ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the industrial revolution as an episode in which Africans participated to understand Africans' experiences during this period and to look at the industrial revolution through their eyes. It argues that the first industrial revolution—like all industrial revolutions since—involved social, economic, and political changes much wider than those experienced just by factory workers in big cities. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the lifestyles and life experiences of many Africans changed because of the industrial revolution. These changes mirrored transformations taking place in Britain, although they had their own unique character as well. Historians have perceived several links between settler capitalism and industrialization, on the one hand, and the cattle killing episodes, on the other. The chapter highlights that if West Africa is to progress, it must be chiefly, if not entirely, by means of her own resources. In other words, there must be a creation of native capitalists.
