Showing papers in "The Journal of African History in 1972"

Khoisan resistance to the Dutch in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Abstract: The responses of the Khoisan peoples to the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have generally been dismissed summarily by historians. This article attempts to place their reactions into the broader framework of the receptivity of Late Stone Age society in South Africa to cultural innovation, and suggests that the usual dichotomy drawn between the rapid disintegration of the pastoral Khoi in the face of the Dutch settlers and the fierce resistance of the San hunter-gatherers is an oversimplification. There was little to distinguish cattleless Khoi from San, or San who had acquired cattle from Khoi, and both processes were at work both during and before the Dutch period in South Africa. The belief that the Khoi ‘willingly’ bartered away their cattle for ‘mere baubles’ is challenged, and it is maintained that the violence which punctuated every decade of the eighteenth century, and which culminated in the so-called ‘Bushman Wars’, were in large measure the Khoisan response to their prior dispossession by the Boers. On the other hand, the readiness of the Khoisan to acculturate to both the Dutch and the Bantu-speaking intruders, their relatively small population and loose social organization, meant that their ethnic identity virtually disappeared. Nevertheless their responses were more complex than is generally realized and resemble those of other colonized peoples. They were also to have a profound influence on the attitudes towards whites of Bantu-speakers on the Cape's eastern and northern frontiers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Linguistic evidence regarding Bantu origins

Abstract: This article has two related purposes. The first is to attempt a clarification of certain points raised by Professor Oliver in his article, ‘The Problem of the Bantu Expansion’, published in an earlier issue of this Journal, insofar as it concerns his discussion of the alternative theories of Professor Guthrie and the present writer regarding Bantu origins. The second and more general aim is to survey the basic assumptions of Guthrie's work on Bantu insofar as it relates to the same problem. In the course of the exposition, three types of evidence are considered: the internal Bantu linguistic evidence; the linguistic evidence external to Bantu, chiefly from West African languages; and the non-linguistic, chiefly geographic evidence.It is argued that Guthrie's assumption which underlies his theory of a central ‘nuclear’ area as the point of origin, namely that the linguistically most conservative area reveals the place of origin, is contrary to empirical evidence. It is rather the area of greatest internal divergence, in this case the north-western area, which points to the earliest differentiation and hence point of origin.

The Rise and Fall of Zimbabwe

Abstract: Two hypotheses are available for the origin of the Zimbabwe culture. A religious hypothesis attributes its development to an African society in isolation, placing it in the class of a primary state. In contrast, the trade hypothesis maintains that it was a secondary state resulting from the gold trade.If the religious hypothesis is correct, then Zimbabwe would be an exception to all other known cases of primary state formation. The archaeological evidence points to a horticultural subsistence throughout the Iron Age sequence in the area and a small population until Period III/IV. On the other hand, all known primary states were based on large populations and intensive agriculture. It is more likely that Zimbabwe is a typical case of secondary state formation.The stratigraphy on the Acropolis indicates that a social transition from Period II to III probably occurred at Zimbabwe and was not the result of an immigrant group, and the short chronology places this transition around A.D. 1250. The evidence available from Arab documents, trade imports and ancient mining demonstrates that trade existed well before then. Consequently, the evolution of the Zimbabwe culture was almost certainly due to the Arab gold trade.

Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia

Abstract: This article is an effort to examine the way in which events during and, in some cases, before the nineteenth century shaped modern Senegambian society. It concludes:(1) That the slave trade contributed to the development of military structures and to the polarization of Senegambian societies between a warrior elite and an industrious Muslim peasant population.(2) That the change from the slave trade to legitimate commerce weakened the elites while strengthening the Muslim agriculturalists, who were able to accumulate guns and horses.(3) That tensions between the two conflicting groups go back at least to the seventeenth century, and that after 1860 they led to a series of revolutionary struggles. The agents of this revolution were a series of charismatic religious leaders.(4) That the course of this revolution was shaped by the involvement of European interests, and after 1854 increasingly by the incorporation of Senegambia in European spheres of influence.(5) That this merely postponed certain changes. By the beginning of the colonial period, Islam was clearly dominant, and Senegambia's rural populations were heavily involved in the money economy.

