EDITORS José C. Curto Paul E. Lovejoy Department of History Department of History Harriet Tubman Institute Harriet Tubman Institute York University York University North York, Ontario North York, Ontario FAX 416/736-5836 FAX 416/736-5836 jccurto@yorku.ca plovejoy@yorku.ca EDITORIAL BOARD Toyin Falola Colleen Kriger Department of History Department of History University of Texas University of North Carolina-Greensboro Austin, TX 78712 P.O. Box 26170 FAX 512/475-7222 Greensboro, NC 27402-6170 toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu FAX 336/334-5910 c_kriger@uncg.edu Donna Maier Department of History University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, IA 50614 FAX 319/273-5846 donna.maier@uni.edu Managing Editor Publications Manager David Henige Michael Egly dhenige@library.wisc.edu publications@africa.wisc.edu African Economic History is published by the African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in collaboration with The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples at York University, Toronto. Limited copies of most previously published volumes are available from the African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, 205 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, tel.: 608/262-2493, FAX 608/265-5851, e-mail: publications@africa.wisc.edu. ISSN 0145-2258 All volumes are $22.00 each to individuals, $42.00 each to institutions. ©Copyright 2008 by the Regents of the University of Wisconsin CONTENTS The Profitability of Slave Labour and the “Time” Effect 1 Maciel Santos and Ana Guedes Ọgaranyas (Wealthy Men) in Late Nineteenth Century Igboland: 27 Chief Igwebe Ọdum of Arondizuogu c.1860-1940 Raphael C. Njoku European Competition and Cooperation in Pre-Modern 53 Globalization: “Portuguese” West and Central Africa, 1500-1600 Christopher Ebert Religious Plurality and Economic Sustainability: The Impact of 79 Muslim Merchants on the Colonial Economy of Nineteenth Century Freetown Gibril R. Cole Business, State and Economy: Cotton and the Anglo-Egyptian 95 Sudan, 1919-1939 Simon Mollan Periodizing African Development History 125 Ruth Rempel Contributors 159 THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR AND THE “TIME” EFFECT Maciel Santos* and Ana Guedes Centro de Estudos Africanos, University of Porto F or over fifty years, the profitability of slave labor – an issue almost wholly identified with investments in slavery in the southern United States – has been assessed using econometric models. From the scores of influential articles and the hundreds of others that share a methodology which was in fact developed for this purpose, two observations can be made. First, that the discussion has focused less on econometric models and more on the research and critique of the data used for the variables in those models. Although various production functions have been perfected, it is still interesting to see how so many important contributions differed merely on matters of historical methodology, that is on the selection and interpretation of primary sources.1 The second observation, which follows from the first, is that there is a consensus regarding the basic equation of the discussion, the rate of profit. How many units of profit are produced by one unit of capital: nothing simpler than this ratio. Following the article by Conrad and Meyer in 1957, the problem became one of comparing the returns obtained from investments in slave labor and those obtained from available alternative uses.2 With this goal in sight, profitability was reduced to its financial expression: two rates of return for bonds with the same nominal value. The definitions used in neoclassical theory express the comparison in a very simple manner. If the rate of profit (i) of an investment – for example in slaves – is defined as (1) where b = gross earnings (output) a = production expenditure for the gross earnings (input) African Economic History v.36(2008) 2 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES C = capital required to generate the flow (b-a) and gross earnings, ignoring the capitalization of profits, are defined as (2) where t is the unit of time considered, we can deduce, from (1) and (2): (3) and to compare profitability, use the NPV (Net Present Value) calculation: (4) where i is the alternative earning rate to compare. In this sequence of equations, which follows the apparent movement of profit and where slaves now seem remote, no distinction is made between constant and variable capital. Such a distinction would mean that the composition of the product would include a surplus-value – a capital gain – which is not justified if, as neoclassical theory assumes, all factors of production receive their marginal remuneration. However, a distinction is made between fixed and circulating capital: in the denominator in (1), the variable a includes “the value of all services consumed in producing whatever is regarded as the output stream of that particular resource.”3 At least one of those “services” – the one which follows from slave labor – comes from a capital account (C) which has a rotation time greater than each unit of time used to measure the cash flow period.4 Slaves represent capital advanced during more than one yearly rotation and in all cases where the NPV is greater than or THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 3 equal to 0, the variable b should therefore cover the maintenance/amortisation quota included in each yearly rotation. Even if one considers the distinction between these two types of expenditure (maintenance expenditure and the actual amortisation) irrelevant, gross earnings must include a fraction of value corresponding to the renewal of the capital invested in slaves advanced for the whole of the cash flow period. The assumption that the slave population grows through natural reproduction, which would give rise to a perpetual flow of earnings, does not mean that maintenance/amortisation costs do not take place and that, in order to make comparisons, the period t should not always be defined: otherwise the NPV equation could also not be used to compare profitability.5 In order for the flow b to include the amortisation quota, the asset must be used during a minimum period in each unit of time of its rotation. The less labor time coincides with total possible labor time, the lower the gross earnings will be; below a certain limit, these may actually not cover the amortisation quota and below this level capital is no longer being reproduced. Therefore, all equations above assume two dimensions of the time factor, though this is not made explicit: the effective labor time in each rotation unit and the total time of the rotation of the fixed capital. This distinction justifies the choice between different labor methods, when such a choice is possible: “pure” wage earners or forced laborers with purchase costs.6 Depending on the greater or lesser effective time per rotation they allow, the technological characteristics of the different branches of production determine the profitability of using wage earners or, alternatively, slaves or coolies: wheat farming, with intermittent work, would preferably require the former; tobacco, maize or cotton, the latter.7 The fact that this correlation has not always been found – that is, that more or less random political developments in many cases prevented the two options from being available, or that, even with crops which have a clear seasonal nature, it is possible, through combined schedules, to maximize the effective time of laborers that are fixed capital – does not invalidate the fact that a minimum utilization time of the asset determines its profitability.8 Given that, as regards slaves, this profitability implies the full utilization of the asset, “Genovese’s rule” would be the main difference between capital employing slaves and employing wage earners.9 With a greater or lesser emphasis on 4 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES technological determinism, it is now generally agreed that this peculiarity of slave labor – both fixed and circulating capital – creates a relation between these two dimensions of time.10 I. The assumption of the labor theory of value The consensus on this point does not mean that in equations (1) through (4) the variables b, a, and t are incorporated into relations of mutual determination. In any of those equations, the effective time of the “slave” will condition its profitability as an accounting asset (asset) but there is no determination between effective time and the income produced. The income produced may in fact vary independently of the actual effective time. On the other hand, the income produced does not seem to be related to any input.11 For a dynamic between variables to be considered, a necessary – but not sufficient – condition would be their reduction to a common unit of measurement, which according to the theoretical assumption of the equations above cannot happen. The variables b and a represent units of value and the variable t represents units of time. These two sets cannot mutually determine one another in the theoretical framework of equations (1) through (4), given that a necessary link between value and time is not provided. Changing the assumptions, it is possible to find a common unit of measurement. If the units of value are seen as equivalent to units of labor time, we have the necessary condition for the conversion and, as a result, for the hypothesis of a dynamics of determination between the variables (the sufficient condition will be that there is in fact a functional determination between them). In this way, in the following items and without any normative intention, the labor theory of value will be used insofar as it allows us to equate, depending on a common unit – labor time –, the determinations between capital, profit, and slave labor time. The use of this theory leads to two additional considerations: 1) that the rent effects be annulled (that is, that the prices of the goods produced by slave labor be exclusively identified with values, that is, with labor time) and 2) that in the productive capital considered, workers are the only element of fixed capital. These considerations are not theoretical conditions, but merely additional hypotheses to facilitate the exposition. Thus, if the sole purpose of this exercise is to isolate the structural