amin african colonization

7/29/2019 Amin African Colonization

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Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa: Historical OriginAuthor(s): Samir AminReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1972), pp. 105-120Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/423174 .

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Underdevelopmentand Dependence inBlackAfrica:HistoricalOrigin*SAMIR AMINUnited Nations African InstituteforEconomicDevelopmentand PlanningDakar, Senegal

1. ntroduction: the unity and diversity ofBlack AfricaContemporary Black Africa can be dividedinto wide regions which are clearly differentfrom one another. But it is more difficult topinpoint the differences, to study their nature,origin and effects than to see them.

The unity of Black Africa is nonetheless notwithout foundations. Beside the question of'race' - which is no more homogeneous norless mixed, since pre-historical times, than arethe other 'races' (white, yellow or red) - acommon or kindred cultural background and asocial organization which still presents strikingsimilarities, make a reality of Black Africa.The colonial conquest of almost the whole ofthis continent strengthened this feeling of unityof Black Africa. Seen from London, Paris orLisbon, Black Africa appeared to the Euro-pean observer as a homogeneous entity, just asNorth Americans have regarded Latin Ameri-ca.

From inside, however, Black Africa just asLatin America, evidently appears extremelyvariegated. The present States, which resultedfrom an artificial carving-up, do not constitutethe sole or even essential basis of this diversity.However, this recent reality left its mark onAfrica and is likely - for better or for worse- to consolidate itself. Even more of a realityare some 100 or 200 regions of varying size,crossing the frontiers of the present States. Theseregions consitute yet another aspect of thereality; they derive their definition not fromtheir geographical position alone, but also andin particular because of the homogenous nature1 - J. P. R.

of their social, cultural, economic and evenpolitical conditions.

Between these two extremes - African unityand micro-regional variety - the continent canbe divided into a few wide macro-regions. Wepropose to distinguish three such regions, andwe shall discuss the basis for such a distinc-tion.

1) Traditional West Africa (former FrenchWest Africa, Togo, Ghana, Nigeria, SierraLeone, Gambia, Liberia, Guinea Bissao), Ca-meroon, Chad and the Sudan together consti-tute a first region, Africa of the colonialeconomy (economie de traite). We shall have togive a precise definition of this concept whichunfortunately is too often treated lightly. Thisintegrated whole is clearly divisible into threesub-regions: the coastal sub-region, which iseasily accessible from the outside world andwhich constitutes the 'rich' area; the hinter-land, which mostly serves as a labour pool forthe coastal areas and as a market for indus-tries being established on the coast; and theSudan, whose particular characteristics will beexamined later.2) The traditional Congo River Basin (Con-go Kinshasa, Conge Brazzaville, Gabon andthe Central African Republic) form a secondmacro-region, Africa of the concession-owningcompanies. Here also we shall have to explainhow, over and above differences in policies ofthe French and Belgian governments and theforms these policies have taken, genuine simi-larities in the mode of colonial exploitationcharacterize the whole of the zone, justifyingits demarcation.

3) The eastern and southern parts of the


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106 SamirAmincontinent (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda,Burundi, Zambia, Malawi, Angola, Mozam-bique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and SouthAfrica) constitute the third macro-region,Africa of the labour reserves. Here also, weshall see that, apart from the varied nature ofthe countries, the region was developed on thebasis of the policy of colonial imperialism ac-cording to the principle of 'enclosure acts'which were applied to entire peoples.

Ethiopia, Somalia, Madagascar, Reunion andMauritius, like the Cape Verde Islands on theopposite side of the continent, do not formpart of these macro-regions, although here andthere one finds some aspects of one or otherof the three systems. However, they werecombined with another system which hasplayed an important part in the actual devel-opment: the slavery-mercantilist system of theCape Verde Islands, Reunion and Mauritius,the 'pseudo-feudal' systems of Ethiopia andMadagascar. Obviously, questions of frontiersbetween the regions remain: Katanga belongsto the area of labour reserves, Eritrea to that ofthe colonial trade, etc.2. Towards a definition of the periods in Afri-can historyThe proposed distinction is deliberatelybased on the effects of the last period in Afri-ca's history: that of colonization. We shall thushave to study the organization of the dialecticbetween the major colonial policies, here divid-ed into three categories, and the structures in-herited from previous periods. To do so, weshall have to go back in time and distinguishbetween four separate periods.

1) The pre-mercantilist period stretched fromthe beginnings until the 17th century. In thecourse of this long history, relations wereforged between Black Africa and the rest ofthe old world, particularly from both ends ofthe Sahara, between the Savannah countries(between Dakar and the Red Sea) and theMediterranean. Social formations emergedwhich cannot be understood if they are notplaced within the context of all the multitudeof social formations in their relationship with

one another. During that period, Africa takenas a whole does not appear as weaker than therest of the old world, also taken as whole. Theunequal development within Africa was notany worse than that north of the Sahara, onboth sides of the Mediterranean.

2) The mercantilist period stretches from the17th century to 1800. It is characterized by theslave-trade, and the first retrograde steps dateback to this period. Not only the coastal areaswere affected by this trade: its effects spreadthroughout the continent through a decline inproductive forces. There were two distinctslave-trading areas: the Atlantic trade, by farthe most harmful due to the numbers involved,which spread from the coast to the whole ofthe continent, from St Louis in Senegal toQuelimane in Mozambique; and we have theoriental trade operating from Egypt, the RedSea and Zanzibar towards the Sudan and EastAfrica. This second type of mercantilist tradecontinued after 1800 because the industrialrevolution which shook the foundations of so-ciety in Europe and North America did notreach the Turkish-Arab world.3) The third period lasted from 1800 to 1880-90. It is characterized by the attempt, at leastwith respect to certain regions within the areaof influence of Atlantic mercantilism, to set upa new form of dependence between these re-gions and that part of the world where capital-ism was firmly entrenched in industrialization.These attempts, however, had very limitedbacking and we shall see why. This period didnot affect the area of influence of orientalmercantilism.

4) The fourth period, that of colonization,completed the work of the third period in the'West', took over after oriental mercantilismin the 'East' and developed with ten-fold vig-our - the present forms of dependence of thecontinent according to the three models men-tioned above. The present throws light on thepast. The completed forms of dependence,which appeared only when Africa was actuallymade the periphery of the world capitalist sys-tem in its imperialist stage, and was developedas such, enable us to understand by compari-son the meaning of previous systems of social


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Underdevelopmentand Dependencein BlackAfricarelations and how African social formationswere linked with those of other regions of theold world with which they had contact.

