From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890–1925

173 Pages·1999·11.781 MB·English

by  Frederick Cooper

From Slaves to Squatters
'Plantation Labor and Agriculture in
Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya,
r B9o -r 925
FREDERICK COOPER
ii
New Haven and London Yale University Press
Contents
vll
Tables and Figures
ix
Preface
Abbreviations Used in the Notes xiii
Swahili Terms and Money and Weights XV
Map r: British East Africa xvi
Copyright @ r g8o by Yale University.
All rights reserved. Map e: Zanzibar, Pemba, and the Coast of Kenya xvii
This book may not be reproduced, in whole
l Introduction I
or in part, in any form (beyond that
copying permitted by Sections 107 and roB
2. British ldeology and African Slavery 24
of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by
Capitalism and Antislavery 24
reviewers for the public press), without
Administrators, Abolitionists, and Slavery in
written permission from the publishers.
East Africa 34
The Control of Labor and Agriculture, r89o-r9o7 46
Persistence and Evolution in Antislavery Ideology:
Designed by James J. Johnson Forced Labor under the British FIag 6r
and set in VIP Baskerville type.
Printed in the United States of America by 3. Labor and the Colonial State:Zanzlbar, r897-r925 69
The Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., The Master-Slave Relationship Redefined
Binghamton, New York The Contract System 84
Recruiting Pickers g2
ro4
Recruiting Weeders
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Work, Property, and the Criminal Law lll
r2l
Cooper, Frederick, r947- Conclusions
From slaves to squatters.
4. Planters, Squatters, and Clove Trees: Agriculture in
Bibliography: p. Zanzlbar, r8g7-rgz5 r25
Includes index. Cloves in the ExPort Economy r25
r. Agricultural laborers-Africa, East-History. Plantations, Peasants, and the Control of Production r35
z. Slavery in East Af rica-History. 3. Agricultr-rre- Economic Roles, Social Identity, and Class Formation r58
Economic aspects-Africa-East-History' 4' Planta-
tion lifè-Africa, East-History. 5. Africa, East- 5. From Planters to Landlords: Labor, Land, and the Plantation
Colonialinfluence-History. L Title. Economy of the Coast of Kenya, lgoT-1925 r73
HDr538.EzzC66 ZZr.7'63'c967623 tlo-539t The End of Slavery q6
ISBN o-3oo-o2454-t Land and the Planter Elite r9r
The Landless: The Mijikenda in the Coastal Economy 2r5
Conclusions 230
roq876543zr
v
I
vl CONTENTS
6. The Coast in the Colonial Economy of Kenya, rgo?-1925 233
The Coast in the Colonial Labor System .55
The Making of a Backward Region 254
Tables
7. Epilogue: Cloves, Cashews, and Conflict 273
Zanzil¡ar 279
The Coast of Kenya 288
2.r Exports from Kenya, r8g5-r9o6 (In rupees)
59
Appendix: The Abolition Decree, Zanzibar, rBgT 295 3.r Slaves Freed inZanzibar and Pemba, r8g7-rgo7 t5
3.2 Wages for Clove Picking, Zanzibar lor
3.3 Weeding Wages, Zanzibar ro8
People Interviewed 297 3.4 Convictions for Petty Offenses rl3
4.r Dispersements under Bonus Scheme, rgzz-19z6 r38
Bibliography 303
4.2 The Ownership of Clove Trees, r922 r46
4.g Size of Plantations in Zanzibar, tggz r48
Index 3r9
4.4 Crop Acreage inZanzibar and Pemba, rgr6 r50
4.5 Ethnicity and Occupation in the rgz4 Native
Census, Zanzlbar r6r
4.6 Ethnicity and Occupation in the rgz4 Native
Census, Pemba r6z
4.7 Population Change, tgz1-rg1r 164
5.r Landowners in Malindi and Mambrui r99
5.2 Landowners in Kisauni 200
5.3 Property of Salim bin Khalfan Al-Busaidi, rgzo 207
5.4 Property Sales, Mombasa, rSgr-r9rg 2lo
5.5 Shamba Sales, Malindi, rgo3-r9zo 2r2
6.r Grain Exports from Malindi, rgro-r925 .ÐÐ
6.2 Copra Exports from Kenya, tgoT-tg2b 258
Figures
4.r Clove Prices r27
4.2 Quantity of Cloves Exported rz8
4.3 Export Earnings from Cloves r29
4.4 Export Earnings from Cloves, Five-Year Moving Average 130
4.5 Clove Production, by Five-Year Periods r32
1
:
vll
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Preface
This study of labor and agriculture after the emancipation of slaves
began as part of research into plantation slavery on the east coast of
Africa. When I began, I thought of this aspect of the project as the clos-
ing of a parenthesis, the end of an archaic form of labor organization
and social structure. If there were continuing efÏects of slavery on the
economy and society of the coast, they were legacies of the past, and the
colonial economy-whether more or less oppressive and constraining
than what went on before it-was a new departure. This is a common
viewpoint among historians of slavery. It is also, as my research eventu-
ally made clear to me, totally inadequate. Historical parentheses rarely
close, and separating out legacies from past ways of organizing labor and
production avoids the difficult problem of how modes of production
actually are changed. So this book is not about the end of slavery. Nor is
.
