African Trade in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

In this chapter we shall be looking at the patterns of trade which have been predominantly controlled by Africans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In reality, we cannot isolate African trade patterns from others in either century; African and Arab trade patterns overlapped and intertwined in the nineteenth, while in the twentieth African, Asian and European trade patterns were divided on a racial basis, until just before political Independence. Incoming foreigners have therefore stimulated, as well as severely limited, African trade in both centuries. But for purposes of historical analysis, it is useful to look at the African dominated patterns of trade alone for the following reasons.