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Showing papers in "The Journal of African History in 1974"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The main stage of Leakey's 'Kenya Capsian' culture is essentially the local manifestation of this far-flung ‘aquatic civilization' as mentioned in this paper, which was clearly an African invention and reflected important developments in gastronomy and home life.
Abstract: Between the ninth and third millennia B.C. wetter conditions prevailed over most of Africa. Lakes and rivers were fuller and some of the internal basins were temporarily linked, especially in the ‘Middle African’ belt. This comprises the southern Sahara and Sahel, stretching from the Upper Niger to the Middle Nile, with a south-easterly extension into the Upper Nile basin and the East African rift valleys. This situation was exploited by people who developed a decidedly aquatic economy and culture. From their waterside camps and settlements archaeologists have recovered bones of fish and aquatic animals which these people ate, as well as the distinctive harpoon-heads carved from bone with which they obtained them, and also pottery, bearing peculiar decoration executed with fish-bones and water-shells, made in imitation of (fishing-) baskets. Boating and other cultural developments are deducible. The harpoons date back to 7,000 b.c. at least; the pottery dates back to more than 6,000 b.c. and was clearly an African invention. It reflects important developments in gastronomy and home life. In the Kenya rift valley the main stage of Leakey's ‘Kenya Capsian’ culture is essentially the local manifestation of this far-flung ‘aquatic civilization’. Its greatest extent was achieved during the wettest times of the seventh millennium b.c. , and probably involved the expansion of Negroid peoples across this continent-wide savanna belt. Also explained perhaps is the extensive, though now fragmented, distribution of languages which Greenberg combines in his ‘Nilo-Saharan’ super-family. It is suspected that aspects of this ancient aquatic way of life may be maintained or reflected by latter-day isolated or ‘unclean’ lake or swamp communities. This subject has been largely neglected by African culture-historians. Drier conditions in the late sixth and fifth millennia b.c. signalled a decline of this aquatic civilization and, in particular, broke its geographical continuity. Nevertheless, there was a qualified revival in many parts in the fourth and third millennia. In the Kenya rift this later phase seems to equate with the first stage of the ‘stone bowl cultures’. Around Lake Victoria a devolved relic survived until the eve of Bantu expansion about two thousand years ago. Other late or modified examples are known on the Nile and in the western Sudan. Generally, however, the viability and prestige of an aquatic way of life were undermined by the second millennium b.c. In the Sahara and Sahel as well as in the northerly parts of eastern Africa this decline was paralleled by the spread of pastoralism as a new basis of subsistence and prestige. Those who introduced cattle to Kenya from Ethiopia were Cushitic-speakers maintaining, significantly, a fish-taboo. This subject should prove of considerable historiographical interest. The aquatic way of life flourished through Middle Africa at the very time when grain-agriculture and stock-raising were being pioneered in the Near East; and the slow spread of agriculture in Africa, sometimes considered an indication of ‘backwardness’, may be partly explicable by the very success of the aquatic life and of its distinct cultural tradition which was ascendant for a while across the widest part of the continent.

165 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Tamrat as discussed by the authors examines most aspects of both the Ethiopian state and the Ethiopian church from the supposed restoration of the Solomonic dynasty to the eve of the Muslim invasion in the sixteenth century.
Abstract: This important book offers the reader much more than the title might suggest, for it examines most aspects of both the Ethiopian state and the Ethiopian church from the supposed restoration of the supposedly Solomonic dynasty to the eve of the Muslim invasion in the sixteenth century. It is not a narrative history but a study of the functions and organization of the court, the government, the army, trade, the secular and monastic clergy, and the policy of the kings towards their Muslim and pagan neighbours and subjects. Its principal theme is the sequence of territorial conquest, military colonization, religious conversion, and eventual absorption of the population. Much attention is naturally given to the reign of Zar'a Ya'qob whose 'highest ideal' is defined as being 'the assimilation of his pagan subjects into the Christian community, and the creation of a religiously homogeneous society' (p. 238); however, 'his attempts to bring about a radical change in the religious life of his people did not bear substantial results' (p. 243). To this the author attributes the collapse of the heterogeneous kingdom before the attack of Ahmad Gran, whose disruption of the system of frontier defence is held responsible in turn for the success of the Galla. In a sense, therefore, the failure of Zar'a Ya'qob's policy is represented as decisive for the whole future history of Ethiopia. The book is, however, much more than a closely argued plea for this thesis, plausible though it may be. No one interested in any aspect of mediaeval Ethiopian history, whether political, administrative, ecclesiastical, military, ethnic or cultural, will find Dr Taddesse Tamrat's monograph unrewarding.