it a study of the colonial economy. It is a study of differing labor \ì '
systems---of how they are conceived and operate-and above all a study ,i
of how they are transformed.
The years that bound this study are not overly precise, for my subject
is bounded by processes rather than events: it begins with the actions the
British colonial state took in its first decade of rule to undermine the
independent economic, political, and social power of slavebwners in
Zanzibar and coastal Kenya, a process that weakened the planters' con-
trol of labor and the organization of production far more than the colo-
nial state intended. It ends at a time when the export crops emerging
from the new organization of production were at a peak and just before
a combination of local problems and worldwide depression led to a
period of contraction, dislocation, and involution in coastal agriculture.
My focus is on changes in how goods were produced at a time when
external conditions for their export remained generally favorable.
The region this study covers was once part of a wider economic and
political system centered on-although only loosely controlled by-the
Sultanate of Zanzibar-and which later shared the experience of British
rwle,'Zanziltar as a protectorate, the British portion of the mainland.-. -''
coast as a part of what became the colony of Kenya. I know parts of this
large region better than others: fieldwork and quantitative analysis of
landholding was undertaken in Malindi and Mombasa. Detailed archival
material in England permitted close analysis of Zanzibar and Pemba,
despite obstacles that have been placed in front of me and other re-
IX
X PREFACE
PREFACE
searchers to do research in Zanzlbar itself. Similarly, some questions
have been relatively neglected-produce marketing for instance-but my collaborators and friends is a large one. Similarly, I am very grateful
such gaps are inevitable: the extent to which I have relied on the work of to Margaret Strobel for generously sharing with me information and
at least a dozen other researchers who have studied the coast should ideas about Mombasa, as well as the experience of doing research in that
make it obvious that filling the merely apparent holes will require the city.
The process of rethinking my material and pondering approaches to
efforts of another dozen. My interest has above all been in understand-
the study of a changing economic and social order has been greatly as-
ing structures, processes, and interconnections within a wide, varied,
and changing region; I hope I have at least suggested why more local sisted over the past several years by Carla Glassman. Drafts of the manu-
script have been thoughtfully criticized by David Brion Davis, Stanley
studies will be of more than local interest.
Engerman, William Freund, Carla Glassman, Molly Nolan, Rebecca
My greatest debt is to the people who explained to me how they con-
ceived of the problems of land and labor and who told me of their ex- Scott, Margaret Strobel, and John Zarwan. An early version of the sec-
tions on Zanzibar was presented to a conference on agrarian history,
periences and those of their parents. By talking to the children of slaves
held at Columbia University in April ry77.I am grateful to the partici-
and slaveowners, landlords and tenants, I was able to get a sense not only pants in the conference for their comments, and especially to Marcia
of the variety of experiences, but also of the opposed conceptions of
economic order, conceptions that are deeply rooted in a sense of Wright, who organized it. John Womack, Jr., also gave me valuable
comments on the Zanzil¡ar material, while the sections on Kenya bene-
morality andjustice. I have tried to acknowledge information I was given
as I would any other historical source, but a document cannot patiently fitted from the reactions of Sara Berry, Margaret Jean Hay, Karim Jan-
explain a point or answer the questions of an inquisitive stranger. The mohamed, John Lonsdale, and Sharon Stichter, and from seminars at
Cambridge University and the University of Nairobi.
