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7 - New Colonies, Old Tools: Building Fiscal Systems in East and Central Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2019

Ewout Frankema
Affiliation:
Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands
Anne Booth
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Summary

East and Central Africa were among the last regions to be colonized by European powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Due to limited trade with the region, along with more fragmented indigenous political organization in many colonies, colonial governments faced a particularly challenging task of establishing fiscal systems which would support the conquest and rule of these territories. This chapter examines the ways they tried to overcome these difficulties, focusing on the histories of the Belgian Congo, Kenya, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Tanganyika and Uganda. In all of these, the imperial powers made use of older tools of colonial rule, including settlement and the outsourcing of government to chartered companies, but the implementation of these were shaped by the circumstances of the period. The chapter argues that these early policies influenced the development of both taxation and public spending during and after the colonial period. In particular, colonial and post-independence governments were more dependent on direct taxation, and faced fierce debates about the distribution of public spending.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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