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The Quality of Liquor in Nigeria During the Colonial Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2011

Simon Heap
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The Nigerian liquor trade provoked fierce debate: was it advancing development or fashioning an economy based on the unproductive consumption of alcohol? The liquor trade was caught between two prevailing colonial perspectives on African economic development: the Darwinian-based principle that Western civilisation had a duty to protect Africans from all bad external influences, and the civilise-through-trade concept seeking to modernise Africans by exploiting colonies to their fullest potential. Humanitarian concerns and economic interests were entangled. Positive views of the liquor trade claimed its necessity in developing the Nigerian economy. Some admitted that the trade formed a necessary evil, but did not fail to emphasise its role as a transitional currency, promoter of cash-crops-forexport, and a desirable commodity among those with money to spend. Merchants saw commerce as a great civilising agent, with the liquor trade as its most important constituent. On the other hand, liquor trade critics used the temperance equation to further their cause: drinking alcohol was bad, abstinence was good. Arguing that the imposition of ‘a Rum and Gin Civilization’ would be ‘a hydra that devours the natives’, halting useful commerce and hindering economic development, they agitated for Prohibition and a complete restructuring of the colonial economy along alcoholfree lines.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , July 1999 , pp. 29 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1999

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References

Notes

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97 NAI, IBMINHOME 1/21, W.E. Hunt, Secretary, Southern Provinces, to Nigeria Residents, 9 December 1931.

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