bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Some Questions on the Economic Prehistory of Ethiopia
Authors: Simoons Frederick J.
Published: January 2009

This paper considers several questions in the economic prehistory of Ethiopia. Who domesticated the banana-like ensete, the food plant which in parts of southern Ethiopia forms a monoculture? Was the ensete cultivated in ancient Egypt? Was it once cultivated extensively in northern Ethiopia as a food plant? Did the Semites, who invaded Ethiopia from South Arabia, starting about 1000 B.C., introduce the plough to Ethiopia and first develop cereal-plough agriculture there?

The Sidama peoples of southern Ethiopia are viewed as likely candidates in ensete domestication. The evidence for ensete cultivation in ancient Egypt is weighed and judged inconclusive. The cultivation of ensete for food in northern Ethiopia is viewed as recent. The suggestion is made that cereal-plough agriculture pre-dated the Semitic invasions. The ancient Cushitic inhabitants of northern Ethiopia are seen as having been in an excellent position for contacts with countries at the north end of the Red Sea, particularly Egypt, whence wheat and barley and the plough could have been introduced.
Edward W. Blyden: Pioneer West African Nationalist
Authors: Lynch Hollis
Published: January 2009

This article examines the various ways by which Edward Wilmot Blyden, the most outstanding Negro intellectual of the nineteenth century, worked for the creation of a West African community, and thereby demonstrates that the idea of a united West Africa is not of twentieth-century origin, as has generally been supposed.
A Contribution to the Problem of Akori Beads
Authors: Kalous Milan
Published: January 2009

The problem of akori beads consists above all in the question of their [organic or inorganic] composition. If, according to the ‘water theory’, akori were some kind of corals, then how to explain their findings in old graves, where they remained in good state of preservation after the human bones decayed? In the present stage of research the following explanation might be offered: the term of ‘akori’ served for the designation of cylindrical and oval beads of varying composition and colour, made maybe of some now unknown kind of coral, but certainly also of stone or glass; perhaps the akori recovered from the sea-shores and rivers were not really corals but worked jewels from the corpses of those buried in the water or offerings to the sea-deity Olokun. The discovery in Ife of large production of glass beads seems to support this.
Archibald Dalzel: Slave Trader and Historian of Dahomey
Authors: Akinjogbin I. A.
Published: January 2009

Archibald Dalzel, the author of The History of Dahomey, was born in Scotland in 1740. Unable to practise the medical profession in which he had been trained, he entered the service of the Committee of Merchants Trading to Africa (African Committee) in 1763 as Surgeon, and was posted to Cape Coast in West Africa. There he started slave trading, which remained his only stable employment until his death in 1811. Despite the apparent ease with which profit could be gained from the slave trade during that period, and despite the energy and optimism which he put into his ventures, Dalzel was never a success. He was twice declared a bankrupt and died a disappointed man. The only monument which he left behind and by which he is still remembered is his brilliant compilation on the History of Dahomey.
Sultan Selim I and the Sudan
Authors: Holt P. M.
Published: January 2009

The article considers the origin and validity of statements made by Budge, MacMichael, Crawford and Arkell associating the establishment of Ottoman control over Lower Nubia and the Suakin-Massawa region with Sultan Selim I. These statements are derived from Na‘ūm Shuqayr's Ta'rīkh al-Sūdān, which has two principal relevant passages. In the first, Shuqayr combines, and dates with misleading precision, two traditional anecdotes concerning Nubia, one derived from Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia (1819), the other an aetiological legend of a frontier-fight. The second passage mentions a legendary invasion of Abyssinia by Selim, and relates to a Fūnj (or ‘Abdallābī) claim to Arab ancestry. The personal connexion of Selim I with these exploits is wholly mythical: it is excluded by the detailed account of his acts during 1517 given by the contemporary chronicler, Ibn Iyās. The establishment of Ottoman rule in these two regions was the achievement of Özdemir Pasha in the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, about the middle of the sixteenth century. The legend of the frontier-fight may refer to an even later episode, in the last quarter of that century.
The Garamantes and Trans-Saharan Enterprise in Classical Times
Authors: Law R. C. C.
Published: January 2009

The sources for pre-Arab trans-Saharan contacts are poor, but at least for the central Sahara a picture can be made out. The alignment of rock paintings and engravings of chariots along two trans-Saharari routes has been supposed to prove regular traffic across the desert. The inference is unjustified, but literary and archaeological sources indicate that the conclusion is correct. Herodotus attests the use of a route running west from Egypt to the Fezzan, then apparently south-west via Tassili and Hoggar to the Niger. This corresponds with the central Saharan ‘chariot-route’.

There was also a route to the Garamantes of the Fezzan from the Punic settlements on the coast of Tripolitania. Carthage imported from the Garamantes the precious stones known as ‘carbuncles’, which were apparently brought to the Fezzan from the south-west. Other possible imports are slaves and gold. Carthage imported gold from West Africa by sea, and it seems likely that her explorations down the coast were inspired by an overland trade in gold. But there is no direct evidence for such a trade.