Reactions to Rinderpest in Southern Africa 1896–97

Abstract: Rinderpest, a highly contagious cattle disease which swept through southern Africa in 1896–7, has attracted little interest from historians. A more detailed consideration of its effect on a cattle-keeping peasantry within the context of an industrializing economy assists in illuminating some of the socio-economic and political forces operative in the 1890s.The spread of rinderpest was acompanied by widespread suspicion and rumour. Some Europeans thought that the disease was spread by Africans. Many Africans, for their part, were convinced that rinderpest was a product of the white man's malice. Over large areas rinderpest was accepted with an attitude of fatalism and resignation. In Basutoland and East Griqualand, however, local leaders emerged who were willing to utilize grievances and rumours stemming from rinderpest for attempts at mobilization for the wider objective of revolt.The loss of large numbers of cattle caused considerable social and economic distress in African communities. The transport system was paralysed in an economy dependent on the extensive use of the ox-wagon, and this resulted in price rises and profiteering in more remote areas. With the disappearance of the source of meat and milk Africans experienced considerable hardship and in some cases starvation. Forced into taking contingency action, activities ranged from planting vegetables to stock-thieving. Generally, however, the impoverishment of Africans caused by rinderpest contributed to the growing proletarianization of Africans and the process of labour migration. Rinderpest did not produce fundamental structural changes in Southern African society, but it did emphasize the processes which were to characterize industrial South Africa of the twentieth century.

Firearms and Princely Power in Ethiopia in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: Several centuries after firearms had been introduced, they were still of little importance in Ethiopia, where cavalry continued to dominate warfare until the second half of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, they were much sought after by local leaders ambitious to secure their autonomy or to grasp supreme authority. The first of these warlords to make himself emperor, Tēwodros (1855–68), owed nothing to firearms. However, his successors, Yohannis IV (1872–89) and Minīlik (d. 1913), did. Both excelled in their mastery of the new technology and acquired large quantities of quick-firing weapons. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, possession of firearms — principally the breech loading rifle — had become a precondition for successfully contending for national leadership. Yet the wider revolution associated (as in Egypt) with the establishment of a European-style army did not follow. Nor was rearmament restricted to the following of the emperor. Despite the revival of imperial authority effected by Yohannis and Minīlik, rifles and even machine-guns were widely enough spread at the turn of the century to reinforce the fragmentation of power long characteristic of the Ethiopian state. Into the early twentieth century, it remained uncertain if the peculiar advantages of the capital in the import of arms would be made to serve centralization.

The Imbangala and the Chronology of Early Central African History

Abstract: Articles by Vansina and Birmingham in the J.A.H. have explored the possibility of deriving the chronology of state-formation in central Africa from the date when warrior armies known as Imbangala (also, erroneously, as ‘Jaga’) appeared in Angola. This article, drawing on new traditions collected in Angola during 1969, shows that the figures described by the oral histories are permanent named titles in systems of positional succession and perpetual kinship; they therefore contain no implicit chronology based on assumed human life spans. The new evidence suggests that many years elapsed between the origin of one Imbangala title in the nascent Lunda empire and its successors' appearance on the coast. Although documents establish the Imbangala presence in Angola as early as 1563, this date reveals little about preceding events in Katanga, which may have taken place many decades, or even centuries, earlier. Finally, by extending the methodological techniques developed for the Imbangala traditions to published Lunda histories, it is suggested that the Luba and Lunda kingdoms may have passed through several periods before the stage previously assumed to have initiated the development of states in central Africa. The article concludes by suggesting that formation of (probably very small-scale) states began much earlier than previous analyses have demonstrated.

