3601709

African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin--Madison
The Invisible Farmer? Women, Gender, and Colonial Agricultural Policy in the Igbo Region of
Nigeria, c. 1913-1954
Author(s): Chima J. Korieh
Source: African Economic History, No. 29 (2001), pp. 117-162
Published by: African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin--Madison
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3601709
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THE INVISIBLEFARMER?WOMEN, GENDER,AND
COLONIALAGRICULTURALPOLICYIN THE IGBO
REGION OF NIGERIA, C. 1913-1954
Chima J. Korieh
Department of History
Central Michigan University
I
n Nigeria, as elsewhere in Africa, colonial officials
discriminatedbetween men and women and made the former
the primary target of local development policy. This article
focuses on the gendered nature of colonial agriculturalpolicy and
its impact on gender relations. Specifically, it considers the
manner in which colonial policies, and the neglect of women
farmersin particular,adversely affected agriculturaldevelopment
in the Igbo region of Nigeria. Since gender is very poorly
articulatedas a factor in agriculturaldecline, the emphasis here is
on the gendered nature of colonial agricultural policy in the
region rather than on which group, male or female, was the most
exploited. As a systematic exploitation of colonized peoples,
colonialism affected both men and women. But as a gendered
process, it affected men and women in both similar and dissimilar
ways.
The gendered nature of colonial policies is inseparably linked
to the changes in the pattern of agriculture.The process affected
the role that men and women had previously played in the
agricultural economy. Whereas the British authorities did not
adopt any official policy that discriminated against women, their
patriarchal ideology meant that they excluded women from
educational and extension schemes aimed at improving
agricultural production. The character of the agricultural
transformation during the colonial period can therefore be
African Economic History 29 (2001): 117-162

118 CHIMA
J.KORIEH
distinguished by the roles that gender ideology played in

accelerating the processes of change. The present analysis moves
beyond generalizationsto examine specific agriculturalpolicies in
order to show the relationshipbetween a gendered colonial policy
and the agricultural transformation of the region. Beyond the
presentation of empirical details, this article reiterates two major
points regarding agricultural development during the colonial
period. First, it notes the fact that colonially induced changes
altered local gender relations of production and contributed to
agriculturaldecline in the Igbo region. The colonial government's
discrimination against women in implementing its agricultural
policy limited whatever success it might have achieved in
agriculturaldevelopment. Second, the neglect of women farmers
alone does not explain the agriculturalcrisis that emerged in the
region during the colonial period. The emphasis on export crop
production and the neglect of subsistence production,
demographic factors, and other environmental factors combined
with a new cash economy to give the agriculturaldecline in the
region its peculiar character.
To reveal the gendered nature of colonial agriculturalpolicies
and the particular characterof the agriculturalcrisis among the
Igbo in some detail, it is imperative to sketch the position of
women vis-a-vis men in Igbo society during the colonial era.' This
description provides an introduction to the subsequent sections,
which analyze the gendered nature of colonial agricultural
policies and their role in exacerbatingthe agriculturalcrisis. The
1The political, economic, and social dimensions of colonialism were inseparably

linked to each other. However, the overemphasis on women's political
experiences under colonial rule has led to insufficient analysis of the complexity
of colonial socioeconomic relations and the gendered nature of imperial policies.
For major work on gender and colonial rule in Eastern Nigeria, see Nina E. Mba,
Nigerian WomenMobilized:Women'sPolitical Activity in SouthernNigeria, 1900-1965
(Berkeley, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Research
Series No. 48, 1982).
THE INVISIBLEFARMER? 119
article then considers the details of the transformationsin gender

relations resulting from commercialization of the market for
commodities, innovations, and the introduction of new
technology. This is followed by a consideration of peasants'
responses and the revolts that resulted from the emergence of the
crisis in the agricultural economy. This article uses peasants'
responses and revolts to reveal the constraints imposed on the
household in general from the second half of the 1920s and
women's attempts to address the crisis in the export sector of the
agrarian economy. Women's domination of peasant resistance in
Igboland should be interpreted as a mark of their importance in
the agriculturaleconomy and in food security arrangements.
II
Women in the Colonial Context
Theories of colonialism present a dialectical world of
colonizer and colonized, both of whom are often presumed to be
male.2It is not difficult to sustain the idea that the colonizer was
predominantly male, but the idea that the colonized was
uniformly male is less easy to sustain.3However, colonial officials
often emphasized a patriarchalideology, creatingnew institutions
based on European notions of gender, which often led to new
2 Mainstream colonial policies

generally ignored the complexity of the local
sociopolitical and economic life of colonized peoples. The belief that it was only
through men that economic and social developments could be implemented in
the colonial context provides a framework within which many of the effects of
colonial policies can be explained. For an overview of this subject, see, for
example, Helen Callaway, Gender,Culture and Empire:EuropeanWomenin Colonial
Nigeria (Urbana, Ill., 1987). Also see Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel,
eds., Western Womenand Imperialism:Complicityand Resistance(Bloomington, Ind.,
1992). For a review essay on the subject, see Malia B. Formes, "Beyond
Complicity versus Resistance: Recent work on Gender and European
Imperialism," Journalof SocialHistory 28, 3 (Spring 1995), 629-641.
3 Oyeronke Oyewumi, The Invention of Women:Making an African Sense of Western
GenderDiscourse (Minneapolis, 1997), 121.
120 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
gender and class relations in the colonized society. These

institutions contrastedwith precolonial systems, transformingthe
roles women had previously played in the political economy of
African societies. This is not a new debate, because studies of
gender in the context of colonialism and imperialism already offer
critical insights into gender processes in large-scale international
encounters.
In the precolonial Igbo society, women were not subordinate
to men, but rather complementary to them.4 Kamene Okonjo
identifies a "dual-sex political system" in Igboland in which
women had spheres of authority that were parallel to those of
men.5 The society was organized around a power-sharing
arrangementwhere negotiation determined the sociopolitical and
economic arrangements and the ways women operated within
them.6 However, women's political participation in Igbo society
suffered some major setbacks following the imposition of British
colonial administration in the area. The reorganization of local
political arrangements by the colonial administration based on
4See Judith Van Allen, "'Aba Riot' or 'Women's War:' Ideology, Stratification,
and the Invisibility of Women," in Nancy Hafkin and Edna Bay, eds., Women in
Africa: Studies in Social and EconomicChange(Stanford, Calif., 1976), 69.
5 K. C. Okonjo, "The Dual Sex Political System in Operation: Igbo Women and
Community Politics in Mid-Western Nigeria," in Hafkin and Bay, eds., Women in
Africa, 45; See also S. Leith-Ross, African Women:A Study of the Igbo of Nigeria
(London, 1965); M. M. Green, Ibo VillageAffairs: Chiefly with Referenceto the Village
of Umueke Agbaja (London, 1964); Judith Van Allen, "Sitting on a Man:
Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women, " CanadianJournal
of African Studies 6, 2 (1972), 165-181; Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female
Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society (London, 1987). Among historical
works, see, for example, Gloria Chuku, "Women in the Economy of Igboland
1900 to 1970s: A Survey," African EconomicHistory, 23 (1995), 37-50.
6 See Obioma Nnaemeka, "Feminism, Rebellious Women, and Cultural
Boundaries: Re-reading Flora Nwapa and Her Compatriots," Research in African
Literature,26, 2 (1995), 106; and Sisterhood,Feminisms and Power: From Africa to the
Diaspora (Trenton: N.J., (1998), 11.
exclusionist tendencies and divide-and-rule tactics curtailed the

effectiveness of Igbo general assemblies and generally eliminated
women's participationin them.
The system of colonial administration is widely known as
"Indirect Rule." Afigbo's WarrantChiefs describes the "Indirect
Rule" system in Igboland and its impact on the traditional
political system. The system of "IndirectRule" recognized male
authority through the creation of male warrant chiefs and
effectively excluded women from all colonial state political
structures. Men formed the core of the colonial administration,
acting as interpreters,court messengers, police, army recruits,and
representatives of the administration in the local areas. The
warrant chiefs exercised powers unprecedented in the traditional
political system. The position of women was peculiar. Mba argues
that women were invisible within the colonial administration.7
The transformation of political power into a male dominated
system was accomplished through the exclusion of women from
state structures.The new social, political, and economic structures
contrasted with the old structuresin which power was not strictly
determined by gender.8 The emergence of women as an
identifiable category defined by their anatomy and subordinated
to men resulted, in part, from the imposition of the patriarchal
colonial state. For females, colonization was a twofold process of
racialinferiorizationand gender subordination.9
There is no doubt that colonialism affected women in peculiar
ways. However, colonialism generated inequality not just for
7See Mba, Nina. "Heroines of the Women's War," in Bolanle Awe, ed., Nigerian
Womenin Historical Perspective(Lagos, 1992), 77.
8 Oyewumi, The Invention Women,125.
of
9 In her analysis of Yoruba society in Western Nigeria, for example, Oyewumi
argues that the very process by which females were categorized and reduced to
"women" made them ineligible for leadership roles. The basis for this exclusion
was biology, a new development in Yoruba society. See Oyewumi, The Invention
of Women, 124.
122 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
women, but also for many men, except for the small local political
and bureaucraticelite that was imposed on the society as warrant
chiefs or employees of the colonial bureaucracy.The aim here is
not to belittle the specific constraintswomen faced under colonial
rule. It is, rather, to emphasize that the egalitarian nature of the
Igbo political economy, the decentralized nature of political
authority, and the nature of the household structure indicate a
qualitatively different kind of implication for gender. In
quantitative terms, there were too few warrant chiefs in Eastern
Nigeria to suggest male domination of the local political scene.
Colonialism disempowered both men and women politically and
economically, although their experiences differed.10
But under a system largely based on male cash crop
production, colonial policies increasingly became male
dominated. Misdirected policies, the new orientation toward
export production, and the neglect of the local food sector and
precolonial gender relations in agricultural production
inextricably contributed to the agricultural crisis in the region.
This was possible because government's interventionist approach
created economic and political differences based on gender." The
limiting of women's role in agricultureand agro-commercecannot
be traced to any lack of entrepreneurialskills. Rather it was the
result of the structural arrangementsintroduced by the colonial
10 Igbo colonial experience shows that both men and women lost their
precolonial political autonomy as a result of the imposition of colonial rule. An
analysis of the testimonies of both men and women at the Aba Commission of
Inquiry set up by the British after the 1929 Women's War in Eastern Nigeria
indicates that men, except for the colonially appointed warrant chiefs, faced fates
politically and economically similar to the fate of these women.
11
Margot Lovett has attested to this distinction in the nature of class formation
and the gendered nature of capital accumulation in the colonial context. See
"Gender Relations, Class Formation, and the Colonial State in Africa," in Jane
Parpart and K. Staudt, eds., Women and the State in Africa (Boulder, Colo., 1989),
23.
administration,which denied women access to capital/credit,but

