CHAPTER XII

The Land in Africa

The basic activity which, past and present, has conditioned all other human activities is the necessity of earning a living; of defending life and getting food, clothing and shelter. With our present phenomenal control of physical forces and our technical advance, we may forecast the time when this basic necessity of work can be subordinated in its dominating influence to the larger aspects of human life—Science, Art, Love, and Joy. But this time, perhaps already foreseen, is not yet realized.

The relation of a people to the land is the basic problem of its economic life, because the land is the source of the raw materials upon which life depends. A study of Africa and the problems of its population begins therefore with the study of the relation of these people to the land in Africa.

It has been estimated that nearly two-thirds of the world’s population is engaged in agriculture. Moreover, instead of agriculture being today as it so long was, a matter of local, national or even continental interest, it is of international interest because of the sale from one country to another of the surplus of agricultural products. All the farmers of the world are in increasingly active competition; a situation, which has begun since 1850 and now covers one-half the world. In the early part of the twentieth century it looked as though the free exchange of crops was going to influence the form of agricultural effort. Then came war and depression, and free trade was clogged. Today in world agriculture confusion reigns.

Meantime in Africa the old methods of production, for the tribe and the village, have been increasingly influenced, first, by the demands for certain African products outside of Africa; and, secondly, by the strain put upon native agriculture through the partially or wholly industrialized native, who more or less permanently has left the tribe; and, thirdly, and especially, by the slavery or serfdom of the African laborer in competition with the farm laborer of the world.

The systems of land tenure in native Africa were varied and often complicated. The tenure of the soil was connected with the system of kinship and there were magical and mythological rights as well as agricultural customs connected with its use. There was abandoned land in all parts of Africa, and yet each tribal unit knew the boundaries of its territory and guarded them jealously. Individual ownership of land was seldom recognized, but Africans were hospitable in assigning strangers land for habitation, and they readily gave missionaries and guests dwelling places.

Indeed it was through the abuse and misinterpretation of this land hospitality that much of the European claim to African land today is based. The Belgian title to more than 900,000 square miles in the Congo is founded on “treaties made with four hundred fifty independent African chiefs” by Henry M. Stanley, through which they were represented as giving away tribal lands for nothing; although in accordance with the usual African custom the chief could assign land for temporary use but could never give it away. In parts of Africa, influenced by Moslem law, the head of the state had often some additional power with regard to the disposal of land, but even here his power was curtailed by ancient tribal custom.

The process by which the land of Africa has been alienated reminds one of that celebrated chapter in Karl Marx on “primary accumulation,” where he shows that the peasants of Europe between 1801 and 1831 did not “ever get a farthing’s worth of compensation for the 3,511,770 acres of common land stolen from them.” And he adds that the expropriation of peasants from the land formed the basis of the capitalistic method of production.

A study of present day Africa will give some idea of the way in which colonists and capital entering Africa are beginning land monopolization. Unfortunately complete accuracy cannot be claimed for the following figures. Official statistics are reticent when it comes to facts unfavorable to the ruling power. Nevertheless every effort has been made to approximate the truth.

In the Union of South Africa today, natives forming eighty per cent of the population possess eight per cent of the land. The six and one-half million natives resident in the Union have acknowledged rights in twenty-one million acres. Recent legislation, not yet carried out, proposes to increase this to thirty-seven million acres. In the event this legislation is carried out, which is not altogether certain, the proportion of the Union left to the natives will be thirteen per cent. Or, in other words, ninety-one per cent of Cape Colony; sixty-seven per cent of Natal; eighty-one per cent of the Transvaal; and ninety-nine per cent of the Free State are now in possession of whites. Yet only five per cent of the land owned by whites is in actual use.

The history of this land alienation may be indicated, although neither South Africa nor any of its constituents have made any detailed investigation of native land rights, and the whole history is complicated by a long series of invasions and tribal dislocations due to invading Bantu tribes since the seventeenth century.

The early settlers took enormous farms and the capitalist land speculators took more. In the Transvaal, thirteen land companies hold nearly five million acres of land, most of which is unused. Even the right of natives to buy land is now limited. Indeed land sequestration went so far that it was recognized in the early twentieth century that something must be done to preserve for the natives even such rights as would give them a chance to earn a living; to furnish the labor which the whites needed; to pay taxes and especially to meet their rising discontent. As early as 1903 the Commission on Native Affairs reported that the reserves and locations were insufficient to support the population.

