The Stamp Act and Legal and Economic Institutions

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-127
Author(s):  
Claire Priest
Keyword(s):  
Government Revenue ◽  
County Level ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Institutional Infrastructure ◽  
Institutional Services ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
Colonial Institutions ◽  
Legislative Reforms ◽  
Stamp Act

The chapter evaluates the Stamp Act and the contrasting visions of the colonial economy and its institutions advanced by the Stamp Act supporters in England and the Stamp Act opponents in the colonies. It focuses on the first colony, Virginia, as an example of events taking place throughout the colonies. The chapter begins by describing how colonial legislatures assumed authority over establishing the level of fees imposed by the county-level institutions. Moving to the Stamp Act crisis, it then examines how colonial protestors found the Stamp Act taxes offensive because, in addition to usurping colonial legislatures' power over taxation, they targeted official legal documents in the course of services offered by colonial institutions, like land transfers, mortgages, and court procedures. The opposition to the Stamp Act was, in part, rooted in a profound hostility to raising the fees and costs of the institutional infrastructure that was foundational to the day-to-day workings of the colonial economy. The legislative reforms of the founding era reveal that a lasting legacy of the colonial era was an opposition to using institutional services as a source of government revenue.

The Land-Bank System in the American Colonies

1953 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore Thayer
Keyword(s):  
Large Degree ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
The Times ◽  
Bank System ◽  
Land Bank ◽  
Reserve System

One need not be very conversant with modern money, credit, and banking to find in them a kinship with the land banks of the Colonial era. In a manner suggestive of our Federal Reserve System, the Colonial land banks exerted a wide influence over the economic life of the times. Indeed, the functions of the land-bank system embraced every phase of the Colonial economy. Its history to a large degree comprises the history of currency, money values, inflation, credit, public finance, and economic development in eighteenth-century America.

Hunters, Poachers and Gamekeepers: Towards A Social History of Hunting in Colonial Kenya

1989 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. I. Steinhart
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
National Park ◽  
Colonial Literature ◽  
Preliminary Assessment ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Subsistence Hunting ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Economy

This paper sets out to examine the interactions between African and white hunters in colonial Kenya in an effort to understand the nature of the confrontation between the competing cultural traditions of hunting under colonial conditions. It examines the major tradition of African hunting in eastern Kenya among African residents of Kwale, Kitui and Meru districts from oral and archival materials, arguing that the place of subsistence hunting in the economy of African farmers has been systematically denigrated in the colonial literature. Next, the various representatives of the European hunting tradition in Kenya are surveyed: sportsmen, travellers, settlers, and professionals. A preliminary assessment is made of their impact on game and the growing need for conservation. The history of the game and national park departments, which administered the hunting laws and were charged with the preservation of wildlife, is next described. The records of the colonial Game Department provide a key source for the reconstruction of the attempts to control African poaching and regulate European hunting in the interests of the preservation of game and the control of the colonial economy. At the end of the colonial era, with the emergence of a new sensibility to conservation, Kenya's gamekeepers engaged in a major, successful anti-poaching campaign in eastern Kenya's Tsavo Park. This was the climactic confrontation between the two cultures in their contest for control over Kenya's wildlife resources.

The Yoruba Toll System: its operation and abolition

1989 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toyin Falola
Keyword(s):  
Military Power ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Major Step ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
Toll Collection ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
Gradual Approach

The Yoruba toll system has not been studied, in spite of its important place in Yoruba economy and politics. This essay fills the gap by examining toll collection among the Yoruba-speaking states of south-western Nigeria. It is divided into two parts, the first on the practice of toll collection during the pre-colonial era and the second on the changes introduced by the colonial administration. For the pre-colonial, it emphasizes the dominant aspects of the system, most notably the significance of toll revenue in relation to other sources of income; the control of toll gates by chiefs in order to appropriate the revenues; the character and privileges of collectors; and the features of collection at the toll gates, especially the duties imposed and their implications for trade.The second part explains the steps taken by the new colonial administration to regulate toll collection after 1893, notably by the reduction of customs houses and the printing of tariffs. These reforms failed to solve the problems of corruption by toll clerks and evasions and smuggling by traders, or allay the fear that the imposition of tolls constituted an obstacle to modern commerce. Consequently, the colonial administration decided to abolish the system, and was able to achieve this between 1904 and 1908. Both reforms and abolition were possible because of the gradual approach adopted, the administrative and military power available to the administration, and its ability to generate alternative sources of revenue to maintain itself and pay the chiefs. There can be no doubt that abolition was a major step towards the constitution of the colonial economy.

The Quality of Liquor in Nigeria During the Colonial Era

Itinerario ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Heap
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Drinking Alcohol ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Cash Crops ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
Western Civilisation ◽  
Necessary Evil ◽  
Important Constituent

The Nigerian liquor trade provoked fierce debate: was it advancing development or fashioning an economy based on the unproductive consumption of alcohol? The liquor trade was caught between two prevailing colonial perspectives on African economic development: the Darwinian-based principle that Western civilisation had a duty to protect Africans from all bad external influences, and the civilise-through-trade concept seeking to modernise Africans by exploiting colonies to their fullest potential. Humanitarian concerns and economic interests were entangled. Positive views of the liquor trade claimed its necessity in developing the Nigerian economy. Some admitted that the trade formed a necessary evil, but did not fail to emphasise its role as a transitional currency, promoter of cash-crops-forexport, and a desirable commodity among those with money to spend. Merchants saw commerce as a great civilising agent, with the liquor trade as its most important constituent. On the other hand, liquor trade critics used the temperance equation to further their cause: drinking alcohol was bad, abstinence was good. Arguing that the imposition of ‘a Rum and Gin Civilization’ would be ‘a hydra that devours the natives’, halting useful commerce and hindering economic development, they agitated for Prohibition and a complete restructuring of the colonial economy along alcoholfree lines.

