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The Economic Dynamics of Spanish Colonialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries W.G. Clarence-Smith Itinerario / Volume 15 / Issue 01 / March 1991, pp 71 - 90 DOI: 10.1017/S0165115300005787, Published online: 22 April 2010

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/ abstract_S0165115300005787 How to cite this article: W.G. Clarence-Smith (1991). The Economic Dynamics of Spanish Colonialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Itinerario, 15, pp 71-90 doi:10.1017/S0165115300005787 Request Permissions : Click here

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The Economic Dynamics of Spanish Colonialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries W.G. CLARENCE-SMITH (SOAS, University of London)

The survival of the Spanish empire after the loss of the mainland American colonies is a neglected subject, and no part of it is more neglected than its economic features. General histories of Spain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries rarely touch on overseas matters, although the colonies do occasionally appear centre stage, as in 1868, when the Cuban Creoles rose in rebellion; in 1898, when Spain lost most of her colonies as a result of war with America; in 1921, when the Berber tribes of Northern Morocco defeated the Spanish army; and in 1936, when General Franco and his coconspirators raised the standard of rebellion against the Republic in NorthWestern Africa. But these references are episodic and essentially political, indeed military in nature. There is little structural analysis of what the colonies meant to Spain, least of all in the economic field.' Much of what has been written assumes that Spain had no economic motivation for colonial expansion and was simply clinging nostalgically to the tatters of former imperial glory. Madrid did at times withdraw into a kind of splendid isolation, but it is quite wrong to portray Spain as always clinging passively to the remnants of her empire. At times, the Spaniards participated actively, even aggressively, in the general process of European expansion. An attempt is made here to delineate seven broad phases in Spanish colonial expansion during the past two centuries, and to suggest how economic factors influenced the ebb and flow of the imperial tide. The main focus is on the nineteenth century, when Spain still possessed a significant empire. It is virtually impossible to draw up a general economic balance sheet for Spanish colonialism in this period.2 The suggestions made here are influenced by my work on the Portuguese empire and by Jacques Marseille's pioneering analysis of French imperialism.3 Particular interest groups in Spain undoubtedly did well out of colonialism. Entrepreneurs sometimes built up huge fortunes in the empire, and they intervened frequently, directly and often effectively in the making of colonial policy. For the

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middling stratum of the population, the empire provided a significant source of employment in the bureaucracy, the church, and the armed forces, as well as in plantations, trading companies and so forth. This 'whitecollar' stratum enjoyed some political influence through the press and specialised associations. For humbler social groups with little or no political clout, especially poor peasants in overcrowded regions of Spain, the colonies were a privileged, though by no means exclusive, focus for emigration.4 However, Spain may well have made an economic loss from her empire at a macro-economic level, partly because non-economic factors such as prestige and national honour played a major role in Spain's overseas policies, and partly because private interests often made their money through a system of protectionism and monopolies. Economic policies inherited from the mercantilist past cast a dark shadow over these two centuries, although Spanish colonialism was far from being merely static or reactionary in this respect.5 Unfortunately, it is easier to determine which narrow interests benefited from colonialism than it is to discover what the overall impact of such policies were on Spain and her colonies.

The Survival of Empire, 1824 to c. 1850 Spain's importance in nineteenth-century imperialism stemmed from the fact that she retained small but valuable possessions after her final defeat on the American continent at the battle of Ayacucho in 1824, largely because of British neutrality. Far from being bent on substituting British neo-colonialism for Spanish imperialism, as is often claimed, London was quite content to recognise whichever government held de facto control over a particular area, so long as British traders were given access to that territory/1 Spain found it impossible to suppress the revolts in her continental empire, but was able to cling on to a number of islands through the use of naval power. In terms of population, this residual Spanish empire was smaller in the mid-nineteenth century than that of Britain, Holland, or Russia, but it was larger than that of France, Portugal or Denmark.7 Moreover, the rather marginal and undeveloped territories which Spain retained in 1824 unexpectedly achieved an extraordinary degree of prosperity in the space of a few decades. Cuba surged ahead to become the world's largest producer of sugar, as well as a major supplier of the finest tobacco. The island was probably the richest colony in the world, surpassing even the fabled Java of the Dutch. Cuba may have been worth as much to Spain in the mid-nineteenth century as all her former mainland American colonies had been at the end of the eighteenth century.8 Puerto Rico, though much smaller, was more developed than many an independent Latin American country at the time, with a sugar boom giving way to a coffee boom in the first half of the century.9 The economy of the Philippines was also growing as never before, with sugar, tobacco and Manila hemp as the three motors of expansion.'"

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At the same time, Spain broke into the Black African market in a significant manner for the first time in her long imperial history. To provide her Antillean possessions with labour after the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807-08, Spain rapidly became the world's second slaving nation behind the Portuguese." Anti-slavery feeling was weak in Spain, and the withdrawal of the North Europeans was too tempting an opportunity to be missed.1'2 The Spaniards mainly used British goods to purchase slaves, but the infamous commerce gave a great boost to Spanish shipping, commerce and finance in certain parts of the metropolis, notably Andalusia and Catalonia.13 Moreover, a small trade in other African commodities, especially palm oil, grew up on the basis of slaving connections.14 However, Britain made strenuous efforts to suppress the 'odious commerce' in slaves, and opposed any territorial acquisitions by Spain in Black Africa, as these would have made the diplomatic imbroglio of the slave trade even more complex.15 Faced with this hostility, Madrid did not pursue territorial claims on the continent of Black Africa, although Spanish slavers in effect came to control parts of the coast.16 Thus the calls for Spanish annexation made by Pedro Blanco, the great Spanish slaver in the Gallinas area on the frontier between Sierra Leone and Liberia, fell on deaf ears.17 And the Spaniards did not occupy the islands of Fernando Poo and Annobon in the Gulf of Guinea, which had been ceded to them by Portugal for slave trading purposes in 1778, and over which Britain reluctantly recognised Spanish sovereignty. Under strong pressure from London, Madrid came close to selling the islands to Britain for £ 60,000.IB In any case, the fact that Spain was wrecked by civil strife up to the mid 1840s meant that governments had virtually no time to think of expanding the empire to compensate for the loss of the mainland American colonies.l!l Inaction in Black Africa was not exceptional. Nothing was done to consolidate the presidios, the footholds occupied by Spain since the sixteenth century along the North African coast, notably Ceuta and Melilla.20 Indeed, Oran in Algeria had been evacuated as recently as 1792, and it seemed at times as though the same fate might overtake the other presidios.'21 Similarly, Madrid remained passive in the face of the aggressive slave raids launched by the expanding Muslim sultanate of Sulu (Jolo) on the southern fringes of the Philippines, even though Sulu was claimed as part of the Spanish possessions in the Far East.22 And there was hardly any attempt to affirm strong historical claims to the vast archipelagos of the South Pacific, even though the nationals of many Western states suddenly appeared in large numbers in what had long been a 'Spanish lake'.2* Nor did colonial economic policy have much impact on the ground, given the weakness of metropolitan governments. To be sure, the Bourbon structure of modified but still quite rigourous colonial pact was replaced, in part to ensure uhat Britain did not actively move to strip Spain of her remaining possessions. A system of free access for all nations to colonial ports was thus introduced in 1818, although differential tariffs in favour

