bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The 1916 Bongo ‘Riots’ and Their Background: Aspects of Colonial Administration and African Response in Eastern Upper Ghana
Authors: Thomas Roger G. 
Published: January 2009

Several recent studies have examined the impact of the First World War on the people, and rulers – alien and indigenous - of West Africa. Diverse societies responded in a variety of ways to a situation in which extraordinary demands from the colonial rulers - of which direct military recruitment was only one - were often accompanied by administrative and military contraction at the local level.This paper examines the way in which wartime conditions in the Zouaragu (Zuarungu) and Bawku districts of what is now upper Ghana exposed the weakness of the indigenous administrative structure recently constructed by the British. Here, in many instances, chiefs had been imposed, or at least had had their powers qualitatively changed and substantially increased, in societies that were traditionally organized on a kinship basis. The War seemed to provide an opportunity for an overthrow of this structure, which had enabled many of the chiefs to establish harshly exploitative relations with their subjects. An upsurge of disobedience to chiefly orders was followed in the Bongo area by a land dispute which flared into disturbances in which a constable was killed. These disturbances and an incident in the neighbouring Bawku District were taken as a sign of revolt and ruthlessly crushed by a local administration intent on teaching an unforgettable lesson.Governor Clifford in Accra anatomized the inadequacies of administrative control and condemned his officers' brutal response to the disturbances, but offered little in the way of suggestions for the reform of the chieftaincy system despite clear indications that local hostility was directed more against it than against colonial rule per se. Neither were reform proposals forthcoming from the Northern Territories administration. Thus the severity of the British response to popular opposition to chiefly power was a factor in enabling some chiefs to continue as ‘spoilers’ rather than ‘fathers’ of their people even after the introduction of formal Indirect Rule in the 1930s had nominally broadened popular participation in local administration.
The Development of the Governor-Generalship of the Sudan, 1899–1934
Authors: Daly M. W. 
Published: January 2009

Following the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of the Sudan, British unwillingness either to annex the territory or to allow its reincorporation with Egypt was given expression in the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1899, under the terms of which Britain and Egypt were to rule jointly. But the ' Condominium Agreement' was in reality a device by which Britain managed and Egypt paid for the Sudan's administration. The central figure in that administration was the Governor-General, who, although formally appointed by the ruler of Egypt, was the nominee of the British government.The development of the Governor-Generalship from its inception until the resignation of Sir John Maffey in 1934 owed less to the formal arrangements set down in the Condominium Agreement than it did to relations between the Sudan Government and successive British representatives in Cairo, and to changes in the Governor-General's own position within the Sudan Government. He remained pre-eminent throughout the period under review, but by 1934 his relative independence of Cairo was balanced by the power, within the Sudan Government, of a Council of senior officials.
The History of the Family in Africa: Introduction
Authors: Marks Shula , Rathbone Richard 
Published: January 2009

The papers in this special issue of the Journal were originally presented to a conference held at the School of Oriental and African Studies under the joint auspices of the School and the British Social Science Research Council, in September 1981. The conference, which grew out of an earlier series of seminars run by the S.O.A.S. History Department, arose out of the editors' concern that the history of the family, which had become so lively and important an area of study in Europe and America since the 1960s, was being almost totally neglected in Africa; through the seminars, the conference and now the publication of a selection of the papers in the Journal we hoped to stimulate research on a range of questions which could be fruitfully explored in the African context, and which could possibly also feed into the wider historiography on the family in Britain, America and Europe.For many of its formative years, the study of history was concerned in the main with the history of the dominant, of ‘great men’ and their institutions, states and government, armies, churches and culture. The history of the dominated, of ‘ordinary people’ was thought to be lost, for the majority of our ancestors left no obvious written record from which their lives could be re-created. From 1929, when Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre founded the journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, this view has been increasingly challenged, and it is fair to say that today the past of ordinary people is at least as significant historiographically as that of famous leaders or powerful institutions.
Proto-Industrialization and Demographic Change: A Thesis and some Possible African Implications
Authors: Kitching Gavin 
Published: January 2009