Somali Resistance to Colonial Rule and the Development of Somali Political Activity in Kenya, 1893-1960

Abstract: This article investigates the relationship between different phases of Somali political activity in Kenya. A clear contrast emerges between the focus, the aims and the methods adopted by the Somali pastoralists along the northern frontier and those adopted by the Isaq and Herti Somali traders in Nairobi and Isiolo. The attitude of the former towards the Colonial Government was essentially negative. Yet, while they tended to be resisters par excellence and fought against the Government on a large number of occasions between 1893 and 1916, this article shows that their resistance was much more limited than has generally been supposed and that they were never united on a clan basis in their resistance. In fact intra-clan rivalries seriously undermined the effectiveness of their activities Moreover, certain weaker Somali segments actively cooperated with the Government in order to obtain military and political support for their positions which were threatened by stronger groups.On the other hand, Isaq and Herti traders attempted to manipulate the political institution in order to obtain additional privileges within the system. Their agitation had positive goals, for they campaigned to gain Asiatic status. They put pressure on the central organs of Government and hired lawyers to plead their case. They wrote numerous petitions and memorials to governors of the colony, to Secretaries of State and even to two British kings. They formed well-organized political associations and had contacts in British Somaliland and England. Yet, by a curious irony, it seems that the Somali Exemption Ordinance of 1919, which represented the closest they came to achieving non-native status, was not passed as a result of their campaigns. In fact, their later agitation achieved nothing; it seems to have represented a futile effort to counter the gradual erosion of privileges obtained at an earlier date.One of the main characteristics of the Isaq and Herti agitation was its essentially sectarian character. In fighting to obtain Asiatic status they emphasized traits that isolated them from other Somali groups, and they even ended by denying that they were Somali. As such, there was a considerable disparity between their aims and those of the Somali Youth League which emerged in 1946 as the main vehicle of mass Somali nationalism, uniting the Somali pastoralists and traders in one group.

Problems in the interpretation of the history of the Maghrib in the light of some recent publications

Abstract: Caught between schools of sociogy, historians of North Africa over the past twenty years have concetrated on the first century of European colonization, 1830–1930. The previous thousand years of the Muslim period remain enigmatic, their interpretation still heavily dependent upon the work of Ibn Khhaldūn. In conclusion to his volume of the 1952 edition of Ch.-A. Julien's Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord, R. Ie Tourneau characterized this ‘medieval’ period as one of political failure. With particular reference to Morocco, Gellner and more recently Abun-Nasr have, in their various ways, sought to explain an absence of effective government in terms of Ibn Khhaldūn's cyclical theory of the rise and fall of dynasties, taking the traditional Moroccan distinction between a Bilād al Makhzan and a Bilād al-Sība to represent the antithesis between the civilized and the primitive on which that theory rests. Islam is seen as a positive influence on behalf of central government. Neither scheme is satisfactory, perhaps because like Ibn Khhaldūn they are both too concerned with the central power. Taking North Africa as a whole, it seems better to begin with a division of authority in the pre-colonial period into the secular and the religious, the first represented by tribes and local lordships (as well as cities) and by the central government itself, the second by the men of religion, ‘ulamā’ and murābiṭūn. From a position protected by reverence and sustained by endowments, the latter operated as consultants rather than commanders, with the proviso that it was always open to the man of religion to use his prestige and wealth to step across into the realm of secular power. Progress from there to the top, on the other hand, was exceptional. The control of the central government was a great prize, and for that reason the system normally restricted competition by reserving it to the members of an exclusive group, whether a royal family as in Morocco and Tunisia or a regiment of soldiers as in Algiers. The overthrow of that ruling group was difficult, achieved in any given instance only after years of preparation. It is hard to infer a general rule. Islam was employed to justify the claimant as occasion offered, the justification(s) advanced becoming in the event an historical myth on behalf of the successful candidate and – his dawla, his dynasty or state. Any residual Islamic content inherent in the throne as distinct from its occupant can scarcely be isolated as an independent factor. In practice it may have amounted to little more than acceptance of government, whether Muslim or Christian, as a necessary evil.

Missionary Imperialism—The Case of Bechuanaland

Abstract: This article, based on private papers as well as missionary and government records, examines the development of missionary contact with the Tswana peoples from the first settlement at Dithakong in 1816 to the establishment of a formal British Protectorate. The author seeks to analyse the nature of ‘missionary imperialism’ as a consequence not only of missionary motives and methods—still less as the accidental interest of individual missionaries—but also as the product of practical missionary experience and frustration in African circumstances.The absence of European administration from Bechuanaland for much of the nineteenth century gives a rare opportunity to study the effects of missionary activity on African life and polity, less complicated than usual by secular pressures and influences. And the lack of economic attraction in Bechuanaland allows a close examination of the incentives to empire. But it is likely that the trend apparent in missionary attitudes and work in Bechuanaland will be repeated in other areas, as for example in Ndebeleland and Malawi.The missionary role in Bechuanaland was largely determined by the organization and attitudes of Tswana society; missionary methods had to be adjusted accordingly, and eventually included an appeal to the British government to intervene and reduce resistant Tswana authority. This was in the logic of the missionaries' experience. In this light of missionary history, a new importance is found for the agitation on the British government from 1882 and the definition of the Convention of London in 1884.