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of Spanish goods and shipping were retained.24 But Madrid did little to implement commercial regulations and frequently allowed private interests to grow rich by smuggling. The most glaring example of this lay in the field of the slave trade, with the authorities turning a blind eye to massive breaches in the law by ships of many nations." Governments in Madrid had a much more pressing interest in laying their hands on as much colonial cash as possible. This was not only because the rulers of Spain had to pay for civil wars and a crumbling administration in a situation of deep economic recession, but also because they wished to line their own pockets before the next pronundamiento forced them out of office. Cuba was indeed the chief milk cow of the Spanish 'political class'. In 1838, 12.5 million pesetas were taken from the overflowing Cuban treasury as a 'special subsidy' to pay for the rocketing cost of the war against the Carlists.2r> And the Queen Regent, Maria Cristina, was said to have diverted substantial Cuban revenues to build up her own private fortune.27 Obligatory 'loans', which were never repaid, were also extracted from the Philippines through the workings of the profitable tobacco monopoly.28

Imperial Expansion, c. 1850 to 1882 From about the mid-1840s the Spanish state became more stable, and Madrid began to pursue a more coherent and aggressive overseas policy. This was associated in particular with the name of Leopoldo O'Donnell, who dominated Spanish politics from the mid-1850s to his death in 1867.29 In the Americas, Spain re-occupied the eastern part of Santo Domingo in 1861-65, participated in the three power invasion of Mexico during 186162, fought Chile, Peru and Ecuador in 1864-66, and generally worked for a restoration of her power and influence over her old American empire.3" In Southeast Asia, the Spaniards consolidated their hold on the Philippines by first containing the Sulu sultanate and then beginning to extend a protectorate over it.31 Spain participated in a joint expedition with France against Vietnam in 1858-62 and gained a large indemnity from the Vietnamese emperor. However, attempts to secure part of Tonkin to balance French acquisitions in Cochinchina were frustrated by Napoleon III.'2 In North Africa, a large Spanish army invaded Morocco in 1859-60 and extracted a huge indemnity from the sultan. The Spaniards also obtained the right to a coastal foothold opposite the Canary Islands, which was not formally occupied, but which later formed the juridical basis for Spanish annexations in Southern Morocco.33 In Black Africa, Spain at last occupied Fernando Poo in 1858, and began to assert her authority on the coast of what later became the Spanish enclave of Rio Muni.'4 Although few longterm territorial gains came out of all this feverish activity, it nevertheless gives the lie to the characterisation of Spanish imperialism as merely defensive and conservative during the nineteenth century. The fiscal surpluses of the rich colonies did not altogether cease to be

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channelled to Madrid, b u t the major part of these funds were now used to finance the expansion of Spain's presence overseas. Between 1861 a n d 1865 C u b a provided 11.5 million pesetas for the Mexican expedition, a n d between 1862 a n d 1870, the Havana treasury h a d to find a n o t h e r 51.5 million pesetas for the war in Santo D o m i n g o , quite apart from paying for the suppression of a serious a n d lengthy rebellion in C u b a itself.S5 In 1874, it was d e c r e e d that Cuba should pay half the b u d g e t deficit of the fledgeling African colony of Equatorial Guinea, while the Philippines should provide a third, a n d P u e r t o Rico should make u p the rest. 36 Spanish emigration to the colonies b e c a m e a significant factor in these years, with Cuba as the major destination. Some emigrants were p l a c e m e n from the middle classes, who obtained a reward from their patrons in the form of temporary e m p l o y m e n t in the bloated administrative, clerical or military bureaucracies of the colonies. 3 7 O t h e r emigrants from similar or slightly lower social strata were traders, especially Catalans in Cuba a n d Mallorcans in P u e r t o Rico, w h o were p r e p o n d e r a n t at all levels of commerce. 3 8 A few of these traders b e c a m e very successful a n d moved into the ranks of the plantocracy. 3 9 For the poverty-stricken rural masses of an area like the Canaries, C u b a was also seen as a 'land of promise'. 4 0 Population grew fast in Spain after the d e m o g r a p h i c disasters of the early n i n e t e e n t h century, a n d p o o r peasants in land-short areas like the Asturias, Galicia a n d the Canary Islands began to emigrate o n a fair scale. 41 However, these p o o r Spaniards did n o t prove successful in easing the occasional labour shortages resulting from British restrictions o n imports of African slaves a n d Chinese 'coolies', a n d emigration did n o t take o n truly massive proportions. But t h e r e was a constant d e m a n d for p o o r Spanish immigrants o n the part of the C u b a n plantocracy, n o t only for labour, b u t also to 'whiten' the population a n d save the island from the fate of the French in Saint-Domingue. 4 2 Some emigrants m a d e fortunes in the colonies, a n d the most striking aspect of e c o n o m i c relations between Spain a n d h e r colonies in these years lay in the private profits which streamed to the metropolis, especially from Cuba. Stable political conditions a n d a fast growing e c o n o m y in Spain provided many investment o p p o r t u n i t i e s for colonial e n t r e p r e n e u r s who wished to repatriate their savings. Colonial funds thus r e p r e s e n t e d a high p r o p o r t i o n of the capital which went into the industrialisation of Catalonia, although m u c h colonial m o n e y also went into purchasing land a n d acquiring noble titles. 43 T h e profits of these new nabobs came n o t only from plantations a n d general c o m m e r c e , b u t also from the African slave trade a n d from a quasi slave t r a d e in Chinese 'coolies' t h r o u g h Macau. 44 However, the influx of funds was irregular a n d it may at times even have b e e n destabilising in its e c o n o m i c impact. T h u s the C u b a n rebellion of 1868 triggered off a h u g e repatriation of funds by nervous Catalan setders, resulting in a feverish b o o m in Barcelona in the following year. 45 Exports to the e m p i r e played a smaller role than remittances of funds,