This article examines the possible relevance to Africa of the recent contribution to the history of industrialization in western Europe made by a group of historians of the family using statistical demographic techniques, especially ‘family reconstitntion’, developed by Peter Laslett at Cambridge. It is suggested that in particular the work of David Levine on eighteenth-century England yields a hypothesis about a link between ‘proto-industrialization’ and increased population growth which may be applicable, in a suitably modified form, to black Africa.The article focuses particularly on the mechanism of widened income opportunities for young people lowering the age of marriage. Levine concentrates especially on the lowering of the marriage age of women causing enhanced fertility per wife. The modified form of the hypothesis suggested for black Africa would focus more on the reduction of the age of marriage for men and on the transition from polygyny to monogamy, the latter especially producing increased fertility per individual wife.
African Fiscal Systems as Sources for Demographic History: the Case of Central Angola, 1799–1920
Authors: Heywood Linda , Thornton John 
Published: January 2009

In evaluating statistical information found in reports of European travellers, historians have not paid sufficient attention to the possibility that African states possessed reasonably competent fiscal systems. This is demonstrated by a study of the demographic information about the central highlands of Angola collected in the 1850s by the Hungarian traveller Lázló Magyar, who probably used oral fiscal records about the numbers of villages in the area to make a detailed series of population estimates.Our study of the population data left by Magyar suggests that it is reliable and can be used to show population trends in central Africa from 1800 to 1900. Population appears to have increased rapidly in the central highlands during this period, probably because of the importation of slaves, while it decreased dramatically after 1850 in the lands of the Lunda empire to the east.
Islam, Migration and the Political Economy of Meaning: Fergo Nioro from the Senegal River Valley, 1862–1890
Authors: Hanson John H. 
Published: January 2009

The Muslim social movement known as the fergo Nioro provides a case of popular elaboration of the message of a leader of jihad. Umar Tal's call to holy war led to the conquest of Karta in the mid-1850s, and his call to hijra resulted in the migration of perhaps 20,000 Senegal-valley Fulbe to form a Muslim settler community. In the years after Umar's departure from Karta in 1859, military leaders and others in the Fulbe settler community sent envoys to recruit additional settlers from the Senegal valley. At least 16,000 and perhaps as many as 30,000 Fulbe responded to this recruitment effort and left Bundu, Futa Toro and the lower Senegal valley between 1862 and 1890. Two periods of more massive migration coincided with the residence at Nioro of Amadu Sheku, Umar's son and designated successor. During the late 1860s and early 1870s, a cholera epidemic swept up the Senegal valley, claimed thousands of victims, and encouraged Fulbe to leave the region for Karta. During the mid-1880s, French policies in the Senegal valley, notably the emancipation of slaves and moves to halt Fulbe raids in the lower Senegal valley, influenced the social movement.In both periods of large-scale migration and at other times, the Umarian envoys constructed an appeal which elaborated and even transformed Umar's call to hijra. Umar's insistence on holy war was a dominant theme in all periods, and resonated with the young men who left the valley in hopes of accumulating wealth through warfare. His condemnation of French influence in the Senegal valley was also expressed in the Arabic letters delivered by envoys. Umar's emphasis on the cutting of social bonds was not emphasized, as Fulbe settlers sought to attract relatives and neighbors to the new Fulbe communities in Karta.
The Yoruba Toll System: its operation and abolition
Authors: Falola Toyin 
Published: January 2009

The Yoruba toll system has not been studied, in spite of its important place in Yoruba economy and politics. This essay fills the gap by examining toll collection among the Yoruba-speaking states of south-western Nigeria. It is divided into two parts, the first on the practice of toll collection during the pre-colonial era and the second on the changes introduced by the colonial administration. For the pre-colonial, it emphasizes the dominant aspects of the system, most notably the significance of toll revenue in relation to other sources of income; the control of toll gates by chiefs in order to appropriate the revenues; the character and privileges of collectors; and the features of collection at the toll gates, especially the duties imposed and their implications for trade.The second part explains the steps taken by the new colonial administration to regulate toll collection after 1893, notably by the reduction of customs houses and the printing of tariffs. These reforms failed to solve the problems of corruption by toll clerks and evasions and smuggling by traders, or allay the fear that the imposition of tolls constituted an obstacle to modern commerce. Consequently, the colonial administration decided to abolish the system, and was able to achieve this between 1904 and 1908. Both reforms and abolition were possible because of the gradual approach adopted, the administrative and military power available to the administration, and its ability to generate alternative sources of revenue to maintain itself and pay the chiefs. There can be no doubt that abolition was a major step towards the constitution of the colonial economy.
Poverty and Sacrifice in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland: A Critique of Iliffe's Thesis
Authors: Peel J. D. Y. 
Published: January 2009

