¹ Keynes, J. M., The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (New York, 1936), 383.Google Scholar

² Schumpeter first set forh these ideas in The Theory of Economic Development, Harvard Economic Studies, XLVI (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), originally published in German, 1911.Google Scholar

³ Schumpeter himself was well aware that economic activity does not take place in a vacuum and cannot be analysed without reference to the historical context in which it occurs. Ibid. 3–5.

⁴ Hance, William A., African Economic Development, revised edition (New York, 1967), 20.Google Scholar

⁵ See, e.g. Herskovits, M. J. and Harwitz, M., eds., Economic Transition in Africa (Evanston, Illinois, 1964)Google Scholar, especially chapters by Johnston, B. F. and Katzin, M., or Kamarck, A., The Economics of African Development (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

⁶ Fallers, L. A., ‘Social Stratification and Economic Processes’, in Herskovits and Harwitz.Google Scholar

⁷ This article is based on material collected in Nigeria in 1966 and 1970/71, both from archival sources and from interviews with several hundred farmers.Google Scholar

⁸ The early history of cocoa farming in Ghana has been described in Polly Hill's classic study, Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana (Cambridge, 1963). In Nigeria, the rate of expansion was slower, and the acquisition of land for cocoa farming was organized in a different way.Google Scholar

⁹ Similarly, Polly Hill writes that in Ghana ‘the expansionary process was much encouraged by the fact that, after a short initial hesitation, it tended to involve all the inhabitants of the main Akwapim towns’ (Migrant Cocoa Farmers, 181). There the expansion involved the purchase of farmland.Google Scholar This was carried out by ‘companies’ some of which were organized along kinship lines (ibid. ch. III) and which were ‘primarily devices for assisting small men to migrate’. (Ibid. 182.)

¹⁰ Cohen, A., Custom and Politics in Urban Africa (Berkeley, California, 1969), 20, 22.Google Scholar

¹¹ I use the term ‘city-state’, rather than the more conventional ‘kingdom’, to refer the main political units into which the Yoruba were organized because, although most of them were organized around a major town, their political structures were not uniform.Google Scholar

¹² I have documented this process in some detail for Ibadan and Ondo; Berry, S. S., ‘Cocoa in Western Nigeria, 1890–1940: A Study of an Innovation in a Developing Economy’, University of Michigan Ph.D., 1967.Google Scholar

¹³ Much of the material in this essay, especially that on migation and the organization of cocoa farming, is based on research carried out in Nigeria in 1970/71.Google Scholar

¹⁴ They refer briefly to farmers from Atan, in Egba Division, who owned farms near Ife, and also note the presence in the cocoa belt of Yoruba from ‘the areas between Oshogbo and Offa’, but consider the latter to be migrant labourers—not cocoa farmers in their own right.Google ScholarGalletti, R., Baldwin, K. D. S. and Dina, I. O., Nigerian Cocoa Farmers (London, 1956), 206 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Lloyd, P. C., Yoruba Land Law (Oxford, 1962), 88.Google Scholar

¹⁶ My information on this point is confirmed by research on emigration from northern Yoruba towns and the early history of kola production in Egba Division carried out by Agiri, B. A., Department of History, University of Lagos.Google ScholarCf. Oyemakinde, J. O., ‘A History of Indigenous Labour on the Nigerian Railway, 1895–1945’, University of Ibadan Ph.D., 1970.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ajayi, J. F. A. and Igun, A. A., Population Census of Nigeria, 1963: List of Historical Events for Determination of Individual ages, 2nd edition (Ibadan, 1963).Google Scholar

¹⁸ ‘Ishakole: Collection of’, IFEDIV I/I/113 in the Nigerian National Archives at Ibadan (cited hereinafter as NAI).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Lloyd, 54. Both Lloyd and Galletti, et. al., write as if this were still true of most Yoruba farming settlements in the 1950's. Cf. Galletti, et. al., 85.Google Scholar

