bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The making of an imperial slum: Nyasaland and its railways, 1895–1935
Authors: Vail Leroy
Published: January 2009

This paper is meant to be a contribution towards assessing the impact of the colonial experience upon Nyasaland, concentrating upon the decision-making processes involved in building the railways that served Nyasaland and the impact that they had upon Nyasaland's economy. In the early 1890s British metropolitan interests became alive to the strategic and commercial importance of Portuguese East Africa south of the Zambezi. To further British interests in the area, imperial decisions were taken to protect the British proxy there, the Mozambique Company. This protection included support for the Trans Zambesia Railway project. This support was calculated to protect British interests from American commercial threats, but the cost of the railway was placed upon the Nyasaland administration. Lumbered with the burden of the railway guarantees, Nyasaland's economy stagnated in the 1920s and African agricultural development was impeded. As a result, by the end of the twenties Nyasaland was being described as ‘the Cinderella of Africa’.

In the late 1920s a second major project was approved. This was the construction of the Zambezi bridge. Again, the decision to build this was not taken with the interests of Nyasaland in mind, but rather in order to provide steel orders for a stagnating British steel industry in 1929. The one possible moneymaker for the bridge and railway system, coal from Moatize, was prevented from being developed lest it compete with Welsh coal. And when the decision to build the bridge was made, it was decided that Nyasaland should pay.
Bantu, Galla and Somali migrations in the Horn of africa: a reassessment of the Juba/Tana area
Authors: Turton E. R.
Published: January 2009

This article offers a new reconstruction of Bantu, Galla and Somali migrations in the Horn of Africa, with particular reference to the area between the Juba and the Tana rivers. It is suggested that Garre or proto-Garre Somali gained control of the area between the Juba and the Tana rivers before the Galla arrived in this area, and that in the process the Garre were responsible for pushing Bantu-speaking peoples back to the river Tana. However, it is also argued that the area initially controlled by Bantu-speaking peoples in the Horn of Africa was much more limited than is generally assumed. It is then suggested that around the sixteenth century the Orma Galla migrated to the coast from southern Ethiopia via the Lorian Swamp and the river Tana and not by the river Juba as is generally argued. The arrival of the Orma led to a further retreat of Bantu-speaking peoples towards the Sabaki river, and then to a retreat of the Somali northwards in the direction of the Juba river. In this way the nineteenth-century Somali drive southwards can be seen to some extent as a reconquest of land occupied earlier by them.
Smallpox inoculation in Africa
Authors: Herbert Eugenia W.
Published: January 2009

Inoculation for smallpox, the forerunner of vaccination, has had a long and variegated history. The earliest known descriptions of the practice in sub-Saharan Africa were given by African slaves in colonial America in the early and mid-eighteenth century. Subsequently it is mentioned in accounts from widely scattered parts of the continent. It seems to have been most extensively used in the Western and Central Sudan, Ethiopia and Southern Africa. Local diffusion patterns emerge from the evidence available at this time, but broader questions of origin must await further investigation. Similarly it is as yet impossible to assess its demographic impact in Africa although it clearly provided some defence against smallpox in spite of the risks involved.
Imperial Business in Africa Part I: Sources
Authors: Hopkins A. G.
Published: January 2009

This article, which is in two parts, seeks to establish expatriate business history as a necessary and important part of modern African history. Part I surveys some fifty histories of European companies in West, Central and East Africa during the colonial period, and draws attention to opportunities for research on newly-discovered or little known records. Part II will assess the scholarly quality of the studies listed here, and will formulate some propositions regarding the spatial and temporal evolution of the European firms, their organization and policies, and their profitability.
Mau Mau in Nakuru
Authors: Tamarkin M.
Published: January 2009

This article attempts to trace the origins of Mau Mau movement in Nakuru, the capital of the White Highlands, and to follow its development through the turbulent post-war years. Mau Mau here is seen as a distinct militant movement which advocated the use of violence in the anti-colonial struggle. It developed within the ranks of the Kikuyu Central Association whose moderate political strategy it rejected. It had a distinct social basis, both its leadership and its mass support coming from the ranks of the dispossessed urban Kikuyu lumpenproletariat. Mau Mau emerged, by 1952, as the dominant African political force at the cost of alienating most non-Kikuyu tribes, and intensifying divisions and hatreds within Kikuyu society. Although Mau Mau did not have definite plans for a large-scale guerrilla war when the State of Emergency was declared in October 1952, nor was it prepared for such a war, it was certainly developing along these lines. There was a large measure of continuity between pre-Emergency Mau Mau and the forces which were later engaged in the forest fighting. The forest fighting was primarily a response, not of the bewildered Kikuyu masses, but of an organized militant and violent movement. It is not suggested that Nakuru's model applies to other Kikuyu areas. On the contrary, it is suggested that the full story of Mau Mau in Kenya will be revealed only after a series of intensive local studies have been undertaken.
French Policy towards Trading with African and Brazilian Slave Merchants, 1840–1853
Authors: Jennings Lawrence C.
Published: January 2009

