bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Date of the Composition of Contarini's and Giannotti's Books on Venice
Authors: Gilbert Felix
Published: May 2006

The two standard works on the government of Venice in the Renaissance were published nearly simultaneously close to the middle of the sixteenth century. And almost up to the present day they have been the classic works on this topic. In 1540 Donato Giannotti's Libro dela Republica de’ Vinitiani appeared, and in 1543, Gasparo Contarini's De magistratibus et republica Venetorum libri quinque. The manuscripts of these two works were completed some years before the books were printed. But in both cases the exact date when the manuscripts were composed and completed has not been settled. Because of the importance of the books and their authors, it seems worthwhile to take another look at this question of the date of the composition of these two treatises on the Venetian government and to see whether it can be settled.
The Role of the ‘Grandi’ in the Political World of Machiavelli
Authors: Bonadeo Alfredo
Published: May 2006

And if we consider those “signori” who in Italy have lost their states in our times, as the king of Naples, the duke of Milan, and others, we find on their part, first, a common failure in their armies…. Then we see that some of them either suffered hostility from the people or, if the people were friendly to them, did not know how to secure themselves against the “grandi”.’ This is the terse diagnosis of the political ruin of Renaissance Italy made by Machiavelli in the twenty-fourth chapter of The Prince. One of the three causes for the political decadence of the nation is the failure on part of the individual rulers to secure themselves against the ‘grandi’.
Research Resources in Chad and the Central African Republic
Authors: Cordell Dennis D.
Published: May 2006

Neither Chad (or Tchad) nor the Central African Republic (or République Centrafricaine) has been much studied by American scholars. Because of this the following report discusses more than merely the archival resources of the two countries; it is hoped that the more practical aspects of research there that are discussed will render it more useful.

The Institut Tchadien des Sciences Humaines (henceforth INTSH) supervises research projects in Chad which are concerned with the social sciences—as defined by French scholarship. Research authorization is granted by the Director of the Institut, Boîte Postale 503, N'Djaména. Anyone intending to pursue research in Chad should have a letter of authorization from the Institut before leaving the United States—if possible, even before applying for a Chadian visa, since this will expedite the granting of such a visa.

Most temporary accommodations in N'Djaména (like other African countries) tend to be expensive; the only inexpensive hostel is operated by the Peace Corps for its own members. Sometimes, though, researchers have been allowed temporary accommodation pending the location of other housing. Enquiries should be sent to: Corps de la Paix, Boîte Postale 260, N'Djaména. In addition, temporary housing may sometimes be had with researchers at the Organisation pour des recherches scientifiques et techniques d'Outre-Mer, or ORSTOM.

For a long stay it is wise to rent a house. While the Peace Corps or Embassy personnel may be of some assistance, Muslim merchants near the main market should be of more help in finding a house in the African part of the town. Rents in N'Djaména are high: a mud brick house with electricity and running water will run about $175 monthly.
New Evidence from Mission Archives on the Death of Galt in Ankole, Uganda, 1905
Authors: Mushanga M. Tibamanya , Pirouet M. Louise
Published: May 2006

Recently Edward Steinhart has discussed the assassination of the British colonial officer Harry St. G. Galt in Uganda in 1905. Steinhart's account is based almost entirely on the Entebbe Secretariat Archives and on interviews he conducted. It focuses on the political intrigue brought to light by the murder enquiry, but much of the interest derives from the mystery surrounding Galt's death. In our opinion, Steinhart comes very close to the truth when he writes of his discovery that a conclave of chiefs had been held on the night of the murder, and he begins to suspect that Kahaya, ruler of Ankole, as well as Igumira, a reactionary chief, were involved in a plot which was somehow intended to discredit Nuwa Mbaguta, enganzi (Prime Minister) of Ankole, and Igumira's rival. Steinhart is then deflected because he thinks that the evidence for a conspiracy rests only on this event, and on statements from Sir Charles Gasyonga, Kahaya's successor. We think we can come much closer to a solution to this mystery by using archival material which has hitherto escaped notice. The Diary of the White Fathers Mission at Mbarara, the capital of Ankole, refers to the events of this year, and for the first time offers a plausible motive for the assassination. The White Fathers Archives in Rome have been open to scholars for some years, but it seems that not all researchers are aware of the wealth of material which they contain. Mission archives assume particular importance in the case of Uganda, which is now virtually closed to research, and we will try to illustrate their value by reference to this incident.
For Oral Tradition (But Not Against Braudel)
Authors: Vansina Jan
Published: May 2006

One wonders what Fernand Braudel and the school of theAnnaleshave done to become a kind of Trojan Horse for the wholesale condemnation of the historical value of oral tradition. Yet they are the banner raised by W.G. Clarence-Smith in a recent article in his journal to preachjihadagainst its historical value. Clarence-Smith claims that the historiographical revolution effected byAnnaleshas resulted in the definitive exclusion of oral traditions from the halls of Clio. Oral traditions are at best ambiguous “signs” about the past and are very much of the present. They lack absolute chronology and they are selective, so away with them. If they be worthy of attention at all, let anthropologists and sociologists be concerned, save in a few rare instances where a historian wants to check on some European printed source. And even then,caveat emptor. Significantly, the article is not just the expression of the views of one person; rather it is symptomatic of much of the criticism which has been leveled at oral tradition, mostly by fasionable anthropologists. And it brings this criticism to its logical conclusion.