2.1 The pre-nmercantilistperiod (up to the 17thcentury)Characteristic of Black Africa in this periodwere complex social formations, sometimescreated by the state, almost invariably basedon visible social differentiations which revealthe ancient nature of the process of degrada-tion of the primitive village community. Atthat time, Black Africa was not more back-ward than the rest of the world. The greatconfusion arising in discussions of traditionalAfrican society is due to at least four mainreasons: (1) the scarcity of documents andremains of the past, leaving only accounts ofArab travellers, (2) the confusion between theconcept of mode of production and the con-cept of social formation, which calls for a ba-sic differentiation, to which we shall return; (3)the confusion between the different periods ofAfrican history, particularly between the pre-mercantilist and the following mercantilist per-iods; and the justifiable concern of historiansto relate concrete history, which is continuous,thus enhacing this confusion; and (4) ideolo-gical prejudices against Africa, clearly connect-ed with colonial racism.

It is our wish to see our way clearly throughthis history, without claiming to recast its evolu-tion but with the avowed intention of pin-pointing the main differences between Africaof this period - the only true 'traditional'Africa (neither isolated nor primitive) - andthat which followed. For this purpose, we shallformulate three groups of proposals as hereun-der.1

Firstly, a society cannot be reduced to amode of production. The concept of mode ofproduction is abstract. It does not imply anyparticular order in the chain of historicalevents with respect to the entire period of thehistory of civilizations from the first differen-tiated societies to the capitalist form of society.We propose to distinguish five modes of pro-duction: (1) the primitive community mode of

production, the only possible initial one, forobvious reasons, (2) the 'tributary' mode ofproduction, which involves the persistent paral-lel existence of a village community and a so-cial and political structure which exploits theformer by exacting a tribute,2 (3) the slave-based mode of production, which is less com-mon but scattered, (4) the small-scale tradingmode of production, which is quite commonbut never likely to form the main structure ofa society, and (5) the capitalist mode of pro-duction.

We have already stressed the idea that socialformations are concrete structures, organizedand characterized by a dominant mode ofproduction which forms the apex of a complexset of subordinate modes of production. Thusit is possible to have a small-scale tradingmode of production linked to a dominant'tributary' (or early or developed feudal)mode of production based on slavery or evento a capitalist mode of production. Likewise,the mode of production based on slavery neednot be of the dominant type: this seems therule when it is related to a dominant'tributary' mode of production (or even acapitalist mode of production, as in the UnitedStates until 1865), and only in exceptionalcases does it become dominant (as in the clas-sical societies of ancient times).

Modes of production do not actually consti-tute historical categories, in the sense of occur-ring in a necessary historical sequence. On theother hand, social formations have a definiteage, reckoned on the basis of the level of devel-opment of the productive forces. This is whyit is absurd to draw any analogy between thesame mode of production belonging to soci-eties of different ages - e.g., between Africanor Roman slavery and that of 19th centuryUnited States.3

Secondly, social formations cannot be un-derstood out of their context. Sometimes therelations between different societies are mar-ginal, but often such relations are decisive. Theproblems connected with long distance tradeare thus highly important. Such trade is ob-viously not a mode of production but themethod of communication between auto-

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108 Samir Aminnomous societies.This is the essentialdifferencewith internaltrade (i.e. internal to a particularsociety). This internal trade is made up ofexchanges between dealers, such exchangesbeing characteristic of the simple tradingmode of productionor the mode of productionbased on slavery (in this case a combinationof both), which are elements of the societyin question.But internaltrade may also be anextension of long distance trade, a system bywhich the goods involved in this long-distancetrade penetrate deeply within that particularsociety.Long-distancetrade brings into contact so-cieties unknown to one another, by involvingthe exchangeof productswhere each society isunaware of the other's productioncost, 'rare'productsfor which there are no substitutesinthe importingcountry. As a result, the socialgroupsengagedin that activity enjoy a monop-oly position from which they derive theirprof-its. This monopoly often explains the 'special'nature of these groups - specialized foreigntradersbelongingto particularcastes or ethnicgroups, etc. This is a frequentcase throughouthistory (Jews in Europe, Dioula in West Afri-ca, etc.). In this trade, the subjectivetheory ofvalue - meaninglesswhen the cost of produc-tion of the goods is known to the respectivepartners n trade, as in the capitalistsystem ofexchange - still had some meaning here. (SeeAmin 1970,chap.I)

This long-distance trade could, in certainsocieties, become a decisive factor. This is thecase when the surplusthe dominantlocal clas-ses are able to extract from the producers n aparticularsociety is limited. The reason forthis restrictedsurplusmay be low developmentof the productive orcesand/or difficultecolog-ical conditions,or successful resistanceby vil-lage communitiesto extractionof this surplus.In such a case, long-distance trade enables,throughits characteristicmonopoly profit, thetransfer of a fraction of the surplus of onesociety to another. For the receiving society,this transfermay be of vital importanceandcan serve as the principalbasis of the wealthand power of the ruling classes. A civilizationmay then wholly depend on this trade, and a

shift of tradingcentrescan cause one region tofall into decline or create conditionsfor it toprosper, without bringing about either aregressionor a noticeableprogressat the levelof the productiveforces. This in our opinionisthe explanationfor the ups and downs in thehistory of the old world and the Mediterra-nean, particularlywith regard to the Greekmiracle and the prosperityand decline of theArab World.4Thirdly, the African societies of the pre-mercantile period developed autonomously,although this developmentfollowed a courseparallel to that of the Mediterraneanworld,

both Easternand European.As seen from ElKodsy 1970,the semi-aridzone whichstretchesdiagonally across the old world, from the At-lantic coast to CentralAsia, separates he threeregions which are ecologically conducive tohigh agriculturalproductivity right from theprimitive stages: 'monsoon' Asia, tropical Af-rica and the temperatezones of Europe. Thisbelt of land has seen the birth of some bril-liant civilizatons, almost all founded on long-distance trade - particularlyGreece and theArab empires,5 whose vicissitudes followed thecourseof this trade.On eitherside of this belt,autonomous societies (those of feudal Europeand some of those of tropicalAfrica, particu-larly in the Sudan-Sohel region immediatelysouth of the Sahara) have developed alongparallel lines preciselybecauseof the long-dis-tance trade which linked them all. Thus thispart of Africa is already fully intergrated,asmuchas Europe, nto the historyof the world.One finds here all the importance of thetrans-Sahara trade. This trade enabled thewhole of the Old World - Mediterranean,Arab and European - to be supplied withgold from the main source of production ofthe yellow metal until the discoveryof Ameri-ca: the UpperSenegaland Ashanti regions.Theimportance of this flow cannot be stressedenough. For the societies of tropical Africa,this trade became the basis of their organiza-tions. The mining of gold under the orders ofthe king provided the ruling classes of thecountries concerned with both the means toobtain across the Sahara rare luxury goods