During the 1840s and early 1850s, when France was employing either the mutual right of search with Great Britain or independent naval squadrons to suppress direct French participation in the transatlantic slave trade, French governments condoned commercial relations between French traders and Brazilian or African slave dealers. As of 1840 French merchant vessels were involved in carrying goods destined for the slave trade from France or Brazil to slave stations on the African coast; at times these French freighters were even sold and transformed into Brazilian slavers on the African coast. On several occasions these actions were brought to the attention of the French foreign and colonial offices by concerned French officials in Africa or Brazil, but the governments of both the July Monarchy and the Second Republic consistently instructed their agents to employ only persuasive measures to discourage what they avowed to be indirect French participation in the slave trade. Despite their abolitionist sentiments, French statesmen like François Guizot came to the conclusion that it was impossible to prohibit French nationals from trading with slave merchants because such actions would interfere with the freedom of trade and adversely affect French maritime commerce. French merchants continued to co-operate closely with Brazilian slavers until Brazil abolished the slave trade in the early 1850s.
The Nandi Protest of 1923 in the Context of African Resistance to Colonial Rule in Kenya
Authors: Ellis Diana
Published: January 2009

The Nandi protest of 1923 is examined in its Kenya-wide context and is seen to be the result of the increased pressures brought to bear on Kenya Africans in this period—pressures for African land, labour and taxes, which greatly affected the Nandi as well as other peoples. The Nandi political protest to colonial policies in this period, in contrast to that of the Kikuyu, however, focused on the traditional leadership of the Nandi orkolyot, or ritual expert, and, as such, mirrors the relative lack of socio-cultural change in Nandi before 1923, and the continuing viability of the traditional Nandi economy and political structure. Squatting, which began in this period, is seen as a key factor contributing to this viability, at the same time as it presented new threats to Nandi economic independence, which the political protest centred on orkoiyot Barserion attempted to counter. An examination of the Nandi protest of 1923, therefore, also contributes to an understanding of the political expression of that sector of the African population which has often been ignored in studies of the origin of political protest in Kenya.
The Absent Priesthood: Another Look at the Rhodesian Risings of 1896–1897
Authors: Cobbing Julian
Published: January 2009

The pervasive co-ordinating role of the Mwari cult in the Rhodesian risings of 1896–7 is illusory. The cult does not appear to have been linked with the Rozvi empire, the attempts to recreate which Ranger saw as one of the objectives of the priesthood in 1896. The priests were Venda from south of the Limpopo, who had arrived in the Matopos during the middle third of the nineteenth century, and who were for the most part out of action during the risings. The Ndebele did not succumb to cult influence, not even between March and July 1896, but maintained their previous coolness towards the priests. They were led all along by their own chiefs who, in June 1896, made Nyamanda king in succession to Lobengula. This and the wish to drive away the Europeans were the inspirations behind the Ndebele rising. The Shona and Sotho groups who rose with the Ndebele in March came in as allies of the kingdom rather than as minions of the cult. The Shona who rose in June did so not in answer to cult bidding, but in response to European pressures and the opportunity provided by European difficulties in Matabeleland. They also were led by their chiefs. A major theme of the risings is disunity and fragmentation, with the Ndebele fighting a civil war, and some important Shona chiefs collaborating with the British South Africa Company. The Ndebele fell short of a united strategy, as to an even greater extent did the Shona: there was certainly no strategic linkage of the two risings. Not only have the co-ordinating roles of Mkwati and Kaguvi been exaggerated, but their places respectively in Ndebele and Shona society have been misunderstood. They were local figures subordinate to local political structures rather than purveyors of a forward-looking millenarianism. Both the Ndebele and Shona fought to preserve existing institutions and alliance structures. It is above all fallacious to seek in the events of those years a surge of Zimbabwean nationalism or proto-nationalism, which was only to develop this century.
The Recruiting of Chinese Indentured Labour for the South African Gold-Mines, 1903–1908
Authors: Richardson Peter
Published: January 2009

One of the responses of the Transvaal gold mining industry to the economic crisis after the South African War of 1899–1902 was to import Chinese indentured mine labour. To facilitate this process and to integrate it with the overall demands and requirements of the industry, the mining companies established a recruiting and shipping company in 1904, known as the Chamber of Mines Labour Importation Agency. This short-lived company, which was characterized by a high degree of vertical integration, operated as recruiting and shipping agency in China, receiving agent in Natal and co-ordinating and advising agent in the Transvaal. Despite complex arrangements designed to exploit the Chinese labour market, the company was, generally speaking, successful in securing the requisite labour force of suitable size and quality for the Transvaal mines. However, it showed a longer-term susceptibility to competitive pressures in the northern Chinese labour market. The company was amalgamated with WNLA in 1908.
The Liberian Coasting Trade, 1822–1900
Authors: Syfert Dwight N.
Published: January 2009

