black A...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III