bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Note on Firearms in the Zulu Kingdom with special reference to the Anglo-Zulu War, 1879
Authors: Guy J. J.
Published: January 2009

The earliest substantial references we have to the reaction of Zulu to firearms date from the 1820s and they show that any previous contact with such weapons must have been slight. The diaries of the English traders who arrived in the kingdom in the latter part of the 1820s point to a widespread fear of firearms on the part of Shaka's subjects—a fear not necessarily related to the missiles the guns discharged, but to the noise and smoke they emitted when fired. Dingane, in a discussion on strategy with his councillors which Isaacs overheard in 1830, said that:

if the white people were to come here to fight us, they need not fire at us, as the report from their pieces would strike you with terror, and while you ran one way, the Malongoes (whites) would drive off your cattle the other.
The Judicial Agreements in Yorubaland 1904–1908
Authors: Adewoye O.
Published: January 2009

The role of law in British expansion in Africa has received insufficient attention from historians, yet there is nothing new in the use of law as an instrument of imperial or colonial expansion. Law occupied an important position in the organization of the Roman Empire. The Norman kings strengthened their hold on medieval England by centralizing the administration of justice through the establishment of royal courts whose varied jurisdictions eventually became predominant throughout the whole country.

This paper discusses the circumstances in which English law was introduced into Yorubaland early in this century largely through a series of judicial agreements signed with a number of indigenous rulers. The primary consideration behind the making of the agreements was the protection of British commercial interests, but the importance of the agreements really transcends this objective. They provided a firm basis for the establishment of British colonial rule in this part of Nigeria—by making provisions for the punishment of criminal offences, by introducing a machinery of justice which struck at the sovereignty of the Yoruba states, and by ensuring the supremacy of English law over the indigenous laws and customs. The agreements also marked the beginning of the introduction into Yorubaland of new legal ideas and principles, which were a potent factor of social change.
John Chilembwe and the New Jerusalem
Authors: Jane  , Linden Ian
Published: January 2009

The Nyasaland rising of 1915 has been dealt with previously within the perspective of proto-nationalism, and a hiatus has been emphasized betweenprophetaelike Kamwana and the Baptist orthodoxy of Chilembwe. An analysis of the beliefs of many of the lesser lights in the rising, however, shows that millennial expectations were rife at the outbreak of the rising. Kamwana's prophecies of the advent of the millennium in October 1914 were provided with support by the outbreak of the First World War. The rising is analysed within the context of millennial belief in an attempt to show how a development from passivism to activism from October 1914 to January 1915 was the proximate cause of open revolt. The failure of the rising is discussed in terms of the religious ideology used to legitimize it, and the role of Watchtower beliefs is clarified. Evidence of millennial hopes is taken from trial reports of rebels and from correspondence confiscated after the rising at Ncheu and Chiradzulu.
The growth of trade among the Igbo before 1880
Authors: Northrup David
Published: January 2009

The peoples of south-eastern Nigeria have been involved in trade for as long as there are any records. The archaeological sites at Igbo-Ukwu and other evidence reveal long distance trade in metal and beads, as well as regional trade in salt, cloth, and beads at an early date. The lower Niger River and its Delta featured prominently in this early trade, and evidence is offered to suggest a continuity in the basic modes of trade on the lower Niger from c. A.D. 1500 to the mid-nineteenth century. An attempt to sketch the basic economic institutions of the Igbo hinterland before the height of the slave trade stresses regional trading networks in salt, cloth, and metal, the use of currencies, and a nexus of religious and economic institutions and persons. It is argued that while the growth of the slave trade appears to have been handled without major changes in the overall patterns of trade along the lower Niger, in the Igbo hinterland a new marketing ‘grid’, dominated by the Arochuku traders, was created using the pre-existent regional trading networks and religious values as a base.
Tripoli and the war with the U.S.A., 1801–5
Authors: Folayan Kola
Published: January 2009

This paper has attempted a new look at the course of the Tripoli-American War of 1801–5. The approach is, first, to avoid the beaten track and concentrate on the more obscure part of the story, namely, Tripoli's conduct of the war; and secondly, to attempt an explanation of Tripoli's success (or conversely America's failure) in a way that is different from the general American pattern. In this respect, emphasis has therefore been, not on the ineffectiveness of the American navy, but on three other important factors. These are: the moral and material support of the neighbouring Maghribi states for Tripoli's cause; the favourable international situation which helped Tripoli economically through the livestock trade with Malta; and thirdly, the contribution of Tripoli's navy, both as an instrument of warfare and as an economic asset. The paper concludes with an assessment of the international, dynastic, and political significance of the outcome of the war for Tripoli.
Colonial and Settler pressures and the African move to the politics of representation and union in Nyasaland
Authors: Tangri Roger
Published: January 2009