nbaamcke os fo tfh teh eb opoeko,p aìen dI sI phoakvee wbirthie folyn sthtaet ecdo awsht yo fe Kacehn yisa imarpe olirstatendt . inI tahme The first time I attempted to write about the coast of Kenya was in
very grateful to the people of Malindi and Mombasa, notjust for their rg7z, for a staff seminar at the Department of History of the University
of Nairobi. It is appropriate that the final words of this book are being
help and patience, but for their interest.
The very different conceptions of the economy of British officials, written in an office of that department, where I have been made wel-
come by the chairman, Godfrey Muriuki, and by the members of the
missionaries, and others, as well as a great variety of information on eco-
nomic and social change, can be gleaned from documentary sources. I staff. The experience of a shared pursuit of intellectual goals is a rare
want to thank the staffs of the archives where I worked and which are iI one, and I am glad that I have found it here.
listed in the Bibliography as well as the staffs of the libraries of Yale I F. C.
Nairobi
University, Harvard University, Cambridge University, the University of
Nairobi, the Royal Commonwealth Society, and the Institute for Com- January t979
monwealth Studies.
Oral information and land data on the coast of Kenya were gathered
in tgTz-7g under the sponsorship of Yale University. Since then a fac-
ulty research grant from Harvard University has paid for computer
time to analyze some of these data, while additional research in England
was funded by the American Philosophical Society and the American
Economic History Association.
The data on land at Mombasa in this book come from collaborative
efforts with John Zarwan and Karim Janmohamed. The data were col-
lected together, and Dr. Zarwan and I are continuing to work on a quan-
titative study of land and credit in Mombasa, while Dr. Janmohamed has
made use of this material in a way that complements my own in his il-
Iuminating study of land and urban development in Mombasa. The in-
terpretations of results in this book are my responsibility, but my debt to
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Abbreviations Used in the Notes
alc Adjudication Cause: Records of hearings on applications
for land titles on the coast of Kenya, rgtzL24' Land Of-
fice, Mombasa
AgAR Agriculture Department, Annual Repory (Zanzlbat or
Kenya)
AgCom Zanzibar, "Report of the Agricultural Commission," t9?3
AR Annual Report
ASP Anti-Slavery Papers: records of the British and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society, Rhodes House, Oxford University
ASR Anti-Slaaery Reþorter, series 4, unless otherwise specified
CMS Church Missionary Society Archives, London
¡
r:il CO Colonial Office files, Public Record Offìce, London
CocCom East Africa Protectorate, "Report of the Coconut Commis-
sion," r g r4
COCP Coloniai Oifice Confidential Prints, Public Record Office,
London
]
I CP Coast Province Collection, Deposit r, Kenya National Ar-
1
I chives, Nairobi
DC District Commissioner
D&C Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Foreign Office, Annual
Series
DO District Officer
EAP East Africa Protectorate
FA Friends' Archives, London
FO Foreign Office files, Public Record Office, London
FOCP Foreign Office Confidential Prints, Public Record Office,
London
HOR Handing Over Reports, Kenya National Archives, Nairobi
JAH Journal of African History
KNA Kenya National Archives, Nairobi
I,P Frederick Lugard Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford Uni-
versity
MAL Notes of interviews, Malindi, Kenya, ry72-73.
MSA Notes of interviews, Mombasa, Kenya, t972-73
NAD Native Affairs Department, KenYa
NLC Native Labour Commission, rgr2-13' Report and Evi-
dence (East Africa Protectorate)
i
::iiI xIll
ìj
xrv ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES
P&A Probate and Administration files, High Court, Nairobi
PC Provincial Commissioner
PP Parliamentary Papers
Swahili Terms
PRO Public Record Office, London
PRB Political Record Book, Kenya National Archives, Nairobi
QR Quarterly Report
Reg. Mal Registers of áeeds pertaining to Malindi, r9o3-zo, Land :l
Office, Mombasa I, Most Swahili nouns add certain prefixes to denote singular and plural.