The first comprehensive proposal came from the government of Louis Botha in the Native Lands Act of 1913, which proposed a policy of racial segregation, dividing the Union into native and European areas and restricting purchases of either race outside the area. This Act of 1913 sought to narrow the economic basis of the natives outside the reserves. Before that, natives could buy or rent land from the white farmers and, if fortunate, become peasant proprietors; but as this decreased the labor supply of landlords and mine owners, they induced Botha to enact this law, which made it illegal for a native to occupy land except as a farm laborer, and penalized heavily any white farmer who permitted native cattle to graze on his land. Thousands of native farmers were thus compelled to give up their holdings and sacrifice their stock.

This Botha policy had a certain logic, but it did not at all correspond with the realities of the situation. The white farmer and capitalist did not want the Negro laborer segregated; what they wanted was to limit the amount of land that he occupied so that it would be necessary for him to work for whites for a living. The Beaumont Commission appointed to carry out the provisions of the Act soon realized this. It proposed in 1916 to add about twenty-one million acres to the native area, giving five million natives nearly thirteen per cent of the land, and one and one-half million whites eighty-seven per cent. Cape Colony assented, but all the other provinces scaled down the proposal so that as a matter of fact nothing was accomplished.

The war intervened, and, in 1926, Hertzog at the head of the home-rule-labor coalition proposed a compromise; suggesting an area of twelve million acres where both natives and Europeans might purchase land, but making this contingent upon the disfranchisement of colored people in the Cape Provinces. This bill failed, but it was reintroduced in different form in 1935 and passed the next year as the “Native Trust and Land Act.” It provided an additional area of fifteen million acres for acquisition by the natives, making a total of thirty-seven million acres for eventual native occupation, and it promised that the Union government would assist in purchasing this land. Up to November, 1937, the purchase of 824,000 acres had been approved at a cost of nearly 1,304,000 pounds sterling, and it is hoped that 10,000,000 pounds sterling will eventually be available for the acquisition of such lands as the law permits. If the trust acquires this land, six and one-half million natives will have nearly forty million acres or thirteen per cent of the area of the Union.

The situation in the various provinces of the Union varies greatly. In the Cape Province, where the whites hold the largest proportion of the land, they have been in many respects also the most liberal. In 1894 the Glen Gray Act abolished communal tenure among the natives in the Transkei, the largest native district in the Cape, and cut the land into family lots of eight acres each, for which the occupants were given titles. The government collects a quit-rent of 15s. The land can neither be sold nor mortgaged, but may be forfeited for disloyalty or failure to pay rent. The Orange Free State has made but meager allowance for the natives in three official reserves which total about 150,000 acres. The Transvaal has only two million acres, which are much congested. Natal has the Zululand district with four million acres, and two and one-fourth million acres in other reserves.

When British capital pushed north toward Central Africa, it first seized Bechuanaland, eventually annexing part of it to Cape Colony and retaining the rest as a British protectorate. The protectorate has 275,000 square miles, but much of it is desert and tsetse fly country. In this area 102,000 square miles are reserved for 260,000 natives and 7,500 square miles have been given to a thousand whites. The remainder of 165,000 square miles is held as “Crown land,” that is, as land which the government claims as its own and which can be alienated or reserved for natives. The eventual disposition depends, of course, on the motive power back of the government. If British capital should find profitable mining investment or South Africans need labor supply, most of this land will go to whites. If, on the other hand, natives or their friends in South Africa or England have any decisive influence, some of it may go to the natives. The South Africa Company still owns the entire district of Tati, which has an area of 700,000 acres, and this is being exploited for minerals by a company with many distinguished Englishmen and South Africans as directors. They pay no government royalty on gold production.

Northeast of Bechuanaland lies territory now known as Southern and Northern Rhodesia, consisting of an area equal to Great Britain, France, and Prussia. Under the migrations and conquests of various tribes the control of this land has changed many times in the last few centuries and it was finally penetrated by the British South Africa Company under native permission to search for minerals.

When Dr. Jameson invaded Matabeleland in 1893 he promised each member of his force six thousand five hundred acres and from fifteen to twenty mining claims. Rhodes told them later, “You will be the first entitled to select land. It is your right for you have conquered the country."