relations between the variables of any capital using slave labor, there is an advantage in eliminating the interferences brought by random factors. THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 5 The market prices of the goods produced by workers of this type often included accidental deviations, as a result of differential rents that under certain circumstances were or not added to the product. The expression “windfall profit” clearly expresses the characteristic randomness of this market situation. There is also no advantage in analyzing the relation between earnings and the rotation of more than one fixed capital: the capitals that employ slaves include other fixed capital accounts associated with the productive equipment but, for accounting purposes, no reason prevents one from isolating the asset “slaves.” Consider then a situation where the whole product has a value directly proportional to labor time, where the entire product is obtained using only one input – slaves – who work manually (for example, harvesting the fruits of a plant that grows spontaneously), that is, with no other fixed capital element apart from the purchase price of the slaves. Then the rate of profit (r)12 is defined as: (5) where sn = surplus labor time corresponding to surplus-value, that is, to the added value created by the elongation of necessary labor time, in year n; vn = necessary labor time, corresponding to variable capital advanced for the maintenance of the laborers, in year n; k = labor time corresponding to the purchase value of the asset, that is, the value of the fixed capital;13 n = rotation time of fixed capital in years The sum sn + vn corresponds to effective time, i.e., to labor time added in each yearly rotation to the value of the fixed capital; denote that sum by tn , in order to distinguish it from n, the number of years in which the rotation of the fixed capital is achieved. The inclusion in the denominator of an amortisation ratio (k /n) is an exclusive characteristic of a labor force that has a purchase cost. It is not 6 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES only slaves that have it – other labor forces whose productive consumption requires recruitment, transport, legalization, or other expenditures, such as the various types of indentured labor, emigration with transportation costs borne by the employer, etc – share this characteristic with slaves themselves. Some of these laborers may be legally non-free and, for the purpose of variation in effective time, there is a fundamental difference between forced and free laborers (see items 2.1 and 2.3). However, for the purpose of capital amortisation, the legal status is irrelevant, except insofar as it predetermines the length of time available for amortisation (as forcibly non renewable contracts). The following items use the term “slaves” to refer to forced laborers with purchase costs, although this term does not distinguish between the various legal situations which may be covered here. II. The determinations between variables 2.1. In equation (5), it is assumed that the variable vn tendentially determines: a) - the effective time tn b) - the rotation time n a) In the pure wage relation, capital pays the labor force only during the period in which it is productively consumed: if everything is done legally, it buys exactly the effective time t that was contracted. In addition, there is no amortisation time for the laborers, which in this case do not represent capital assets. When capital uses forced labor with purchase costs, these combinations are no longer automatic and become tendential: capital does not buy the effective time tn but only the right to unrestricted use of the laborer’s time. In each specific case of usage, the effective time in each year and the number of years by which the effective time will be multiplied may vary.14 Comparing it to “pure” wage earners, this variation may be under or over.15 Under, because the maintenance of temporarily or partially inactive laborers (the sick, incapable or non-cooperative) will continue to be the exclusive responsibility of the owner, on pain of fixed capital loses.16 Over, because – provided they are physically capable – the “slaves” may be forced to work for longer than in any other labor relation: an option determined exclusively by their owners.17 THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 7 Whether it is under or over in relation to what it would be under a contract, this variation is influenced by the magnitude and by the manner in which the maintenance goods and services are managed. This is yet another difference in relation to the “pure” wage earner mode: the managements of plantations that use “slave” labor have control resources that do not exist in the “pure” wage relation. Unlike what happens in the latter case, “slave” labor does not negotiate or manage its earnings and, as a result, its consumption. Their consumption habits – that is, the quality and quantity of food and clothing, the regulation of schedules, the actual logistics of consumption (which includes the scale of housing and common facilities)18 – are also the result of unilateral decisions of the capital, all of them aimed at maximizing the availability for work.19 The control over the laborers’ consumption creates scale effects (which follow from the common facilities) and also more easily excludes counterproductive consumption, such as alcohol. Moreover, it delays or even abolishes an important factor in the negotiating pressure for the increase in v: the entry of new goods and services into the standard of living basket. Since the maintenance costs are assured mainly in use values and distributed through common facilities (nurseries, canteens, and hospitals), this process of entrance of new goods or services would always take longer than with “pure” wage earners that receive monetary wages.20 When control extends beyond the labor relation – thus entering into the fraction of time that in the “pure” wage earner relation no longer belongs to capital – the advance of v becomes a tool for maximizing the effective time tn .21 It is possible to confirm the high correlation between the variable v and its maximizing effects on labor time.22 The unilateral choices of the owners of laborers regarding the value and management of the maintenance of goods and services resulted in a variable output of effective time. Two sorts of factors define time tn: - the total of surviving/resident productively active laborers23 in each year; let this variable be represented by S - the degree of labor utilization of the survivors/residents: duration x average intensity of labor time for each laborer in each time unit t; let the product of these two variables be represented by U.24 b) The decisions that the owners of laborers with purchase costs made regarding their maintenance costs also influenced the time n in which the asset could be used. 8 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES As is clear, the influencing of time n is relative: it is only possible within the margins of variation allowed by the demographic context (birth and morbidity rates, life expectancy, etc). However, there is no doubt that within these limitations the variations in the duration of the asset “slaves” are explained by the manner in which capitals consume and save this particular type of asset. It is known, for example, that the uses given to the slaves combined with the material conditions that were provided for that purpose explain the differentials found in the disease and mortality rates: some activities were more prone to rapid depreciation, accident, or disease.25 Regarding the natural reproduction of the slave populations, it is also known that the logistics of the large plantations (distribution of the dormitories, distances travelled, etc.) imposed a greater control than the smaller ones, which was reflected in a proportionally smaller number of family units. The fertility of the “slave” populations was equally influenced by the type of housing, that is, by whether the owners had housed them in sanzalas (slave quarters in S. Tomé) or individual homes.26 However, natural reproduction was far from being the only possibility for prolonging the time n of a labor force with purchase costs. For all laborers in these conditions after the abolitions, the legal guarantee against the involuntary renewal of the contracts was established and depended only on de facto situations. Insofar as prolonging the contract was de facto negotiable, managements were therefore induced to, in some way, entice or pressure laborers into extensions, which was naturally done through v: increase in monetary wages, better medical assistance, more leisure time, facilitating or hindering the forming of couples, etc.27 Looking then at the total utilization of “slave” labor by the capital, both in the dimension of time t and in the dimension of time n, we can express the tendential determination described in this item as: 2.2. In equation (5), it is assumed that the two time dimensions directly determine the rate of profit: THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 9 a) the effective time tn determines the mass of profit, that is, the variable sn b) the rotation time n determines the amortisation quota (k/n). a) The determination of sn by tn follows from the identity adopted between units of time and of value. Abstracting from any rent effect, in any period n, the value equivalent to the effective labor time tn is divided by the quantities vn and sn: Hence the determination of sn as a residual value: Considering then the units of time, the time of surplus labor corresponds to the difference between effective time t and necessary labor time; considering the units of value, the mass of surplus-value (or the mass of profit) corresponds to the difference between the value added and the variable capital. b) given that the annual amortisation quota depends on the duration of the rotation, the limit for k/n, when n tends to infinite, is zero: and the limit for k/n, when n tends to zero, is infinite: 2.3 – From items 2.1 and 2.2 we deduce that if vn, determines the effective time tn and the rotation time n, it also determines: a) the mass of profit sn b) the rate of profit r. a) The manner in which v influences the surplus-value varies depending on whether the laborers were “pure” wage earners or “slaves.” In a developed capitalist relation, the length of the working time, 10 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES schedules, and even, in many cases, the intensity of labor is contractually or institutionally established. If total labor time is constant, the rate of surplus-value (s/v) varies mainly as a function of productivity gains obtained in the branches of production that supply goods and services consumed by laborers. The rate of surplus-value changes mainly through reductions in necessary labor time v. In the productive units that used forced labor, largely located in regions and periods of lower capitalist development, labor time was not constant (see item 2.1 a). The absolute variations in labor time, except those coming from technological constraints, were exclusively employer options. The rate of surplus-value therefore changed mainly through absolute variations in labor time and less often through cuts in necessary labor time,28 which in general actually had to increase in order to allow the greater depreciation of laborers. The difference between the two possibilities of extracting surplus value therefore consists in the unbounded or bounded limit of the total labor time to be distributed.29 If this limit is tendentially bounded, that is, if the duration and intensity of the labor force are given (as is generally the case in the developed capitalist relation), ,30 the labor force gains what capital loses and vice-versa. If this limit is unbounded (as in the case of capitalist plantations that use “slaves”), the costs of the labor force are no longer related to the mass of surplus-value as a zero-sum game and the variable v may vary in the same direction as the variable s (cases 6 A, 6B; 13A and 13B in the table below). Let us assume that, in the relation with slaves, time t does not represent a constant magnitude.31 Under these conditions, and representing the variations – both negative and positive – using the symbol Δ, the following table lists the fifteen possible variations in the rate of surplus- value (s/v) resulting from a variation in v. t=v+s THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 11 Cases v t s Variations s/v 1 = = = = 2 = ↑ ↑ Δt = Δs ↑ 3 = ↓ ↓ Δt = Δs ↓ 4 ↑ = ↓ Δs = Δv ↓ 5 ↑ ↑ = Δt = Δv ↓ 6A If Δs > Δv ↑ ↑ ↑ Δt = Δv + Δs ↑ 6B If Δs < Δv ↓ 7 ↑ ↑ ↓ Δs < Δv ↓ 8 ↑ ↓ ↓ Δs > Δv ↓ 9 ↓ = ↑ Δs = Δv ↑ 10 ↓ ↑ ↑ Δs >Δv ↑ 11 ↓ ↓ = Δt = Δv ↑ 12 ↓ ↓ ↑ Δs < Δv ↑ 13A If Δs > Δv ↓ ↓ ↓ Δt = Δs + Δv ↓ 13B If Δs < Δv ↑ 12 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES b) To the extent that the maintenance costs lead to variations in the duration time of the asset – the variable n – they lead to variations in the rate of profit. In the set of labor relations with purchase costs, the duration time of the asset can also be bounded or not. In the “pure” slave relations, rotation time coincides with the physical duration of the asset, that is, with the demise of its ability to remain active. In these situations, there are large differences between rotation times, given that during such a long time exposure these fixed assets were more prone to factors that affect durability (incapacitating diseases or accident, escapes, mortality, etc.). In bondage relations, as in the case of American indentured labor, coolie labor, the serviçais in S. Tomé after 1912, etc., the availability of the laborer as an asset was, from the outset, not as long because it was legally pre-defined: it did not coincide with his physical duration (although in some of these statuses contracts could be perpetually renewable). Rotation was therefore less exposed to the factors that affect durability. However, both in the first and in the second case, the duration time of the asset, that is, the complete rotation period of the fixed capital, can vary depending on the magnitude and the manner in which its maintenance is managed. Take two capitals A and B of the same size (A = 500 = B). If each of these capitals buys a labor force (with a slave or coolie status) to the sum of 400 and advances a variable capital of 100 to maintain it; if the number of annual rotations of the variable capital is equal for A and B (one annual rotation); if the rate of surplus-value is the same for A and B (for example s/v = 1.3); if the only difference between A and B is a qualitative variation, that is, a different management of the investment v which means that the fixed capitals of A complete their total rotation in 4 years and those of B in 5 years, at the end of the total rotation the capital A would have a rate of profit of 65% and the capital B of 72%.32 III. The specific contradiction of the merchandise slave labor force With outflows of circulating and fixed capital, use of a labor force with purchase costs develops a specific contradiction. In a developed capitalist relation, the intensification of effective time t (more units of labor time or the same number but with a greater intensity) does not clash with the devaluation of fixed capital. The intensification of the THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 13 effective time t speeds up the amortisation of the assets, but these are physically different from the laborers that use them. The more rotations of capital occurring in time n, the higher the rate of profit per unit of time will be.33 In the capitalist relation with purchased laborers, the intensification of the effective time t and the amortisation time n of the fixed capital clash: the faster depreciation also falls on the fixed capital embodied in the laborers themselves. These two kinds of fixed assets – equipment and laborers - embody their value to the output in a different way. Unlike every other asset in amortisation which loses value in the same proportion as it is used up, if laborers as fixed assets are submitted to an extra depreciation, they lose more value than they can embody the product. If a laborer is so used up that he is only able to work half of what is socially considered to be his active life, he will not have the chance – given the technological constraints of the production branches in which slaves were allocated and no matter how intensive his effective time was – to embody the product during that time the same magnitude of value as he would if, without that depreciation, the time of his availability were twice as long. Thus, the intensification of effective time clashes, from a certain moment, with maintaining the rate of surplus- value and with optimising the amortisation quota (k/n). Notice that in equation (5) the rate of profit varies as a function of the rate of surplus- value (s/v) only if the amortisation quota (k/n) does not vary in the same direction and with a higher proportion. The difference between the devaluation of the labor force induced by intensification of time t can, in each case, be summed up as such: in the developed capitalist relation, the devaluation is borne by the laborer, owner of the merchandise “labor force”34; in the capitalist relation with “slaves,” it is borne by the capital, which owns the laborer as a fixed capital asset. In the second hypothesis, devaluation interferes with the rate of profit in two ways: the laborer becomes an asset with a decreasing profitability and one which has a higher amortisation quota.35 Allowing then for an unbounded limit for time t and a decreasing rate of surplus-value, equation (5) becomes: (6) 14 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES We can now find the profit maximizing time for the use of any laborer with purchase costs. Supposing n is any real positive number IR+, the maximizing time nmax is given by: (7) In the framework of a decreasing rate of surplus-value in the capitalist relation with “slaves,” we now consider the various possible cases. 3.1. The hypothesis of a decreasing rate with slave labor is empirically supported and the effects of the depreciation caused by the intensification of slave labor have been measured in some recent studies. In the slave plantations in the southern USA, as well as in a Brazilian sample, the net earnings per capita started to fall at a relatively early age: 35 years for men and even younger for women.36 Three factors can explain why the fall in revenue would start several decades before the expected life span of the slaves: a) simple ageing; b) the depreciation brought on by the intensification of time t (whether through greater duration or greater intensity), despite the counter- measures adopted by the management to delay that depreciation; c) the expected behaviour of rejection to be used up on the part of a fixed capital asset which happened to be a forced laborer.37 It is not easy to separate the combined effects of these factors, but from the previous items it follows that b) conditioned a) and c). Determining what was required from “slaves” in time and effort, as well as what was given back to them in the form of goods, services, and rest time,38 no doubt affected the prematurity of ageing and the willingness to collaborate. It is also known that some practices for intensifying the time t used in slavery systems clashed directly with the rational amortisation of the slaves as assets.39 THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 15 Accepting that the rate of surplus-value decreased with time n implies selecting seven of the fifteen cases in the table of variations s/v.40 In descending order of profitability, and representing the variations ∆ through their relevant minimum values, the cases in which the rate of surplus-value decreases are the following: case 6B: ∆v = 2; ∆ t = 3; ∆ s = 1 – corresponds to the non-acceptable hypothesis of a permanent increase in gross revenue. case 5: ∆v = 1; ∆ t = 1; ∆ s = 0 – corresponds to the hypothesis of an increase in v maintaining the surplus-value mass. case 3: ∆v = 0; ∆ t = -1; ∆ s = -1 – corresponds to the opposite hypothesis to case 5: without an increase in v, decrease in the surplus- value mass. case 4: ∆v = 1; ∆ t = 0; ∆ s = -1 – corresponds to the non-acceptable hypothesis of an increase in v being granted while decreasing net earnings persist. case 7: ∆v = 2; ∆ t = 1; ∆ s = -1 – also corresponds to the non- acceptable hypothesis of an increase in v being granted while decreasing net earnings persist. case 13A: ∆v = -2; ∆ t = -3; ∆ s = -1 – corresponds to the non-acceptable hypothesis of permanently decreasing net revenue. case 8: ∆v = 1; ∆ t = -1; ∆ s = -2 – corresponds to the non-acceptable hypotheses 4 and 7, that is, increase in v while decreasing net earnings persist. 