Showing papers in "International Journal of African Historical Studies in 1971"

Blacks in antiquity : Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman experience

Abstract: 1. The Physical Characteristics of Ethiopians--the Textual Evidence Appendix: Names of Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman World 2. The Physical Characteristics of Ethiopians--the Archaeological Evidence Illustrations 3. Greco-Roman Acquaintance with African Ethiopians 4. Greek Encounters with Ethiopian Warriors 5. Roman Encounters with Ethiopian Warriors 6. Ethiopians in Classical Mythology 7. Ethiopians in the Theater and Amphitheater 8. Greco-Roman Attitude toward Ethiopians--Theory and Practice 9. Early Christian Attitude toward Ethiopians--Creed and Conversion Blacks in a White Society--a Summation Illustrations Notes Indexes

Swahili settlements in northern zambia and malawi

Abstract: Just as the history of European exploration has been placed in perspective and assimilated into the new historiography of Africa, so the history of the expansion of coastal trade with interior peoples must be reassessed and grounded in the African context. To investigate the social and economic implications of the Swahili- speaking communities which became established in northern Zambia and Malawi, it is necessary first to examine them in terms of individuals and developing political relationships. The following essay is a preliminary to further research, and attempts to draw out aspects of political history and commercial geography as stepping stones to a fuller consideration of social history in the later nineteenth century. The use of the umbrella term "Swahili" to cover the entire commercial community represents an obvious compromise. It has a certain ethnic basis when applied to the coastmen, often called Zanzibari, for whom Swahili was a mother tongue. The coastmen proper, however, could not be readily distinguished in Central Africa from the amorphous category of Wangwana, or Alungwana, as they were known and called themselves in Zambia.1 The Wangwana were of heterogeneous origin, often becoming attached to the community as slaves, but also including all those who traveled with caravans and adapted to the coastal culture.2 More distinct, but closely associated and frequently intermixed with the Swahili were the Nyamwezi or Yeke, who composed a significant element of autonomous traders as well as commercial and military auxiliaries of the communities under discussion. Arabs and Baluchis also belonged to the Swahili-speaking community and figured prominently among the "big men." Their roles in affecting local history can not be satisfactorily understood in terms of status in Zanzibar or even of economic relations based upon credit or other affiliation. Merchant princes who would have been recognized throughout the Swahili world were transients in our region in the nineteenth century and it was never certain that they would return

The Politics of Business: Relations Between Zanzibar and Bagamoyo in the Late Nineteenth Century

Abstract: More than five hundred miles inland from the East African coast, two men had gained special recognition in their respective homelands. One, an elderly Musambiro, "had seen Bagamoyo and consequently [was] regarded as an oracle in the country."l The other was an Uvinza village chief "who had seen the world -he having travelled to Bagamoyo."2 This coconut-palm-laden town had emerged as a symbol of man's ability to satisfy his physical, material, and spiritual expectations. Indeed, one of the proudest achievements of an East African was that he had seen this town and lived, even if for only the briefest time, the "comfortable life ."3

Papers in African prehistory

Abstract: 1. The prehistoric origins of African culture J. Desmond Clark 2. The spread of food production in sub-Saharan Africa J. Desmond Clark 3. Primary cradles of agriculture in the African continent Rolan Portres 4. Speculations on the economic prehistory of Africa Christopher Wrigley 5. Aspects of the evolution and ecology of tsetse flies and trypanosomiasis in the prehistoric African environment Frank L. Lambrecht 6. Concepts of race in the historiography of Northeast Africa Wyatt MacGaffey 7. Some questions on the economic prehistory of Ethiopia Frederick J. Simoons 8. Some developments in the prehistory of the Bantu languages Malcolm Guthrie 9. The problem of the Bantu expansion Roland Oliver 10. The Rhodesian Iron Age Roger Summers 11. The Greefswald sequence: Bambandyanalo and Mapungubwe Brian Fagan 12. The Iron Age sequence in the Southern Province of Zambia Brian Fagan 13. Notes on some early pottery cultures in northern Katanga Jaques Nenquin 14. Kilwa and the Arab settlement of the East African coast Neville Chittick 15. The 'Shirazl' colonization of East Africa Neville Chittick 16. New light on Medieval Nubia P. L. and M. Shinnie 17. Old Kanuri capitals A. D. H. Bivar and P. L. Shinnie 18. Ife and its archaeology Frank Willett.

