An economic history of the Land and Agricultural Bank of Southern Rhodesia, 1924-1963

Abstract

This paper explores the economic history of the Land and Agricultural Bank of Southern Rhodesia from its establishment in 1924 to the end of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1963. Drawing on a rich selection of archival material, including government correspondence, the bank’s annual reports, correspondence, constitutions and amendments, and newspapers, the paper demonstrates how the bank became a useful tool to promote settler hegemony in Southern Rhodesia. It achieved this by financing settler agriculture and any other demands from settler farmers and the settler community, ahead of the demands of African farmers and the broader African community, to ensure that white supremacy prevailed. The bank, therefore, became an instrument of colonial rule in the colony, ensuring that white farmers stayed on the land even during difficult times such as the Great Depression, the Second World War, the post-1947 drought period and throughout the Federal period, where it retained its focus on Southern Rhodesia’s white settlers. Throughout its entire existence, the bank operated on a racial basis, only advancing limited loans to a few African farmers in Native Purchase Areas after 1930 for political reasons.