In 1938, African political leaders in Nyasaland began seeking direct African representation on the Legislative Council and also moved towards creating a nation-wide political organization. The simultaneous emergence of these two political strategies represented a rational African attempt to refine previous techniques in the face of changing circumstances. Hitherto, district-wide Native Associations had sought to influence directly the central government secretariat. At the same time these Associations had begun centralizing their activities, with the Representative Committee, in particular, acting as a national-type pressure group. From 1930, however, the government denied the Associations direct access to the centre of its administrative system and insisted that they work through the district chiefs. Some associationists now sought to create a national movement which could circumvent the chiefs and gain access direct to the central government. But the idea was not followed up. Only after Africans had spontaneously become united on a national level and had through unified action successfully opposed the European settler demand for a Central African Union, did a growing feeling emerge that a territorial organization offered a more promising way for solving African problems. In the meantime, the government was beginning to take greater action in the fields of economic
The Early History of the Sultanate of Angoche
Authors: Newitt M. D. D.
Published: January 2009

The sultanate of Angoche on the Moçambique coast was founded probably towards the end of the fifteenth century by refugees from Kilwa. It became a base for Muslim traders who wanted to use the Zambezi route to the central African trading fairs and it enabled them to by-pass the Portuguese trade monopoly at Sofala. The Portuguese were not able to check this trade until they themselves set up bases on the Zambezi in the 1530s and 1540s, and from that time the sultanate began to decline. Internal dissensions among the ruling families led to the Portuguese obtaining control of the sultanate in the late sixteenth century, but this control was abandoned in the following century when the trade of the Angoche coast dwindled to insignificance. During the eighteenth century movements among the Macua peoples of the mainland and the development of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean laid the foundations for the revival of the sultanate in the nineteenth century.
Firearms in the Central Sudan: A Revaluation
Authors: Smaldone Joseph P.
Published: January 2009

The recent thesis propounded by Fisher and Rowland regarding the role of firearms in the Central Sudan requires considerable modification. While one must concede that the observable effects of firearms in the nineteenth century were not profound, this statement must be qualified to account for the incipient revolution in military technology, army organization, and political structure that occurred in many of the Central Sudanese states in the last quarter of the century. The relative ease with which European imperial powers conquered these states has tended to obscure from historians the dynamics of internal change that became manifest during the last decades of their independent existence.

It is clear from the evidence presented in this article that the increasing use of firearms intensified the tendencies toward bureaucratization and the centralization of power in the states of the Central Sudan. The creation of regular standing armies, the formation of slave musketeer units commanded by slave officers, and the progressive devaluation of feudal institutions in favour of bureaucratized political and military structures, were the distinguishing characteristics of this period. Although history is irreversible, it is interesting to ponder the possible alternative outcomes of this nascent revolution. Its directions were clear, its destination unknown. In this article we have argued that these developments in politico-military organization did in fact represent a new departure which, if permitted to run its course, would have radically affected the subsequent history of the Central Sudan. It is our contention that the Fisher-Rowland thesis underestimates and misinterprets the nature of these changes.
Missionary Imperialism—The Case of Bechuanaland
Authors: Dachs Anthony J.
Published: January 2009

This article, based on private papers as well as missionary and government records, examines the development of missionary contact with the Tswana peoples from the first settlement at Dithakong in 1816 to the establishment of a formal British Protectorate. The author seeks to analyse the nature of ‘missionary imperialism’ as a consequence not only of missionary motives and methods—still less as the accidental interest of individual missionaries—but also as the product of practical missionary experience and frustration in African circumstances.

The absence of European administration from Bechuanaland for much of the nineteenth century gives a rare opportunity to study the effects of missionary activity on African life and polity, less complicated than usual by secular pressures and influences. And the lack of economic attraction in Bechuanaland allows a close examination of the incentives to empire. But it is likely that the trend apparent in missionary attitudes and work in Bechuanaland will be repeated in other areas, as for example in Ndebeleland and Malawi.