Liberia was fundamentally a maritime state in the nineteenth century, dependent on seaborne trade for its prosperity. Immigrant merchants and their descendants developed an extensive coasting trade in which they attempted to wrest the function of the collection and distribution of commodities from foreign competitors, thereby entering a long-established commercial system which antedated the foundation of Liberia. Small vessels manned by individuals resident along the coast and familiar with local conditions were better suited for the collection and distribution of goods than large foreign-owned merchantmen. This commercial advantage, coupled with an increase in foreign demand for Liberian palm oil and camwood early in the century and restrictions placed on African and foreign traders by the Liberian government, allowed Liberians to acquire a merchant fleet which consisted of at least 234 vessels during the century. To protect their involvement in the coasting trade, Liberians declared independence in 1847. Post-independence prosperity is indicated by the fact that Liberians owned at least 139 vessels between 1847 and 1871. However, in the last three decades of the century the Liberian coasting trade was destroyed by the depletion of camwood resources, the development of aniline dyes, the introduction of petroleum products, the competition of foreign-owned steam packets, and falling demand as a result of the general commercial recession of the period.
Demography and History in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1550–1750
Authors: Thornton John
Published: January 2009

It has long been generally supposed that the kingdom of Kongo suffered a severe decline in population due to the civil wars of the seventeenth century and the slave trade. These figures are derived from literary estimates made by travellers and missionaries of the time. New estimates of population can be obtained by combining the statistics of baptisms left by the missionaries who lived in Kongo with a reconstruction of the age structure of the kingdom. Use of these estimates permits more exact calculations for the period 1650–1700, which suggest a much lower population level—about 500,000—than the commonly accepted figure of two million. This discovery suggests that the postulated population disaster did not occur; instead, it seems that levels of population remained relatively stable, growing slightly throughout the period in question. In addition to revising estimates of population, it has been possible to use the available statistics to throw light on the age structure and vital rates that prevailed in Kongo in the late seventeenth century, as well as to examine certain factors that have impinged on population.
Palace and Jihād in the Early ʽAlawī State in Morocco
Authors: Mercer Patricia
Published: January 2009

The early ʽAlawī state has repeatedly been described as heavy and efficient military government. In practice it functioned as a relatively loosely-knit tribute state. The achievement of its notable and long-lived second sultan Ismāʽil (1672–1727) was to shed the aegis of Fez, his economic metropolis, and set up an increasingly gigantic palace, beside a market town, as an independent political base. His central government there was characterized by minimal use of coin and minuscule central bureaucracy. For military support the sultan at first relied chiefly upon free troops, associated by fictional kinship with his most notable wife: later he relied increasingly upon black slave guards. But the motors of government at large were not imperial troops, whose functions were essentially deterrence and the hallmarking of government activity; they were provincial governors, bound to the sultan by ties of individual loyalty. These governors were responsible for the extraction of tribute destined for the palace.

Religion gave increased coherence to this state. This was not so much because of its association with literacy, as because it enabled the sultan, who needed religious prestige, to enhance his unremarkable claim to descent from the Prophet, by taking up the Islamic mantle of ‘Commander of the Faithful’. This was a forceful image for propaganda that could counter the close association between the palace and Moroccan Jewry. It could also validate demands for loyalty throughout the empire. A hard Islamic line was expressed injihād, or holy warfare, against Christendom. The sultan's limited resources and his other military commitments prevented him from conducting activejihādmuch above the level of token confrontation. But there was also a moraljihād, waged, in so far as this was possible, by rejection of cultural and economic ties with Europe.
Agricultural Improvement and Political Protest on the Tonga Plateau, Northern Rhodesia
Authors: Dixon-Fyle Mac
Published: January 2009

In Northern Rhodesia under colonial rule, much land was alienated from the Plateau Tonga for occupation by European settlers who were mainly maize farmers. The expansion of African farming from the late 1920s, aided by the growing use of the plough and draught oxen, caused such settlers to demand the imposition of marketing controls. The government sought to introduce conservation measures to protect the lands of African farmers from wanton misuse, and in 1946 it introduced an Improved Farming Scheme (I.F.S.) to check overcultivation among the Plateau Tonga. The I.F.S., while nurturing a small group of privileged farmers, was to antagonize most African producers and gave rise to charges of collaboration with the colonial administration. The non-political activities of the Farmers' Associations formed by the Improved Farmers lent substance to these charges which in the 1950s emanated largely from the ranks of local supporters of the African National Congress (A.N.C.). By 1959, the I.F.S. had failed to meet the expectations of its members, thereby bearing out the doubts and fears of its critics. This was to throw into the lap of the local A.N.C. movement several wealthy and educated farmers who had hitherto taken no active interest in protest politics but who were now convinced they had been misled.
The South African Native Labour Contingent, 1916–1918
Authors: Willan B. P.
Published: January 2009