But first a word about Braudel, theAnnales, and oral tradition in general. TheAnnalesSchool was founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch before World War II. Fernand Braudel is its most distinguished exponent. His major theoretical pronouncements can be found in hisEcrits sur l'histoire, a collection of articles reprinted and published in 1969. This and his two major historical works should be read by those who want to know more about his views and ways of dealing with history. The basic tenets that members of theAnnalesSchool hold is that the history of events is but the spray of past developments; other time depths tell us more about the waves of the past. There is the time of theconjoncture, the trend, and the even longer time periods -- sometimes many centuries long -- thelongue duréeor long term. Successful history writing does not liminate the study of events, but analyzes them against the movement of these longer and deeper-running trends.
A Survey of African Material in the Libraries and Archives of Protestant Missionary Societies in England
Authors: Cason Maidel
Published: May 2006

The libraries and archives of mission societies provide rare, often unique, source material concerning the last two centuries of African history. The following survey of Protestant mission societies in England is based on a survey done in 1970. In 1978 letters were written to all societies listed in order to update the material. Replies were received from twenty-one. When no information was received in 1978 this has been indicated in the text. Bibliographical and reference material has also been updated. Included for each of the societies covered is a list of the areas where the society worked in Africa, the types of material held, the mission periodicals produced and notes about access.

There are two guides available which cover some of the groups considered. Rosemary Keen's A Survey of the Archives of Selected Missionary Societies (1968) describes the archives of nineteen societies. It is very uneven in coverage and includes a number of inaccuracies. A Guide to Manuscripts and Documents in the British Isles Related to Africa compiled by Noel Matthews and M. Doreen Wainwright was published in 1971 based on a survey done in 1965. It covers eleven of the societies listed here and the extent of coverage is indicated in the individual sections.

Early in this century a South African writer attempted to cover all of African missions south of the Sahara. Du Plessis' A History of Christian Missions in South Africa (1911) and his Evangelization of Pagan Africa (1929) are carefully done, detailed accounts from the South African viewpoint. In 1958 Gerdener continued the coverage of South African work with his Recent Developments in the South African Mission Field.
Research in South Africa: To Know an Archive
Authors: Feinberg H.M.
Published: May 2006

During the first half of 1985 I visited the Republic of South Africa in order to investigate the origins of the Natives Land Act of 1913. My research, emphasizing the years 1910 to 1916, required that I work in archives and libraries in three of the four provinces (excluding Natal). In the process I went to major and minor research facilities, to a few museums, and even to a small town public library. What follows is a discussion of many of the archives in South Africa, aids to making research easier, and some of the pitfalls one may face pursuing historical research in that country.

The largest and most important archive in South Africa is the Central Archives Depot in Pretoria. This functions as the national archives of South Africa as well as the Transvaal Provincial Archives. All the most important central government department records are deposited there, including the Prime Minister's collection; the records of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Justice Department, Lands Department; and, of particular interest to the Africanist, the records of the Department of Native Affairs (however variously titled between 1910 and the present). The CAD also holds a substantial number of personal paper collections, including those of Jan Smuts and J.B.M. Hertzog.

The Central Archives Depot is not the easiest place in which to work. Consequently, try to plan your stay so that you can have what might seem to be more than enough time to work there.
Some Archives of Shaba Region, Republic of Zaire
Authors: Reefe Thomas Q.
Published: May 2006

It is impossible to write a comprehensive report on the condition of archives throughout the Republic of Zaire, for documents are not stored in national or centralized archives. For example, in Shaba Region (ex-Katanga Province), documents are kept in various bureaux at Lubumbashi. At subordinate territorial levels like the sous-region (ex-district) and zone (ex-territoire), documents are tucked away in cabinets, work rooms, and closets at their administrative centers. It is difficult to plan the time to be spent in archives in advance, for there seems to be no middle ground in their condition. Either they are in good order with documents neatly bundled in labeled file folders, or they are a complete shambles with most documents missing or stored in unclassified heaps on some shelves or on the floor. It is difficult to anticipate which archive will be in good order. There is no reason to assume that an archive in an urban center will be in better shape than an archive at an infrequently visited rural poste or vice versa. The only generalization that can be made is that an archive in Shaba Region which has been properly maintained will be a rich depository of documents. The Belgian colonial administration contained more European personnel than the administration of any other colonial power, and the paperwork produced by this bureaucracy was substantial. When the Belgians departed, they left a legacy of correspondence, reports, procès-verbaux, inquiries, etc., dating from as early as 1907, which can still be found in the little-used archives of Shaba.
The Anti-Slave Trade Theme in Dahoman History: An Examination of the Evidence
Authors: Ross David
Published: May 2006