The Congo Rubber Atrocities: A Case Study

Abstract: When I was traveling in the Congo in 1962 it was suggested to me that in the Bolobo region there was a lively folk memory of the rubber atrocities committed in the period of the Etat Independant du Congo. The following year I was able to go to Bolobo, but by that time my original intention of simply collecting oral tradition had become somewhat more ambitious. Preliminary investigation led to the discovery that, although Roger Casement's original report was not in the place in the Foreign Office correspondence where one would expect to find it, the "Confidential Print" of it was .1 Of course this famed report has always been available in the published version,2 but in that version symbols are substituted for the names of individuals, tribes, regions, and places wherever it was supposed that informants might otherwise be victimized. And because charges against officials did not amount to legally satisfactory proof, their names were suppressed as well.3 Understandably, therefore, the discovery of the unexpurgated version was of some importance. All that the parliamentary paper tells one of the rubber policy in the Bolobo region is that Casement collected information from refugees in a portion of the domaine de la couronne somewhere in the vicinity of Bolobo. In the paper, he makes statements of such limited value as "I spent three days on this journey, visited two large villages in the interior belonging to the K tribe, wherein I found that fully half the population now consisted of refugees belonging to the L tribe who had formerly dwelt near I. "4 In the confidential print, on the other hand, is an untouched account of one of the detailed investigations undertaken by Casement.

Some notes on religious dissent in nineteenth-century East Africa

Abstract: While considerable literature exists on independency and separatism within the Christian churches in East Africa, 1 there is hardly any mention of schism and secession in studies dealing with East African Islam. In theory Islam has always regarded itself as a single unified umma (community of believers) held together and guided by the Shari'a (divine law), but in practice Islam, like other monotheistic religions, has suffered from separatist tendencies.2 Both the Sunni and Shi'a Muslim communities in East Africa have on numerous occasions had secessions from their ranks.3 The dissenters have either built separate mosques, thus establishing congregations independent of the parent body, or have joined one of the more loosely organized groups such as the Shi'a Ithna'Asharl sect.

Zanzibari Influence at the Southern End of Lake Victoria: The Lake Route

Abstract: If one had been able to question an Arab or Swahili trader of Unyanyembe1 about the destination of commercial traffic leading north in 1850, the reply might have been "all roads lead to Buganda." The answer would have been very near absolute truth, but to get from Unyanyembe to Buganda, caravans had to pass along either of two major routes through a series of interim territories whose importance as links in the chain of historical development of northwestern Tanzania should not be dealt with lightly. Some of them have constantly played a significant, often crucial, role in the evolution of African and Arab-Swahili trading patterns throughout the nineteenth century. Others remained virtual backwaters, exempted from the direct impact of long-distance trade. These areas, arranged from west to east through the regions at the southern end of Lake Victoria, are Karagwe, the Haya states, Kiziba, Rusubi (Usui), Usumbwa, Uzinza, northernmost Unyamwezi, Usukuma, and a tier of small polities, sometimes stateless societies, on the southeastern side of the lake, the lands of the Kuria, Luo, Kwaya, Zanaki, Jita, and Shashi.2 Through recent studies we have become more acutely aware of the historical development of Unyamwezi and Buganda, both ends of this commercial axis.3 This essay attempts to fill in some of the gaps, to understand the complexity of developments in the areas between them. Its prime emphasis is on the historical development of one of the major routes -the socalled "lake route" -and the regions in its vicinity.