The Colonial Office later ordered the British South Africa Company to assign land to the natives in Southern Rhodesia: but the first attempt in 1894 to herd the natives into two reserves resulted in a fierce insurrection in 1896. Rhodes rushed from London and found the settlers huddled in Bulawayo besieged by ten thousand Matabele. He met the chiefs on the Matopo Hills and pacified them. Finally in 1920 the company gave 834,000 natives about twenty-two million acres of land, of which three million acres or more were unsuitable for settlement; while 35,000 whites were given about fifty million acres. It is planned to divide the land so that 40,000 Europeans have forty-seven million acres and 800,000 natives have twenty-nine million acres. This leaves an unassigned area of eighteen million acres. Crown lands are not reserved and may be sold or leased to natives or whites; but wherever mineral deposits are found, native reserves will doubtless be taken away.

In Northern Rhodesia there has been set up by original treaty with the tribes, a native reserve, Barotseland, with thirty-seven million acres of none too good land, where 350,000 natives live. In other parts of Northern Rhodesia, 10,000 whites own about nine million acres, chiefly in mining claims, while a million natives have thirty-five million acres reserved for them. There remains a hundred million acres in the hands of the government as Crown land. Some 300,000 Africans are squatters on lands owned by whites, while many natives live in mine compounds and in towns.

The conditions in Northern Rhodesia are different from those in Southern Rhodesia, because the main interest of the whites is in mining, and so long as they can secure a sufficient number of miners, there is no reason for monopolizing agricultural land. Less than five per cent of Northern Rhodesia is at present actually owned by Europeans, but most of the Crown lands and all mining regions are for them when they wish. A policy of giving twenty acres each to white civil servants was inaugurated in 1934.

Basutoland is a protectorate by treaty where a half million natives hold twelve thousand square miles of land. The soil suffers from widespread erosion and cannot support the whole working population.

More than half the habitable land in the protectorate of Swaziland was secured by whites from a drunken chief who had no power under native law to dispose of it. Nevertheless, after the Boer War, British concessions of 3,767 square miles were made to the whites, while the natives held 2,261 square miles. Land distribution was eventually based on the Coalition Ordinance of 1907, which said that from every concession one-third would revert to native use and the remaining two-thirds to whites. The Swazi protested against the ordinance and sent a delegation to England, but were unable to get any satisfaction. The result of the proceedings of 1907 left the total area of 4,290,000 acres, divided roughly into a native area of 1,638,000 acres and a Crown area of 1,115,000 acres; and the rest in the hands of European concession holders who received freehold title from the Crown.

So much land had been taken from the Swazi that when the British took over the administration, they had to buy back 40,000 pounds sterling worth of land held by the concessionaires. This was paid for out of taxation levied on the Swazi. Since then the Swazi have bought about 80,000 acres by borrowing money. The present figures are 1,700,000 acres held by 100,000 natives, while less than three thousand whites own nearly two and one-half million acres. Indeed the government has alienated so much land to the whites that only 150,000 acres are left as Crown land. Of the European owners, forty per cent are absentee and most of the best grazing land is held by Transvaal farmers for winter grazing and speculation on future values.

Both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland occupied territory to which, of all European countries, the Portuguese had a prior claim by reason of discovery; but the control of this territory was necessary for Rhodes’ “Cape to Cairo” scheme and for control of the mineral wealth which he was sure it contained.

The history of land alienation in Nyasaland is one of the most extraordinary on record and shows the peculiar relation between missionary proselytism and business enterprise, which sometimes develops. Livingstone went to Africa in 1840 with the idea that business development would be one of the best aids to his missionary effort. He married the daughter of the missionary Moffat. Moffat’s son became a co-worker with Cecil Rhodes and helped secure the celebrated Rudd concession which eventually gave to Englishmen most of the mineral wealth of South Africa.

Missionaries and capitalists in Nyasaland formed the African Lakes Company, but native rebellions brought the company near bankruptcy. It passed into the hands of Cecil Rhodes, who acquired 2,700,000 acres for the South Africa Company in northern Nyasaland; another million acres became the private property of whites through efforts of various sorts. But the amount of cultivable land is limited by the tsetse fly and malaria. Native rights to the land have not been regarded, and the Land Commission of 1921 could only propose recognition and supervision of their tenancy. They have no legal protection against eviction, for the most part, and are not satisfied with the wage offered; so much so that in 1915 this led to widespread rebellion. Despite the amount of land which the whites own, only 66,000 acres were under cultivation in 1922.

Later the British South Africa Company sold its surface rights, amounting to 2,700,000 acres, to the government in return for more valuable mineral rights. This left a total of 1,303,000 acres alienated, and owned mostly by eleven large estates.