In 1916 the South African government received a request from the Imperial government for the provision of non-combatant African labour for work in France. Despite opposition from white opinion on both political and economic grounds, the South African Native Labour Contingent was formed and recruiting commenced. Although recruiting had the active support of African political leaders, it was not as successful as had been hoped. Distrust of the government's intentions was one important reason for this. The South African government had agreed to the Imperial government's request for labour only on the condition that S.A.N.L.C. units were to be kept segregated from both other military units and the French civil population, and numerous measures (particularly the construction of compounds) were devised to facilitate this. But in practice this proved impossible to implement properly, and South African officers did not have the degree of control over their units that had originally been envisaged. On the African side, there was a considerable amount of dissatisfaction with conditions, and in one incident thirteen Africans were shot dead by their own officers. When the South African government decided to bring the ‘experiment’ to an end early in 1918, many Africans suspected that the reasons for this were not purely military as was claimed. Service in the S.A.N.L.C. was of importance both in terms of the individual experiences of those Africans directly involved, but it acquired also a wider political and symbolic importance, attached particularly to the sinking of the transport, S.S. Mendi, in February 1917 with the loss of over 600 African members of the S.A.N.L.C.
Progrès de l'Islam et Changement Politique au Kānem du XIe au XIIIe Siècle: Un Essai d'Intérpretation
Authors: Lange Dierk
Published: January 2009

On admet en général que l'expansion de l'islam était une des principales préoccupations des géographes arabes quand ils décrivaient la situation dans les régions excentriques par rapport au monde musulman. En partant de ce présupposé on aurait pu s'attendre à trouver pour l'ètude de l'histoire d'une région précise, telle que le Kānem, des renseignements amples et explicites nous permettant de dessiner un tableau satisfaisant de la progression de l'islam, au moins dans ses grands traits. En fait, chemin faisant, on découvre que les renseignements qui nous ont été transmis dans ce type de sources, même sur un sujet aussi important, sont si lacunaires et contradictoires que presque rien ne peut être dit avec certitude du processus global dans lequel s’inscrit l'islamisation de la région. Or, dans le cas du Kānem une source interne, longtemps négligée, peut contrebalancer et corriger la vision non seulement lacunaire mais aussi déformant que les géographes arabes donnent du Kānem ancien, le Diwān salātin Bornū. Composée dans l'entourage du roi, cette source elle-même ne présente pas une vue neutre, et, surtout en ce qui concerne des questions touchant à l'islam, elle doit être maniée avec circonspection; mais contrairement aux aperçus aléatoires et sans rapport les uns avec les autres fournis par les géographes arabes, les chroniqueurs autochtones nous présentent une vision d'ensemble rigoureusement chronologique de l'histoire du Kānem dont la critique, à certains égards, est plus aisée.
A New Survey of Radiocarbon and Thermoluminescence Dates for west Africa
Authors: Calvocoressi D. , David Nicholas
Published: January 2009

There are signs that the familiar bias towards research on the Later Stone Age of the southern Sahara and Sahel and on the Iron Age of other parts of West Africa is beginning to be redressed, although Nigeria and Ghana still furnish the vast majority of dates from the southern coastal states. Historical and protohistorical archaeology is becoming increasingly popular, and some areas, for example southern Mali, are receiving serious attention for the first time. Dates are now appearing in large numbers; this paper reports on 355 new radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates.

Multi-disciplinary research has helped to clarify the Holocene environmental and cultural-stratigraphic sequence in several areas, including the Aïr and Ténéré in Niger and coastal Mauretania and Senegal. There is now strong evidence of a centre of copper metallurgy in the Azelik region of Niger in the 1st millennium b.c. which may well have facilitated the spread of iron working to Nigeria. At the same time, new dates from Mali may indicate a second diffusion route through the western Sahara. In Nigeria, new and early dates for the Nok culture are supported by thermoluminescence dating. Recent work on the later Metal Age of Senegal has permitted the description of four partially overlapping zones, and should soon lead to understanding of their internal and external relationships. Similarly, a substantial body of data has been accumulated, though not yet published, on the Iron Age of the Inland Niger delta. In the more southerly parts of West Africa, several new dates from just north of the forest refer to the emergence of the earliest Akan groups in Ghana and of Oyo in Nigeria. Previously reported dates from Ife and Benin have now been supplemented by a series of thermoluminescence dates.
Nxele, Ntsikana and the Origins of the Xhosa Religious Reaction
Authors: Peires J. B.
Published: January 2009

The sudden expulsion of the Xhosa across the Fish River in 1811–12 created a practical and conceptual crisis which the traditional political authorities were unable to resolve. Two commoners, Nxele and Ntsikana, emerged in this vacuum, each proposing his own solution to the problems posed by the white irruption. Although these responses were religious responses, they were neither irrational nor incomprehensible. Xhosa religion had long functioned as an instrument for the control of the material world. By incorporating selected Christian concepts with the Xhosa world-view, Nxele and Ntsikana were able to provide the Xhosa with acceptable explanations of past events and prescriptions for future action.