offered men opportunities for capital accumulation.12The impact
of agriculturaland development interventions and the changes in
the sexual division of labor neither stimulated increased
production nor revolutionized production methods. Rather, the
government's development ideology and neglect of women
farmers stimulated de-agraranizationin the region. In some cases,
the transformationsoffered new openings for social mobility and
economic accumulation, but in most cases they constrained
women's autonomy and mobility.'3Despite the obvious neglect
which women faced in Igboland, they participated in the
production and marketing of palm produce, the most important
cash crop in the region, but they participated at local levels.
However, The development of a market for palm kernels gave
women a measure of economic independence. This was possible
because production remainedhome-based for most of the colonial
period.
The neglect of women that intensified with colonial
exploitation of the rural agricultural base is important in
understanding the political economy of colonialism, the role of
women within it, and the link to the agricultural economy. As
Margot Lovett argued, the strategic nature of women's structural
position as reproductive laborers both subsidized capitalist
12 For an
analysis of the changes that accompanied commercialization and
women's participation in trade, see Waitinte E Wariboko, "The Status, Role and
Influence of Women in the Eastern Delta States of Nigeria, 1850-1900: Examples
from New Calabar," in Verene Shepherd et al., eds., Engendering History:
CaribbeanWomenin HistoricalPerspective(Kingston, Jamaica, 1995), 369-383.
13For investigations of this issue, see for example Jane Parpart, "Women and the
State in Africa," in Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, eds., The Precarious
Balance: State and Society in Africa (Boulder, Colo., 1988), 208-215; Claire
Robertson and Iris Berger, Womenand Class in Africa (New York, 1986).
124 CHIMA J. KORIEH
production and ensured the continuity of the precapitalist social

relations on which the edifice of colonial rule was constructed.14
III
Gendered Colonial Agricultural Policy
A consistent element in colonial policy was the patriarchal
assumption about African political economies. This assumption
about the appropriateroles of women and men dictated colonial
policy relating to agriculturaldevelopment and enabled men to
dominate the cultivation of cash crops for the international
market. The colonial economic system initiated rapid economic
changes and a transformationof traditional gender relations of
production from its inception in Eastern Nigeria. The most
important problem centered on the exclusion of women from the
agricultural extension and support services offered to local
farmers. By focusing on men as cash crop farmers, bureaucratic
efforts to improve agriculture encouraged the separation of the
roles of men and women, which had previously been
complementary.15The picture of farmers as men disadvantaged
women farmers and hindered attempts to improve agricultural
production."6
Agricultural Training and Extension Services

Agricultural extension schemes represented the most
ambitious effort by the colonial government to enhance
production. Because efforts were concentrated on the promotion
of cash crops, the overall expansion of the agricultural sector
14Margot Lovett "Gender Relations," 23.

1s Interview with F. Enweremadu, Mbutu Mbaise, 2 January 2000.
16 Diane Elson, ed., Male Bias in the
Development Process (Manchester and New
York, 1995), 9. See also Anita Spring, Agricultural Developmentand GenderIssues in
Malawi (Lanham, Md., New York, and London, 1995).
resulting from these activities was negligible. Some scholars have

argued that the export crop innovations occurred and flourished
without or even despite the advice of European experts. Others
stress the important contributions of research carried out and
innovations introduced by the colonial regime. The truth, Hart
suggests, is "probably somewhere in between.""7The colonial
administration included some basic training in agricultural
development. As early as 1913, the colonial Department of
Agriculture in the Eastern Region was offering agricultural
instruction and practical demonstrations to schoolteachers and
their senior pupils."1By 1918, the seven male pupils attached to
the Agricultural Department were offered theoretical instruction
in agriculture.19 At the heart of colonial agricultural policy
remained the idea of the male farmer, an ideology deeply
embedded in colonial patriarchalthinking. The nature of colonial
policy and the incorporation of the peasant household into the
new economy affected the indigenous system of production and
exchange of which women were an indispensable part.
With the merger of the Agricultural Departments of the
Northern and Southern Provinces in 1921, the Agricultural
Department widened its horizon and activities in the
dissemination of agriculturaltechniques and researchresults, and
the provision of training and extension services. Although the
emphasis on the cash crop sector continued, government
intermittently raised the problem of food production. The food
17K. Hart, The Political

Economyof West African Agriculture (New York, 1982), 97-
98.
18 See Nigerian National Archives Enugu, Nigeria (hereafter NAE), CALPROF
14/8/712, File no. E/1019/13, "Report on Travelling and Agricultural Instructional
Work," Superintendent of Agriculture, Eastern Province, Calabar, 1913.
19 NAE, CALPROF 14/8/711, File no. 1018/13, "The Quarterly Report of the
Agricultural Department, 1918." See also Superintendent of Agriculture, Eastern
Province, "Report on the Progress of Pupils Attached to the Agricultural
Department."
126 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
sector was expected to benefit from the introduction of new and

improved seedlings, and from soil conservation and
improvement.20 This was hard to achieve because colonial officials
neglected the female farmer who controlled subsistence
production. Given the nature of the agrariansystem and women's
centrality in farming, those innovations that were not rooted in
the local agrarian culture could not succeed. The neglect of
women in extension services greatly jeopardized any chances of
success.21
The extension and educational services in particular were
based on the philosophy that men were the "genuine" farmers.22
Thus, men and boys became the primary targets of agricultural
education and extension work. The misconceptions about local
farming systems played a crucial role in the exacerbation of the
agricultural crisis. Only men's work was valued as the basis of
extension work and support for the local farmer. This was
counterproductivefor Igbo society.
In 1922, the AgriculturalDepartment explained the direction
of planned educational services and extension programs to assist
the native farmer. Director of Agriculture Faulkner proposed to
start two courses (a higher and a lower course) in agricultural
education at Ibadan in Western Nigeria. In the case of the lower
course, the "examinationwill be of a standard suited to boys who
20 Specific problems with soil

management and use of improved inputs were
noted. But women, who were major cultivators and resource managers, were not
targeted. See various Department of Agriculture reports, especially from 1939 to
1945.
21 Hart argues that peasant
rationality was far superior to the extension officers'
knowledge, so that the officers spent much time finding out what the farmers
already knew. See Hart, The Political Economy,98.
22 For the articulation of this
idea, see especially Nigeria: Annual Report on the
Agricultural Department, 1952. See also, Nigeria, Annual Reporton the Agricultural
Department, for 1914-1915, 1922, 1937, 1938, 1939-1940 (Lagos); and Eastern
Region, Annual Reportof the Agricultural Department,1952-1953 (Enugu, 1953).
have had only primaryschool education. For the senior course the
entrance standard [is] roughly approximate to that of the
CambridgeJuniorLocal Examination."23 The aim was to introduce
new modes of production, limited mechanization, soil
management techniques, and general agricultural processing
improvements. The target population for formal and informal
agricultural extension training remained men. In the Awka and
Nsukka Divisions in 1929, only boys were sent for trainingby the
Department of Agriculturein palm oil extractionand nut-cracking
machine operation.24This increasedgender inequalities.
The gender-biased policy continued in the next decade and
beyond. When the departmentbegan offering instruction in 1934
to those who wished to derive a living from farming, the target
group was "farmers' sons." Between March and May 1934,
thirteen boys attended a course of instruction at the Moor
Plantation, Ibadan. The course consisted of practical and
demonstration work in the field as well as instruction in crop
science, elementary mathematics, and bookkeeping.25When, in
1940, the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, E.F.G. Haig,
recommended to the government of Southern Nigeria that they
give "serious consideration to a project for cooperative [farm]
settlement" his target population was also boys. To compel boys
to take up farming, Haig recommended legislation that would
force the youth back to "their traditional occupation." Haig
advised that the number of boys admitted into schools be limited
through stiffened selection examinations. These examinations
would limit the number of boys in schools and increase the
23Nigeria: First Annual Bulletin the

of Agricultural Department(Lagos, 1922), 17.
24Cited in Gloria Chuku, "The
Changing Role of Women in Igbo Economy, 1929-
1985," Ph.D. thesis, University of Nigeria (1995), 150.
25 Nigeria:
Report on the Agricultural Department, 1934 (Lagos: Government
Printer, 1935), 26.
128 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
number of rural laborers for agriculture.26This colonial official