107 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, an archaeological evaluation of the later Iron Age of other regions has been attempted, and three major pottery traditions are described, and tentative conclusions are proposed concerning the inter-relationship of these two methodologies.
Abstract: Developments since 1968 in the study of the Zambian Early Iron Age are discussed, with emphasis both on the Lubusi site near Kaoma, which provides the first dated occurrence of Early Iron Age artefacts from western Zambia, and on material from the Eastern Province, which is closely related to contemporary finds from Malawi. Knowledge of the post-Early Iron Age archaeology of Zambia has hitherto been largely restricted to the Southern Province; here, for the first time, an archaeological evaluation of the later Iron Age of other regions has been attempted, and three major pottery traditions are described. In the northern and eastern areas the Luangwa tradition appears to have been established by the eleventh or twelfth century A.D., making a sharp typological break with the preceding Early Iron Age traditions. In the west, the Lungwebungu tradition shows a greater degree of continuity from the Early Iron Age, but in much of the Zambezi valley and adjacent areas it has been supplanted by the sharply-contrasting Linyanti tradition for which a Kololo origin is postulated. The inception of the Luangwa tradition is attributed to the arrival of a new population element ancestral to most of the peoples who inhabit northern and eastern Zambia today, but there is in the archaeological record of this region little discernible trace of later migrations associated with the state-formation process recalled in the extant oral traditions. The implications of these observations for the interpretation of both archaeological data and of oral traditions are discussed and tentative conclusions are proposed concerning the inter-relationship of these two methodologies.

69 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article studied the spread of a common currency over much of West Africa, throughout an area encompassed by Lake Chad in the east, the upper reaches of the Senegambia in the west, the southern Sahara in the north, and the region between the Volta basin and the Niger Delta in the south.
Abstract: Only recently have historians devoted much attention to monetary developments in African history, primarily because the substantivist school of economic anthropology, which has argued that so-called western economic theory does not apply to African situations, has dominated the field. This view has been increasingly under attack in recent years, particularly by a new group of economic historians who have found many aspects of formal economic theory useful in the reconstruction of Africa's past. Marion Johnson's pioneering work on the gold mithqal and cowrie shell, for example, has documented the spread of a common currency over much of West Africa, throughout an area encompassed by Lake Chad in the east, the upper reaches of the Senegambia in the west, the southern Sahara in the north, and the region between the Volta basin and the Niger Delta in the south. The study of other currencies, including the copper rod standard of the Cross River basin in Nigeria and Cameroons, and the cloth money of the Senegambia, has demonstrated the importance of other standards besides cowries and gold, so that it is now known that virtually all of precolonial West Africa had economies sufficiently developed to require the use of circulating mediums of exchange and units of account. This breakthrough raises a number of important questions which seriously challenge, if not completely undermine, the predominant view that Africa's past, down to very recent times, has been subsistence oriented, non-market directed, and basically static.

66 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines the conceptual models which influenced European perception of Tiv society, the consequent 'working misunderstanding' which underlay the symbiotic relationship between government and a society subject to its jurisdiction but which had its own particular traditions, and the changes which appear to have occurred in Tiv values, institutions, and traditions in response to new situations.
Abstract: F 0 R the historian of Africa, ethnographic sources are invaluable in the quest for an understanding of indigenous cultures and institutions. Only in the light of such information can one begin to assess the potential modes of change within and the impact of external forces upon a society. However, if the true value of such material is to be appreciated, it must be viewed within its historical context. Recent articles by Gough, Goddard, Banaji, and others have stimulated considerable interest in the relationship between anthropology and colonialism,2 though the resulting discussion has tended to focus on the impact of the colonial situation on the discipline of anthropology. Colonialism in Nigeria, the extension of British economic and political control over the indigenous population and polities, embodied as a concomitant aspect ideological justifications based on racial and cultural differences. With the establishment of colonial rule, this ideology became the dominant system of values, acceptance of which by the governed led to the development of a symbiotic relationship between the cultures of paternalism and subservience. Moreover, such symbiosis involved numerous 'working misunderstandings', arising from conceptual models which had proven meaningful in one situation being applied under quite different circumstances.3 This article examines the conceptual models which influenced European perception of Tiv society, the consequent 'working misunderstanding' which underlay the symbiotic relationship between government and a society subject to its jurisdiction but which had its own particular traditions, and the changes which appear to have occurred in Tiv values, institutions, and traditions in response to new situations.4 It is hoped that the article will be of general interest to social and political historians, as well as to those