Nxele urged resistance and Ntsikana preached submission, but an examination of their personal histories shows that these final conclusions were more the product of exterior pressure than interior revelation. It may be suggested that the future reputations of the two men, like their past actions, will be determined more by the popular mood than by anything they themselves did or said.
The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society and the South African Natives' Land Act of 1913
Authors: Willan Brian
Published: January 2009

This article seeks to explain how and why the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society (A.P.S.) came to support the South African Natives' Land Act of 1913 when African political opinion in South Africa opposed it. The reasons for the Society's position are sought in its predisposition in favour of segregatory policies, but also in several other political considerations including, it is suggested, its need to retain the support of the imperial government in the interests of its campaign against the British South Africa Company. The A.P.S.'s attitude emerged in its handling of the South African Native National Congress's deputation to England in 1914, and in its dispute with one of the deputation's members – Sol Plaatje – who remained in the country until 1917. The dispute intensified with the publication of Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa, whilst the direction of the A.P.S.'s policy of support for the South African government came to be challenged from within by two of Plaatje's supporters on the A.P.S.'s Executive Committee. Eventually, relations between the A.P.S. and the S.A.N.N.C, were broken off completely, and Plaatje's two supporters were voted off the Society's Executive Committee. Opposition to the Society's position over the Natives' Land Act continued to be expressed, however, in a committee set up to carry on Plaatje's campaign after his return to South Africa. One of the effects of this, and of the Society's activities generally in relation to the Natives' Land Act, was to emphasize its degree of isolation from currents of opinion that might have provided a new base of support at a time when it particularly needed this.
Towards a Less Orthodox History of Hausaland
Authors: Sutton J. E. G.
Published: January 2009

The historiography of Hausaland has laboured under a strong tradition of orthodoxy which recent secondary works have inherited from the more-or-less primary oral-cum-written sources. General cultural evidence (linguistic, ethnographic and archaeological) has been regarded as subsidiary, so that its potential for reconceptualization and for critical reevaluation of the conventional sources and orthodox interpretations has been missed. Instead, antiquarian approaches have been encouraged. Thus the view has persisted that Hausa as a cultural and linguistic entity has an antiquity running to several millennia, and also that it originated in the Sahara or around Aïr, whence it was pushed southward by desiccation or by Tuareg nomads. Contrarily, the clear message of linguistic geography and of Hausa's place within the Chadic family is that Hausa. expanded from east to west across the savanna belt of northern Nigeria. And the relative homogeneity of the language and culture within this vast zone indicates that the spread is quite recent (within the present millennium, say). It would have involved some assimilation, of previously settled peoples of the northern Nigerian plains, most of whom wouldl have spoken languages of the ‘Plateau’ division of Greenberg's Benue–Congo subfamily, of Niger-Congo.

This Hausaization, as it proceeded from its old bases in eastern Hausaland, would have been both a cultural and an ecological process, through which woodland would have been converted into more open and continuous savanna to support grain-cultivation and a denser peasant population. This process would have reached western Hausaland (Zamfara and Kebbi) around the middle of this millennium. Cattle – and Fulani herdsmen – would in time have played an important role in this cultural ecology (and in restricting the tsetse zones).

The old theory of a northern origin for the Hausa is bound up with the problem of Gobir in north-western Hausaland. Gobir's claim to be one of the original seven kingdoms (Hausabakwai) is probably a late invention. Moreover, the common assumption that Gobirawa Hausa migrated from Aïr seems to derive from a misinterpretation of the written sources.