3.2. Having excluded the non-acceptable cases,41 the remaining historically relevant cases are 5 and 3. Case 5 is compatible with the models of slave labor that associate the depreciation brought by the intensification of time t with the need for some system of incentives, negative or positive.42 The purpose of the incentives is to maintain the surplus-value mass, that is, to encourage the otherwise reluctant workers to intensify their labor in spite of the depreciation. Any system of incentives implies additional inputs to the variable capital: be it in the 16 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES form of monitoring/ repression work or in the form of a production premium.43 The choice of system or the combination of incentives systems to adopt is made by the capital based on a cost function.44 Whatever it is, the result will always be a variation of equation (6), which closely resembles the basic equation (5): (8) In this case, the maximizing time is derived from what may be called the organic composition of slave labor: (k / v). Hence from expression (7) we have: Therefore, nmax which maximizes the rate of profit is now given by: THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 17 (9) That is, in this case, the optimum utilization time for a forced laborer with purchase costs is defined by the relation between the fixed capital, embodied in the person itself, and the additional variable capital advanced in each unit of time. Applying empirical data to case 5, with fixed capital k=200, v1=100, ∆v=3, s=130, the graphic representation of the rate of profit is: where we have the maximum rate of profit r=0,8725 for nmax=8,165 years Case 3 complements case 5: it represents the option of reducing variable capital, abandoning the additional burden ∆v. However, without the sustenance brought by the incentives, of whatever nature, time t (through the decrease in the quantity or intensity of labor time) decreases and the surplus-value mass is dragged down again. From the point of view of the capital, what is gained by suppressing the additional in v is more than proportionally countered by the reduction of the mass of s. Case 3 is therefore part of the general class of the falling rate of surplus- value, whose maximizing time is given by equation (6). Thus, if 18 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES we have: (10) and from expression (7), we have: (11) Applying the same empirical data to case 3, with fixed capital k=200, v=100, s1=130, ∆s= -3, the graphic representation of the rate of profit is: where we have the maximum rate of profit r=0,8487 for nmax=7,5219 years. It is likely that in the descending net earning curves by age and gender in the north-American and Brazilian plantations, cases 5 and 3 were combined. Periods with incentives – especially positive ones – would alternate with their suspension and the resulting decrease in s. It is also possible that the rewards were deferred: the promise of awarding a professional qualification to the slaves could encourage them to intensify THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 19 labor during a stage where there were apparently no incentives. In this case, the ascending stage recorded on the surplus-value curve would be the result of a credit, to be received during another age range.45 Conclusions If the profitability of “slave” labor – defined by its forced nature and by the existence of purchase costs which must be amortised – is analyzed in such a way that the units of value are reduced to units of labor time, it becomes easier to establish the dependence relations between the variables. Given that in a capitalist relation of this sort the total labor time is unilaterally imposed, maintenance costs – and its management – become the independent variable: in the numerator of the fraction, v affects t and, as a result, s; in the denominator, v affects n and, as a result, the amortisation quota. The unbounded limit of labor time gives rise to the specific contradiction of this relation: the intensification of time t may increase the mass of profit but, beyond a certain time, there will be costs both in the relation s/v and in the rotation time n. The maximization problem is therefore a matter of finding, for each combination of fixed capital and times v and s, the point beyond which the fall in the rate of surplus-value starts to weigh more than the extended duration of the asset, which means it must be maintained at least until that point. The expression of this maximizing time nmax is given by equation (7). In other words: only the capitals that employ “slaves,” that is, forced laborers with purchase costs, can drive those laborers to a non-negotiated level of depreciation, but it is also only capitals in these conditions that are forced to bear the effects of that depreciation and the resulting low rate of profit. Laborers without purchase costs could simply be replaced once their decreasing outputs started to show.46 Based on this structural contradiction of the capitalist relation with slaves, it may be possible to, by including in the main hypothesis the random variables associated with market prices (that is, the rent effects not considered here), better understand what a growing number of empirical studies have come to reveal about the “peculiar institution.” Namely, something more about the profitability of the manumissions, abolitions, and repatriation of laborers. Endnotes 20 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES * Any possible underlying mistakes in the hypotheses developed mathematically are the responsibility of the main author. 1 For a pessimistic assessment of the conceptual progress on the matter at a particular moment of the discussion, see Gavin Wright, “New and Old Views on the economics of Slavery,” The Journal of Economic History 33:2 (1973), 452-4. 2 Although they are a minority, some studies conceptualised the difference between profitability and viability for one such system: Yasukichi Yasuba, “The Profitablity and Viability of Plantation Slavery in the United States,” in Hugh G.J. Aitken, eds., Did Slavery Pay? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971), 183-196; and Eugene D Genovese and Elizabeth Fox Genovese, “The Slave Economics in Political Perspective,” The Journal of American History 66: 1 (1979), 7-23. The opportunity of alternative investments has also been questioned by Wright, “New and Old Views on the economics of Slavery,” 460. 3 All equations and related explanations in Nicholas Kaldor, “Annual Survey of Economic Theory: The Recent Controversy on the Theory of Capital,” Econometrica 5:3 (1937), 212-213. 4 In the case of slave labor, time is measured in annual units. In the first article to use the NPV formula to calculate the profitability of a capital with slaves, the cash flow time was 30 years: Alfred H Conrad and John R. Meyer, “The Economics of Slavery in the Antebellum South,” in Aitken, Did Slavery Pay?, 143. The definition of time was one of the most important points in the discussion about the profitability of slave labor. 5 Even assuming an increase in revenue proportional to the increase in the population, R. Sutch starts from the NPV equation: Richard Sutch, “The Profitability of Ante Bellum Slavery- Revisted,” in Aitken, Did Slavery Pay?, 223-224. For a criticism of the improper identification between population growth and profit growth, see Edward Saradyer, “The Profitability of Ante Bellum Slavery – A Reply,” in Aitken, Did Slavery Pay?, 250. 6 As defined by Earle, the choice is for “pure” wage earners when, for equal productivity, W f Dt < W s, where W f is the wage rate for the wage earners, D t the total days in which they are used, and W is the total burden of employing forced labourers. Carville V. Earle, “A Staple Interpretation of Slavery and Free Labor,” Geographical Review 68:1 (1978), 54. 7 This correlation would explain why replacing tobacco with wheat would lead to the replacement of slaves with wage earners, as was found in the state of Maryland; it would also explain that, inversely, the replacement of wheat with maize would lead to the replacement of wage earners for slaves. Earle, “A Staple Interpretation of Slavery and Free Labor,” 1978. 8 G. Wright points out that constitutional changes prohibiting slavery in various states across the USA obviously played a more decisive role in the distribution of slaves than any technological constraint (climatic or agronomic). But this was not Earle’s argument, which refers only to the factors affecting the choice, when it was possible. On the other hand, it is possible that Earle underestimated the flexibility of slave labor in seasonal crops: even with wheat it was possible to obtain optimal slave utilization times and, as a result, high levels of profitability. Anyway, the relation between the amortisation quota and asset utilization time remains: it is precisely because slave labor had profitable THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 21 utilization times in wheat that Wright associates the mechanization of crops in the Midwest (the substitution of wage labor that was too expensive) with the fact that it was politically impossible to employ slaves there. Gavin Wright, “Slavery and American Agricultural History,” Agricultural History 77:4 (2003), 527-552. 9 “Genovese’s rule” - “Slavery requires all hands to be occupied at all times” – would require that the seasonality of the rent-producing activities be combined with production for self-consumption. At a macroeconomic level, it would have led to the atrophy of the domestic market in the states in the southern USA. Ralph V. Anderson and Robert E. Galman, “Slaves as Fixed Capital: Slave Labor and Southern Economic Development,” The Journal of American History 64:1 (1977), 24-46. 10 For a list of the analyses that have focused on this fact, see Wright, “Slavery and American Agricultural History,” 529. 