54 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The bulk of Ndebele raiding before 1873 was a response to both the political and military threat of the Changamire Rozvi dynasty and to the economic needs of the state that had been taken over as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: For a variety of reasons the extent, number and severity of Ndebele raids upon the Shona-speaking peoples have been greatly exaggerated in the past. Moreover most studies of the Ndebele have failed to take into account the fact that the Ndebele conquered an already well-established Shona state with an economy linked with the Indian Ocean trade. This article seeks to show that the bulk of Ndebele raiding before 1873 was a response to both the political and military threat of the Changamire Rozvi dynasty and to the economic needs of the state that had been taken over. Even so, Ndebele raids were limited in extent and duration, and the two decades after 1873 saw a steady revival of Shona strength. In spite of Ndebele raids aimed at preventing this process, the independent Shona strengthened themselves by re-arming and ‘alliances’, and were able to take part in the eventual overthrow of the Ndebele kingdom.This article is a condensed version of a paper presented at the History Workshop, Gaborone, September 1973.

53 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The main source of power exercised by the Rozvi Mambo came mainly from the latter's ability to redistribute the profits of external trade, especially that of the gold trade of which he is said to have had strictly enforced monopoly as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Recent studies by the historians of pre-colonial Africa have tended to assume that external trade has always led to the formation or enlargement of states, and was crucial for the continued existence of these states. An example where an uncritical application of the above ‘trade-stimulus hypothesis’ has led to some distortion of reality has been in the study of the Rozvi empire in Southern Rhodesia in the eighteenth century. Previous students of the Rozvi empire have claimed that the latter was such a loosely connected tribal confederacy that its internal power bases—given as military and religious—were politically so slender that on their own they could not have sustained whatever power the Rozvi ruler wielded. Instead, it is said that the main source of the power exercised by the Rozvi Mambo came mainly from the latter's ability to redistribute the profits of external trade, especially that of the gold trade of which he is said to have had a strictly enforced monopoly.

52 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a model that shows a derived demand for labour evolving over time into a specific demand for slaves as entrepreneurs sought the lowest cost method of expanding the production of agricultural staples.
Abstract: Two necessary conditions for the existence of New World slavery and the slave trade are an acute labour shortage and an elastic supply of coerced labour. Though the former condition has been the mainstay of hypotheses on slavery where high land/labour ratios were viewed as causal determinants, less attention has been given to the role of labour supply responses. This paper joins these conditions in a model which postulates that labour demand stemming from open resource pressures induced a politico–economic supply response in West Africa. The model shows a derived demand for labour evolving over time into a specific demand for slaves as entrepreneurs sought the lowest cost method of expanding the production of agricultural staples. Free and indentured labour were both characterized by inelastic supply, but the supply of slaves was elastic due to factors discussed within a vent for surplus framework. African governments and private traders responded to the new effective demand from the Americas with improved organization which widened the pre-existing market for slaves. The desire for imported goods, with firearms especially significant, plus various technical changes in transport, money, and credit all combined to ensure the further development of the slave trade and the continued maintenance of a longrun elastic supply pattern

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argued that under Antonio Salazar Portuguese colonial policy was altered from one which envisaged the ultimate growth and development of the African colonies to one which emphasized colonial stability.
Abstract: This article has argued that under Antonio Salazar Portuguese colonial policy was altered from one which envisaged the ultimate growth and development of the African colonies to one which emphasized colonial stability. Between 1928 and 1930 he took steps to diminish the role of foreign capital in the colonies, weaken the influence of special interest groups, restrict Portuguese emigration to the colonies, and bring colonial autonomy to an end. As a result of these measures, Salazar ensured that metropolitan Portugal would be the chief beneficiary of the exploitation of the Portuguese colonies.

39 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: New data on the problem of European mortality in West Africa are published here for the first time, and may be the most extensive for the period of maritime contact which preceded the partition of Africa.
Abstract: SINCE 1482, when the Portuguese first built the castle Sao Jorge da Mina, Europeans have been in constant contact with the Gold Coast (Ghana) of West Africa. And, each year, from the middle of the seventeenth century, hundreds of Europeans from various nations have lived and worked there. However, rarely do we know the precise numbers involved, either of those on the coast at a particular time or of those dying in a particular year. Surprisingly little data has been published for this region where the most Europeans were settled for substantial periods of time. Most important, no statistics over a long period have been published to support frequent generalizations of historians about European life and death in West Africa.2 The most common generalization is that the West African coast was a 'white man's grave', a place where mortality rates for Europeans were higher than anywhere else Europeans travelled. Among recently published