In the second century B.C. Rome replaced Carthage in control of the coast of Tripolitania. Between 20 B.C. and A.D. 86 she fought a series of wars with the Garamantes. Later friendly relations were established, but further trouble led to the organization of the ‘limes Tripolitanus’ after A.D. 201. Trade is attested by imported Roman material in tombs of the Fezzan dating from the late first to the fourth centuries. There is evidence that the Romans imported ivory from the Garamantes, and slaves are now attested directly.

The commodities exported north by the Garamantes came not from the Fezzan, but from farther south. Literary sources refer to hunting expeditions and raids to the south, and finds of Roman material have been made along the ‘chariot-route’ south-west of the Fezzan as far as Ti-m-Missao.

Trade ended with the collapse of Roman rule in North Africa. It was revived with the Byzantine reconquest after A.D. 533, and Christianity penetrated to the Fezzan. In 666 the Arabs overran the Fezzan.
New Views on Engaruka, Northern Tanzania
Authors: Sassoon Hamo
Published: January 2009

This paper describes a large area of stone-built ruins in northern Tanzania which has so far only been briefly excavated, but which is likely to prove to be a key site in the study of the Iron Age in East Africa. In addition to numerous massive stone circles, terraces and cairns, there are extensive systems of fields and enclosures defined with lines of stones. Excavations carried out in 1964 and 1966 have shown that the small terrace-platforms on the hillsides and the stone circles on the flatter land in the valley were occupied at different periods and by different peoples whose pottery is readily distinguishable. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the terrace sites on the hillsides were occupied during the first millennium A.D., and that the stone circles on the lower slopes in the valley were occupied during the fifteenth century A.D. The purpose of the numerous large and well-built cairns is not yet known, but it appears that they were not burial monuments. No evidence has been found that any of the stone structures were built or occupied by immigrants from outside Africa.

It has not yet been possible to link the systems of fields and enclosures to the hillside terrace-platforms or to the stone circles. A close examination of the main area of fields and of low-level aerial photographs has not produced any evidence that the fields were irrigated, a fact which raises important agricultural and climatic problems in an area which has an average rainfall of less than 380 mm. (15 inches).

The general picture of Engaruka which emerges is of an area which was occupied by different peoples at different times over a period of at least a thousand years. The stone structures which these different peoples built have accumulated to give the impression that there was once a very large population living in the area; in fact it is possible that this population was always less than 4,000 people at any one time.
The Origins of the Ethiopian–Egyptian Border Problem in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Abir M.
Published: January 2009

It is thought that the conquest of the Sudan by Muhammad Ali was motivated primarily by the legendary gold of the Sudan and by the need for manpower for the newly formedNizam-I-Jadid(the new army). Because of Egypt's involvements in Syria and Arabia in the 1830s, the need for more funds and manpower for the army had increased considerably. The most promising areas for minerals, trade, and slave hunting bordered on the Ethiopian plateau. Those areas were inhabited by a mixed Hamitic and Negroid population, many of whom were Muslims and pagans. These people, although in many cases they did not realize it, were considered by some of the Ethiopian border lords to be their subjects, since the Ethiopian concept of a border was not that of a dividing line but of undefined areas stretching into their neighbours' lands.

The situation in Ethiopia in the first half of the nineteenth century was generally conducive to an Egyptian conquest. The internal wars which had been gaining momentum ever since the middle of the eighteenth century expedited the fragmentation of the country, weakened most of the important provincial rulers, and exhausted the population. The revival of Islam in the beginning of the nineteenth century had an immediate impact upon Ethiopia. Islam was spread in the interior by the trading caravans monopolized by Muslim merchants, and found many followers among the Galla tribes of Ethiopia. Moreover, the actual rulers of the country were the Galla chiefs who had been the guardians of the puppet emperors in Gondar since the end of the eighteenth century; and as they feared the growing pressure of Tigrean and Amhara Christian lords, they were ready, if necessary, to invite the Egyptians to enter Ethiopia. However, the reappearance of European powers in the Red Sea at the beginning of the nineteenth century not only facilitated the acquisition of quantities of firearms by Tigrean and Amhara lords, but above all curbed the expansionist tendencies of Egypt in the direction of Ethiopia. Thus, until the middle of the nineteenth century Egypt had only limited objectives in Ethiopia, namely to establish its authority over the mineral-rich areas on the slopes of the Ethiopian plateau and to control the caravan routes and the outlets of the seemingly rich Ethiopian trade. Nevertheless, the ground was prepared for the clash between Egypt and Ethiopia in the period of Khedive Ismail.
The Crispe Family and the African Trade in the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Porter R.
Published: January 2009

