The plantation paradigm: Colonial agronomy, African farmers, and the global cocoa boom, 1870s-1940s

Journal of Global History

Volumn 9, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 49-71

  Ross, Corey ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

agriculture; cocoa; environment; knowledge; plantation

Indexed keywords

EID: 84894160815     PISSN: 17400228     EISSN: 17400236     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1740022813000491     Document Type: Review

References (114)

1. The essential study is François Ruf, Booms et crises du cacao: les vertiges de l'or brun, Paris: Karthala, 1995.
2. See, generally, Philip D. Curtin, The rise and fall of the plantation complex: essays in Atlantic history, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
3. On cocoa specifically, see William Gervase Clarence-Smith, Cocoa and chocolate, 1765-1914, London: Routledge, 2000;
4. Basingstoke: Macmillan
5. Christophe Bonneuil, eds., Nature et environnement, Paris: Orstom É ditions, 1995;
6. Christophe Bonneuil, Des savants pour l'empire: la structuration des recherches scientifiques coloniales au temps de 'la mise en valeur des colonies françaises' 1917-1945, Paris: ORSTOM, 1991;
7. Michael A. Osborne, Nature, the exotic, and the science of French colonialism, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994;
8. Harro Maat, Science cultivating practice: a history of agricultural science in the Netherlands and its colonies 1863-1986, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001;
9. Stuart McCook, States of nature: science, agriculture, and environment in the Spanish Caribbean, 1760-1940, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002;
10. Detlef Bald and Gerhild Bald, Das Forschungsinstitut Amani: Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft in der deutschen Kolonialpolitik Ostafrika 1900-1918, Munich: IFO, 1972;
11. Michael Worboys, 'Science and British colonial imperialism, 1895-1940', PhD thesis, University of Sussex, 1979;
12. G. B. Masefield, A history of the colonial agricultural service, Oxford: Clarendon, 1972.
13. Daniel Headrick, The tools of empire: technology and European imperialism in the nineteenth century, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981;
14. idem, The tentacles of progress: technology transfer in the age of imperialism, 1850-1940, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 209-58;
15. J. H. Drabble, Rubber in Malaya, 1876-1922: the genesis of the industry, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973;
16. Colin Barlow, The natural rubber industry: its development, technology, and economy in Malaysia, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978;
17. Wim Van der Schoor, 'Pure science and colonial agriculture: the case of the private Java sugar experimental stations, 1885-1940)', in Chatelin and Bonneuil, Nature et environnement, pp. 13-20;
18. J. H. Galloway, 'Botany in the service of empire: the Barbados cane-breeding program and the revival of the Caribbean sugar industry, 1880s-1930s', Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 86, 4, 1996, pp. 682-706.
19. John C. Willis, A report upon agriculture in the Federated Malay States, Kuala Lumpur: FMS Government Printing Press, 1904, p. 90.
20. See the remarks in Fritz Klopstock, Kakao: Wandlungen in der Erzeugung und der Verwendung des Kakaos nach dem Weltkrieg, Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1937, p. vii;
21. also Auguste Chevalier, La situation agricole de l'ouest africain: enquête, Domfront: Senen, 1906, p. 21.
22. First highlighted for Ghana by R. H. Green and S. H. Hymer, 'Cocoa in the Gold Coast: a study in the relations between African farmers and agricultural experts', Journal of Economic History, 26, 3, 1966, pp. 299-319;
23. further elaborated by Gareth Austin, 'Mode of production or mode of cultivation: explaining the failure of European cocoa planters in competition with African farmers in colonial Ghana', in Clarence-Smith, Cocoa pioneer fronts, pp. 154-75.
24. James C. Scott, Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
25. Michael Adas, Machines as the measure of men: science, technology, and ideologies of Western dominance, Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1989.
26. For inroads, see Clarence-Smith, Cocoa and chocolate; Benjamin Acquaah, Cocoa development in West Africa: the early period with particular reference to Ghana, Oxford: Ghana University Press, 1999.
27. Masefield, Colonial agricultural service, pp. 31-2.
28. Allen Young, The chocolate tree: a natural history of cacao, Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1994, pp. 2-3.
