African Entrepreneurship Record

December 28, 1868.

This year's statistics for East Africa are also slowly coming out. Due to the growth of various data, geographical expansion, population growth, industry additions and other factors, the statistical process is much slower than the previous two years.

The immigrant population used to be simply calculated directly from the records in the seaport area, because every immigrant was registered when he landed.

But this year, this model will no longer work because of the explosion in the number of newborns, which requires reporting and verification by relevant personnel from every place in East Africa.

By the end of November 1868, the population of the entire East African colony was more than 1.75 million, close to 2 million.

Although it is an exaggeration to reach this level in nearly three years, East Africa has indeed achieved it. After all, no one in this era has spent so much effort and money on actively recruiting immigrants like East Africa.

The journey from the immigrants to East Africa was almost entirely covered by the East African colonies, and all freight and food were provided by the Hechingen Consortium.

1.75 million is the total number of immigrants and newborns in East Africa. It does not include the indigenous people in East Africa. The number of indigenous people should be between 1.3 and 1.5 million. There are many projects in East Africa and the demand for labor is huge. East Africa should go to the west to catch more projects. When they were young, the number of slaves continued to decrease, and a batch was sent away from the port of Dar es Salaam every day.

The number of slaves is so large that it is almost one to one with the native population. Even in the American South, there is no such terrifying ratio. Therefore, it is ridiculous to worry about the lack of labor in the East African colonies. East Africans are not fools.

In this way, Ernst was still restrained. After all, immigrants from all over the world came to East Africa to enrich East Africa's strength, not to support a bunch of uncles. Therefore, the East African colonies still squeezed the value of immigrants as much as possible, instead of letting black people The slave did all the work.

Throughout 1868, the colonial expansion of East Africa was not very prominent because the opponent was too weak and the area of ​​the northwest region was not large compared with that of East Africa. As for northern Kenya, although it was also developed this year, it was less difficult.

Because this is the sphere of influence of the Zanzibar Sultanate. Although the Zanzibar Sultanate does not actually rule this place, the local tribes and northern forces have basically been beaten by the Zanzibar Sultanate.

Including the Gledi Sultanate in Somalia, it was also a younger brother during the Oman Empire. It only broke away from the control of the Oman Empire more than ten years ago.

According to the normal historical trajectory, within a few years, the Sultanate of Zanzibar (the Oman Empire consists of two parts, Muscat and Zanzibar, and the Sultanate of Zanzibar became independent and belonged to the royal family) will be re-established. Turn the Gradi Sultanate back into its vassal state.

It can be said that the emergence of East African colonies temporarily relieved the predicament of the Gradi Sultanate and avoided its annexation by the Zanzibar Sultanate.

In northern East Africa, in addition to the Gredi Sultanate, there is also the traditional hegemon of East Africa, Ethiopia. However, this year Ethiopia's Abyssinian Empire was beaten up by the British. The emperor committed suicide, so naturally he could not support himself.

Therefore, the development of the northern part of Kenya is very smooth, and the population is sparse compared to the south, so it is easier to colonize and develop.

The Northwest Territories and northern Kenya bring the territory of East Africa to about two million square kilometers (excluding water areas such as Lake Victoria).

In terms of industry, East Africa is still negligible. To be honest, the dozens of factories and workshops in East Africa are not enough to be seen in a feudal country, let alone compared with European countries.

Take Prussia 20 years ago as an example. It had more than 78,000 large and small factories and factories and more than 550,000 workers. Now you can imagine the horror of Prussia after integrating the North German Federation.

Therefore, agriculture remained as stable as Mount Tai in the colonial industrial structure of East Africa.

As of November 26, 1868, a total of about 20.4 million acres of cultivated land had been opened up in the East African colonies, with an average cultivated area of ​​about 12.75 acres per capita (excluding slaves and recent immigrants to East Africa).

Among them, the rice planting area has not increased much, totaling 1.1 million acres. The new development is mainly in eastern Kenya and near the Great Lakes (Lake Victoria) area. The output is expected to reach 220 million kilograms.

The wheat planting area is about 6.6 million acres, or about 440,000 hectares, which has almost quadrupled. The expected output is more than 1 billion kilograms, or about one million tons.

This year, corn cultivation has made a huge breakthrough. As the main ration for livestock and slaves, the planting area has reached more than 5 million acres, or more than 300,000 hectares.

In addition, the sorghum and millet planting area has also reached more than 2 million acres.

Among them, sorghum is one of the native species in Africa and is very suitable for cultivation, mainly as a supplement to corn.

Corn, millet and sorghum are easier to take care of than rice and wheat, especially sorghum. In East Africa, they rely on planting widely and harvesting lightly. Just spread it on the ground and that's it.

The above are the main food crops in East Africa. Rice, wheat and millet are the main rations of East Africans, while corn and sorghum are mainly used by indigenous people and livestock. In addition to these crops, the remaining land is used to grow cash crops.

Sisal is still the largest cash crop in East Africa, followed by soybeans and coffee. In addition, there are also large-scale peanuts, sesame, rubber, cloves, cotton, tea and other crops.