Nicholas Crispe (1598–1666) played a very important part in the developing of English trading contacts with West Africa in the seventeenth century. He obtained a commanding position within the African company in 1628 and did much to secure the company's reconstitution on a sounder basis in 1631. From 1631 until 1644 Crispe was the driving force behind the trade and, in particular, directed and largely financed the successful English entry into the gold trade of the Gold Coast, where permanent English factories with resident traders were established for the first time and a fort was started at Kormantin. After the Restoration he tried to regain his former position, but was unsuccessful, though his membership of the Company of Adventurers did give him some influence on the trade. Other members of the family were also involved in the African trade, sometimes in a significant way, over the same period.
Mkwawa and the Hehe Wars
Authors: Redmayne Alison
Published: January 2009

The Hehe now live mainly in the Iringa and Mufundi districts of Tanzania. Little is known of their early history before the mid-nineteenth century, when chief Munyigumba of Ng'uluhe extended his rule over the other chiefdoms of the Usungwa highlands and central plateau of Uhehe. By his death in ca. 1878 he had also won important victories against the chiefs of Utemikwila, Usangu and Ungoni.

After Munyigumba/s death the Hehe suffered a temporary set-back when Mwambambe, who had been a subordinate ruler under Munyigumba, tried to usurp the chiefship, killed Munyigumba's younger brother and caused one of his sons, Mkwawa, to flee to Ugogo. However, eventually Mwambambe was killed in battle against Mkwawa, and his surviving followers, whom he had recruited from Kiwele, fled. By 1883, when Giraud visited Uhehe, Mkwawa was the unchallenged ruler of his father/s lands, and under him the Hehe, who had only recently acquired political unity, had extraordinary military success. Their most important raids were on the caravan route which ran from Bagamoyo on the coast to Lake Tanganyika. By 1890 these raids were a threat to German authority and a major obstacle in the way of colonization and the development of trade. In spite of the Germans' effort to make peace with them, the Hehe persisted in attacking caravans and the people who had submitted to the Germans so, in 1891, a German expedition was sent to Uhehe. This was ambushed and defeated by the Hehe, who then continued their raids, causing the Germans to return in 1894 with a larger expedition and destroy the Hehe fort. Chief Mkwawa may have attempted suicide in the fort, but he was persuaded to flee and then maintained his resistance to the Germans until 1898 when he shot himself to avoid capture. The Hehe then submitted to the Germans. Mkwawa's own determination not to surrender was a very important factor in the long struggle. During this war the Germans acquired a respect for the Hehe which has affected the way that the Hehe have been regarded and treated ever since.
The Establishment of Elective Institutions in Senegal, 1869–1880
Authors: Idowu H. O.
Published: January 2009

As the oldest and, for a long time, the most important French possession in West Africa, Senegal occupied a privileged position among the French West African colonies. This exceptional status was boosted by the elective institutions conceded to the colony between 1870 and 1880, namely, municipal organization, a conseil général, and deputy representation.

In 1870, ‘Senegal’ was no more than a congeries of scattered military posts and trading stations. By far the most important of these establishments were the quatre communes, famous for their special legal status and their privileged inhabitants, made up of the French and the mulattoes, who controlled the political situation, and the Senegalese. By 1870 the colony had acquired some of the important ingredients which could accelerate the growth of political consciousness: a relatively good communications network; growing urban centres; a developing élite, made up largely of traders and agents of the Bordeaux commercial firms who controlled the economic situation; and an administrative regime which had little or no place for unofficial representation.

The élite demanded a conseil général which alone, they felt, could protect their interests effectively. The outcome of their agitation was determined by three main factors: their influence; the attitude of the local administration, notorious for its hostility to elective institutions; and political vicissitudes in France. The institutions were conceded in the 1870s; that is, during the first years of the Third Republic, when the policy of assimilation began to be consciously applied in French colonies.

The establishment of these institutions widened the gap between the quatre communes, to which the reform was limited, and the rest of Senegal, where the system of indirect rule held sway, and marked the beginning of mutual jealousy and conflict between the two sections. It put Senegal ahead of the rest of French West Africa, which continued until after World War II to be governed in a less liberal fashion. It marked France's first major effort at political assimilation in West Africa, and witnessed the determination of the Bordeaux firms, who had spearheaded the movement for the conseil général, to control not only the economic but also the political life of the colony. And lastly, it helped to create the situation whereby the Senegalese, who had until then been no more than mere pawns on the political chessboard of the French and the mulattoes, emerged, with the advent of Blaise Diagne in 1914, as the politically dominant group in Senegal.
Précurseurs de la Négritude au XIXe Siècle: Edward W. Blyden ou Jean Dard?
Authors: Cornevin Robert
Published: January 2009

Dans un remarquable article consacré à la négritude au XIXe siècle; Robert W. July a montré le rôle de précurseur joué par Edward W. Blyden.