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Underdevelopnzent ndDependencein BlackAfrica(cloths, drugs, perfumes, dates and salt), andthe means to establish and strengthen their so-cial and political power (horses, copper, ironbars, weapons). This trade thus encouragedsocial differentiations, the creation of Statesand Empires, just as it promoted the improve-ment of the productive forces (the improve-ment of instruments, the adaptation of tech-niques and products to suit local climatic con-ditions, etc.). In return, Africa supplied mainlygold and a few other rare products (gum andivory) and some slaves.6 It is only recentlythat Europe, for obvious political reasons, hastried to confuse this trade between equal au-tonomous partners with the devastating slavetrade of the mercantilist period: the smallnumber of black people in the southern areasof the Maghreb - a few hundred thousandmen compared with some hundred millionBlacks in America - shows the futility of thisconfusion. On the other hand, the stock ofgold built up in Europe and in the Eastthroughout the centuries, originating fromtropical Africa, clearly indicates the principalnature of this trade. After all, this is why theideas which accompanied the trade were easilyaccepted - for example, the early acceptanceof Islam in the Senegal river areas. The impor-tant volume of this trade, its egalitarian natureand the autonomous character of the Africansocieties are unambiguously described in theArab literature of the period. And, the readerwill understand the admiration expressed inaccounts of Arab travellers if he accepts thatthe development of North African societiesand those of West Africa belongs to the sametechnological age: both were very similar intheir structures, just as the place they occupiedin the world system of the time was similar.(See El Kodsy 1970.) The link between theroyal monopoly of the mining of gold and itsmarketing by Muslim traders forms the basisof the structure of these societies. These trad-ers were, as was often the case, organized in asort of caste system, and here belonged to areligious minority.For centuries, the Mediterranean societiesand those of tropical Africa were united by abond, for better or for worse. The vicissitudes

of the one had quick repercussions on the oth-ers, just as glory and wealth reached them allsimultaneously. Thus, the gradual shifting ofroutes from West to East found a parallel shiftin the civilization and the power of the nationsboth in North Africa and in the West AfricanSavannah lands (reflected in the successivemight of Ghana - Mali - HIausa cities-Bornou - Kanem - Dar Fur...). This alsoexplains why the change of centre of newly-born European mercantile capitalism from theMediterranean towards the Atlantic was tocause a crisis in Africa. This shift, studied byBraudel (1949) with his usual talent and carefor details, heralded the decline, in the 16thcentury, of the Italian towns which, since the13th century, had opened the way for an evo-lution which was to become decisive for thefuture history of mankind. Similarly we cansay that this change was to cause the downfallof both the Arab world and the Sudan-Sohelregions of Black Africa. Some ten years later,the presence of Western Europe along thecoasts of Africa was to become a reality. Theshift of centre of gravity of trade in Africa,from the Savannah hinterland to the coast wasa direct consequence of the change of centreof gravity in Europe, from the Mediterraneanto the Atlantic. But the new trade betweenEurope and Africa was not to play the samerole as that of the preceeding period sincehenceforth it was to take place under mercan-tile capitalism.

2.2. The mercantilist period (1600-1800)In L'accumulation 1 described the mercantilistperiod as that which saw the emergence of thetwo poles of the capitalist mode of production:proletarization resulting from the decline offeudal relationships, and the accumulation ofwealth in the form of money. (see ch. II, sec-tion III). When, during the industrial revolu-tion, the two poles became united, moneywealth turned into capital and the capitalistmode of production reached its completedstage. During this three-century long incuba-tion period, the American periphery of theWestern European mercantile centre played a

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110 Samir Amindecisive role in the accumulation of moneywealth by the Western European bourgeoisie.Black Africa played a no less important role:periphery of the periphery. Reduced to therole of supplier of slave labour for the planta-tions of America, Africa lost its autonomy. Itbegan to be shaped according to foreign re-quirements, those of mercantilism. Let us final-ly recall that the plantations of America re-ferred to, despite their slave-based form oforganization, do not constitute autonomoussocieties (which would be slave-based). As wehave mentioned before, the slave-based modeof production is here an element of a non-slave-based society, i.e. it is not the dominantfeature of that society. The latter ismercantilist; and the trade monopoly - whichunder its control and for its benefit sells theproducts of these plantations on the Europeanmarket, thus quickening the pace of disintegra-tion of feudal relations - was the dominantfeature of the plantation economy. The peri-pheral American society was thus an elementin the world structure whose centre of gravitywas in Western Europe.The devastating effects of the mercantilistslave trade for Africa are now better known,thanks to the works of a few historians freefrom racist colonial prejudices. We would herelike to mention one of the most recent andbrilliant works in this field: 'Le royaume deWaalo 1659-1859' by Boubacar Barry,7 fromwhich the following is drawn.

Firstly, whilst pre-mercantile trans-Saharatrade, in which the Waalo participated, hadstrengthened state centralization and stimulatedprogress in that autonomous Senegalese King-dom, the Atlantic trade which replaced it whenthe French settled in Saint-Louis (1659), didnot give rise to any productive forces. On thecontrary, it caused them to decrease andbrought about disintegration of the society andof the Waalo-Waalo state. This is why forcehad to be used by the French to cut off thetrans-Sahara links, to subjugate that region ofAfrica and later its external relations to suitthe requirements of the French trading post ofSaint-Louis. African society obviously opposedthis worsening of its situation: Islam served as

the basis for this opposition. Saint-Louis trad-ers paid with weapons for the slaves theybought. All this ruptured the former balanceof power between the king (the Brak), whomaintained a permanent army of captives un-der crown control (the Tyeddo), the council ofelders which nominated him (the Seb Ak Baor)and which had a system of prerogatives super-imposed over the lamanat (the collective clan-ownership of lands in the village communities)and the village communities themselves, basedon the lamanat. The customary dues paid bythe traders of Saint-Louis to the Brakencouraged a civil war which involved theBrak, the Tyeddo and the Kangam (leadingcitizens) and a ransacking of communities toobtain slaves. The Muslim priests (marabouts)tried to organize the resistance movement ofthese communities. Their aim was to stop theslave trade, i.e. the export of the labour force- but not to put an end to internal slavery.Henceforth, Islam changed its character: frombeing the religion of a minority group of trad-ers, it became a popular resistence movement.A first war waged by the marabouts (1673-1677) failed to convert the people of the'Fleuve' region and to stop the slave trade. Acentury later in 1776 the Toorodo revolution inToucouleur country overthrew the military ar-istocracy and put a stop to the slave trade. Butin the Waalo Kingdom, being too near toSaint-Louis, the attempt by prophet Diile in1830 failed in the face of French military in-tervention in support of the Brak.

Secondly, the Waalo case is of special inter-est because the slave trade took place parallelto the gum trade. However, the latter did nothave the same effects on African society. Theexport of goods (instead of labour power) doesnot necessarily have a devastating effect andmay, on the contrary, lead to progress. Thistype of export is not characteristic of the mer-cantilist period for Africa as a whole whichalmost exclusively supplied slaves. But hereexceptionally it played an equally importantrole, because the slaves (like Galam gold)mainly followed the road to Gambia. How-ever, gum was supplied by the Waalo but alsoby the Trarza Moors in particular. The latter


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Underdevelopmnentnd Dependencein BlackAfricacould export it either via Saint Louis to theFrench alone or via Portendick which wasopen to competition between the English andthe Dutch. To cut off the Portendick route,the French helped the Trarza to settle in theFleuve region and to cross it during the GumWar (first quarter of the 18th century). Suchcircumstances thus introduced into the region acertain contradiction of secondary importancebetween the Waalo and the Trarza. It is con-tradiction which explains the failure of the warof the Muslim priests (marabouts) of the 17thcentury, led simultaneously by those mara-bouts who were hostile to the slave trade andby the Moors who put increasing pressure onthe Waalo in order to monopolize the gumtrade.