The missionary role in Bechuanaland was largely determined by the organization and attitudes of Tswana society; missionary methods had to be adjusted accordingly, and eventually included an appeal to the British government to intervene and reduce resistant Tswana authority. This was in the logic of the missionaries' experience. In this light of missionary history, a new importance is found for the agitation on the British government from 1882 and the definition of the Convention of London in 1884.
Militarism and Economic Development in Nineteenth Century Yoruba Country: The Ibadan Example
Authors: Awẹ Bọlanle
Published: January 2009

The ingredients for economic development were certainly present in the Yoruba country in the nineteenth century: land was available; labour was cheap and some of the towns like Ibadan were well placed for trade. But for this economic growth, militarism was a double-edged weapon. The needs of a military state, such as Ibadan, certainly gave it tremendous impetus; trade, agriculture, arts and crafts developed in response to the demands of the military, who constituted the new leadership. But in the final analysis all these economic activities needed peace for their full development; Ibadan, by the very nature of its birth and its commitment to military ideals and military solutions to the problems confronting the Yoruba country, could not, however, guarantee this peace. On the contrary, in its struggle for power and leadership within that country, it took actions which jeopardized the chances of peaceful economic development in Ibadan and other parts of the Yoruba country. Moreover the intermittent warfare, which characterized this country generally in the nineteenth century, injected an element of discontinuity into its economic growth, and placed some constraint on lasting economic development. The fact that agriculture, trade and industry still flourished in the Yoruba country, particularly in Ibadan, can therefore only be regarded as a pointer to the country's economic potentialities, rather than as an evidence of normal economic growth. But with the restoration of peace at the end of the century, and the introduction of British rule, Ibadan and the rest of the Yoruba country were poised for rapid economic development.
Liberia and the Universal Negro Improvement Association: The background to the abortion of Garvey's scheme for African colonization
Authors: Akpan M. B.
Published: January 2009

In July 1924, the Liberian government suddenly banned the Universal Negro Improvement Association from Liberia, and this after over four years of apparent co-operation with the Association in its plans to settle New World Negroes in Liberia and generally to aid Liberia financially. Yet the ban could not have surprised anyone familiar with Liberian matters. The Liberian economy, which at the advent of the Association in 1920 was in a very bad state, was beginning to recover independently of the Association. Moreover, Britain and France, which had colonies nearby, abhorred the Association's anti-colonialism crusade, and Liberia feared to alienate these powers. But most importantly, the ruling Americo-Liberian class feared that the Association's immigrants might challenge its already entrenched, privileged position in Liberia, and probably end its exploitation and oppression of Liberia's indigenous African population, which provided labour and revenue for this class and for the Liberian government generally.
The problem of feedback in oral tradion:four examples form the Fante coastlands
Authors: Henige David P.
Published: January 2009

Little attention has been devoted to the uncritical and almost reflexive incorporation of available printed information into allegedly oral historical materials. This inclination is particularly strong when oral traditions attempt to cope with material more than a century old. The present paper discusses the mechanisms by which such ‘feedback’ materials were incorporated into the traditional accounts of four coastal Fante stools, and the ambiences which encouraged such processes.

Stool, succession, and land disputes were concomitants of Fante political activity, and the imposition by the British of an indirect form of rule allowed Fante traditional historians ample scope for manipulating and creating traditions to fit every contingency. The high level of literacy among the Fante and the relatively large number of early printed works which touched upon the history of the area only served to encourage these propensities. For various reasons many of these barnacles failed to become entrenched, but others were accepted by the British at the time that they were advanced and have since become the accepted and orthodox versions of traditional accounts.

While indegreethe responses of the Fante were not representative of other African societies, inkindtheir responses were wholly typical of the development of oral historical materials almost everywhere. The historian must consider a given tradition as having been dynamic over time, and must concern himself not only with its content, but with the circumstances of its development as well.
Worker consciousness in black miners: Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1920
Authors: van Onselen Charles
Published: January 2009

It has become accepted by historians and social scientists alike that African workers in Rhodesia were slow to demonstrate resistance in the industrial setting of the economy. This tardiness is attributed to the dominance of the migrant labour system or the achievements of the settler administration. This view is challenged by a detailed study of African responses in the mining industry. Here geological factors led to profitability constraints which led to extensive exploitation of African labour. This in turn manifested itself in the appalling conditions in the mine compounds. In these circumstances, the choice of employer was of vital importance to Africans, and they developed a rapid and efficient system of market intelligence about employment prospects throughout southern Africa. African worker consciousness was evident in patterns of avoidance of, selective participation in, and desertion from, mines. In addition, worker consciousness and resistance manifested themselves in day-to-day work situations, and in strike action. All of these activities suggest a well-developed worker consciousness which pre-dates the more familiar organizations of the 1920s such as the Dance Societies, the Watch Tower Society and the I.C.U. These patterns further suggest that worker strategy in Rhodesia can best be understood within the context of the functioning of a regional economic system embracing all of southern Africa.
‘He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage’ the horse in the Central Sudan II. Its use
Authors: Fisher Humphrey J.
Published: January 2009