38 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Brunschwig and Crowder as discussed by the authors 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.
Abstract: 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 elite 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 elite, 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 elite and the modernizing ambitions of the new elite. The Egba United Board of Management was dependent for its success solely upon the support of the traditional elite, 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.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The British reduction of Lagos in 1851, their establishment of a semi-protectorate under the consuls, and the annexation of 1861 were due to a complex of causes, partly British, partly African.
Abstract: The British reduction of Lagos in 1851, their establishment of a semi-protectorate under the consuls, and the annexation of 1861 were due to a complex of causes, partly British, partly African: the movement to suppress the slave trade and to prevent its revival under the guise of contract labour; the encouragement of legitimate trade; the need to protect British and immigrant interests; missionary ambition; French rivalry; the rift in and subsequent weakness of the monarchy; the disordered state of the interior; the Dahomean threat to Abeokuta. Benjamin Campbell, the first substantive consul, laid the foundations of British rule, while his short-lived successors Brand and Foote helped to persuade the British Government that it was desirable and feasible to effect the transition to a colony. The consular decade at Lagos was a time of change which foreshadowed many of the issues of the Partition and was the first step in the making of Nigeria.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined the relative importance of slaves and other commodities in African exports and found that slave exports earned less foreign exchange for Africa than did the single most important other export through four of the five centuries of contact between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.
Abstract: Specialists in the history of West Africa disagree about the relative importance of slaves and other commodities in African exports. Examination of the rough statistical evidence that is available indicates that slave exports earned less foreign exchange for Africa than did the single most important other export through four of the five centuries of contact between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. There were large regional differences in the pattern of African exports, and it was the dominance of gold in total African export which helped make the Gold Coast the focus of European rivalries in West Africa.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examined Kuba concepts of history (time, truth, causality, aims, etc.) carefully and followed the traditions back as far as we could then in the written sources in which they were first noted.
Abstract: Twenty years ago oral traditions were neglected by nearly all historians. Now many collect them eagerly, if not always properly, to use them step by step in reconstructing the past. There has been a lack of boldness in their interpretation, and hence too many historians have been merely restating what a society says, thinks and feels about itself. Nowhere is this more true than with regard to traditions of Genesis, as one may well call traditions of creation, origin and migration in which the last term flows from the preceding one. For Genesis means a statement about a basic identity for most communities or collectivities. And so historians uncritically restate an article of faith. A striking and perhaps the most recent example of this is a work dealing with the 'origins' and 'migrations' of the Soga. The whole book accepts the belief that the Soga really did immigrate with men called Kintu ('the Thing'?) and Mukama ('The Milker'), presumably finding an empty or almost empty country to settle. Yet the author knows how prestigious the Bunyoro and Buganda states were to the Soga. Indeed the north gravitated in the orbit of the Bunyoro state for a long time, whilst the densely peopled south remained culturally in close contact with Buganda. And indeed the Kintu traditions are southern, and the Mukama traditions northern. Their distributions reflect the respective degree of prestige associated with either Bunyoro or Buganda.' A short re-examination of the Kuba case can be instructive in this regard. Twenty years after we collected the data, their re-examination constitutes a good test case as the same traditions have been used as those which led to the initial set of conclusions in 1957.2 According to their traditions, ultimately the Central Kuba emigrated from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to reach their present lands between Kasai and Sankuru (Zaire) just before I6oo. In I957 we examined Kuba concepts of history (time, truth, causality, aims, etc.) carefully and followed the traditions back as far as we could then in the written sources in which they were first noted. The Kuba have a real passion for history and the reason for this was researched. At every social level-family, clan, village, chiefdom, kingdomall the available traditions were analysed in detail to allow for transformations caused by functional imperatives. But because of their very mass we seriously underestimated the global impact of the whole corpus of Genesis traditions. Moreover the institution called kuum led to error. With one exception everyone told us that initially we should collect the version of chiefly history as it was told