John Iliffe has argued that the Yoruba, almost uniquely among African peoples not substantially affected by the world religions, had developed by the nineteenth century a syndrome of institutions – a culture of begging, the valorization of poverty, asceticism – more typical of literate, stratified societies with intensive agriculture.It is agreed that the Yoruba towns of the nineteenth century knew poverty on a substantial scale, aggravated by the endemic warfare and social upheaval. However, the supposed ‘indigenous tradition of begging’ which Iliffe cites as evidence, is shown to rest on a cultural misreading of social practices reported by the missionaries, notably the offering of cowries to the devotees of gods, especially Esu. These acts were not almsgiving to beggars but sacrifices to deities, continuous with other forms of sacrifice. The ‘beggars’ were by no means always poor. Sociologically, offerings to the devotees of deities ranged from a ‘commercial’ mode, where material blessings were anticipated in return, to a ‘tributary’ mode (particularly common with devotees of Sango) where they were analogous to placatory sacrifices (etutu). So dominant was the notion of sacrifice that a concept of Islamic origin,saraa, originally meaning ‘alms’, came to take the meaning of ‘sacrifice’ in Yoruba (as in many other West African languages).Other aspects of the alleged poverty/asceticism syndrome are shown to be equally invalid. The pronounced this-worldliness of Yoruba religious attitudes is incompatible with idea that the poor might enjoy special religious favour. Acts of self-mortification did not indicate an attitude of religious asceticism. There was no ideal that religious personnel should be poor. It is argued in conclusion that the changes which we can see in Yoruba religion arise from the active engagement of Yorubas with external influences, rather than purely from endogenous developments or purely reactive responses.
Economy within an Economy: the Manilla Currency, Exchange Rate Instability and Social Conditions in South-Eastern Nigeria, 1900–48
Authors: Naanen Ben 
Published: January 2009

This paper studies the effects of the coexistence of the manilla currency and British currency in south-eastern Nigeria, and the way in which this monetary situation created political tensions which eventually led to the redemption of the manilla. When British control of Southern Nigeria was formalized in 1900 and British currency introduced in the south-east in the following year, the inability of the colonial authorities to put into circulation adequate supplies of British coins, coupled with historically entrenched use of traditional currencies, compelled the colonial state to recognize the latter as legal tender. However, the continuing circulation of these currencies alongside British coins created financial and economic difficulties, causing the colonial state to adopt a number of legislative measures to eradicate them. While other traditional currencies capitulated to these measures, the manilla continued to be popular as a result of objective economic factors, and was strengthened by some of the very instruments designed to eliminate it.Meanwhile, the constantly fluctuating exchange rate of the manilla was generating discontent. These fluctuations were caused primarily by the gyrations of the world market. Improved prices of palm products–the main sources of British currency in the economy of southeastern Nigeria–brought about the appreciation of the manilla. This caused hardship among wage-earners by reducing the exchange value and the purchasing power of their meagre and fixed income which had to be converted to manillas in order to buy food and other locally produced goods and services. Periods of depression, on the other hand, caused manilla depreciation as a result of a diminished inflow of British currency. This reduced the income of peasant producers, while increasing the purchasing power of workers. The ferments generated by fluctuating manilla values have remained, until now, unidentified causal links in the political movements in south-eastern Nigeria, including especially the women's movements of the 1920s.The discontent intensified in the 1940s, when the influx of cash into the Nigerian economy caused by war-time military spending and the post-war commodity boom caused a continuous appreciation of the manilla. This development made life more difficult for workers, whose incomes were already being decimated by inflation. The resulting intensified political tension, as well as the existing obstacles to trade and smooth collection of taxes (also caused by unabating manilla fluctuations), made the demonetization of the manilla through redemption inevitable. With the elimination of the manilla, which had constituted a sub-system within the economic system of colonial Nigeria, the colonial state's economic control of Nigeria can be said to have been completed.
Tanganyikan Nationalism as ‘Women's Work’: Life Histories, Collective Biography and Changing Historiography
Authors: Geiger Susan 
Published: January 2009

