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Abstract
Scholars have emphasised the role of the colonial state in explaining the development of white settler agriculture in general and the tobacco industry in particular in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Indeed, through a plethora of laws, ordinances and extra-judicial interventions, the colonial state provided both direct and indirect support, mostly to white farmers at the expense of African interests. More recently, studies have broadened this analysis by foregrounding the post-war global economic climate in seeking to understand the rapid growth of the colony’s tobacco industry in the aftermath of the Second World War. However, in underestimating white farmer agency in the remarkable expansion of the Southern Rhodesian tobacco industry during this period, both strands of literature share a common shortcoming, a gap that this article hopes to fill. Drawing mainly on archival material from the National Archives of Zimbabwe, industry magazines and newspapers, the article reinserts white tobacco growers in conversations on the post-war growth of Southern Rhodesia’s flue-cured Virginia tobacco industry beyond the role played by state support.
Notes
1 Derived from two books on Southern Rhodesia’s tobacco industry: S.C. Rubert, A Most Promising Weed: A History of Tobacco Farming and Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890–1945 (Athens, Ohio University Center for International studies, 1998); and F. Clements and E. Harben, Leaf of Gold: The Story of Rhodesian Tobacco (London, Methuen, 1962).
2 See I. Phimister, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890–1948: Capital Accumulation and Class Struggle (London, Longman, 1988); H. Weinmann, Agricultural Research and Development in Southern Rhodesia, 1924–1950 (Salisbury, University of Rhodesia, 1975); H. Dunlop, The Development of European Agriculture in Rhodesia, 1945–1965 (Salisbury, University of Rhodesia, 1971); T. Mbanga, Tobacco, A Century of Gold: 1890–1990 (Harare, ZIL Publications,1991); Rubert, A Most Promising Weed; Clements and Harben, Leaf of Gold.
3 D.J. Murray, The Governmental System in Southern Rhodesia (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 60.
4 Ibid.
5 See V.E.M. Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture with Particular Reference to the Role of the State’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 1980); Rubert, A Most Promising Weed; Phimister, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe.
6 See D. Chanaiwa, ‘Historiographical Traditions of Southern Africa’, paper presented at the International Conference on the Historiography of Southern Africa (December, 1976); L.H. Gann, ‘The Land Apportionment Act in Southern Rhodesia: An Essay in Trusteeship’, National Archives of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Occasional Paper (Government Printer, 1963); W.J. Barber, The Economy of British Central Africa (London, Oxford University Press, 1961); P. Mosley, ‘Agricultural Development and Government Policy in Settler Economies: The Case of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1960’, Economic History Review, 35, 3 (1982), pp. 390–408.
7 Mbanga, Tobacco, A Century of Gold; R. Hodder-Williams, White Farmers in Rhodesia, 1890–1965: A History of the Marandellas District (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 1983).
8 8 Mbanga, Tobacco, A Century of Gold; Clements and Harben, Leaf of Gold.
9 L. Veracini, ‘“Settler Colonialism”: Career of a Concept’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 41, 2 (2013), p. 317.
10 Ibid.
11 R. Pilossof, The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Farmers’ Voices from Zimbabwe (Cape Town, UCT Press, 2012); A. Selby, ‘Commercial Farmers and the State: Interest Group Politics and Land Reform in Zimbabwe’ (PhD Thesis, University of Oxford, 2006); J.A. McKenzie, ‘Commercial Farmers in the Governmental System of Colonial Zimbabwe, 1863–1980’ (PhD thesis, University of Zimbabwe, 1989).
12 E. Doro, ‘A Socio-Environmental History of Commercial Tobacco Farming in Southern Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, c. 1893–2000s’, (PhD thesis, Stellenbosch University, 2020); S. Ncube, ‘Colonial Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry: Global, Regional and Local Relations, 1947–1979’ (PhD thesis, University of the Free State, 2018).
13 V.E.M. Machingaidze, ‘Company Rule and Agricultural Development: The Case of the BSA Company in Southern Rhodesia, 1908–1923’, Collected Seminar Papers, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, p. 50.
14 14 Murray, The Governmental System, p. 60.
15 Ibid.
16 C. Leys, European Politics in Southern Rhodesia (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 71.
17 M.D. Hooper, ‘The Political Economy of the Rhodesian Tobacco Industry, 1945–1965’ (MLitt thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1988), p. 38.
18 E.T. Jollie, ‘Southern Rhodesia: A White Man’s Country in the Tropics’, Geographical Review, 17, 1 (1927), p. 102.
19 NAZ, File RH 27/3/3, RTA Internal Memorandum.
20 Southern Rhodesia Government, Comparative Survey of Native Policy in Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, March 1951.
21 M. Vaughan, The Story of an African Famine: Gender and Famine in Twentieth-Century Malawi (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987).
22 See A. Kanduza, ‘The Tobacco Industry in Northern Rhodesia, 1912–1938’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 16, 2 (1983), pp. 201–29.
23 E.A. Navohola, ‘Forced Labour and Rural Resistance in the Tobacco Farms in Nampula Province: A History of Rural Change in Mozambique, 1961-1975’ ( MA thesis, University of Witwatersrand, 2010), p. iii.
24 See M. Prowse. ‘A History of Tobacco Production and Marketing in Malawi, 1890–2010’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 7, 4 (2013), pp. 691–712.
25 See Mbanga, Tobacco, A Century of Gold, pp. 26–7. She provides a comprehensive ‘Statistical Summary of Flue-Cured Tobacco Auction Sales, 1936–1990’ under the following headings: Year, Number of Growers, Area Under Tobacco, Mass Produced, Value, Average Price per kg, Yield per acre and so forth.
26 J. Kurebwa, The Politics of Economic Sanctions on Rhodesia [Zimbabwe], 1965–1979 (Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications, 2012), p. 146.