New radiocarbon dates for Eastern and Southern Africa

Abstract: This article is a follow-up to that of Mr D. W. Phillipson published in this Journal in 1970, and to the six earlier lists compiled for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa by Dr B. M. Fagan. I have endeavoured to include here all radiocarbon dates for archaeological sites of the Iron Age and most of those of the end of the Stone Age in the eastern and southern part of Africa—that is from Ethiopia, the Upper Nile and the Congo Basin southward—which have been published or made available since the preparation of the former articles. Some of these dates are already included in recent numbers of the Journal Radiocarbon, or have been mentioned in publications elsewhere, as indicated in the footnotes. A large proportion of these new dates, however, have not yet been published, and are included here through the agreement of the various individual archaeologists and research bodies, all of whom I wish to thank for their cooperation. In particular, I am indebted to Mr David Phillipson for his willing assistance in providing a number of contacts and relaying information from southern Africa.

The growth of trade among the Igbo before 1880

Abstract: THE growth of commerce in south-eastern Nigeria in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been analysed in a number of recent works, which have concentrated on the coastal city-states.2 Though the entrepreneurial importance of these states was considerable, their success depended upon the supplies of slaves and palm oil which reached them from the inland markets, especially those among the Igbo. At the beginning of the nineteenth century two networks of trade dominated much of the commerce of this hinterland. The first of these was composed of the several trading states which co-operated in the management of the trade on the Niger River and the major riverain markets. The second network, directed by the Aro traders of Arochuku and its colonies, managed the most important trade of the eastern half of the Igbo territory. Although both of these networks were heavily influenced by the European demand at the coast, neither of them could have existed without a long history of internal development during the millenium prior to i8oo. It is to an examination of this historical background that this paper is directed. While knowledge of this area before the nineteenth century is extremely limited, it does seem possible to sketch the main lines of development even if specific relationships and chronology must remain vague. The evidence presently available for this topic falls primarily at the beginning and at the end of the period under examination. Recent excavations have unearthed a spectacularly rich material culture dating from the ninth century A.D. However, it is not until the second quarter of the nineteenth century that there are the first eye-witness accounts of trade on the Niger, and detailed descriptions of the economic life of the hinterland come only with the colonial era. One has then a 'tunnel' situation: detailed evidence at both ends with a rather murky millenium in between. It is the goal of this paper to direct a little light into that tunnel.

Long Distance Trade and the Luba Lomami Empire

Abstract: The kingdom of Luba Lomami was enlarged and strengthened by the conquest of Kalala Ilunga at an unknown date before the end of the sixteenth century. It became a large but not dominant state. The expansion of Luba Lomami is generally considered to have occurred in the early eighteenth century, as a delayed consequence of the Kalala Ilunga conquest. In this it is said to have been paralleled by the expansion of Lunda. Unlike Lunda, however, it is supposed to have suffered from severe structural deficiencies. These, it has been argued, inhibited its further expansion and, in the mid-nineteenth century, caused it to disintegrate.It is suggested here, however, that the expansion of Luba Lomami did not occur until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. This expansion coincided with the extension of the Bisa trading system into the chiefdoms south-east of Luba Lomami and was designed to capture this trade. Later conquests in the south may have been related to the development of Nyamwezi and Bihe trading systems. However, the principal motive for further expansion was the need to capture new sources of ivory and, to a lesser extent, slave-yielding lands. Luba Lomami's success can be attributed to its proximity to the Bisa trade route, its relatively centralized political structures, the availability of viable areas of expansion, and the existence of suitable mechanisms to incorporate the conquered chiefdoms. In the first half of the nineteenth century Luba Lomami subjected most of the area between the Lubilash and Lake Tanganyika and between the forest and the copper belt.In about 1870 the terms of the long-distance trade turned against Luba Lomami. New traders arrived carrying guns. Luba Lomami could not match the new techniques for it no longer had the resources with which to purchase guns. Its own resources of ivory and slaves were exhausted. It could no longer obtain supplies by expansion, for the traders were carving out new states on its periphery, and it was itself becoming subject to slave raids and encroachment. This external pressure weakened the political structures. Rival brothers sought the aid of mercenary traders to promote their cause. The ideological basis of the state was undermined. In a desperate attempt to obtain guns the emperors began to raid for slaves amongst their own people. The empire disintegrated and, in about 1890, the rump of the state became tributary to the trader-state of Msiri.

