Showing papers in "The Journal of African History in 1976"

The Maasai and the British 1895–1905 the Origins of an Alliance

Abstract: During the colonial period, the Maasai were conspicuous for their unwillingness to become involved in, or to co-operate with, colonial rule in Kenya. Between 1895 and 1904, however, the Maasai and the British had entered an informal alliance to further their mutual interests. The Maasai, badly hit by the human and animal plagues of the 1880s and early 1890s, needed time to recover their stock and to reorganize their society. The British, hampered by lack of money and troops, and in a weak position, could not afford to antagonize the Maasai who controlled their lines of communication. Co-operation proved fruitful for both sides. The Maasai were able to get stock by joining punitive expeditions, while the British relied on them to supply irregular troops. Olonana, the Maasai laibon, was able to enlist British influence in support of his claims to paramountcy against his brother, Senteu, who lived in German territory. The contrast between German and British policy towards the Maasai illustrates some of the advantages which the British and the Maasai gained from their alliance. After 1904, this alliance began to break down as their interests diverged. Olonana was left isolated as both sides began to work out a new understanding.

Migrations as revolt: the example of the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta before 1945

Abstract: This study is offered as a contribution to the literature on African protest movements during the era of colonial rule. Existing studies of migration emphasize the socio-economic aspects of motivation and have tended to gloss over or even omit migrations in which the dominant factor was disapproval of colonial policy. Existing studies of African protest movements focus on armed confrontations, perhaps because of their greater dramatic appeal.The case of the Ivory Coast and Upper Volta illustrates a phenomenon found in various parts of French West Africa and, indeed, in other colonies, particularly the Belgian and Portuguese territories. The causes of protest migrations were usually related to the same resentments which provoked revolt in localities where armed confrontation was the only option. These compelling factors included forced labour, burdensome taxation, conscription, requisitions and an attack on indigenous political institutions, notably chieftaincy. The use of repressive police measures, as manifested in the Native Penal and Indigenat Codes, exacerbated African discontent. Judging from the French reaction to the exodus from the Ivory Coast and Upper Volta, it is clear that migrations, as protests, proved far less costly to Africans and had much the same effect on the colonial authorities as did other more militant forms of protest and rebellion.

Measuring the Atlantic Slave Trade: An Assessment of Curtin and Anstey

Abstract: The main historical problem to which Professor Curtin addressed himself in the Census relates to the total number of slaves imported from Africa into all the slave-importing Atlantic regions during the entire period of the Atlantic slave trade. The estimates of the Census put the total number at 9,566,000. It is conceded that the actual number may be either somewhat lower or higher. But Professor Curtin concludes that ‘it is extremely unlikely that the ultimate total will turn out to be less than 8,000,000 or more than 10,500,00’. After examining Professor Curtin's methods of computation and the quality of the data employed, these confident limits were found to be unwarranted and misleading. The evidence relating to the size of the slave populations of the importing regions and to the demographic processes among the slaves suggests very strongly a substantial upward revision of the import estimates of the Census, especially those for Spanish, Portuguese and French America. An estimate of British slave exports from 1750 to 1807, on the basis of hitherto unused records, points to the fact that unless complete shipping data are employed in the slave export estimates the numbers computed will continue to be far below the actual numbers.

Mozambique's Chartered Companies: the Rule of the Feeble

Abstract: Pressed by rival imperial powers and financially weak herself, Portugal initiated in the 1890s an experiment in governing large areas of Mozambique cheaply through the means of two chartered companies, the Companhia do Niassa and the Companhia de Mocambique. This experiment proved doubly unsuccessful. In the first place the two companies failed to provide the development capital for Mozambique ardently desired by Portugal's government. Instead, they devoted their energies to maximizing profits through the systematic exploitation of the African populace. Secondly, the fact that shares in these companies could be purchased by private persons led foreign governments, notably those of Britain and Germany, to use these companies as proxies to further their own imperial interests at Portugal's expense. Only with the corning to power of Antonio Salazar in the late 1920s did the Portuguese government feel powerful enough to move against the anachronistic chartered companies and terminate the experiment.

The Compatibility of the Slave and Palm oil Trades in the Bight of Biafra

Abstract: The rise of the legitimate trade in palm oil in the nineteenth century is often described as following (or due to) a decline in the overseas slave trade. In fact in the most important oil producing region, the Bight of Biafra, the palm oil trade expanded well in advance of any decline in the slave trade and the suppression of the slave trade occasioned no marked increase in the rate of palm oil export growth. It would appear that the direct and indirect effects of the slave trade in this region had created economic conditions which enabled its small farmers to respond so rapidly to external demand for palm oil. The failure to understand the relationship between the slave and the palm oil trades is a result of misunderstanding the relationship between these oil producers and the coastal middlemen.

