Chapter 143 Slavery Economy
In August, at the Mbeya mining area, indigenous people had their feet bound with wooden shackles and were forced to carry hoes to clear weeds and gravel from the ground.
Because of the inconvenience in movement, the efficiency is low, but the East African guards supervising on the side are not afraid of the bad things caused by inefficiency.
East Africa never expected these natives to be efficient, they just set a fixed goal every day and that was it.
As for those who cannot finish the task, of course, we have to stir-fry meat with bamboo shoots and reduce the amount of food.
Anyway, the natives do the rough work, and East Africa does not expect them to do it perfectly, as long as the quantity is sufficient.
Digging soil, pulling bricks, digging ditches, chopping down trees... these are all skills that can be easily mastered. The natives can just give it a rough idea, and then the East African immigrants will just need to make some additional adjustments.
Especially in the Mbeya mining area, where the population is very scarce, East Africa has to use a large number of indigenous people to ensure coal production.
There are currently more than 3,000 indigenous laborers working in the Mbeya coal mine. Although they are laborers in name, they are essentially slaves.
In sub-Saharan Africa, there are two civilizations: one is a primitive society that exists in the form of tribes, and the other is a slave society that exists in the form of slave kingdoms.
East Africa was definitely a slave society because there were indeed a large number of black slaves in East Africa, and they were an important part of the East African colonial economy.
Before the establishment of the East African colonies, although there were a large number of slaves in East Africa, the form of civilization was still mainly primitive tribes.
Therefore, the indigenous people of the Tanganyika region were called the Eastern Bantu tribes.
The establishment of East African colonies was equivalent to changing the overall civilization form of East Africa from primitive society to slave society.
The difference between the two is that the indigenous tribes of East Africa used slaves to trade with the Arabs, and even for sacrifices and as food.
The East African colonies used slaves for production and construction, turning slaves from commodities (food) into tools of production.
By that time, East Africa itself was in the state of transition from slave society to feudal society.
The immigrants from East Africa are all feudal people of good descent and have never been disturbed by liberal ideas.
The number of black slaves in East Africa was in a state of continuous decline. At that time, the entire East Africa was dominated by feudal people. Therefore, East Africa would at least experience a short feudal era in the future.
Of course, no matter which stage it enters, the construction of East Africa cannot do without the efforts of the indigenous people, just like the plantation industry in the southern United States. Even though it is capitalism, slaves should still be used.
Construction, especially in tropical areas, requires the loss of human lives. The East African plateau is relatively safe, but other tropical areas are really deadly.
The East African colonial governments are well aware of this. Although the coastal areas were developed early (including the construction of the Sultanate of Zanzibar), they are really not as livable as the inland areas.
Ordinary people often had to work in extremely high temperatures, not to mention the slaves.
Mbeya is about 1,700 meters above sea level. The higher the altitude, the lower the temperature, so although it is located in the tropics, Mbeya is very cool.
Such good weather is naturally suitable for the natives to work in the mines, and the immigrants are not idle either. They need to complete the work of maintaining the wooden frames (pit wood) that support the mine tunnels.
To be honest, this is not a difficult job, but the natives can't do it. They will just do it perfunctorily or pretend to be stupid.
It was as if a small wooden support had become a global problem that was difficult for African natives to solve.
In fact, these natives just have no patience. They would rather do the hard and tiring physical work that does not require any technical skills than complete the work that requires a little bit of technical skills.
This is not nonsense. Before they were captured by the East African colonies and were still in a tribal state, they could weave huts with branches, carve wood into beautiful sculptures, and polish weapons and make bows and arrows...
But when they fell into the hands of the East African colonies, those innate skills seemed to have disappeared overnight, and they could only be used as animal power.
In the early days, some managers in the East African colonies who didn't believe in superstition tried to use black people to farm (then in the East), but the rice seedlings in the paddy fields were all crooked and unevenly sparse, which made the Chinese farmers very distressed, and they finally had to start all over again. (When our agricultural personnel assisted Africa in planting peanuts, they encountered a similar situation. Even after being taught step by step, the locals couldn't learn to bury the seeds at the same distance. Finally, our agricultural personnel made a rope with markings, and the Africans could bury the peanut seeds according to the markings on the rope.)
Agriculture is the primary industry in East Africa, and food production is closely related to the economic situation in East Africa, so the indigenous people cannot be allowed to live in such a way.
The work of the indigenous people is limited to those jobs that require no technical skills and are very physically demanding.
For example, when developing fields in East Africa, the soil needs to be turned over after burning. However, the current animal power in East Africa is obviously insufficient, so the indigenous people have become a substitute for animal power.
The indigenous slaves of Mbeya were used as mine carts, and all the raw coal from the mine had to be carried up by the indigenous slaves.
Even so, the East African colonial government was still worried about these natives and would go down to the mines to check every once in a while to prevent the natives from operating illegally in the mines.
However, the transportation of Mbeya coal did not require the help of these natives. Instead, ox-drawn carts were used to pull the coal to East Africa.
Mbeya’s production capacity is actually not high, but compared with the current demand of the East African colonies, it is far in excess.
Ernst stored the coal in various places in East Africa for emergency use, as several steam engine factories in East Africa needed coal as energy.
Although East Africa is mainly grassland, the forest area is also quite large, so there is no shortage of wood everywhere, which can be used to meet the fuel needs of various places (making fires, cooking, etc.), so the demand for coal is not high.
However, the coal mined in Mbeya cannot be wasted, so warehouses are built throughout East Africa to store it.
As for selling to Europe, Germany has no shortage of coal as it owns the Ruhr area, and it will also squeeze out the ship capacity originally used for immigration, so it is totally incompatible.
Moreover, East Africa would need to build some primary factories later, which would require a lot of coal. After the Mbeya coal mine was developed, the East African colonies no longer imported coal from Germany, thus saving a lot of money.
The coal mining in Mbeya mainly uses indigenous slaves, and the cost is very low, they just need to be provided with food.
Apart from this, there is basically no investment, and many tools are made from local materials, which means that some iron tools have to be imported from Europe.
In addition to the development of the Mbeya mining area, slaves were used extensively in construction and production throughout East Africa, but most of them were used in larger-scale projects. After all, the immigrants could not sit idle, and many jobs still had to be completed by the immigrants themselves.
For example, when developing fields, indigenous people would be used as animal power at the beginning of development, but after the fields were developed, all the work would be left to the immigrants themselves.
At the same time, immigrants must accept military service, regularly clear wild beasts from colonial areas, and participate in colonial expansion tasks.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