clearly targeted the wrong group. The improvement schemes
targeted. a group that was becoming increasingly interested in
earning cash income outside agriculture.In addition, the colonial
officials neglected the women, the major agriculturallabor force.
Throughout the country, the innovations associated with
agricultural development paid no attention to women farmers.27
Colonial programs were male driven, regardless of the obvious
female participation in agriculture and the difference women
farmerscan make in agriculturalproductivity.
In an "On-the-Job"training program initiated in the Eastern
Region of Nigeria, the Department of Agriculture aimed to show
"the working men in the Onitsha Province the ways in which they
can improve their farming."28The men came in groups for one
month at a time and received practical training in soil
conservation, compost making, and the care of seedlings and of
permanent crops such as citrus and oil palms. At Achi in Onitsha
Province, the Agricultural Department acquired ninety acres of
land for a practical school farm. The object of the scheme was to
train the "sons of genuine farmers in improved agricultural
practice."The trainees,ten at a time, were to be the "sons of bona-
fide farmerswho guaranteethat the boys will return to the family
land and practice what has been taught."29Again, the colonial
government was over-optimistic in believing that white-collar
employment would not be a more attractive option for young
26 NAE, RIVPROF 8/5/661,
"Cooperative Agricultural Settlements for Nigeria,"
Registrar of Cooperative Societies to Chief Secretary to the Government, Lagos,
1940.
27 This was the situation in most of the colonial territories. See, for
example,
Janice Jiggins Gender-RelatedImpacts and the Workof the International Agricultural
Centres,CGIAR Study Paper No. 17 (Washington D.C., 1986), 1-2.
28 Nigeria, Annual Reporton the
Departmentof Agriculture (EasternRegion), 1952-53,
2.
29Ibid.
men. In 1940, the director of cooperative societies noted the

attractionthat the civil service/publicsector held for young men in
particular.According to him,
The plight of thousands of Nigerian lads who leave school at the end
of the elementary stage is a miserable one. In view of their partial
education they believe, wrongly, no doubt, but with a deplorable
strength of conviction that they are fit for clerical posts and unfit for
manual labor. Whenever a clerical vacancy is advertised they send in
their applications by the hundreds.30
The colonial authorities did not consider the attitude of young

men toward farming.By this time, wage labor had become a very
attractive option for young men, who moved out of rural Igbo
communities in large numbers.3'
The emphasis on males was repeated throughout the country.
In the Western Region, the farmersselected in 1936 for training in
maintaining soil fertility in the Ogbomosho area of Oyo Province
were all men.32 In the Northern Region, the Katsina Native
Authority financed a scheme for training "farmer'ssons" as mixed
farmers. In 1938, twenty-eight boys who had attended the first
course were established as mixed farmers on their own or their
fathers' farms. Later in the same year, forty-eight boys attended
the second course. School farms were set up in Niger Province
and a scheme for "establishing" boys from these schools on
suitable farms was introduced by the Bida Native
Administration.33Despite women's indispensable role in the
agriculturaleconomy, the colonial authorities continued until the
30 NAE, EKETDIST1/2/50, File no. 499, "Cooperative Agricultural Settlements for

Nigeria, Registrar of Co-operative Societies to the Chief Secretary to the
Government," Lagos, April 1940.
31Interview with F. Eneremadu, Mbutu Mbaise, 2
January 2000.
32See Nigeria, Annual Reporton the
Agricultural Department,1937 (Lagos, 1938), 7.
33Nigeria: Annual Reporton theAgricultural Department,1938 (Lagos, 1939), 5.
130 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
mid-1950s with a policy that often misdirected the services that

were aimed at improving agriculture. When the regions took
responsibility for various government departmentsunder the new
constitution leading to self-government, agricultural education
still continued on similar lines. The main emphasis from 1952 was
on extension work, field days, and agriculturalshows to stimulate
the farmers'interest in new farmingtechniques and "proper"land
utilization.34Until 1955, all this encouragement continued to be
offered to male farmers.
In 1956, however, the AgriculturalDepartment in the Eastern
Region started a scheme of "non-residential" practical farm
schools in two villages. The farmers, who included women,
received training in the use of fertilizers, planting of citrus trees,
conservation of soil, and other subjects. The whole scheme
according to the annual report "fitted into the normal social and
economic life of the village to entail the minimum of disturbance
and intellectual effort."35This policy change amounts to an
admission that past policies under the Federal Department of
Agriculture had been unsuitable and unrealistic. Regional
autonomy may have influenced the policy change in 1956. Despite
the realization of the inappropriatenessof past policies, however,
the School of Agriculture at Umudike in Umuahia, which
revolutionized agricultural training and extension work in the
region, still admitted only men. In 1960, the school, which had a
class of forty-one agriculturalassistants and seven field overseers,
included only one female student, the first to be recruited since
the school's inception in 1955.36
34Eastern Region, Annual Report of the Agricultural Department, 1952-53 (Enugu,

1954), 1.
35 Eastern Region, Annual Report of the Agricultural Department, 1956-57 (Enugu,
1958), 3.
36See Eastern Region, Annual Report,
Agriculture Division, 1958/59.
The gendered nature of colonial agriculturalpolicy was

not limited to extension services and improvement schemes.
Gloria Chuku has shown how colonial financial support
schemes discriminatedagainst women farmers.37 To improve
family production, a loan scheme operated by the Co-
operative Section of the Agricultural Department was
introduced in 1931. The loan was to assist farmers in buying
hand presses for palm oil processing. The farmers who
applied for the agriculturalloans were all men.38
There were two main problems with colonial
agricultural policy. First, it disadvantaged women and
female-headed households in particular because of the
patriarchal assumptions about the local agrarian system.
From the experiences of Eastern Nigeria, it can be seen that
colonial administratorsand technical advisers were largely
responsible for the deterioration in the status of women in
the agricultural sector.39The neglect of female cultivators
when new techniques and soil conservation measures were
introduced meant that these innovations did not trickle
down to the women who carried out the bulk of farming
work. Second, the focus on young boys as agents of farming
innovation was grossly misguided.40 Farming was
increasingly becoming unattractive for young people, who
preferred a career in the civil service or the independent
income that migration offered, because farmers were
37Chuku, "The Changing Role of Women," 149.

38 See, for example, NAE, LD 51-ESIALA 27/1/53, "Matter Relating to
Agricultural Loans."
39E. Boserup, Women's Roles in EconomicDevelopment(New York, 1970), 53-54.
40 This was
particularly true in many parts of Igboland where the rate of
migration was higher than in any other part of Nigeria.
132 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
increasingly becoming trapped in structural poverty. The

neglect of gender relations of production led to inefficient
agricultural programs because women's direct engagement
in agricultural production continued to be ignored
throughout the colonial period.
IV
Gender, Innovations, and New Production Technology
Previous studies of the dynamics of technological innovation
and the commercialization of agriculture in Nigeria have
sometimes led to confusion over the impact on gender relations.
And there is little attention given to the link between these
innovations and the exacerbationof the agricultural crisis.41The
question of the implications of the commercialization of palm
produce on gender relations in Igboland was raised when
Ukaegbu suggested that until the trade with Europe in palm oil,
production was carriedout entirely by women and for household
consumption among the Igbo. This implied that the production of
palm oil had operated like any other aspect of the subsistence
economy. When palm oil became an export crop, it became a
man's product since it could be exchanged for men's goods such
as guns and spirits.42Ukaegbu's explanation is relevant to most
parts of Igboland only from the time of the imposition of colonial
rule. Prior to the exporting of palm kernels, for example, many
informants have asserted that they were used as firewood and
41
See, for example, B. N. Ukaegbu, "Production in the Nigerian Oil Palm
Industry, 1900-1954," Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1974, 31-36. Susan
Martin extended Ukaegbu's argument in her articles, "Gender and Innovation:
Farming, Cooking and Palm Processing: Ngwa Region of Southeastern Nigeria,"
Journal of African History 25 (1984), 411-22, and "Slaves, Igbo Women and Palm
Oil in the Nineteenth Century," in Robin Law, ed., From Slave Tradeto "Legitimate
Commerce"(Cambridge, 1995), 180.
42Ukaegbu, "Production in the
Nigerian Oil Palm Industry," 31-36.
mattered little to either men or women.43The lack of a clear

interpretationof the relationship between commercialization,the
colonial political economy, social change, and gender relations
stems from a static conceptualization of the traditional gender
relations of production. It is importantto emphasize that changes
in gender relations were not linear. Both men and women
renegotiated their production relationshipsto face new challenges
in an era when the household was increasingly incorporatedinto
a market economy. It is important therefore, to concentrateupon
how commercialization and technological innovation increased
the rate of agricultural crisis and transformation in gender
relations of production.
The first three decades of the colonial era were marked by
continuity in the agriculturalprocessing technology used in the
palm oil industry. In this era, 90% of palm oil and palm kernels
were obtained from natural groves requiring minimum
maintenance." The First Annual Bulletin of the Department of
Agriculture reported that the bulk of the oil was obtained by
boiling and pounding the fruits and squeezing the resultant fiber
by hand. Kernels were obtained by cracking the nuts between
stones.45According to Usoro, the division of labor before the
introduction of hand presses involved the allocation of routine
and light work to women and children and the more arduous,
43Interview with Linus Onyegbule Korieh, Ihitteafoukwu, Mbaise, 17 December

1998.
44 See C. K. Laurent, Investment in Nigerian Tree Crops: Smallholder Production,
NISER, University of Ibadan (Ibadan, 1968), 2, 11; Rigobert Oladiran Ladipo,
"Nigeria and Ivory Coast: Commercial and Export Crops since 1960," in Hamid
Ait Amara and Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua, eds., African Agriculture: The Critical
Choice:Studies in African Political Economy (London, 1990), 101-120.
45 See for example J. E. Gray, "Native Methods of Preparing Palm Oil," in
Nigeria: First Annual Bulletin of the Agricultural Department (Lagos, 1922); 0. T.
Faulker and C. J. Lewis, "Native Methods of Preparing Palm Oil," in Nigeria,
SecondAnnual Bulletin of the Agricultural Department(Lagos, 1923), 6-10.
134 CHIMA J. KORIEH
"dangerous," and heavy duties to men.46Toward the end of the