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although they became of increasing significance to particular interest groups. Colonial expansion was carried out at a time when Spanish trade with Europe was expanding rapidly and free-trading ideas were strong in Spain, reflecting the hegemonic ideology of the times and the close ties with the France of Napoleon III.'1" Although exports to the colonies (including the Philippines) rose from 27.4 million pesetas in 1850 to a peak of 91.1 million pesetas in 1875, this represented a slight decline in the proportion of total Spanish exports, from 22.4% in 1850 to 20.2% in 1875. In the colonial context, free trade was severely limited, and one can say that the empire became a bastion of restrictive commercial practices in favour of those Spanish exporters who were not competitive on the European market. Import duties on Spanish goods in Cuba and Puerto Rico were lowered and even abolished in some cases, but high tariffs on competing foreign goods were maintained and sometimes even raised, and the authorities began to police the whole trading system more efficiently.47 The Antillean market was especially attractive to Catalan producers of cotton textiles and Castilian millers of wheat flour, once these two commodities were allowed into Cuba free of duty in the mid-1860s.4" Catalan textile exports to the colonies, almost all to Cuba, rose from a mere 75,000 pesetas in 1866 to 11.5 million pesetas in 1888.49 But the free population of Cuba and Puerto Rico was far from happy at the increase in the cost of living engendered by this form of protectionism. As for the Philippines, the Spaniards had difficulties in bringing them inside the protectionist system. Initially, differential tariffs by nationality of ship were imposed in favour of Spanish vessels, but these regulations were almost universally evaded. Foreign ships brought Western goods to Singapore or to other regional entrepots and these goods were then loaded onto small boats which flew the Spanish flag but were often owned by Chinese or other foreigners.5" The opening of the Suez canal in 1869 awakened a new Spanish interest in the potentialities of the Philippines as a protected market, and the 1871 tariffs placed differential duties on goods according to their place of origin, as well as according to the nationality of carriers. Protection was especially marked for Spanish cotton textiles, leather goods and bar iron. However, the effects of this new legislation were slow to manifest themselves, as the immense distance between the metropolis and the islands and the lack of Spanish shipping to the Far East pushed the costs of metropolitan exporters above the protective margin granted to them.51 Perhaps more important than the level of exports was the fact that Spain ran an increasingly large balance of trade surplus with her empire. This was in part administratively created and, together with the influx of private and public funds from the colonies, it helped to ensure the stability of the country's balance of payments. Madrid refused to lower import tariffs on many colonial products in tandem with falling colonial duties on Spanish goods, on the grounds that customs revenues at home would be imperiled.

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Imports from the e m p i r e thus grew m u c h m o r e slowly than Spanish exports to the e m p i r e . Imports from the colonies (including the Philippines) rose from 24.7 million pesetas in 1850 to 32.2 million pesetas in 1875, b u t this actually r e p r e s e n t e d a steep fall from 14.7% of all Spanish imports to a m e r e 5.6% over the same period."' 2 Creoles in the Antilles m o a n e d a b o u t the lack of tariff reciprocity for their staples in Spain, a n d their grievances over the cynicism of Spanish protectionist practices contributed n o t a little to the great C u b a n rebellion of the late 1860s. 53 T h e Atlantic e m p i r e also played an i m p o r t a n t role in sustaining the Spanish m e r c h a n t navy d u r i n g the difficult transition from sail to steam navigation, a transition which was m a d e all the h a r d e r by the collapse of the African slave trade in the late 1860s. G o v e r n m e n t m o n o p o l i e s a n d tariff discrimination o n Antillean routes were i m p o r t a n t in saving the m e r c h a n t navy.54 T h e c o n n e c t i o n between the declining slave trade a n d the new colonial m o n o p o l i e s in the d e v e l o p m e n t of a fleet of steamers was most clearly illustrated by the career of Antonio Lopez y Lopez, later Marquis of Comillas. Of obscure S a n t a n d e r origins, Lopez m a d e his initial fortune in the slave trade. H e then used his m o n e y a n d connections from 1852 to build u p a powerful steamship c o m p a n y with g o v e r n m e n t contracts o n the Antilles r u n , the C o m p a n i a Trasatlantica. 5 5 By 1892, this c o m p a n y accounted for a b o u t a q u a r t e r of the t o n n a g e of the Spanish m e r c h a n t navy.56 T h e C o m p a n i a Trasatlantica t h e n b r a n c h e d o u t into o t h e r colonial ventures, notably the Banco Hispano-Colonial a n d the quasi-monopolistic Tabacalera tobacco c o m p a n y in the Philippines. 5 7

The Scramble for Colonies and Neo-mercantilism, 1882 to 1898 As the scramble for colonies flared up in Europe in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, imperialist sentiment briefly caught alight in Spain in the form of the Africanista movement.58 The Africanistas were best known for their advocacy of expansion into North Africa.59 They also laid claim to huge areas of Western Africa.6" In the Orient, they pressed for an East African coaling station on the way to the Philippines, for the recognition of Spanish 'rights' in Northern Borneo, and for the occupation of the Micronesian archipelagoes of the Pacific. Their main spokesman, Joaquin Costa, even spoke of the necessity of taking over Portugal and its large African empire in the name of Iberian unity.61 The visionary dreams of the Africanistas led to few concrete results, and indeed Spain was the only European colonial power to emerge from the scramble with a smaller rather than a larger empire. The more powerful 'lions of imperialism' excluded Spain from any significant share of the spoils, and Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam were lost as a result of the war with the USA in 1898.62 Madrid then decided that it would be impossible to maintain an effective presence in the remaining Pacific archipelagoes, which were sold to Germany for 25 million pesetas in 1899.6'

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The scramble coincided with a resurgence of neo-mercantilist protectionist ideas in Spain, and the debate quickly spread to the sphere of colonial policy.54 Spain's rickety economy was hit particularly hard by the steep fall in the prices of Mediterranean agricultural commodities in the 'Great Depression' of the 1880s.65 But the Africanista movement was divided over the value of colonial protectionism as a solution to this crisis, and on balance tended to oppose it. The intellectuals in the movement and the Madrid financiers clung to the free trading ideological certainties of past years. They also feared that Spanish claims to large areas of the world might be vitiated in the eyes of other powers if Spain were to be seen to be imposing protectionist tariffs. But the financial backers of the Africanista movement were heavily concentrated in the ranks of the Catalan industrialists and shippers, and these men were baying for more colonial protection as a solution to the economic slump.66 There can be little doubt that the law of 1882 which increased colonial protectionism in the Antilles was perceived as beneficial by a wide swathe of economic interests. A process was begun of abolishing all remaining import tariffs on Spanish goods entering Cuba and Puerto Rico, while maintaining high duties on goods imported by these islands from other countries. Catalan cotton textile manufacturers, wine producers, shippers and shipbuilders, Mallorcan boot- and shoemakers, Castilian wheat farmers and flour millers, and Basque ship-builders and hardware producers all expanded their protected markets in the colonies in the difficult conditions of the end of the century, and many of them saw the empire as their salvation.67 Spanish exports to the colonies shot up from 79.1 million pesetas in 1882 to a peak of 299 million pesetas in 1896, going from 10.3% to 29.2% of total exports.68 Madrid's tightening of the protectionist screw went together with a continuing refusal to grant full reciprocal treatment to colonial imports entering Spain, at least in the case of the major colonial staples. The 1882 law was meant to grant tariff reciprocity to colonial products imported by the metropolis, in such a way as to lead in the space of a decade to complete free trade between Spain and her colonies. However, sugar, rum, coffee and cocoa were made temporary exceptions to the 1882 law.69 The old fiscal concern with the loss of customs revenues was partly responsible, but there were also new metropolitan lobbies demanding protection for their products against colonial competition. Thus the recently developed Andalusian sugar beet growers lobbied vigorously and successfully against free imports of colonial sugar. Brandy producers in various parts of Spain also pressed for controls on rum imports.™ Tobacco sales were regulated through the workings of the state monopoly rather than by tariffs, but the conflicts were of the same nature. Colonial groups claimed that the tobacco monopoly discriminated against free imports from Cuba and the Philippines, while the Canary Islanders blamed their problems with tobacco cultivation on colonial competition.71 Imports from the colonies did rise in both