‘Bien qu'il ne possédait aucun des avantages de la linguistique moderne ni de l'analyse biologique, archéologique et chimique, Blyden s'efforça de démontrer la présence nègre en Egypte et la contribution nègre à l'ancienne civilisation de la vallée du Nil.’
Gungunyane the Negotiator: A Study in African Diplomacy
Authors: Wheeler Douglas L.
Published: January 2009

Gungunyane, paramount chief of the Shangana of Gazaland, 1884–95, was a very shrewd diplomat. A study of his diplomacy with Europeans suggests that his major goal was Shangana independence of action. From the beginning of his reign, Gungunyane was pressured to give concessions in both economic and political spheres. His capital was on the edge of the Rhodesian plateau until mid-1889, when the chief moved a large portion of his people as well as his capital southward to the Limpopo valley, Mozambique. This significant dislocation influenced later negotiations with Portugal. Although the chief was a strong personality, he was subject to pressures from his immediate—and in this case, warlike—African advisors. In negotiations with the British South Africa Company, the Mozambique Company and the Portuguese government, the African leader enjoyed the benefits of a fearful military reputation, a wide-reaching espionage system, and conflicts between British and Portuguese concession-seekers. A master of playing both ends against the middle to maintain his freedom of movement, Gungunyane found, nevertheless, that his diplomatic programme was undermined by Portuguese superiority in the use of firearms, disunity among the Shangana and their tributaries, and growing social disintegration caused by alcoholism, emigration, and European encroachment. His final military defeat by Portuguese forces in 1895 was not a true index of his talent as an African diplomat.
Local Roots of Policy in German East Africa
Authors: Wright Marcia
Published: January 2009

The standard history of the German period in Tanzania has been seriously marred by imperial rivalries and excessive concentration on metropolitan aspects of German policy-making. In the period to 1907, which has heretofore been written off as a time of punitive expeditions and absence of administrative direction, the government in fact developed a secular state education service. The standard curriculum generated by the state was later adopted by missionary schools. The policy was controversial, and the strength of the administration's relatively pro-African position may be explained by the continuity of personnel, by the popularity of the secular schools, and by pessimism among officials as to whether white settlers could make an economic contribution commensurate with their political claims.
The fall of benin: A Reassessment
Authors: Igbafe Philip A.
Published: January 2009

The Benin kingdom did not come into the British official reckoning until well into the second half of the nineteenth century, despite the fact that various European nations had been engaged in commercial contact with Benin for four centuries. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, however, Benin City fell to British troops after a dramatic build-up of rapidly succeeding events culminating in the punitive expedition of February 1897. These events, as the evidence in this article reveals, were prompted by economic rather than humanitarian considerations.

The Benin kingdom fell mainly because, in an age when the traders and the British consular officials had reasons impelling them to penetrate into the hinterland, Oba Ovonramwen was clinging to traditional policies of economic exclusiveness and monopolistic practices which inflicted economic losses on the revenues of the individual traders, the Itsekiri middlemen and the Niger Coast Protectorate government.

The increasing fear of concerted European designs on his kingdom further strengthened the Oba's adherence to his closed-door policy, which in turn increased the consul' determination to bring him under their economic and political control. This situation precipitated the events which culminated in the capture of Benin City by British forces in February 1897.

As with other powerful African rulers in the Niger Delta and on the West African Coast, the British had to settle accounts with the Oba of Benin, who had to be reconciled with the developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The fall of Benin cannot therefore be rightly divorced from the general British economic imperialism on the Niger Coast during the second half of the nineteenth century.
The end of the reign of Menilek II
Authors: Marcus Harold G.
Published: January 2009

This article describes the debilitating illness of Menilek and its effects upon the Ethiopian state. Prior to his incapacity, the old emperor established a European-style cabient, reformed the appelate judiciary, named Lij Eyyasu as his heir, and appointed Ras Bitwodded Tessema Nado as regent. The latter two actions were opposed by Empress Taitou, who hoped to become the real ruler of Ethiopia, operating behind the scenes. As the emperor weakened, she managed to concentrate many of his functions and much of his authority in her own hands. Given the confusion caused by Menilek's condition, she went unchallenged for a time, during which she attempted futilely to construct a viable power base in the north. Finally, in reaction, the Shoan, southern faction, which had much to lose if Menilek's settlement was upset, united and successfully deposed the empress in 1910. A regency government, composed of Menilek's council of ministers and the more important provincial governors, operated more or less functionally until April 1911, when the Ras-Regent died. At the time Lij Eyyasu became chairman of the regency council, and by 1913 he was exercising more or less full authority over the empire. Contrary to contemporary official European expectations and calculations, Menilek's empire did not crack apart upon his removal, nor from regional and personal rivalries. The diplomats showed complete ignorance about the effectiveness of the administrative and military occupation of the newly annexed parts of the empire; they grossly undervalued the strength of Amhara–Tigrean nationalism; they misunderstood the vitality of the mythology of the Solomonic dynasty; and they failed to consider the veneration which Menilek elicited from his people. More than any other point, this article demonstrates the transcendent vitality of the empire which Menilek constructed.
New Evidence on the Life of ‘Abdullāh B. Yāsīn and the Origins of the Almoravid Movement
Authors: Norris H. T.
Published: January 2009