Finally thebakwailegends are reconsidered. Despite the scepticism of some modern critics, the legends appear to reflect, albeit in idealized form, a real historical development. They represent a foundation charter for the Hausa as a multi-state ethnicity, and enshrine the vague memory of how Hausaland and ‘Hausaness’ began from a series of small centres and hill-bases on its eastern side. Thus the interesting argument of Abdullahi Smith, that the Hausa people emerged long before state systems arose among them, is disputed. Rather, these should be seen as two facets of a single process during the present millennium.
Le Mythe Parisien de la Mise en Valeur des Colonies Africaines à l'Aube du XXe Siècle: La Commission des Concessions Coloniales 1898–1912
Authors: Rabut Elisabeth
Published: January 2009

La ‘mise en valeur’ des colonies africaines pouvait-elle être entreprise par des sociétés auxquelles l'Etat attribuerait de grandes concessions foncières? La Commission des concessions coloniales, créée en juillet 1898, adopta ce principe de ‘colonisation moderne’, hâtivement mis en vigueur au Congo. Pour Madagascar et l'A.O.F. on prit le temps de larges consultations auprès des administrateurs et des milieux commerciaux; en dépit de l'avis favorable prononcé par la Commission, le ministre décida de surseoir à l'octroi de grandes concessions territoriales dans l'ouest africain, suivant en cela le gouverneur general Ballay. Les responsables locaux ne partagèrent point le mythe de la mise en valeur par les grandes sociétés, mythe auquel se tint aveuglément la Commission des concessions coloniales qui contrôlait au plan juridique le régime mis en place au Congo; c'est le gouverneur Merlin qui imposa la réforme de 1910–12. Des politiques et des affairistes – tels qu'Andre Lebon, Du Vivier de Streel, Binger, Guillain, – avaient fait passer un dessein nouveau d'action coloniale, mais la ‘mise en valeur’ sans cesse invoquée n'avait pas alors de contenu économique véritablement défini.
The Expansion of the Fante and the Emergence of Asante in the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Sanders James
Published: January 2009

This article attempts to assess the importance of Asante influence in the consolidation of the Fante in the eighteenth century. It shows at the outset that mis-translation of Willem Bosman's early eighteenth-century work has led to an erroneous conception of the Fante polities as being incapable of acting on common interests. Between 1700 and 1724 the Fante conquered surrounding states such as Asebu, Fetu, Cabesterra, Acron (Gomoa), and pockets of Etsi, and established a system of domination over trade on the coast thereafter. It is suggested that this development was not the result of Asante activities on the coast, but rather was linked with the presence of the English, who supplied firearms to the Fante. The Fante were constrained to maintain good relations with Asante because they were determined to be the exclusive middlemen for the slaves which came down from Asante and beyond. At the same time, however, the Fante, like other coastal states (e.g. Aowin, Wasa, Denkyera and Akyem), at times feared invasion by Asante and therefore protected themselves through a system of local political alliances.
‘Chimurenga’: the Shona Rising of 1896–97
Authors: Beach D. N.
Published: January 2009

There was a basic similarity between the way in which Rhodesian colonial historians looked at the central Shona chimurenga (rising) of 1896 and T. O. Ranger's seminal Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896–7: both thought in terms of a pre-planned conspiracy led by religious authorities and a simultaneous outbreak on a given signal. Ranger' reconstruction of the organization of the chimurenga, however, depended partly upon the misreading and misquotation of the sources. In fact, the rising was neither pre-planned nor simultaneous. In the second quarter of 1896 limited resistance to European rule was being carried on in separate, unconnected outbreaks and some communities were thinking of starting a full-scale hondo (war); the threat of famine caused by locusts led certain central Shona leaders to contact the religious leader Mkwati in the Ndebele area, then in revolt against the Europeans, in search of locust medicine. News of European defeats transmitted by these contacts led to a full hondo in the Umfuli valley, which triggered a ‘ripple effect’ in which Shona communities resisted or collaborated as the news reached them. The element of religious leadership was limited and the element of central pre-planning non-existent. This makes the success and commitment of the local Shona communities all the more impressive, even though it was a traditionalist rather than a proto-nationalist rising.
Coping with the Contradictions: The Development of the Colonial State in Kenya, 1895–1914
Authors: Lonsdale John , Berman Bruce
Published: January 2009

By drawing on the current Marxist debate about the nature of the capitalist state, this article argues that the colonial state was obliged to be more interventionist than the mature capitalist state in its attempts to manage the economy, since colonies were distinguished by the way in which they articulated capitalism to local modes of production. This posed severe problems of social control, since the capitalist sector required the preservation of indigenous social institutions while also extracting resources from them. In early colonial Kenya this problem was mitigated by a rough compatibility between the needs of settler capital and the patronage exercised by African chiefs within a peasant sector which was expanded to solve the colonial administration's initial need for peace and revenue. The peasant sector was not destroyed, rather it was represented in the state, which never ceased thereafter to be plagued by the conflicts between the two modes of production over which it presided.
The Iron Age Sequence South of the Vaal and Pongola Rivers: some Historical Implications
Authors: Maggs Tim
Published: January 2009

The region south of the Vaal and Pongola rivers, being the southernmost on the continent to be settled by Bantu-speaking, Iron Age communities, is important in understanding the spread of these societies. Until recently, archaeological discussion has mostly been based on Schofield's work of the 1930s and 1940s, which is here shown to be substantially incorrect, and an outline of the new sequence is given.