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A closer examination reveals labour abuse as very much the product of conditions on Fernando Po itself as discussed by the authors, where black planters on the island shifted from palm oil trading to cocoa cultivation and increasing competition from Europeans resulted in economic crisis in the first years of the twentieth century, with detention of labour and nonpayment of contracts as the outcome.
Abstract: In 1923–30 the League of Nations investigated the shipment of migrant labour between Liberia and the Spanish island colony of Fernando Po. Although the League concentrated its attention on Liberia, a closer examination reveals labour abuse as very much the product of conditions on Fernando Po itself. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, black planters on the island shifted from palm oil trading to cocoa cultivation. Dependence on migrant labour and increasing competition from Europeans resulted in economic crisis in the first years of the twentieth century, with detention of labour and the nonpayment of contracts as the outcome. The eventual investigation of the trade was the product of a desire to conserve Liberian labour for use on the African mainland, rather than an attempt to relieve its abuse.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Fly Party as discussed by the authors was able to gain ascendancy over the Elephant Party in the mid-nineteenth century, as slaving became more difficult and as the palm oil trade emerged as an alternative to the slave trade.
Abstract: Analysis of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Dahomean history reveals, not the existence of an absolute despotism, but the presence of a complex and institutionalized political process responsive to the needs and demands of Dahomeans from every part of the country. Each year at Xwetanu (Annual Customs), Dahomean officials met to discuss and decide administrative, military, economic, and diplomatic policies of the nation. In the mid-nineteenth century an obvious polarization developed as two groups, the Elephant Party and the Fly Party, sought to mould foreign policy. The Elephant Party, composed of the Crown, the wealthiest Creole traders, and the highest male military officials, advocated continuing the established practice of capturing and exporting slaves. Therefore, the Elephant Party wanted to destroy Abeokuta, an African rival and threat to slave raiding, and to resist England, a European obstacle to the trans-Atlantic shipment of slaves. After 1840, as slaving became more difficult and as the palm oil trade emerged as an alternative to the slave trade, the Fly Party rose to challenge the goals of the Elephant Party. Comprised of the Amazon army, shrine priests, middle-level administrators, Dahomean entrepreneurs, and trade officials (groups who were unwilling to pay the costs of a major war and who were eager to gain access to the profits of ‘legitimate’ international trade), the Fly Party counselled peaceful co-existence with Abeokuta and restored commercial relations with England. Eventually, the Fly Party was able to gain ascendancy over the Elephant Party. By 1870 the great Creole traders had suffered severe economic reverses, the Crown and the high military officers were divided over the question of Abeokuta, and members of the Fly Party had obtained positions of political and economic dominance within the country. Thus, the economic and military transformations which affected all of West Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century evoked political polarizations, coalitions, and realignments in the nation of Dahomey.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that some of the most important of these sources have been influenced by the content of earlier writings and by each other, and that their corroborative value is very small.
Abstract: The scholar interested in the early history of the interlacustrine area has an unusually large corpus of traditional evidence available. These sources are among the most detailed in tropical Africa and several full-scale works have been based on them. This paper seeks, through textual analysis, to demonstrate that some of the most important of these sources have been influenced by the content of earlier writings and by each other, and that their corroborative value is very small.Three problems are of particular interest here—the alleged contemporaneity of Nakibinge of Buganda, Olimi Rwitamahanga of Bunyoro, and Ntare Nyabugaro of Nkore; the Biharwe eclipse and its ascribed dates; and the value for chronology of the accounts of Nyoro invasions southward. Emphasis on these aspects has meant that while the questions of the Bacwezi, the Nkore capitals, and the Nyoro tombs have been taken into account, specific attention has not been paid to them here.The present paper seeks only to suggest possible alternatives to the presently accepted reconstruction of early interlacustrine history, and argues that the nature of our evidence, once divested of its synthetic accretions, precludes the development of comprehensive hypotheses. It is important at this stage to attempt a full reassessment of these traditional sources through comparative textual analysis and through the extensive use of archival documentation which may illuminate more clearly the milieu in which the traditional historiography of the interlacustrine region developed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Brown's book as discussed by the authors is not concerned with Marchand's operations in Africa; and his book, unlike Dr Marc Michel's La Mission Marchand i8g5~i8gg (Paris/The Hague, 1972), is in no sense a contribution to African studies.
Abstract: they simply fail to support the statement in the text (p. 114, n. 91). Brown's acceptance at its face value of Kitchener's proposed 'frontier line granting large concessions to France' (p. 128) suggests an imperfect acquaintance with that line's whereabouts. Brown is not concerned with Marchand's operations in Africa; and his book, unlike Dr Marc Michel's La Mission Marchand i8g5~i8gg (Paris/The Hague, 1972), is in no sense a contribution to African studies. As a contribution to French history, it does not succeed in throwing any important new light on the interaction between foreign and domestic politics; and in its discussion of the origins and development of the Marchand Mission it does not approach the thoroughness and rigour of Michel's work. It does however draw attention to certain rather elusive aspects of this development which are perhaps overhastily dismissed by Michel, who for all his thoroughness is a little apt to treat as non-existent any nuance of policy which is not explicitly spelled out in the documentary evidence. Had Brown made a more disciplined use of 'the classic tools of the historian', a confrontation between his work and Michel's might have been very illuminating. As it is, the most that Brown can do is to give some assistance in identifying certain points where further discussion and analysis might prove profitable.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the great majority of dates have been contributed by the archaeologists concerned, often in advance of their own publications, and they should like to express their grateful acknowledgement to all who have co-operated in this way, as also to Dr John Sutton for his kind assistance in the initial stages of preparation.
Abstract: This article continues the series started originally by Fagan and continued by Phillipson and Sutton As before, the great majority of dates have been contributed by the archaeologists concerned, often in advance of their own publications, and I should like to express my grateful acknowledgement to all who have co-operated in this way, as also to Dr John Sutton for his kind assistance in the initial stages of preparation