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aggregate and proportional terms, going from 28.7 million pesetas (3.5% of all imports) in 1882 to 149.9 million pesetas (16.5% of all imports) in 1896. However, this still left a huge trade balance in favour of Spain.72 Matters came to a head with the 1892 decision to almost double metropolitan tariffs on imports of Cuban, Puerto Rican and Philippino sugar. This led to a sharp contraction in Spanish sugar imports from Cuba. It also created great resentment in the Philippines, where the sugar entrepreneurs hoped to fall back on the Spanish market as the world price for sugar fell to its lowest level for decades." The combination of Creole rebellions and outrage on the part of the USA, which was also largely caused by Spanish colonial tariffs, led directly to Spain's humiliation in 1898.74

The Creation of an African Empire, 1898 to c. 1918 Spain's attempts to compensate for the defeat of 1898 by building up a large African empire were frustrated by a combination of disillusionment at home and French diplomatic manoeuvres. This period constituted a low point in awareness of and interest in the colonies, after the hectic years of Africanista propaganda, and there was little public support for further colonial expansion. The focus of remaining Spanish ambitions lay in Morocco, where the abortive Franco-Spanish treaty of 1902 placed Fez in a Spanish sphere in the north, while including the Sus in a southern Spanish sphere. This would have amounted to a fairly large and populous area. But the revised treaty of 1904 was much less generous to Madrid, and corresponded roughly to the small slivers of northern and southern Morocco which Spain eventually obtained in 1912.75 As for areas further south, the Treaty of Paris in 1900 greatly reduced the extent of the Western Sahara and Rio Muni, compared to the ambitious claims put forward by Madrid.76 And yet, the possessions which Spain retained were not as economically insignificant as is sometimes claimed. The iron mines of the Rif in northern Morocco were perhaps the greatest magnet for Spanish capital. The rich fishing resources of the Saharan banks, mainly exploited by the Spanish fishing fleet based in the Canaries, also attracted funds from Madrid financiers, although results proved disappointing.77 The cocoa plantations of Fernando Poo, freed of Cuban competition, grew fast and came to meet a rapidly increasing proportion of Spain's traditionally large internal market for this commodity.78 Within this little African empire, the Spaniards reproduced many of the economic patterns which had characterised their old colonies, in spite of the arguments of reformers that Spain had lost to the USA in 1898 because she had not known how to run a modern empire. The continuities between the lost colonies and the new African empire were perhaps demonstrated most clearly by the adaptation of the Compania Trasatlantica of Barcelona. Founded by the first Marquis of Comillas on the basis of Cuban interests, the company obtained monopolistic control of shipping to the Western

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Sahara and Equatorial Guinea from the 1880s and built up large commercial, fishing, cocoa and ranching interests in these two colonies.79 The second Marquis of Comillas was also one of the two principal investors in the chief Moroccan mining company, the Sindicato Espanol de Minas del Rif, which was set up in 1908.*" Most of the Spaniards who built up trading firms and cocoa plantations in Equatorial Guinea were Catalans, financially backed by commercial houses of Barcelona, thus creating a replica in miniature of the situation which had existed in Cuba.1" And critics argued that placemen flocked to the over-extended bureaucracy of Equatorial Guinea much as they had done to those of the old colonies, albeit on a far smaller scale.82 There appeared to be a break with 'old colonialism' in the form of commercial liberalisation, but this was chiefly due to the special circumstances prevailing in North-Western Africa. All of Spain's possessions in this region were subjected to free-trade regimes, mainly because of international agreements safeguarding free-trade in Morocco.8* Similar tariffs were adopted in the Western Sahara because it would otherwise have been impossible to compete with Moroccan ports.84 As for the Canary Islands, they were placed outside the Spanish tariff net partly for the same reason, and partly because the Canary bourgeoisie successfully insisted on obtaining free-port status for the archipelago's major harbours. Madrid had to tread carefully in the Canaries in the face of separatist sentiments and the expansionist ambitions of certain groups in the USA after the disaster of 1898.85 In reality, old attitudes towards colonial protectionism died hard, as the case of Equatorial Guinea demonstrated. The territory remained a captive market for metropolitan products through the workings of a differential tariff system after 1898, given that there were no international agreements to constrain Madrid's freedom of action in this part of Africa.86 At the same time, the planters complained bitterly that Spain refused to grant reciprocal preferential tariffs to their cocoa, because the treasury did not want to lose the revenue from import duties.87 These conflicts faithfully mirrored those which had existed in the Antilles before the disaster of 1898, and showed that the Spanish 'political class' had not really learned anything from its defeat by the USA.