Reg., Msa Registers of deeds pertaining to Mombasa, r 89 r -r 9l I' ::a For the names of ethnic groups, the prefix "M" refers to an individual,
Land Office, Mombasa ) and "Wa" to more than one person or the collectivity. I have used these
USCR United States Commercia,l Reþorts forms in referring to Swahili-speaking peoples, but in order to avoid the
confusion of many languages have used simplified forms, without pre-
fixes, for all peoples who do not speak Swahili. The following Swahili
:jì terms (plurals in parentheses) are also used:
1
haji (mahaji): a convert to Islam
hamali (mahamali): port worker, carrier
.l kibarua (vibarua): day-laborer
i mzalia (wazalia): person of slave descent
i shamba (mashamba): farm or plantation
I
'i sheha (masheha): headman
tembo: palm wine
:]
.
L
L
Money and Weights
..
.l The units of currency employed here are either Sterling (f,) or rupees
(Rs, sing. Re). For most of the period, the currency conversion rate was
,l
I Rs r5 tõ [ r, but the pound fell around r92o to Rs ro. InZanzibar,
I
l rupees were the official currency throughout the period, but Kenya
l switched to shillings in rgz r (with a brief interlude when a unit called the
ll florin was used), converting at the rate of Shs z to Re r (there are 20
shillings to the pound). There are64 pice (or, alternatively, roop) to the
ruPee.
îhe local weight units used here are the frasila, equal to 35 pounds,
and the pishi, about 4 pounds.
xv
Map 1: British East Africa Map 2: Zanzibar, Pemba, and the Coast of Kenya
Þ
lo
UGANDA
K[,NYA
7 . Witu
ú
5
Lahe Nairobi s
Victoria 4 o
I
I-:rrlr¡
òoo
Malincli
3 2 Chahc
Sabatti Riotr
Mr¡tnbas¡ ambrui
PtììvfuA
12 0 MALINDI ISLANI)
15
Milcs
TANGANYIKA NZIBAR
11 û
Kitifi
T,anzib¡
ZANZIBAIì
Kq to Elhnì Cûul^: Changanrrre a ISLÀNI)
I B:rjuni I 'l un¡b¡tu
2 Nlilikcnda l{) Pernl>¡
3 l eita I I Zaranr<r
4 Ka¡nl¡a I2 Nyarnrvczi
5 Kikuyu t3 Nyasâ 13 0 ililcs 20
6 l-uo Ì4
7 t.uhya l5 Man ye nra ffi A,.o of ,tor" rrto,rt"rin,r,
8 Harlinru 14
0 Miles 40
I
Introduction
For slaves in many places and at many times, emancipation has been a
time ofjoy. No more would they work under their owners'eyes; no more
would they live in fear that they or their children would be sold or sent
away; no more would they be bound to a master who abused them; and
no more would they be prevented from seeking even the most limited
opportunities in neighboring farms or distant cities.
Never, as far as is known, has a slave community regretted its free-
dom; never, even in the face of the most dire poverty, has it wished to
return to the security and oppression of slavery. But emancipation-in
the southern United States, in the Caribbean, in Brazil, and in parts of
Africa as well-has been a time of disillusionment as well as joy. The
individual plantation owner may have ceased to be lord and master over
his slaves, but the planter class did not lose its power. From the perspec-
tive of abolitionists, workers and employers in a free society interacted as
individuals in the market place, selling and buying labor. But in case
after case, a particular class-under the equally hallowed ideals of pri-
vate property-kept land from the eager hands of ex-slaves and
vigorously applied the instruments of the state and the law to block ex-
slaves'access to resources and markets, to restrict their ability to move
about, bargain, or refuse wage labor, and to undermine their attempts to
become independent producers. At the same time, freed slaves fought
hardest against the regimentation of gang labor and the efforts of plant-
ers to determine when and how any member of a laborer's family would
work. The period after emancipation in the Americas, even more than
the period before it, proved to be a time of struggle.