In Kenya the natives forming eighty per cent of the population occupied but twenty per cent of the land area in 1935; and this land was the least fertile, and in part desert, swamp and habitat of the tsetse fly. The history of this land theft is in part as follows: the Masai were pastoral tribes in the southern Sudan and Kenya whose wealth was entirely in cattle. The whites began to seize the land in 1902. After the first seizure the Masai agreed on the condition that no more grants be made. They were reported to be well-behaved and orderly, but the aggression went on. In 1904, the British signed a formal treaty agreeing that certain territories should be reserved to the tribe. The chiefs agreed on condition that the “settlement now arrived at shall be enduring as long as the Masai shall exist.” Nevertheless, they were later moved again and they tried to sue the government for breaking the agreement. There was great unrest and the Masai were cheated out of their land and not allowed to sue or to appeal to the Privy Council because they could not pay costs. One-third of their new reserve is uninhabitable.

In 1903, three or four hundred Dutch farmers came from South Africa to Kenya, and this contingent formed over one-half the Kenya white settlement. After the World War settlement in Kenya was stimulated by offers to ex-service officers and privates. Governor Northey confiscated two million acres of land belonging to the Nandi tribe; divided it up into small estates and gave it to demobilized British army officers. The Nandi broke out in open rebellion. In all, 4,560 square miles were allotted to soldier settlement farms. The land was given in freehold or on long leases. In 1922 the governor so drew a native reserve boundary as to leave a million and a half acres open for European settlement. The highlands and the good land with water was thus taken for Europeans.

The total area of Kenya is about 225,000 square miles, of which by liberal estimate 40,000 square miles are capable of cultivation. The government has given eleven thousand square miles of this land to Europeans, mostly in large blocks and at a nominal price. Lord Delamere, long the leading Kenyan politician, acquired over 100,000 acres of the finest land at one penny per acre. The Crown Land Ordinance of 1915 granted settlers the right to obtain property up to five thousand acres for ninety-nine years at the price of one penny an acre. The East Africa Estates, Ltd., with many distinguished directors, owns 350,000 acres of land and other valuable property. British East Africa Corporation has a capital of 400,000 pounds sterling. The Dwa Plantation, Ltd., has 20,000 acres of coffee and sisal land. These companies declare large dividends annually.

The increase in land values has already been phenomenal. A farm of six hundred and forty acres sold in 1903 for eighty-five pounds; it was re-sold for six hundred and forty pounds in 1905 and in 1913 with improvements was sold for 17,500 pounds sterling. An Ordinance of 1915 empowered the governor to establish and reduce native areas while the Barth judgment of 1921 declared that the natives were tenants at will of the Crown.

The Kikuyu, after carrying on a long agitation against the confiscation of their land, ended in open revolt in 1922 under Harry Thuku. This led in 1924 to a British Commission under Ormsby-Gore. After the report of this commission, the Crown Land Ordinance of 1926 set aside twenty-seven native reserves totaling nearly thirty-one million acres; but those still were not the property of the natives, who continued to be tenants at will.

The area which these operations withdrew from the tribes for the purpose of European settlement was made 16,000 square miles; while the area of the reserves assigned to the natives in the neighborhood of the highlands amounted to about 43,500 square miles. Unfortunately, the area withdrawn from European settlement was thickly populated with natives, the density running as high as two hundred and eighty-three persons per square mile; while other areas untouched had less than one person per square mile. The commission on closer union in East Africa in 1929 emphasized the necessity of some security for the natives in their land tenure. The settlers at the time were considering a Land Trust Board to take charge of reserves, but they were going to give it considerable discretion, even to the extent of allowing land for whites within the native reserves, when this was deemed “beneficial” for the natives.

The commission secured a revised ordinance in 1930, declaring that the reserves were set “aside for the benefit of native tribes forever” and placing them under a board composed of the governor, colonial secretary and attorneygeneral of the colony. In case land in a reserve should be taken for any reason, it must be with the approval of the native council; and in such case land equal in quality and quantity and value must be substituted. In 1932 gold was discovered on the native reserve occupied by the Kavirondo. The 1930 ordinance was promptly amended, nullifying the principal clauses, allowing the annexation of gold-bearing land without native consent and payment therefore by money and not by land.

At the time the Commission reported, the area already definitely alienated to whites was 10,345 square miles; 11.8 per cent of this was cultivated, 40.7 per cent used for stock, twenty per cent occupied by native squatters, and 27.5 per cent unused. The native areas were increased fifteen per cent and the European area sixty per cent; in addition to this there were 99,000 square miles of Crown lands opened theoretically to both races, but much of this is desert. Thereupon Parliament, in dealing with the report of the Commission, instituted an inquiry into this ordinance of 1930 and into the present and prospective land needs of the natives.