Credit in early nineteenth century West African trade

Abstract: Little attention has been paid to the great growth of trade in West Africa in the nineteenth century prior to the ‘economic revolution’ which began towards its close. As far as the export-import trade at the coast is concerned, British statistics show that between c. 1810 and c. 1850 the import of various manufactured staples increased by factors from at least 3 to as much as 50. The question arises as to how such a large increase in the volume of trade on the coast was financed in the absence of banking procedures. On the Senegal and Gambia and in the Niger delta, the traditional eighteenth-century practice by which visiting European merchants advanced credit to African brokers in goods continued. On the Gold Coast and at Sierra Leone and Lagos, however, a new class of local importers, of African as well as European origin, emerged and were able to secure credit from European exporters. But, though, less flexible than the newer system, the old system, with its tendency to monopoly on the part of both European traders and African brokers, seems to have permitted the greater expansion of credit. However, by the second half of the century, both systems were under strain and leading to conflicts over debts and jurisdiction, which are examined. Ultimately both were replaced by the European trading houses entering the interior trade through the use of paid agents, many of whom were recruited from among the new merchant class of Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Lagos.

Angoche, the Slave Trade and the Portuguese c . 1844–1910

Abstract: The fortunes of Angoche revived with the growth of the slave trade, and during the 1840s it became the chief slaving port of the Moçambique coast. Numerous attacks were made on it by British and Portuguese expeditions, and the town was finally seized in 1861 by the Portuguese adventurer da Silva. The Muslims who fled from Portuguese occupation were led first by Mussa Quanto, and then, after his death in 1877, by Ussene and Farelay. They were able to confine the Portuguese to a few coastal garrisons, continue the slave trade until the end of the century, and gradually build up an anti-Portuguese ‘front’ amongst the Macua peoples of the hinterland. Farelay was not overthrown and the Macua country was not occupied by the Portuguese until 1910.

Archaeology in Benin

Abstract: Excavations and fieldwork in and around Benin City in the years 1961–4 have established the outlines of an archaeological sequence. This sequence is based on radiocarbon dates for stratified deposits, on a statistical examination of pottery form and decoration, and on datable European imports. The sequence suggested by the evidence extends from about the thirteenth century A.D. to the present time, although the survival of locally found ground stone axes in Benin ritual indicates that the area may well have been inhabited since Late Stone Age times. There is evidence for the artistic use of copper and its alloys from at least the thirteenth century onwards, but it is not known how long it had already been in use. Smithed and chased tin bronzes were found in a thirteenth-century context, whereas cast leaded brass was found in use in a nineteenth-century context. There is little evidence for lost-wax casting in Benin in early times. The writer suggests that future archaeological work should make the origins and early development of the city a priority.

The Maasai Warriors: pattern maintenance and violence in colonial Kenya

Abstract: This article attributes early twentieth century Maasai conservatism to the Maasai social structure and in particular to the warrior (moran) age-grade. Modernizing changes meant different things to different groups. To some Maasai elders they meant increased political power and wealth. But to the warriors they constituted a threat to their already declining status and entailed new and onerous obligations like road work. Governmental efforts to transform and modernize the Maasai were met by small-scale warrior rebellions. There were three such uprisings–in 1918, 1922 and 1935. All three were carried out by the warriors in defiance of the wishes of the elders and occurred at times when the government was seeking to alter Maasai society. The 1918 rebellion was over the recruitment of children for school; that of 1922 over attempts to do away with essential features of the moran system; and that of 1935 in opposition to road work. The Maasai warriors were effective resisters of change because of their considerable autonomy within their society and their esprit de corps.