The status of sisal is being overtaken by soybeans, because soybeans, as nitrogen-fixing plants, are used in rotation crops and will be mixed with wheat and other crops.

Although the coffee planting area is large, the harvest is still far away.

What’s interesting is that many cash crops are mainly concentrated in the Great Lakes region, such as rubber, which is currently distributed along the coast of the Great Lakes and near the rivers in the Great Lakes basin.

As a tropical region, Tanzania is suitable for rubber cultivation, but the prerequisite is to ensure water supply. East Africa does not actually lack water, but it has less water than in tropical rainforest areas.

In the past, Africa was the largest rubber producing area after Southeast Asia, and Tanzania's rubber planting scale ranked among the top ten in Africa.

However, because the Tanzanian government does not pay attention to rubber planting, the planting technology is slowly updated, and the locals are not keen on taking care of this responsible crop, the cost of rubber production in East Africa is much higher than that in Southeast Asia and other regions, and it even needs to be imported from Southeast Asia, while Tanzania In fact, it is completely possible to achieve self-sufficiency in rubber planting. (Sourced from the data report of East Africa General Tire from 1978 to 1991. The company has a directly owned rubber plantation in Tanzania)

Therefore, the main factor restricting agriculture in East Africa is the uneven distribution of precipitation in time and space. Just like in the wheat-growing areas of East Africa, water sources are mainly used to ensure that wheat and other food crops are given priority, while in the north where water is more scarce, millet and sorghum are widely planted.

Many cash crops require large amounts of water during their growth, and the Great Lakes region and the eastern coastal plain are the places with the most rainfall in East Africa.

Especially the newly occupied land in the Great Lakes region, the Mitumba Mountains, with the Congo Basin to the west, has more abundant precipitation.

Of course, some cash crops do not require much water and are suitable for dryland cultivation, such as cotton, sesame, etc.

The development of so much land required the widespread use of slaves and advanced iron tools. Although East Africa cannot achieve the level of mechanization in Europe, it is still good compared to other regions.

Importing iron farm tools from Europe was a major expense for the East African colonies. This also led East Africa to prioritize almost all available funds on the import of iron tools. In order to ensure the priority of popularization of farm tools, many families in East Africa did not even own an iron pot. Clay cookware and ovens were popular, and tableware was mostly made of wood.

The amount of iron ore mined in East Africa is quite small. It is only a subsidiary product of coal mining. There is not even a modern steel factory in East Africa. It only relies on the traditional kilns and a few small iron workshops left by the Zanzibar Sultanate in the east. (Blacksmith Shop).

Of course, it’s not that East Africa doesn’t want to build steel plants. The problem is how to transport the machines. Moreover, in this era, steel plants are definitely a king industry and determine the level of development of a country.

If you want to introduce it, the price is very high. The most uncomfortable thing is that the traffic conditions in East Africa are still at the level of people pulling horses.

East Africa's coal and iron resources are all distributed inland. In this era, steel plants are built near resource areas and are resource-oriented. For example, the Ruhr area is built on coal mines.

Unlike the previous life, 21st century was actually market-oriented. The big countries in the Far East built many large-scale steel plants in coastal areas. Coal and iron resources relied on seaborne imports, and at the same time, it was convenient for products to be sold all over the world by sea.

Therefore, Ernst has not built a steel plant in East Africa until now, and the coal produced by slaves in East Africa is only provided to a few factories using steam as power. There is still a lot of surplus. As for the factories that need that If you think about it, even pushing it with a cart can support the operation of factories in East Africa, not to mention that there are such things as horse-drawn carriages in the world.

The only industrial advantage of East Africa and the backward countries of the same era is that there are several factories using steam engines located along the coast, including the only steam engine for drainage in the Mwanza coal mine.

Except for a few primary agricultural product processing factories (sisal, tobacco, flour, etc.), the rest of East Africa are slightly larger "factories" and workshops that rely purely on manpower. For example, the ship engines used in the Mwanza Shipyard are shipped from Germany. , while the rest of the hull is purely handmade.

In other words, how developed the handicraft industry in East Africa depends entirely on how developed the Sultanate of Zanzibar is on the East African coast. It is a pity that the economic center of the Sultanate of Zanzibar has always been on Zanzibar Island, and Enns, who upholds the principle of leaving a front line in life, We did not seize Zanzibar Island. After all, we wanted to leave a way for the Sultanate of Zanzibar to survive (the most important thing is that the Sultanate of Zanzibar has connections with the United Kingdom. During the Oman Empire, the British supported Oman in competing with Portugal and other countries. ).

Of course, there is also a military factory in East Africa, which is considered the most advanced industry in East Africa, but it is still at the stage of repairing broken guns in East Africa and making improvised explosives to produce bullets.

Compared with industry, East Africa's agriculture is really good. It can meet local needs while also exporting.

But this is based on the vast land and sparse population of East Africa and the prevalence of the slave economy, rather than the high level of agricultural productivity in East Africa. The agricultural productivity in East Africa is only above the average level in the world. Windmills, advanced agricultural tools, chemical fertilizers and science Comprehensive applications such as cultivation methods have made East Africa the leader among backward countries and regions.