Imperial Business in Africa Part II. Interpretations

Abstract: This article, which is in two parts, aims to establish expatriate business history as a necessary and important part of modern African history. Part I surveyed approximately fifty histories of European companies in West, Central and East Africa during the colonial period and drew attention to newly-discovered and little-known records. Part II begins by assessing the quality of the studies listed in Part I, and suggests ways in which the level of scholarship can be raised to meet standards set by professionally-written business history. The article then formulates and explores a number of propositions concerning the spatial distribution and changing size, structure, strategy and performance of expatriate business in Africa. It is argued that many of these propositions cut across established but inadequately supported views, and that the development of business history has wider implications for the study of the colonial history of Africa.

The Daima Sequence and the Prehistoric Chronology of the Lake Chad Region of Nigeria

Abstract: An intensive archaeological field research programme conducted between 1963 and 1969 in the Lake Chad region of Nigeria has established the outlines of a prehistoric chronological sequence for the area. The excavations at Daima form the key to this sequence which also includes excavated evidence from Bornu 38, Kursakata, Shilma, Yau, Ajere and Birnin Gazargamo together with surface information from 70 other sites. Twenty radiocarbon dates indicate settlement of the area from the end of the second millennium B.C. (or the last quarter of the second millennium if the dates are corrected to calendar years) to the sixteenth or seventeenth century A.D. Evidence of occupation earlier than the second millennium B.C. may have to be sought in the highlands south of the lake area.In the firki clay plains, south of the lake, it may be possible to trace the evolution of a Late Stone Age pastoralist economy into an Iron Age cereal cultivator economy. In the undulating sandy country, west of the lake, village settlements focused around the Yobe River seem to have developed, in response to external stimulus, the urban civilization which historical sources indicate at Birnin Gazargamo by the sixteenth century A.D. The contrasting environments designated ‘Firki’ and ‘Yobe’ had an important influence on the character of human settlement indicated by the archaeological evidence.It is suggested that the prehistory of this region merits far greater attention than it has yet received and that the presence in this area of settlement mounds, with substantial depths of deposit, offers a wonderful opportunity for large-scale excavation programmes. Further surface investigations would also be justified, however, as the writer suspects that more prehistoric sites remain to be located in the area.

Imperial Business in Africa Part I: Sources

Abstract: This article, which is in two parts, seeks to establish expatriate business history as a necessary and important part of modern African history. Part I surveys some fifty histories of European companies in West, Central and East Africa during the colonial period, and draws attention to opportunities for research on newly-discovered or little known records. Part II will assess the scholarly quality of the studies listed here, and will formulate some propositions regarding the spatial and temporal evolution of the European firms, their organization and policies, and their profitability.

New Radiocarbon Dates for Northern and Western Africa

Abstract: Several significant trends are noted in the recent radiocarbon dates from North and West Africa. The early Khartoum Neolithic dates from Nabta Playa of the seventh millennium B.C. and the thermoluminescence dates from the Badarian of the sixth millennium, would appear to have redressed the balance for the time being in favour of the Nile Valley in the argument as to whether agriculture in the Nile Valley predates that in the Sahara. A more cautious approach might be to say that these dates emphasize the need for far more securely dated evidence before conclusions are drawn on this complicated, and often emotional, problem. The presence of sorghum in the first quarter of the first millennium A.D. at Jebel et Tomat provides the earliest direct evidence for this key African agricultural staple. Many interesting very late Stone Age dates have come from West Africa and indicate the contemporaneity of stone and iron using communities throughout the first millennium A.D. in certain remote areas. The dates of the Senegambia megaliths are clearly falling within the first millennium A.D. Dates for iron working in both Nigeria and Ghana are confirming that iron technology was well established by the first half of the first millennium A.D. The dates from Ife and elsewhere in Nigeria are clearly indicating that the ‘classic’ terracotta period, and also the pottery pavements, belong to the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. The state of research in North and West Africa reflects the well-known, but too often neglected, archaeological truism that researchers find what they are looking for and rarely more; the Iron Age emphasis in West Africa, and the Paleolithic-Epipaleolithic concentration in the francophone lands. Presumed general trends in these areas, particularly conclusions comparing development in North and West Africa, should be examined carefully for underlying sampling biases of an ideological as well as of a geographical nature.