1930s, the demand for a more efficient production method and an
improved quality of oil in particularresulted in the adoption of
new processing technology.47The need to increase production and
devise labor-saving methods stimulated a shift in the sexual
division of labor for export production.48This resulted in a
transformationof production processes and an expansion in the
quantity produced. The scope of rural transformation and its
impact on women in particular and the neglect of subsistence
farming increased with the introduction of new technology and
innovations in the agriculturaleconomy of EasternNigeria. These
innovations encouraged more male participation in the
agriculturalsector. At the same time, the innovations exacerbated
the agricultural crisis among the Igbo and in other societies in
Eastern Nigeria. Although the change in technology was not
widespread, the commercialization process progressively
transformed gender relations of production and the agrarian
economy in general. While the new technology and innovations in
production methods were successful in increasing the quality and
quantity of oil extracted and in reducing labor in both oil and
kernel production, they also led to the domination of production
46E. J. Usoro, The Nigerian Palm Oil Industry: Governmentand Export Production
1906-1965 (Ibadan, 1974). In the traditional division of labor in palm oil
processing, men cut down the fruit from the tree. Women and children carried
out the bulk of the processing work.
47Two grades of palm oil are produced. The hard oil is obtained by fermenting
the fruit and extracting the oil. The higher-grade soft oil is extracted by boiling
and pounding the fruit in a mortar and extracting the oil by pressing the mashed
pericarp by hand.
48 Susan Martin has documented the trends of change and responses of women
to technological innovations in the Ngwa region of southeastern Nigeria. See
Martin, "Gender and Innovation," 413.
processes by men in state-run oil palm mills as well as in large-

scale bulking of palm produce.49
ThePalm Oil Press

The colonial government's efforts to encourage palm oil
production received a boost with the introduction of palm oil
presses.The 1938 Annual Report of the AgriculturalDepartment
indicates that the number of hand presses had increased from 58
in 1932 to 834 in 1938.50The most important effect on producers
was the redistribution of traditional labor inputs among men,
women, and children and the greaterparticipationof men in palm
oil and kernel processing and marketing. Hand presses giving a
65% extraction of oil were in common use by the end of the
Second World War.51Table 1 shows the labor and the quantity of
oil extractedby the hand press and the traditionalmethod.
Table 1: Palm Oil Extraction:Traditional and Press Methods

Fruit TraditionalMethod PressMethod
260 lbs. 260 lbs.
Labor 4 women 2 men & 2 boys
Oil 331 lbs. 491 lbs.
Obtained
Time 9 hours 2 hours
Source: Nigerian National Archives Enugu, Nigeria (NAE), ONPROF, 11/1/44,
"Reports on Oil Palm Survey, Ibo, Ibibio and Cross River Areas," A. F. G.
Bridges, 1944. Cited in N. Njoku, "The Influence of the International Economy on
the Peasantry in Eastern Nigeria, 1900-1960," Ph.D. thesis, University of Calabar,
1991, 132.
49 See, for example, S.E.N. Anyawnu, "The Igbo Family Life and Cultural
Change." Ph.D. dissertation, Philipps-Universitat, Marburg, Germany, 1976, 200.
50 Nigeria, Annual Reporton the Agricultural Department1938, 27-30.
51See Anyanwu, "The Igbo Family," 200.

136 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
Usoro also made a comparisonbetween the man-hours spent

using the prewar traditionalmethod of preparingoil and the post-
Second World Warmethod using the hand press. Total man-hours
spent by men increased from 600 to 1,050 while those of women
and children declined from 1,450to 992.52With the introduction of
agriculturalinnovations, women continued to be relegated to the
background. One would have expected women to concentrate on
food production for the expanding urban class but "this was not
possible for many parts of Igboland because land was not in
abundance."53 The expansion of an economy based on cash crops
forced peasants-male and female-into trading and other
activities, due to the precariousnature of the cash crop economy,
making them less relianton farming.
Pioneer Oil Mills

The introduction of palm oil plantations under the "Pioneer
Oil Palm" scheme was marked by increases in new processing
technology. A number of "PioneerOil Mills" were established for
large-scale production and processing of palm products. By 1949,
the colonial government was encouraging the new Nigeria Oil
Produce Marketing Board and the Eastern Nigeria Regional
Produce Development Board to supervise the installation of these
mills. The changes in the processing methods, the introduction of
a plantation economy, and especially the establishmentof Pioneer
Oil Mills further affected agrarian economy in some parts of
Igboland. The installation of oil mills continued the process of
eliminating women from production. The introduction of palm
nut cracking machines and hand presses continued the reduction
52 Usoro, The Nigerian Oil Palm

Industry, 93. Note: one man-hour = 2/3 woman-
hour = 1/4 child-hour. See also Anne Martin, The Oil Palm Economy of Ibibio
Farmers (Ibadan, 1956). Martin estimates that 22.5 man-hours were required to
extract a cwt. of oil using a hand press operated by men.
53Interview with Serah Emenike, Owerri, December 1999.
THEINVISIBLE
FARMER? 137
of production at the household level and women's ability to

benefit from their role in the production process. The numbers of
processing machines in EasternNigeria in 1959-1960are given in
Table 2.
Table 2: Processing Machines in EasternNigeria, 1959-1960

Rice Mills 172
PioneerOilMills 105
HandPresses 3,236
PoweredNut Crackers 153
CassavaGraters 30
Source: Eastern Nigeria, Agricultural Division Annual Report, 1959-1960
(Enugu: Government Printer, 1961), 41-42.
While government was investing in the cash crop sector, it paid no

significant attention to the food sector. As the above figures
indicate, there were only thirty cassava graters for processing this
staple food crop throughoutthe region.54
The threat to women's participation in palm oil and kernel
production met with some resistance in various parts of Eastern
Nigeria. In Ibibioland, women resisted the establishment of oil
mills as it threatenedtheir source of income.55In the Ngwa region
and neighboring areas, women resisted the introduction of hand
presses and oil mills because these threatened their control over
palm kernels.56Women in particular resisted the attempts by
European firms to buy the uncracked nuts.57 Although the
54Cassava was alreadya staple food crop in the EasternRegion by the end of the
Second World War.
5s N. Njoku, "The Influence of the InternationalEconomy on the Peasantry in
EasternNigeria, 1900-1960,"Ph.D.thesis, Universityof Calabar,1991,277.
56SusanMartin, Palm Oil and Protest:An EconomicHistoryof the Ngwa Region,
South-EasternNigeria,1800-1980(Cambridge,1988).
57See Ukaegbu, "Productionin the Nigerian Oil Palm Industry,"233. See also
Mba,NigerianWomenMobilized,106.
138 CHIMAJ.KORIEH
Agricultural Department could not persuade women to use the

machines, the hand presses for extractingoil extracted about 20%
more oil than the manual method, which extracted only about 55-
60% of oil.58
However, the extent to which the new technology
revolutionized production may have been exaggerated. M. M.
Green, a British anthropologistwho studied the Agbaja people in
southeastern Nigeria in the 1930s, recorded that there was only
one hand press in the village in which she worked.59 In the Mbaise
area, for example, hand presses were not common until recent
times. Two informants in one village recalled that the whole
village actually shared one large mortar seized from a warrant
chief at Nguru during the 1929 women's war and that oil presses
only came to the village in the 1970s.60Most of Igboland continued
to produce using the traditionalmethods. The new technology, it
appears, was not the most significant element of change, because
mechanization did not really diminish women's control over
production in many areas. In these conditions, both men and
women were engaged in production of commodities which could
be sold for cash, but devoted less time to subsistence production.
Although there were protests against the installation of oil mills,
the protests should be viewed as an indication of the centrality of
primary production to rural subsistence. They also signify the
importance women in particular attached to palm kernels as a
source of independent income.61
In actuality, the process of transformationwas not uniform
throughout the Eastern Region. The oil mills and presses were
58Mba. Nigeria WomenMobilized,75.

59 Green, Ibo VillageAffairs.
60oSee, for example, interview with Christopher Chidomere, aged 70, Mbaise, 13
December 1998.
61For the numerous protests and the resistance against the installation of oil
mills and presses, see Chuku, "The Changing Role," 149-163.
concentrated in the Ngwa, Azumini, and Cross River areas.

Mechanizationin these areas seems to have left women with more
time for cassava production, which became lucrative in Eastern
Nigeria by the mid-1950s. The demand for garri in the North
increased women's interest in cassava production.62In 1949, for
example, about 5,530 tons of garriwere railed to the North, and by
1952, the amount had increased to 22,170 tons.63 Farmers
concentrated on food production in this period because of the
lucrative marketfor food items.
It should be emphasized also that the trade in palm oil was
not entirely dominated by men. In the late 1920s and early 1930s,
some women continued to act as produce agents, buying from
local producers and reselling to the Europeanfactories.64Until the
twentieth century, women almost dominated cash crop trade at
the local level. Besides acting as buying agents for produce in the
palm oil industry, women performed the task of "bulking and of
breaking bulk in produce-buying, both activities facilitating
exchange at quantity and cost levels appropriate to the scale of
production and buying habits of the customers."65Women also
combined their activities in the palm oil trade with the sale of
cooked food, and they found in the expanding commercial sector
other opportunities for capital accumulation.66
The participationof more women in the cash crop economy
as traders posed more problems for the agricultural sector,
62See Mba, Nigerian WomenMobilized, 112-114.

