WOH 2001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Cultivation System, Wage Labour
• How did the power of colonial states transform the economic lives of colonial
subjects?
o Required and unpaid labor on public projects such as building
railroads, constructing government buildings, and transporting goods
o Cruel, forced labor
o Example: King Leopold II in the Congo
o Forced villagers to collect rubber
o Reign of terror
o Cultivation system- peasants were required to cultivate 20% or more
of their land in cash crops to meet their tax obligations to the state
o Many become indebted to moneylenders when they could not meet
their obligations
o Contributed to a wave of famine
• Did the peasants resist? Examples?
o Indian Rebellion
• Did cash-crop agriculture have more of a positive or negative effect?
Positive
Negative
Helped local farmers
Environmental consequences
Burma- increase in rice
production lead to an
improvement in living standards
Generated large amounts of
methane gas, major contributor to
global warming
Fed millions of people in other
parts of Asia and elsewhere
West Africa: shortage of labor
fostered the employment of
former slaves ad dependent and
exploited workers
Ghana: African farmers planted
cacao trees in huge quantities and
became the world’s leading
supplier of cocoa
Many colonies came to specialize
in 1 or 2 cash crops creating an
unhealthy dependence when
world market prices dropped
• What were the consequences of wage labor on the population?
o Wage labor = working in European-owned plantations, mines,
construction projects, and homes
o Subject to strict control
o Often housed in barracks
o Paid poorly
o Women received 0 to % of a man’s wage
o Disease was common
o Death rates were twice or more that of the colony as a whole
o Due to loss of land, many Africans migrated to European farms or
plantations
o Ecological degradation
o Appalling living conditions in Malaysian tin mines for Chinese
workers
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