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travelers who described pre-colonial Dahomey all stressed that the Dahomans were dedicated, enthusiastic slavers. The kingdom's first historian, Archibald Dalzel, remarked, for example, that the Dahomans were “bred solely to war and rapine.” F.E. Forbes, the author of one of the best-known nineteenth-century accounts of the kingdom, in a similar vein, declared of Dahomey that “strange and contradictory as it may sound, this great nation is no nation, but a banditti.”

The views of these and other similarly-minded writers were, until the 1960s, everywhere accepted. In that decade, however, Isaac A. Akinjogbin published a series of works in which he gave an account of a long-lived Dahoman anti-slave trade tradition. Dahomey was, he claims, founded ca 1620 by a group of “highly principled and far-seeing” Aja in the Abomey area. These Aja founded the kingdom so as to be able to wage war effectively against those of their countrymen who traded in slaves.

Akinjogbin believed that the Dahomans spent about ninety years making war on their slave trading neighbors. It was, he claims, only in 1730 that the European slavers and their African allies were able to force the Dahomans to abandon their anti-slave trade campaign and to begin trading in slaves themselves. The very destructive wars of the 1720s, the wars which made Dahomey a major west African power, were, it seems undertaken as part of a virtuous, anti-slave trade crusade.

Although the Dahomans were forced to begin trading in slaves in 1730, they did not, Aknjogbin implies, entirely abandon their anti-slave trade ideals.
Priorities and Opportunities for Research in Swaziland
Authors: Booth Alan R.
Published: May 2006

“I cry because the people cause me tocry about the Taxes…We have now tosell our children in order to getmoney to pay the Tax which is heavy.”[Labotsibeni, Queen Regent of Swaziland, 1906]“On these distant hills, catch the sun before its sets, you are mourned!I'm now just a song that everyone sings!I loved a young man,But they took him, he signed on at Mankaiana,Now I am ruined!”[Swazi women's working song, traditional]“It is sometimes said that the operations of the recruiting organization are tantamount to a policy of forced labour and that pressure is brought to bear to make Natives go to the mines. Nothing could be further from the truth.”[J.A. Genmill, General Manager, N.R.C., 1961]

During the past decade the cascade of literature dealing with capital penetration into Southern Africa and its various consequences has set all of us, liberal and radical, awash. There is not sign of letup. We have learned that pre-industrial economies were self-sustaining at the very least, some of them very much more than that; and that many were dynamic in their subsequent response to market forces. We have learned that peasants had to be forced to go to work, and how efficient the systems of coercion were. We have learned how those pre-capitalist societies reacted to the seductions and the entrapments of capitalism, some through collaboration, others through patterns of resistance, most, surely, combining the two.
The Missing Migrants: African Seeds in the Demographer's Field
Authors: Fetter Bruce S.
Published: May 2006

The three principal components of demography--fertility, mortality, and migration--can each provide information for reconstructing elements of the African past. Birth rate, more than anything else, determines the reproduction of the labor force, a particular concern of many historians. Death rate is an existential measure of the quality of life; any assessment of the long-run effects of colonial rule must take into account any discernable changes in mortality patterns that may have occurred. Finally, the study of migration is essential for understanding the redistribution of people and resources which resulted from the slave trade and colonization.

Although all three indicators are essential for a complete understanding of the history of a given population, they occur with substantially different rhythms. Mortality is a one-time happening for us all. Fertility depends on both partners in a sexual union, although most clearly circumscribed by menarchy and menopause in females. Migration, particularly in Africa, has affected males more frequently than females and can be, moreover, an abrupt and irregular phenomenon. Following the three activities simultaneously is thus an extremely complex undertaking.