The Qāḍli ‘Iyāḍ in his biography of ‘Abdullāh b. Yāsīn confirms many details in al-Bakri's record of the rise of the Almoravids. His account differs in a few important respects, and furnishes new information which is valuable in reassessing the life of ‘Abdullāh b. Yāsīn. Since no insular ribāṭ is mentioned, its historicity is increasingly suspect, and in the light of Maghribī cosmological ideas it is better regarded as a myth, and not as a historical fact. This text is the earliest surviving one to mention the Dār al-Murābiṭīn of Wajjāj b. Zalwī al-Lamṭī.

The Qāḍī ‘Iyāḍ states that Jawhar, a character who appears to have been confused with Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm al-Gudālī, the Ṣānhaja chief who reputedly brought ‘Abdullāh b. Yāsīn to the Sahara, is none other than al-Jawhar b. Sakkum, the Gudāla jurist who was later executed by ‘Abdullāh b. Yāsīn. The cause of the execution appears to have been a combination of religious differences and a struggle for power, probably after the death of Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm al-Gudālī. This event may prove to have been a turning point in the Almoravid movement, the main reason for the dominance of the Lamtūna and the eventual withdrawal of the Gudāla from the Almoravid cause, possibly for their militant opposition to it. The confusion in the accounts over the early phase of the stay of ‘Abdullāh b. Yāsīn among the Ṣanhāja casts grave doubts as to how much reliance can be placed on them as historical evidence. The myth may be a good deal more than the ‘island story’.
The Origins of the Langeberg Rebellion
Authors: Saker Harry , Aldridge J.
Published: January 2009

In December 1896, barely a year after annexation by the Cape Colony, rebellion erupted in the former Crown Colony of British Bechuanaland. Joining forces in the Langeberg Mountains, Tlhaping and Tlharo resisted a large government force for nearly eight months. This paper examines the origins of the rebellion. Its first section provides a brief sketch of the rebellion. Then, much greater detail, the long-standing grievances of the Tlhaping and Tlharo are discussed. These seem to have arisen mainly out of competiton for land and the concomitants of white administration. While for the people the latter meant taxes, police and new laws, for the chiefs, the imposition of a new legal system together with the arrival of Christianity, meant a diminution of authority.

In the third section, the white man's own mounting frustration and the activities of one farmer in particular are examined. The high price of land had precluded many former filibusters from purchasing land; annexation of the territory by the Cape seems to have stimulated them to encourage rebellion so that new lands might become available.

The following section returns to the Tlhaping and Tlharo, and deals with new grievances and pressures which became acute immediately before the rebellion. These included acute distrust of the Cape Colonial goverment, further fears of loss of land, and anxiety concerning threats to their growing involvement in a market economy. Finally the consequences of a rinderpest epidemic coupled with dynastic politics appear to have tipped the scales in favour of rebellion.
A Survey of Recent Results in the Radiocarbon Chronology of Westers and Northern Africa
Authors: Willett Frank
Published: January 2009

This paper is the first in a series summarizing, for the benefit of historians and archaeologists from other areas, the latest developments in radiocarbon dating for the later prehistory of western and northern Africa. These articles will appear every two years, alternating with similar surveys of eastern and southern Africa. A selection of more than 200 dates from those not previously published in thisJournalis discussed, and dates obtained by thermoluminescence are quoted for the first time. It should be emphasized that most of the dates included are published in advance of full reports which are being prepared by the archaeologists concerned. The conclusions reached are therefore provisional and may well require modification in the light of a fuller examination of the related archaeological data.
Prayer and Military Activity in the History of Muslim Africa South of the Sahara
Authors: Fisher Humphrey J.
Published: January 2009

In the Islamic history of tropical Africa, prayer has often played an important, sometimes even a decisive, part. The functions of prayer may be ceremonial, instrumental (directed to the achievement of specific objectives), and disciplinary. In the military context the two latter are particularly significant. The discipline of Muslim prayer is strict, and has sometimes underpinned military discipline.
Currency, Credit and Capitalism on the Cross River in the pre-colonial era
Authors: Latham A. J. H.
Published: January 2009

Mary Douglas has distinguished two kinds of primitive currencies, general purpose currencies, and primitive rationing systems. She describes Bohannan's analysis of the Tiv copper rod currency as the best example of a primitive rationing system. According to Bohannan, there were three levels of exchange in the Tiv economic system: everyday consumer goods in the lowest level, rods and prestige goods in the middle level, and wives and women in the highest level. Because rods were not divisible they were too valuable to be used for lower order transactions, and so ordinary people could not accumulate rods to purchase prestige goods. Nor could rods be accumulated to buy wives, the most desired and status-conferring possession in the system. Thus the rod currency reinforced the status divisions in Tiv society, and to Douglas appeared to be coupons in a system which rationed status.