The Early History of the Sultanate of Angoche

Abstract: The sultanate of Angoche on the Mocambique coast was founded probably towards the end of the fifteenth century by refugees from Kilwa. It became a base for Muslim traders who wanted to use the Zambezi route to the central African trading fairs and it enabled them to by-pass the Portuguese trade monopoly at Sofala. The Portuguese were not able to check this trade until they themselves set up bases on the Zambezi in the 1530s and 1540s, and from that time the sultanate began to decline. Internal dissensions among the ruling families led to the Portuguese obtaining control of the sultanate in the late sixteenth century, but this control was abandoned in the following century when the trade of the Angoche coast dwindled to insignificance. During the eighteenth century movements among the Macua peoples of the mainland and the development of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean laid the foundations for the revival of the sultanate in the nineteenth century.

The Dimension of the Dutch Slave Trade From Western Africa

Abstract: The Dutch share in the Atlantic slave trade has been assessed largely by means of speculation. This article relies extensively on documents of the Dutch West Indian Companies (WIC), which maintained a dozen or more trading stations on the Guinea Coast, and became the principal agents of the Dutch slaving activities. For approximately 16 years (1630–1795), the Dutch played a substantial role in the Atlantic slave trade. Based on the combined criteria of available documentary evidence and fluctuating techniques of the trade, the Dutch slave trade has been outlined in three successive stages, viz. the monopoly of the first WIC (1630–74), the monopoly of the second WIC (1675–1734), and the free trade period (1735–95). Information on the first period is scarce, leaving much to speculation, but for the years after 1675 a reliable assessment is possible.On the whole, the Dutch share constituted about 10 per cent of the overall Atlantic slave trade. Annual averages (calculated by decades) ranged from less than a thousand to over 6,000 slaves. During selected years in the 1630s and 1640s, the Dutch may have become the single most active slave trading nation, but toward the end of the seventeenth century the Dutch trade stagnated while other nations drastically increased their volume. When the WIC began to relinquish its monopoly of the slave trade (1730), the volume of the Dutch trade increased until it reached its peak during the 1760s and early 1770s. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and the ensuing Anglo-Dutch war, Holland's participation in the slave trade virtually came to a halt. Feeble efforts to revivie the trade in subsequent decades failed as a result of the unstable political situation in Europe following the revolution in France and also due to the movement to suppress the slave trade.

Witchcraft accusations and economic tension in pre-colonial old Calabar.

Abstract: Relevant anthropological studies have offered insight into the way in which witchcraft and witchcraft accusations may have operated in Old Calabar society (Africa) in pre-colonial times and it is hoped that this discussion of witchcraft accusations and economic tension in pre-colonial Calabar will be of value to other historians of pre-colonial African societies. M. G. Marwick has suggested that witchcraft accusations reveal where the tensions lie in the societies in which they occur and he intimates that in Africa witchcraft accusations only occur between persons in close social contact. Analysis of the cases of Efik witchcraft - for which there is evidence in the 18th and 19th centuries - support this claim. Their witchcraft accusations for the most part involved relations by blood or marriage. G.I. Jones has suggested that the underlying tensions which provoked witchcraft accusations in the eastern areas of Nigeria today arise from a contracting economic situation but this was not true of old Calabar. In fact its economy was expanding under the stimulus of overseas trade. The expansion was responsible for the tension. Successful business men acquired wealth and slaves and consequently status which contradicted their position in the traditional status system based on age and place in lineage instead of wealth. At the highest political level these tensions manifested themselves in election disputes; witchcraft accusations were made against candidates in order that they take the poison ordeal and be eliminated from the election. In the neighboring states of the Oil Rivers where participation in the international economy was as great as old Calabar witchcraft accusations were rare. For there the traditional descent groups had already broken up and because of this there was no great need for covert forms of aggression such as witchcraft.

‘He Swalloweth the Ground with Fiercenes and Rage’ The Horse in the Central Sudan: I. Its Introduction

Abstract: 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.