27 Ibid.
28 Rubert, A Most Promising Weed, pp. xi–xii.
29 Weinmann, Agricultural Research, p. 83.
30 W.E. Haviland, ‘Tobacco Farm Organisation, Costs and Land-Use in Southern Rhodesia’, South African Journal of Economics, 21, 4 (1953), pp. 367–80.
31 S. Maravanyika, ‘Soil Conservation and the White Agrarian Environment in Colonial Zimbabwe, c.1908–1980’ (PhD thesis, University of Pretoria, 2013).
32 Dunlop, The Development of European Agriculture, pp. 43–4.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Hooper, ‘The Political Economy’, p. 50.
36 Ibid.
37 Clements, and Harben, Leaf of Gold, p. 135.
38 Mbanga, Tobacco, A Century of Gold, pp. 26–7.
39 Ibid.
40 Clements and Harben, Leaf of Gold, pp. 135–6.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 W.T. Davies, Fifty Years of Progress: An Account of the African Organisation of the Imperial Tobacco Company, 1907–1957 (London, The Imperial Tobacco Company [of Great Britain and Ireland] Limited, 1957), p. 34; Hooper, ‘The Political Economy’, p. 126.
44 Phimister, An Economic and Social History, p. 227.
45 Mbanga, Tobacco, A Century of Gold, p. 86.
46 National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ) 2570/TBC1, Vol. 1, Tobacco General, TMB Meeting Minutes, 22 January 1948.
47 Ibid.
48 Clements and Harben, Leaf of Gold, p. 58.
49 NAZ 2570/TBC1, Vol. 1, Tobacco General, TMB Meeting Minutes, 22 January 1948.
50 NAZ 2570/TBC1, Vol.1, Tobacco General, May 1947–1949 August, TAC letter to TMB, 12 December 1947.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 NAZ 2570/TBC1, Vol. 1, Tobacco General, S.M. Makings’ Letter to the Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Lands, 10 September 1947.
54 NAZ 2570/TBC1, Vol. 1, Tobacco General, TMB Meeting Minutes, 22 January 1948.
55 NAZ, RH27/2/1.
56 NAZ, Box RH27/2/1. The government was short-sighted. It was satisfied that due to post-war dollar shortages, ‘Britain would require as much tobacco suitable to that market as could be grown in Rhodesia in the coming season’, and therefore saw no reason for the trip. However, the RTA’s stance was vindicated when markets other than Britain proved crucial following improvement in the latter’s dollar situation from the mid-1950s and UDI-induced sanctions after 1965.
57 Rhodesia Herald, Salisbury, 22 November 1947. He was addressing the Rhodesia National Affairs in Salisbury just before the consummation of the London Agreement.
58 NAZ, Box 27/3/3–6, File 1214/1, Australia, Tobacco Quota and Agreement, 1947–1961, Telegram from Rhodesian Prime Minister to Australian Prime Minister, 15 March 1947.
59 The Economist, 7 March 1953.
60 Hooper, ‘The Political Economy’, p. 73.
61 Ibid.
62 F.A. Stinson, Tobacco Farming in Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1889–1956 (Salisbury, Tobacco Research Board of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1956), p. 61.
63 Davies, Fifty Years of Progress, p. 68.
64 Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, Appendix 2, p. 564.
65 Mbanga, Tobacco, A Century of Gold, p. 58.
66 Tobacco (magazine), Salisbury, January 1951, p. 43.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.
69 See M. Prowse, Contract Farming in Developing Countries – A Review (Paris, Agence Fran çaise de Dé veloppement, 2012), p. 35.
70 Tobacco, April 1954, p. 60.
71 See for instance Rubert, A Most Promising Weed, p. 180.
72 Tobacco, January 1951, p. 47
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid.
75 Tobacco, February 1951, p. 46.
76 Ibid., p. 47.
77 Rhodesia Herald, 21 March 1949.
78 NAZ Box RH 27/2/1- RH 27/3/2, File RH 27/2/1.
79 NAZ Box RH 27/2/1- RH 27/3/2, File RH 27/2/1.
80 Tobacco, October 1950, p. 67.
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid., p. 68.
84 Ibid.
85 Turkish tobacco is the common name for Oriental tobacco. It derives its name from Turkey, the country then known for its production.
86 NAZ S1194/1215/3, Secretary for Agriculture Letter to O.C. Rawson, 1 March 1939.
87 SRLA Debates, 1936, vol. 16, 2, col. 2378.
88 SRLA Debates, 1936, vol. 16, 2, col. 2381.
89 ‘Turkish Tobacco Is Important to S. Rhodesia: Dollars to the Colony’, Rhodesian Farmer, Salisbury, 7 December 1949.
90 Ibid.
91 See NAZ S1194/1215/3, W.J. Field, Memorandum on Future Prospects of the Southern Rhodesian Turkish Tobacco Industry (undated), 1938; NAZ S2199/13/43 Assistance to Turkish Tobacco Growers; NAZ, S1194/1215/3, Secretary of Agriculture to Manager, Land Bank, 11 September 1940.
92 NAZ S489/108/1944: Minutes of the Special General Meeting of the Turkish Tobacco Co-operative Company of Rhodesia Limited, 4 October 1944.
93 NAZ, F226/1215/F3, report of the Committee set up by the Minister of Agriculture to investigate the need for change in the methods of Turkish tobacco marketing.
94 Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly (SRLA) Debates, 1948, vol. 28, col. 2081.
95 SRLA Debates, 1948, vol. 28, col. 2081.
96 SRLA Debates, 1948, vol. 28, col. 2085.
97 NAZ, F226/1215/F3, report of the Committee set up by the Minister of Agriculture to investigate the need for change in the methods of Turkish tobacco marketing.