African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 143 The Slavery Economy

In August, in the Mbeya mining area, the aborigines were bound with wooden shackles to bind their feet, and they carried hoes to clean up the weeds and gravel on the ground.

Because of the inconvenient movement, the efficiency is not high, but the East African guards who are supervising on the side are not afraid of low efficiency and bad things.

East Africa didn't expect the efficiency of these indigenous people to increase at all, and it was done by setting a dead goal every day.

As for not being able to complete it, it is natural that the fried meat with bamboo whips and the reduction of food are indispensable.

Anyway, the natives do rough work, and East Africa doesn't expect it to be perfect at all, as long as the quantity is enough.

Digging soil, pulling bricks, digging ditches, and cutting trees... are all skills that can be learned at first hand. These natives can make a rough idea, and it will be fine if the immigrants from East Africa can do it later.

Especially in the Mbeya mining area, when the population is very scarce, if East Africa wants to ensure coal production, it is necessary to use a large number of indigenous people.

The Mbeya Coal Mine currently employs more than 3000 indigenous laborers. Although they are laborers in name, they are essentially slaves.

In sub-Saharan Africa, there are two civilizations, one is the primitive society, which exists in the form of tribes, and the other is the slave society, which exists in the form of slavery kingdoms.

East Africa must belong to a slave society, because there are really a large number of black slaves in East Africa, and they are an important part of the colonial economy in East Africa.

Before the East African colony was opened, although there were a large number of slaves in East Africa, the civilization was still dominated by primitive tribes.

Therefore, the aborigines in Tanganyika are called the tribes of the Eastern Bantu.

The establishment of East African colonies is equivalent to changing the overall civilization of East Africa from primitive society to slavery society.

The difference between the two is that the indigenous tribes in East Africa used slaves to trade with the Arabs, even for sacrifices and as rations.

The East African colonies used slaves for production and construction, turning slaves from commodities (food) into production tools.

And when East Africa itself was in a state of transition from a slavery society to a feudal society.

The immigrants in East Africa are all feudal people with upright roots and have not been harassed by liberal ideas.

However, the number of black slaves in East Africa is constantly decreasing. At that time, the entire East Africa was dominated by feudal people. Therefore, in the future, East Africa will at least experience a short feudal era.

Of course, no matter which stage it enters, the construction of East Africa cannot do without the efforts of indigenous peoples, just like the planting industry in the southern United States, which has become capitalistic, so slaves should still be used.

Construction, especially in tropical areas, requires human life. The East African plateau is not bad, but other tropical areas are really terrible.

The East African colonial government has a deep understanding of this. Although the coastal areas were developed early (including the construction of the Sultanate of Zanzibar), they are really not as livable as the inland areas.

People often have to work in high temperatures, not to mention those slaves.

The altitude of Mbeya is about 700 meters. The higher the altitude, the lower the temperature. Therefore, although it is located in the tropics, Mbeya is very cool.

Such fine weather is naturally suitable for the aborigines to work in the mine, and the immigrants do not do nothing. The wooden frames (pit logs) that maintain the mine road support need to be completed by the immigrants.

To be honest, it's really not a difficult job, but the natives can't do it, they will be perfunctory, or pretend to be stupid.

It seems that a small wooden support has become a worldwide problem that African natives cannot solve.

In fact, these natives are just impatient. They would rather do the kind of hard and tiring but unskilled physical work than complete a little technical work.

This is not nonsense. Before they were captured by the East African colonies, when they were still in a tribal state, they could weave huts out of branches, carve wood into beautiful sculptures, polish weapons, and make bows and arrows...

But when they fell into the hands of the East African colonies, those natural skills seemed to disappear overnight, and they could only be used as animal power.

In the early days, some unbelieving managers in the East African colonies tried to use black people to cultivate the land (it was still in the east at that time). As a result, the seedlings in the paddy fields were swayed, and the density was uneven, which made the Chinese farmers feel bad, and finally pushed them all down. Again. (Chinese agricultural personnel encountered a similar situation when they assisted Africa in planting peanuts. They taught them by hand, and the locals could not learn to bury seeds at the same distance. Finally, our agricultural personnel made that kind of marked rope, and Africans climbed according to the rope. mark to bury the peanut seeds.)
Agriculture is the primary industry in East Africa, and food production is even more related to the economy of East Africa, so the indigenous people cannot be allowed to live like this.

The work of the indigenous people is also limited to those jobs that are unskilled and very labor-intensive.

For example, to develop fields in East Africa, after burning wasteland, the fields need to be turned over. However, the current animal power in East Africa is obviously insufficient, so the indigenous people have become substitutes for animal power.

The indigenous slaves in Mbeya are used as mine carts, and all the raw coal under the mine needs to be carried by the indigenous slaves.

Even so, the East African colonial government is still worried about these aborigines, and has to go down to the mine for inspection every once in a while to prevent the aborigines from illegally operating in the mine.

However, the Mbeya coal was transported out, but these indigenous peoples were not needed. Instead, they used oxen and horse-drawn carts to pull the coal to East Africa.

Mbeya's production capacity is actually not high, but compared to the current demand of the East African colonies, it is far in excess.

Ernst stored the coal in various parts of East Africa for emergency use, and several steam engine factories in East Africa needed coal as energy.

Although East Africa is dominated by grasslands, the forest area is not small, so there is no shortage of wood everywhere, which can be used to meet the fuel needs of various places (fire cooking, etc.), so the demand for coal is not high.

But Mbeya couldn't waste the coal dug out, so he simply set up warehouses all over East Africa to store it.

As for sales to Europe, Germany has no shortage of coal in the Ruhr area, and it will also occupy the capacity of ships originally used for immigration, so it is completely incompatible.

Moreover, some primary factories in East Africa will be built in the future, and these coals are indispensable. After the Mbeya coal mine is developed, the East African colonies will no longer import coal mines from Germany to East Africa, which saves a lot of money.

Mbeya coal mining mainly uses indigenous slaves, and the cost is very low, just need to take care of the food.

In addition, there is basically no investment, and many tools are made from local materials, that is, some iron tools have to be imported from Europe.

In addition to the development of the Mbeya mining area, a large number of slaves are used in construction and production in various parts of East Africa, but most of them are used for relatively large-scale projects. After all, immigrants cannot be idle, and many jobs still have to be done by the immigrants themselves.

For example, in the development of fields, at the beginning of the development, the indigenous people will be used as animal power, but after the development of the fields later, it will be handed over to the immigrants themselves to complete all the work.

At the same time, immigrants have to accept military service, regularly clean up the beasts in the colonial area and participate in the expansion of the colony.

(End of this chapter)