Although nationalism in Tanzania, as elsewhere in Africa, has been criticized for its shortcomings, and a ‘Dar es Salaam School’ has been charged with succumbing to its ideological biases, few historians have revisited or questioned Tanzania's dominant nationalist narrative – a narrative created over 25 years ago. Biographies written in aid of this narrative depict nationalism in the former Trust Territory of Tanganyika as primarily the work of a few good men, including ‘proto-nationalists’ whose anti-colonial actions set the stage and provided historical continuity for the later western-oriented ideological work of nationalist modernizers.The life history narratives of women who became activists in the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) in the 1950s disrupt this view of progressive stages toward an emerging nationalist consciousness which reflected and borrowed heavily from western forms and ideals. They suggest that Tanganyikan nationalism was also and significantly the work of thousands of women, whose lives and associations reflected trans-tribal ties and affiliations, and whose work for TANU served to both construct and perform what nationalism came to signify for many Tanzanian women and men. Women activists did not simply respond to TANU's nationalist rhetoric; they shaped, informed and spread a nationalist consciousness for which TANU was the vehicle.Neither ‘extraordinary’ individuals (the usual subjects of male biography) nor ‘representative’ of ‘ordinary people’ (often the subjects of life histories), TANU women activists' lives reveal the severe limitations of the dichotomous characterizations of traditional biographical forms. Together, their narratives constitute a collective biographical narrative of great significance for our understanding of nationalism and nationalist movement in the former Tanganyika.
Tshekedi Khama and Opposition to the British Administration of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1926-1936
Authors: Crowder Michael 
Published: January 2009

African chiefs under colonial rule are conventionally described as collaborators. Those who failed to co-operate with their colonial masters were deposed. Tshekedi Khama, Regent of the Bangwato for his nephew, Seretse, from 1926 to 1950, does not fit this description. During the first ten years of his regency, he was almost continuously locked in conflict with the British on a whole range of issues both large and small. His sustained opposition to the British is the more remarkable in that he became regent at the age of merely twenty without having been specifically prepared for the governance of the largest of the Tswana states under British rule.This article explores the reasons for Tshekedi's opposition to the British and the way in which he conducted this opposition, and asks why the British did not depose him as they almost certainly would have deposed a chief who behaved remotely like him in one of their other African territories. It concludes that while Tshekedi basically accepted the colonial situation in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, he was determined that the British should make no inroads into the powers of the chiefs as determined at the end of the nineteenth century when his father Khama III had accepted British protection. He was also resolved to hand over the chieftaincy intact to his ward, Seretse. Furthermore Tshekedi, unlike most African chiefs of his day, was Western-educated, having attended Fort Hare, and believed that the function of the British Administration was to teach him ‘how to govern…not how to be governed’. He reacted strongly against measures that were imposed on him without consultation or explanation, especially, those which he suspected were designed to limit his power or might affect the welfare of his people. In opposing such measures, he employed both ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ resources and was as skilful as any African nationalist of the time in mobilising press, parliament and public opinion in Britain in his support.While the British did consider deposing him, and in 1933 temporarily suspended him from office, they were confronted by the fact that there was no other leader in Gammangwato who would be accepted as a legitimate alternative by the Bangwato or who would be remotely as competent as he was. After ten years of wrangling with Tshekedi the British learnt that it was in their interests to collaborate with him. For the next decade Tshekedi and the Administration worked largely in harmony. It was only in the late 1940s that Tshekedi began to use his formidable intellectual powers and administrative experience to challenge the colonial system itself.
SulfoSYS (Sulfolobus Systems Biology): towards a silicon cell model for the central carbohydrate metabolism of the archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus under temperature variation
Authors: Albers Sonja-Verena , Birkeland Nils-Kåre , Driessen Arnold J.M. , Gertig Susanne , Haferkamp Patrick , Klenk Hans-Peter , Kouril Theresa , Manica Andrea , Pham Trong K. , Ruoff Peter , Schleper Christa , Schomburg Dietmar , Sharkey Kieran J. , Siebers Bettina , Sierocinski Pawel , Steuer Ralf , Oost John van der , Westerhoff Hans V. , Wieloch Patricia , Wright Phillip C. , Zaparty Melanie 
Published: January 2009

SulfoSYS (Sulfolobus Systems Biology) focuses on the study of the CCM (central carbohydrate metabolism) of Sulfolobus solfataricus and its regulation under temperature variation at the systems level. In Archaea, carbohydrates are metabolized by modifications of the classical pathways known from Bacteria or Eukarya, e.g. the unusual branched ED (Entner–Doudoroff) pathway, which is utilized for glucose degradation in S. solfataricus. This archaeal model organism of choice is a thermoacidophilic crenarchaeon that optimally grows at 80°C (60–92°C) and pH 2–4. In general, life at high temperature requires very efficient adaptation to temperature changes, which is most difficult to deal with for organisms, and it is unclear how biological networks can withstand and respond to such changes. This integrative project combines genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic, as well as kinetic and biochemical information. The final goal of SulfoSYS is the construction of a silicon cell model for this part of the living cell that will enable computation of the CCM network. In the present paper, we report on one of the first archaeal systems biology projects.