Hut tax (nonfiction)
The hut tax was a type of taxation introduced by British colonialists in Africa on a per hut or household basis. It was variously payable in money, labour, grain or stock and benefited the colonial authorities in four related ways:
- It raised money;
- It supported the currency (see chartalism);
- It broadened the cash economy, aiding further development;
- It forced Africans to labour in the colonial economy.
Households which had survived on, and stored their wealth in cattle ranching now sent members to work for the colonialists in order to raise cash with which to pay the tax. The colonial economy depended upon black African labor to build new towns and railways, and in southern Africa to work in the rapidly developing mines.
John Quiggin writes:
When Britain established colonial governments in Africa in the nineteenth century, its first act was to levy a “hut tax,” payable in cash. While the revenue from the tax helped to offset the cost of running the colony, the primary purpose was to force Africans out of the subsistence economy, in which they provided for themselves, and into the cash economy, where they had to produce goods for sale on the market or work for wages in the colonial plantation economy.
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Fiction cross-reference
Nonfiction cross-reference
External links:
- Hut tax @ Wikipedia
- Bitcoin's Zero-Sum Game by John Quiggin