IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v78y2018i01p231-267_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Economic Rationale for the West African Scramble? The Commercial Transition and the Commodity Price Boom of 1835–1885

Author

Listed:
  • Frankema, Ewout
  • Williamson, Jeffrey
  • Woltjer, Pieter

Abstract

We use a new trade dataset showing that nineteenth century sub-Saharan Africa experienced a terms of trade boom comparable to other parts of the “global periphery.†A sharp rise in export prices in the five decades before the scramble (1835–1885) was followed by an equally impressive decline during the colonial era. This study revises the view that the scramble for West Africa occurred when its major export markets were in decline and argues that the larger weight of West Africa in French imperial trade strengthened the rationale for French instead of British initiative in the conquest of the interior.

Suggested Citation

  • Frankema, Ewout & Williamson, Jeffrey & Woltjer, Pieter, 2018. "An Economic Rationale for the West African Scramble? The Commercial Transition and the Commodity Price Boom of 1835–1885," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 231-267, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:78:y:2018:i:01:p:231-267_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050718000128/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nogues, Julio, 2020. "Europa, el comercio de esclavos y el subdesarrollo de África [European slave trade and Africa's underdevelopment]," MPRA Paper 102398, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Broadberry, Stephen & Gardner, Leigh, 2022. "Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1885–2008: Evidence from eight countries," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Martínez Ibáñez, Oscar & Tadei, Federico, 2020. "The Integration of West Africa in the Global Economy, 1842-1938," Working Papers 2072/417678, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    4. Bolt, Jutta & Gardner, Leigh, 2020. "How Africans Shaped British Colonial Institutions: Evidence from Local Taxation," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1189-1223, December.
    5. Federico Tadei, 2022. "Colonizer identity and trade in Africa: Were the British more favourable to free trade?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(2), pages 561-578, May.
    6. Gardner, Leigh, 2022. "The collapse of the gold standard in Africa: money and colonialism in the interwar period," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116665, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Adeel Malik & Rinchan Ali Mirza & Faiz Ur Rehman, 2023. "Frontier governmentality," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-42, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Remi Jedwab & Felix Meier zu Selhausen & Alexander Moradi, 2022. "The economics of missionary expansion: evidence from Africa and implications for development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 149-192, June.
    9. Broadberry, Stephen & Gardner, Leigh, 2019. "Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1885-2008," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 425, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    10. Roessler, Philip & Pengl, Yannick I. & Marty, Robert & Titlow, Kyle Sorlie & van de Walle, Nicolas, 2022. "The cash crop revolution, colonialism and economic reorganization in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    11. Stephen Broadberry & Leigh Gardner, 2019. "Economic Growth In Sub-Saharan Africa, 1885-2008," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _169, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Johan Fourie & Nonso Obikili, 2019. "Decolonizing with data: The cliometric turn in African economic history," Working Papers 02/2019, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    13. Bolt, Jutta & Gardner, Leigh, 2019. "African institutions under colonial rule," CEPR Discussion Papers 14198, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Philip Roessler & Yannick I Pengi & Robert Marty & Kyle Sorlie Titlow & Nicolas Van de Walle, 2020. "The Cash Crop Revolution, Colonialism and Legacies of Spatial Inequality: Evidence from Africa," CSAE Working Paper Series 2020-12, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Vibeke Bjornlund & Henning Bjornlund & André Rooyen, 2022. "Why food insecurity persists in sub-Saharan Africa: A review of existing evidence," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(4), pages 845-864, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:78:y:2018:i:01:p:231-267_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.