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49 Part II The Grassfields regional economy 50 Part II - The Grassfields regional economy The internal consistency of the first (historical) part of this book was provided by the second chapter that underscored the contribution of economic history and of linguistics to the history of the Grassfields. The second part is devoted to the regional economy of the highlands. However, the linkages between its four chapters (respectively devoted to the domestic economy, guns and slaves as part of long-distance trade in valuables, and the working and economic ethos of Grassfields people) are far from obvious at face value. In order to introduce them, let me indicate where they would fit in the overall picture of the regional economy. During the last three centuries at least, but most probably for a much longer period of time, the political economy of the Grassfields was divided up between two different kinds of endeavours of different magnitude: regional and sub-continental. The regional trading networks were open to all, had a limited range (from Ngi to the Ndop Plain, as far as the Bamenda plateau was concerned), were deployed in the open on local or regional marketplaces, and concerned subsistence goods such as palm oil, foodstuffs, ironware and small livestock. By contrast, the long-distance trade involved only high-ranking kings and notables, had a far-reaching range, was practiced in the secluded space of the households of the kings and notables, and concerned goods of high value such as guns and slaves. The present, second, part of this book only deals with a few, restricted, aspects of this very complex and highly developed economic organization. In the 1970s, some development programs aimed at improving pig breeding in the Grassfields. However, the way they went about it amounted to subjecting the domestic economy to the needs of the pig, instead of the reverse. The pig and the functions it fulfilled in the household economy provide only one among many other possible topics pertaining to the regional economic system. Other topics could have been iron production (considered in chapter2), crafts, cereals and palm-oil production, currencies, marketplaces and traders. However, though limited in scope, the case of pig breeding allows one to analyze the changes that impinged on the local systems of production and exchange over the last couple of centuries. Guns and slaves (chapters 5 and 6) featured prominently at the core of long-distance trade in luxury goods. As such, they provide a vantage point from which one can consider this form of trade that was so characteristic of Grassfields political economy. Chapter7 deals with one aspect of the cultural and political history of the hinterland of the Bight of Biafra including the Grassfields, that is, the slave trade. It resulted in the forced migration of tens of thousands people, mostly young men, to the coastal areas. They brought along with them the cultural practices and habits of their regions of origin. Amongst other things, they migrated with their specific attitudes to economic activities including productive work and trading. There are unambiguous archival indications that this aspect of forced cultural contacts went hand in hand with long distance exchanges and the slave trade. It left a recognizable impact on the contemporary situation in Cameroon. ...

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