The mercantilist slave trade had similardevastating effects wherever in Africa it tookplace. From Saint-Louis to Quelimane, alongthe coast, it affected almost the entire continentexcept the north-eastern area (Sudan, Ethiopia,Somalia and East Africa). The similarity be-tween the Waalo history and that of the Con-go Kingdom should be recalled.8 Here theslave trade also brought about the disintegra-tion of the central authority and led to an-archy which opened the way for the Yagaraids. Such examples abound. Everywhere onthe continent there were anarchy and wars, theflight of peoples towards shelter regions whichwere difficult to reach but also very oftenpoor (such as the shelter zones of the paleo-negritic peoples in the over-populated moun-tains of West Africa). It all ended with analarming decrease in the population numbers.The processes of integration of the peoples andof the construction of large communities whichbegan in the pre-mercantilist period werestopped. Instead there took place an incrediblefragmentation, isolation and tangling which lieat the root of one of the most serious handi-caps of contemporary Africa.We feel it necessary to conclude this discus-sion with the question of the Eastern mercan-tilist period. We have hesitated to define inthis way the relations of the Eastern World(Egyptian and Arab) with Africa of the Nileand the eastern coast (Red Sea and Indian

Ocean as far as Mozambique). Neither theOttoman Empire nor Egypt under MohamedAli, and still less the South Arabian Sultanates,were mercantilist societies similar to those ofEurope from the Renaissance to the industrialrevolution. The distintegration of precapitalistrelations which is the necessary condition forthe formation of a proletariat, is almost non-existent. This was the obstacle which Mo-hamed Ali attempted to overcome by settingup an entirely new state apparatus. We do notpropose to study this here, but are simplytrying to bring out the main trends of the evo-lution of the Sudan which Mohamed Ali wasto conquer in the second half of the 19th cen-tury.9 It was during the pre-mercantilist periodthat two Sultanates were constituted in theSudan based on long-distance trade (withEgypt and the East): the Sultanate of Dar Fur,still powerful at the time of the Egyptian con-quest; and the Sultanate of Fung, between thetwo Niles, weakened through the wars wagedby Ethiopia. Mohammed Ali's aim was simple:by looting the Sudan, obtain gold, slaves, anda few products (ivory in particular) which hecould export in order to intensify the industri-alization of Egypt. That was a process of pri-mitive accumulation similar to that of themercantilist period in Europe. This is the rea-son for speaking of eastern mercantilism. Withthe exception that the industrial revolution hadalready occurred and was known to the Pashaof Egypt, the pre-mercantilist period and thatof full industrial capitalism were mixed up inan attempt to industrialize Egypt by raising thefinance through state taxation of the peasants,the monopoly of foreign trade and, when pos-sible, the looting of the colonies.

Up to 1850, it was the Egyptian army itselfwhich hunted for slaves and robbed the Sudanof its products. After that date, the army leftthe job to Sudanese nomad tribes (particularlythe Baqqara) who sold the slaves they seized toTurkish, Copt, Syrian and European merchantsestablished under the aegis of the Khedive.These operations quickly entailed changes inthe social organization of the nomads con-cerned: the clan organization was succeeded by'nomad feudalism' - para-statal, founded on

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112 Samir Amina territorial basis, and dominated by warriornobles. In the conquered zones of secondaryagriculture, the Egyptian army destroyed theold chiefdoms and subjected the villagers to atax in kind (livestock and grain) for the pur-pose of feeding the administration and thearmy of the conquerors. Sheikhs were createdby the Egyptians and made responsible fortax-collecting; they rapidly became rich by thismeans. Moreover, the best lands were takenfrom the communities and given to the Egyp-tian beys and to some of these Sudanesesheikhs. Peasants were taken from their vil-lages and attached to these lands - as half-slaves and half-serfs - the farming of whichwent to swell the Egyptian Treasury. The peas-ants, hunted by the nomads and impoverishedby the sheikhs, flocked to the market townsestablished by the army at crossroads and onthe borders of the slave-raiding area. A craftindustry distinct from agriculture grew up,while on the farms given to the beys andsheikhs, Egyptian farming methods, where theproductivity was higher, were introduced. By1870 a money tax, feasible as a result of theincreased marketed surplus, replaced the tax inkind. The country was becoming unified, Is-lamized and Arabized.

The Malidist revolt (1881-1898) was arevolt of the people oppressed by that system:the people of the village communities, theslave-peasants of the estates and the craftsmen,slaves and beggars of the market-towns. Thesuccessful revolt drove out the Egyptian army,the beys and the sheikhs. But after the Malidi'sdeath, the state, organized under the CaliphAbdullah, changed its structure. The militaryleaders of the revolt, whose origins were in thepeople, and the Baqqara warrior chiefs whojoined it, reorganized to their advantage aState similar to that of the Egyptians; theyseized the estates and levied taxes on their ownaccount. True, the Malidist State prohibitedthe export of slaves, which had in fact largelylost its original importance because that labourforce was now being used on the spot. But theMalidist state intended to continue exploitingthe masses to its advantage and, for that pur-pose, destroyed the popular elements surround-

ing the Malidi's family. The prophet familywas imprisoned and 13 of the people's militaryleaders executed. Furthermore, the Malidiststate resumed the export of slaves, but thistime for its own benefit: the Caliph Abdullahorganized slave raiding among the neighbour-ing peoples foreign to this state - the UpperNile, Darfur and Ethiopia; he kept a largenumber of them to strengthen his army andhis economy but he authorized the merchants- now Sudanese - to export some of them.The Caliph's army, which had lost the popu-larity which made up its strength at the timeof the revolt, did not resist the British colonialexpedition at the end of the century.The slave trade organized from Zanzibar10in the 19th century certainly falls within amercantilist framework. For centuries, Arabtrade on the coast was carried out in a pre-mercantilist context, which brought these re-gions of Black Africa into contact with India.the Indian archipelago and even China. Hereproducts were more important than slaves, asevident from the very small black populationof southern Arabia and the countries border-ing on the Indian Ocean. There would seem tobe one exception, at the time when the AbassidCaliphate was organizing sugar-cane planta-tions in Lower Iraq for which he importedblack slaves. This short chapter ended with theslave revolt (the Qarmat revolt). In the 19thcentury, the slave trade suddenly became muchmore intense. There were in fact two newmarkets for it. First there was Reunion Islandwhich was supplied in this way (the slavesbeing disguised as contract labour since theBritish had abolished the slave trade). Thenthere was the island of Zanzibar itself. In 1840the Sultan had transferred his capital fromOman to Zanzibar, where he gradually es-tablished a slave plantation economy produc-ing the cloves for which European trade nowoffered a market.