Journal ArticleDOI
Sara S. Berry1
TL;DR: The history of cocoa production in Western Nigeria is an example of a successful innovation in the Schumpeterian sense of the term, a new productive activity which, when adopted by a number of producers, leads to economic growth and structural change within a given institutional and social context as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The history of cocoa production in Western Nigeria is an example of a successful innovation in the Schumpeterian sense of the term—a new productive activity which, when adopted by a number of producers, leads to economic growth and structural change within a given institutional and social context. Cocoa growing spread in Western Nigeria through the efforts of migrant farmers, many of whom relied on traditional, non-economic institutions, such as the lineage or ethnic community, to mobilize the economic resources they needed to establish cocoa farms. From an examination of the activities of migrant farmers in three Yoruba states—Ibadan, Ife and Ondo—it is argued that the spread of cocoa farming probably strengthened these traditional institutions. At the same time, it has effected significant changes in the volume, organization and geographical distribution of rural economic activity in Western Nigeria.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Ganda were considered a highly distinctive people by Margery Perham, Margery Low, D. A. Low, and C. C. Wrigley as mentioned in this paper, along with the veritable tribe of social anthropologists associated with the East African Institute of Social Research during the i960s.
Abstract: THE Ganda have enjoyed a reputation abroad as a modernizing people for a remarkably long time. To start with they were 'the Chinese of Africa', an epithet that quickly gave way to 'the Japanese of Africa' once Japan overtook China as the pacemaker of modernization in the non-western world. In the first years of this century Winston Churchill called their kingdom 'a fairy-tale' because 'the people are different from anything elsewhere to be seen in the whole of Africa'.' Charles Eliot, the early colonial commissioner of the nearby East Africa Protectorate notorious for his assertion that 'white mates black in a very few moves', agreed that the Ganda were an exception to this generalization.2 So too, later on and for very different reasons, the Ganda were considered a highly distinctive people by Margery Perham,3 D. A. Low,4 and C. C. Wrigley,5 along with the veritable tribe of social anthropologists associated with the East African Institute of Social Research during the i960s.6 Quite why the Ganda differed so markedly from their immediate East African neighbours evoked markedly differing answers. Churchill put it down to a providential mixture of 'Imperial authority, secular, scientific, disinterested, irresistible; secondly, a native Government and feudal aristocracy corrected of their abuses, yet preserving their vitality; and thirdly, missionary enterprise on an almost unequalled scale'.7 Eliot thought it mainly a matter of possessing the right blood, Perham at least partly the product of having a sympathetic protectorate power. Later scholars gave other answers. Some saw crucial structural changes taking place in Buganda immediately before the imposition of British control in a 'Christian revolution' whereby chiefly converts managed to transform the Ganda political system from a pagan monarchy into a Christian oligarchy and then successfully badgered their compatriots into cotton-planting as well as tea-drinking. Others stressed rather the continuities between a precolonial kingdom already far ahead of its immediate neighbours in political sophistication and a colonial situation where sophisticated Ganda took unusual advantage of new opportunities in schooling, cash-cropping and administrative service.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Ras Alula as mentioned in this paper played a significant role in the political history of northern Ethiopia during the period between the Egyptian invasion in 1875 and the Italian defeat at Adwa in 1896, and became the best general of the Tigrean emperor Yohannes IV (1872-89).
Abstract: Ras Alula played a significant role in the political history of northern Ethiopia during the period between the Egyptian invasion in 1875 and the Italian defeat at Adwa in 1896. Alula became well-known in Ethiopia and Europe for his role in shaping his country's relations with its African neighbours and with European powers. But his role in the internal history of Ethiopia was no less significant. This son of a peasant managed to avoid the restricted local agrarian social ladder by becoming the best general of the Tigrean emperor Yohannes IV (1872–89). As the ‘king's man’, Alula's power was based on his position in the court and on the province (Eritrea) over which he was appointed. But the leading Tigrean families rejected him. When Yohannes died and Eritrea was lost to the Italians, Alula became the most powerful champion of Tigrean independence from the new Shoan emperor, Menilek II. A Tigrean court seemed to be his only opportunity to maintain his position of a ‘king's man’, without which he would have to return to the local agrarian social ladder. After four years of resistance to the new Shoan hegemony, Alula submitted to Menilek and was rewarded with the long-desired position of ‘the king's man’. His recognition of Menilek may be regarded as a fatal blow to Tigrean independence.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Ndebele ibutho was, at least in one sense, a military organization which evolved over a number of years into a cluster of imisi (villages) as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The assumptions that Ndebele settlement was purely militarily orientated and that it was composed of a hierarchy of ‘regiments’ and ‘divisions’ or ‘provinces’ are false. The parallels between the Ndebele ibutho and the English regiment are so tenuous that the translation is best dispensed with. On the other hand, an Ndebele ibutho was, at least in one sense, a military organization which evolved over a number of years into a cluster of imisi (villages). These imisi were residential, essentially non-military, and composed by far the largest proportion of Ndebele settlement. The ‘division’ did not exist. Amhlope, Amakanda, Amnyama and Igapha were collective group concepts comprising imisi descended from four original or proto-amabutho created in the period before the migration of the Ndebele to the Matopos region. The sequence of creation of amabutho in the post-1850 period can roughly be determined, outbursts of ibutho formation usually coinciding with crises in the history of the kingdom. Amabutho created after the late 1860s such as Imbizo and Insuga disintegrated after the European conquest during the 1890s, whereas older, established imisi survive as concepts of allegiance to this day. A knowledge of how the Ndebele ibutho evolved is essential for a more complete understanding of the dynamics of Ndebele society at other levels, for example the way the chieftaincies (izigaba) and the great local lineages emerged, as well as the social and political context within which individuals sought to realize their ambitions. The unexpected way in which a closer look at the ibutho reveals much of the early literature on the Ndebele to be at best incomplete, at worst, caricature, but either way misleading, suggests that other nineteenth-century Nguni states may benefit from renewed historical examination.