29. Ruf, Booms et crises, pp. 91-159.
30. Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, The true history of chocolate, London: Thames & Hudson, 1996, pp. 203-35, 241-51.
31. Vernon D. Wickizer, Coffee, tea and cocoa: an economic and political analysis, London: Stanford University Press, 1951, pp. 264, 484-5;
32. Joseph Grunwald and Philip Musgrove, Natural resources in Latin American development, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970, pp. 332, 336;
33. Clarence-Smith, Cocoa and chocolate, pp. 238-9.
34. Clarence-Smith, Cocoa and chocolate, pp. 176-80.
35. And frequently by coerced labour as well, as the slavery scandals of the 1900s attest: see Lowell J. Satre, Chocolate on trial: slavery, politics, and the ethics of business, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005;
36. Catherine Higgs, Chocolate islands: cocoa, slavery, and colonial Africa, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012.
37. Paul Preuss, Expedition nach Central-und Sü damerika, Berlin: Kolonial-Wirtschaftliches Komitee, 1901, pp. 239-40.
38. E. R. Moll, Cacao in Trinidad and Tobago, n.p., 1960, p. 2;
39. Kathleen Phillips Lewis, 'The Trinidad cocoa industry and the struggle for crown land during the nineteenth century', in Clarence-Smith, Cocoa pioneer fronts, pp. 45-64.
40. E.g. Auguste Chevalier, Le cacaoyer dans l'ouest Africain, Paris: Challamel, 1908, pp. 116-17;
41. Henri Jumelle, Le cacaoyer: sa culture et son exploitation dans tous les pays de production, Paris: Challamel, 1900, pp. 77-80;
42. Ministère des Colonies, Manuel pratique de la culture du caféier et du cacaoyer au Congo belge, Brussels: Van Campenhout, 1908, pp. 76-8;
43. Arthur W. Knapp, Cocoa and chocolate: their history from plantation to consumer, London: Chapman and Hall, 1920, pp. 36-40.
44. Knapp, Cocoa and chocolate, p. 40.
45. Jumelle, Le cacaoyer, pp. 79-80.
46. quote p. 37; Preuss, Expedition, pp. 181-4.
47. Preuss, Expedition, p. 187; C. Y. Shephard, Report on the economics of peasant agriculture in the Gold Coast, Accra: Government Printer, 1936, pp. 2-4.
48. Harley P. Milstead, 'Cacao industry of Grenada', Economic Geography, 16, 2, April 1940, p. 199.
49. Wickizer, Coffee, tea and cocoa, pp. 297-8.
50. Milstead, 'Cacao industry', pp. 202-3.
51. E. J. Bartelink, Handleiding voor kakao-planters, Amsterdam: de Bussy, 1885, pp. 18-19, 20-3.
52. Young, Chocolate tree, pp. 167-71.
53. Bartelink, Handleiding, 32-3.
54. See Stuart McCook, 'Global rust belt: Hemileia vastatrix and the ecological integration of world coffee production since 1850', Journal of Global History, 1, 2, 2006, pp. 177-95.
55. G. B. Masefield, A short history of agriculture in the British colonies, Oxford: Clarendon, 1950, p. 117.
56. Leonard J. Schwarz, Cocoa in the Cameroons under French mandate and in Fernando Po,Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1933, pp. 10,.
57. Paul Preuss, 'Ü ber Pflanzenschädlinge in Kamerun', Der Tropenpflanzer, 7, 8, August 1903, p. 361;
58. Friedrich Zacher, Die wichtigsten Krankheiten und Schädlinge der tropischen Kulturpflanzen und ihre Bekämpfung, Hamburg: Thaden, 1914, p. 80.
59. K. Friederichs, 'Bericht ü ber den staatlichen Pflanzenschutzdienst in Deutsch-Samoa 1912-1914', Der Tropenpflanzer: Beiheft, 18, 1918, pp. 257-66, 283-4;
60. C. E. Ettling, 'Die Aussichten der Kakaokultur auf Samoa', Der Tropenpflanzer, 7, 2, February 1903, pp. 79-82;
61. F. Reinicke, 'Gefährdung der Kakaokultur auf Samoa', Der Tropenpflanzer, 6, 12, December 1902, pp. 632-5.
62. See I. C. Greaves, Modern production among backward peoples, London: Allen & Unwin, 1935, p. 215.
63. Austin, 'Mode of production', p. 154.
64. Revue générale de botanique, 36, 1924, p. 190
65. The classic study is Polly Hill, The migrant cocoa-farmers of southern Ghana: a study in rural capitalism, 2nd edn, Oxford: James Currey, 1997.
66. On land rights in Asante, see Gareth Austin, Labour, land and capital in Ghana: from slavery to free labour in Asante, 1807-1956, Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2005, pp. 258-76.
67. Leonard J. Schwarz, Cocoa in West Africa, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1928, p. 17.
68. N. C. McLeod, Address on forestry in connection with the cocoa industry of the Gold Coast, Accra: Government Press, 1920, p. 5;
69. Schwarz, Cocoa in West Africa, p. 1.
70. Shephard, Report on the economics, p. 9.
71. The Gold Coast production figures here include output from British Togo, though this was marginal: Wickizer, Coffee, tea and cocoa, p. 483.
72. See, generally, Hill, Migrant cocoa-farmers.
73. This paragraph is based on Shephard, Report on the economics, pp. 2-3;
