Showing papers in "International Journal of African Historical Studies in 1969"
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TL;DR: In this article, the origins and spread of iron-working in sub-Saharan Africa have been investigated and the various hypotheses that have been advanced are tested using a detailed knowledge of the archaeology of the northern part of the African continent.
Abstract: In recent years archaeologists have been devoting increasing attention to the Iron Age cultures of sub-Saharan Africa and have been attempting to trace the origins and spread of iron-working in that region. During the same period the development of iron-working has received relatively little attention in North Africa, a region long dominated by an archaeology that eschews the study of technology for that of epigraphy. From the viewpoint of sub-Saharan archaeology this is unfortunate since most of the recent discussions of the origins of ironworking in the latter region postulate its derivation from southwest Asia by way of North Africa. l Testing the various hypotheses that have been advanced will require a detailed knowledge of the archaeology of the northern part of the African continent.2
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TL;DR: Although the scourge of tsetse had been known in West, Central, and Southern Africa for centuries, it was not until the first decade of the twentieth century that these insects invaded the Lake Victoria littoral, causing great human and livestock losses.
Abstract: Although the scourge of tsetse had been known in West, Central, and Southern Africa for centuries, it was not until the first decade of the twentieth century that these insects invaded the Lake Victoria littoral, causing great human and livestock losses. Spreading from the Congo basin, tsetse inhabited Uganda along river valleys and the shoreline of Lake Victoria. They eventually reached all the islands of the lake and the East Africa Protectorate, extending as far as the Mau escarpment. 1 This region became an area of concern because it was heavily populated, and infection in the littoral could have been transmitted down the Nile to the Mediterranean coast. One of the greatest problems confronting the missionaries and doctors in East Africa during the early years of this century was their lack of knowledge about the strain of tsetse which had invaded.2 As a result, countless theories were put forth concerning the cause of sleeping sickness; and since the disease spread through Belgian, Portuguese, German, French, and British colonies, international conventions were held to consider legal measures to prevent further spread of sleeping sickness. It was not until several years after attention was drawn to the plight of East Africa that positive remedies were secured.
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TL;DR: The revolt at the Luluabourg garrison in 1944 represents an important but as yet inadequately understood episode in the development of Congolese nationalism as discussed by the authors, but at the time it revealed the enormity of the effort that would be required to get rid of Belgian rule.
Abstract: The revolt at the Luluabourg garrison in 1944 represents an important but as yet inadequately understood episode in the development of Congolese nationalism. l It marks the first effort by an organized group of Congolese to gain political control of their country, but at the time it revealed the enormity of the effort that would be required to get rid of Belgian rule. Because of the complexity of the revolt and the limited materials at the author's disposal, this essay will consider the revolt as it affected a single city, Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi). More specifically, the discussion will concern a small group of Africans in Elisabethville who rallied to the revolt, the educated Kasaians, in their relations with Europeans, their African neighbors, and the plotters in Luluabourg.
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TL;DR: The writer was not a Portuguese liberal from Lisbon, or an English humanitarian or newspaper correspondent, or even a Protestant missionary as mentioned in this paper, but an assimilado lawyer, born in Luanda, the product of Portuguese assimilation and miscegenation, an educated mestiCo.
Abstract: The writer was not a Portuguese liberal from Lisbon, or an English humanitarian or newspaper correspondent, or even a Protestant missionary. The writer was Jose de Fontes Pereira (1823-1891), an assimilado lawyer, born in Luanda, the product of Portuguese assimilation and miscegenation, an educated mestiCo. The message of the journalist seemed to belie the traditional Portuguese assertion to foreign and domestic critics that they brought to Africa a progressive civilization.
TL;DR: The safety of the Ashanti Union depended from the first on acquiring muskets; but they could be obtained only in exchange for slaves, and slaves carried them inevitably towards conquest of their neighbors as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The safety of the Ashanti Union depended from the first on acquiring muskets; but muskets, as in Dahomey, could be obtained only in exchange for slaves . . . Slaving carried them inevitably towards conquest of their neighbors. They were seldom or never willing to sell their own people; hence they had to conquer foreign states and also, since other African nations were in the same game, control the trade routes to the coast. This in turn needed more firearms, and more firearms called for still more captives . . . Questions of power and wealth apart, slaving had become the price of Ashanti survival. 1
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TL;DR: The origins of the arabica coffee industry of today date back no earlier than the agricultural experiments of a group of French Roman Catholic missionaries as mentioned in this paper, and varieties of it, with possibly other species of coffee, may have been growing wild in certain regions of East Africa from the earliest times.
Abstract: It is well known that coffee is one of the major exports of the East African countries. Uganda chiefly produces the robusta strains, but Kenya and Tanzania sell mostly arabica coffee, the quality of that grown in Kenya being comparable to the best from Jamaica and Costa Rica. The homeland of the arabica species would appear to be the highlands of Ethiopia, and varieties of it, with possibly other species of coffee as well, may have been growing wild in certain regions of East Africa from the earliest times. Commercial cultivation in Kenya and Tanzania, however, began relatively recently, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The origins of the arabica coffee industry of today date back no earlier than the agricultural experiments of a group of French Roman Catholic missionaries.
TL;DR: A reading of the historical literature on colonial nationalism, as well as other historical literature dignified by the epithet "comparative,T" leads me to the embarrassing conclusion that historians have been kidding themselves as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Disciplines other than history appear to have solved, or at least boldly approached, the problems of comparison. The journals of political science, anthropology, and sociology are replete with quite acceptable comparative studies. But a reading of the historical literature on colonial nationalism, as well as other historical literature dignified by the epithet "comparative,T" leads me to the embarrassing conclusion that historians have been kidding themselves. Most of them are not compartive at all, but "parallel" histories: discrete accounts of whatever subject is in hand, separated by chapter headings or subheadings, and related to one another by a table of contents and a binding. Few of them show any deliberate effort to weigh the significance of likeness and diversity.2 To make such an effort is my purpose here. What I hope to have demonstrated is that, at comparable stages in their growth, Egyptian and Moroccan nationalism displayed certain similarities and dissimilarities, and that to explain the latter, especially, serves to refine some of our insights about the interaction of colonial policies, rising nationalisms, and international conditions.
TL;DR: Morel and Casement as discussed by the authors launched a full-throated campaign aimed at compelling Theodore Roosevelt to place his administration behind the cause of Congo reform, and the campaign was unsuccessful.
Abstract: From its birth at the Congress of Berlin in 1885 as King Leopold's personal fiefdom to its present status as a fledgling nation struggling to survive mercenary plots and regional uprisings, the Congo has been an area of American interest and concern. And perhaps at no other period in its tortured history, not even excepting the recent past, has the Congo figured so prominently in American eyes as during the first decade of the twentieth century. Then, in response to the crusade launched in England by E. D. Morel and Roger Casement to arouse the conscience of the world to the terrible plight of the Congolese people under King Leopold's rule, an eloquent collection of Protestant ministers and missionaries, authors and college professors, politicians and businessmen, both singly and in association, carried on in lecture, newspaper, and pamphlet a full-throated campaign aimed at compelling Theodore Roosevelt to place his administration behind the cause of Congo reform. So strenuously did they pursue this goal, that, long after the affair had receded into history, Elihu Root, Roosevelt's Secretary of State, still had vivid and bitter memories of how the administration was forced ultimately to reformulate its cautious Congo policy along lines acceptable to the reformers. "The case of the .... Congo, " Root asserted in 1930, "is a very conspicuous illustration of the difficulties which are created for . . . the men handling foreign affairs in a democratic country, regarding matters of sentiment."