Horses in themselves have little or no necessary military significance: in Part I of this article we saw how various quite unwarlike peoples possessed them. of fundamental significance, in transforming horses into war-horses, was good harness and equipment, and to carry this larger animals were preferable. Even against well-equipped cavalry, mainly infantry forces might prevail, if they were, like the Almoravids and the adherents of Usuman dan Fodio, sufficiently inspired. An important advantage of a horse, or better still several horses, was in providing a means of speedy escape. Horses were also valuable in slaving, a profitable occupation not only in the economic terms of human booty, some of whom might be sold for more horses, but also in demographic terms, a sort of compulsory immigration scheme. The use of horses in communications, as packanimals, in hunting, and for food, is discussed, though none was of outstanding significance in the Central Sudan. The employment of horses in agriculture seems to have been entirely lacking. Perhaps the most widespread use of horses was in festivals and celebrations; these displays of horsemanship, whether intentionally or not, helped train horses and riders. Good equipment was again vital, and sumptuary restrictions seem to have been directed more against overweening ostentation in this, than in the possession of horses. While horses were very widely esteemed, the most scrupulous among Muslims felt a certain hesitation about the propriety of riding a horse. Horses were found as a form of tribute, alms, bribes, and gifts of various kinds. In conclusion, the horseperse was more common, and less remarkable, in the Central Sudan than is sometimes suggested; it was the equipment of horses which made them effective weapons of war and statecraft.
Racial History and bio-cultural adaptation of Nubian archaeological populations
Authors: Van Gerven Dennis P. , Carlson David S. , Armelagos George J.
Published: January 2009

A principal role of the physical anthropologist has been the analysis of the human skeleton. Such analysis has traditionally utilized similarities in skeletal morphology and, in some instances, hypothetical racial affinities, to establish the biological relationships between populations. Established biological relationships are then assumed to reflect cultural affinities. As a result of this approach to the skeletal remains of Nubian populations, the culture history of Nubia has been explained in terms of type, hybridization, and atavism, rather than the more biologically and culturally meaningful units of variation, evolution and development. Our analysis of skeletal remains associated with Meroitic, X-Group and Christian cultural horizons in Sudanese Nubia has emphasized a bio-cultural approach to detectable patterns of mortality, skeletal growth and pathology. Rather than seeking to reconstruct cultural history from such biological evidence, this approach utilizes independently established evidence of culural adaptation as the principal environmental context within which these biological processes occur. From this conceptual framework, it becomes possible to gain new insight into the biological and cultural dynamics of variation, evolution and development within the Nubian corridor.
John Sarbah, the elder, and African mercantile entrepreneurship in the Gold Coast in the late nineteenth Century
Authors: Dumett Raymond E.
Published: January 2009

The trading career of John Sarbah of Ghana is illustrative of the activities of a distinguished group of independent African coastal merchants in the late nineteenth century, and an analysis of his business methods helps to cast light on the general problems and operations of mercantile entrepreneurship in West Africa. The rise of the African merchants was the result of an interaction between indigenous and external factors. It would be a mistake to exaggerate the importance of the coastal trading sector in the development of the total economy of the country in the late nineteenth century; but it would appear that the major African merchants, led by John Sarbah, F. C. Grant, J. W. Sey and others, played a larger part in commercial development, 1865 to about 1895, than is commonly recognized in historical accounts. Sarbah's entrepreneurship was mainfested in his ability to manage with competence a network of stores and trading stations, to extend the market for manufactured merchandise, to open up new sources for cash export, and to assess risks and invest capital in his firm's expanision. Of particular importance were Sarbah's efforts to stimulate the collection and processing of palm kernels, to help lay a groundwork for the development of the rubber trade in Asin and Lower Denkyera in the early 1880s, and to extend the orbit of his trading operations to the southeastern Ivory Coast.
Land policies in Malawi: an examination of the colonial legacy
Authors: Pachai Bridglal
Published: January 2009

The colonial bequest in the history of land matters in Malawi began with the alienation of the best agricultural lands in the country to a few large estate owners. The promised security of tenure to the original inhabitants of the estates was never observed in full measure, and the colonial government itself attempted to remedy the original error by beginning to re-acquire land for African settlement as well as to attempt to offer some security of tenure to the African residents. These two efforts were accelerated and refined by the African government, and new related areas of relief were also introduced for the benefit of the African masses. The masses are, by nature, conservative, and the African government, forward-looking and attempting to redress the balance of unequal opportunities while at the same time formulating plans to get rid of the shackles of budgetary deficits, has to plan carefully and influence persuasively. Many of the changes introduced have yet to be tried over a number of years in different situations. For example, there is little public demand, as in Kenya, for individual title to land. ‘So although there is land pressure, the people do not want to split the family, and they do not yet appreciate the freedom of transfer provided by the Registered Land Act.’ There is, too, what is described as the disadvantages of the matrilineal system: ‘The men are a floating population and it is the women who are tied to the land. Family life is unstable and there is no solid ground on which to build a modern form of land tenure.’
A note on the relative importance of slaves and gold in West African exports
Authors: Bean Richard
Published: January 2009