Fiscal Deficits and Foreign Exchange Extraction, c. 1918 to 1936 As Spain began to drift into depression after the temporary boom induced by her neutrality in the First World War, the colonial issue suddenly returned to the forefront of national economic preoccupations, this time for fiscal reasons. Fighting with the tribes of die Rif Mountains in Northern Morocco began on a small scale in 1909, sparked off by an attack on the new mining operations in the Melilla area.88 The fighting gradually intensified, culminating in a humiliating defeat for the Spanish army in 1921. This led to a

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rapid escalation in the rebellion, and consequendy to a great increase in military costs. The Spanish budgetary deficit of over a thousand million pesetas in 1921-22 was almost all attributable to the Rif War.89 The defeat of the Rif rebels in 1926 did not put an end to this running sore in Spanish finances, for the dictator Primo de Rivera maintained the bloated 'Army of Africa' in place. Even the Republic after 1931 did not dare to compress expenditure too much on the army, for fear of provoking the kind of military rising which was ultimately to prove its undoing.90 The fiscal burden of propping up the 'Army of Africa' was thought by some Spanish politicians to be partially offset by a new-found utility of the colonies as a source of foreign exchange.91 The monetary instability which engulfed the world after the war rapidly spread to Spain, and the control of foreign exchange became a central preoccupation of ministers of finance for the first time. The recession of die 1930s added a new urgency to this problem, as export revenues contracted and remittances from emigrants fell dramatically.92 The substitution of foreign imports by colonial goods was thus stimulated, essentially by lowering import duties on colonial produce, as the planters of Fernando Poo had long demanded. In 1925, 58% of Spain's cocoa already came from Equatorial Guinea, a proportion which rose to 80% by 1930 and nearly 100% in 1935.93 Similarly, timber exports from Guinea to Spain increased from some 3,000 tons in 1930 to around 80,000 tons on the eve of the Spanish Civil War.94 Coffee and palm oil exports to Spain from Guinea also grew fast. However, the foreign exchange advantages of importing colonial produce were at times offset by high prices, low quality and lost revenue from customs duties.95 Some of these disadvantages could be avoided by the complementary strategy of reexporting colonial produce, notably Moroccan iron ore and cocoa and okume wood from Equatorial Guinea. Germany, shorn of its colonies in 1919, was the principal market for such re-exports.96 The emergence of foreign exchange as a major factor in colonial economic policy changed the relative position of Equatorial Guinea and Spanish Morocco in terms of Spanish investment.97 Guinea was much more capable than Morocco of providing goods which could not be produced in Spain. Fiscal and other concessions were thus multiplied to stimulate output in Guinea, directing an ever growing proportion of Spanish funds to the plantations and forestry concessions of Equatorial Guinea.98 The colonies also began to become somewhat more significant as export markets, although, in this respect, relatively well-populated Spanish Morocco was a greater attraction than sparsely inhabited Equatorial Guinea. From a mere 1% to 2% of total Spanish exports before the First World War, the share of the overseas territories outside the Spanish fiscal system, that is including die Canary Islands, rose to around 5% after 1918. This was still modest, but the picture seen from the viewpoint of the cotton textile industry, always a powerful lobby in Spain, was more favourable. The overseas territories before the war had accounted for around 10% of

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Spanish exports of cotton goods, a proportion which rose to 26% in 1925 and 34% in 1930."

The Empire and the War Economy, 1936 to c. 1950 After 1936 Spain's colonial situation was transformed by the effects of war. The terrible civil war of 1936 to 1939 not only ravaged Spain but also spilled over into the colonial sphere.100 The Nationalist uprising began in the Canaries and North Africa, and the 'Army of Africa' soon mopped up the pockets of Republican resistance in the towns of Northern Morocco."" Southern Morocco and the Western Sahara were also quickly overrun. Equatorial Guinea held out for a while, especially the continental enclave of Rio Muni, but the territory was conquered without much difficulty by a ship-load of Moroccan troops.102 By the end of 1936, the overseas territories were all firmly in the hands of the military rebels. A few years later, as the Franco regime trembled on the brink of entering the world war on the side of the Axis powers, the Spanish right wing began to dream of a huge expansion of this little empire. Alliance with the Axis held out the tantalising prize of major territorial gains in Northern and Western Africa, although Spanish ambitions came up against the countervailing plans of sections of the German Nazi Party and the Italian Fascist Party. The more extremist elements in the Spanish Falange also spoke of imposing an Iberian union on Portugal and her colonies, of the return of the Philippines to Spain by the Japanese invaders, and even of some kind of re-imposition of Spanish rule in Latin America.'03 Although nothing came of these dreams of empire, the existing overseas territories provided the Franco regime with vital foreign exchange with which to wage the civil war, the importance of which has often been underestimated.104 The military rebels who seized Fernando Poo were obsessed with laying their hands on all the foreign exchange which could be found there, present and future, and this appears to have been the main economic reason leading the Franco side to divert men and equipment at a critical juncture to seize the colony.105 Colonial re-exports helped to pay for German and Italian weapons and for other goods and services, at least to the extent that the rebels could evade the various forms of international economic blockade.106 At the same time supplies from the overseas territories to Spain herself strengthened the Nationalists during the Civil War, and helped them to cope with the state of near-starvation which prevailed in many parts of the country during the Second World War. Fruit and vegetables from the Canary Islands, fish from all over North-Western Africa, and dried bananas and manioc from Guinea were of great importance to a population desperate for food.107 Cocoa continued to come from Fernando Poo, and early in 1938 a determined and successful campaign was launched to get the peasants of Rio Muni to grow coffee for the Nationalist market, where

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prices had risen dramatically.108 By 1945, 81% of Spain's coffee came from Guinea.109 Wood and palm oil from Guinea were also important to the Franco forces, although shipping shortages constrained supplies."0 Wild rubber from Guinea and the Canaries became crucial after the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia, when rubber shortages nearly brought the Spanish economy to its knees.1" In these circumstances, it is not surprising that Spanish imports from the territories classified as 'Canarias y Colonias' peaked at 21% of the country's total imports by value in 1942."2 The utility of these raw materials was to some extent offset by the necessity of supplying the overseas territories with manufactures, and in the case of Morocco with substantial quantities of cereals and other basic foodstuffs, at a time when Spain was short of almost everything. This was a major reason for the launching of an ambitious development plan in Spanish Morocco in 1939, in spite of the state's fiscal resources being very constrained."3 For some economic groups, the overseas markets may still have been attractive. At any rate, by 1942, about a quarter of all Spanish exports, and fully 90% of the country's cotton textiles, were going to 'Canarias y Colonias', with about half of that amount destined for the colonies proper."4

Decolonisation and Investment, c. 1950 to 1976 As the dreams of economic autarky which characterised Franco's early years in power collapsed after the ending of the war, notably from the early 1950s, the position of the colonies in Spain's political economy altered radically. Spain opened herself up to the capitalist world order, and her economy began to grow fast. Trade with Western nations blossomed, and abundant foreign exchange was provided through tourism and the remittances of workers in Western Europe."5 The little overseas territories ceased to be of any commercial significance to the metropolis in terms of exports, imports or sources of foreign exchange. Imperial economic policy thus shifted towards a 'developmental' perspective, with a view to justifying Spain's colonial record before the United Nations and containing the growing demands for independence from the peoples of the colonies. There occurred a spurt of 'developmental late colonialism', not dissimilar to the 'second colonial occupation' experienced by British and French colonies in Africa."6 Equatorial Guinea came to enjoy one of the highest levels of per capita exports in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1960s, and the newly exploited phosphate deposits of the Western Sahara placed this territory firmly on the world economic map for the first time in its colonial history. Economic growth propelled by state planning went together with crash programmes in the fields of education and health, which had been sadly neglected for many years."7 At the same time, Franco came to realise that the decolonisation of the overseas territories could be of use as small bargaining counters in his attempts to break out of Spain's post-war international isolation. Unlike