In most pìaces, ex-slaves were able to some extent to force new labor
arrangements on the planters in order to gain for themselves some im-
provement in standard of living, more leisure time, and limited control
over how they worked. In a few instances where planters were weak or
land abundant, ex-slaves built viable, independent agricultural com-
munities. But more often planters and export-minded governments re-
structured the old plantation system and modified old patterns of domi-
nance.l
r. The widespread nature of these problems is evident from the sketchy but useful
survey in Wilemina Kloosterboer, Intoluntary Labour since the Abolition of Slaaery (Leiden,
196o), and the preliminary comparative analysis in C. Vann Woodward, "The Price of
Freedom," in David S. Sansing, ed., lilhatWas Freedorn's Prùe? Qackson, Miss., rg78), pp.
g3-r 26. These issues have been explored most fully in the case of the West Indies, and the
INTRODUCTION
9 INTRODUCTION 3
In Africa, the emancipation of slaves who had served both African and believed, would not be well served by letting Africans work when, where,
immigrant masters was the act of colonial powe.rs' undertaken in the and how they chose. Development required that labor be steady, that it
decades after the conquest of African sociéties in the late nineteenth be under the direction of a property owner and the supervision of the
...r,,rry. To the ruling class of Great Britain-more decisively than the state, and that laborers be made to learn and internalize new values and
other imperial powers-the abolition of slavery and the introduction of attitudes.
wage labår werã seen in themselves to be an advance of civilization' That These policies were imposed on an economic and social structure that
fact made ir less necessary for colonial officials to dwell on the difficult was very different from the image of unproductive agriculture, isolation
of
question of what free labor actually meant' Ultimately, the expe^rience from markets, and antieconomic cultural values that forms the implicit
Great Britain made clear, free labor implied the submission of workers (if not explicit) backdrop for far too many discussions of "economic de-
dtoi sac uipnliinfoer,m i nc ocdoen otrfa lsawt st,o t ot hthee priegiosros noall tcheo nmtraorkl eat,n dan cdo teor ciniotenr noalfiz tehde ovemloyp mheandt. "es xOpann tdhee dc oeansto ormf Eoausst lyA firnic at,h ae p nroindeutcetievnet hp lacnetnattiuorny .e cTohne-
slave^master. But to Africa's new rulers, the time when such a concept of planters-immigrants from Arabia and Swahili-speaking, Muslim Afri-
Iabor control could apply to the slaves they were freeing, as^well as the cans from the coast itself-bought slaves, built plantations, and inten-
cultivators they were cõnquering, lay in the dimly perceived future' sified the exploitation of labor in response to the growing demands of
Colonial gou.rt-.tts and buJinesses paid workers wages; they did not the Indian Ocean commercial system. Almost all the world's supply of
seek ro .r.ãt. a wage labor system. They had little faith in the labor cloves came from the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, where Arabs from
market, stripped ofiestrictive social relations and functioning through Oman established large clove plantations from the r83os onward. On
the self-regulating mechanism of supply and demand' the adjacent mainland around mid-century, Swahili and Arabs de-
But the British colonial state in Zanzibat and coastal Kenya did not veloped vast plantations that exported grain to the food-poor regions of
merely want more workers and greater output. The state sought to pre- southern Arabia and to commercial centers, like Zanzibar itself. In both
serve a quite particular form of economic organization-the areas, coconuts were also grown for local consumption and to meet a