63See Eastern Region, Annual
Reportfor the Departmentof Agriculturefor 1953/54.
64 Among prominent women traders were Omu Okwei of Ossomari and Ruth
Onumonu Uzoaru of Oguta. See Ekejuba's biographical sketch of Omu Okwei,
"Omu Okwei-The Merchant Queen of Ossomari: A Biographical Sketch,"
Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 3, 4 (1967), 633-646. See Leith-Ross,
African Woman, in which Ruth was described as "the veritable Amazon among
traders," 343.
65Mba, Nigerian WomenMobilized,47.
66 Ibid.
140 CHIMAJ.KORIEH
especially in the highly populated parts of Igboland. Oral

accounts from the Mbaise area confirm the dominance of women
in the local palm oil trade and the decline in reliance on farming
even in the colonial period. According to one informant, women
frequented the buying stations at Umuahia, Ife, and Udo Beaches
in Mbaise from where palm produce was transportedby river to
the coast.67Linus Anabalam,who was a small-time produce buyer
in Mbaise in the 1940s, recalls buying mostly from women.68An
informant stated that women were in control of production and
marketing at the local level. She argued that the expansion of the
palm oil market actually enabled women to obtain an
independent income.69The issue of importance in the analysis
here is that commercialincentives led to the channeling of female
labor into cash crop production and trade. In addition, the
increased participation of men in the new commerce created an
environment where families increasingly depended on the market
for subsistence. Overall, commercialization in the Igbo region
created an environment for both men and women to diversify
income generation strategies in the area of trade, while
significantly reducing farming activities over time.
In historical perspective, changes in the colonial economy
diminished women's level of control of commercial production
and significantly influenced the subsistence economy as well.
More efficient means of communication and transport were
introduced. Early in the twentieth century, a district officer noted
that a woman would carry two tins of palm oil (8 gallons) a long
distance for sale.70 This changed with the introduction of more
efficient systems of transport. With the introduction of bicycles
67 Interview with E. Ihediwa, Owerrenta, 24 July 1999.

68 Interview with Linus Anabalam, Mbaise, 13 December 1998.
69Interview with Madam Obasi, Umunomo, Mbaise, 25
July 1999.
70 NAE, RIVPROF 8/5/661, File no. OW 630/17, "Trade Prices at
Up Country
Markets, 1917," D.O. Okigwe to Resident Owerri Province, Port Harcourt.
THEINVISIBLE
FARMER? 141
and the beginnings of motor lorry transport, men in particular

were able to cover longer distances in order to market produce.
The ability to move oil and kernels in bulk and men's domination
of this system of haulage gave them a substantial advantage over
women produce buyers.71 Women joined the long-distance trade
in later years when motor lorries became the major means of
transportationto distantmarkets.72
The increased commercializationfocused attention on cash
crop production with concomitant negative effects on overall
agricultural development for subsistence. In Igbo society, as in
most other colonial territories,farmers were forced by the new
economic importance of palm produce to maximize production
for the market. As the importance of cash crops for export grew,
both men and women became vulnerable because of their
dependency on the export market and diminished reliance on the
traditional system of household subsistence. This led to an
increase in household food insecurity.
Undoubtedly, the commercializationof palm produce from
the early colonial period affected gender relations. There was a
dramaticresponse by both men and women to the cash incentives
offered by the produce sector.In addition, the limited resources of
the early colonial administration led to a systematic effort to
extract wealth from conquered peoples.73The need to meet the
increased financial obligation of direct taxes and rates levied by
the colonial administrationand the export potential of palm oil
encouraged men to participate in palm oil production and
marketing. Changes occurred in the Igbo gender relations of
production when the export of oil and kernels became the
principal source of income and sole means of buying the
71 Interview with Ihediwa, Owerrenta, 24 July 1999.

72Interview with Emenike, Owerri, December 1999.
73M. A. Klein, Peasants in Africa:Historical and ContemporaryPerspectives (London,

1980), 20.
142 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
European goods that increasingly became part of the new

consumer culture.74
In many parts of Igboland,women participatedactively in the
production and marketing of palm produce, and subsistence
production continued to suffer neglect as the cash crop economy
expanded. Men were seeking advancement and power in the
changing economic and political climate; they dedicated more
time to cash crop production and marketing.75Women were
devoting more time to cash crop production and were willing to
profit from the increased demand for palm kernels. All this drew
both men and women away from subsistence production and
increased the importanceof a cash economy, in which subsistence
increasingly depended on the market.
V
Agricultural Crisis and Peasant Protests
While dependence on a cash crop economy continued for
most of the colonial period, the effect on Eastern Nigerian
peasants as a whole and Igbo peasants in particular can only be
fully appreciatedby reviewing the effects of the colonial economic
control structure and the peasants' resistance. The review reveals
the implications of the colonial agriculturaland mercantile policy
for the Igbo agriculturaleconomy.
Opposition to agricultural regulations in particular was a
major source of rural resistance.76Unlike the settler colonies in
East and Southern Africa where issues of land and labor
dominated the indigenous struggle, West Africa mainly faced the
74See J. C. Anene, Southern Nigeria in Transition 1885-1906 (Cambridge, 1966),

286.
75Interview with F. Eneremadu, 31 December 1999.
76See Robert H. Bates, Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa (Cambridge,
1983), 92.
problem of market regulations and price control.7 Hyden claimed

that in the African context, "the poor sectors of the population are
much less aware of their exploitation than their counterparts in
Asia and Latin America."78 This view can be contested in the case
of Nigerian farmers who were certainly aware of their
exploitation. In EasternNigeria, in particular,palm oil producers
recognized how the state exploited them and did something about
it.
While the early protest movements in many parts of colonial
Africa involved men, in the case of Eastern Nigeria they were
dominated entirely by women.79EasternNigerian peasant women
were aware of their problems and were willing to confront the
political authority in well-organized protests to press for more
control of production and the marketfor primaryproduce.
The degree of women's involvement in the local economy and
their strategic position in family subsistence meant that they were
the first to recognize any threat to family income and food
security. The interdependent nature of the household economy
entailed a substantial stress on women's ability to maintain
household subsistence whenever low produce prices or colonial
exaction threatenedpeasant income.
Economic Depression and Peasant Revolts, 1929-1939

From early in the colonial period, peasants in EasternNigeria
responded in various ways to colonial domination and the slumps
77For the situation in West Africa, see Bates, Essays on the Political Economy, 92.
78 G. Hyden, No Shortcut to Progress(London, 1983), 128.
79 The history of economic resistance, however, dates back to the period of the
National African Company (later Royal Niger Company). Jaja of Opobo resisted
colonial interference in local trade in the Niger Delta in the later part of the
nineteenth century. The Nembe resisted foreign economic domination and often
carried out armed attacks on the company's trading posts. See W. N. Geary,
Nigeria under British Rule (London, 1927), 178-197.
144 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
in the world market for export produce. The initial reaction was
the 1925 women's "Dance Movement" which started in Atta in
Okigwe Division of Owerri Province. The protest was anti-
government and anti-Christianity.8" Undoubtedly, to Igbo women,
the colonial administrators,the missionaries, and the European
traders represented one entity-the foreigner whose intervention
was causing economic and social upheavals. Some of the women's
demands included forbidding the use of European coins, fixing
prices of foodstuffs in the markets, and regulating the style and
quantity of clothing to be worn by women. In Agwu, the message
included the exhortationthat old customs should be observed and
that men should not plant cassava but leave this to women. The
women demanded that the prices of fowls, cassava, eggs, and
other commodities should be fixed in the market at certain levels.
Women's insistence on their exclusive control of cassava in
particular perhaps has to do with the secondary role they had
come to play in the colonial economy and with the precarious
nature of cash crop production.
By November 1925, several reports showed colonial
authorities' apprehension with regard to women's protest.
Colonial officials were poised to stop its spread with the
collaboration of the warrant chiefs. What both parties failed to
understand was that women bore the brunt of the effects of the
transformationtaking place, especially the low prices for produce.
Complaints about the moral laxity resulting from colonialism,
Christianity, and the high cost of staples were just one aspect of
women's grievances.81The underlying aim of the movement was
80 See NAE, 62/1925-AWDIST 2/1/57, and NAE, 391/1925-OMPROF 7/12/92,

"Reports on Women's Disturbances." See also Report of the Aba Commission of
Inquiry, "Memorandum as to the Origins and Causes of the Recent Disturbances
in the Owerri and Calabar Provinces," Appendix III (1), 11-12.
81 NAE, 62/1925-AWDIST 2/1/57, and NAE, 391/1925-OMPROF 7/12/92. "Reports
on Women's Disturbances."
not just to fight against social ills; the incessant rises in the price of
basic staples were affecting families. Both men and women
experienced difficulty meeting their social and economic
obligations to the household and the colonial state from the sale of
agricultural produce. The fact that the issues raised included
bridewealth shows that the difficulty in meeting such social
obligations was widespread.82
There were other sporadic protests related directly to the local
economy before 1929in parts of the EasternRegion. A majorcause
of protest was related to the introduction of produce inspection
and a new system of buying produce. By the late 1920s, women
were protesting the low prices of palm produce and the role of
marketingagencies. Along with the drop in prices, women in 1926
objected to the method of buying produce by weight which
replaced buying by measure.
As a means to improve the quality of produce, the colonial
administration introduced produce inspection in 1928. Peasants
had been responding to the agriculturalproblems by adulterating
produce. In the Ngwa region, peasants mixed water with palm
oil.83To increase the weight of their kernels, producers left kernels
partially cracked or even mixed cracked kernels with uncracked
ones.84In subtle and less subtle ways, the peasants responded to
the growing insecurity they faced as a result of the low produce
prices and the general crisis in the agrarian sector. The produce
inspectors were introduced as a response to adulteration in
addition to the need to improve the quality of produce to meet
required European standards.Women regarded these inspections
82 NAE, MINLOC 6/1/215-EP 10595A,