Calico Caravans: The Tripoli-Kano Trade after 1880*

Abstract: It has often been thought that desert caravans could carry only luxury goods, and that the trans-Saharan caravans had declined rapidly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and had virtually disappeared by the turn of the century. This paper traces the caravan trade between Tripoli and Kano for the 30 years after 1881, when the main import into Hausaland was low-value unbleached and bleached calico from Manchester. It is suggested that calicoes formed the ‘return load’ for the more valuable exports northwards, and that the ‘family firm’ could compete with the more technically efficient, but more expensive installations of the European trading companies. The survival of the caravan traders ensured that there were merchants in Kano able to take advantage of the railway to develop a new export crop.

The Origins of Clericalism in West African Islam

Abstract: This article describes the independent contribution of pacific clerics to Islamic diffusion in West Africa. The particular role of Serakhulle (or Soninke) clerics, better known as Jakhanke, is examined in detail. The Jakhanke became a distinct clerical caste among the Serakhulle, initially through the work of al-Ḥājj Salim Suware who led them first at Diakha-Masina and eventually at Diakha-Bambukhu, where they lost a good deal of their Serakhulle cultural traits. Henceforth they acquired a self-consciously Islamic image alongside an increasing identification with the Manding culture. Al-Ḥājj Salim (floruit twelfth–thirteenth century) founded the clerical vocation on a principled disavowal of jihād and withdrawal from political/secular centres. He also established travel as essential to the clerical life. Since his time the Jakhanke have been characterized by dispersion, although the dispersion trail has also connected numerous centres into an effective network of clerical expansion. The career of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jakhite, a member of the Jakhanke community, illustrates the range of clerical outreach. He and his community eventually settled in Kano in the reign of Muḥammad Rimfa (1463–99) and helped consolidate Islam in Hausaland. On this kind of evidence, it is suggested that the pattern of Islamic clerical diffusion can be discerned at an early stage, although historical sources have tended to fuse the themes of Islamic expansion, commercial activity and a resident foreign Muslim community. However, the Jakhanke clerical tradition is sufficiently secure for it to be studied independently, without assuming a corresponding degree of commercial or foreign Muslim influence. In conclusion, the implications of these findings for research into Islamic diffusion in West Africa are outlined.

Aspects of Turkana Leadership during the Era of Primary Resistance

Abstract: After a considerable period of conflict with nineteenth-century traders, hunters and ‘explorers’, the Turkana of northwestern Kenya actively resisted the occupation of their country by the Imperial forces of British East Africa and Uganda during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. At first, this primary resistance was largely in the hands of war-leaders, notably Ebei, the most important military leader of the southern sections. Bitterness engendered by Hut Taxes and other unpopular British policies led to the brief ascendancy of Koletiang, an influential southern diviner, until he was imprisoned in 1911. Again the resistance leadership fell to the military until especially brutal ‘punitive actions’ in 1915 had the effect of consolidating resistance in the north. At this point, Lowalel, another powerful diviner, became the spiritual patron of the war-leaders and their followers, reaffirming the close co-operation which traditionally had existed between religious and military leaders in Turkana society. So charismatic and innovative was Lowalel's leadership that he amassed armies several thousand strong and was joined by other peoples including the Merille and Dongiro, as well as by the forces of the Ethiopian Empire, in resisting the extension of British colonial rule.

The Nandi Protest of 1923 in the Context of African Resistance to Colonial Rule in Kenya

Abstract: The Nandi protest of 1923 is examined in its Kenya-wide context and is seen to be the result of the increased pressures brought to bear on Kenya Africans in this period—pressures for African land, labour and taxes, which greatly affected the Nandi as well as other peoples. The Nandi political protest to colonial policies in this period, in contrast to that of the Kikuyu, however, focused on the traditional leadership of the Nandi orkolyot, or ritual expert, and, as such, mirrors the relative lack of socio-cultural change in Nandi before 1923, and the continuing viability of the traditional Nandi economy and political structure. Squatting, which began in this period, is seen as a key factor contributing to this viability, at the same time as it presented new threats to Nandi economic independence, which the political protest centred on orkoiyot Barserion attempted to counter. An examination of the Nandi protest of 1923, therefore, also contributes to an understanding of the political expression of that sector of the African population which has often been ignored in studies of the origin of political protest in Kenya.

The Relevance of Spatial Analysis for African Economic History: the Sierra Leone–Guinea System

Abstract: This article suggests ways in which a spatial perspective is relevant to questions of African economic history prior to formal colonization. Aspects of spatial analysis can help to identify and compare economically dynamic centres and subregions and to understand the qualities of regional and inter-regional systems. Spatial analysis can also illuminate various economic relationships between Africa and Europe; thus it is relevant to such issues as African adaptation to ‘legitimate’ trade and economic dependency. Among the main concepts discussed are central place theory, ‘growth centres’, port gateways, and dendritic marketing systems. The article focuses upon the Sierra Leone–Guinea plain and the larger Sierra Leone–Guinea inter-regional commercial system during the second half of the nineteenth century. Brief comparisons are made with other areas.

