Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the transformations and continuities in African societies during the height of the colonial era. One of the greatest debates surrounding the colonial era in Africa is over the degree and quality of change that occurred within African societies. The demand for export production from colonial governments forced millions of Africans to migrate from their homes as workers or agricultural immigrants into new territories. Europeans equated ethnic and linguistic differences in Africa with the current ideas about the essential nature of national identity in Europe. In peasant colonies the demand that African farmers produce a cash crop for export, usually a non-food crop, sometimes strained farming systems. In South Africa, the demand for labor in diamond and gold mines, as well as Afrikaner farms, led to a policy of strangling potential peasant production in order to keep labor costs down.