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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Colonial Distortion of the Volta River Salt Trade
Author:Maier, D.J.E.
Year:1986
Periodical:African Economic History
Volume:15
Pages:13-37
Language:English
Geographic terms:Ghana
Great Britain
Subjects:colonialism
salt industry
History and Exploration
Economics and Trade
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3601538
Abstract:This study examines colonial actions and attitudes toward the Volta River salt industry and trade in the early years of colonial rule in Ghana. The salt industry at the mouth of the Volta survived the colonial period, but its traditional organization was broken and replaced. Colonial officers can neither be credited nor blamed for this completely, but in the absence of interfering colonial State policies, the salt industry would surely have developed and expanded through the 1930s, rather than being broken and tamed as it was. Colonial officers followed their own agenda which had little to do with local interests. Generally they tried to use taxes, duties, and tariffs as policy instruments rather than revenue collecting devices. This ultimately had the effect of repressing economic development and production rather than encouraging it. The salt industry survived in the early colonial period despite colonial policies, while the intercolonial trade wars came close to destroying it. Notes, ref.
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