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Salazar in neighbouring Portugal, Franco did not need the colonies to underpin his regime in ideological terms, and so he could use them to propitiate the international community. Franco therefore set in motion a cynical, opportunist and manipulative process of decolonisation, which tended to occur in reaction to perceived threats and advantages rather than following any kind of logical plan. The process began with the rushed retreat from the northern zone of the Moroccan protectorate in 1956, followed by the evacuation of the southern zone two years later. Decolonisation reached a turning point with the independence of Equatorial Guinea in 1968 and the return of the Ifni enclave to Morocco a year later, and it ended with the debacle of the hand-over of the Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauretania in 1976.'l8 Only Ceuta and Melilla remain, with their rapidly growing Muslim populations, as a vestige of Spanish overseas expansion and a final bone of contention with Morocco, while expressions of Canary separatist sentiment occasionally trouble political life in the islands."9 Part of the complexity of the process of decolonisation stemmed from the fact that Spain kept one influential and indeed growing economic interest in these territories, in the form of private Spanish investment. A small group of capitalists with considerable political influence rapidly built up their interests, in tandem with the influx of public capital, and they did all they could to keep their assets safe after independence. This was especially the case in Equatorial Guinea, where Admiral Luis Carrera Blanco, who was prime minister and Franco's heir apparent until he was murdered by terrorists in 1973, had large and varied personal investments. He thus tried to manipulate the process of decolonisation to his own advantage. However, he and his friends narrowly failed in their attempts to keep the independent state of Equatorial Guinea safe for Spanish capital after 1968. Francisco Macias Nguema, who was the candidate of an outsider faction within the Spanish elite, just managed to win the presidential elections by splitting the vote, and he then brought the whole country crashing down in ruins around his ears.120 The terrible war which ravaged the Western Sahara after it was handed over to Morocco and Mauretania had much the same effect in that territory.121 Spanish efforts to safeguard their investments proved far less successful than seventy years before in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

Conclusion The common thread which runs through all the twists and turns of this story is that Spanish colonial economic policies consistently aimed to distort colonial markets of all kinds to the advantage of Spanish nationals. In this respect, Spanish colonialism was similar to that of the other backward capitalist metropoles of Southern and Eastern Europe, and rather different from that of the more free-trading British and Germans.122 Such policies probably contributed to slower economic growth in both Spain and her

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colonies. Colonialism of the ancien regime type was not a zero-sum game in which the metropolis profited at the expense of the colonies, as is sometimes claimed. Rather it was a system which benefited metropolitan monopolists at the expense of the development of both Spain and her colonies. This said, the fact that colonial fortunes were largely amassed in Spain, or repatriated there by those who made it in the colonies, suggests that the metropolis may have suffered somewhat less than the dependent territo-

Appendix Average exchange rate of the Spanish peseta expressed in pounds (sterling), 1812-1969 1812-1868: c. 25 pesetas = £1 (the unit of account usually employed in this period was the real de vellon, with 4 reales equivalent to 1 peseta; real exchange rates fluctuated considerably) 1868-1889: 25.22 pesetas = £1 (official fixed exchange rate, with peseta usually traded at a slight premium) 1890-1929: fluctuates between 26 and 35 pesetas to £1 1930-1945: fluctuates between 36 and 46 pesetas to £1 1946-1959: rapid depreciation from 50 pesetas to £1 to nearly 170 pesetas to £1 1959-1969: stabilisation at around 167 pesetas to £1

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Notes *

All Spanish names are given in second and subsequent references by the first surname only. Values for the peseta are given in an appendix at the end of the text. 1

2

3

4

5 6 7 8

9 10

11

12 13 14 15

16 17 18

Raymond Carr's monumental Spain 1808-1975 (2nd ed.; Exford 1982), includes a great deal of valuable material on colonial matters, but fails to draw out the importance of the subject, especially in its economic aspect. Much worse is N. Sanchez-Albornoz ed., The Economic Modernization of Spain, 1830-1930 (New York 1987), which does not even have an index entry for Cuba! The best brief overview i s j . Maluquer de Motes Bernet, 'El mercado colonial antillano en el siglo XIX' in: J. Nadal and G. Tortella eds., AgricuUura, comercio cobnialy crecimiento economico en la Espana contempordnea (Barcelona 1974) 322-357. Unfortunately this excellent chapter does not cover Africa and the Philippines at all systematically and is confined to the nineteenth century. G. Clarence-Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1974, a Study in Economic Imperialism (Manchester 1985); J. Marseille, Empire colonial el capitalisms francais, histoire d'un divorce (Paris 1984). Much of this is covered in M.C. Lecuyer and C. Serrano, La guerre d 'Afrique et ses repercussions en Espagne, 1859-1904 (Paris 1976). This is an important book, which covers a much wider span of Spanish colonial history than its title implies. Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial'. D.C.M. Platt, Latin America and British Trade, 1806-1914 (London 1972). Almanach de Cotha, annuaire diplomatique et statistique pour Vannee 1858 (Gotha 1858). Statistics are given for each metropolis and its colonies. Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio, complejo economico social cubano del azucar (2nd ed.; Havana 1978); F.W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century (Madison 1970); R. Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848 (London 1988). L.W. Bergad, Coffee and the Growth of Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth Century Puerto Rico (Princeton 1983); J.L. Dietz, Economic History of Puerto Rico (Princeton 1988) ch. 1. N.G. Owen, Prosperity without Progress: Manila Hemp and Material Life in the Colonial Philippines (Berkeley 1984); E.C. de Jesus, The Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines, 1782-1882 (Ph.D. thesis; Yale University 1973); Y. Nagano, 'Formation of Sugarlandia in the late 19th century Negros' in: The Philippines in the Third World Papers, Series No. 32 (Quezon City 1982); N.P. Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, from conquest to revolution (Manila 1971); A. W. McCoy and E.C. de Jesus eds., Philippine Social History (Manila 1982). W.G. Clarence-Smith, 'La traite portugaise et espagnole en Afrique au XIXe siecle' in: S. Daget ed., De la traite a Vesclavage, Actes du colloque international sur la traite des noirs (Nantes 1989) 425-434. F. de Solano and A. Guimera eds., Esclavitudy derechos humanos (Madrid 1990) Part I, 'El abolicionismo Espanol'. D. Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York 1987) passim. I. Sundiata, 'Cuba Africana: Cuba and Spain in the Bight of Biafra, 1839-1869' Americas 34, 1 (1977) 92-93. D.R. Murray, Odious Commerce, Britain, Spain and the Abolition of the Cuban Slave Trade (Cambridge 1980); A. Morales Carrion, Augey decadencia de la trata negrera en Puerto Rico, 1820-1860 (San Juan 1978). See, for example, A. Jones, Erom Slaves to Palm Kernels, a History of the Galinhas Country (West Africa), 1730-1890 (Wiesbaden 1983). J.A. Moreno Moreno, Resena hislorica de la presencia de Espana en el Golfo de Guinea (Madrid 1952) 28. Moreno, Resena, 93-94.