"Intelligence Report on Obowo and Ihitte
Clan, Okigwe Division, Owerri Province" by N.A.P.G MacKenzie, Assistant
District Officer.
83Interview with E. Ihediwa, Owerrenta, 24 July 1999.
84Njoku, "Influence of the International
Economy," 224.
146 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
as interferencewith their trade.85The crisis in the cash crop sector

and the economic effects of the depression of the late 1920s and
early 1930s were to trigger various peasant revolts in the region.
The overdependence upon export production was to lead to a
crisis in the region's agriculturaleconomy in this period when the
prices of export produce dropped to their lowest levels.
Between 1929 and 1935 the value of the palm produce trade
dropped by over 70%, causing a substantial fall in peasant
incomes and government revenue. The inability of many men to
meet their tax obligations to the colonial state increased the
burden on women, who often paid taxes for their spouses or
sons.86The difficulty with which many households met their food
requirements increased women's tasks in both agriculture and
trade. Households had to contend with rising inflation. As the
effect of the depression was increasingly felt among local
producers, discontent grew, especially among women,
culminating in petitions and threats to hold up palm oil and
kernels in 1929.
Among the Igbo in particular, women protested for both
economic and social reasons but major discontent resulted from
the crisis in the agriculturaleconomy. Women suggested a strike
and the withholding of palm produce supplies to force
concessions and increase prices.87But it was unclear how these
suggestions could be implemented. Economically speaking,
withholding the supply of palm produce on a nationwide scale
could have had an impact on prices since Southern Nigeria
8s See numerous complaints by women in Aba Commission of Inquiry. Notes of

Evidence Taken by the Commission of Inquiry Appointed to Inquire into the
Disturbances in the Calabarand Owerri Provinces, December1929 (Lagos, 1929). See
also Mba, Nigerian WomenMobilized,74.
86Interviewwith L. Anabalam,Mbaise,13 December1998.
87 For the petitions of various women's
groups, see Aba Commissionof Inquiry, 54,
and Aba Commissionof InquiryNotes of Evidence.
supplied the bulk of total world output. But the independence of

small-scale producers and the geographical spread of the
producing areas almost certainlyprecluded any outright cut in the
supply of palm produce. However, the pressure on households to
meet their economic obligations was ever present. For the Igbo,
the dependence on one export crop made the economy
extraordinarilyvulnerable to the shifts and variations of British
and international demand for the product. With dwindling
incomes, the region's farmersbarely survived the depression. The
situation was worse for women who traditionally provided for
household food needs. The impact of the depression influenced
the timing of the 1929 women's revolt in EasternNigeria.
The 1929 Women's Revolt

In April 1927, the colonial government took measures to
enforce the Native Revenue (Amendment) Ordinance. A colonial
Resident, Mr. W. E. Hunt, was commissioned by the lieutenant
governor to explain to the people, throughout the five provinces
in the Eastern Region, the provisions and objects of the new
ordinance. This was to prepare the ground for the introduction of
direct taxation with effect from April 1928.88The government was
aware of the potential for conflict resulting from the
implementation of this legislation. As a means to curb any
disturbance, the Legislative Council was asked for an addition to
the police force of 500 men, who would be absorbed into the
establishment as soon as the situation in any of the provinces
warranted such action.89Direct tax was introduced in 1928
88 The Native Revenue (Amendment) Ordinance of 1927 was aimed specifically

at introducing direct taxation to the five provinces in the Eastern Region. See Aba
Commissionof Inquiry, 4.
89Ibid.
148 CHIMAJ.KORIEH
without major incidents, thanks to the widespread and careful

propaganda of the preceding twelve months.90
In 1929, a combination of administrative incompetence and
insensitivity to the economic crisis in the region led the women of
Oloko, Bende Division, Owerri Province, to start a protest that
spread throughout the Igbo and Ibibio lands. The low returns
from export crops, the general economic decline, and British
taxation policy in the colony set off a chain of events that brought
the administration into direct conflict with peasants in Eastern
Nigeria. The most vocal criticism came to focus on the low price
for produce, the high cost of imported goods, and the interference
by produce inspectors in the sale of agriculturalcommodities. For
women in particular, the low level of returns on agricultural
produce and the state regulationsreduced the financialviability of
the palm produce trade to such an extent that it was affecting
household food security.
The enumerationexercisein Oloko, Umuahia, which included
the counting of women and livestock, made women suspect that
they would be taxed like the men.91For women, the prospect of
direct taxation was highly provocative. By December 1929,
women's protests, which started in Oloko, culminated in massive
revolts known to the women as Ogu Umunwanyi(the Women's
War) throughout the Igbo and Ibibio areas. In colonial rhetoric,
the women's protests were seen as a threat to the colonial
authority and a disruption of the economic and political life of the
region. Erroneously termed the "Aba Women's Riots" by the
90 The Commission of
Inquiryreportindicates that the collectionof taxes during
the first year proceeded so quietly that further recruitingof the special police,
which then numbered417, ceased and the provision for 1929-30was fixed at only
250. See Aba Commissionof Inquiry, 8.
91
During the 1926 tax assessment,the people of Oloko and Ayabe had been told
that the counting of persons was simply part of the census. Then taxation was
introducedin 1926.The women felt that the authoritiescould not be trusted. See
Mba, Nigerian WomenMobilized,76.
colonial authority, the "Women's War," as the women called it,

was largely the result of economic factors.The protests resulted in
widespread disruption and destruction of property through most
of the Owerri and CalabarProvinces.
Before the end of December 1929,when troops restored order,
ten native courts were destroyed and a number of others
damaged. The houses of native court personnel were attacked,
European factories at Imo River, Aba, Mbawsi, and Amata were
looted, and prisons were attacked and prisoners released. During
the protest, about fifty-five women were killed by the colonial
troops.92The revolts were regarded as over when troops left
Owerri on 27 December 1929 and the last patrol in Abak Division
withdrew on 9 January 1930. In late December 1929 and early
January 1930, the commission of inquiry set up to investigate the
revolt sat in over thirty locations throughout the EasternRegion to
collect evidence and recommend punishments.93According to the
commission of inquiry, it was not the intention of the government
to impose a tax upon women in the Calabar and Owerri
Provinces, but the "very action in the matter of this re-assessment
pointed to such an intention."94The testimonies of the women
indicate that the warrant chiefs, who also believed that women
were to be taxed, did not provide a proper explanation of the
census exercise. The testimony of Ikodia, one of the women of
Oloko, summarizes the understandingof other women:
We heard that women were being counted by their chiefs. Women

became annoyed at this and decided to ask who gave the order, as
they did not wish to accept it. As we went to various markets we
asked other women whether they too had heard the rumor about the
counting of women. They replied that they had heard it. We heard
92See Mba, Nigeria WomenMobilized,76.

93 Punishments were imposed on communities rather than individual
participants.
94Aba Commissionof Inquiry, 12.
150 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
also that Oloko chiefs had counted their respective women. We,
women, therefore held a large meeting at which we decided to wait
until we heard definitely from one person that women were to be
taxed, in which case we would make trouble, as we did not mind to be
killed for doing so. We went to the houses of all chiefs and each
admitted counting his people.95
Taxation for women raised economic concerns but also what

Afigbo termed a very strong moral and psychological dilemma.96
Enyidia of Oloko, one leader of the women's movement,
demanded,
What have we women done to warrant our being taxed? We women

are like trees, which bear fruit. You should tell us the reason why we
who bear seeds should be counted.97
This comparison between women and fruit-bearingtrees lies

at the root of certain aspects of indigenous social and ethical
philosophy. Just as one could not, in the interest of human beings,
deal lightly with the survival of fruit-bearingtrees, one could not
play with the fate of women.98Women already bore, indirectly, a
portion of the burden of the tax on men that had been introduced
the previous year, and a tax upon women themselves was more
than they could bear. Many women echoed similar sentiments.
Nwakaji of Ekweli, Oloko, asked, "how could women who have
no means themselves to buy food or clothing pay tax?" And
Uligbo of Awon Uku, Oloko, queried, "How could we pay tax?
95Ibid.
96 A. E. Afigbo "Revolution and Reaction in Eastern
Nigeria, 1900-1929: The
Background to the Women's Riot of 1929," Journal of the Historical Society of
Nigeria 3, 3 (1966), 539-557.
97Aba Commissionof Inquiry Notes of Evidence,13.
98Afigbo, "Revolution and Reaction in Eastern
Nigeria."
We depend upon our husbands, we cannot buy food or clothe

ourselves: how shall we get money to pay tax?"99
Political and social mattersfeatured in the women's demands.
Women complained about the constitution of the native court
members. Women in Owerri Province like their counterparts in
other provinces demanded that native court members be changed.
There is no doubt that the native courts were destroyed or
damaged, and the chiefs forbidden to hold court, principally
because the native courts were the outward symbols of the
government and of the chiefs, who were believed to have agreed
to the taxation of women. The people tendered overwhelming
evidence to the Aba Commission of Inquiry regarding the
persecution, extortion, bribery, and corruption in the native
courts. The commission concluded in its report that although
allegations of corruption and bribery were of a general nature,
there was enough evidence that the native courts were a source of
discontent among the people.100It is no exaggeration to say that
the movement finally assumed the characterof a revolt against all
forms of established authorityand control.'0'
It is the contention here, however, that the emphasis on the
political rationale of the Women's War has led to insufficient
analysis of the agriculturalroots of the protest. Perham, Gailey,
and Afigbo argued that the Women's War was primarily political
and only secondarily economic. They argued that the peasant
women's reaction was inevitable because the colonial
administration allowed them no other means of expressing their
99Aba Commissionof Inquiry, 12.