Measuring the Atlantic Slave Trade

Abstract: It should not be necessary to reply to criticism of a book that was explicitly written to be revised. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census appeared in 1969 as an effort to bring together what was known in the mid-1960s about the origins, numbers, and destinations of people who moved out of Africa in the greatest intercontinental migration that had taken place up to that time. The rules of the game as laid down in my preface were that I would try to assess the whole dimension of Atlantic slave trade as accurately as possible, taking the evidence available in print as my point of departure. Since then, the original estimates and calculations have been modified by many hands. Three international conferences have examined aspects of the subject. Two reports of their proceedings have already been published. If my original effort was successful, anyone with a turn for accounting could insert appropriate modifications into its framework to produce new totals and new patterns. I have modified my original conclusions, on the basis of new research by Roger Anstey and Johannes Postma, in a recalculation of slave exports from Africa during the eighteenth century.

Southern Saharan Scholarship and the Bilad Al-Sudan

Abstract: By way of drawing attention to a neglected theme in West African history this article focuses upon southern Saharan society and the intellectual tradition of its scholarly (zawiya and insilimen) lineages. It is argued that societies of the southern Sahara have remarkably similar social, political and economic organizations and that the zawiya/insilimen scholars were therefore the product of comparable political and economic milieus. One result of this was that these scholars, at least by the late eighteenth century, seem to have evolved similar patterns of scholarship which emphasized two highly functional Islamic sciences, jurisprudence and mysticism. It is suggested that this intellectual tradition was shared with other scholars in the desert-edge economic region, and that as a result there existed a basic unity in the intellectual traditions of many western and central Sudanese Islamic communities which is distorted by distinctions between ‘militant’ and ‘quietist’ traditions of legal reform in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century West Africa.

The Economic Foundations of an Islamic Theocracy—The Case of Masina *

Abstract: This paper is an attempt to study the economic foundations of one African state; Masina in the interior delta of the Niger south of Timbuctu, a short lived jihad state of the nineteenth century, has been chosen because it is relatively well-documented, literate, and followed an established pattern of Islamic taxation. Some attention is paid to the special needs of public expenditure in an Islamic theocracy; the system of taxation is examined, and it is shown that the revenue from the pastoral sector was probably greater than that from trade. Each section of the economy, pastoral, cultivating, fishing and trade is considered, and some attempt is made at estimating the scale of trade. Finally the process of state formation is discussed; it is suggested that there was little change in the means of production, but radical changes in the relations of production. Religious, military and fiscal aspects of the state were intimately interconnected, with Islam providing the ideological basis. Lack of foreign exchange was a continuing weakness, and the state ultimately went down in military defeat because of its inability to import firearms.

The Prehistorical Implications of Guthrie's Comparative Bantu. Part II: Interpretation of Cultural Vocabulary

Abstract: The second part of this article opens with a general caveat about the use and misuse of linguistic evidence. Guthrie, on the other hand, presented his data in a way which leaves subsequent scholars free to arrive at their own interpretations. The complexity of his data makes it difficult to achieve a necessary overview, however, and a stylized grid is therefore proposed, enabling the relative distribution of individual items of Common Bantu vocabulary to be plotted and compared. This is particularly important in the case of cultural vocabulary, where geographical distribution is normally related to levels of historical origin or diffusion. Groups of these vocabulary grids, based on Guthrie's corpus of data and his referential zones, are assembled and presented for the following semantic areas: fishing and watercraft, metal-working, pottery, livestock and cultivation (including cereals). Much of the remainder of the article is devoted to an exposition of the way in which these grids may be interpreted historically, including the need to distinguish—as far as possible—between likely cognates and likely loan-words. Attention is drawn to the possibilities (i) that Bantu languages may have begun to diverge substantially in linguistic terms before they began to move widely apart from their secondary and tertiary nucleus south of the forest, and (ii) that there may have been a differential layering, or overlapping waves, of Bantu expansion in the east.