New work on the Early Iron Age in Natal is sufficiently advanced to demonstrate a highly selective pattern of site location which, together with what we know of the economy, gives us some insight into the ecology of these communities. This enables us to estimate the limits of distribution in areas where there has been less archaeological exploration. It also indicates that ecological factors are significant in the rapid initial spread of the Early Iron Age.

The beginning of the Later Iron Age in this region is characterized not only by an abrupt change in ceramic styles but by other cultural and perhaps economic changes involving site location, architecture and aspects of technology. The most striking single factor is the expansion, beyond the coastal plain and wooded valleys of the Early Iron Age, into much of the interior grasslands. By at least the seventeenth century a dense population was established in many of these areas and their settlements can often be correlated with historically known groups on the basis of oral and ethnological links.
Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers: the Development of Migrant Groundnut Farming along the Gambia River, 1848–95
Authors: Swindell Ken
Published: January 2009

Local and long-distance labour migrants were an important element in commercial groundnut farming along the Gambia river during the mid-nineteenth century, well before colonial partition. Seasonal and periodic circulation of migrant farmers had prior equivalents in the movements of traders across the Western Sudan, especially those associated with slaving. Traders were important in the development of groundnut cultivation and the initiation of migrant farming, when they realized the groundnut trade could be a valuable replacement for the abolished slave trade. In the pre-colonial era migrant farmers payed ‘custom’ to local rule for the land they farmed. This arrangement eventually gave way to a system of shared labour-time with individual host farmers in return for land. This change was accelerated by the abolition and decline in domestic slavery, which provided a new pattern for the Strange Farmer system. Thus the mobility of population in the Western Sudan, together with the evolution of the Strange Farmer system, provided vital marginal inputs of labour in an area of low population densities and facilitated the development of groundnut farming during the era of legitimate trade.
The Garvey Movement in British West Africa
Authors: Okonkwo R. L.
Published: January 2009

The paper seeks to present new information concerning the activities of the West African branches of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. The author has included biographical profiles of the British West African Garveyites to integrate the Garvey movement into the history of West African nationalism and Pan-Africanism.

It is argued that Garveyism was welcomed in British West Africa by the older cultural nationalists who saw Garveyism as an extension of Blyden's ideas. Pan-African sentiments of racial unity and solidarity of African and American blacks, pride in the history of the race, and self-help projects had wide circulation in West Africa from the latter part of the nineteenth century, as a result of Blyden's influence. Joining the branches of the U.N.I.A. was a practical demonstration of a long-standing commitment to cultural and racial nationalism among the West African elite.

The Garvey movement also marked the beginning of a new era in West African nationalism. Garvey's radical pronouncements on freeing Africa from colonial rule were unacceptable to the older cultural nationalists who dominated the Garvey groups. They disavowed any interest in organizing a central nation for the race. However, Garvey's ideas may have had long-term effects. By the 1930s the idea of independence from colonial rule seemed more attractive to the West African nationalists. Garvey was one of the first to speak out boldly for freedom from colonialism.

The concrete achievements of the West African branches of the U.N.I.A. were small indeed. Nigeria had the most Garveyite activity in British West Africa. There was an agent for the Black Star Line in Lagos and a branch of the U.N.I.A. and A.C.L. The Gold Coast had the least Garveyite activity, probably because of their involvement in the National Congress of British West Africa and also because of their more critical attitude towards co-operation with American blacks. They believed that Africans were best qualified to lead any joint efforts for intra-racial co-operation.
Current research and recent radiocarbon dates from Northern Africa
Authors: Close Angela E.
Published: January 2009

The effect of recent radiocarbon dates from North Africa has largely been to extend the principal phases of prehistory back in time. The Middle Palaeolithic now seems to be essentially beyond the range of the radiocarbon technique, at least in the Eastern part of North Africa, although it may persist later in the West, and, throughout North Africa (with the sole exception of Cyrenaican Libya), there remains a disturbing hiatus between the Middle Palaeolithic and the subsequent Late Palaeolithic bladelet industries. The latter now seem to appear at about 20,000 B.c. over most of non-Saharan, North Africa, and may eventually be found to be earlier. Some of the earliest such occurrences may well be associated with domestication of plants (in Egypt) and of animals (in Algeria). If so, this will necessitate serious reconsideration of our concepts of the ‘Neolithic’. In any case, a true Neolithic appears in parts of the Southern Sahara as early as the eighth millennium B.C., and is widespread in the area by the seventh millennium. Curiously, the beginnings of the Neolithic are much later in the neighbouring and more luxuriant areas (the Nile Valley, the Mediterranean littoral and the Maghreb) than they are in the desert. Less research has been done on the final prehistoric and early historic periods, but, in the North, the invention of the Libyan alphabet and, in the South, the later Iron Age of Chad both seem earlier than had been thought.
Office, land and subjects in the history of the Manwerefekuoof Kumase: an essay in the political economy of the Asante state
Authors: McCaskie T. C.
Published: January 2009