100The reports contain evidence of widespread corruption as alluded to by some
administrative and police officers and by missionaries and others with many
years' experience of the people of the disturbed areas. This was not an issue for
women alone. Many male witnesses strongly raised the issue of the corruption of
the native courts and warrant chiefs.
101Aba Commission
of Inquiry, 263.
152 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
grievances. Perham set the revolt in the context of what she

described as the "pathologicalcondition"of the EasternProvinces.
She argued that the political system was so different from that
obtaining in the rest of the country that indirect rule could not
succeed.102 She and Gailey believed that the women rejected this
system of administration.103
Afigbo further argued that the Women's War was another
manifestation of the anticolonialism expressed in the nwobiala
movement of 1925. According to Afigbo, "[I]nfighting for the old
political and moral order, the women were asking for the exodus
of the British."104In 1929, therefore, the women rejected not just
the system of administrationbut the whole colonial order.105 J. S.
Coleman in 1960 placed the Women's War in the context of
"traditional nationalism."106 Judith Van Allen argued that the
Women's War was primarily a political protest in which women
were using their traditionalmethod of protest, "sitting on a man,"
on a larger scale to regain the political participation they had
enjoyed in the precolonialsociety.
There are problems in explaining the women's revolt as a
political protest. The women's protests in Igboland during the
colonial period were attempts by women to secure a fair price for
their produce as well as to protest the economic difficulties that
emerged with the integrationof the rural economy into the world
market. While men participated in some protests against the
102 Perham Margery, Native Administration in Nigeria (London, 1937). Cited in

Mba, Nigerian WomenMobilized,78.
103 H. A. Gailey, The Road to Aba: A Study of British Administrative Policy in
Eastern Nigeria (New York, 1970).
means that a stranger/visitor should leave. This is otherwise

104 Nwobiala literally
known as the "Dance Movement."
105Afigbo, "Revolution and Reaction," 554.
106 J. S.
Coleman, Nigeria:Backgroundto Nationalism (Berkeley, 1965), 172.
THEINVISIBLE
FARMER? 153
colonial authorities,women in particularprotested against market

regulations and price controls, and fought hard to maintain their
economic autonomy. Igbo women did not engage in these protests
because they were fighting for women's rights. Rather, their
engagement and actions reflected the crisis that had emerged in
the agricultural economy as well as their central role in the
production system.
Another problem with the interpretationof the Women's War
is that many scholars and commentators have relied heavily on
the official commission of inquiry reports for their analysis. Few
scholars have analyzed the "Notes of Evidence" collected by the
commission of inquiry. The "Notes of Evidence" are historically
important not only because they gave voices to the men and
women who appeared before the commission but also because
they offer a different perspective on the motives and emotions of
those who took part in the revolts. If we believe the
historiography to be deficient on the economic roots of the revolt,
it is to the actions and voices of these women and men that we
must turn. The existing studies are hopelessly deficient in
recording their voices, the range of their emotions, and their
motives. Their voices are a key to understanding their actions
within the broader context of the exercise of colonial power as
well as the economic dilemma that the region faced during the
GreatDepression of the 1920sand 1930s.
When the primary sources, especially the "Notes of
Evidence," are re-examined, the economic rationale and the root
of the revolt in the agriculturalcrisis that emerged in the region
become clearer. Colonial policies and dependency on the export
market made peasants vulnerable. To highlight the economic
rationale of peasants' protests and their roots in the agricultural
crisis that had emerged in the region, it should be noted that the
protests took place at a time of increasing economic centralization,
low prices of export crops, and an expanding capitalist system.
154 CHIMA J. KORIEH
The low price of palm produce in particularand the high price for
imported commodities, which had become out of the reach of
many households, are crucial in understanding the mentality of
the women who confronted the colonial state in 1929.107The
situation affected both men and women but it fueled women's
anger especially and provided a reason for their hostility to the
colonial state and its local representatives.10s The root of the
Women's War can be found in large part in the severe economic
depression of the late 1920s, which was characterizedby falling
prices for export goods especially palm oil and kernels. The slump
in palm produce prices, coinciding with the imposition of taxation
and the discontent caused by the taxation of men helped to fuel
the revolt. The Aba Commission of Inquiry acknowledged that
women "were not slow to seize the opportunity whenever they
were asked to state their grievances to put forward the low price
of produce as one of them."109
Between 1929 and 1935 the value of the palm produce trade
dropped by over 70%,causing a substantial fall in local income
and government revenue. As the effects of the depression were
increasingly felt among local producers, discontent grew
especially among women. This grievance was not an imaginary
one as Table 3 shows. When the assessment of the income of the
adult males was made in 1927 for the purpose of fixing the rate of
tax, one of the principalsources of income taken into account was
the proceeds of the sale of palm products.110
Table 3: Average Price of Palm Oil

Year Per Cask Per Ton
S? s id ? s Id
107See Aba Commissionof Inquiry, 103
108 Interview
with James Eboh, Alike Obowo, 2 January 2000.
109Aba Commission
of Inquiry, 103.
110Aba Commission
of Inquiry, 103.
1926 15 1 2 23 8 6
1927 13 13 0 21 4 3
1928 15 10 0 24 2 3
1929 13 19 0 21 15 3
Source: Aba Commission of Inquiry, Appendix III (1) (Lagos, 1930), 37. Figures
obtained from the Supervising Agent of the United Africa Company Limited, at
Opobo.
Women's responses and testimonies further substantiate the

agrarian and economic root of the women's protest. On 4
December, for example, women gathered at Umuahia to discuss
the low prices of produce. By this time, the price of a four-gallon
tin of palm oil in Umuahia District had been reduced from six
shillings and eight pence to five shillings."' One women's leader,
Nwanwanyi, at a meeting with company agents at Umuahia, said,
We wish to discuss the price of produce. We have no desire or

intention of making any trouble but we have fixed a certain price for
palm oil and kernels and if we get that we will bring them in. We
want 10 shillings a tin [4 gallons] for oil and 9 shillings a bushel for
kernels.112
The district officer for OwerriProvince reportedin December 1929

that the women in the district demanded the abolition of taxation
of males, an increase in prices of produce (palm oil and kernels),
and a decrease in the prices of imported goods.113In Owerri
Province, the price of palm oil had dropped to as low as ?18 per
ton in 1927.114In a bid to explain to them the working of the
111 See Mba, Nigerian WomenMobilized,75

112Ibid.
113Aba Commissionof Inquiry, Appendix III (1), 32.
114 NAE, OWDIST 4/13/70, File no. 91/27 "Assessment Report," District Officer
Owerri to Resident Owerri Province, June 1928.
156 CHIMAJ.KORIEH
international market, the women were referred to the district

inspector of the United Africa Company,115showing that the
colonial officials were aware that the women's demands were the
result of the economic situation. In Okigwe Division, women
complained about the interferenceof produce inspectors in local
trade.116
Attempts by the buying agents and the internationaltrading
companies to control prices forced producers to demand price
stabilization. The women of Obowo in Okigwe District petitioned
the district officer, asking,
Can you please inform to the general agents or merchants that we

have to sell a tin of palm oil at 10 shillings and a bushel of palm
kernels at 7 shillings. No products to be sold to them if they refused to
accept our proposal.117
It is importantto point out that while the effects of the slump were
felt throughout Nigeria, some communities in EasternNigeria felt
them more than did other parts of the country. The Mbaise, Etiti,
and Obowo areas of OwerriProvince suffered the disadvantage of
being overpopulated areas with poor quality soil. In Ekwerazu in
Mbaise, for example, the estimated population density in 1930
was 1,029 to the square mile."118In the Ekwerazu and Ahiara clans,
an assistant district officer (ADO) noted that the area could not
support itself in foodstuffs, hence yams and cassava were brought
from outside, principally from the Oratta and Ngwa areas to the
south and west. The only commodities the Ekwerazu and Ahiara
could offer for sale to the outside world were palm oil and palm
115AbaCommissionof Inquiry, Appendix III (1), 16.

116AbaCommissionof Inquiry, 33.
118 NAE, MINLOC 6/1/175-EP 8840A, "Intelligence Report on Ekwerazu and

Ahiara Clans, Owerri Division," by G. I. Stockley, Assistant District Officer.
kernels.119 Under such circumstances, the threat to their only

means of livelihood threatened people's lives. N.A.P.G.
MacKenzie, an ADO, observed that the Obowo in Okigwe
Division faced economic hardships similar to those faced by the
people' in Owerri Province. MacKenzie linked the inability of
young men to marry and settle on the land to the poverty in the
area. According to him, only half the women had husbands and
only half the men had wives.120It is not surprising therefore that
women from these parts of Igboland took an active part in the
1929 protests.
Peasant protests in the region did not end in 1929.Subsequent
protests could also be traced to the crisis in the agricultural
economy. In 1933, 1,500 market women staged a boycott of trade
and broke up markets to enforce a boycott at Oron in Calabar
Province. They were demanding an increase in the price for palm
oil paid by the United Africa Company.121 In 1939, there was
another mass protest against taxation by both men and women in
Okigwe and Bende Divisions of Owerri Province.The disturbance
involved the Isuikwuato, Uturu, Nneato, Isuochi, Umuchieze,
Otanzu, and Otancharaclans of Okigwe Division, and the Alayi,
Item, and Umuimenyi clans of Bende Division. The prices for
palm produce, the main source of trade and revenue for these
areas, had fallen sharply. Reacting to the situation, the acting
secretary of the Southern Provinces conceded that the
administrationhad not made a proper allowance for the effects of
the trade decline in adjusting taxes. In his view, "the assessment
of the flat rate should be more scientific than it is now."122
119 NAE, MINLOC 6/1/175-EP 8840A, "Intelligence Report on Ekwerazu and