The Carter Land Commission report in 1934 proposed an addition of 2,629 square miles. This would bring the total area reserved for 2,750,000 natives to about 50,000 square miles, while 16,700 square miles were to be reserved for 16,500 whites. The commission recommended more convenient boundaries and amalgamation of reserves; and appropriated 50,000 pounds to finance the cost; but this 50,000 pounds sterling represents part of the unclaimed balances of pay overdue 40,000 natives employed as soldiers and carriers during the war, who died or disappeared. All these recommendations have not yet been carried out.

In 1931, there were in Kenya 16,500 white men, women and children of whom 2,100, including a large number of absentees, owned 11,000 square miles of land. There are 30,000 Indians and three million Africans. The land reserved for the natives is still inadequate. Many have as little as two acres a head, and where they have fifteen acres, much of the land cannot be cultivated. The average native farm has only eight acres and there are probably 40,000 landless African families in Kenya.

The assumption of Leopold was that the land of the Congo Free State belonged to him to dispose of as he thought best. There were always various general statements as to the rights of the natives in the land they actually occupied, but in practice these rights never interfered with the profit-making objects of Leopold. The disposal of land under his regime, on paper at least, reached fantastic proportions. The grants were of three kinds: nine million hectares were given to railway companies in proportion to the mileage constructed. Then there were two types of concessions: the Katanga concession really set up a commercial company as an administrative government with freehold property in one-third of the territory used. The old company was finally put under a special committee, two-thirds of whose members represented the government and one-third the company. This concession had forty-five million hectares. Another type of concession was monopoly of forest areas. They included immense tracts of territory but did not confer freehold rights.

When Belgium annexed the Congo Free State it was calculated that twentyseven million hectares had been granted to whites in freehold. Later, as a result of negotiations with certain companies, nine million hectares reverted to the state. Thereafter concessions of another type were made, by which the right to land in freehold depended on the development. In 1911, for instance, the Huilieries du Congo Belge received grants which, on the fulfillment of conditions, would entitle them to 750,000 hectares in separated areas. These conditions must be fulfilled by 1945. In a similar way the company Sucrière Congolaise is promised 30,000 hectares.

In 1929 it was decreed that no further mining concessions would be given, and that two-thirds of the territory was to be open to small scale and large scale agricultural concessions. In the Kivu region, where European colonization is possible, a railway company has an option of over 400,000 hectares, and a committee which the government controls is charged with the development of colonization on eight million hectares. In this region native lands will be subject to government control. So far 23,000 hectares have been alienated.

In recent years the Congo State has alienated 84,000 hectares in 1932; 69,000 in 1933; 32,000 in 1934; and 14,000 in 1935. The total area alienated is about 5,275,000 hectares as compared with the resident white population of 18,000, and out of a total area of 235 million hectares. Nevertheless it would seem that according to present plans the eight million natives will eventually have indeterminate title to less than seventy-five million hectares.

The Belgian system with modifications extended for a time into French Equatorial Africa, chiefly with Belgian and English capital. For a long time the French government exercised no effective control; having overthrown dominant native states, the component units were let to drift into administrative anarchy and the whole area became a sort of no-man’s land for marauding corporations. In these stretches of desert and jungle, the population is sparse; and while native lands for the cultivation of food were reserved, vacant lands were declared the property of the state and in this way vast areas were opened to concessionaires. The raid began under Delcasse, French under-Secretary of State, who in 1893 secretly granted concessions of land in the Congo and Ivory Coast. There was one concession alone of twenty-six and a half million acres.

Popular outcry caused a revision of these concessions, but the French courts in many cases upheld and indemnified the companies. In 1899, the need of revenue caused the appointment of a commission and forty concessions in the French Congo were granted, about four-fifths of the capital being furnished by Belgians, and the territory granted covering nearly one-third of the French Congo. A low annual rental was required and fifteen per cent of the profits was to go to the state. On fulfillment of certain indications of development, the land was to be granted in freehold. Most of the companies failed and those who began to make profit did so through forced labor which led to open revolt.

Again revulsion of feeling in France forced a revision of the system in 1910–1912. Some thirty-one million hectares out of the eighty-seven million alienated were eventually returned to the state; the fate of land in other concessions is apparently still pending.