11 The independence of the variable b – the gross earnings that result from the activity rate and which covers the amortisation quota – was assumed, among others, by Foust and Swan in their commentary on the various production functions used to define the profitability of slave labor: “In each of the papers one or several production functions are specified and an internal rate of return calculated. A critical independent variable in each function is the annual yield of cotton per hand or per slave, i.e., the productivity of the labor force.” James D. Foust and Dale E. Swan, “Productivity and Profitability of Antebellum Slave Labor: A Micro-Approach,” Agricultural History 44:1 (1970), 39. 12 In the labor theory of value, expressing the rate of surplus-value s/v by s’ and assuming a number n of rotations of variable capital in each year, the annual rate of profit is = s’.n.v/ (v.n + k). Karl Marx, Le Capital (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1977), III, 86-7. Giving the rate of profit as a function of the total rotation of the fixed capital and assuming one yearly rotation of v, we have: s.n / (v.n + k) = s / (v + (k/n)). Maciel Santos, “A rentabilidade do cacao de S. Tomé e Príncipe – hipóteses de explicação,” Africana Studia 5 (2002), 192-193. 13 The prices of the slaves vary according to the profits they generate. However, the profits that make it possible to buy slaves must include a differential rent: without it the average rate of profit would not be enough to pay a purchase cost for the laborers. Therefore, the price of slaves includes a rent effect and, as such, it includes elements that are structurally external to equation (5): 1) the difference between the regulatory price and the individual production price, where the former is fixed by the relation between all producers and consumers; and 2) the fraction of the rent transferred to the sellers of the slaves, also fixed by supply and demand. So and although they can be reduced to labor time, the prices of the slaves appear as undetermined in equation (5). For an attempt at explaining those prices in the labor theory of value framework, see Maciel Santos, “O preço dos escravos no tráfico atlântico – hipóteses de explicação,” Africana Studia 7 (2004), 163-182. 14 In societies where the unlimited availability of the labor time of slaves and other forced laborers is legally assured, there are of course no guarantees regarding the remaining risks of loss and deterioration. On the legal guarantees of permanence, Christopher Hanes, “Turnover Cost and the Distribution of Slave labor in Anglo-America,” The Journal of Economic History 56:2 (1996), 311-312. 15 The premise initially assumed by Conrad and Meyer that the earnings produced by slaves do not suffer changes in productivity throughout their effective time would later be 22 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES amended (see section III). Wright, “New and Old Views on the economics of Slavery,” 455. 16 In the developed wage relation, total wages include transfers from social funds that stem both from deferred wages (deductions to state coffers) and from other revenues. In this way, the maintenance of non active workers is unloaded from the individual employer to society as a whole (which includes other employers and the remaining workers), which does not happen in the relation between capital and labor with purchase costs. “In other words, the responsibility for handling variations in the level of employment of labor – a responsibility shared in the free-market by employee, employer, and society – was largely assumed, in the slave society, by the individual slaveholder.” Anderson and Gallman, “Slaves as Fixed Capital,” 25. 17 Yoram Barzel, “An Economic Analysis of Slavery,” Journal of Law and Economics 20:1 (1977), 87. From an early stage - L. Gray in 1933 – attention was drawn to the fact that the activity rate of slave populations was the highest of all societies. Harold D. Woodman, “The Profitability of Slavery: A Historical Perennial,” The Journal of Southern History 29:3 (1963), 317. 18 In the case of the cocoa “plantations” in S. Tomé e Príncipe which, between 1878 and 1912 practically only used slaves, the regulations determined the daily menus, the doses of alcohol and tobacco, meal times, the frequency of medical check-ups, and domestic cleaning, etc. Maciel Santos, Tempo de trabalho e lucro em S. Tomé e Príncipe – o caso da Sociedade de Agricultura Colonial (1899-1909) (Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto, Porto: Campo das Letras, 2005), 307. 19 The managements that used forced labor were aware that the inputs required to ensure the optimisation of labor availability included more than what was technically necessary: given the ruling social norm, changes in the diet that disregarded habitudes could result in conflicts. Still in 1959, a cocoa company in S. Tomé explained its investments in livestock equipment: “dada a inexistência em S. Tomé de organização comercial eficaz para o fornecimento de carnes ao consumo e a sua carência poder vir a criar-nos não só problemas fisiológicos e sanitários, pela insuficiência de proteínas no regime alimentar, mas também problemas psicológicos e disciplinares” (“given the absence in S. Tomé of an effective commercial organisation to supply meat for consumption and its lack may come to generate not only physiological and sanitary problems, due to the protein deficiency in the diet, but also psychological and discipline problems”) (underlined emphasis not in the original). Sociedade de Agricultura Colonial, Relatório e Contas do Conselho de Administração e Parecer do Conselho Fiscal (Lisbon, 1959), 17. For the psychological content of the values of use in the maintenance of the workers, see Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), 195-196. 20 In the plantations of Bahia, “os senhores de engenho… entre 1861 e 1888 continuavam a comprar para seus escravos exatamente os mesmos items que seus avós costumavam comprar no fim do século XVIII.” (“the mill owners… between 1861 and 1888 were still buying for their slaves exactly the same items as their grandparents used to buy at the end of the 18th century.”), B.J. Barickman, Um contraponto baiano. Açúcar, fumo, mandioca e escravidão no Recôncavo, 1780-1860 (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2003), 126. In 1907, planters in S. Tomé still mentioned the consumption of tobacco as evidence of the “benevolência… que os serviçais encontram em S. Tomé”. (“benevolence… that THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 23 the servants find in S. Tomé”.), Santos, “A rentabilidade do cacao de S. Tomé e Príncipe,” 203. 21 The management of the plantations was a “distinct factor of production” in slave plantations. Jacob Metzer, “Rational Management, Modern Business Practices, and Economics of Scale in Antebellum Southern Plantations,” in Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, eds., Without Consent or Contract: Technical Papers (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), vol. 1, 192. 22 Based on the book-keeping of a share capital company established in S. Tomé it was possible to establish a linear regression between variable capital and annual effective “slave” time (R2= 0.809). Santos, Tempo de trabalho e lucro em S. Tomé e Príncipe, 305-306. 23 The distinction between survivors and residents is justified because, since it was forced labor, evasion was an additional and constant risk affecting the decline in assets. Hanes thought it was negligible (in the case of the antebellum South), but this minimization is in no way applicable to all slavery systems. Hanes, “Turnover Cost and the Distribution of Slave labor,” 312. Companies in S. Tomé, subject to escape percentages which could reach close to 10%, were aware of and publicized the effect of v on the escapes, “que são signaes certos do estado moral e physico de uma população... Assim, o numero de fugidos, que no principio da nossa exploração representava 6,80 por cento do serviçaes, desceu em 1896 a 2,20, e foi apenas este anno de 1,30.” (“which are sure signs of the moral and physical state of a population... Thus, the number of escapees, which at the beginning of our exploitation represented 6.80 per cent of servants, decreased in 1896 to 2.20 and this year was only 1.30.”) Companhia Da Ilha Do Principe, Relatório e Contas (Lisboa: Minerva, 1898), 8-9. 24 U is in turn a product: hours/day x days/year x intensity/hour. The product U of the slave plantations in the southern United States was greater than that of the non-slave ones in the northern states, even though on average slaves worked 2798 hours/year and workers in the plantations in the north worked 3100 hours/year. The difference (slaves worked 10% less than the time of the non-slaves) is explained by the greater intensity of the slave work hour: around 94%. John F. Olson, “Clock Time versus Real Time: A Comparison of the Lengths of the Northern and Southern Agricultural Work Years,” in Fogel and Engerman, Without Consent or Contract, 77-79. 25 In Jamaica, for example, the mortality rate was 50% higher in the sugar cane plantations than in the coffee plantations and in the USA higher in the rice plantations than in the cotton ones. Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 127-128. 26 Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 148-153. 27 The preamble of the decree that instituted a new regulation for indigenous work in the Portuguese colonies sums up this situation in relation to S. Tomé: “É certo que os patrões durante muito tempo procuravam evitar por meios indirectos que a repatriação se fizesse, o que era de esperar que sucedesse, (…) Um dos meios empregados foi o de dar aos indígenas um magnífico tratamento e de os socorrer na velhice ou incapacidade, processo êste só para louvar, mas que infelizmente se juntaram outros, que não podem ser considerados do mesmo modo.” (“It is a fact that the owners for a long time sought, by indirect means, to avoid repatriation, which was what one would expect to happen, (...) One of the means employed was to give natives a magnificent treatment and to help them in old age or incapacity, a process which should be praised, but which 24 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES unfortunately was joined by others, which cannot be viewed in the same way”). And among those less licit means, the decree cited the advances, which both in S. Tomé and in Rhodesia, were aimed at getting workers into debt. Portugal, Decree no. 951, 14-10-1914. 