For the developed world demographers have examined whole countries for periods as far removed as the eighteenth century and individual villages for demographic phenomena reaching back to the Middle Ages. Unfortunately for students of Africa, the materials available to us are not nearly so rich. Most colonial regimes did not conduct censuses in the current sense of the word. At most, they conducted surveys or village-by-village ‘nose counts’ which, naturally, vary enormously in their reliability.
On the Methodology of Chronology: The Igala Core Dating Progression
Authors: Sargent R.A.
Published: May 2006

Precolonial African historiography has been plagued by historical reconstructions which remain in the realm of legend because events are suspended in almost timeless relativity. This kind of reconstruction seems to erect barriers which hinder or prevent synchronization with neighboring societies and regional events. Isolated from comparative material by the lack of even a relative chronology, coupled with the difficulty of incorporating undated evidence into the mainstream of regional historiography, suggests that the basis of history has not been provided. However, if we adopt the perspective that chronology distinguishes history from legend, the onus falls directly on every historian to provide a reasonably accurate relative dating progression through which the correlation and synchronization of regional data can be assessed. Development of this objective will eventually provide the basis of regional history, social history, and a realistic reappraisal of precolonial historiography. The following discussion, therefore, endeavors to present a methodology of chronological development for a particular case study, and suggests means whereby a relative yet reliable dating progression might be determined.
Pasi ne (Down With) Class Struggle? The New History for Schools in Zimbabwe
Authors: Phimister I.R.
Published: May 2006

The struggle by the people of Zimbabwe to overthrow Ian Smith's Rhodesian regime in the 1970s won the support and gripped the imagination of democratic peoples around the world. As the struggle intensified, so it began to move away from nationalism towards liberation. Control of the state was no longer seen as an end in itself. For the vision of a socialist Zimbabwe to become reality, the state would have to be fundamentally restructured. The pace and direction of this historic movement has lain at the center of all subsequent encounters between the advanced capitalist countries and their local class allies on the one hand, and progressive elements inside ZANU on the other. While the former have busied themselves with reversing such progress as was made during the war, the latter have tried to avoid the snares and pitfalls which infest the pragmatic roads leading away from the compromise reached at Lancaster House.

Education no less than other state apparatuses has been a site of struggle between the forces of accommodation to the rule of capital and those of socialist transformation. By any measure, the expansion of Zimbabwe's educational infrastructure since independence in April 1980 has been phenomenal. Awarded some Z$408 million in 1982's Budget--a four-fold increase in little over three years--the Ministry of Education now caters for 1,903,917 primary school pupils, as opposed to 819,586 in 1979. Secondary school enrollment over the same period has climbed from 66,215 to 218,430. Equally impressive gains have been registered in the number of schools and schoolteachers.
The James Grant Papers in the National Library of Scotland
Authors: Cunningham I.C.
Published: May 2006

The papers of James Augustus Grant, until recently in family ownership and inaccessible to most scholars, were sold at Sotheby's in London on 13 March 1979 and purchased (with the exception of photographs and annotated printed books) by the National Library of Scotland. They are now available for consultation in Edinburgh by registered readers; microfilm of selected portions can be supplied, also at the moment photocopies of the unbound letters (which will be bound in due course). They have been assigned the numbers 17901-26 in the National Library's sequence of manuscripts, and a description follows; an index is also available at the National Library, and this together with the description will appear in one of the future volumes of the Library's Catalogue of Manuscripts acquired since 1925. Of particular interest to African historians are the letters of explorers and others in MSS. 17909-10, of which those of Gordon, Kirk, Murchison, Speke, and Stanley are especially important; the African journal, MS. 17915, and sketches, MSS. 17919-21, both extremely significant not only for the Grant-Speke expedition, but also for the culture and history of East Africa; and (from a later period) the papers of Grant's son in South and Central Africa, MSS. 17907 and 17918.
Circular Arguments and Self-Fulfilling Definitions: “Statelessness” and the Dagaaba
Authors: Yelpaala Kojo
Published: May 2006

Since the publication of Maine'sAncient Lawin 1861 social anthropological studies have been prolific. The basic intellectual and investigative interest of these social anthropologists was and continues to be the social, political, and cultural organization of preliterate societies in theirbenignstate of primitivity. Indeed, it might be said that the anthropologist created the savage, the barbarian, and the primitive and their state as an object of intellectual inquiry through fieldwork. Most of these studies conducted within the framework of what Owusu calls “structual-functional empiricism” were not exactly law-centered. Whatever glimpses of the legal system one could obtain was by accident. Law was merely part of a functioning, coherent, and consistent totality; part of the jigsaw puzzle of the primitive reality.

