‘The Root of All Evil?’: Cash Boom, Trader Misfeasance, and Poverty in World War II Bechuanaland Protectorate

Abstract

ABSTRACT Told here is a story of the manifestations of cash money’s unseen and unpredictable power in the expropriations of Bechuanaland Protectorate Africans by store owners or traders during World War II. Failure to secure essential commodities in a period when cash dominated the market and had become the motif of the colonial economy surprised even the colonial officials who had thought that the ensuing ‘cash boom’ would bring prosperity across the social divide. This article mines the extant war archives to retrieve the neglected history of the repercussions of the first-ever cash boom the Bechuanaland Protectorate experienced since the advent of cash during the nineteenth century. As many people gained access to more cash, traders of predominantly foreign descent hiked prices unduly, in most cases using the war as an excuse. The article addresses two mutually inclusive forms of trader misconduct. First, it explores the trajectory of profiteering as it spread from the urban areas to impact the initially unaffected rural peripheries during the war. Secondly, it demonstrates the differentiated ways in which a tripartite of conditional selling, price differentials, and food rationing became the driving forces of the ‘evil’ that was profiteering.