However, despite Bohannan's analysis, there is ample evidence to show that elsewhere in the Cross River rod currency area, rods were divisible into wires which were used as a medium of exchange for everyday consumer goods, and were clearly a general purpose currency. By accumulating wires, which could be exchanged for rods, prestige goods and offices could be bought.

Because it was a general purpose currency, the rod facilitated credit, and the accumulation of capital in the capitalistic commercial system. Yet capitalistic means of production in crafts or agriculture were not adopted until the late 1870s, with the attempt to develop cocoa as a cash crop, which failed due to the unsuitability of the area. Instead surplus capital was converted into slaves, because they were wealth in themselves, and enhanced their masters' security and status.
The accuracy of radiocarbon dates
Authors: Barker Harold
Published: January 2009

This article deals in detail with the various factors which affect the accuracy of radiocarbon dates. The familiar “error term” associated with each date and which caused so much confusion to users of radiocarbon dates in the early days of the method is derived from the statistical uncertainties of the measurements of radioactivity from which the date is calculated and is the only source of error which is capable of strict mathematical treatment. Other sources of error, as for example wrong attribution of the sample or human error in labelling, can be disastrously large on occasion, although they can usually be kept quite small. Errors arising from the effects of isotopic fractionation can be eliminated by the application of corrections based on mass spectrometric measurements of the stable carbon isotopes in the sample. However, it is now known that the most serious limitation on the accuracy obtainable by the radiocarbon method is set by the fact that the level of radiocarbon in the carbon exchange reservoir has not been constant in the past. Despite this limitation, however, the method is still the most important scientific aid to archaeological research to emerge since the end of World War II.
‘He Swalloweth the Ground with Fiercenes and Rage’ The Horse in the Central Sudan
Authors: Fisher Humphrey J.
Published: January 2009

This study of horses, mainly in the central Sudan, presents impressions rather than a complete survey of the evidence. At the time when written records for the Sudan region begin,c. A.D. 1000, horses were evidently well established there. Their coming preceded the arrival of Islam. The first introduction of horses is sometimes attributed to nomads, such as the Zaghawa round Lake Chad, who, so the argument runs, used them to found larger and more militant states. Some evidence, however, suggests, although tentatively, that such nomadic immigrants were chiefly camel people, who enlarged their use of horses because these were more suitable than camels in the Sudan region, and because the horse was already there. Careful reading of the Bayajidda legend raises doubts as to whether it has anything to do with the introduction of the horse into Hausa, or into the Sudan as a whole. All this lends support to the idea that horses became established in the Sudan at a far earlier date, perhaps through trans-Saharan links recorded in the horse-chariots of rock art. Occasional references to wild horses suggest that survival and reproduction were not dependent on imported stock. Numbers of peoples, from Kaniaga in the west to Dar Tama in the east, possessed their own horses; many of these peoples were isolated from any network of trans-Saharan communication, and many were uninterested in large-scale state formation. These horses, apparently always very small, may perhaps be nicknamed the southern Sudanic breed. Larger horses, presumably directly or indirectly descended from later imports, are particularly associated with certain areas, especially Bornu/Mandara. The trans-Saharan trade in horses, admittedly of considerable importance, may have been given undue prominence by scholars who have overlooked the possibility of east-west trade–of horses arriving in Hausa, for example, from no further afield than Bornu. Acute illness and mortality among imported stock must also have influenced trade, and reduced the contribution of such animals to local herds and stables.
Early History of the Meru of Mt Kenya
Authors: Fadiman Jeffrey A.
Published: January 2009

The Meru are a people who live on and adjoining the N.E. slope of Mt. Kenya. Their oral traditions, collected from the oldest living members, suggest that the group originated on Manda Island, part of an archipelago off the Kenya Coast. During the early 1700s their ancestors were conquered by a neighbouring people, probably Arabs from one of the nearby trading principalities. In consequence, the Meru chose to flee.

Existing evidence suggests that their subsequent period of migration lasted approximately thirty years. During the initial stage, they crossed the River Tana, somewhere near its mouth, then followed its southern bank inland. Later, the group left the river and moved northwest through a basically arid region, where water was obtainable only from seasonal rivers or swamps. Initially, the migrants moved northward, crossing these wet areas. Subsequently, when changing ecological conditions forced them westwards, they followed one of the seasonal river systems to the foothills of Mt. Kenya.