scholarly journals The Transition of The Central Port of Colonial Era : From Old Bataviato Tanjung Priok Port

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Ahmad Fauzan Baihaqi ◽  
Zakiya Darojat
Keyword(s):  
Annual Report ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
High Sedimentation ◽  
Old City ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
Dutch East Indies

This paper discusses the ports and government policy particularly in the transition of the central port of colonial period of the old port of Batavia to the port of Tanjung Priok Year 1887-1930. The aim of this research is to understand the colonial response to the development of international shipping world, which impact on the colonial economy. Here, the position of the Dutch East Indies must dare to take the policy to change the trading center is no longer in the Port near the old city but must move to the east of Batavia namely Tanjung Priok.The method used in this research is qualitative. While the data collection is done through literature research and documentation. This data analysis technique based on heuristic techniques, verification, interpretation, and historiography. Based on the research conducted, it is found that the removal of port from the old town of Batavia to Tanjung Priok which allegedly the Dutch East Indies economic actors will not grow because of the rarity of people living around the harbor. The facts in the field of Tanjung Priok developed into the largest international port in the territory of the Indies Netherlands.The results show that the development of the harbor east of Batavia is at the center of the old city portographic port of Batavia which has high sedimentation of large ships unable to dock to the port. The Tanjung Priok central port is growing on the basis of a colonial annual report of the vast number of outposts with 20 other countries that have their homecoming in the Port.

Early Colonial Health Developments in Mauritius

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kader A. Parahoo
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Mortality And Morbidity ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Tier System ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
Imported Food ◽  
Large Sections ◽  
Epidemic Diseases

The historical development of Mauritius and in particular the early developments in health care are crucial to an understanding of the contemporary health system. The introduction of major epidemic diseases through the movements of French soldiers to and from India and the immigration of indentured laborers from India account for the high mortality and morbidity rates in the 18th and 19th centuries and later. The colonial economy created and -fortified the dependence on a single cash crop and on imported food. It also contributed toward the impoverization of large sections of the Mauritian population. The colonial era is also responsible for initiating a three tier system of health care.

The Levantine British: Defying Imperial Race Categories in Colonial Alexandria

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
James Whidden
Keyword(s):  
Marked Contrast ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
British Identity ◽  
Culturally Different ◽  
The Family ◽  
British Colony ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Colonial Institutions ◽  
Definition Of

This treatment of the Levantine British, based on family diaries and consular reports, asks why a British colonial, Michael Barker, exiled from Egypt in 1956, continued to identify with the Alexandria locality. His last wish was to be buried in Alexandria. While the conventional image of the British colony is one shaped by ‘Orientalist’ descriptions of the ‘foreign’ as external to ‘Britishness’, the evidence suggests an enduring identification of members of the colony with the Levantine community of Alexandria. In conventional imperial discourses of the colonial era the ‘Levantine’ had negative connotations; it was a signifier of a loss of British identity and immersion into a culturally different, foreign category. Yet, the memoirs of Michael Barker, as well as consular reports on colonial institutions and the application of the Ottoman Capitulations, indicate that the boundaries of the colony were porous. Official policies insisted on a culturally distinct British identity; however, there are documented instances where the definition of ‘Britishness’ was widened to include the ‘Levantine’. The Levantine identification of Michael Barker had political ramifications, apparent in his family's decision to remain in Egypt when others emigrated out, to continue to invest in the Egyptian economy when others divested, to enable the emigration of Levantine British to British territories after Egyptian independence, and to cling to the remnants of symbols of belonging to Alexandria, the very last of which was the family tomb. That act memorialized colonial lives that stood in marked contrast to the ascendant narratives of nation and empire.

Transport in Tanzania

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Valliere Streit
Keyword(s):  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Transportation Systems ◽  
Transportation Infrastructure ◽  
Motor Vehicles ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Moral Superiority

Tanzanian men and women have embraced, adapted, and innovated various transportation technologies over the centuries as part of their survival and wealth accumulation strategies. During the precolonial era, dhows and porterage caravans helped to draw mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar into ever-widening trade networks with Central-East Africa, the western Indian Ocean, and the capitalist world economy during the 19th century. The onset of colonialism brought attempts by German and British administrations to replace these “traditional” forms of mobility with “modern” railways, steamships, and motor vehicles. Europeans expected to use these tools to conquer and subordinate African populations according to the demands of the colonial economy. Europeans also perceived these technologies as material manifestations of their alleged intellectual and moral superiority. Colonial administrations, however, continually lacked the necessary resources to construct and maintain new transportation infrastructure amid challenging climates and terrain. Dhows and porters successfully competed with railways, motor vehicles, and steamships throughout the colonial era and remained integral components of the colonial economy. As new transportation systems gradually became integrated into Tanzania’s physical and socioeconomic landscape, ordinary Tanzanians utilized the technologies of mobility to pursue their self-interests. Throughout the process of building transportation infrastructure and using automobiles, dhows, railways, and airplanes, ordinary Tanzanians created identities that challenged discriminatory racial and gender social orders constructed by colonial governments and the Tanzanian nation-state.

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