People, mines and cars: towards a revision of Zambian history, 1890-1930

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Book chapter

Title:	People, mines and cars: towards a revision of Zambian history, 1890-1930
Author:	Gewald, Jan-Bart
Book title:	The speed of change: motor vehicles and people in Africa, 1890-2000
Year:	2009
Pages:	21-47
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Zambia
Subjects:	automobiles road transport social history
Abstract:	This chapter presents an overview of the way transport was organized before and after the introduction of the motor vehicle in what is today the central African State of Zambia. It introduces the different forms of transport that existed prior to the introduction of mechanized transport - human portage, water transport, animal traction, steam trains, steam traction engines, bicycles, motor cycles - and discusses the impact of the introduction of motor vehicles in the early 20th century. From one day to the next, the way goods and people were transported over distances greater than 25 km was transformed. Settlements and villages that had been at a day's walk from each other along the route of travel were now bypassed and came to be abandoned. The chapter concludes that rural impoverishment in Zambia in the 1920s and 1930s was a consequence of a change in modes of transport and the collapse in long-distance trading networks based on human labour power. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]