Available data provides little to link the Meru experience with other migratory trends. There is no evidence, for instance, to connect it either with the Bantu migrations from Shungwaya (S. Somalia) or that of Kikuyu-speaking peoples towards Mt. Kenya. Further research will be required to resolve the problem.
Slavery and the Slave Trade in Dār Fūr
Authors: O'Fahey R. S.
Published: January 2009

The institutions of slavery, slave raiding and the slave trade were fundamental in the rise and expansion of the Keira Sultanate of Dār Fūr. The development of a long-distance trade in slaves may be due to immigrants from the Nile, who probably provided the impetus to state formation. This process may be remembered in the ‘Wise Stranger’ traditions current in the area. The slave raid or ghazwa, penetrating into the Baḥr al-Ghazāl and what is now the Central African Republic, marked the triumph of Sudanic state organization over the acephalous societies to the south.

The slaves, who were carefully classified, were not only exported to Egypt and North Africa, but also served the sultans and the title-holding elite as soldiers, labourers and bureaucrats. In the latter role, the slaves began to encroach on the power of traditional ruling groups within the state; the conflict between the slave bureaucrats and the traditional ruling elite lasted until the end of the first Keira Sultanate in 1874.
Tribal associations, tribal solidarity, and tribal chauvinism in a Kenya town
Authors: Tamarkin M.
Published: January 2009

From a close analysis of African activities and actions in the Kenyan town of Nakuru from the 19205 to the 1960s, it is argued that living in towns tended to consolidate the identities of tribal groups and to exacerbate their differences. Contrasts between the urban responses of the Kikuyu, on the one hand, and the Western Kenyan tribes, the Luo and the Abaluhya, on the other, are analysed, and are related to differences in the tribal structures and in the political, economic and social changes that were taking place in their rural areas. By the early 1960s, the stage was set for open political competition between tribal groups.
A contribution to the biography of Shaikh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd-al-Karīm ibn Muḥammad (ʿUmar-aʿMar) al-Maghīlī, al-Tilimsānī
Authors: Batrān ʿAbd-al-ʿazīz ʿAbd-allah
Published: January 2009

Few African scholars have had such an impact on both North and West Africa as al-Maghīlī (d. 1503/4 or 1505/6). This biographical sketch begins by assessing his part in the theological debate preceding the persecution of the Jewish community at Touat (conventionally dated to 1492), which was largely instigated by him, and relates it to his unsuccessful campaign against the Banū-Waṭṭāş whom he opposed because of their incapacity to check the growth of Christian power and Jewish influence in Morocco. After his failure against the Banū-Waṭṭāş, al-Maghīlī went to the western Sudan, where in Air, Takidda, Kano, Katsina and Gao he exerted a more peaceful and scholastic influence as a great renovator of Islam. The death of his son at Touat led him to return there C. 1503, and to resume his active campaigning against the Jews and their influence until his death a year or two later.
Aborted Modernization in West Africa? the Case of Abeokuta.
Authors: Pallinder-Law Agneta
Published: January 2009

Brunschwig and Crowder have argued that many West African states on the eve of European annexation were on their way towards independent modernization and westernization, and that modernization was frustrated rather than accelerated by European rule. The paper examines the applicability of this argument to the particular case of the Egba state of Abeokuta in Western Nigeria.

In Abeokuta, European religious and political ideas had gained an early foothold through the return of liberated Egba slaves from Sierra Leone and the arrival of Christian missionaries. The new, westernized élite of converts and repatriates developed ambitions for the transformation of Abeokuta into a ‘Christian, civilized’ state. Scope for the realization of these ambitions was found through co-operation with the traditional élite, particularly in the Egba United Board of Management of 1865–74 and the Egba United Government of 1898–1914. Both these organizations suffered from the incompatibility between the essentially conservative aims of the traditional élite and the modernizing ambitions of the new élite. The Egba United Board of Management was dependent for its success solely upon the support of the traditional élite, and therefore ceased to function when the chiefs lost interest in its cause. The Egba United Government succeeded in laying lasting foundations for a modern administration in Abeokuta, but in order to achieve this had to rely on British military support against internal opposition and on British financial backing for their more ambitious projects. Through its military and financial dependence on the British, Abeokuta gradually became politically dependent, so that its formal political independence was largely illusory for at least five or six years before the final British annexation in 1914.
New data on European mortality in West Africa: The Dutch on the Gold Coast, 1719–1760
Authors: Feinberg H. M.
Published: January 2009

West Africa, prior to the twentieth century, has generally been considered a ‘white man's grave’. However, very few statistics have been published to support the generalization. New data on the problem of European mortality in West Africa are published here for the first time. The data, compiled from the records of the Netherlands Second West India Company, include population and death statistics for Europeans employed by the Company on the Gold Coast.