28 In the context in which the work with “slaves” is generally included, the goods and services used in their maintenance depended little on purchases made from other capitalist branches. When production for self-consumption of the laborers themselves was insufficient, distance and transport difficulties meant that purchases were generally made from the small local production. Both in the production for self-consumption and in the latter, few or no productivity gains were in general accumulated. On the restrictions on industrial and agricultural development in the southern United States arising from geographic isolation, see Robert S. Starobin, “The Economics of Industrial Slavery in the Old South,” The Business History review 44:2 (1970), 162. 29 Defining absolute surplus-value as that resulting from extending the duration of work, extensive or intensively; and relative surplus-value as that resulting from the reduction in necessary labor time. Marx, Le Capital, I, 232; 373-4. 30 About the changes induced by the legal enforcement of duration and intensity of labor, Emmanuel, 139-140. 31 Unlike Barzel’s model, the variations in t can therefore result from variations only in the intensity of labor, keeping the total number of hours worked constant. Barzel, “An Economic Analysis of Slavery,” 89. 32 With a 5% discount rate, the NPV of A would be negative (-39) and B’s would be positive (63). The difference could be smaller if interest from the different release of capital throughout the amortisation were considered. Kaldor, “Annual Survey of Economic Theory,” 208-215. 33 Defining the rotation of a capital as the sum of its production and circulation periods. Marx, Le Capital. II, 136. 34 Marx, Le Capital, 375. 35 The relation between the unbounded limit of t and the accelerated devaluation of the labor force also has a long tradition: “Great labour, either of mind or body, continued for several days together, is in most men naturally followed by a great desire of relaxation (...)It is the call of nature (...)If it is not complied with, the consequences are often dangerous, and sometimes fatal, and such as almost always, sooner or later, brings on the peculiar infirmity of the trade. If masters would always listen to the dictates of reason and humanity, they have frequently occasion rather to moderate than to animate the application of many of their workmen. It will be found, I believe, in every sort of trade, that the man who works so moderately as to be able to work constantly not only preserves his health the longest, but, in the course of the year, executes the greatest quantity of work.” Adam Smith, Inquérito sobre a natureza e as causas da riqueza das nações (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1999), 202. 36 For the pattern of net earnings by age and gender in the slave plantations in the southern USA, Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 53; for Rio de Janeiro, Pedro C. de Mello, “Rates of Return on Slave Capital in Brazilian Coffee Plantations, 1871-1881,” in Fogel and Engerman, Without Consent or Contract, vol. 1, 77. In both curves, net earnings for women peaked at the age of 30-31. Note that the onset of a decreasing rate of surplus-value may have occurred before the peak in net earnings. For some time net earnings (net earnings = s) could increase with decreasing surplus-value rates: case 6B in THE PROFITABILITY OF SLAVE LABOR 25 the table above. 37 If the tendency for deceleration exists in the case of wage earners, by logical reasoning it will exist in slaves. Marx, Le Capital, I, 242. On the discussion regarding the effects of voluntary deceleration on effective time and net earnings in the southern USA, see Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 155-162. 38 The rest time – weekly, daily and even hourly – is decisive for the extraction of absolute surplus-value, especially when this is achieved through an increase in work intensity. This explains why in the plantations of the southern USA, around 23% of the days were not worked (Sunday rest, holidays, etc.), the long breaks for meals and even that in some a 5 minute break was given for each half hour of hard labor (which increased the results of labor by 15%). Olson, “Clock Time versus Real Time,” 235. 39 It was the case of slave hiring, more subject by their temporary users to an abusive depreciation. Stefano Fenoaltea, “Slavery and Supervision in Comparative Perspective: A Model,” The Journal of Economic History 44:3 (1984), 660-661. Another one was the system of interdependent collective tasks – the gang system – that fixed rhythms without taking individual physical abilities into account and as a result differentially accelerated the depreciation. Hence the tendency to, whenever possible, assign individual tasks, which the technologies of the crops (sugar, cotton) operated by slaves rarely allowed. Metzer, “Rational Management, Modern Business Practices, and Economics of Scale,” 208-209. We can also mention the paradox of forcing women in labor to work practically to the limit, then running the risk and the loss of the high infant-juvenile mortality. Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 145. 40 The remaining 8 cases assume constant or increasing rates of surplus-value, which are not plausible – logically or empirically – in any profit maximizing model using “slaves.” No combination of the factors listed - age, depreciation and voluntary deceleration - allows it. Notice that the cases considered do not exclude the possibility of increasing stages in the rate of surplus-value during the active career of the slaves. In the case of the slaves born on the plantations, net earnings were negative until around the age of 8 (female) or 9 (male) and then increased between these ages and the relevant peaks at the beginning of the third decade of life. Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 56. In the case of purchased adult slaves it is also possible to have periods – necessarily short – of increasing rates of surplus-value. However, increases in the surplus-value are not necessarily increases in the rate of surplus-value: see case 6B. In any case, for the purpose of optimising the amortisation (the nmax moment), any bell-shaped surplus-value curve is compatible with any of the 7 cases above considered: this only requires that the n0 moment of the fixed capital yet to amortise coincides with the initial moment of a decreasing rate of surplus-value. 41 “Non-acceptable,” taking as “acceptable” only those practices compatible with increasing the value of the capital (excepting case 6B for the reasons explained above). Obviously, one cannot argue for the empirical nonexistence of the “non acceptable” cases (markets work with many firms in pre-bankruptcy) but merely that they are irrelevant in a discussion about the profitability of slave labor. 42 Giorgio Canarella and John A. Tomaske, “The Optimal Utilization of Slaves,” The Journal of Economic History 35 (1975), 622. 43 Given the goal of intensifying labor time, punishment for the slaves was unlikely to include food deprivation (unlike with wage earners, where the supreme penalty is 26 MACIEL SANTOS AND ANA GUEDES dismissal). On the contrary, the energy value of the diet of slaves in the southern USA was on average 10% higher than of the non-slave population. Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time On the Cross (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), 113 and 147- 148. 44 Canarella and Tomaske, “The Optimal Utilization of Slaves,” 623 and following; Yoram Barzel, “An Economic Analysis of Slavery,” Journal of Law and Economics 20:1 (1997), 96-97. 45 Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 57-58. 46 This statement does not imply that, abstracting from any rent effect, the rate of profit of a capital employing wage earners was always greater than that of one employing slaves, according to an argument that dates back to Adam Smith (for example John F. Moes, “The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South: Another Comment,” The Journal of Political Economy 68:2 (1960), 183-187). According to equation (6), the results of the comparison will depend on the moment in which the comparison is made. ỌGARANYA (WEALTHY MEN) IN LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY IGBOLAND: CHIEF IGWEBE ỌDUM OF ARONDIZUOGU, C.1860-1940 Raphael Chijioke Njoku University of Louisville A lthough the British outlawed slave trading for its subjects in 1807, the Igbo hinterland sustained an illicit trade late into the second decade of the twentieth century, in response to the palm oil trade and other factors.1 In fact, after the final slave cargo left the Niger Delta coast in the 1830s, internal slavery continued in the interior of the Bight of Biafra, especially around the Arondizuogu-Bende- Arochukwu supply axis, as late as 1912.2 The slaves previously meant for the overseas market were now engaged in plantation farms where their labor accelerated the growth of the palm oil trade. The focus of this paper is the continuation of the slave trade after the ending of the trans- Atlantic traffic, as reflected in the life of Chief Igwebe Ọdum. The biography of Igwebe Ọdum speaks in many ways to the collective historical experience of slavery and abolition, colonialism, social change and cultural dilemmas, and the link between economic power and political machinations. Igwebe‘s life history provides an insight into the character of a class of nouveaux riche who were emerging in West Africa, including Igboland, where they were known as ọgaranya. The new economic order was defined by expansion of the cash economy, the gradual but steady decline of the Atlantic slave trade, and the transition to ―legitimate commerce.‖ Igwebe Ọdum is remembered as someone who was able to take advantage of opportunities; in 1929, his kinsmen referred to him as ọmenukọ-akụ (―one who is financially buoyant in the midst of scarcity‖). How he achieved this status is controversial, however. Igwebe is portrayed either as a hero or villain. In 1934, for instance, his biographer, Pita Nwana, an Aro indigene and pioneer Igbo writer, presented Igwebe as an ultimate model of a successful Aro traditional entrepreneur and politician.3 Similarly, in their different studies, Mbonu Ojike, Richard Ohizu Igwebe (Chief Igwebe‘s son), and Dr. K. O. Mbadiwe (Igwebe‘s nephew and popular Nigerian politician in the first and second republics)—have described Igwebe in colorful words as a ―political wizard‖ and ―political dynamo.