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19 Details in Carr, Spain. 20 A. Troncosa de Castro, Ceuta y Melilla, 20 sighs de Espana (Madrid 1981). 21 R.G. Woolben, 'Spain as an African power', Foreign Affairs 24 (1946) 726. 22 J.F. Warren, The Sulu Zone, I768-1898: the Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State (Singapore 1981) Part II. 23 F. Rodao Garcia ed., Estudios sobreFilipinos y las islas del Patifico (Madrid 1989); F. Rodao Garcia ed., Espana y el Pacifico (Madrid 1989); O.K. Spate, A History of the Pacific since Magellan (2 vols.; London 1979 and 1983) for the phrase "Spanish lake'. 24 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 345. 25 A.F. Corwin, Spain and the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, 1817-1886 (Austin 1967) 54; Murray, Odious Commerce, passim. 26 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 326. See appendix for value of peseta. 27 Carr, Spain, 211; Corwin, Spain, 104-105. 28 Jesus, 'The Tobacco Monopoly', 137-139. 29 Carr, Spain, passim. 30 I. Bell, TheDominican Republic (Boulder 1981) ch. 6;J. Haslip, Imperial Adventurer, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico and his Empress (London 1971); Carr, Spain, 260-261, 300 n. 2. 31 Warren, The Sulu Zone II. 32 F. Gainza and F. Villaroel, Cruzada espanola en Vietnam, campana de Cochinchina (Madrid 1972). 33 Lecuyer and Serrano, La guerre d'Afrique. 34 Moreno, Resena historical Hahs, 'Spain and the scramble'. 35 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 325-326. See appendix for value of peseta. 36 M. Liniger-Goumaz, IM Guinee Equatoriale, un pays meconnu (Paris 1979). 37 Owen, Prosperity juithout Progress, 193-195, 200; Carr, Spain, 307. 38 J. Maluquer de Motes Bernet, 'La burgesia catalana i l'esclavitud colonial: modes de produccio i pratica polftica', Recerques 3 (1974) 83-136; Carr, Spain, 308; Bergad, Coffee, 212-213 and passim. 39 For Cuba, J. Vicens i Vives and M. Llorens i Serrano, Industrials i politics del segle XIX (2nd ed.; Barcelona 1961), biographies in part II, and Moreno, El ingenio, passim. For Puerto Rico, Bergad, Coffee, 212 and passim. For the Philippines, Owen, Prosperity; Nagano, 'Formation of Sugarlandia'. 40 E. Romeu Palazuelos et al., 1MS Islas Canarias (Madrid 1981) 129. 41 J. Harrison, An Economic History of Modern Spain (Manchester 1978) 21-24; Carr, Spain, 10-11; Corwin, Spain, 110. 42 Corwin, Spain, 110, 199, and passim. 43 Maluquer, 'La burgesia catalana'; Vicens and Llorens, Industrials i politics. 44 J. Perez de la Riva, El barracan: esclavitud y capitalismo en Cuba (2nd ed.; Barcelona 1978); D.C. Corbitt, A Study on the Chinese in Cuba, 1847-1947 (Wilmore 1971); D. Helly, Ideologie et ethnidte: Its Chinois Macao a Cuba, 1847-1886 (Montreal 1979). 45 Maluquer, 'La burgesia catalana', 115 n. 120. 46 Carr, Spain, 277-280; 343, 539. 47 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', Table 1. 48 Carr, Spain, 280. 49 E. Escarra, lje developpement industriel de la Catalogne (Paris 1908) 149 n. 1. See appendix for value of peseta. 50 Warren, The Sulu Zone, passim. 51 Cushner, Spain, 209. 52 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 323, 333-336, 345-348, 351 and Table 1. 53 Carr, Spain, 280, 307-308; Corwin, Spain, 206. 54 Liniger-Goumaz, IM Guinee, 457. 55 Maluquer, 'La burgesia', 109 n. 90; Vicens and Llorens, Industrials ipolitics, 92; Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana XFV, 684. 56 T. Hodges, Historical Dictionary of the Western Sahara (Metuchen 1982) 208-209.

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57 Vicens i Vives, Industrials i politics, 370-371. 58 Lecuyer and Serrano, La guerre d'Afrique, provide the best overall view, although their treatment of economic factors in unsatisfactory. 59 R.C. Bogard, Africanismo and Morocco, 1830-1912 (Ph.D. thesis; University of Texas at Austin 1975). 60 B.G. Hahs, Spain and the Scramble for Africa: the Africanistas and the Gulf of Guinea (Ph.D. thesis; University of New Mexico 1980) 55. 61 Lecuyer and Serrano, La guerre d 'Afrique, Hahs, 'Spain and the Scramble'; Bogard, 'Africanismo'; Rodao, Espana y el Pacifico. 62 C. Serrano, Final del imperio; Espana 1895-1898 (Madrid 1984). 63 Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana XI, 1230, and XXXIII, 82. See appendix for value of peseta. 64 W.G. Clarence-Smith, 'The Portuguese and Spanish roles in the Scramble for Africa: an economic interpretation' in: S. Forster et al. eds., Bismarck, Europe and Africa: the Berlin West African Conference and the Onset of Partition (Oxford 1988) 215-227. 65 Harrison, An Economic History, 34. 66 Lecuyer and Serrano, IM guerre d'AJrique, 249,272-272,276, and passim; Bogard, 'Africanismo', passim. 67 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 346-347 and passim; Bogard, 'Africanismo', 110; Carr, Spain, 397-398; Escarra, Le developpement industries 166. 68 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', Table 1. 69 Serrano, Final del imperio, 11; Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 348. 70 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 348; Harrison, An Economic History, 36. I have not been able to see M. Martin Rodriguez, Axucar y descolonizacion: origen y desenlace de una crisis agraria en la vega de Granada; el ingenio de San Juan, 1882-1904 (Granada 1984). 71 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 338-340; Romeu, IMS Islas Canarias, 249. 72 Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', Table 1. 73 J. Nadal Oiler, Elfracaso de la revolution industrial en Espana, 1814-1913 (Barcelona 1975); Maluquer, 'El mercado colonial', 337-338, 344; B. Albert and A. Graves eds., Crisis and Change in the International Sugar Economy, 1860-1914 (Norwich 1984) 2 and passim. 74 Serrano, Final del imperio. 75 V. Morales Lezcano, Espana y el norte de Africa; el protectorado en Marruecos, 1912-1956 (Madrid 1984) 22-29; Bogard, 'Africanismo', passim. 76 Hahs, 'Spain and the Scramble', 282-285. 77 W.G. Clarence-Smith, 'The Economic Dynamics of Spanish Imperialism, 1898-1945' in: V. Morales Lezcano ed., II Aula Canarias y el Noroeste de Africa (1986) (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1988) 19-22. For a list of investments, Morales, Espanayel norte de Africa, 160-163. 78 Archivo General de Administracion, Alcala de Henares, Africa-Guinea, Caja 104, File on cocoa exports 1904-1914. 79 F. Quintana Navarro, Barcos, negocios y burgueses en el Puerto de la Luz, 1883-1913 (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1985) 207; Bogard, 'Africanismo' 177, 192 n.2; I have not been able to obtain a copy of F. Cossio, La Campania Trasatlantica; tien anos de vida sobre el mar, 1850-1950 (Madrid 1950). 80 R. Carriga.yuan March y su tiempo (Barcelona 1976) 54, 114. 81 G. Sanz Casas, Politica colonial y organization del trabajo en la isla de Fernando Poo, 1880-1930 (Ph.D. Thesis; University of Barcelona 1983) passim. 82 Archivo General de Administracion, Alcala de Henares, Africa-Guinea, Caja 144, Expediente 11, 1905 article byj. Coll y Astrell. 83 Bogard, 'Africanismo1, 207-210, 220-229. 84 V. Thompson and R. Adloff, The Western Saharans, Background to Conflict (London 1980) 122. 85 J. Mercer, The Canary Islanders (London 1980) 260; Woolbert, 'Spain as an African Power', 734; Quintana, Barcos, passim.