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TL;DR: The influence of the Cape ‘liberal’ tradition in the post-union era has been seriously under-estimated as discussed by the authors, and Malan's role and influence on the success of the early post-Union era has not been fully considered.
Abstract: F. S. Malan's role, and the influence of the Cape ‘liberal’ tradition in the post-Union era, have been seriously under-estimated. As Minister of Mines and Industries and effective Minister of Native Affairs, Malan was responsible for the passage of a comprehensive system of labour legislation between 1913 and 1924, linked to a new initiative in ‘native policy’ in urban areas. The limitations of such an initiative must, however, not be lost sight of, for in the last analysis few of the Cape ‘liberals’ would have been prepared to face the full social and economic, let alone the political implications of a multi-racial society, and Malan was no exception. His initiative can best be seen as differing in tone rather than in substance from the politics of his colleagues. In his defence of the Cape franchise, Malan sought to defend African citizenship rights within a limited ‘political’ context. It was only during the brief period after 1918 that he attempted a settlement of race and industrial problems, but even then, as a Cape ‘liberal’, he never challenged the basis of the status quo in South Africa. Yet it is still true to say that he was ousted from party politics in the Union after 1924 largely because he persistently adhered to a different political tradition to that held by those who led both the SAP and the National Party.

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TL;DR: The strike at the Wankie Colliery in 1912 offers the labour historian of central Africa an opportunity to explore in some depth the economic and social context of an African response within a colonial industry.
Abstract: The strike at the Wankie Colliery in 1912 offers the labour historian of central Africa an opportunity to explore in some depth the economic and social context of an African response within a colonial industry. The system of cheap labour at Wankie periodically combined with severe production pressures to produce outbreaks of scurvy amongst the African miners. In normal years, workers alleviated the need for nutritious food by scouring the surrounding countryside but this was not possible in a drought year. Under drought conditions the outbreak of scurvy, limited access to alternative food resources and the maldistribution of rations within the compound all assumed increased importance. The policies and practices of the acting compound manager and his black compound staff served further to exacerbate tensions in the Wankie compound and precipitate a strike. Although the strike at Wankie offers further evidence of worker consciousness in early Rhodesian industry the events in the compound should not be interpreted as a sign of real or potential African radicalism. Closer examination of the African responses at Wankie reveal the essentially conservative nature of many of the demands made by the workers. It seems possible that in Rhodesia the power of the state over a colonial political economy and the repressive nature of the compound system combined to inhibit more radical responses. At Wankie, workers questioned the functioning of a repressive system, not the system itself. In many respects events at Wankie were typical of the Rhodesian mining industry and as such the strike serves to illustrate the vulnerable class position of African workers in a colonial economy.