‖4 In 1966, however, the eminent African historian, Adiele African Economic History v.36(2008) 28 RAPHAEL CHIJIOKE NJOKU Afigbo, stood the earlier studies on their heads by focusing specifically on the activities of Igwebe as a collaborator in British colonial rule in Nigeria. Afigbo described Igwebe as a paradox of ―the greatest success and failure among that notorious crowd of Eastern Nigeria‘s rulers known as warrant chiefs,‖ and ―a discredited politician in his home-town Arondizuogu.‖5 In 1993, Evaristus Anyaehie sharply disagreed with Afigbo‘s uncomplimentary view of Igwebe, which he dismissed as ―misplaced emphasis.‖ Instead, Anyaehie interprets Igwebe‘s career broadly as ―an authentic source of information on the political culture of the Igbo in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.‖6 As Elizabeth Isichei demonstrated in her study of nineteenth-century Igbo society, a cadre of ―aristocrats‖ (ọgaranya) with newly found wealth emerged, thanks to the lucrative export trade in slaves and later palm oil.7 It is argued here that Igwebe Ọdum‘s career provides us with insight into the nature of the evolving but often misunderstood nineteenth- century militarized social milieu in which he was raised. The history of the ọgaranya who marched with feet of iron fills a curious void in a period of Igbo history when the indigenous society was heading towards a crucial take-off to a new level of socioeconomic and political development following the expansion of merchant capitalism and the creation of new wealth in the hands of opportune individuals. Giacomo Macola has made a case for the adoption of a biographical approach to the study of African history with his life history of Simon Jilundu Chibanza III of Zambia.8 It is however important to underscore that historians who adopt the biographical approach have the daunting task of deciding what information gets included or excluded in a biography, and the danger exists for them to exaggerate the importance of specific events to fit their objectives. More important is the fact that biographies are also problematic in that they take individual experiences to reflect the collective experience. Mindful of these methodological issues, this study explores the late nineteenth-century trend in social transformation at the level of Chief Igwebe‘s biography, set in the context of Igbo social history. Igwebe‘s life history illuminates the debate whether ―legitimate commerce‖ allowed small producers (particularly those in the hinterland) into the export trade, and thereby enabled them to create the material base for a greater share in political power; or whether the existing merchant-political elite managed to adapt to the ending of Atlantic slave trade without a long term diminution of their wealth and power. Had the colonial state not intervened in 1900, the activities of the ỌGARANYA (WEALTHY MEN) 29 nouveaux riche indicate that this new social force could have either taken the indigenous Igbo village democracy run by the elders to the next level of advancement or brought about the rule of autocrats in some parts of eastern Nigeria. Isichei has aptly raised questions as to what degree the emerging trend ―is truly a nineteenth-century phenomenon—the result of circumstances such as the insecurity bred by the slave trade, and the increasing circulation of wealth in the society—and to what extent it had existed earlier.‖9 The Debate: Commercial Transition and Social Transformation in West Africa African scholars are divided on whether the term ―revolution‖ is appropriate in describing the impact of the palm oil trade on West African societies. This debate on overseas commerce is closely associated with K. O. Dike, A. G. Hopkins, Robin Law, and others who advocate the ―social revolution‖ thesis. Their opponents who have rather projected a ―change and continuity‖ thesis include J. F. Ade Ajayi, Elizabeth Isichei, and others.10 Dike‘s study of the Ijọ city-state of Bonny in the Niger Delta was the first to focus on the rise to positions of leadership that celebrated merchant princes of the nineteenth-century who seized the opportunity created by the commercial transition from overseas slave trade to palm oil to build a material base for a greater share in political power.11 In the second half of the eighteenth century, Bonny‘s political structure was marked by an expanding ―House‖ or ―Canoe‖ system as a unit of social organization. This competitive socio-economic and political system, described by J. B. Webster and Adu A. Boahen as ―trading corporations,‖ succeeded the older and more conservative type of lineage or kinship group based on blood ties.12 There is no clear and reliable account of how the House system actually emerged. However, what is clear, as E. J. Alagoa explains, is that ―the new Houses of the city-states were developed out of the old lineage institutions of the Eastern Delta fishing village, and ultimately the old Ijo prototype of the Central Delta.‖13 The Heads of these ―House‖ units formed a council which governed in conjunction with the King of Bonny. Initially, succession to the headship of the House followed the oduwari system in which inheritance to the position was kept in the families of their founders. By the second decade of the nineteenth century, the tradition of 30 RAPHAEL CHIJIOKE NJOKU inheritance had been changed to the opuwari system in which the heads of key Bonny houses were determined by election and those in power were men of slave origin or descent. Dike observes that this dynamic process of entrusting outsiders with leadership positions in the Houses had begun under King Opubo (1792-1830), who on his accession to the throne had bestowed the headship of his Anna Pepple House upon one Madu, a former slave from the Igbo hinterland. While at Opubo‘s death in 1830, his son William Dappa Pepple succeeded him, actual power rested in the hands of Madu. When Madu died in 1833, his son Alali took power.14 Captain Wauton described the Niger Delta household head as ―a commercial manager, a father, a war canoe captain, a judge, an arbitrator, a father of the house and king‘s councilor all rolled into one.‖15 Apparently, because of the enormous power and privileges associated with the position of House headship, politics in the eastern Niger Delta between the 1830s and 1860s was characterized by a heated struggle for power between the old nobility and the ―new men‖ who had risen to positions of prominence through their industry and entrepreneurial acumen. On Alali‘s death in 1863, the headship of Anna Pepple House passed to Jubo Jubogha (aka Jaja 1821-1891), who was also a former slave of Igbo origin. The civil wars of 1855 and 1869 in Bonny were the direct result of the struggle between reactionary monarchy and the Anna Pepple House now led by the former slaves. Particularly irked by the crisis of 1869, Jaja moved away to establish his famous Opobo Kingdom. Dike, Webster, and Boahen read the political divisions in Bonny in class terms as a ―slave revolt‖ manifesting conflict between the nobility and ―the new class of ex-slaves rising with the development of trade in oil.‖16 In other words, the revolting ex-slaves were simply agitating for a political position commensurate with their wealth and importance, as the economy of the city-states demanded a corresponding change in political institutions. Thomas Hutchinson, British Consul for the Bight of Biafra in 1855- 1860, noted that in the coastal city-states of the Niger Delta, Old Calabar, and Duala (Cameroons), the former victims of the slave trade were ―becoming independent traders . . . the most active and honest barterers to be found in the oil markets.‖ Hutchinson also observed that ―the kings and chiefs [wished] to keep these men down, and they [the new men] are not seeing why they should not reap the benefits of legitimate traffic in their own country, the despotism of African monarchs is hereby ỌGARANYA (WEALTHY MEN) 31 sometimes called into operation.‖17 Kannan Nair‘s study of Old Calabar further reveals an attempt by the old elite to limit the number of ex- slaves who aspired to new status and power. According to Nair, while the Calabar nobility tried to accept the wealthy town slaves as part and parcel of society, they also attempted to keep the poorer ones on the plantations. This ambivalent strategy of accommodation and exclusion met with initial success but was soon confronted with resistance because the plantation slaves suffered serious deprivations, among which was they often became sacrificial victims at the funerals of important personalities. In reaction, the plantation slaves banded themselves into the ―Order of Bloodmen‖ to fight against their oppression. After gaining the support of leading Efik rulers, including Eyamba V and King Eyo Honesty II, the resident Presbyterian missionaries eventually concluded an agreement banning human sacrifice in Calabar. As Nair has concluded, by the mid-nineteenth- century, ―developments attendant on the suppression of the overseas slave trade and the switch to palm oil trade were beginning to affect the powers and authority of the rulers of the coastal states.‖18 In 1967, Bertin Webster and Adu Boahen interpreted the impact of abolition and the shift to palm oil as geographically focused on the coast. As they demonstrated, several West African coastal states, including Oyo, Asante, Dahomey, and others, successfully prevented people of lower classes from cashing in on the new overseas trade to advance their social status. According to the authors, ―slavery in Dahomey in the last half of the nineteenth-century became more like slavery in the new world . . . [the rulers had] proved themselves capable rulers, quick to change and adapt to the economic crisis of the nineteenth-century.‖ 19 On this premise, Webster and Boahen advanced the view that a commercially induced social revolution was not applicable to the societies in the interior but only to the coastal states of West Africa, and this qualification applied especially to the Niger Delta and Old Calabar. For Webster and Boahen, the history of the interior evolved through a process of continuity rather than at a revolutionary pace. In other words, ―legitimate commerce‖ allowed small producers in the interior into the export trade and thereby enabled them to create the material base for a greater share in political power. The existing merchant-political elite managed to adapt to the ending of Atlantic slave trade without a long term diminution of their wealth and power. In responding to this thesis, J.F. Ade Ajayi and B.O. Oluruntimehin have argued that the growth of 32 RAPHAEL CHIJIOKE NJOKU trade in palm oil during the nineteenth-century ―created no social revolution, because the West African political, social, and economic systems proved able to meet the changing demands of the coastal trade through adaptation rather than revolution.