Zanzibar, hitherto a trading post, became aplantation on a model similar to that of theWest Indies, Reunion or Mauritius: Arab WestIndies. Thus we once again see, in this case ofthe slave trade from Zanzibar, that integrationinto the world capitalist system is responsible


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Underdevelopmen andDependencein BlackAfricafor a devastating slave trade which has no re-semblance to the long-distance trade of thepre-capitalist period.2.3 Integration into the full capitalist system:the 19th centuryThe slave trade disappeared with the end ofmercantilism, i.e. essentially with the advent ofthe industrial revolution. Capitalism in the cen-tre then took on its complete form; the func-tion of mercantilism - the primitive accumula-tion of wealth - lost its importance, the centreof gravity shifted from the merchant sector tothe new industry. The old periphery - Ameri-ca of the plantations - and its periphery -Africa of the slave trade - had to give way toa new periphery. The function of the new peri-phery was to provide products which wouldtend to reduce the value of constant capitaland that of variable capital used at the centre:raw materials and agricultural produce. Theterms which made advantageous the exchangesupplying the centre with these products are theprecisely terms revealed by the theory of un-equal exchange. (See Amin 1970)However, until the end of the 19th centurycentral capital had only very limited means ofachieving that goal. Only when monopolizationappeared at the centre did large-scale exportsof capital become possible; henceforth centralcapital had the means of organizing directly inthe periphery, by modern methods, the produc-tion which suited it, under conditions whichsuited it. Until then it could only rely on theability of local social formations to adjust'spontaneously', 'by themselves', to the newrequirements of the system. America could doit; in India the British colonial power couldimpose it as did the Dutch in Indonesia; incertain Eastern countries (Ottoman Empireand Egypt) the joint efforts of 'spontaneousinternal adjustment' and external pressureproduced some results. This is not the place totrace that history. Even in tropical Africasome results were obtained which were exclu-sively due to the internal adjustment of theAfrican societies. There exist a number ofstudies which are highly informative on themechanism of this adjustment.

The research work of Boubacar Barry is oneof these. Here again we refer the reader to thisexciting book. The project of establishing acolonial agricultural settlement in the Waaloregion, making it plantation country (for cot-ton, sugar cane, tobacco etc.), first formulatedat the end of the 18th century by the BritishGovernor of Saint-Louis, was put on the agen-da during the Revolution and the Empire as aconsequence of the Santo Domingo slaverevolt. When the Waalo was 'bought' in 1819by Governor Schmaltz, the experiment began.Barry analyses its failure. The first cause offailure was the resistance of the village com-munities to their dispossession in favour ofEuropean planters, which had been agreed toby the aristocracy in return for extra'customary' benefits. The second cause wasthe lack of manpower, since there was no rea-son why the peasants should leave their com-munities and become proletarians on the plan-tations. The Brak provided some workerswhich to all intents and purposes were slaves:long-term recruits (engages a temps). But thesettlement colonization could only use'tinkering' methods. It was not until the colo-nial conquest that ample resources opened theway for proletarianization: taxation, pure andsimple dispossession, forced labour - in short,all the methods used in Africa after 1880, verysimilar to those used earlier by the British inIndia, the Dutch in Indonesia, the French inAlgeria and the Egyptians in the Sudan. Thefact remains that the Waalo agricultural settle-ment ended in failure in 1831. But the attempthad accentuated the people's hatred of its aris-tocracy and prepared for its conversion to Is-lam: outside the official authority, Muslimcommunities organized themselves defensivelyaround the Serigne to whom they paid tithes.When Faidherbe conquered the Waalo between1855 and 1859 with the intention of starting upthe agricultural settlement again and procuringfor French industry the cotton which it need-ed, the vanquished aristocracy embraced Islam.A new chapter opened, and we shall see laterhow the new production came to be organizedin accordance with the requirements of thecentre. Thus Islam changed its structure a sec-

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114 SamirAminond time: instead of being a resistanceideolo-gy it was to become a powerful means of inte-gratingthe new peripheryand subordinatingtto the projectof the centre.Other African societies made an effort toadjust themselves to this project even beforethey were conquered. Walter Rodney (1966)points out that throughoutthe Benin coast theslaves who were still raided but who could nolongerbe exploitedwere put to workinsidethesociety to produce the export products whichEurope demanded.CatherineCoquery (1971a)has analysed in these terms the prodigiousdevelopmentof Dahomean palm groves. On-wuka Dike (1965) shows how the Ibo society,which was unable to have recourse to slaves,neverthelessadapted itself for the productionof export palm oil. Here again many moreexamplescould be cited.The constitution and subsequentdestructionof Samory's empire reveals another aspect ofintegration mechanisms.11The collection ofexport products and the conveying of importsreceived in exchange,strengthened he positionof the Dioula Moslems, a minority inheritedfrom the remote days of pre-mercantilism.With the 'dioula revolution'they were able toset up a state which they controlled. But thislate episode occurredjust at the beginningofthe colonial period. The state of Samory hadscarcelybeen founded when it had to face theconquerors. The latter were to destroy thatstate, reorganizethe channels of trade in thedirection which suited them and reduce theDioula to the subordinate unctionsof colonialtrade.

2.4 Integration into the full capitalist system:colonizationThe partitioningof the continent, completeby the end of the 19th century,multipledthemeans availableto the colonialiststo attainthetarget of capitalat the centre. This targetwasthe same everywhere: o obtain cheap exports.But to achieve this, capitalat the centre whichhad now reached the monopoly stage couldorganizeproductionon the spot and there ex-ploit both the natural resources (by wasting

them or stealing them, i.e. paying a price forthem which did not enablealternativeactivitiesto replace them when they were exhausted)12and cheap labour. Moreover, through directand brutal political dominationit could limitthe incidental expenses of maintaininglocalsocial classes as conveyor-beltsl3and coulduse directpoliticalmethods of coercion.However, althoughthe targetswas the sameeverywhere,we can see that different variantsof the system of colonial exploitation weredeveloped.These variantsdid not depend- ordepended only slightly- on the nationalityofthe colonizer. The contrast between directFrench rule and indirect British rule, so fre-quent in the literature, s not very noticeable nAfrica. It is true that a few differencesare at-tributableto the nationality of the masters.British capital, being richer and more devel-oped and havingadditionallyacquiredthe' bestpieces', carried out an earlier and more thor-ough developmentthan French capital.'4Bel-gium, as smallpower whichhad been forced tocome to terms with the great powers and hadto accept the competitionof foreign goods inits Congo, did not have the direct colonialmonopolies which France used and abused toits advantage. Portugal similarly agreed toshare its colonies with major Anglo-Americancapital.3. The macro-regions of Africa in the colonialperiod3.1 In the region which we have calledAfrica of the labour reserves15 (l'Afrique desreserves),capital at the centre neededto have alarge proletariat immediately available. Thiswas because there was great mineralwealth tobe exploited (gold and diamondsin South Af-rica, copper in Northern Rhodesia) or an un-typical settler agriculture in tropical Africa(old Boer colonization in South Africa, newBritish settlement of Southern Rhodesia and,in the extreme north of the region, of Kenyawhich until 1919 was separated from thesouthern part of 'labour reserve Africa' byGerman Tanganyika).To obtain this proletar-iat quickly, the colonizers dispossessed he Af-rican rural communitiesby violence and drove


