Hut tax

The hut tax was a form of taxation introduced by European colonial powers in their African colonies on a "per hut" (or other forms of household) basis. Colonised peoples paid the tax variously in money, labour, grain or stock. This benefited the colonial authorities in four interconnected ways:

• by raising money
• by supporting the economic (and colonially controlled) value of the local currency
• by broadening the newly introduced cash-based colonial economy, forcing South Africans (for example) into laboring for colonial establishments, creating dependency on capitalism

Households in which people had primarily worked as rural ranchers or as farmers proceeded to send members to work in cities or on colonial government-sponsored construction projects to earn money to pay the tax. The new colonial economies in Africa were primarily reliant upon the construction of towns and infrastructure (such as railways), and in South Africa upon the rapidly expanding mining operations.