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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Sowing the Seeds of Failure: Early Portuguese Cotton Cultivation in Angola and Mozambique, 1820-1926
Author:Pitcher, M. AnneISNI
Year:1991
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:17
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:43-70
Language:English
Geographic terms:Angola
Mozambique
Portugal
Subjects:colonialism
cotton
History and Exploration
Anthropology and Archaeology
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637286
Abstract:Early attempts by the Portuguese to grow cotton in Angola and Mozambique were humiliating failures. A plethora of legislative directives from the early 1800s to the early 1900s did not foster any sustained cotton production in either Mozambique or Angola. Natural factors, as well as erratic international prices, conflicting and contradictory metropolitan objectives in the colonies, inappropriate methods of production, competing crop and labour demands, and African resistance led to the failure of cotton cultivation. This article documents the history of early Portuguese legislative initiatives to establish stable cotton production during the periods 1820-1870, 1880-1910, and 1910-1926, the Republican period. It briefly pays attention to the successful cotton policy of the 'Estado Novo' during the 1930s, which, drawing lessons from these earlier failures, used forced peasant production in specially designated, cotton-only areas, and introduced a system of guaranteed prices, thereby reducing risk and insuring a profit for trading companies, in order to entrench a cotton regime in the colonies. App., notes, ref.
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