Palm Oil and Protest
An Economic History of the Ngwa Region, South-Eastern Nigeria, 1800–1980

This 1988 book describes the rise and fall of the oil palm export industry.

Susan M. Martin (Author)

9780521343763, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 March 1988

222 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.5 kg

"...Susan Martin has written a perceptive study, and a worthy successor to other major writers on the economic history of the eastern areas of Nigeria, from Dike through Jones to Northrup. She is to be congratulated." A.J.H. Latham, International Journal of African Historical Studies

The Ngwa region lies in the heart of the Nigerian palm belt. Palm oil is one of the oldest foodstuffs of the region and has also been an export crop, produced mainly by women, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. This 1988 book describes the rise and fall of the oil palm export industry. In contrast to the views of both dependency and vent-for-surplus theorists, it is shown that patterns of export growth and capital investment were heavily influenced by locally inspired changes in food production methods, gender and intergenerational relationships. The processes of change within the domestic and export economies became increasingly closely intertwined after 1924, when African coastal middlemen began to settle further inland and to spread the knowledge of cassava and Christianity. This book draws upon a wide range of economic, botanical, anthropological and historical studies as well as on colonial archives, but its heart lies in the oral evidence and life histories generously provided by Ngwa men and women.

List of maps and figure
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. Ecology, society and economic change to 1891
3. The Ngwa and colonial rule, 1891–1914
4. The expansion of the oil palm industry, 1884–1914
5. The end of the boom
6. Cassava and Christianity
7. Authority, justice and property rights
8. Trade, credit and mobility
9. Production and protest: the Women Riot, 1929
10. Cash cropping and economic change, 1930–80
11. Conclusion
Statistical appendix
Notes
Interviews conducted in the Ngwa region, 1980–1
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]