In occupying French Africa the government both in French West Africa and in the Congo made numbers of treaties guaranteeing native rights to the land and the power of the chiefs over the land. Indeed the so-called conquest of France over French Africa was much more a matter of treaty arrangement than actual conquest.

In 1904, in French West Africa, public domain and private, were recognized and public domain as collective property could only be alienated by the lieutenant governors in council. At present about 93,000 hectares is held on provisional tenure and 57,000 as permanent concessions. Many concessions granted were later abandoned. On the whole, the land of French West Africa has been left to native use and largely in native ownership. The right to land can be proven under native law, and both individual and group ownership are legalized.

In British West Africa the land pattern differs markedly from the Union of South Africa and Kenya, and more nearly resembles French West Africa. But the reasons for the land development here are quite different from those in the French domain. They arise from the peculiar economic and political history of British West Africa. West Africa was not conquered like most of South Africa; nor was it annexed by pretense of treaty like the Belgian Congo; nor by actual treaty as in French West Africa. It was, from the beginning of the American slave trade, held by powerful native states and communities, which grew more powerful by monopoly and which made treaties and arrangements with the slavetrading powers, allowing whites usually no ownership of land at all or at most the right to erect coast stations for the storage of slaves and goods.

When the slave trade dwindled, various Negro states set up more or less independent existence, but through long connection with the Europeans extended their trade with them and allowed more settlements. Disputes arose and military clashes. They were long drawn out, resulting usually in stalemate; but gradually the power of the Europeans and especially of the British, backed by the persistent strong demand for industrial profit, increased the rule and influence of the whites.

Moreover, no considerable number of Europeans attempted to settle in West Africa. The whites were there as representatives of business concerns and administrators, so that the ideal of a Negro economy, guided and assisted by white experts and technicians and by white capital, approached realization. The difficulty was, however, that two ideals were here inextricably mixed: the ideal of using this set-up for the largest possible income to English investors; and the opposite ideal of using it for the best interests and highest development of the Negro peoples. Attempt has been made and is being made to prove that there is nothing incompatible in these two ideals. But such a conclusion in the light of facts does not make sense.

The fundamental Nigerian principle, for instance, is that all the land of the country belongs to some stool, i.e., Throne or State; and so too, in the Gold Coast, the natives opposed the Crown land idea. Apart from stool lands there are family lands and private lands. In the cocoa-growing provinces, individual freehold or private land has come into use. The land question has, however, been complicated by land grants from chiefs and mortgages to moneylenders on the cocoa crops.

In Lagos, Southern Nigeria, the land originally belonged to the tribes and could not be sold. After the colony was ceded in 1861, the British declared the territory Crown land and issued individual freehold deeds. The result is much confusion. There are now 4,000 peasant proprietors side by side with the old communal system. In 1901 the chiefs of Lagos challenged the government ownership of land and received some support from the English Privy Council.

In Yorubaland, Northern Nigeria, there is native land and Crown land. Under the Lands Acquisition Ordinance of 1917, no one except a native can buy land without obtaining the sanction of the governor; nor can a native buy land outside the territory of his tribe without the consent of the paramount chief. Rent for the land, in case it is thus alienated, goes to the communal chest. Some Europeans, Assyrians and companies have secured leases. Thus land-ownership is vested in the chiefs and councils as trustees for the people.

In Hausaland, Northern Nigeria, the land in the north is vested in the governor as trustee for the natives, according to the Ordinance of 1916. The governor alone can dispose of land to natives and non-natives, and the blacks are tenants at will. In return for the use of the land, the government taxes the natives according to the amount of use or the value of the crops. This was easier in Hausaland, because the British in fact took over the land rights of the emirs, while on the other hand the emirs had never really interfered with the tribal land rights. The overwhelming majority of the natives of Nigeria are independent peasant producers. The total concessions permitted by the High Court covered, in 1935, some 8,805 square miles out of 23,937 in the colony, and 2,986 square miles in Ashanti out of 24,379 square miles.

The net result on the whole in West Africa is that on the Gold Coast and in Southern Nigeria the state itself makes no claims over the land. In Northern Nigeria, on the other hand, the state claims right over all the land, but exercises great care in alienating land to whites, so that in practice the land remains largely in the hands of the blacks. The dominant idea in West Africa is that of perpetuating and defending native land-ownership. Vigorous assaults upon this policy have been made from time to time by those who would establish plantations for palm oil, for cocoa and for rubber. For instance, after the World War, the Empire Resources Development Committee of England, advocated a monopoly of palm products in West Africa to pay the cost of the war and declared that “the natives were an undeveloped national asset.” The association of West African merchants of Liverpool demanded drastic laws to facilitate diverting the lands from natives’ bands.

