The highlands
The highlands are not one specific ecological region but are found in various regions in Africa. The
most famous are the highlands of northern Tanzania, central Kenya and Ethiopia. We discuss the
highlands separately because the socio-economic organisation of these areas was very different
from that of the forest zones and the savannah. The well-watered highlands enabled Africans to
develop systems of intensive agriculture. This can be compared with the extensive agricultural
systems of the forest zones and savannah, where farmers used only minimal inputs and simply
moved on when the soil became depleted.
Here in the highlands, instead of extending the frontiers of their lands, farmers worked on
improving the land they had. They found methods to prevent the cultivated land from deteriorating
over time. Some of these methods were terracing, manuring, mulching, and in a few places
irrigation. Terracing was necessary to exploit the land on the hill slopes. The slope was cut into a
series of receding flat levels, like steps. To keep the land productive, farmers protected the land
from erosion by covering the topsoil with a layer of bark chips, or mulch. They increased its fertility
by digging in animal manure, which added nutrients such as nitrogen to the soil. And a few farmers
in the highlands took extra advantage of the many streams and rivers – they constructed irrigation
furrows to lead the water to their land, ensuring that it was well watered throughout the year.
Intensive agriculture made it possible for populations to grow. So, unlike most other regions of
pre-colonial Africa, the highlands were quite densely populated. For the people in the highlands,
land and not labour was the scarce resource. Men and women commonly worked together in the
fields, sowing and harvesting. Men were usually responsible for the heavier work, such as
ploughing and construction of terraces. When extra labour was needed during the agricultural peak
seasons, for jobs like clearing land and bringing in a big harvest, a farmer could arrange a work
party of men from his village. After the work was done they would be invited to a feast where meat
and beer were served. Women played a central role in the work parties, as they were in charge of
cooking food and brewing beer. Households that could not provide a good spread of food and
plenty of beer would be unlikely to get many villagers to help with their work.
The most prevalent sign of wealth was in fact not the size of a farmer’s land but his control and
ownership of terrace walls, irrigation canals, and other land conservation devices. Richer and
wealthier farmers employed rural wage labourers, not to help with agriculture but to maintain the
land and improve its quality.
The Ethiopian highlands deserve special mention, as this area was different from the rest of precolonial Africa because their use of ox-ploughs. The topsoil in Ethiopia was generally deeper than
in other regions of Africa, making the use of ploughs beneficial. The biggest expansion of plough
agriculture in Ethiopia took place between the 16th and early 20th centuries. Because the plough
made farming more efficient, farmers in Ethiopia could produce a surplus, rather than just what
While people in the other highlands fought over the control of conservation and water resources,
social conflict in the Ethiopian highlands was over oxen. And oxen were an important source of
wealth. People gained access to and control of oxen through complex institutional arrangements of
social cooperation, rental agreements and labour exchange. There was not enough land to raise
sufficient livestock in the highlands. Instead, to acquire oxen the farmers in the Ethiopian highlands
depended on regular market exchanges with the surrounding lowlands.
This brief summary above may give the impression that production systems in pre-colonial Africa
were static. That was not the case. The most important economic change for our period, with
notable long-term effects, was the introduction and spread of new crops. The introduction of rice,
Asian Yams and banana plantains were important changes. We do not know the date for the
introduction of these crops, but it most likely happened before the 16th century and via the Indian
Ocean trade. Cassava and maize arrived to the African continent from the Americas. Scholars have
called the introduction of maize an agricultural revolution in Africa. We do not know exactly when
maize was introduced into Africa, but historical sources suggest that it was brought by missionaries
and traders from Latin America to West Africa in the 16th century. This crop spread slowly. It
became a major staple crop in sub-Saharan Africa only in the late 19th century. The introduction
and spread of maize increased the productive capacity of Africa farmers, as the yields per hectare
were far higher than the yields of crops like millet and sorghum. The downside was that maize is
more vulnerable to unsuitable environments and bad weather. The production of maize in precolonial Africa probably fluctuated more than the production of other crops, in other words it varied
more and was less reliable.
The introduction and spread of maize affected the ecological regions in different ways. In the forest
zones of West Africa it was soon integrated as a major crop and stimulated farmers to create
complex fallow systems in the 17th and 18th centuries. In these systems the land was rested
between crops, or planted with a different crop, to allow it to recover its fertility. Maize provided
the people in the forest region with much needed carbohydrates and thus enabled population
growth. In the Ethiopian highlands, however, farmers did not adopt maize in this way, but treated
as a garden crop throughout the pre-colonial period. Crops already being grown in these highlands
satisfied people’s demand for nutrients and so there was no incentive to invest in the risky business
of cultivating a new crop like maize on a large scale. Women, and not men, were mostly in control
of maize production in the highlands and the crop was sown on ground opened by hoe and not the
plough.
Although subsistence agriculture played a major role in pre-colonial Africa it was not the only
economic activity and that Africans were not producing for the market. Trade and economic
specialization were important strategies to generate wealth in the various African societies.
Specialization, adaptation and crises
Two inter-related factors are important for understanding economic development over the
centuries. One is the ability of the societies to adapt to changing circumstances. The other is their
inability to avoid recurring crises such as disease, droughts and famines.
Let us look first at West Africa. The pre-colonial West African societies were more specialised
than societies in the rest of Africa, and their specialisation seems to have increased over time. Trade
and the use of slaves were far more developed in West Africa, in both the forest and the savannah
regions. At first the gold trade dominated, but later the trades in copper and salt became more
important. These valuable goods were used for long-distance trade across the Sahara desert. in the
forest areas, gold mining developed in specific locations. Indigenous gold production was well
established by the 13th century and gold was traded with the Islamic merchants on the East African
coast. This trade was disrupted by the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century. The Portuguese
wanted monopoly rights over the gold trade with Africans and thus waged war on the coastal
Islamic traders. These wars, together with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade and the spread of
diseases from Europe, led to a drastic decline in gold production. By the end of the 18th century
gold mining and trade were only marginal activities in the region.
Another kind of specialisation in West Africa was the development of commercial centres. New
centres became important and older ones lost their importance as the types of trade and the goods
traded changed over time. Hausaland, for example, was a leading regional centre in the 16th
century. Hausaland was a collection of states situated between the Niger River and Lake Chad in
what is modern day Nigeria. It grew in strength because of its successful engagement in the gold
trade. But as the gold trade became less important in the 17th century, Hausaland was replaced as
a major commercial centre by the Dahomey kingdom, in the area known today as Benin. This
kingdom had become a key player in the growing trade in people as goods – in other words the
slave trade. It grew richer and richer as it profited from the 17th century trans-Atlantic slave trade.
The cities in southern and eastern Africa were seldom centres of trade and exchange. We might
wonder why commercial centres were more common in West Africa. There are two possible
answers. Perhaps people in West Africa could produce a much bigger surplus and this stimulated
trade and specialisation. Or perhaps the larger population densities of West Africa decreased the
cost of trading and this encouraged specialisation. Whatever the reason, it is clear that there was a
significant difference between West African societies and systems and those of the rest of subSaharan Africa.