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UnderdevelopmentandDependencein BlackAfricathem back deliberately nto small regions.Fur-thermore,they kept them in these poor regionswith no means of modernizingand intensifyingtheir farming. Thereby they forced the'traditional'society to be a supplierof tempo-rary or permanentmigrants on a vast scale,thus providing a cheap proletariat for themines, the Europeanfarms, and later for themanufacturing industries of South Africa,Rhodesia and Kenya. Henceforth we can nolonger speak of a traditional society in thatregion of the continent, since the labour re-serve society had a functionwhich had nothingto do with 'tradition': that of supplying amigrantproletariat.The African social forma-tions of this region,distoredand impoverished,lost even the semblance of autonomy: theunhappyAfrica of the Bantustansand apart-heid was born: it was to supplythe greatestre-turn to central capital.The 'economistic' deo-logical mythology of the 'laws of the labourmarket' under these circumstances, ormulatedby Arthur Lewis, has been subjectedto merci-less criticism in which Giovanni Arrighi re-stored political violence to its true place. (SeeLewis 1954; Arrigni 1968)

Until very recently there was no knownlarge-scalemineralwealth in West Africa like-ly to attract foreign capital,nor was there anysettler colonization. On the other hand theslave trade, very active on that coast, hadgiven rise to and developed complex socialstructureswhich we have analysed above. Thecolonial powers were thus able to shape astructure which made possible the large-scaleproductionof tropicalagriculturalproductsforexport under the terms necessary to interestcentral capital in them, i.e. provided that thereturnsto labour they involved were so smallthat these productscost less than any possiblesubstitutesproduced n the centre tself.3.2 The total of these procedures and thestructures to which they gave rise constitutedthe colonial-type trade (economie de traite).'6These procedures were, as always, as muchpolitical as economic. The main procedureswere: (1) the organizationof a dominanttrademonopoly, that of colonial import-exporthouses, and the pyramidalshape of the trade

network they dominated, in which the Le-banese occupied the intermediatezones, andthe former African traders were crushed andhad to occupy subordinatepositions; (2) thetaxation of peasants in money which forcedthem to producewhat the monopolistsofferedto buy; (3) political supportto the social strataand classes which were allowed to appropriatede facto some of the tribal lands and the or-ganizationof internalmigrationsfrom regionswhich were deliberately eft in their poverty soas to be used as labour reserves in the planta-tion zones; (4) political alliance with socialgroups which, in the theocratic frameworkofthe Muslim brotherhoods(confreries)were in-terested in commercializing the tribute theylevied on the peasantry;and (5) when the fore-going procedures proved ineffective, recoursepure and simple to administrativecoercion:forced labour. Under these circumstancesthetraditionalsociety was distorted to the point ofbeing unrecognizable: t lost its autonomy, itsmain function was to produce for the worldmarket under conditions which, because theyimpoverished t, deprived t of any prospect ofradical modernization.This 'traditional'socie-ty was not, therefore, in transition (to'modernity'): t was completedas a dependentsociety, a peripheral one, and hence a deadend. It therefore retained certain traditionalappearanceswhich constituted its only meansof survival. The colonial-type trade covered allthe subordination-domination relationshipsbetween this pseudo-traditionalsociety inte-grated into the world system and the centralcapitalist society which shaped and dominatedit. Since it has too often been made common-place, the concept of 'economie de traite' hasbeen reduced to a mere description: the ex-changeof agriculturalproducts againstimport-ed manufactured goods.'7 Yet the concept ismuch richer: it describes analytically the ex-change of agricultural commodities providedby a peripheral society shaped in this wayagainst the products of a central capitalist in-dustry (imported or produced on the spot byEuropeanenterprises).

The results of the colonial-type tradehave varied according to different regions of

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116 SamirAminthis 'Afrique de la traite'. To give honourwhere honour is due: it was British capitalwhich initiated a perfectly consistent formula-tion of aims and procedures.When, at the be-ginning of colonization,Lever Brothersaskedthe Governor of the Gold Coast to grantconcessions which would enable it to developmodern plantations,the latter refused because'it was unnecessary'.It would be enough, heexplained, to help the 'traditional'chiefs toappropriate he best lands so that these exportproducts could be obtained without extra in-vestmentcosts. Lever then approached he Bel-gians and obtained concessions in the Congo,we shall see why later.We have analysed (in Amin 1970, pp. 347-48) the conditions for the success of the'economie de traite'. These are: (1) an 'op-timum'degreeof hierarchization f 'traditional'society, which exactly corresponded o that ofthe zones formed by the slave trade; (2) an'optimum' population density in the ruralareas - 10 to 30 inhabitatsper square kilo-metre; (3) the possibility of starting the pro-cess of proletarizationby calling upon immi-grants foreign to the ethnic groups of theplantationzone; (4) the choice of 'rich' cropsprovidinga sufficient surplusper hectare andper worker at the very first stage of theirdevelopment;and (5) support of the politicalauthorityandmakingavailableto the privilegedminoritysuch resources politicaland economic,especially agriculturalcredit) as would makepossible the appropriationand development ofthe plantations.The complete model of the 'economie detraite' was achieved in the Gold Coast andGermanTogoland by the end of the 19th cen-tury, and was reproduced much later inFrench West Africa and French EquatorialAfrica. We have explained that this lateness,which reflected that of French capitalism,wasattributable to the attempts at quasi-settlercolonization even under unfavourablecondi-tions (French Planters in Ivory Coast and inEquatorial Africa..) and the correspondingmaintenanceof forced labouruntil the modernperiod, after World War II. (Amin 1971)The 'economie de traite' took two main

