Chapter 143 The Economy of Slavery
In August, in the Mbeya mining area, the aborigines were bound with wooden shackles to bind their feet, and they carried hoes to clean up the weeds and gravel on the ground.
Because it is inconvenient to move, the efficiency is not high, but the East African guards who are supervising on the side are not afraid of low efficiency and bad things.
East Africa did not expect the efficiency of these indigenous people to increase at all, and it was done by setting a dead goal every day.
As for not being able to complete it, it is natural that the fried meat with bamboo whip and the reduction of meals are indispensable.
Anyway, the natives do rough work, and East Africa doesn't expect it to be perfect at all, as long as the quantity is enough.
Planning soil, pulling bricks, digging ditches, cutting trees... are all skills that can be mastered at first hand.
Especially in the Mbeya mining area, when the population is very scarce, if East Africa wants to ensure coal production, it is necessary to use a large number of indigenous people.
Mbeya Coal Mine currently employs more than 3,000 indigenous laborers. Although they are laborers in name, they are essentially slaves.
In sub-Saharan Africa, there are two civilizations, one is the primitive society, which exists in the form of tribes, and the other is the slave society, which is in the form of slavery kingdoms.
East Africa must belong to a slave society, because there are really a large number of black slaves in East Africa, and they are an important part of the colonial economy of East Africa.
Before the East African colony was opened, although there were a large number of slaves in East Africa, the civilization was still dominated by primitive tribes.
So the aborigines in the Tanganyika region are called the tribes of the Eastern Bantu people.
The establishment of East African colonies is equivalent to changing the overall civilization of East Africa from primitive society to slavery society.
The difference between the two is that the indigenous tribes in East Africa used slaves to trade with the Arabs, even for sacrifices and as rations.
The East African colonies used slaves for production and construction, turning slaves from commodities (food) into production tools.
And wait until East Africa itself is in a state of transition from a slavery society to a feudal society.
East African immigrants are all feudal people with strong roots, and have not been harassed by liberal ideas.
The number of black slaves in East Africa is constantly decreasing. At that time, the entire East Africa was dominated by feudal people. Therefore, in the future, East Africa will at least experience a short feudal era.
Of course, no matter which stage it enters, the construction of East Africa cannot do without the efforts of indigenous peoples, just like the planting industry in the southern United States, which has become capitalist, so slaves should still be used.
Construction, especially in tropical areas, requires human life. The East African plateau is not bad, but other tropical areas are really terrible.
The East African colonial government has a deep understanding 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.
People often have to work under high temperature, not to mention those slaves.
The altitude of Mbeya is about 1,700 meters. The higher the altitude, the lower the temperature. Therefore, although it is located in the tropics, Mbeya is very cool.
To be honest, it’s really not a difficult job, but the natives can’t do it, they will be perfunctory, or pretend to be stupid.
It seems that a small wooden support has become a worldwide problem that African indigenous people cannot solve.
In fact, these aborigines are just impatient. They would rather do the kind of hard and tiring but unskilled physical work than complete a little technical work.
This is not nonsense. Before they were captured by the East African colonies, when they were still in a tribal state, they could weave huts out of branches, carve wood into beautiful sculptures, polish weapons, and make bows and arrows...
But when they fell into the hands of the East African colonies, those natural skills seemed to disappear overnight, and they could only be used as animal power.
In the early days, some unbelieving managers in the East African colonies tried to use black people to cultivate the land (it was still in the east at that time). As a result, the seedlings in the paddy fields were swayed, and the density was uneven, which made the Chinese farmers feel bad, and finally pushed them all down. Again. (Chinese agricultural personnel encountered a similar situation when they assisted Africa in planting peanuts. They taught them by hand, and the locals could not learn to bury seeds at the same distance. Finally, our agricultural personnel made that kind of marked rope, and Africans climbed according to the rope. mark to bury the peanut seeds.)
Agriculture is the primary industry in East Africa, and food production is even more related to the economic success of East Africa, so the indigenous people cannot be allowed to live like this.
The work of the indigenous people is also limited to those jobs that have no technical content and are very labor-intensive.
For example, to develop fields in East Africa, after burning wasteland, the fields need to be turned over. However, the current animal power in East Africa is obviously insufficient, so the indigenous people have become a substitute for animal power.
Indigenous slaves in Mbeya are used as mine carts, and all the raw coal under the mine needs to be carried by indigenous slaves.
Even so, the East African colonial government is still worried about these aborigines, and has to go down to the mine for inspection every once in a while to prevent the aboriginals from illegally operating in the mine.
While Mbeya coal was transported out, these natives were not needed. Instead, they used horse-drawn carts to pull the coal to East Africa.
Mbeya's production capacity is actually not high, but compared to the current demand of the East African colonies, it is far in excess.
Ernst stored these coals in various parts of East Africa for emergencies, and several steam engine factories in East Africa needed coal as energy.
Although East Africa is dominated by grasslands, the forest area is not small, so there is no shortage of wood everywhere, which can be used to meet the fuel needs of various places (fire cooking, etc.), so the demand for coal is not high.
But Mbeya couldn't waste the coal dug out, so he simply set up warehouses all over East Africa to store it.
As for sales to Europe, Germany has no shortage of coal in the Ruhr area, and it will also occupy the capacity of ships originally used for immigration, so it is completely incompatible.
Moreover, East Africa will build some primary factories later, and these coals are indispensable. After the Mbeya coal mine is developed, the East African colonies will no longer import coal mines from Germany to East Africa, which saves a lot of money.
Mbeya coal mining mainly uses indigenous slaves, the cost is very low, just need to take care of food.
Except for other things, there is basically no investment. Many tools are made from local materials, that is, some iron tools have to be imported from Europe.
In addition to the development of the Mbeya mining area, a large number of slaves are used in various parts of East Africa for construction and production, but most of them are used for relatively large-scale projects. After all, immigrants cannot be idle, and many jobs still have to be done by the immigrants themselves.
For example, in the development of fields, at the beginning of the development, the indigenous people will be used as animal power, but after the fields are developed later, it will be handed over to the immigrants themselves to complete all the work.
At the same time, immigrants also have to accept military service, regularly clean up the beasts in the colonial area and participate in the expansion of the colony.
(end of this chapter)