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TL;DR: For over nine hundred years the African inhabitants of South Central Africa engaged in the production and trading of gold, and the attention of archaeologists and historians has focused mainly on gold reef mining.
Abstract: For over nine hundred years the African inhabitants of South Central Africa engaged in the production and trading of gold. The attention of archaeologists and historians, however, has focused mainly on gold reef mining. By comparison, alluvial goldwashing has been neglected, although it was practised by Africans both before and after the period during which they exploited gold reef mines. Probably at its greatest volume between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, the gold trade thereafter declined, but the mining and trading of alluvial gold continued to be relatively important in the nineteenth century in what is now north-eastern Rhodesia. Largely a seasonal activity, goldwashing was normally washing was increasingly subject to interference and attempted suppression as settlers sought t o exploit alluvial areas themselves and force Africans into wage labour. This attempted suppression did not always have the intended results but may be seen generally as part of the wider structural underdevelopment of the African peasantry and precolonial industries in Southern Rhodesia.

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TL;DR: The three unsuccessful jihāds against the Wolof state of Kajoor are described as revival and reform movements among a people nearly universally professing Islam, but practising a syncretistic form as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The three unsuccessful jihāds against the Wolof state of Kajoor are described as revival and reform movements among a people nearly universally professing Islam, but practising a syncretistic form. The traditional view that these were wars between ‘Pagans’ and ‘Muslims’ is seen as a reflection of the social and political isolation of the clerics as a community, an understandable but on closer examination misleading interpretation based on uncritical reading of clerical sources.

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TL;DR: This article examined the reaction of the anti-colonial nationalists in British West Africa to the diplomacy of their ruling colonial power with regard to the Italo-Ethiopian crisis of 1935-6.
Abstract: This article attempts to examine the reaction of the anti-colonial nationalists in British West Africa to the diplomacy of their ruling colonial power with regard to the Italo-Ethiopian crisis of 1935–6. This reaction was largely influenced by the nationalists' claim to special relationship with Britain and their firm belief not only in British power but also in the British ‘gospel of equity and fair-play’. Consequently, when Britain and France, because of their obsession with the need for security, failed to protect the territorial integrity and political independence of the symbolic and sole surviving black empire of Ethiopia, these race- conscious nationalists rashly concluded that there was a concerted plot among the whites against the black race. This belief was reinforced first by the refusal of Britain and France to supply arms to Ethiopia during the conflict; secondly, by the infamous Hoare–Laval peace pact of December 1935, which would have compromised Ethiopia's independence had it been implemented; and thirdly, by British recognition of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia. Disenchantment with the League of Nations, coupled with the disillusionment with the diplomacy of the colonial powers during the crisis, led the articulate nationalists to begin seriously to reconsider their relationship with Britain and the whole doctrine of the ‘civilising mission’. Their nationalism shifted from the idea of working within the trusteeship concept to a more militant anti-white pan-Africanism.

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TL;DR: 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 the indigenat which favored European agriculture was also at the root of the discontent as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: 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 the indigenat which 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.

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TL;DR: This article argued that the failure of African historians to appreciate fully the importance of the West Indies in generating British imperial policy in the Atlantic tropics has led to serious distortions and errors of interpretation.
Abstract: Using some examples from recent writing on West Africa, this article suggests that the failure of African historians to appreciate fully the importance of the West Indies in generating British imperial policy in the Atlantic tropics has led to serious distortions and errors of interpretation. For economic, ideological, and historical reasons, Britain's interest in the West Indies greatly exceeded her interest in West Africa during the first half of the nineteenth century. Her extensive Caribbean involvement and her ideological commitment to the successful outcome of slave emancipation powerfully influenced her policy in West Africa. In assessing the motives which generated imperial actions in the tropical Atlantic and in evaluating the impact of those actions upon Africa, it behooves historians to develop a broader, trans-Atlantic comprehension of the roots of British imperial policy.