forms. Kulakization,i.e. the constitutionof aclass of indigenousplantersof ruralorigin, thevirtuallyexclusiveappropriation f the land bythese planters, and the employment of paidlabour, was the dominant form in the Gulf ofGuinea, where conditions enabledcolonial-typetradingto develop. On the other hand, in thesavanna,from SenegalthroughNorthernNige-ria to Sudan, the Muslim brotherhoodspermit-ted another type of colonial trading: the or-ganization of productionand export (ground-nuts and cotton) in the context of vast areassubject to a theocraticpolitical power - thatof the Mourid brotherhoodsof Senegal, the'Sudanates' of Nigeria and Ausar andAshiqqa in the Sudan - which kept the formof a tribute-payingsocial formation, but wasintegrated nto the international ystembecausethe surplusappropriatedn the form of tributelevied on the village communities was itselfmarketed.It was the Egyptian colonizationinSudan which createdthe most advancedcondi-tions for the developmentof this type of or-ganization, which in that country tended to-wards a latifundum system pure and simple.The British merely plucked the fruits of thisevolution. The new latifundia-owners,who af-ter 1898 accepted the colonial administration.had cotton grown for the benefit of Britishindustry. Powerful modern techniques (large-scale irrigation n the Gezira)were made avail-able to them. But the 'second transformationof Islam' in West Africa after the colonialconquest,opened the way to the same kind ofevolution, although less definite and slower.We have alreadyseen that Islam in this regionunderwenta first transformation: rom beingthe religion of a minority caste of merchantsin the pre-mercantilistperiod integrated intoan animist society (hencesimilarto Judaism nEurope),it becamethe ideology of popularre-sistance to the slave trade in the mercantilistperiod. This second transformationmade Is-lam, 'restored'by the aristocracyand the co-lonial authorities, nto the guiding ideology ofpeasant leaders for the organization of theexport productionwhich the colonizersdesired.The Mourid phenomenonof Senegal is proba-bly the most striking example of this second


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Underdevelopmnentnd Dependencein BlackAfricatransformation. That the founders of thebrotherhood and some short-sighted colonialadministrators felt - for a time - hostile toeach other does not matter. Ultimately thebrotherhood proved to be the most importantvector for the expansion of the groundnuteconomy and the submission of the peasants tothe goal of this economy: to produce a largeamount and to accept very low, stagnatingwages despite progress in productivity.To organize the 'economie de traite' it wasnecessary to destroy the pre-colonial trade andto reorganize the flows in the direction re-quired by the externally-oriented nature of theeconomy. For there had been, before the con-quest, regional complementarities with a broadnatural bases (forest-savanna), strengthened bythe history of the relations between the WestAfrican societies. The domestic trade in kolaand salt, trade between herdsmen and cropfarmers, the outflow of exports and the dis-semination of imports - all this constituted adense and integrated network, dominated byAfrican traders. The colonial trading houseshad to gain control of these flows and directthem all towards the coast; that was why thecolonial system destroyed African domestictrade and then reduced the African traders tothe role of subordinate primary collectors,when it did not simply eliminate them. Thedestruction of the trade of Samory, like that ofthe people of mixed blood in Saint-Louis,Goree and Freetown, that of the Hausa andAshanti of Salaga and that of the Ibo of theNiger delta, bears witness to this other devas-tating socio-economic effect of the 'economiede traite'.'8

Thus at regional level, the colonial tradenecessarily gave rise to a polarization of de-pendent peripheral development. The necessarycorollary of the 'wealth' of the coast was theimpoverishment of the hinterland. Africa, pre-disposed by geography and history to a conti-nental development, organized around themajor inland river arteries (thus providing fortransport, irrigation, electric power, etc.) wascondemned to be 'developed' only in its nar-row coastal zone. The exclusive allocation ofresources to the latter zone, a planned policy

of colonial trade, accentuated the regionalimbalance. The mass emigration from the hin-terland to the coast formed part of the logic ofthe system: it made (cheap) labour available tocapital where capital required it, and it is only'the ideology of universal harmony' whichsees in these migrations anything other thanmigrations which impoverish the departurezones.l'9 The culmination of the colonial tradesystem was balkanization, in which the'recipient' micro-regions had no 'interest' in'sharing' the crumbs of the colonial cake withtheir labour reserves.3.3. Thus the bounties of the colonial tradewere highly relative. However, it was impossi-ble to implement this system in Central Africa,the third macro-region of the continent. Here,ecological conditions had to some extent pro-tected the peoples who took refuge from theravages of the slave trade fleeing into zonesunlikely to be penetrated from the coast. Thelow population density and the lack of suffi-cient hierarchization made the colonial-trademodel non-viable. Discouraged, the colonialauthorities gave the country to any adventurerswho would agree to try to 'get something outof it' without resources - since adventuredoes not attract capital. The misdeeds of theconcessionary companies who, between 1890and 1930, ravaged French Equatorial Africawith no result except a trivial profit, and thoseof Leopold's policy in the Congo, have beenduly denounced.20 So, in the Belgian Congo itwas only after World War I when the solutionwas adopted of having industrial plantationsestablished directly by the major capitalists (itwill be remembered that Lever, which was notpermitted to establish itself in the Gold Coast,was welcomed by the Belgians) that a small-scale 'economie de traite' infiltrated as an ex-tension of the plantation zones belonging toforeign capital. As for French Equatorial Afri-ca, it had to wait until the fifties before seeingthe first symptoms of the 'economie de traite'.Thus the (negative) impact of the period ofconcessionary companies, which is still omni-present, justifies the name of Africa of theconcessionary companies which we give to theregion.

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118 SamirAminIn all three cases, then, the colonial system

organized the society so that it produced onthe best possible terms, from the viewpoint ofthe mother country, exports which providedonly a very low and stagnating return to la-bour. This goal having been achieved, it mustnow be analysed in theoretical terms.21 Forthe present discussion, we have to concludethat there are no traditional societies in mod-ern Africa: there are only dependent peripher-al societies.

REFERENCESAfana, 0. 1966: L'economie de l'Ouest Africain.Paris.Amin, S. 1957: Le developpment du capitalismeen Cote d'lvoire. Paris.Amin, S. 1968: Le developpmentdu capitalismeenAfrique Noire, En partantdu capital.Anthropos,Paris.Amin, S. 1970: L'accumulationc l'echelle mon-diale. Anthropos-IFAN.Amin, S. 1971a: L'Afrique de l'Ouest bloquee.Paris.Amin, S. 1971b: La politique coloniale francaise

i l'egard de la bourgeoisie commercante Sene-galaise, in Meillassoux (ed): The development ofindigenous trade and markets in West Africa.Oxford.Amin, S. 1971c: Le modele theoriquede l'accumu-lation dans le monde contemporain, centre etperipherie. (Also in English) Mimeograph,IDEP,Dakar.Amin, S. & C. Coquery 1969:Histoire economiquedu Congo 1880-1968. IFAN-Anthropos.Arrighi, G. 1968: The political economy of Rho-desia. Mouton.Ballandier, G. 1965: La vie quotidieune au roy-aume du Congo du XVI au XVIlIe siecle. Paris.Barry, B. 1971: Le royaume de Waalo, 1659-1859.Thesis, Paris.Berg, E. J. 1965: The economics of the migrantlabor system, in Kuper, H. (ed): Urbanizationand migration in West Africa. Univ. of Cali-fornia.Bevill, E. 1933: Caravans of the old Sahara.London.Braudel, F. 1949: La Mediterranee et le mondemediterraneanc l'epoque de Philippe II. ArmandColin, Paris.Canale, S. 1960: L'Afrique Noire, l'ere coloniale.Paris.Coquery, C. 1969: Recherches sur un mode deproduction africain, La Pensee, April 1969.Coquery, C. 197 a: De la traite des esclaves A