Profits from products under a regime of native land-ownership have been large enough to defeat schemes of land alienation, especially when the cost of such a policy in the face of stubborn native resistance and strong tribal organization would have been large, if not quite prohibitive.

Next to Kenya lies Uganda, and it presents a contrast to Kenya in its land policy. Uganda was seized by the British in order to checkmate the advance of the Germans; but Uganda was held at the time by a strong feudal organization in contrast to the loosely organized and wandering herdsmen who occupied Kenya. The land in Buganda, the most advanced part of Uganda, was of three kinds: state lands owned by the Kabaka as trustee, clan lands, and private lands. When Sir Harry Johnston came as English commissioner, he found that, on account of war, there was anarchy and financial difficulties. He tried to consolidate the country by dividing up the clan land among the chiefs as freehold property. This was embodied in the agreement of 1900.

The Kabaka received five hundred square miles for himself and 3,700 of his feudal retainers received private holdings amounting to over 9,000 square miles. All remaining Buganda lands, forests, etc., were vested in the state. Thus between 10,000 and 20,000 new landlords arose and began to rent out their holdings to 200,000 farm tenants, whose original rights to this land as members of clans had been ignored. Europeans and Asiatics began to get hold of some of this land and as the cotton industry increased, the peasants protested, declaring that the clan lands which had been divided up really belonged to them.

Largely by the aid of the profits of cotton cultivation, the peasant succeeded in partially re-establishing his position by the purchase of clan lands; these transactions have amounted probably to 20,000 in number, and many of the larger estates have now been broken up. In 1925 the Agrarian Law was enacted by which renting peasants were given certain rights. This was strengthened by a new law in 1927 which fixed the rent and charges on crops and prevented eviction.

In the other three states, the native land system was left theoretically intact by claiming all lands not actually occupied as Crown land. Ruling families were given private estates of two hundred square miles each.

Out of a total area of 80,371 square miles in Uganda, not including lakes, 9,627 square miles represent the areas given to chiefs and others under the agreements of 1900 and 1901; of the rest, less than five hundred square miles are in non-native hands, and of this area only 115 square miles of freehold and sixty-one of leasehold represent alienations by the Crown. The rest has been acquired from natives after the 1900 Agreement.

Nevertheless there remain 71,000 square miles under white government control, on which the natives are tenants at will. Already 250,000 acres of this are in the hands of whites and Indians, and there is a movement to encourage white planters in the west plateau along the Ruwenzori Range. There is danger that pressure from white Kenya may lead to land monopoly and cotton plantations in this part of Uganda. Since 1913 a land commission has been trying to work out a settlement and there is a plan by which four-fifths of the land will be allocated to the natives and one-fifth to the Crown. But this remains a plan only.

“Indirect rule” is a phrase that should be applied to the economic control of the Egyptian Sudan, ancient Ethiopia and medieval Nubia, through English investment; and the similar French control of Algeria, Tunis and Morocco. In these cases, the ancient tribal land-ownership has long since disappeared under war and conquest, and in place has come the ownership of land by landlords, with a large number of tenants and farm laborers. In the Egyptian Sudan, however, there was a peculiar opportunity to dominate the whole area by large investment in irrigation schemes. In fact the recapture of the Sudan from the black Madhists was made imperative by the necessity of controlling the flow of the Nile in order really to dominate Egypt. English economic control began with investments in railways and then turned to the extraordinary feat of so regulating the waters of the Nile as to bring larger annual crops and stabilize the labor force.

Since the twelfth century Egypt had been threatened by the possible diverting of Nile waters and silt. The Aswan Dam above the First Cataract was recommended in 1867, before the opening of the Suez Canal. It was financed by a Jew and built under great difficulties between 1898 and 1902 and later twice rebuilt. It irrigates seven million acres; and was followed by the Sennar Dam on the Blue Nile and the Gebel Aulia on the White Nile.

Further plans for dams in the great swamps to the south will bring eventually not only almost perfect control of the Nile waters, but a command over Egyptian agriculture and the whole Egyptian economic and political structure, which will make Egypt an investment of higher European finance.

