A perennial debate casts European rule as either modernizing previously largely static African economies or, in contrast, as retarding their development both at the time and, via institutional path dependence, ever since. Both approaches understate the continuities in factor endowment before and during colonial rule; the importance of the differences between types of colony; and the significance of African responses to the constraints and opportunities of what proved to be the relatively short period of alien rule. This chapter examines colonial interventions in relation to long-term trajectories of economic development in Africa. Specifically, after reviewing the evolution of the literature, it asks how far colonial interventions, and African responses during the colonial period, altered or accelerated pre-existing patterns or paths of economic change in the continent, paths defined by Africans’ technical and institutional responses to the constraints and opportunities of their resource endowments, in the context of regional and trans-regional markets.