ECONOMIC DYNAMICS 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

101 102 103 104 105

106

107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

89

Great Britain, Foreign Office, Historical Section, Spanish Guinea (London 1919) 34-35, 40-41. Archivo General de Administracion, Alcala de Henares, Africa-Guinea, Caja 104, File on cocoa exports 1904-1914. Garriga, Juan March, 54. Harrison, An Economic History, 42-43. See appendix for value of peseta. Morales, Espana y el norte de Africa, 159. Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana, Suplemento Anual, 1934, 553. Harrison, An Economic History, 66-69, 85, 99-101, 110; F. Cambo, IM valoration de la peseta (Madrid [c. 1929]). Spain, Estadistica (General) del comercio exterior de Espana, selected years. These huge volumes include details on customs duties. Information Comercial Espanola, 157, 1946, Supl., 8. J. Nosti, Agricultura de Guinea, promesa para Espana (Madrid 1948) 57, 65 and passim. W. Medlicott, The Economic Blockade (London 1952-1956) I, 534. D. Ndongo Bidyogo, Historia y tragedia de Guinea Ecuatorial (Madrid 1977) 44. Morales, Espana y el norte de Africa, Appendix to ch. 4, for a detailed list of investments. Spain, Estadistica (General) del comercio exterior de Espana. W.G. Clarence-smith, 'The Impact of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War on Portuguese and Spanish Africa' Journal ofAfrican History 26 (1985) 309-326 (translated as 'Africa portuguesa y espanola, 1936-1945, el impacto de dos guerras', Africa 2000 2, 2-3 (1987) 20-22 and 31-39). S. Fleming, 'Spanish Morocco and the Alzamiento Nacional, 1936-1939', Revued'Histoire Maghrebine9, 27-28 (1982) 225-236. L.E. Togores Sanchez, 'El Alzamiento y la Guerra Civil (1936-1939) en las colonias de Guinea, Sidi Ifni y Sahara', Estudios Africanos 3, 4-5 (1987-1988) 33-47. J.M. de Areilza and F.M. Castiella, Reivindicationes de Espana (2nd ed.; Madrid 1941); TJ. Hamilton, 'Spanish Dreams of Empire', Foreign Affairs 22 (1944) 458-468. See H. Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (London 1961), for an example of a lengthy standard work which virtually ignores the colonies. Servicio Historico Militar-Esparia, Madrid, El Comandantejefe de Estado Mayor, 'Nota sobre Fernando Poo', 23. 9. 1936 (I am grateful to Luis Togores Sanchez for providing me with a photocopy of this document). K. Ruhl, 'L'alliance a distance: les relations germano-espagnoles de 1936 a 1945', Rome d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale 118 (1980) 84-85; Fleming, 'Spanish Morocco', 231-232; Medlicott, The economic blockade I, 534 and II, 311-312. Information Comercial Espanola 156 (1946) 8-9; Nosti, Agricultura, 57,62-63. For the general importance of food supplies, Harrison, An Economic History, 145-146. R. PerpinaGrau, De colonization y economia en la Guinea Espanola (Barcelona 1945) passim. Spain, Estadistica (General) del comertio exterior de Espana. Medlicott, The Economic Blockadel, 534, and II, 286-287; Perpina Grau, Decolonization, passim. Clarence-Smith,'The Impact', 315. Spain, Estadistica (General) del comertio exterior de Espana. Enticlopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana, Suplemento 1945-48, 824-826. Spain, Estadistica (General) del comertio exterior de Espana. Harrison, An Economic History, ch. 8. B. Freund, The Making of Contemporary Africa, the Development of African Society since 1800 (London 1984) ch. 9. M. Liniger-Goumaz, Small is Not Always Beautiful, the Story of Equatorial Guinea (London 1988) ch. 2; V. Thompson and Adloff, The Western Saharans, passim. J.U. Martinez Carreras, 'La descolonizacion del Africa espanola' in; Estudios Historicos, homenaje a los profesores Jover Zamora y Palacio Atard (Madrid 1990) I, 513-531. Troncoso, Ceutay Melilla; personal observations in the Canaries.

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120 Liniger-Goumaz, Small is Not Always Beautiful. 121 T. Hodges, Western Sahara: the Roots of a Desert War (London 1984). 122 W.G. Clarence-Smiih, ' T h e Imperialism of Beggars": the Role of the less Developed Powers in the Nineteenth Century Scramble for Colonies', Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, The City and empire 2 (1987) 94-100 (Collected Seminar Papers 36) for a more extended treatment of this idea. 123 R.L. Bidwell, Currency conversion tables: a hundred years of change (London 1970) 45-46; Harrison, An economic, history, xi, 67-71,99-100,140, 147; Escarra, Is. developpement industriel 197 n. 1.