Specialists in the history of West Africa disagree about the relative importance of slaves and other commodities in African exports. Examination of the rough statistical evidence that is available indicates that slave exports earned less foreign exchange for Africa than did the single most important other export through four of the five centuries of contact between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. There were large regional differences in the pattern of African exports, and it was the dominance of gold in total African export which helped make the Gold Coast the focus of European rivalries in West Africa.
Ndebele raiders and Shona power
Authors: Beach D. N.
Published: January 2009

For a variety of reasons the extent, number and severity of Ndebele raids upon the Shona-speaking peoples have been greatly exaggerated in the past. Moreover most studies of the Ndebele have failed to take into account the fact that the Ndebele conquered an already well-established Shona state with an economy linked with the Indian Ocean trade. This article seeks to show that the bulk of Ndebele raiding before 1873 was a response to both the political and military threat of the Changamire Rozvi dynasty and to the economic needs of the state that had been taken over. Even so, Ndebele raids were limited in extent and duration, and the two decades after 1873 saw a steady revival of Shona strength. In spite of Ndebele raids aimed at preventing this process, the independent Shona strengthened themselves by re-arming and ‘alliances’, and were able to take part in the eventual overthrow of the Ndebele kingdom.

This article is a condensed version of a paper presented at the History Workshop, Gaborone, September 1973.
Slavery and Emancipation in Benin, 1897–1945
Authors: Igbafe Philip A.
Published: January 2009

Slavery and pawning were closely related though different institutions in precolonial Benin society. In many areas of Nigeria and indeed West Africa, colonial rule signified the end of the slave trade but domestic slavery was left undisturbed for quite a long time. The earliest of the slave dealing ordinances merely contained clauses in favour of manumission. In Benin, however, for quite peculiar reasons, the British attack on slavery came with the first entry of British troops into the area. First, emancipation was used to facilitate British occupation. Later, the drive for manumission was a strong expression of the British commitment to a principle which grew out of the ad hoc adoption of measures favouring emancipation.

In the attack on slavery and pawning in Benin, the native courts were heavily relied upon as well as the use of ordinances and proclamations. The abolition of slavery and pawning created a welter of problems on the social, economic and political planes.

This paper examines these problems and how they were handled by the British administration in Benin. Changes in the society which were the byproducts of emancipation as well as factors which made emancipation possible are also discussed.
The prehistorical, implications of Guthrie's comparative Bantu Part I: Problems of internal relationship
Authors: Dalby David
Published: January 2009

After a brief survey of the organization of Guthrie's Comparative Bantu, consideration is devoted to the putative prehistorical interrelationships of the Bantu languages, in the light of Guthrie's and subsequent scholarship. The intended ‘introductory’ nature of Guthrie's work is stressed, his comprehensive survey covering only 28 Test Languages (among over 350). Recent criticisms of and divergences from Guthrie's prehistorical conclusions are considered, together with the inadequacy of the ‘genealogical tree’ approach. The apparent contradiction of Guthrie by Henrici and Heine in particular is shown to be less substantial than at first appears: maps based on the work of all three confirm the remoter relationship of NW. Bantu to the remainder, and also a basic East-West division (but with Luba and Bemba occupying an intermediate position). It seems probable that some NW. languages are to be traced directly to a proto-language in the Cameroun area, rather than to Guthrie's Katangan nucleus, but this means only that Guthrie cast his net too wide, not that his whole thesis is false. It is recommended that the use of the term ‘Proto-Bantu’ be clarified by use of the term ‘Proto-Bantu 1’ for an original NW. nucleus, ‘Proto-Bantu 2’ for a secondary nucleus S. of the Congo forest, and ‘Proto-Bantu 3’ for a tertiary (and overlapping) nucleus to the east of 2. An amended version of Guthrie's sequence of Bantu linguistic expansion is proposed, although attention is drawn to the hazards of necessarily basing this on the evidence of modern Bantu languages only. Henrici's statistical treatment of Guthrie's data assists in distinguishing temporal from spatial distance among the Test Languages.
The Prehistorical Implications of Guthrie's Comparative Bantu. Part II: Interpretation of Cultural Vocabulary
Authors: Dalby David
Published: January 2009