Pan-Islam and Moroccan resistance to French colonial penetration, 1900–1912

Abstract: This article marks a beginning at tracing the links between Near Eastern and African Islamic resistance, through an analysis of the ways in which Pan-Islamic agents from Egypt sought to intervene in support of indigenous Moroccan efforts to resist French imperialism during the period 1900 to 1912. The first section explores the general patterns of Pan-Islamic ideology and political action, and places the study of Pan-Islam in the context of studies of African resistance to imperialism. Succeeding sections review Moroccan relations with the Near East, trace the stages of growing Near Eastern involvement in support of Moroccan resistance, which culminated in an abortive general rising in 1912, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of Pan-Islam as a transitional movement of political resistance to imperialism.

The Eastern Frontier of the Cape Colony during the Batavian Period (1803–1806)

Abstract: At the opening of the nineteenth century, the colonial order in South Africa was most seriously challenged on the eastern frontier, dramatized in white rebellions and the successful Xhosa-Khoi war of 1799–1802. The colonial government of the Batavian Republic, administering the Cape between 1803 and 1806, was obliged to deal with this challenge. Despite formal liberal proclamations, the Batavians believed that it was necessary to expel the Xhosa east of the Fish river and subordinate the Khoi to the white farmers once again. Their rule continued to depend on local control by the white minority. During this period, the Xhosa remained in the territory claimed by the colony. The Batavians were unsuccessful in breaking or regulating the interrelationship of white and Xhosa which was the most significant factor in frontier dynamics. At the same time, due to divisions among the Xhosa, the weakness of the whites and the skill of Lodewijk Alberti, a frontier official, the colonial order was significantly re-stabilized.

L'Itineraire d'Ibn Battuta de Walata a Malli

Abstract: Information collected in the field and careful reading of Ibn Battuta's account of his travels does not support Delafosse's usually accepted opinion on Battuta's itinerary. Several pieces of evidence point towards the identification of Zaġari with Diara (Kingi) rather than with Dia (Masina). Such an itinerary would lead further to the west. Information given about the return journey seems also to indicate that Ibn Battuta's destination, Malli, should be located between the southern part of Bambuk and the upper Gambia rather than at the site of Niani.

The Dynamics of modernization in South Africa

Abstract: 'It is not social change as such that is in question in South Africa,' writes Heribert Adam, 'but its degree, source, and direction' (Adam, 97). One turns to the works under review, which include contributions by many distinguished names in South African studies, for a guide on current assessments of 'degree, source, and direction'. In a sense, the works are complementary. That edited by Adam contains fifteen broadly interpretative essays addressing themselves to contemporary South Africa, with a useful bibliography appended of writings on the country during the I960s. The long-awaited second volume of the Oxford History of South Africa is a more ambitious project, concerned as it is with trajectories of social change during South Africa's last and crucial century. Initially conceived in I963, the Oxford History was intended by its editors to break fresh ground, both in drawing on the expertise of social scientists other than historians, and-by focusing attention on the 'interaction' of South Africa's diverse peoples-in according to non-whites a role larger than usual in the country's historiography. Yet, for all that these aims have been met with some success, one concludes the Oxford History with a certain sense of disappointment. The roughly equal division of the work into broadly 'socioeconomic' and 'political' chapters has meant that, instead of a new overall approach, the usual 'white' history is supplemented by, but not integrated with, the accounts of changes in the social patterns of town and countryside, and of non-white protest. Thus, even at their best, the political chapters dwell on the chronological interplay of political elites, with the influence of social changes remaining tangential, while the economic chapters tend to refer to the policy-making which helped to shape social patterns only in the abstract, and sometimes ahistorically. Moreover, both Rene de Villiers and Jack Spence, who deal respectively with the crucial issues of post-Union white politics and South Africa's international relations, fall short of that clear summarizing of the best of existing scholarship which marks Leonard Thompson's chapters. For de Villiers, 'Afrikanerdom' becomes an explicitly personified metaphysical force, because 'that is how Afrikaners regard it' (History, 365), swooping over the scene, controlling rather than being controlled by the author, explaining everything and therefore nothing.' Perhaps the editors are responsible for entitling this chapter