l'exportationde l'huile de palme et des palmistesaux Dahomey, XIXe siecle, in Meillassoux (ed):The development of indigenous trade and mar-kets in West Africa. Oxford.Coquery, C. 1971b: Le Congo francais au tempsdes compagnies consessionaires 1890-1930. Thesis, Paris.Dike, K. Onwuka 1956: Trade and politics in theNiger Delta 1830-1885.Oxford.El Kodsy, A. 1970: Nationalismand class strugglesin the Arab world, Monthly Review July-August1970.Gray, R. 1961: The two nations. Oxford.Hill, R. 1959: Egypt in the Sudan 1820-1881.London.Holt, P. M. 1958. The Malidist State in the Sudan188I-1898. Oxford.Horwvitz,R. 1967: The political economy of SouthAfrica. London.Lewis, A. 1954: Economic development with un-limited supplies of labour. The ManchesterSchool.Merlier, R. 1965: Le Congo, de la colonisationbelge a l'independance.Paris.Pelletier, A. & J.-J. Goblot 1969: Materialismehistorique et histoire des civilisations. Paris.Person, J. Y. 1970: Samori.IFAN.Ranger, T. 0. (ed.) 1968: Aspects of CentralAfri-can history,Heinemann,London.Rodney, W. 1966: African slavery and otherforms of social oppressionson the Upper GuineaCoast in the context of the Atlantic slave trade,Journ. African History No. 3 1966.Silva, Hector M. 1971: The economic formation:notes on the problem of its definition. Mimeo-graph, IDEP.Szereszewski, R. 1965: Structuralchanges in theeconomy of Ghana 1891-1911. London.Thion, S. 1969:Le pouvoir pole. Paris.Trimingham, J. S. 1949: Islam in the Sudan.Oxford.Vansina, J. 1962: Long distance trade routes inCentral Africa. Journ. AfricanHistory.Vansina, J. 1963: Notes sur l'origine du royaumede Kongo, Journ.AfricanHistory.Vansina, J. 1967: Introduction a l'ethnographiedu Congo. Brussels.

NOTES* Revised and translated version of a workingdocument originally preparedfor the UN AfricanInstitute for Economic Development and Planning,Dakar, Senegal.

1 For further details see Amin 1970, esp. pp. 31,165-68, and 341-72. See also Amin 1968 and Amin1971b; see also recorded in the latter book ourfurther development of the subject in the dis-cussion of the theme of the Freetown colloquium.


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Underdevelopmentand Dependencein BlackAfrica2 This mode of production is the most commonone found in the formation of the pre-capitalistclasses; we here distinguish between (1) the earlyforms and (2) the forms which have evolved like

the feudal mode of production (by which thevillage community loses the right of ownership ofthe land to the feudal masters, the communityretaininga family one).3 This idea of the cumulative nature of techno-logical progress and the importance of the age ofthe social formation in assessing the significanceof a mode of production which belongs to it isstressed by Hector Silva Michelina 1971.4 Coquery 1969 rightly emphasizes the decisiverole which long-distance trade played in the con-stitution of some African formations; El Kodsy1970 does the same for the Arab world. Pelletier& Goblot 1969suggestit for Greece.5 Except for Egypt and Mesopotamia (see ElKody 1970); hence the frequent mistake ofspeaking of 'Arab feudalism', criticized by Kodsy.6 This role, and the nature of this trade, werehighlighted for the first time by Bevill 1933.7 Barry 1971, mimeographed. The qualities ofthis research, both in rigorous method and inpresentation, make it superfluous to 'summarizethis history, for which we refer the reader to thework concerned.8 See, inter alia, Varisina 1967, 1962, and 1963,Ballandier1965;and Ranger 1968.9 See, inter alia, Hill 1959; Holt 1958; andTrimingham1949.10 See, inter alia, Oliver & Mathew 1963, esp.Vol. I, Ch. IV, V and VII.11 Person 1970; the expression 'dioula revolu-tion' is from Person.12 This problem of the looting of naturalresources is beginning to be studied with thepresent-day awareness of 'environment problems'(although the term is ambiguous). See Amin 1970,postscript to the second edition, pp. 594-95.13 Hence the late development in Africa of theperipheral model of industrialization by importsubstitution. It was not until independence thatthe local elites who took over from the colonialadministration constituted the first element of adomestic marked for 'luxury goods' according tothe interlinkage relationships which we discusslater on (The theoretical model of accumulationin the modern world, center and periphery: Amin1971c). Hence also the markedly bureaucraticnature of the privileged classes'.14 Thus the structuresset up in the Gold Coastin 1890, which have characterized Ghana up tothe present day (Szereszewski 1965), made theirappearance in the Ivory Coast only from 1950,after the abolition of forced labour (Amin 1967).15 See Horwitz 1967; Gray 1961; Thion 1969;and above all Arrighi 1968.16 We have analyzed this colonial trade (Amin

1971a). See also Szereszewski 1965; Amin 1967;Afana 1966; and Vauhaeverbeke1970.17 As Canale does (Canale 1960), in the chapteron the 'economie de traite'.18 See my contribution to the discussion of thisproblem in Amin 197b.19 Berg 1965 reflects better than anyone elsethis non-scientific ideology. The conventionalapproach which it develops assumes that migra-tions 'redistribute' one factor of production(labour) which originally was unequally distrib-uted. If that were so, migrations would tend toequalize the growth rates of the economies of thevarious regions. But we can see that they areeverywhere accompanied by a growing disparitybetween rates of growth: the acceleration of (percapita) growth in the immigration zones and its

reduction in the emigrationzones.20 Coquery 1971b; Merlier 1965; Amin &Coquery 1969.21 See Amin 1971c for a further discussion.SUMMARYKeeping in mind the variety of social, culturaland economic conditions distinguishing AfricanSocieties, the author divides the continent intothree macro-regions: (1) Africa of the colo-nial economy (enlarged West Africa) (2) Africa ofthe concession companies (Congo Basin) (3)Africa of the labor reserves (East and SouthAfrica).The dialectics between colonial policies andsocial formations and modes of production in-ternal to the regions are seen as a major deter-minant in shaping the history of underdevelop-ment in Black Africa.On this basis, four historical periods are ana-lyzed: (1) The pre-mercantilist period (2) Themercantilist period (3) The preparatory phase forcolonization (4) The colonization period.Concluding the discussion of the colonizationperiod, the author points to the necessity ofviewing African socities as dependent, peripheralones, shaped according to the needs of dominant,capitalist societies.

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