Maize and Precolonial Africa

Abstract

Columbus's arrival in the New World triggered an unprecedented movement of people and crops across the Atlantic Ocean. We study a largely overlooked part of this Columbian Exchange: the effects of New World crops in Africa. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that the introduction of maize increased population density and slave exports in precolonial Africa. We find robust empirical support for these predictions. We also find little evidence to suggest maize increased economic growth or reduced conflict. Our results suggest that rather than stimulating development, the introduction of maize simply increased the supply of slaves during the slave trades.

Historical Legacies and African Development

“…However, ecological features may affect contemporary development via numerous channels, and hence, her final sets of results do not necessarily imply a causal chain from ecology to political centralization to development.52 Population density in Africa was quite low, and according to most estimates much lower than in other continents. Cherniwchan andMoreno-Cruz (2018) show that the introduction of maize from the Americas raised population density in areas with suitable for maize land (and in turn slave exports).…”

Strangers and Foreigners: Trust and Attitudes Toward Citizenship

“…Within the growing research body on the influence of historical legacies for many dimensions of African development, surveyed by Michalopoulos and Papaioannou (2020), many contributions lie at the intersection between the issues we address. This is the case, for instance, for the link between the slave trade and conflict Kala, 2015, 2017;Boxell, 2019;Boxell, Dalton, and Leung, 2019;Cherniwchan and Moreno-Cruz, 2019), the slave trade and witchcraft beliefs (Gershman, 2020), kin ties and conflict (Moscona, Nunn, and Robinson, 2020), and kin ties and institutions (Tedeschi, 2021).…”

The Scarcity Slot: Excavating Histories of Food Security in Ghana

“…Originally formulated in the 1960s by Crosby ([1972Crosby ([ ] 2003 and Curtin (1969), this hypothesis is based on highly suspect data and assumptions (see chapter 3). Yet theses like this endure, particularly outside of anthropology and history (e.g., Cherniwchan and Moreno-Cruz 2019), perhaps because they fit neatly into racialized assumptions about African resources and capabilities.…”

“…Instead, the dominant narrative has been a Malthusian one, where the adoption of American crops fueled population increases that led to the rise of complex polities like Asante (McCann 2005;Wilks 1977Wilks , 1993Wilks , 2004. These purported population increases are even hypothesized to have offset the losses suffered as a result of the Atlantic slave trade (Cherniwchan and Moreno-Cruz 2019;Crosby 2003;Curtin 1969). In this chapter, I critique these arguments and offer an alternative view that focuses on the varied food experiences of West Africans from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth century as a means to highlight inequalities in the food and political landscapes.…”