Sir Philip Mitchell and ‘Protected Rule’ in Buganda

Abstract: Mitchell maintained that the relationship between the Protectorate Government of Uganda and the Native Government of Buganda was that of protected rule rather than of indirect rule. In order to implement his policy of protected rule, he planned a reorganization in Buganda, involving the substitution of a Resident for a Provincial Commissioner and the withdrawal of district officers to the centre, where the Resident and his staff would offer advice to the Kabaka. Mitchell did not envisage that the Protectorate Government's influence would thereby be weakened, since he assumed that the Kabaka would be obliged to follow advice which was given to him. Under the Agreement of 1900, however, the Kabaka was specifically required to act upon such advice only in the case of the implementation of Lukiiko resolutions. Relations between the Kabaka and both the Protectorate Government and his own Ministers steadily deteriorated during Mitchell's governorship, and the deposition of the Kabaka was even considered. For these reasons, Mitchell proceeded cautiously with his reorganization and it was left to his successor, Dundas, to complete it. Owing largely to the restricted power of the Governor under the Agreement to impose his wishes upon the Kabaka, the changes introduced resulted in a steady decline in the influence which the Protectorate Government could exert in Buganda.

French Military Imperialism

Abstract: Cette these marque une date pour l'historiographie de l'impdrialisme dans l'Ouest africain, dont l'e'tude a fait re'cemment de grands progres. La surabondance et l'ambiguitd des sources a longtemps empeche' de comprendre pourquoi l'Europe s'est soudain lance\"e a la conquete de l'Afrique dans les vingt dernieres anndes du XXe siecle. II y a quelque temps que le livre c61ebre de Robinson et Gallagher a voulu d&nontrer que les responsables politiques 6taient hostiles a tout imp&rialisme territorial et ont fait occuper l'Afrique a contre-coeur par 1'efFet d'une reaction en chaine, issue en 1882 de Paffaire d'Egypte, celle-ci e'tant due elle-meme au souci britannique de contrdler la nouvelle route des Indes. Ce livre capital a fait date mais sa these fondamentale a e\"te\" justement critiqude, notamment par le professeur Stengers, et le recent livre de Kanya-Forstner lui porte des coups dont il me semble qu'elle ne se relevera pas. Ces conclusions d'ordre gdneVal interviennent a propos de I'dtude d'un cas tres particulier, celui de la conque'te du Soudan par les militaires fran9ais, et il est remarquable qu'il ait fallu un jeune chercheur canadien pour dtudier cet dpisode scientifique. Disons tout de suite qu'il s'agit d'un excellent travail fonde sur une connaissance exceptionnelle des archives de Paris et de Londres. Ce livre d'une tres grande valeur satisfait tellement le lecteur qu'on h6site a tourmenter l'auteur pour des critiques de detail. Signalons cependant que les deux cartes sont tres insuffisantes et ne portent qu'un petit nombre des noms cit6s dans le texte, en outre souvent mal localises. C'est ainsi que Wosebugu (i3°46' N—07°4i'N) est place\" beaucoup trop au nord-ouest et Dyena (i3°03'N—o6o2'W) trop a Test. Bougouni est portd a tort sur la rive droite du Baule, ce qui rend impossible la comprehension des 6venements de d6cembre 1893. Diagonku (et non Diagoukou), premiere residence d'el Hadj Omar, ne se trouve pas sur les rives du Bafing, mais dans Test du Fuuta-Dyalon. En Gold Coast, Kintampo devient Kitapo. Dans le texte lui-meme, les fautes de transcription, heureusement rares, sont de'sagre'ables. Les Francais ont eu tort de transcrire par Sine le nom du royaume

The Origin, Formation and Early History of the Chikunda of South Central Africa

Abstract: Although historians have examined the process of pre-colonial political integration, little attention has been paid to the complementary patterns of ethnic and cultural assimilation. The Chikunda, who were initially slaves on the Zambezi prazos, provide an excellent example of this phenomenon. Over the course of several generations, captives from more than twenty ethnic groups submerged their historical, linguistic, and cultural differences to develop a new set of institutions and a common identity. The decline of the prazo system during the first half of the nineteenth century generated large scale migrations of Chikunda outside of the lower Zambezi valley. They settled in Zumbo, the Luangwa valley and scattered regions of Malawi where they played an important role in the nineteenth-century political and military history of south central Africa.