## Metadata - Author: [[Walter Rodney]] - Full Title: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Published: - Category: #books ## Highlights - Development in human society is a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility, and material well-being. Some of these are virtually moral categories and are difficult to evaluate—depending as they do on the age in which one lives, one’s class origins, and one’s personal code of what is wrong [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601209) ^rw283601209 - The relations which develop within any given social group are crucial to an understanding of the society as a whole. Freedom, responsibility, skill, have real meaning only in terms of the relations of men in society. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601210) ^rw283601210 - At the level of social groups, therefore, development implies an increasing capacity to regulate both internal and external relationships. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601211) ^rw283601211 - The very act of making tools was a stimulus to increasing rationality rather than the consequence of a fully matured intellect. In historical terms, man the worker was every bit as important as man the thinker, because the work with tools liberated men from sheer physical necessity, so that he could impose himself upon other more powerful species and upon nature itself. The tools with which men work and the manner in which they organize their labor are both important indices of social development. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601212) ^rw283601212 - In the natural sciences, it is well known that in many instances, quantitative change becomes qualitative after a certain period. The common example is the way that water can absorb heat (a quantitative process) until at 100°C it changes to steam (a qualitative change of form). Similarly, in human society it has always been the case that the expansion of the economy leads eventually to a change in the form of social relations [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601213) ^rw283601213 - The key feature is that, at given junctures, the social relations in the society were no longer effective in promoting advance. Indeed, they began to act as brakes on the productive forces and therefore had to be discarded. Take for instance the epoch of slavery in Europe. However morally indefensible slavery may have been, it did serve for a while to open up the mines and agricultural plantations in large parts of Europe and notably within the Roman Empire. But then those peasants who remained free had their labor depressed and underutilized because of the presence of slaves. The slaves were not disposed to work at any tasks requiring skills, so the technological evolution of society threatened to come to a halt. Furthermore, the slaves were restless, and slave revolts were expensive to put down. The landowners, seeing their estates going to ruin, decided that it would be best to grant the legal freedom for which slaves were clamoring, and to keep exploiting the labor of these free serfs by insuring that they had no lands to plow other than those of the landlords. Thereby, a new set of social relations—that of landlord and serf—replaced the old relations of slavemaster and slave. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601214) ^rw283601214 - To fulfill their objective of acquiring more and more capital, capitalists took a greater interest in the laws of science which could be harnessed in the form of machinery to work and make profit on their behalf. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601215) ^rw283601215 - All of the countries named as “underdeveloped” in the world are exploited by others; and the underdevelopment with which the world is now preoccupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist, and colonialist exploitation. African and Asian societies were developing independently until they were taken over directly or indirectly by the capitalist powers. When that happened, exploitation increased and the export of surplus ensued, depriving the societies of the benefit of their natural resources and labor. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601216) ^rw283601216 - Furthermore, one also has to judge the protein content of the food; and many parts of Africa suffer from “protein famine”—which means that even when calories are available from starchy foods, protein is not to be found. Persons in developed capitalist and socialist countries consume twice as much protein food as those in underdeveloped countries. Such differences help to make it clear which countries are developed and which are underdeveloped. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601217) ^rw283601217 - It has been noted with irony that the principal “industry” of many underdeveloped countries is administration. Not long ago, 60 percent of the internal revenue of Dahomey went into paying salaries of civil servants and government leaders. The salaries given to the elected politicians are higher than those given to a British Member of Parliament, [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601218) ^rw283601218 - When the “experts” from capitalist countries do not give a racist explanation, they nevertheless confuse the issue by giving as causes of underdevelopment the things which really are consequences. For example, they would argue that Africa is in a state of backwardness as a result of lacking skilled personnel to develop. It is true that because of lack of engineers, Africa cannot on its own build more roads, bridges, and hydroelectric stations. But that is not a cause of underdevelopment, except in the rinse that causes and effects come together and reinforce each other [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601219) ^rw283601219 - Mistaken interpretations of the causes of underdevelopment usually stem either from prejudiced thinking or from the error of believing that one can learn the answers by looking inside the underdeveloped economy. The true explanation lies in seeking out the relationship between Africa and certain developed countries and in recognizing that it is a relationship of exploitation. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601220) ^rw283601220 - So long as foreigners own land, mines, factories, banks, insurance companies, means of transportation, newspapers, power stations, then for so long will the wealth of Africa flow outwards into the hands of those elements. In other words, in the absence of direct political control, foreign investment insures that the natural resources and the labor of Africa produce economic value which is lost to the continent. Foreign investment often takes the form of loans to African governments. Naturally, these loans have to be repaid; and in the 1960s the rate of repayment (amortization) on official loans in underdeveloped countries rose from $400 million per year to about $700 million per year, and it is constantly on the increase. Besides, there is interest to be paid on these loans as well as profits which come from the direct investment in the economy. These two sources accounted for the fact that over $500 million flowed outwards from the underdeveloped countries in 1965. The information on these matters is seldom complete, for the obvious reason that those making the profit are trying to keep things quiet [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601221) ^rw283601221 - Note: Investment is opposite to The effect nationalisation would have - factors have brought about underdevelopment. In the first place, the wealth created by African labor and from African resources was grabbed by the capitalist countries of Europe; and in the second place, restrictions were placed upon African capacity to make the maximum use of its economic potential—which is what development is all about. Those two processes represent the answer to the two questions raised above as to why Africa has realized so little of its potential and why so much of its present wealth goes outside of the continent. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601222) ^rw283601222 - A striking example of this effect is the fact that synthetic fabrics manufactured in the capitalist metropoles have begun to replace fabrics made from raw material grown in the colonies. In other words, (within certain limits) it is the technologically advanced metropoles who can decide when to end their dependence on the colonies in a particular sphere. When that happens, it is the colony or neo-colony which goes begging cap in hand for a reprieve and a new quota. It is for this reason that a formerly colonized nation has no hope of developing until it breaks effectively with the vicious circle of dependence and exploitation which characterizes imperialism. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601223) ^rw283601223 - But by the end of feudalism, Europeans began to narrow the area of human life in which religion and the church played a part. Religion ceased to dominate politics, geography, medicine. To free those things from religious restraints, it had to be argued that religion had its own sphere and the things of this world had their own secular sphere. This secularization of life speeded up the development of capitalism and later socialism. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601224) ^rw283601224 - In both of those examples, the right of the father-in-law to acquire labor and the obligations of the son-in-law to give labor were based on kinship. This can be contrasted with capitalism, where money buys labor, and with feudalism, where the serf provides labor in order to have access to a portion of land which belongs to the landlord. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601225) ^rw283601225 - Elsewhere in Africa, communal societies were introduced to the concept of owning alien human beings when they took captives in war. At first, those captives were in a very disadvantaged position, comparable to that of slaves, but very rapidly, captives or their offspring became ordinary members of the society, because there was no scope for the perpetual exploitation of man by man in a context that was neither feudal nor capitalist. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601226) ^rw283601226 - In a sense, all history is transition from one stage to another, but some historical situations along the line have more clearly distinguishable characteristics than others. Thus under communalism there were no classes, and there was equal access to land, and equality in distribution—at a low level of technology and production. Feudalism involved great inequality in distribution of land and social products. The landlord class and its bureaucracy controlled the state and used it as an instrument for oppressing peasants, serfs, slaves, and even craftsmen and merchants. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601227) ^rw283601227 - Where a few people owned the land and the majority were tenants, this injustice at a particular stage of history allowed the few to concentrate on improving their land. In contrast, under communalism, every African was assured of sufficient land to meet his own needs by virtue of being a member of a family or community. For that reason, and because land was relatively abundant, there were few social pressures or incentives for technical changes to increase productivity. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601228) ^rw283601228 - From a political perspective, the period of transition from communalism to feudalism in Africa was one of state formation. At the beginning (and for many centuries), the state remained weak and immature. It acquired definite territorial boundaries, but inside those boundaries, subjects lived in their own communities with scarcely any contact with the ruling class until the time came to pay an annual tax or tribute. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601229) ^rw283601229 - Sometimes, the word “stateless” is carelessly or even abusively used, but it does describe those peoples who had no machinery of government coercion and no concept of a political unit wider than the family or the village. After all, if there is no class stratification in a society, it follows that there is no state, because the state arose as an instrument to be used by a particular class to control the rest of society in its own interests. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601230) ^rw283601230 - The striking achievements of Muslim Maghreb we spread over the naval, military, commercial, and cultural spheres. Its navies controlled the western Mediterranean and its armies took over most of Portugal and Spain. When the Muslim advance into Europe was turned back in the year 732 A.D., North African armies were already deep into France. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601231) ^rw283601231 - As one index to the standard of social life, it has been pointed out that public baths were common in the cities of Maghreb at a time when in Oxford the doctrine was still being propounded that the washing of the body was a dangerous act. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601232) ^rw283601232 - The experience of the Maghreb can be drawn upon to illustrate the lengthy nature of transition from the one mode of production to another and the fact that two different ways of organizing society could coexist side by side over centuries. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601233) ^rw283601233 - Note: Continuous Revolution rather than one attempt - When Cecil Rhodes sent in his agents to rob and steal in Zimbabwe, they and other Europeans marveled at the surviving ruins of the Zimbabwe culture, and automatically assumed that it had been built by white people. Even today, there is still a tendency to consider the achievements with a sense of wonder rather than with the calm acceptance that it was a perfectly logical outgrowth of human social development within Africa, as part of the universal process by which man’s labor opened up new horizons. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601234) ^rw283601234 --- tags: books aliases: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa date created: 2022-03-31 publish: true ---  ## Metadata - Author: [[Walter Rodney]] - Full Title: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Published: - Category: #books ## Highlights - Development in human society is a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility, and material well-being. Some of these are virtually moral categories and are difficult to evaluate—depending as they do on the age in which one lives, one’s class origins, and one’s personal code of what is wrong [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601209) ^rw283601209 - The relations which develop within any given social group are crucial to an understanding of the society as a whole. Freedom, responsibility, skill, have real meaning only in terms of the relations of men in society. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601210) ^rw283601210 - At the level of social groups, therefore, development implies an increasing capacity to regulate both internal and external relationships. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601211) ^rw283601211 - The very act of making tools was a stimulus to increasing rationality rather than the consequence of a fully matured intellect. In historical terms, man the worker was every bit as important as man the thinker, because the work with tools liberated men from sheer physical necessity, so that he could impose himself upon other more powerful species and upon nature itself. The tools with which men work and the manner in which they organize their labor are both important indices of social development. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601212) ^rw283601212 - In the natural sciences, it is well known that in many instances, quantitative change becomes qualitative after a certain period. The common example is the way that water can absorb heat (a quantitative process) until at 100°C it changes to steam (a qualitative change of form). Similarly, in human society it has always been the case that the expansion of the economy leads eventually to a change in the form of social relations [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601213) ^rw283601213 - The key feature is that, at given junctures, the social relations in the society were no longer effective in promoting advance. Indeed, they began to act as brakes on the productive forces and therefore had to be discarded. Take for instance the epoch of slavery in Europe. However morally indefensible slavery may have been, it did serve for a while to open up the mines and agricultural plantations in large parts of Europe and notably within the Roman Empire. But then those peasants who remained free had their labor depressed and underutilized because of the presence of slaves. The slaves were not disposed to work at any tasks requiring skills, so the technological evolution of society threatened to come to a halt. Furthermore, the slaves were restless, and slave revolts were expensive to put down. The landowners, seeing their estates going to ruin, decided that it would be best to grant the legal freedom for which slaves were clamoring, and to keep exploiting the labor of these free serfs by insuring that they had no lands to plow other than those of the landlords. Thereby, a new set of social relations—that of landlord and serf—replaced the old relations of slavemaster and slave. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601214) ^rw283601214 - To fulfill their objective of acquiring more and more capital, capitalists took a greater interest in the laws of science which could be harnessed in the form of machinery to work and make profit on their behalf. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601215) ^rw283601215 - All of the countries named as “underdeveloped” in the world are exploited by others; and the underdevelopment with which the world is now preoccupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist, and colonialist exploitation. African and Asian societies were developing independently until they were taken over directly or indirectly by the capitalist powers. When that happened, exploitation increased and the export of surplus ensued, depriving the societies of the benefit of their natural resources and labor. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601216) ^rw283601216 - Furthermore, one also has to judge the protein content of the food; and many parts of Africa suffer from “protein famine”—which means that even when calories are available from starchy foods, protein is not to be found. Persons in developed capitalist and socialist countries consume twice as much protein food as those in underdeveloped countries. Such differences help to make it clear which countries are developed and which are underdeveloped. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601217) ^rw283601217 - It has been noted with irony that the principal “industry” of many underdeveloped countries is administration. Not long ago, 60 percent of the internal revenue of Dahomey went into paying salaries of civil servants and government leaders. The salaries given to the elected politicians are higher than those given to a British Member of Parliament, [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601218) ^rw283601218 - When the “experts” from capitalist countries do not give a racist explanation, they nevertheless confuse the issue by giving as causes of underdevelopment the things which really are consequences. For example, they would argue that Africa is in a state of backwardness as a result of lacking skilled personnel to develop. It is true that because of lack of engineers, Africa cannot on its own build more roads, bridges, and hydroelectric stations. But that is not a cause of underdevelopment, except in the rinse that causes and effects come together and reinforce each other [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601219) ^rw283601219 - Mistaken interpretations of the causes of underdevelopment usually stem either from prejudiced thinking or from the error of believing that one can learn the answers by looking inside the underdeveloped economy. The true explanation lies in seeking out the relationship between Africa and certain developed countries and in recognizing that it is a relationship of exploitation. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601220) ^rw283601220 - So long as foreigners own land, mines, factories, banks, insurance companies, means of transportation, newspapers, power stations, then for so long will the wealth of Africa flow outwards into the hands of those elements. In other words, in the absence of direct political control, foreign investment insures that the natural resources and the labor of Africa produce economic value which is lost to the continent. Foreign investment often takes the form of loans to African governments. Naturally, these loans have to be repaid; and in the 1960s the rate of repayment (amortization) on official loans in underdeveloped countries rose from $400 million per year to about $700 million per year, and it is constantly on the increase. Besides, there is interest to be paid on these loans as well as profits which come from the direct investment in the economy. These two sources accounted for the fact that over $500 million flowed outwards from the underdeveloped countries in 1965. The information on these matters is seldom complete, for the obvious reason that those making the profit are trying to keep things quiet [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601221) ^rw283601221 - Note: Investment is opposite to The effect nationalisation would have - factors have brought about underdevelopment. In the first place, the wealth created by African labor and from African resources was grabbed by the capitalist countries of Europe; and in the second place, restrictions were placed upon African capacity to make the maximum use of its economic potential—which is what development is all about. Those two processes represent the answer to the two questions raised above as to why Africa has realized so little of its potential and why so much of its present wealth goes outside of the continent. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601222) ^rw283601222 - A striking example of this effect is the fact that synthetic fabrics manufactured in the capitalist metropoles have begun to replace fabrics made from raw material grown in the colonies. In other words, (within certain limits) it is the technologically advanced metropoles who can decide when to end their dependence on the colonies in a particular sphere. When that happens, it is the colony or neo-colony which goes begging cap in hand for a reprieve and a new quota. It is for this reason that a formerly colonized nation has no hope of developing until it breaks effectively with the vicious circle of dependence and exploitation which characterizes imperialism. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601223) ^rw283601223 - But by the end of feudalism, Europeans began to narrow the area of human life in which religion and the church played a part. Religion ceased to dominate politics, geography, medicine. To free those things from religious restraints, it had to be argued that religion had its own sphere and the things of this world had their own secular sphere. This secularization of life speeded up the development of capitalism and later socialism. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601224) ^rw283601224 - In both of those examples, the right of the father-in-law to acquire labor and the obligations of the son-in-law to give labor were based on kinship. This can be contrasted with capitalism, where money buys labor, and with feudalism, where the serf provides labor in order to have access to a portion of land which belongs to the landlord. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601225) ^rw283601225 - Elsewhere in Africa, communal societies were introduced to the concept of owning alien human beings when they took captives in war. At first, those captives were in a very disadvantaged position, comparable to that of slaves, but very rapidly, captives or their offspring became ordinary members of the society, because there was no scope for the perpetual exploitation of man by man in a context that was neither feudal nor capitalist. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601226) ^rw283601226 - In a sense, all history is transition from one stage to another, but some historical situations along the line have more clearly distinguishable characteristics than others. Thus under communalism there were no classes, and there was equal access to land, and equality in distribution—at a low level of technology and production. Feudalism involved great inequality in distribution of land and social products. The landlord class and its bureaucracy controlled the state and used it as an instrument for oppressing peasants, serfs, slaves, and even craftsmen and merchants. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601227) ^rw283601227 - Where a few people owned the land and the majority were tenants, this injustice at a particular stage of history allowed the few to concentrate on improving their land. In contrast, under communalism, every African was assured of sufficient land to meet his own needs by virtue of being a member of a family or community. For that reason, and because land was relatively abundant, there were few social pressures or incentives for technical changes to increase productivity. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601228) ^rw283601228 - From a political perspective, the period of transition from communalism to feudalism in Africa was one of state formation. At the beginning (and for many centuries), the state remained weak and immature. It acquired definite territorial boundaries, but inside those boundaries, subjects lived in their own communities with scarcely any contact with the ruling class until the time came to pay an annual tax or tribute. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601229) ^rw283601229 - Sometimes, the word “stateless” is carelessly or even abusively used, but it does describe those peoples who had no machinery of government coercion and no concept of a political unit wider than the family or the village. After all, if there is no class stratification in a society, it follows that there is no state, because the state arose as an instrument to be used by a particular class to control the rest of society in its own interests. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601230) ^rw283601230 - The striking achievements of Muslim Maghreb we spread over the naval, military, commercial, and cultural spheres. Its navies controlled the western Mediterranean and its armies took over most of Portugal and Spain. When the Muslim advance into Europe was turned back in the year 732 A.D., North African armies were already deep into France. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601231) ^rw283601231 - As one index to the standard of social life, it has been pointed out that public baths were common in the cities of Maghreb at a time when in Oxford the doctrine was still being propounded that the washing of the body was a dangerous act. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601232) ^rw283601232 - The experience of the Maghreb can be drawn upon to illustrate the lengthy nature of transition from the one mode of production to another and the fact that two different ways of organizing society could coexist side by side over centuries. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601233) ^rw283601233 - Note: Continuous Revolution rather than one attempt - When Cecil Rhodes sent in his agents to rob and steal in Zimbabwe, they and other Europeans marveled at the surviving ruins of the Zimbabwe culture, and automatically assumed that it had been built by white people. Even today, there is still a tendency to consider the achievements with a sense of wonder rather than with the calm acceptance that it was a perfectly logical outgrowth of human social development within Africa, as part of the universal process by which man’s labor opened up new horizons. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/283601234) ^rw283601234 ## New highlights added November 12, 2022 - If you were to lose each year more than 200 million livres that you now get from your colonies: if you had not the exclusive trade with your colonies to feed your manufactures, to maintain your navy, to keep your agriculture going, to repay for your imports, to provide for your luxury needs, to advantageously balance your trade with Europe and Asia, then I say it clearly, the kingdom would be irretrievably lost. —Bishop Maury (of France); Argument against France’s ending the slave trade and giving freedom to its slave colonies, presented in the French National Assembly, 1791 [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773048) ^rw412773048 - Because of the superficiality of many of the approaches to “underdevelopment,” and because of resulting misconceptions, it is necessary to reemphasize that development and underdevelopment are not only comparative terms, but that they also have a dialectical relationship one to the other: that is to say, the two help produce each other by interaction [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773049) ^rw412773049 - The contention here is that over that period, Africa helped to develop Western Europe in the same proportion as Western Europe helped to underdevelop Africa. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773050) ^rw412773050 - The first significant thing about the internationalization of trade in the fifteenth century was that Europeans took the initiative and went to other parts of the world. No Chinese boats reached Europe, and if any African canoes reached the Americas (as is sometimes maintained), they did not establish two-way links. What was called international trade was nothing but the extension overseas of European interests. The strategy behind international trade and the production that supported it was firmly in European hands, and specifically in the hands of the sea-going nations from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773051) ^rw412773051 - When the Portuguese and the Spanish were still in command of a major sector of world trade in the first half of the seventeenth century, they engaged in buying cotton cloth in India to exchange for slaves in Africa to mine gold in Central and South America. Part of the gold in the Americas would then be used to purchase spices and silks from the Far East. The concept of metropole and dependency automatically came into existence when parts of Africa were caught up in the web of international commerce. On the one hand, there were the European countries who decided on the role to be played by the African economy; and on the other hand, Africa formed an extension to the European capitalist market. As far as foreign trade was concerned, Africa was dependent on what Europeans were prepared to buy and sell. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773052) ^rw412773052 - When Europeans reached the Americas, they recognized its enormous potential in gold and silver and tropical produce. But that potential could not be made a reality without adequate labor supplies. The indigenous Indian population could not withstand new European diseases such as smallpox, nor could they bear the organized toil of slave plantations and slave mines, having barely emerged from the hunting stage. That is why in islands like Cuba and Hispaniola, the local Indian population was virtually wiped out by the white invaders. At the same time, Europe itself had a very small population and could not afford to release the labor required to tap the wealth of the Americas. Therefore, they turned to the nearest continent, Africa, which incidentally had a population accustomed to settled agriculture and disciplined labor in many spheres. Those were the objective conditions lying behind the start of the European slave trade, and those are the reasons why the capitalist class in Europe used their control of international trade to insure that Africa specialized in exporting captives. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773053) ^rw412773053 - Furthermore, when one European nation challenged another to obtain captives from an African ruler, Europe benefited from whichever of the two nations won the conflict. Any European trader could arrive on the coast of West Africa and exploit the political differences which he found there. For example, in the small territory that the Portuguese later claimed as Guinea-Bissau, there were more than a dozen ethnic groups. It was so easy to set one off against another that Europeans called it a “slave [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773054) ^rw412773054 - trader’s paradise.” [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773055) ^rw412773055 - Once trade in slaves had been started in any given part of Africa, it soon became clear that it was beyond the capacity of any single African state to change the situation. In Angola, the Portuguese employed an unusual number of their own troops and tried to seize political power from Africans. The Angolan state of Matamba on the river Kwango was founded around 1630 as a direct reaction against the Portuguese. With Queen Nzinga at its head, Matamba tried to coordinate resistance against the Portuguese in Angola. However, Portugal gained the upper hand in 1648, and this left Matamba isolated. Matamba could not forever stand aside. So long as it opposed trade with the Portuguese, it was an object of hostility from neighboring African states which had compromised with Europeans and slave trading. So in 1656, Queen Nzinga resumed business with the Portuguese—a major concession to the decision-making role of Europeans within the Angolan economy. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773056) ^rw412773056 - Another example of African resistance during the course of the slave trade comes from the Baga people in what is now the Republic of Guinea. The Baga lived in small states, and in about 1720, one of their leaders (Tomba by name) aimed at securing an alliance to stop the slave traffic. He was defeated by local European resident-traders, mulattos, and other slave trading Africans. It is not difficult to understand why Europeans should have taken immediate steps to see that Tomba and his Baga followers did not opt out of the role allocated to them by Europe. A parallel which presents itself is the manner in which Europeans got together to wage the “Opium War” against China in the nineteenth century to insure that Western capitalists would make profit while the Chinese were turned into dope addicts. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773057) ^rw412773057 - Many guilty consciences have been created by the slave trade. Europeans know that they carried on the slave trade, and Africans are aware that the trade would have been impossible if certain Africans did not cooperate with the slave ships. To ease their guilty consciences, Europeans try to throw the major responsibility for the slave trade on to the Africans [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773058) ^rw412773058 - Marx noted that “the discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the turning of Africa into a commercial warren for the hunting of black skins signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.” [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773059) ^rw412773059 - John Hawkins made three trips to West Africa in the 1560s, and stole Africans whom he sold to the Spanish in America. On returning to England after the first trip, his profit was so handsome that Queen Elizabeth I became interested in directly participating in his next venture; and she provided for that purpose a ship named the Jesus. Hawkins left with the Jesus to steal some more Africans, and be returned to England with such dividends that Queen Elizabeth made him a knight. Hawkins chose as his coat of arms the representation of an African in chains. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773060) ^rw412773060 - A few bourgeois scholars have tried to suggest that the trade in slaves did not have worthwhile monetary returns. They would have us believe that the same entrepreneurs whom they praise in other contexts as the heroes of capitalist development were so dumb with regard to slavery and slave trade that for centuries they absorbed themselves in a non-profit venture! This [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773061) ^rw412773061 - Outstanding examples are provided in the persons of David and Alexander Barclay, who were engaging in slave trade in 1756 and who later used the loot to set up Barclays Bank. There was a similar progression in the case of Lloyds—from being a small London coffee house to being one of the world’s largest banking and insurance houses, after dipping into profits from slave trade and slavery. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773062) ^rw412773062 - As in Europe, the profits made from slavery and slave trade went firstly to commercial ports and industrial areas, which meant mainly the northeastern seaboard district known as New England and the state of New York. The Pan-Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois, in a study of the American slave trade, quoted a report of 1862 as follows: The number of persons engaged in the slave trade and the amount of capital embarked in it exceed our powers of calculation. The city of New York has been until of late (1862) the principal port of the world for this infamous commerce; although the cities of Portland and Boston are only second to her in that distribution. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773063) ^rw412773063 - Slavery is useful for early accumulation of capital, but it is too rigid for industrial development. Slaves had to be given crude non-breakable tools which held back the capitalist development of agriculture and industry. That explains the fact that the northern portions of the United States gained far more industrial benefits from slavery than the South, which actually had slave institutions on its soil; and ultimately the stage was reached during the American Civil War when the Northern capitalists fought to end slavery within the boundaries of the United States so that the country as a whole could advance to a higher level of capitalism. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773064) ^rw412773064 - Europe maintained slavery in places that were physically remote from European society; and therefore inside Europe itself, capitalist relations were elaborated without being adversely affected by slavery in the Americas. However, even in Europe, there came a moment when the leading capitalist states found that the trade in slaves and the use of slave labor in the Americas was no longer in the interest of their further development. Britain made this decision early in the nineteenth century, to be followed later by France. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773065) ^rw412773065 - Since capitalism, like any other mode of production, is a total system which involves an ideological aspect, it is also necessary to focus on the effects of the ties with Africa on the development of ideas within the superstructure of European capitalist society. In that sphere, the most striking feature is undoubtedly the rise of racism as a widespread and deeply rooted clement in European thought. The role of slavery in promoting racist prejudice and ideology has been carefully studied in certain situations, especially in the United States. The simple fact is that no people can enslave another for centuries without coming out with a notion of superiority, and when the color and other physical traits of those peoples were quite different, it was inevitable that the prejudice should take a racist form [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773066) ^rw412773066 - It would be much too sweeping a statement to say that all racial and color prejudice in Europe derived from the enslavement of Africans and the exploitation of non-white peoples in the early centuries of international trade. There was also anti-Semitism at an even earlier date inside Europe and there is always an element of suspicion and incomprehension when peoples of different cultures come together. However, it can be affirmed without reservations that the white racism which came to pervade the world was an integral part of the capitalist mode of production. Nor was it merely a question of how the individual white person treated a black person. The racism of Europe was a set of generalizations and assumptions, which had no scientific basis, but were rationalized in every sphere from theology to biology. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773067) ^rw412773067 - Occasionally, it is mistakenly held that Europeans enslaved Africans for racist reasons. European planters and miners enslaved Africans for economic reasons, so that their labor power could be exploited. Indeed, it would have been impossible to open up the New World and to use it as a constant generator of wealth, had it not been for African labor. There were no other alternatives: the American (Indian) population was virtually wiped out and Europe’s population was too small for settlement overseas at that time. Then, having become utterly dependent on African labor, Europeans at home and abroad found it necessary to rationalize that exploitation in racist terms as well. Oppression follows logically from exploitation, so as to guarantee the latter. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773068) ^rw412773068 - Oppression of African people on purely racial grounds accompanied, strengthened, and became indistinguishable from oppression for economic reasons. C. L. R. James, noted Pan-Africanist and Marxist, once remarked that: The race question is subsidiary to the class question in polities, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental is an error only less grave than to make it fundamental. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773069) ^rw412773069 - In the short run, European racism seemed to have done Europeans no harm, and they used those erroneous ideas to justify their further domination of non-European peoples in the colonial epoch. But the international proliferation of bigoted and unscientific racist ideas was bound to have its negative consequences in the long run. When Europeans put millions of their brothers (Jews) into ovens under the Nazis, the chickens were coming home to roost. [◊](https://readwise.io/open/412773070) ^rw412773070