Assess the changing significance of economics and finance in influencing Britain’s relationship with its African empire in the period c1870-c1981

Economic and financial factors played a massive influencing role with Britain in its relationship with Africa, because the benefits that Britain gained from expanding their empire into Africa were financial and territorial which allowed Britain to achieve their goal of ‘pursuit of greatness’ as there was much international rivalry. Although not all of Britain’s relationship with Africa was simply influenced by economic or financial factors, in the period of expansion 1870-1902 it may have not of just been the economical gains from expanding which was the pushing force but also Britain may have had strategic concerns in mind, they may have simply wanted to gain as much dominance within Africa as possible. Furthermore the years of 1902-1955 revealed a period of consolidation at the time where there was a lot of global conflicts going on at the time Britain’s main priority within Africa was to defend and simply keep their African empire, so it could have been a mixture of political, strategic and economic factors influencing Britain’s relationship with Africa within these particular fifty-three years. And of course lastly between 1955-1981 comes the period of contraction between Britain and Africa where the dismantling of the British colonies within Africa takes place.

The period of expansion for Britain within Africa can firstly be explained through obvious economic and financial factors. During Britain’s period of expansion within Africa it had occupied a massive area of four million square miles, which is a very large amount of land to occupy in such a small space of time. Some of Britain’s economic motivation would have come from the need to protect their financial interests of their chartered companies such as the British South Africa company, Rhodes and The East Indian company.
Britain’s conquest within Africa was also aided by the Industrial revolution, which provided tools of the Empire such as the gatling gun, the railway and steamship, according to Hobsbawn such technical advantages ” made the conquest of weak industrial people easier”, which illustrates that due to Britain’s own current financial position at this time and their better understanding of the industrial world at this time compared to the African people themselves, Britain thought they could take advantage of this and exploit Africa purely for the gains of the British Empire.
Furthermore the industrial revolution also had motivated Britain’s search for new markets within Africa, which would have encouraged more trade within Britain contributing to the empires wealth. Also because each different area of Africa offered different types of commodities, some areas were seen as more valuable than others, for example an area like the Gold Coast was seen as one of the most valuable areas of Africa because gold and diamonds were found in its land.
This then leads onto the explanation for Britian’s strategic concerns which may have also influenced Britain’s expansion within Africa, during this period the emergence of new European powers appeared to try and compete with Britain’s economic and imperial supremacy which lead to Britain’s financial and strategic concerns. The newly emerging European powers created a sense of insecurity for Britain that they had not felt before, which lead to their need and desire to defend their empire. They had done this by trying to gain as much territory in Africa as possible to make sure they maintain their dominance over the other competing countries. ’ The society certainly had no thought of advocating an expansion of empire but, once admit that existing colonies are of values and should be defended”, Chamberlain highlights the point that even groups and individuals such as the Colonial society who were not very supportive of imperial expansion into Africa could also recognise the economical and financial benefits that some parts of Africa had to offer to the empire, and also felt that these investments needed to be protected.

” The empire still stood tall but perhaps wobbling at foot of clay”, this quote explains that after the Boer war of 1902 the British empire was tarnished and its reputation had been scarred from negative reprocutions of the war such as Lord Kitchener’s tactics in the fighing such as the starving concerntration camps full of Boer women and children, also he fact that the small amount of Boer farmers had initially made the large British military look weak. Although the Boer war could be blamed on the economical and financial influencing factors that Joseph Chamberlain was pushed by when deciding to invade the Boer’s land, because South African land because it was rich in gold Chamberlain thought he could take advantage of the this and gain British dominance over his land because it was valuable. The South African war can be seen as making the end of imperical expansion as a goal and the start of the period of imperical consolidation.
1902-1955 brings the period of consolidation where Britain’s felt the need to defend its British colonies within Africa to be able to keep its African empire going. This is the largest chunk of the relationship between Britain and its African colonies, times during this period of fifty-three years the British empire came close to collapsing itself from the , WW1, The Second World War, African Nationalism and economic crisis.

During WW1 Britain used its African colonies almost as a war bank, Britain used African men as soldiers and African colonies also gave material and financial support to Britain’s war effort, for example West African donated $1,148,966 to the war effort.
Furthermore even though the African people had gone out of their way to help the British with their war effort they were still not getting treated very well by the British, Britain abused Africa’s kindness. African soldiers were receiving a very low pay, were not fed well enough either, which could have been carried out only to benefit the British economy, so uprisings started to appear across the continent. ”it was triggered by the high level of forced military recruitment of Nyao, many of whom were subsequently killed in large numbers in the first few weeks of fighting.
If Britain had not exploited the Africans as cheap war tools or even treated them more fairly whilst doing so during the First World War, then uprisings may have not started to occur and neither would have the outbreak of African nationalism.

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[ 1 ]. E.Hobsbawn The Age Of The Empire pg
[ 2 ]. M.E.Chamberlain The Scramble For Africa Longman: Seminar Studies In History pg 92
[ 3 ]. Niall Ferguson: Maxim Force, Channel 4, 2003
[ 4 ]. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/13chapter2.shtml The Empire Needs Men, Imperial War Museum Educational Pack, 1998