Between 1719 and 1760, the mortality rate was just under 20 per cent per year. This number is low in comparison with previously published estimates of mortality in West Africa. The data presented here may be the most extensive for the period of maritime contact which preceded the partition of Africa. The author suggests, on the basis of these statistics, that it may be necessary to consider revising European mortality estimates downward.
Settlers, Strikers andSans-Travail:The Douala Riots of September 1945
Authors: Joseph Richard A.
Published: January 2009

The outbreak of World War II is generally regarded as having had profound consequences for the future of the colonial world. These consequences are usually linked to such largely external factors as the signing of the Atlantic Charter, the participation of colonial subjects in Allied armies, and the demands made for political reforms by colonial officials and metropolitan political groups. Of equal importance for the rapid pace of political change ushered in by the war, however, were developments within the colonial territories themselves. For one thing, the world depression of 1929 lasted right up to the war in many African countries. A connexion can often be drawn between the ‘unfavourable terms of trade, the declining revenues … the pessimism of the period 1930–45’ and the emerging anti-colonial movement. In the case of certain countries, however, this general economic explanation must be broadened to take other factors into account. For example, in the Ivory Coast, the contradiction between African cash-crop agriculture on the one hand and, on the other, such colonial policies as forced labour and theindigénatwhich favoured European agriculture was also at the root of the discontent. In the Congo, the excessive demands made on the rural population to produce for the ‘war effort’—following upon similar exactions during the depression years—reinforced the oppressive apparatus of the colonial state and, in turn, heightened the discontent.
La Traite Portugaise en Haute Guinée, 1758–1797: Problèmes et Méthodes
Authors: Mettas Jean
Published: January 2009

Nous avons choisi d'étudier une région restreinte d'Afrique et une période limitée pour mieux pouvoir poser et tenter de résoudre des problèmes qui nous semblent au cœur même de toute réflexion sur l'histoire de la traite des Noirs: l'origine ethnique des captifs, la proportion d'hommes et de femmes, la mortalité, les rythmes annuels, le rapport entre l'offre africaine et la demande européenne. Nous avons essayé de montrer que tous ces problèmes, trop souvent abordés en ordre dispersé, sont en réalité inextricablement liés.
‘Khama & Co.’ and the Jousse Trouble, 1910–1916
Authors: Parsons Q. N.
Published: January 2009

‘Khama & Co.’ was the attempt of an African monarch in colonial east-central Botswana to make his state's internal economy self-reliant through participation in commerce. The company was founded in 1910, and flourished, but the ‘Jousse Trouble’ in 1916 obliged the British imperial administration to dictate its closure. Pressures came from commercial interests well established elsewhere in southern Africa, which wished to subordinate African enterprise to white supremacy, and maybe to incorporate the Bechuanaland Protectorate within Southern Rhodesia or the Union of South Africa.
‘Regroupement’ and mobile societies: two Cameroon cases
Authors: Burnham Philip
Published: January 2009

This paper is a comparative study of the impact of colonial rule on two African societies, the Gbaya and the pastoral Fulani, inhabiting the Adamawa Plateau in central Cameroon. The main discussion focuses on the difficulties experienced by the French in their attempts to administer these two politically uncentralized and geographically mobile peoples. Geographical mobility was not the result of population pressure or other ecological constraint but was a political strategy and means of dispute regulation frequently employed by these societies living in a lightly populated region. Conflicting with this structural tendency towards mobility in both societies was the French policy of regroupement, the concentration and resettlement of subject peoples in stable villages. Examination of the historical record reveals that despite more or less stringent attempts on the part of the colonial powers to restructure Gbaya and pastoral Fulani societies along more politically amenable lines, these societies have changed little in this respect up to the present day and continue to pose the same problems of administration for the modern government of the United Republic of Cameroon.
John Kabes of Komenda: An Early African Entrepreneur and State Builder
Authors: Henige David
Published: January 2009

The flowering of the Atlantic trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries caused many of the West African societies of the near hinterland to orient themselves increasingly toward the coast. This new focus created new geopolitical conformations. Given the nature of the stimulus, trade and politics went hand in hand and entrepreneurial ability could reap political rewards. These possibilities were greatest along the Gold Coast and in the Niger delta where the actual European presence was small in relation to the extent of the trade.

Such a trader cum political leader was John Kabes who, in a career spanning nearly forty years, established the paramount stool of Komenda, hitherto part of the inland state of Eguafo. Kabes began as a trader for the English (and sometimes for the Dutch) and gradually achieved political status which, however it may have been acquired, proved to be lasting because it was acceptable to existing political mores.

Such of Kabes's activities as are known suggest that his success sprang from his ability to wring advantage from the new exigencies of the time and place in ways which enabled him to acquire legitimacy as well as wealth and influence. Although Kabes's career is uniquely documented there is no reason to suppose that it was particularly unusual in its other facets. On this argument it can suggest ways in which other West African trade-derived polities, particularly in the Niger delta, may have coalesced.