Subsequent legal anthropological works clearly fell into two categories: those that thought that primitive societies did not have law and others that thought that they did. Those of the first group have viewed small-scale societies from the monocles of western jurisprudence, expecting to find a system of rules emanating from an authoritative source in a hierarchically-organized political system with government, courts, and a law-enforcement mechanism backed by coercive physical sanctions. Viewed from this perspective they not surprisingly found what they considered to be a pattern of “statelessness,” lawlessness, anarchy, and notions of justice and remedy based upon the principle of self-help or the law of the claw and the fang. Critics of colonialism and anthropology suggest that this characterization of the expectations of the colonial anthropologist might be a serious misrepresentation of their true expectations. The colonialist needed the anthropologist to provide the methods by which colonialism could be most effective. The anthropologist on the other hand created the savage and his state of statelessness, lawlessness, and self-help to provide a rational basis for colonialist subjugation and exploitation of the savage.
Power and Dynastic Conflict in Mampon
Authors: McCaskie T.C.
Published: May 2006

The analysis of the relationship between oral and written documentation and the expression or articulation of political power and interest is now extremely sophisticated for the Asante case, yet it remains obstinately one-sided, as Asante history has tended to be interpreted from the political center, Kumase. Some scholars have intermittently called for another, more broadening and less constraining, perspective, and a very few have acted upon this plea by considering the nature of historic Asante society from various points on the ‘periphery.’ Among other things the present paper is a contribution to this ill-developed but much-needed ‘view from the periphery,’ even though the ‘periphery’ in the present case is as politically central as could be envisaged without resorting to the heavily researched Kumase perspective. I deal here essentially with oral historical perceptions of power--and struggles for it and validations of it--in the major territorial division of Mampon, but first I address one or two more general points, obvious perhaps, but usefully alluded to in the present context nonetheless.

First, there is now a respectably large literature concerning the use (and usefulness) of African oral historical materials. This literature evinces two broad tendencies. One is a very proper scepticism about and mistrust of the regrettably widespread reliance on unsupported oral tradition. The other is an intellectualist attempt to divorce such traditions from ‘actual’ historical experience by interpreting them within a synchronic, often ‘structuralist,’ framework. Both approaches are valid, but they are ultimately ordained by a simple absence of ‘external’ or qualifying data. Asante is favored here in the sense that the ability to cross-check between oral memory and the written record is the most developed for all of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Court Records of Sefwi Wiawso, Western Region, Ghana
Authors: Roberts Penelope A.
Published: May 2006

The Divisions of Sefwi Wiawso, Sefwi Bekwai, and Sefwi Anwhiaso in the Western Frontier District of the Gold Caost were brought within the operations of the Native Jurisdiction Ordinance (1883) under the ‘Headchief of Sefwi Wiawso in 1909.’ They were administered from the Ankobra District until 1911 when an increase in the number of Assistant District Commissioners permitted the appointment of a Commissioner to the Western Frontier District. The headquarters of the Western Frontier District were at Amoya, a very small town near the Bia River and the Ivory Coast border. Three years later, however, in 1914, the Sefwi District was created and new headquarters established in the old capital of Sefwi Wiawso, the town of Wiawso perched on the top of a steep hill and not far from the important ferry crossing of the Tano River. The Sefwi Wiawso Native Tribunal was first established at this date. A few years later Native Tribunals were also established at Sefwi Bekwai and Sefwi Anwhiaso. The present court rooms in Wiawso were built in 1927/28 and the court records for Sefwi Wiawso to which I had access date from this time.

The court records had been deposited (in 1970) on the floor and shelves of a storeroom at the back of what is now the District Magistrate's Court in Wiawso. Some of the earlier volumes seemed to be missing and many were in bad repair. I did my best to rebind these before returning them to the store.
Kilwa Dynastic Historiography: A Critical Study
Authors: Saad Elias
Published: May 2006

One of the unresolved problems in African historiography concerns the Arabic and Portuguese versions of the so-called Kilwa Chronicle. Scholars who have used these sixteenth-century sources have tended to assume that the Portuguese version, which is essentially a list of the kings of Kilwa up to around 1500, is a transcription of the Arabic version known under the title ofKitab al-Sulwa. In the recent debate between Freeman-Grenville and Chittick, this assumption has created serious difficulties because the Portuguese account mentions kings who are omitted in theKitab. Freeman-Grenville attempted to resolve the difficulty by hypothesizing that the work was defectively abridged in the extant nineteenth-century copy. Relying on the regnal durations in the Portuguese account, he computed the dynastic chronology of Kilwa backwards to the tenth century. Subsequently, Chittick's excavations did not show Kilwa important enough to have been the site of a kingdom prior to the thirteenth century. This became the basis for an alternative explanation which denied the existence of gaps or omissions in theKitab. Chittick argued instead that the longer list of kings in the Portuguese account may have resulted from dovetailing two sources together and duplicating their information.