plantation--and tá rransform it by imposing a quite-particular way of modest demand for oils made from the dried fruit of the coconut. The
ärganizing labor. Indeed, the British seem to have followed the path of trading mechanism that distributed goods around the Indian Ocean also
grãatest résistance , propping up an aristocracy of ex-slaveowners whom extended deep into Africa and brought slaves to the coast, as well as
ih.i, .o.rqnest had undérmined and stifling the injtiatives^of the slaves ivory and other trade goods that fed the Indian Ocean trading system,
they had supposedly set free.2 The development of East Africa, officials which was in turn linked-via India and later Zanzibar itself-to Euro-
pean commerce,
evolution of British policy and variations in local responses are analyzed in william Green, The coast had thus long been a part of a world economy. What was
British slaae Emanci[ation: The sugar colonies and. the Great Exþeriment (oxford, r976)' For new, above all, under colonial rule was the intervention of a European
nm,"agol iråoefr ]Ir ne.tfueerrrt elibns"cc eiþiosli,n. ras.rreyie iHhni isst ht"oecr yaw r7oibr bk¡ egãalfùn St H idi5.sro"toyg r-i3Moogin,r tawzp,h hinlyeo, t atrhb6eloy mo "-sorl9satov opee:r ynT eahtnread t Ritnhegec e aRnnitsa eTlv isdoe'fes ,P "o eJaf ostahtnnis-' epnotwaeil r siunc thh eva psrt oredpuecrticvues spioroncse stsh aitts ceolfl.o Tnhiael aaubtohloitrioitnie so fh selsaivtaetreyd s efoemr eyeda tros
iles," Historical ReJtectioru 6, no. r ( r g7g) | 2 13-43, and Caràbbean Transformalions (Chicago, and proceeded only when the power of the state had been consolidated:
ry74). A model cise-study is Alan Adamson, Sugar without Slaues: The Political Economy of the legal status of slavery was abolished in r 8g7 in Zanzibar, seven years
BritishGuiana, r8 j8-rgo4 (New Haven, rgTr)' after the British had declared a protectorate, and it was not ended until
z. This argument'is at variance with one made by Immanuel wallerstein, who consid- rgo7 in Kenya. Officials feared a rebellion of slaveowners less than the
ers that the path of "least resistance"---tncouraging production by African peasants-was
more rhe nárm a.,d that deviations from it can be better explained by political than by 3. Thissimplisticviewof"traditionalagriculture"isquiteexplicitin,forexample,John
economic factors. Clearly, colonial policies varied greatly, but Wallerstein and others are so C. H. Fei and Gustav Ranis, Deaelopment oJ the Labor Surþl:w Economy: Theory and PoIùy
tnaokte pn rboy! "tdhe r hdeis teinxcretionnt toLe wtwheicehn cAoflroicnaianl pPoelaicsiaensts w aenrde aEiumroepde aatn c chaapnigtainlisgt s ththea rte tlahteioyn hsa voef ((HNeowlm Hwaovoedn, ,I l1l.9,6 149),6 p4.) , 4p;. B3r;u Tchee Fo.d Joorhen Wsto. nS achnudl tzP,e tTerra nKsiflobrym, inAgg rTicrualdtuilrioen aanl àA' Sgrtricuuclttuurrael
pàrIeenrndsovdsioás. l,rtwv arTcenothmcriokeeee. rPnfr ostou r,lc iiitnetoihc drtai hnltt ehh E AeeWc ilrore oincxcruralodenln-onyE n ts coioatofocl n ic emowormianehstsyietc,,em "har sþ bti ohnotrove aPe rfy eaina tcAedltlri f o nbaCncyns.a o fW otoh(fs.Be tAGree vfrouriennitckregali.yn nd "dsHiTv ahiiaslnleilsood ,nTn Icsghm a rbtmelheiefaet. wn, S puet1aaee9gltn eh7 sW6 la o)ona'f f dle lgeAosrrwePfsra'nti cetepeainPrsnst,. TaSNcrnro.aidtYuni cts.Jhi,fz owo1erhom9 nrt6tae h7tMli )oli,a.nn pn:gB dpElry .ecB ow6s.n 6suoFt-cm.e9 hJri8c,o .ch S"oTTntnrshracatteoeed npgmi,tti eiioooesndsninssta L. v,la o aAtSelfugo -Darpcibiceraeulvle eclt Sloucotrloproauinnnlc tgiDtrauCieblr uoeueAustlanif oþrtarnimicse e asBno t aff( rNraAorneim.edw rGE sYwc ' toooiHntrh ookCti,pnn hikrc a9i tnn7Ghs5ger )eo, h w,n"ape tshpoi n 'cb( llzeatHh6sea-s.n1 ci cM7atao;.,l
4r -42. frainework he shares with these authors. AnEconomic History of WestAfrira (London, rg73).