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Forced Labor in Colonial West Africa
Article first published online: 28 APR 2006
DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2006.00327.x
1478-0542/asset/cover.gif?v=1&s=6ad5e01d2869b45df054182186520bfc1524b891 "History Compass")
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How to Cite
Ash, C. B. (2006), Forced Labor in Colonial West Africa. History Compass, 4: 402–406. doi: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2006.00327.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 28 APR 2006
- Article first published online: 28 APR 2006
- History Compass 4/3 (2006): 402–406, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2006.00327.x
- Abstract
- Article
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Abstract
During the colonial period in West Africa, European officials and businessmen faced a perennial shortage of labor; their response was to rely on coercion. Despite their rhetoric of “free wage labor,” colonial officials thought Africans needed encouragement to understand time and work discipline. Africans continually resisted, making forced labor inefficient and costly. West Africans incorporated the European rhetoric of the abolition of slavery, free wage labor and workers’ benefits into their protests against colonial labor practices. By the late 1940s, most forms of forced labor had been abolished.