The second part of this article opens with a general caveat about the use and misuse of linguistic evidence. Guthrie, on the other hand, presented his data in a way which leaves subsequent scholars free to arrive at their own interpretations. The complexity of his data makes it difficult to achieve a necessary overview, however, and a stylized grid is therefore proposed, enabling the relative distribution of individual items of Common Bantu vocabulary to be plotted and compared. This is particularly important in the case of cultural vocabulary, where geographical distribution is normally related to levels of historical origin or diffusion. Groups of these vocabulary grids, based on Guthrie's corpus of data and his referential zones, are assembled and presented for the following semantic areas: fishing and watercraft, metal-working, pottery, livestock and cultivation (including cereals). Much of the remainder of the article is devoted to an exposition of the way in which these grids may be interpreted historically, including the need to distinguish—as far as possible—between likely cognates and likely loan-words. Attention is drawn to the possibilities (i) that Bantu languages may have begun to diverge substantially in linguistic terms before they began to move widely apart from their secondary and tertiary nucleus south of the forest, and (ii) that there may have been a differential layering, or overlapping waves, of Bantu expansion in the east.
Some Recent Radiocarbon Dates from Eastern and Southern Africa
Authors: Maggs Tim
Published: January 2009

This Article follows in the series started by Fagan and continued for eastern and southern Africa by Phillipson, Sutton and Soper. The scope remains much the same, covering in time the later part of the Stone Age sequence as well as the Iron Age. Geographically, however, there are some changes: the Sudan has been excluded as it was covered by the recent review of North and West African dates, while a detailed chronological review of francophone Central Africa is in progress and therefore this region has been excluded.
Royal Monopoly and Private Enterprise in the Atlantic Trade: The Case of Dahomey
Authors: Law Robin
Published: January 2009

The kingdom of Dahomey is often presented as the classic instance of the operation of a royal monopoly of the Atlantic trade in West Africa. Detailed study establishes, however, that there was never any such royal commercial monopoly in Dahomey, although there were attempts to establish such a monopoly in the 1780s and in the 1850s. The kings of Dahomey enjoyed a number of commercial privileges, and controlled the distribution of the war captives taken by the Dahomian army, but they were never the sole sellers of slaves. There was always an important group of private merchants in Dahomey, who were mainly concerned with marketing the slaves imported into the kingdom from the interior. The replacement of the slave trade by the palm oil trade in the nineteenth century strengthened the position of the private merchants, since they were able to move into the production of oil as well as marketing it. The kings of Dahomey also engaged in the production of oil for export, but were not able to establish as complete control of the production of oil as they had exercised over the ‘production’ of slaves.
Repercussions of World War I in the Gold Coast
Authors: Killingray David
Published: January 2009

Although on the periphery of the war Gold Coast resources and manpower were mobilized for the imperial war effort. The educated élite and many traditional rulers were loyal and internal conditions, despite the withdrawal of personnel and troops, generally peaceful. Small-scale disturbances occasioned by the war occurred, the most serious in the Northern Territories. The direction and pattern of Gold Coast external trade changed; exports, with the exception of cocoa, contracted and the price of imports rose. Serious shipping shortages exacerbated difficulties. British ‘Combine’ firms increased their hold over Gold Coast commerce. A fall in government revenue held up public works, and railway construction was paid for by an export duty on cocoa. The war brought marked changes to the government fiscal system. Gold Coast troops were used in the West and East African campaigns and prepared for employment in the Middle East. Varying degrees of compulsion were used to recruit carriers and soldiers and resistance to this was widespread. Labour shortages and the withdrawal of whites provided new job opportunities for Africans. Cocoa and palm kernels were subject to imperial direction and control; Governor Clifford opposed the imperial preference scheme for palm kernels. Imperial wartime economic measures fuelled the nationalism of the NCBWA; the Gold Coast élite demanded political representation as a reward for wartime loyalty, while their economic resolutions attempted to displace European commercial interests strengthened during the war. Economic changes further weakened the position of traditional rulers; labour shortages provided wage labour with temporarily enhanced bargaining power. Post-war trouble from ex-servicemen was slight.
Plantations in the Economy of the Sokoto Caliphate
Authors: Lovejoy Paul E.
Published: January 2009

At a time when coastal West Africa was responding to the growth of ‘legitimate’ trade, the Sokoto Caliphate was experiencing dramatic expansion in the plantation sector. Plantations (gandu, rinji, tungazi), which used slaves captured by the Caliphate armies, were established near all the major towns and were particularly important around Sokoto, Kano, Zaria and other capitals. Plantation development originated with the policies of Muhammad Bello, first Caliph and successor to Uthman dan Fodio, who was concerned with the consolidation and defence of the empire. Besides promoting the economic growth of the capital districts of Sokoto and Gwandu, Bello's policy encouraged the expansion of the textile belt in southern Kano and northern Zaria. Similarly, the desert-side market in grain also benefited from the emphasis on plantations. The result was the greater integration of the Central Sudan region into a single economic zone. The role of plantations in the economy differed from that of plantations elsewhere in the world. Market forces tended to be weaker, and no single export crop dominated production. Rather, the orientation towards the desert-side sector indicates that opportunities for expansion were limited, while the importance of textile manufacturing reflects the relatively weak links with European and other textile production. Other differences included a system of Islamic slavery which encouraged emancipation, a close connexion with slave raiding and distribution, and a system of land tenure which often resulted in fragmented holdings. Stronger links with the world economy did develop in parts of the Caliphate towards the end of the nineteenth century. Nupe and Yola were drawn more closely into the world market through the greater use of the Niger and Benue rivers, but these changes only marginally affected the wider Caliphate economy.
Pastoralism and Zimbabwe
Authors: Garlake P. S.
Published: January 2009