The present paper calls on genealogical evidence overlooked by both scholars which demonstrates that the divergence between the two sources results from their varying perspectives on the dynastic politics and succession disputes. First, the Portuguese account, though occurring in João de Barros’Da Asiawritten about 1552, may represent an impromptu composition given to the Portuguese during their occupation of Kilwa in 1505–12.
New Light on Cavazzi's Seventeenth-Century Description of Kongo
Authors: Thornton John K.
Published: May 2006

The very full description of west central Africa given in Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo's book, Istorica Descrizione de’ tre regni Congo, Matamba ed Angola, first published in 1687, has long been one of the most important sources for the reconstruction of the social, political, economic, and religious history of these three Central African states in the seventeenth century. This is true even though it has long been known that Cavazzi was not an eyewitness to all that he described, especially in the kingdom of Kongo, which he visited only briefly after finishing the draft of the book. Therefore, the recent discovery of a new, unknown manuscript version of Cavazzi's work among the family papers of Dr. Carlo Araldi of Modena is very useful, for it helps us to understand the sources that Cavazzi used to write the portions of his work on Kongo, the one area of west central Africa of which he had no first hand knowledge.

Since the Istorica Descrizione was published several years after Cavazzi's death by another Capuchin, Fr. Fortunato Alamandini, who noted in his own introduction that he had edited the final version from a confused mass of documents and notes, the new manuscript initially raised the hope that fuller versions of Cavazzi's original source material might be contained in it. I therefore examined the portions of the manuscript pertaining to Kongo with high hopes that the document would contain masses of fresh eye-witness source materials that Fr. Alamandidi had weeded out to make Istorica Descriizione a publishable work.
Bantu in the Crystal Ball, I
Authors: Vansina Jan
Published: May 2006

More than one-third of Africa is occupied by people who speak related languages belonging to a single family called Bantu. This has been recognized for more than a century. As early as 1886 Harry Johnston argued that this situation was the result of differentiation from a real single ancestral language, later called UrBantu or Proto-Bantu. The inevitable question arises: How could one language or a group of closely related dialects diffuse over such a vast area? The fact of Bantu expansion remains a major puzzle in the history of Africa. Many have risen to the bait of solving it.

My main goal here is to recount the salient features of this century-long inquiry and in doing so to lead to an assessment of the present situation. Given the nature and the paucity of the available data, much of proposed reconstruction has been conjectural, so that the study of Bantu expansion also has been an exercise in conjectural history and in speculation. The available data are disparate and drawn from different disciplines, and the results tell us something about what can and what cannot be done in interdisciplinary research. In the telling I hope to demonstrate how much different considerations of the question have been moulded by the major themes in European and American intellectual history of the last century and how much scholarly tradition, once established, has directed and limited the solutions proposed.
Setting the Story Straight: Louis Hunkanrin and Un forfait colonial
Authors: McDougall E. A.
Published: May 2006

In Paris 1931, the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme published the pamphlet, Un forfait colonial: l'esclavage en Mauritanie. Its author was a man best known in the context of radical Dahomean politics, Louis Hunkanrin, who had cause to know Mauritania better than he would have liked during ten years spent there in political exile. This exposé of slavery in Mauritania is a curious concoction -- general information damning the morals, values and work ethic of Moorish society; selected cases of injustice drawn from his personal experience; a lengthy report by a medical official despairing of Mauritania's poor food production and its relation to the slave situation; an eloquent letter to the Governor of Mauritania presenting a defense of his own actions; brutal attacks on particular French administrators; all with a large dose of French patriotism liberally sprinkled throughout. As stated in his preface, Hunkanrin's aim in exposing the crimes committed against the blacks in Mauritania was none other than “to illuminate the true face of France in this territory where the French flag flies—emblem of peace, liberty, and justice: the France of the Rights of Man, maternal France, good, generous and just,… It is well understood that I am only concerned to serve the interests of France and humanity.”
Deep-Down Time: Political Tradition in Central Africa
Authors: Vansina Jan
Published: May 2006

Around 1850 the peoples of central Africa from Duala to the Kunene River and from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes shared a common view of the universe and a common political ideology. This included assumptions about roles, statuses, symbols, values, and indeed the very notion of legitimate authority. Among the plethora of symbols connected with these views were the leopard or the lion, the sun, the anvil, and the drum, symbolizing respectively the leader as predator, protector, forger of society, and the voice of all. Obviously, in each case the common political ideology was expressed in slightly different views, reflecting the impact of differential historical processes on different peoples. But the common core persisted. The gigantic extent of this phenomenon, encompassing an area equal to two-thirds of the continental United States, baffles the mind. How did it come about? Such a common tradition certainly did not arise independently in each of the hundreds of political communities that existed then. However absorbent and stable this mental political constellation was, it must have taken shape over a profound time depth. How and as a result of what did this happen? Is it even possible to answer such queries in a part of the world that did not generate written records until a few centuries ago or less?