²⁰ There are hundreds of residents in communities such as Akanran and Araromi, south of Ibadan, and thousands in, e.g. Olode, Omifunfun and Mefoworade in Ife Division.Google Scholar

²¹ Lloyd, 64–5.Google Scholar

²² The terms on which tenant farmers use their land vary from one city-state to another. In Ibadan, for example, the amount of ishakole is nominal—rarely more than 5 shillings per farmer—and in Ondo, where until recently lineages did not exercise ownership rights over rural land at all, ishakole itself is still fairly rare.Google Scholar

²³ The use of chemical sprays to control black pod disease and capsid attack is a notable exception. Recent estimates by the Western Nigeria Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources indicate that it is still cheaper to establish a new cocoa farm on uncultivated forest land than to cut down and replant old trees. M.A.N.R., Western Nigeria Development Project, Cocoa (Ibadan, n.d.).Google Scholar

²⁴ Cf. descriptions of the Agege planters by Webster, J. B., ‘Agege: Plantations and the African Church’, N.I.S.E.R. Conference Proceedings, 03 1962,Google Scholar and African Churches Among the Yoruba, 1888–1922 (Oxford, 1964).Google Scholar

²⁵ Other relatives were usually described by the Yoruba terms egbon and aburo, which are usually ranslated ‘senior brother’ and ‘junior brother’ in English, but which may also refer to uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins.Google Scholar

²⁶ Galletti et. al. 668.Google Scholar

²⁷ Lagos Gazette, 5 May 1903.Google Scholar

²⁸ Director of Agriculture to Chief Secretary, Lagos, 18 Nov. 1938, in ‘Report of Commission of Enquiry into the Marketing of West African Cocoa’, CSO 26/34883, I (NAI).Google Scholar

²⁹ Gafletti et. al., 206; Lloyd, 329.Google Scholar

³⁰ In principle, early cocoa farmers could also obtain assistance on their farms from friends and neighbours, with whom they might join in some form of mutual aid arrangement (owe or aro), from debtors (iwofa) who agreed to work for a creditor until the loan was repaid, and from slaves. Few of my informants actually said that they or their forebears had used such sources of labour, however. Only farmers with money to lend could obtain the services of iwofa or debtors, and mutual aid arrangements were used primarily for heavy, one-shot tasks such as building a house or clearing forest land. Cf. Chief Ayorinde, J. A., ‘Western Nigeria Village Social Organization’, 1966 (mimeographed)Google Scholar and Fadipe, N. A., The Sociology of the Yoruba, Edited by Okediji, F. O. and Okediji, O.O. (Ibadan, 1970), 150.Google Scholar

³¹ Hopkins, A. G., ‘The Lagos Strike of 1897’, Past and Present, 35, 12, 1966, 143–4.Google Scholar

³² Ibid. 143. Most of Hopkins's evidence refers to Lagos, Ijebu-Ode and Abeokuta, where slavery may have disappeared more quickly than in the interior.

³³ Oyo and Ondo Provinces, Annual Reports (NAI).Google Scholar

³⁴ Chief Obisesan, J. A., Diary, 16 Feb. 1921. I am grateful to the Aperin family for permission to consult Chief Obisesan's diaries, which are kept at the University of Ibadan Library.Google Scholar

³⁵ Cf. Hill, 187.Google Scholar

³⁶ In Ibadan, I encountered few non-Ibadan growing cocoa, but met many Yoruba from other communities who were engaged in non-agricultural occupations, such as trade or crafts. Apparently, the Ibadan forests were largely exploited for cocoa growing by the Ibadan themselves but other Yoruba were attracted there by the growing market for other goods and services which developed as farmers' incomes increased. In Ondo, I also met a number of Ikale farmers who had come to Ondo to grow cocoa because the soils in their own area were not suitable for cocoa.Google Scholar

³⁷ Cf. Hill, 190–1Google Scholar and Brokensha, D., Social Change in Larteh, Ghana (Oxford, 1966), 57–8.Google Scholar