ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the position of the craftsmen and petty traders in the urban economy of Ibadan and the cocoa farmers of the rural areas, with respect to their class situation, their aspirations and demands, and the resources at their disposal. Colonial capitalism has transformed significant social relationships into commodity relationships. It has thereby differentiated the colonized society along new lines, so that people's life-chances are determined by their access to and exclusion from resources introduced by the colonial political economy. The basis of the colonial economy of Ibadan was, and still is, the cultivation of cocoa, which spread rapidly in the years 1892 to 1912. The rebellion went beyond the selective allocation of resources at the disposal of urban politicians. Accounts of the oppression of politicians and officials in the rural areas up to the Agbekoya rebellion make them sound more like the activities of an army of occupation than an indigenous administration.
