Jim Devine wrote:
does anyone know of a quick source on the European colonizers' use of taxes to force African labor-power on the market? a good juicy quote from some famous imperialist would be grand.
"In the later nineteenth century, when the shortage of labour for White enterprises was becoming acute, three forms of compulsion were attempted: firstly, taxation - capitation (poll) or hearth (hut) tax - which served a dual purpose of providing revenue and forcing Blacks to earn sufficient cash to meet their obligations; secondly, so-called squatters laws to restrict the number of Africans resident on European farms; and thirdly, attempts to substitute individual tenure for communal title in the reserves. To these forms of coercion must be added the pass laws. These were not conducive to the labour mobility that hard-pressed employers were anxious to foster, but they did give those who had labour a hold on their workers. This control was strengthened by other legislative measures, such as the Masters and Servants Laws and the Native Labour Regulation Act of 1911. The best-known example of a labour tax was the annual poll tax (of 10 shillings) imposed by the Glen Grey Act of 1894 in the Cape on all African men in certain districts who were not freeholders or regular lessees or who had not served a stipulated minimum period in wage labour during the year. The labour tax was in fact ineffective and was repealed in 1905. The Act also authorised the issue of individual title deeds in the Glen Grey district near Queenstown, at least partly with the intention of forcing on to the labour market those unable to acquire and exploit individual plots efficiently. This part of its provisions, too, did not fulfil the hopes placed in it. There was no marked drift from the countryside of people deprived of access to land by the spread of individual tenure."
Peter Wickins, "An Economic History of Africa", p 21-22 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