Ahiara Clans."
120NAE, MINLOC 6/1/215-EP 10595A, "Intelligence Report on Obowo and Ihitte
Clans."
122
Mba, Nigerian WomenMobilized, 99.
158 CHIMAJ. KORIEH
There were also protests against the control of food prices in

the local markets. In Owerri Province including Bende Division in
1944, women protested against the colonial government's attempt
to control the price of garri,the most important staple in the area.
The buying of garriby government agents at a price determined
by the government directly threatenedthe income of women who
controlled the production and sale of the product.123Some
communities responded by producing less or going into other
forms of trade although colonial taxes forced many to continue to
produce for the market. In a confidential memo to the Resident,
Owerri Province, the district officer for Ikot Epkene pointed out
that the flat rate tax was too high for poorer communities such as
those in his area. In October 1944, a government agent came to
Ikot Epkene market and purchased garri at the fixed price. There
were mass demonstrations in November by women armed with
cassava sticks and leaves at Nto Edino, Ikot Abia, Odoro Ikot, and
Mbuso-all Ibibio areas near Ikot Epkene.124 To the women who
produced the garri,the action of the government official was seen
as an attempt to take over their cassava farms. As in earlier years,
women fought against this threat to their livelihood in an already
precariousagriculturaleconomy.
The case of the Igbo and Ibibio of EasternNigeria is just one
example of how peasants protested during the colonial period as a
result of the frustration and limitations the colonial economy
imposed on them. But the Igbo case differs somewhat from other
economic/agricultural-relatedprotests in Africa. In the Gold
Coast, for example, a price-setting arrangementorganized by the
merchant houses for producers of cocoa in 1937 met with
retaliatory action when cocoa farmers and chiefs attempted to
form a producers' cartel and so rival the price-setting power
123Cited in Mba,
Nigerian WomenMobilized, 103.
124Mba, Nigerian Women
Mobilized, 103.
achieved by the merchant houses.125 Discontent with the

depression and worsening produce prices culminated in the
withholding of the cocoa crop in 1937.126 The structure of the
market also led cotton producers in East Africa to form
cooperative societies to force prices up. In this case, producers
faced a noncompetitive marketand the purchasersand processors
of the commodity were accustomed to lower prices. Thus the
structure of the market faced by the producers forced many to
embark on protests.27The commodity trade and the expansion of
the export of primary goods in Africa raised a hope of significant
economic gains. But in many instances the local producer faced
exploitation by numerous middlemen and European firms, a
situation that continued when marketingboards were established.
The profound historical importance of the various protests is
not confined to the courageous attempt of the women of Eastern
Nigeria to challenge their invisibility and resist their
impoverishment under colonialism. These protests were linked to
the economic crisis that gripped the region as a result of the low
prices of agriculturalproduce. The economic factors in the protest
revealed the thinness of the line between colonial political and
economic policies. Certainly, the political was linked to the
economic in several ways. But the revolts highlight the crisis that
had emerged in the agricultural sector. The fiery response of
women to the erosion of their economic autonomy and the control
the colonial state imposed on peasants shows their centrality to
the region's agriculture.The action of the women was directed to
the restoration of economic stability, which had been affected by
patriarchalcolonial policies.
125Bates, Essays on the Political

Economy,93.
126 G. B. Kay, The Political Economy of Colonialism in Ghana: A Collection of
Documents and Statistics 1900-1960 (Cambridge, 1972), 44.
127See Bates,
Essays on the Political Economy,92.
160 CHIMAJ.KORIEH
The Aba Commission of Inquiry compared the Women's War

and its slogan, Oha ndi inyom (all women), to the women's
suffrage movement in England where militant feminists
committed breaches of the law with a view to drawing the widest
attention to what they believed to be the inherent justice of their
cause. The Eastern Nigerian women's protests aimed to pressure
the colonial state to reconsider its economic policies, and they
reveal a society facing serious agricultural crises. The protests
indicate that women were not peripheral to the agricultural
economy in the region despite the influential role men played in
palm oil production and marketing.But they also reveal a region
that was in economic crisis as a result of the threat to its
agriculturalbase.
VI
Conclusion
This article has demonstrated that colonial agricultural
policies were gendered and contributed to the agricultural crisis
that emerged in Igboland during the colonial period. Women in
particular were invisible in colonial agricultural extension
services, but they continued to negotiate their economic
participation based on Igbo social relations. The economic
transformationsof the period affected peasants in ways that had
importantimplications for agriculture.The complementarynature
of women's and men's agriculturalroles altered in various ways
as a result of colonialism. But the article has illuminated the
important roles female labor played in sustaining peasant farming
and household food security despite the constraints imposed by
colonial rule and the ideology of the male "genuine farmer."It has
shown how women who constituted the main subsistence
producers were deprived of the practical lessons offered by the
extension staff of the agricultural department for improving
agricultural production and soil conservation. This of course is
related to the emphasis placed on export production,which

systematicallyreduced women to mere adjuncts in colonial
agriculturalschemes.
The agriculturalcrisis and food insecurity that emerged
during the colonial period were the result of the neglect of
food production, the agricultural intensification, the
establishment of oil palm groves, and the new consumer
culture that increased peasants' dependency on imported
commodities for their food needs. But women continued to
participate in the production and marketing of cash crops
and adopted new strategies to meet the demands of a
changing agriculturaleconomy. In contrastto the findings of
Susan Martin in the Ngwa area, the article has argued that
the commercializationof palm oil production did not greatly
alter the production process. Although men increasingly
dominated the middleman position in the trading system,
women continued to control the marketing of palm oil and
palm kernels at the local level. For many women, the control
of production of palm kernels, which became important as
an export commodity, meant a substantial personal income.
Peasant protest although dominated by women indicates an
agrarian economy in serious crisis as a result of events
beyond its control. The most pervasive influences on gender
were related to factors emanating from outside the society,
beyond the control of local people. The long-term
implication relates to the negative effects on the agricultural
system as a result of incorporating the local into a global
economy.
The article has challenged the dominant political
interpretationof the protest movements during the colonial
period and illuminated the connection between peasants'
162 CHIMAJ.KORIEH
protests from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s and the

agricultural crisis that emerged in Igboland. The
commercialization of agriculture and the nature of the
colonial economy speeded up social and economic change.
These changes adversely affected the rural agricultural
economy by creating a dependency on income from export
crops. The transformations also created opportunities for
both men and women to diversify income-generating
strategies. But women in particularprotested because of the
threat to the agriculturalbasis of their economy. It was a
matter of survival in an increasingly precarious situation.

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African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin--Madison

African Economic History 29 (2001): 117-162

distinguished by the roles that gender ideology played in

1The political, economic, and social dimensions of colonialism were inseparably

article then considers the details of the transformationsin gender

2 Mainstream colonial policies

gender and class relations in the colonized society. These

exclusionist tendencies and divide-and-rule tactics curtailed the

administration,which denied women access to capital/credit,but

production and ensured the continuity of the precapitalist social

Agricultural Training and Extension Services

14Margot Lovett "Gender Relations," 23.

resulting from these activities was negligible. Some scholars have

17K. Hart, The Political

sector was expected to benefit from the introduction of new and

20 Specific problems with soil

23Nigeria: First Annual Bulletin the

number of rural laborers for agriculture.26This colonial official

men. In 1940, the director of cooperative societies noted the

The colonial authorities did not consider the attitude of young

30 NAE, EKETDIST1/2/50, File no. 499, "Cooperative Agricultural Settlements for

mid-1950s with a policy that often misdirected the services that

34Eastern Region, Annual Report of the Agricultural Department, 1952-53 (Enugu,

The gendered nature of colonial agriculturalpolicy was

37Chuku, "The Changing Role of Women," 149.

increasingly becoming trapped in structural poverty. The

mattered little to either men or women.43The lack of a clear

43Interview with Linus Onyegbule Korieh, Ihitteafoukwu, Mbaise, 17 December

"dangerous," and heavy duties to men.46Toward the end of the

processes by men in state-run oil palm mills as well as in large-

ThePalm Oil Press

Table 1: Palm Oil Extraction:Traditional and Press Methods

51See Anyanwu, "The Igbo Family," 200.

Usoro also made a comparisonbetween the man-hours spent

Pioneer Oil Mills

52 Usoro, The Nigerian Oil Palm

of production at the household level and women's ability to

Table 2: Processing Machines in EasternNigeria, 1959-1960

While government was investing in the cash crop sector, it paid no

Agricultural Department could not persuade women to use the

58Mba. Nigeria WomenMobilized,75.

concentrated in the Ngwa, Azumini, and Cross River areas.

62See Mba, Nigerian WomenMobilized, 112-114.

especially in the highly populated parts of Igboland. Oral

67 Interview with E. Ihediwa, Owerrenta, 24 July 1999.

and the beginnings of motor lorry transport, men in particular

71 Interview with Ihediwa, Owerrenta, 24 July 1999.

73M. A. Klein, Peasants in Africa:Historical and ContemporaryPerspectives (London,

European goods that increasingly became part of the new

74See J. C. Anene, Southern Nigeria in Transition 1885-1906 (Cambridge, 1966),

problem of market regulations and price control.7 Hyden claimed

Economic Depression and Peasant Revolts, 1929-1939

80 See NAE, 62/1925-AWDIST 2/1/57, and NAE, 391/1925-OMPROF 7/12/92,

82 NAE, MINLOC 6/1/215-EP 10595A,

as interferencewith their trade.85The crisis in the cash crop sector

8s See numerous complaints by women in Aba Commission of Inquiry. Notes of

supplied the bulk of total world output. But the independence of

The 1929 Women's Revolt

88 The Native Revenue (Amendment) Ordinance of 1927 was aimed specifically

without major incidents, thanks to the widespread and careful

colonial authority, the "Women's War," as the women called it,

We heard that women were being counted by their chiefs. Women

92See Mba, Nigeria WomenMobilized,76.