Cotton Is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938-1961 by Allen F. Isaacman

Cotton Is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938-1961 Reviews

• 
  Rebecca Dobrinski

  For most people, colonialism is something that happened centuries ago. They identify colonialism with the British, Spanish, and French settling North America and South America, and those colonies eventually fighting for their independence. In Cotton is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938-1961, Allen Isaacman reminds readers that colonialism extended long into the twentieth century. His depiction of the Portuguese colonial regimes in Mozambique are telling in how modern Europeans still clung to the ideas of how conquered territories should be made to support the mother country’s economy, often at the expense of the territory’s own people.
  
  Isaacman’s book provides a compelling narrative on the methods of coercion and terror the Portuguese government and companies used to enforce cotton production throughout Mozambique. The African country was basically divided into three regions, each with differing climates and soils, and then the people were forced to begin planting cotton. The Portuguese were eager find a way to grow cotton cheaply in order to enhance the profitability of the textile production. Fortunately for readers and scholars alike, Isaacman and his staff were able to conduct detailed interviews from Mozambiquans who lived through the Portuguese cotton regimes. This perspective, from the growers’ point of view, makes the book a valuable chronicle of colonial times. Without this, the narrative would be dry and difficult to read.
  
  The Portuguese cotton regime lasted for almost 25 years. During this time, peasants were forced to change their native planting schemes and add cotton to their regular crops. This reduced the amount of land available for planting food. The cotton policy was strict on many levels. The policy dictated a schedule for when seeds should be planted, how often the land should be weeded, when the cotton should be picked, and for how much the cotton would be sold. It attempted to regulate every part of cotton cultivation. Due to the large geographic area and the number of growers required to plant cotton, the policy went so far as to distribute identification cards to each grower so they could show how each step of the cultivation process had been carried out per the policy.
  
  As peasants were forced to grow more and more cotton, they grew less and less food. With prices set by the cotton regime, more work was required to earn very little money. Most men worked outside of their villages, especially in South African mines. This left the women and children home to work the fields. Prior to the cotton policies, native farmers planted a variety of seeds in the same plot. This cut down on the labor intensity as many crops could be tended to simultaneously. Cotton policy forbade this practice of intercropping, which increased the overall labor needed on peasant farms since families now needed to work multiple fields to satisfy the regime and provide sustenance for their families.
  
  Although they did not openly rebel, peasants often found ways to silently express their displeasure with the cotton regime system. Farmers continued the traditional practice of intercropping cotton plots with sustenance crops. Some peasants deliberately sabotaged the cotton seeds provided to them by boiling the seeds to ensure the crop would fail. Others simply abandoned their land and fled to neighboring countries not subject to the policies of the Portuguese cotton regime. For many years, peasants did not talk about these acts for fear of violent retaliation from the colonial government or from the companies who provided the cotton seeds. Even up to the time of the interviews conducted for this book, peasants were reluctant to provide information to the researchers fearing the repercussions.
  
  Overall, the Portuguese government and the concessionary companies did not take a variety of factors into consideration when they chose to force cotton cultivation in Mozambique. The required rainfall for satisfactory cotton cultivation was not adequate in many parts of the country, and the soil in other areas did not have the necessary nutrient content or optimum cotton production. By forcing their will for cotton production onto the local peasantry, they also forced famine and violence on families who previously provided for themselves.
  
  Isaacman’s analysis is thorough and provides readers with an accurate portrait of life under the Portuguese cotton regime in the mid-twentieth century. The narrative, especially with the interviews of those who experienced the cotton policies first hand, gives readers yet another example of the abuses of the colonial and neo-colonial regimes perpetrated on those they felt were uncivilized. Although the story does warrant its own narrative, a look at a similar policy structure such as the Soviets in Uzbekistan would have made for an interesting comparison.