Administration and Taxation in Former Portuguese Africa: 1900-1945 - Hardcover

"Scholarship on the Portuguese African colonies is sparse and this book makes an important contribution to our knowledge of, in particular, colonial administration and taxation in those colonies. The book highlights the clear lack of data from the Portuguese colonies and notes that much archival work remains to be done. Towards this end the authors have compiled from various archival data sources a description of the nature of taxation and administration in three colonies in Africa: Angola, northern Mozambique, and Portuguese Guinea, from 1900 to 1945. The volume is informative and does well to place the Portuguese colonies in the context of mainly the British and French colonies, but also at times of the Belgian and South African colonies."Martine MariottiAustralian National UniversityEconomic History Review, 69:4 (2016)"The fact that we have now left the age of easy and retroactive indignation makes this book an original contribution as it plunges into the statistics and archives of the [Portuguese] administration. This approach makes it possible to measure the real importance of taxation over 45 years in three colonial territories, which did not apply a general rule without also implementing necessary local variations. [...] To our knowledge, no other books like this one have been published to date, and if the word 'pioneering' still has meaning to Africanists, it can be used here to describe this work on Portuguese-speaking Africa."Rene PelissierPolitique africaine, 145 (2017/1)"This book [makes] an important contribution to including Portuguese Africa in a wider comparative literature on colonial fiscal policies, and to understanding the ways in which local and global contexts interacted to shape African interactions with the colonial state. Important work remains to be done on colonial expenditures and on the transition of colonial fiscal institutions to independence, to name just two issues. This book provides an important foundation for those future investigations."Leigh GardnerLondon School of Economics/Stellenbosch UniversityThe Journal of African History 59/1 (2018)

This book addresses a notable gap in the knowledge of Portuguese colonial administration and the policies implemented in the main territories of its "third" African empire: Angola, Mozambique and Guinea. In recent years, the question of colonial taxation has become a topic in the academic debate on colonial empires and has led to a comparative, long-term focus on its impact in African societies. Given that former Portuguese colonies in Africa have been largely absent from this debate, this book offers new perspectives on taxation and colonial rule, and the first detailed and comprehensive study of fiscal administration. Besides dealing with the economic and financial aspects of empire, the book interprets the social experience of African populations through their interaction with colonial institutions. Based on a thorough and probing qualitative and quantitative analysis of published and unpublished data, it places taxation in a broad social context for the period between the full military control of the territories and the end of WW II. Thus, whilst engaging with ongoing debates on comparative African economic and political history, the book provides a key contribution to research on African social change.