74. O. T. Faulkner and J. R. Mackie, West African agriculture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933, pp. 106-8;
75. Austin, Labour, pp. 60-79.
76. Faulkner and Mackie, West African agriculture, pp. 110-11. 51 See esp.
77. Sara S. Berry, Cocoa, custom, and socio-economic change in rural western Nigeria, Oxford: Clarendon, 1975;
78. Hubert Frechou, 'Les plantations européennes en Cô te d'Ivoire', Cahiers d'Outre-Mer, 8, 29, January 1955, pp. 56-83;
79. Jean-Pierre Chauveau and Eric Léonard, 'Cô te d'Ivoire's pioneer fronts: historical and political determinants of the spread of cocoa cultivation', in Clarence-Smith, Cocoa pioneer fronts, pp. 176-94;
80. Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Le Congo au temps des grandes compagnies concessionaires 1898-1930, Paris: Mouton & Co., 1972, pp. 470-3;
81. William Gervase Clarence-Smith, 'Plantation versus smallholder production of cocoa: the legacy of the German period in Cameroon', in Peter Geschiere and Piet Konings, eds., Itinéraires d'accumulation au Cameroun, Paris: Karthala, 1993, pp. 187-216.
82. Roger J. Southall, 'Cadbury on the Gold Coast, 1907-1938: the dilemma of the "model firm" in a colonial economy', PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, 1975, pp. 76-87;
83. Green and Hymer, 'Cocoa in the Gold Coast', p. 310;
84. Klopstock, Kakao, pp. 9-10;
85. Masefield, Short history, pp. 120-1.
86. Quoted in Emma Robertson, Chocolate, women and empire: a social and cultural history, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009, p. 84.
87. For heterodox views, see Chevalier, La situation agricole, p. 5;
88. Faulkner and Mackie, West African agriculture; L. D. Stamp, 'Land utilization and soil erosion in Nigeria', Geographical Review, 28, 1938, pp. 32-45.
89. More generally, see Helen Tilley, Africa as a living laboratory: empire, development, and the problem of scientific knowledge, 1870-1950, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011, pp. 128-59.
90. Paul Richards, Indigenous agricultural revolution: ecology and food production in West Africa, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985.
91. Sir Arthur W. Hill, Cacao research, December 1935.
92. E.g. L. Renodier, 'Le cacaoyer en Cô te d'Ivoire', L'Agronomie Coloniale, 18, 142, October 1929, pp. 304-10.
93. Quoted in Greaves, Modern production, pp. 209-10.
94. see also H. C. Sampson and E. M. Crowther, The West African commission 1938-1939: technical reports, London: Waterlow, 1943, pp. 39-40.
95. Albert Viton, Cacao: tendances actuelles de la production, des prix et de la consommation, Rome: FAO, 1957, p. 12. 70
96. See, more generally, Tilley, Africa, pp. 115-68.
97. McLeod, Address on forestry, p. 4.
98. A. Harold Unwin, West African forests and forestry, London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1920, p. 492;
99. See the dire warnings in F. A. Stockdale, Report by Mr. F. A. Stockdale on his visit to Nigeria, Gold Coast and Sierra Leone, October 1935-February 1936, London: Colonial Office, 1936, pp. 99-100;
100. R. S. Troup, Colonial forest administration, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940, p. 59. 77.
101. H. W. Moor, 'Forestry and its application to the Gold Coast', Journal of the Gold Coast Agricultural and Commercial Society, 3, 2, 1924, p. 82
102. quoted in James Fairhead and Melissa Leach, Reframing deforestation: global analyses and local realities, London: Routledge, 1998, p. 68.
103. Fairhead and Leach, Reframing deforestation, pp. 68-9 and passim.
104. Stockdale, Report by Mr. F. A. Stockdale, p. 7.
105. Moll, Cacao, p. 3.
106. C. Y. Shephard, The cacao industry of Trinidad: some economic aspects: series III-IV, Port-of-Spain: Government Printer, 1937, pp. 31, 70-2.
107. Shephard, Cacao industry, p. 72.
108. W. H. Beckett, Koransang: a Gold Coast cocoa farm, Accra: Government Printer, 1945, reprinted as Part 1 of idem, Koransang 1904-1970, Legon: University of Ghana Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, 1972.
109. See, more generally, William Gervase Clarence-Smith and François Ruf, 'Cocoa pioneer fronts: the historical determinants', in Clarence-Smith, Cocoa pioneer fronts, pp. 1-2, 14-15.
110. François Ruf, 'The myth of complex agroforests: the case of Ghana', Human Ecology, 39, 2011, pp. 373-88.
111. Gold Coast, Report on the department of agriculture 1944-5, Accra: Government Printer, 1945, pp. 4-5;
112. Report on the department of agriculture 1945-6, Accra: Government Printer, 1946, pp. 4-5;
113. Report on the department of agriculture 1951-2, Accra: Government Printer, 1952, p. 5.
114. Gold Coast, Sessional paper, 2, 1916-1917, Accra, 1916