The Egyptian peasant farmer is keen to own his farm. Between 1902 and 1913 the number of native landholders increased from one million to one and a half million; and in 1920, 1,859,000 Egyptians owned five million acres. The cultivable area in 1926 was over eight million acres but nearly three million acres of this was used for public utility purposes or was unreclaimed. Of the five and one-half million acres cultivated over two million were held in farms of fifty or more acres, or thirty-nine per cent. There are a large number of landless laborers working for landlords under ancient and customary labor conditions.

The land policy in the various mandates of German colonies may be illustrated by the case of Tanganyika. The policy of the German government favored European settlement in the highlands and the development of the plantation system. The government took land from the natives and gave it to whites for cultivating coffee, cotton, rubber and sisal. After the war 860 German plantations totaling two million acres were confiscated by the British and sold. Other property and buildings were sold chiefly to East Indians and Greeks who were largely agents of former German owners. Since 1925 Germans have returned and many have re-acquired their former plantations.

A dual farming system characterizes the British administration, with plantations in the highlands and native peasant farms on reserved areas in the rest of the country. The Land Ordinance of 1923 divided up a number of German plantations among the natives. This law and amendments in 1928 gave to the governor the right to alienate the land. Pressure is being brought to bear to alienate more land to the whites.

The Planters Association supported by the Kenya Association asked the Tanganyika government to prohibit natives from raising coffee. Governor Cameron would not yield; but he did give the whites more land for plantations in the southwest. About 800,000 acres have been alienated in Tanganyika by the mandate government. In 1930, 4,232 square miles out of a total of 340, 500 square miles are in the hands of 4,500 whites and 15,000 Arabs and Indians. This leaves 336,000 square miles as the possible territory of four million natives.

In Southwest Africa the discontent of various tribes under German administration caused the Herero and Namaqwa rebellions, which were punished by confiscation of their land. The decree of 1905 permitted reserves for the natives to be made, and in this way about a million hectares were given to native communities. When the Union of South Africa took over Southwest Africa as a mandate, it tried to extend the segregation policy. Between 1923 and 1932 eleven native reserves with an area of nearly three million hectares were proclaimed and about six and one-half million hectares in addition were earmarked for acquisition by the natives in the future. In 1935, the Hereroes and the Ovambos and a few other small tribes lived in twenty-three reserves. The detribalized natives are in town locations. The total land held by natives was forty million acres in 1936, much of it suitable at best only for grazing. It was occupied by 200,000 native Negroes and colored folk. The remainder of the territory equal to 275,000 square miles is reserved for 24,000 whites.

It is not possible to estimate accurately the total amount of the land already alienated in Africa to white control. From the data in hand we may roughly calculate a half million square miles of the best and most accessible land in Africa is now owned by whites and in addition to that there are at least a million square miles held as Crown lands or under state control, which would seem without much question to be ear-marked for white ownership, making a territory in all half the size of the United States.

The crucial question with regard to this land is, In whose interests is it going to be divided and administered and how far are other lands in Africa eventually to come under similar administration? If the African land were controlled by the state in the interest of African people, we might see here a most interesting economic development. Indeed at one time the single tax advocates of England sought to introduce this system in West Africa, but the proposal raised a fury of protest among the natives who did not consider that the English government was likely to administer the land for the benefit of the natives. They knew well that, in the past, administration of West Africa to some extent, and much more so of other parts of Africa, had been carried on in the interests of those who were investing or working in Africa for profit. Here they touched the kernel of the African land question.

A fundamental difficulty in the proper development of Africa, and through Africa of the world, is illustrated by the land question which has been discussed. The real power in control of the distribution of land in Africa is European industry. This European control is carried on by local representatives. They exercise persistent pressure and have been given wide political recognition by their inclusion as members of the governors’ councils. Business and capital is controlled by colonial administration at home but here it has always had strong representation. Administration however has been made to feel and respect philanthropy and is subject to such political changes as represented by the English, Belgian and French labor administrations.

Administration has thus been driven to call in the aid of science. Modern anthropology and social science have done excellent work, but it is on the whole to the discredit of these sciences that they have so easily loaned themselves to manipulation as servants of administration. Anthropology in recent years has been called upon, not so much to state the truth and lay down reasonable ideals of development, as to tell the administration what scientific paths it may follow so as to keep peace with the natives and appease public opinion at home. And especially has it joined the administration in discrediting the educated African and belittling his co-operation in science and in social development.

Thus the indispensable democratic control which should gradually be built up in Africa to direct administration and science in the interest of the real development for the sake of the Africans is ignored and even ridiculed; and so deep and fundamental a question as the distribution of land and control of the natural resources is reduced to a question of successful administration from the point of view of the business man.