This paper addresses this question: how can one trace the social construction of such a common constellation over great time depths and over great regional scale? All the peoples involved are agriculturalists and the political repertory with which we are concerned could not easily exist in its known form outside sedentary societies.
The Myth of the Capitalist Class: Unofficial Sources and Political Economy in Colonial Malawi, 1895-1924
Authors: Woods Tony
Published: May 2006

One of the prevalent theories in Malawian historiography is that primitive accumulation created a unified capitalist class which worked in concert with the colonial state and sowed the seeds of poverty by viciously exploiting the indigenous community. This proposition relies almost exclusively on official sources, and scholars have rarely looked for unofficial material to corroborate it. Such a lacuna is regrettable because unofficial data indicate that Malawi's colonial capitalists were often a badly fragmented class antagonistic to the colonial administration. Moreover, the capitalists' divisions paralyzed them politically and thus allowed the state to enact legislation which was often antithetical to capitalists' ambitions and prerequisites. As a result, the capitalists often found themselves economically imperiled. Few documents demonstrate this trend better than the colony's most important expatriate newspaper, The Nyasaland Times.

The Nyasaland Times first appeared in 1895. Published by R.S. Hynde at the Blantyre Mission press, it immediately declared that “we are devoted to the planting interests of the community—the interest, we venture to state, on which the commercial prosperity of B.C.A. [British Central Africa] depends.” That the planters needed a voice devoted to them can scarcely be denied. By 1895 both the administration and the missions had established papers which were often hostile to the planters. In particular, Sir Harry Johnston's British Central African Gazette reflected the Commissioner's almost feral antipathy towards the planters in its editorials.
A Further Note on Research in Burundi
Authors: Stewart Kearsley
Published: May 2006

This short note updates Nancy Hunt's recent report on research in Burundi. While Hunt presented a thorough description of the situation in Burundi as of 1984, my recent month-long visit in August of 1988 shows that a few of the names, as well as some aspects of the protocol, have changed.

Although Hunt adequately presented the informal process of obtaining research clearance to work in Bujumbura (attestations from the Centre de Civilisation Burundaise or CCB, mayor's office, university, etc.), the process for any area outside the city limits is more complicated, decidedly more formal, and not always guaranteed of success. Requests for research clearance in all communes except Bujumbura should be directed to Mr. le Ministre Aloys Kadoyi, Ministère de l'Intérieur, B.P. 1910, Bujumbura. The initial request should contain an introductory cover letter, a support letter from your university, and a copy of the research proposal, all in French if possible. Attestations from other sources strengthen a researcher's status in the field outside Bujumbura, but they do not replace the necessary official permission granted from the Ministry of the Interior.
Out of Silence: Writing Interactive Women's Life Histories in Africa
Authors: Townsend Leslie H.
Published: May 2006

It is not surprising that no distinct line demarks Mrs. Zenani's creative stories and the events of her own life. The plotting of fictional imagery sometimes gives way to the detailed depiction of, for example, a rite of passage distilled from her history. If the oral tale provides insights into history, such real life descriptions as are found in this autobiography are frequently framed by the imaginative tradition.

During the summer of 1982 I lived in the predominantly Muslim city of Kano, in northern Nigeria, to study the Hausa language and to learn about women's lives—their activities, interests, and identities. Residence in Kano challenged the questions and theoretical assumptions of my research. The ‘silences’ I encountered in the field now inform questions for a methodology for the study of women's lives that acknowledges the connections between researcher, subject/s of life history research, and the eventual written analysis of their narrative histories. An underlying theme—and persistent question—is the extent to which such writing tells us more about the researcher or the narratives' subject/s.

Feminist theory and methodology inform this consideration of women's life histories. Feminist scholars have focused on the inscription of meaning in women's interests in writing about women. They have assigned a central role to “women's conscious perceptions” of their lived social experience in theory construction. The specific inclusion of women's, and other groups' perceptions contributes to historians' formulation of research models and methodology. I will discuss several methodological issues before returning to the ‘silences’ of my own fieldwork.
Trick Cyclists? Recontextualizing Rwandan Dynastic Chronology
Authors: Newbury David
Published: May 2006

Chronology used to be an object of great interest among African historians because it was seen as essential to history, it provided exactitude where so much else was analytic, and it was such a difficult feature to handle in oral accounts. More recently, historical analysis has been concerned more with processes and periods than with defined events and dates. Although deemed to be useful when available, precise chronology is now seen as less essential to historical reconstruction; it is accepted that chronologies are subject to interpretation and debate, and that these debates themselves illuminate the way in which local communities reconstruct—and historians understand—history.

This paper addresses such issues of debate, contestation, and negotiation—that is, it explores the nature of intellectual hegemony—but it does so across cultural boundaries. It thus illustrates a fundamental contradiction in the manner by which historians have treated cultural units defined as distinct: while as independent polities they have been assumed to be culturally autonomous, source material from one is often drawn on to fill in the gaps of others. This procedure was especially common where there were powerful kingdoms whose political boundaries were assumed to be rigid and inviolate. The states of the western Interlacustrine area, each believed to be ruled by an established dynastic line whose origins reached far back into antiquity, provide an exemplary illustration of this process.