The fundamental reasoning underlying this paper is that, in seeking to advance our understanding of the material basis of political power in pre-colonial African polities, particular attention must be paid to the detailed reconstruction over time of the triumviral relationship between office, land and subjects. Acknowledgement is freely made of the fact that, for many (if not most) areas of Africa, this type of reconstruction is either exceptionally difficult or frankly impossible. This paper is concerned with the West African forest kingdom of Asante (Ghana) – a case evincing considerable institutional continuity and structural vigour, and one, moreover, sufficiently richly documented to permit the type and level of reconstruction posited. Specifically, and taking into account the substantial body of research already carried out on the general political history of Asante, this paper deals with patterns of authority over land and subjects as evidenced by the offices contained within the Manwere – one of the ten administrative/militaryfekuoof Kumase. The Manwere was created by Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin (1834–67), and in seeking to account for the political imperatives underlying the foundation, the paper explores the context of the reign and the biography and career of the first Manwerehene, Kwasi Brantuo. Particular attention is paid throughout to the way in which the relationship between office, land and subjects within the Manwere was modified or otherwise altered by the nature of the political vicissitudes through which the Asante polity passed in the period between – broadly – the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Underlying the paper, and supplying context to its conclusions, is a general consideration of the philosophy of the Asante ethic concerning such matters as wealth and accumulation, the nature of authority, and the conceptualization of citizenship.
The ‘Germanophone’ elite of Douala under the French mandate
Authors: Derrick Jonathan
Published: January 2009

The centres of early Western education in West Africa, from whom came the junior staff of the Europeans in the early and middle colonial periods, included Douala, whose people provided most of such staff in German Kamerun and then in French Mandated Cameroun. The development of these coastal elites, insufficiently studied generally, has a particular historical interest in Douala because of the change of colonial regime.

The influences of Christianity and German education on the Dualas was extensive by 1914. Duala clerks, however, adapted readily to work under French rule. The Dualas generally profited as owners of urban land and of cash crop plantations under the French, until the 1930s, as under the Germans.

Continual anti-colonial protests were made under both regimes. But those against the French were attributed to the German culture or pro-German feelings of the protest leaders, or even active German intrigue among them. In fact former staff of the Germans who lived in the French period off plantation and other self-employment income were the hard core of protest leaders behind such acts as the 1929 self-government petition. Notable among them was Ferdinand Edinguele Meetom. But other ‘Germanophones’ were loyal to the French and helped to form their indispensable clerical staff. Generally, they continued to develop on the same lines under both regimes, with little change.
The Catholic mission and some aspects of assimilation in Senegal, 1817–1852
Authors: Jones D. H.
Published: January 2009

After the restoration of French rule in Senegal in 1817 the Congregation of the Holy Ghost undertook spiritual responsibility for the colony. But its members were unable to make any serious impact on a community that remained only nominally Christian. Their work was reinforced by the ‘Ploërmel Brothers’ who took over the schools in the 1840s, and by the ordination of three Senegalese priests, David Boillat, Arsène Fridoil and Pierra Moussa. Inevitably the three priests were drawn into acrimonious controversy. Under instructions from Governor Bouet, they opened a school in competition with the Ploërmel brothers, who became their implacable enemies. Eventually it had to close and the three priests were successively removed from the colony. Thus ended a brief experiment in educational assimilation.
The Banamba slave exodus of 1905 and the decline of slavery in the Western Sudan
Authors: Roberts Richard , Klein Martin A.
Published: January 2009

One of the most important changes to take place during the early colonial period was the transformation from slave labour to free labour. In French West Africa this resulted not from a policy decision by the French administration but from the massive departure of slaves in those societies most reliant on slave labour. The focal event was an exodus from Banamba, a Maraka town which had been a major centre both of the slave trade and of the exploitation of slave labour. During the period before the Banamba exodus, tensions were building up within various slave societies, tensions that reflected themselves in a gradual filtering away of slaves and in occasional slave revolts. The French were generally afraid to deal with these tensions and limited themselves to stopping the slave trade while reinforcing allied élites, most of whom were slave owners. There were three major factors in the exodus:

(1) Massive enslavement during the late nineteenth century created large reservoirs of slaves who were homogeneous and remembered a free state.

(2) The closing-off of recruitment pushed slave-owners to exploit slave labour more systematically.

(3) With the end of warfare and the opening of new opportunities in the cities and in the Senegambian peanut fields, slaves had increasing opportunities to go elsewhere.