‖20 Nonetheless, whether described as a ―revolution‖ or ―adaptation,‖ the overseas commerce undoubtedly initiated a process of change. 21 As Law aptly notes, the ―various revisions which this involved, however, while discrediting the concept of a ‗social revolution‘ promoted by the palm oil trade . . . did not altogether destroy the notion that the shift from slaves to palm oil tended, in a general way, to promote the upward mobility of ‗new men‘.‖22 Igwebe‘s career aptly illuminates the process by which the emergent African merchant class claimed fame and power as demonstrated by their wealth, and/or in certain cases their daring military exploits. Unfortunately, this aspect of social history has been neglected because, as Isichei observes, ―the recent [colonial] past always looms large in oral traditions…for the imposition of colonial rule was destined shortly to shatter the history‘s continuity.‖23 The Commercial Transition in the Igbo Interior The slave trade in Igboland had been largely monopolized by the Aro slaving oligarchy whose influence was primarily based on their claim to godly ancestry and to the widely revered power of the oracular deity Ibiniukpabia (the ―Long Juju‖ known to the British) at Arochukwu. In indigenous Igbo society where the gods and the elders ruled the affairs of men and their words were final, the Ibiniukpabia, associated with spiritual and judicial powers, became a viable instrument of terror and control. It also provided the Aro with the crucial immunity to travel freely without molestation, establishing their trading networks in what Dike has described as amounting ―to a theocratic state over eastern Nigeria.‖24 Aro agents led those afflicted with all kinds of problems to the oracle at Arochukwu for consultation, while serving as the God-men of the slave trade. The Aro sold victims of the slave trade to their Ijo middlemen. In this way, the Aro traders controlled the hinterland trade in slaves and local produce, and through their hundreds of satellite trading posts, established a complex network of client-patron relationships, with Arochukwu as the metropolis.25 ỌGARANYA (WEALTHY MEN) 33 Aro merchant-political elite adapted to the ending of Atlantic slave trade without a long-term attenuation of their wealth and power, and the transition allowed small producers to create the material base for a greater share in political power. In a work published in 1963, G. I. Jones suggested that the Aro were unable to monopolize the palm oil trade because the production and marketing of palm oil were readily open to local competition: ―the oil could be produced by anyone who had access to [palm] trees and traded in by anyone who could find the cash to buy it or who could obtain a credit.‖26 Jones‘ study echoes Campbell‘s 1857 prediction that the progress of the palm oil trade would unavoidably improve the social conditions of domestic slaves in the interior of West Africa.27 However, John Oriji‘s study of social and economic change in Ngwa history concludes that the Ọkọnkọ secret society, an arm of the Aro trade network, was able to seize control of the ―legitimate commerce,‖ thereby ensuring a continuation of the old order.28 Igwebe‘s career allows us to re-examine the issue of transition. Igwebe, most likely born in the early 1860s, was the oldest sibling in Pa Ọdum‘s family of Ndianiche in the Arondizuogu village group.29 Pa Ọdum had seven other children, including Mbadiwe, who was the father of the late Dr. K. O. Mbadiwe, Nigeria‘s prominent politician of the first and second republic.30As K. O. Mbadiwe explains in his autobiography, the ―head of the Ọdum family came originally from Ogba in Awka, Anambra state, and migrated to Ndi-aniche Uno in Arondizuogu, Imo State.‖31 This migration obviously took place sometime before the founding of Arondizuogu in the eighteenth century.32 As determined by the number of wives and children, Ọdum was not among the most successful Aro ọgaranya. In the nineteenth century, the number of wives, children, and slaves distinguished the ọgaranya as important figures in society. They included mostly slave dealers and war contractors, like Pa Ojike, who exploited their privileged claim to a sacred ancestry as the children of Ibiniukpabia.33 In Owerri Division, ọgaranya like Nmeka Ikewuaku and Agumadu—all of Achi village in Mbieri—were, among other things, self-appointed commanders of the peoples‘ volunteer army. They defended the independent villages during enemy attacks and supplied both the muscle and money with which the wars were prosecuted. In Item, Bende, Igwe Okpo of Okoko village had over four hundred slaves and Mpo Oriaku of Amokwe was also very wealthy. The emergent class 34 RAPHAEL CHIJIOKE NJOKU offered protection to their clients in case of outside attacks. In reference to Arondizuogu in particular, Isichei has noted that the ọgaranya could afford guns for the defence of his compound…He could afford to establish the links which made inter-town travel and trade possible. Lesser men travelled and traded under the umbrella of his protection. Inevitably, he attracted clients, young men who would serve him, and be ultimately rewarded with wife, yams, or capital for trade. In an age of economic expansion, this bourgeoisie expanded equally. 34 The Arondizuogu ọgaranya reserved the ablest slaves for their domestic use. These men in Aro-Ndizuogu ―used to marry 20-40 wives‖ and were easily ―recognized by their high robes and usually have in their Company four orderl[ies] and each with a double barrel gun known as Elefele.‖ Like his counterparts outside Africa, the Aro aristocrat also cultivated snobbish habits. ―He is not expected to talk to those that are not his equal; rather his orderly speaks in his behalf.‖35 Although Pa Ọdum did not attain aristocratic status, he had a clear idea about how to raise his son to become an ọgaranya. Arondizuogu, strategically located in the Imo River Basin at one of the key points in the Aro trading network running from Bende, was the largest among the hundreds of Aro satellite settlements.36 The history of its founder, Mazi Izuogu Nnachi (c. 1700-1780), covered elsewhere by other studies, is beyond the present analysis.37 The Arochukwu founders established Arondizuogu by force of arms and administered it as a trading colony. It was a highly stratified society with the freeborn of Aro descent as the ruling elite. Among them were ―other Igbo-speaking communities of non-Aro origin‖—refugees, freed slaves, fugitives seeking protection, and others of multiethnic identity who by process of assimilation, integration, and mutual consent formed what is known today as Arondizuogu.38 The Aro in particular and the Igbo in general held high expectations for youths to excel in their chosen vocations. According to Austin Orji, as the Aro male child came of age, he learned a trade or occupation. Usually, children took the profession of their parents. Since trading was the main occupation of the Aro, and this still obtained late in the colonial period, children accompanied their fathers on trading expeditions. Alternatively, a child could be apprenticed to a relation who did the long distance trading with ―a warning that if he failed to perform, he could be sold into slavery.‖39 This was the nature of the society in which Igwebe was born in the early 1860s. Since his father Mr. Ọdum was not a slave ỌGARANYA (WEALTHY MEN) 35 merchant, he passionately dispatched his six-year old son to serve as an apprentice under a kinsman who had made success in the business. The Genesis of a Career Although Igwebe was born after the British effort to stop the Atlantic slave trade had started to take effect, he attained manhood long before the beginning of British colonial rule in eastern Nigeria. One may quickly add that formal colonial presence in Arondizuogu starting from 1907 was crucial in the successful suppression of the human trade in Africa. In other words, the Aro society of late nineteenth century was still saddled with the old slave trade economy dominated by the freeborn elite. In Aro society where trading was a form of education, children learned early on the buying and selling processes associated with a variety of goods.40 They experimented with different items of trade before attaining what appeared in the seventeenth-century as the most lucrative merchandize—slaves. As Igwebe‘s son informs us, it was the technique of this profitable trade that his grandfather wanted his own father to acquire.41 At the age of 6, young Igwebe started off with the trade in lizards (mgbere ngwere) under his master named Okoli Akanihu, a successful merchant of his time. By the age of 10, Igwebe had progressed to begin trading in tortoise (mbe), which was considered a higher commodity than lizard. At 13, the ambitious teenager had demonstrated enough dexterity to advance to the third stage in the hierarchy of goods, namely, trade in towels (ákwá-mmiri).42 This system of initial graduation from the less profitable to more lucrative items of trade aptly reminds us about the process through which King Jaja of Opobo (b. 1821) accumulated the initial capital that enabled him to join the exalted ranks of first slave and later palm oil merchants. In the 1840s, according to an eyewitness account, slaves in Bonny sought to accumulate capital by selling fruit and other petty items.43 About the age of 16, Igwebe, among other things, had begun to participate in local wars involving Arondizuogu and its opponents. In one episode, he killed the commander of the enemy, and the elders rewarded him for his bravery with the title, Ogbuonye Isi Ọgu.44 At the age of 22, Igwebe had received his training as a slave dealer. In Aro tradition, new entrants in the slave trade business must first ―learn and observe the secret doctrine of ‗Our rod is our truth, and our truth is our wealth‘.‖ 45 This ―oath-of-life‖ Felicia Ekejiuba identifies as igba ndu, the ―Igbo
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