Excavations at the Zimbabwe (enclosure) of Manekweni, in southern coastal Mozambique, have shown that it belongs to the Zimbabwe Culture which was centred on the Rhodesian plateau. Occupation levels have been dated to between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries. The faunal evidence indicates that a section of the population benefited from intensive beef production through transhumant pastoralism on the seasonally-fluctuating fringes of tsetse fly infestation. The settlement pattern of Rhodesian Zimbabwe suggests that their siting was determined by the demands of a similar system of transhumance. This model provides a basis from which to begin to reconstruct some aspects of the economies of early Zimbabwe. It is already clear that Zimbabwe were not simply the products of long-distance trade; rather, their economies integrated farming and cattle-herding as well as gold production and foreign trade.
The Coffee Barons of Cazengo
Authors: Birmingham David
Published: January 2009

When the first anti-slavery legislation was enacted for Angola in 1836, Brazilian planters began to experiment with coffee growing in Africa. They had some success during periods of high coffee prices in the 1850s, 1870s and 1890s, when a couple of dozen estates in the Cazengo district produced slave-grown coffee. Far from being abolished, slavery, in minimally modified forms, survived into the early twentieth century. Traditional slave traders were reluctant to invest in local slave crops and most preferred to supply the slave demands of Säo Tome. In Angola a rival peasant sector also evolved in the coffee business. Black smallholders responded with greater alacrity to opening crop markets than did plantations, and much conflict arose over the sequestration of peasant plots by credit-holding shop-keepers. Although the entire nineteenth-century coffee crop from Angola never amounted to a significant share of the international market, the pattern of land and labour exploitation adopted was revived in the mid-twentieth century when the colony became the world's fourth largest coffee producer. In the coffee slump of the 1890s Cazengo planters diversified into sugar cane which later also became a significant part of the modern agro-industry of Angola.
European Attitudes and African Realities: the rise and fall of the Matolac chiefs of south-east Tanzania
Authors: Ranger Terence
Published: January 2009

Successive Europeans in south-east Tanzania looked for an ethnically based political authority under whom to live or with whom to work. Bishop Edward Steere of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa predicted the existence of very large tribal and linguistic ‘nations’ when this turned out not to be so, the UMCA missionaries who had settled at Masasi sought anxiously for some influential chief who could be represented as heading an ethnic polity; first German and then British administrators over-readily assumed that the chiefs whom they installed asakidasdid in fact represent such ethnicities; finally, in the late 1920s, the British instituted historical research prior to the establishment of Indirect Rule, which was intended to reflect the ethnic and political complexity of the region. This European preoccupation with ethnicity bore little relation to the actualities of the region, which from the nineteenth-century incursions of the Yao, Makua and Makonde had constituted a mosaic of small, autonomous and ethnically mixed groupings. Nevertheless, certain African adventurers were able to take advantage of the European need for allies to build up their power, to become recognised as ‘chiefs’, and ultimately to become regarded as leaders of ethnicities. This was the case with Matola I and Matola II of Newala who between them developed their polity from a very small scattering of huts to a large and prosperous paramountcy. Within the Matola polity various social and cultural processes were at work to produce a common sense of identity, but these processes had not fully eroded the marks of the varying ethnic identities of those who belonged or submitted to the polity. The Indirect Rule inquiries, therefore, with their fanatical emphasis upon ethnicity as the only legitimate base for political authority had the result of dismantling the Matola polity and thereby destroying the only effective local nucleus of political consolidation.
Slaves, Commoners and Landlords in Bulozi, c. 1875 to 1906
Authors: Clarence-Smith W.G.
Published: January 2009

