British West Africa - Economic Development

Economic Development

Colonial Banks were known with their devious endeavors ; usually developing monopolies to control competition at the expense of British West African civilians. There were only two major banks that operated in British West Africa, Barclay's and the Bank of British West Africa. They had great economic and financial influence over all of British West Africa from about 1916 to 1960. From a dependency theory view point, these banks took advantage through price fixing and certain unfair regulations.

The careless coverage of these events by mostly British Historians has left a large controversy on the veracity of their published works regarding British West Africa. The three main Historians accused by Professor Adu Boahen for slapdash reporting on mainly Gold Coast as well as Ghana’s history are W. V. Claridge who published his book, A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti in 1915 and was reprinted by Frank Cass in 1964. The second was the History of the Gold Coast written in 1940 by W. E. F. Ward and published in 1948.( There was also another edition published in 1958 under the name A History of Ghana. The third being Professor J.D Fage, he published a book under the name Ghana, An Historical Interpretation.

Their economic development was mostly attributed to each regions agricultural developments. The development of the financial markets proved that colonial banking often expunged the colony's of all their valuable commodities with little in return.