ABSTRACT
The colonial era has ceased to be regarded as the sole substance of African history, and there are sound reasons for thinking that colonial rule itself had a less dramatic and a less pervasive economic impact than was once supposed. This chapter aims to provide a synoptic view of the evolution of the colonial economies of West Africa between 1900 and 1960. The long-term rate of growth in an ideal-type open economy is determined by two major variables: the size of export proceeds and the income elasticity of demand for imports. Manufactured goods have to be imported because the open economy has few modem industries of its own. The economic distinction between peasant and plantation economies is profound enough to have far-reaching social and political consequences. Many parts of West Africa which lay outside the main export-producing regions were able to participate in the colonial economy by supplying necessary inputs into export activities, such as labour.