The much-researched history of Bulozi in the late nineteenth century is re-assessed here from a marxist viewpoint. A hereditary class of landlords owned the principal means of production and extracted rent in labour services and in kind from the direct producers. Tribute was also paid to the king and royal family, in recognition of the ultimate royal ownership of the means of production. Surplus was employed to increase leisure time, to indulge in conspicuous consumption, to raise the level of the productive forces through investment, and to maintain repressive political and ideological apparatuses. The main weight of oppression fell on the slaves, with free commoners in an ambivalent position. Slaves were both economically exploited and socially discriminated against, and their position was analogous but by no means identical to that of European serfs. The evolution of class struggle was greatly affected by articulation with capitalism and colonialism. The first contacts stimulated exploitation by providing a larger market and more effective means of repression, but the colonial state later intervened to abolish slavery in order to intensify the flow of migrant labour to the capitalist heartlands of southern Africa.
The British and the Kikuyu 1890–1905: A Reassessment
Authors: Rogers Peter
Published: January 2009

This article argues that trade rather than confrontation was the predominant theme of the early years of interaction between the Kikuyu and the British. It suggests that the Southern Kikuyu in particular enjoyed an important initial period of co-existence with the British, the economic basis of which was a rapid expansion in the 1890s of an already existing trade in agricultural produce with caravans moving along the road to Uganda. This development was, however, not universally welcome among the Southern Kikuyu, and there was a clash of interest between those concerned with an increased production of agricultural surplus, and those whose economic interests were centred on livestock. The death of Waiyaki removed from the scene the most influential trading elder and facilitated, from the areas previously under his influence, hostile opposition to the trading activities now centred upon the permanent fort of the Imperial British East Africa Company. The steady increase of food production encouraged the emergence of a number of Southern Kikuyu traders; this was particularly true for Kinanjui, who had established himself at a time when the military resources of the I.B.E.A. Co. were negligible and poorly organized. It is argued that Kinanjui's status can no longer be regarded as merely the result of assistance from the British. It was significant that the British did not at any time prior to 1900 deploy at Fort Smith a permanent garrison of troops. There existed instead a balance of military resources which made possible an important local arena of political activity between the Southern Kikuyu and the British. The Northern Kikuyu, by contrast, despite their longer-standing trading contacts with the coast, were denied similar opportunities by virtue of more positive policies of control directed initially towards revenue collection.
Cushitic and Nilotic Prehistory: New Archaeological Evidence from North-West Kenya
Authors: Lynch B. M. , Robbins L. H.
Published: January 2009

Recent archaeological research conducted west of Lake Turkana, Kenya has shed new light on the prehistory of eastern Cushitic and Nilotic speakers in East Africa. The Namoratunga cemetery and rock art sites, dated to about 300 B.C., are clearly related to the prehistory of Eastern Cushitic speakers. The newly defined Turkwell cultural tradition, dated to the first millenniuma.d., is associated with eastern Nilotic prehistory. Lopoy, a large lakeside fishing and pastoralist settlement, is discussed in terms of eastern Nilotic prehistory. The archaeological data agrees with the independent findings of historical linguistics.
Farmers, Herdsmen and the State in Rainland Sinnār
Authors: Spaulding Jay
Published: January 2009

In earlier publications the present writer was at pains to emphasize that the state of Sinnār was not a mere confederation of nomadic Arab tribes; rather, it rested upon a firm agricultural base and was governed bureaucratically, while incorporating an ingeniously conceived system of nobility. This interpretation, though valid as far as it went, rested largely on evidence from riverain Sinnār and left little room for nomads. The present study, based primarily upon sources from the Sudanese rainlands, proposes that such a view of the place of herdsmen in the society of Sinnār is not well founded, and indeed that the habit of thought which perceives a sharp and enduring distinction between the peoples of ‘ the steppe and the sown’ – however appropriate in other contexts – does not pertain to Sinnār. The vision of rainland life which emerges from the sources here examined reveals a single society of herdsmen and cultivators, a society in perpetual metamorphosis within a framework of possibilities limited by ecology and custom. Ruling houses came and went; tribes grew, sundered and re-formed into new polities. Individuals and groups migrated freely, occasionally over vast distances, and changed their mode of livelihood whenever the opportunity for herding or the necessity for cultivating presented itself. All were subordinate to the state, whose continuity of authority in the long run overshadowed the more ephemeral corporate realities of the moment.
White Presence and Power in Africa
Authors: Ranger Terence
Published: January 2009

The articles in this special issue are revised versions of papers delivered in September 1978 at the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom conference on ‘Whites in Africa – Past, Present and Future’. The choice of conference topic aroused some controversy. Addressing himself to the ‘Pink ASAUK’, one correspondent enclosed a cutting from West Africa in which news of the forthcoming conference was ominously included on the same page as a report on ‘Freetown's Rubbish Plan’. The writer made two points: ‘Human beings are citizens, not colours or numbers as your hollow minds suggest’; ‘Now that Africa is nearly free from imperialism and exploitation…dishonest intellectuals from British universities are conspiring to draw a new map of Africa.’