By the early twentieth century, at the time of European conquest, Rwanda was one of the most powerful of these states, having either conquered and absorbed, or at least dominated, many of the distinct kingdoms with which it formerly competed.
Gerhard Rohlfs in Yorubaland
Authors: de Veer Elisabeth , O'Hear Ann
Published: May 2006

Gerhard Rohlfs was born in Vegesack near Bremen in 1831. He was a frequent traveler in Africa, and in 1865-67 he became the first European to travel from north Africa across the Sahara to the west African coast, from Tripoli to Borno, then through Bauchi and Keffi to Loko, thence down the Benue to its confluence with the Niger at Lokoja, which he reached on 28 March 1867. From there, he proceeded upstream along the Niger to Raba, delivering presents to Masaba of Nupe. From Raba, he traveled overland through Yorubaland to Lagos. In 1868 he published an account of the first half of this journey, from north Africa to Borno, in Petermann's Mitteilungen. In 1872 his account of the second half, “Gerhard Rohlfs' Reise durch Nord-Afrika vom Mittelländischen Meere bis zum Busen von Guinea, 1865 bis 1867, 2. Hälfte: von Kuka nach Lagos (Bornu, Bautschi, Saria, Nupe, Yoruba),” also appeared in Petermann's. A later publication, Quer durch Afrika, which appeared in 1874-75, covered the entire journey.

Rohlfs' accounts of his travels in west Africa south of the Sahara have up to now been greatly neglected. The works mentioned above have never been published in English translation, which no doubt goes some way to explain this neglect. Rohlfs' information on his stay in Kuka (the capital of Borno) and his visits to Bauchi and Nupe have been cited by some scholars, at least. Very few, however, appear to have consulted his description of the last leg of his 1866-67 journey, in which he proceeded from the Niger south through Yorubaland to Lagos, visiting Share, Ilorin, Iwo, Ibadan, and parts of Ijebuland on the way.
Archives and Manuscripts Collections Relating to Africa Held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Authors: Anderson David M. , Seton Rosemary
Published: May 2006

Readers of this journal will surely be familiar with the excellent research collection of published materials on Africa held in London by the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). This remains the foremost collection of its kind in Europe, and has long been widely used by visiting scholars from all around the world. But it is less well known that the library also houses a substantial and rapidly expanding collection of primary source materials, many of which relate to the history of Africa. This brief report on the archives and manuscripts relating to Africa housed in the SOAS library offers an introduction to this collection, along with an annotated listing of current holdings. With the exception of one or two of the larger items, the majority of the archive materials on Africa have been relatively little used by scholars to date, and it is to be hoped that the publication of this report will encourage greater use of this increasingly important collection.

The library has collected manuscripts in various African and Asian languages since its inception in 1916, but it is only since 1973, when a new purpose-built library was opened, that the School has begun to take in deposits of modern archives and to build up its collections of manuscripts relating to Africa and Asia. Since then the collection has developed considerably, the principal focus being upon the records of missionaries and missionary organizations, of humanitarian groups and non-governmental organizations and those who worked with them, and business records and the papers of those involved in business.
Writing Ideology: Ranavalona, The Ancestral Bureaucrat
Authors: Berg Gerald M.
Published: May 2006

In the late eighteenth century, Imerina was checkered with a myriad of tiny principalities, each ruled from hilltop fortresses. In just fifty years from 1780 to 1830, it was unified under a single ruler, drawing Merina into increasingly wider systems of obedience and creating a vastimperiumthat held sway over most of the Island of Madagascar, a landmass the size of France, Belgium, and Holland combined.

And yet, the half century of tumultuous change that characterized the empire's rise brought no revolution in the Merina's own understanding of the world of power, a view which I have termedhasinaideology. Merina saw historical reality not as the product of human agency, but of ancestral beneficence,hasina, which flowed downwards on obedient Merina from long-dead ancestors in a sacred stream that connected all living Merina. For obedient Merina, politics consisted in nothing more nor less than a lifelong quest to position one's self favorably in that sacred stream as close as possible to ancestors and then to reap the benefits of that cherished association. With the passage of time, thehasinastream flowed into new generations and so generated new social relations expressed in terms of kinship. The vast transformation of the Merina political landscape only enhanced Imerina's devotion to ancestralhasina.

The origins ofhasinaideology are not known, though by the time Andrianampoinimerina began to unify Imerina in the closing decades of the eighteenth century, its character is clearly perceptible. Andrianampoinimerina's son Radama built on his father's legacy. In the 1820s he transformed Imerina from a small and isolated kingdom into an empire capable of projecting its power over the length and breadth of Madagascar.