Black Chiefs, White Traders and Colonial Policy near the Kwanza: Kabuku Kambilo and the Portuguese, 1873–1896

Abstract: Some effects of the expansion in European commerce and of developments in colonial policy in Angola are explored through a study of the relationship of the black chief Kabuku Kambio with the Portuguese during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. By the 1870s the growth of ‘legitimate’ trade along the rivers Lukala and Kwanza was attracting the settlement of an increasing number of European colonists and traders. in the concelho of Cambambe the feira of Dondo, situated on the right bank of the Kwanza, briefly became the most important commercial centre of the interior. In these years much of the trade flowing between Dondo and other points was regulated by Kabuku, ruler of the largest and most powerful chiefdom, or sobado, in the conceiho. Kabuku's aggressive attempts to extend his dynastic authority and to profit from the increasing volume of trade entering the concelho involved him in a series of violent conflicts with rival chiefs and with European settlers. At first the extension of his power was facilitated by the military and administrative weakness of the Portuguese. By the mid-i880s however a more vigorous colonial policy, supporting the expansion of Portuguese power and commercial interests in the interior of Angola caused Kabuku's power to wane. After 1890 he succumbed to the pressure of white political and economic dominance in the Kwanza region. Following Kabuku's death the sobado itself may have suffered extinction through an outbreak of sleeping sickness around 1900.

Measuring the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Rejoinder

Abstract: makes a further error in ignoring the additional restriction on slave cargoes imposed from the end of 1799. The ratio thereafter worked out at a mere 1-03 slaves per ton. Again, we reject Inikori's possible rejoinder that serious violation of the 1799 Act was widespread, and would point out that his evidence about the ship Vanguard (p. 220) really points more to the effectiveness of cargo limitation. Finally it may be of interest to suggest approximate figures of slaves exported in the period 1751-1807 on the basis of acceptance of Inikori's ship and tonnage totals but of Anstey's slaves-per-ship or per-ton ratios in the three disputed decades 1781-1807. The result is a 57 year total of 1,913,380 which is 18-4 per cent higher than Curtin and 7-3 per cent higher than Anstey's original figure. Pending any more detailed work of my own, using the invaluable Customs 17, this is the approximation I am now inclined to accept.

The Clandestine Movement of Groundnuts Across the Niger-Nigeria Boundary

Abstract: RESUMELe danger le plus communement redoute au sujet des frontieres creees ou imposees par le colonialisme est que cette barriere physique creee ne recoive que peu de consensus ou d'acceptation au niveau local. Cet article confirme le jugement de Derrick Thom que tel n'est pas et ne sera pas le cas pour la frontiere internationale qui separe le Niger du Nigeria. Longue et poreuse, cette frontiere ne constitue pas, cependant, une menace immediate pour le marche etatique de l'arachide du Niger: cette menace n'est pas toutefois que cette frontiere devienne une frontiere artificielle. Plutot, le Niger doit envisager la possibilite que sa frontiere sud devienne une voie a sens unique pour favoriser le marche de l'arachide vers le Nigeria.Depuis les premieres annees de la decennie soixante jusqu'au milieu des annees soixante-dix le gouvernement nigerien a tente de regler le commerce de l'arachide a sa frontiere avec le Nigeria. Cependant, ce dernier Etat, riche en petrole, mene constamment une politique de prix...

The Colonial Period in the Maghrib and its Aftermath: The Present State of Historical Writing

Abstract: The post mortem examination of the French regime in North Africa has tried to establish what went wrong, and when. It has described in detail the adverse effects of the regime upon the indigène, especially in Algeria. Rather less attention has been paid to the minority of those who, under the circumstances, prospered in various ways. The fortunes of the 25,000 Muslim Algerian landowners, for example, each with anything from 50 to 500 or more hectares, deserve to be studied. They are relevant to the current concern with the origins and growth of nationalist movements for independence. Explanations of a conflict arising inevitably out of the inequality and incompatibility of the two communities have difficulty in explaining the connexion between the nationalist leaders and the population at large. A satisfactory account should be able to identify the support for these leaders and their activities at any given time. The problem has attracted most attention in Morocco, where the success of the monarchy at the expense of the Istiqlal has called for an explanation. The well-known connexion of the Istiqlal with the Fassi community has been the starting-point of attempts to describe a political society in relation to the social and economic background of the groups and interests which it comprises. The historical investigation of this background throughout the Maghrib should provide a firm context for descriptions of political activity before and after independence.

Mau Mau in Nakuru

Abstract: This article attempts to trace the origins of Mau Mau movement in Nakuru, the capital of the White Highlands, and to follow its development through the turbulent post-war years. Mau Mau here is seen as a distinct militant movement which advocated the use of violence in the anti-colonial struggle. It developed within the ranks of the Kikuyu Central Association whose moderate political strategy it rejected. It had a distinct social basis, both its leadership and its mass support coming from the ranks of the dispossessed urban Kikuyu lumpenproletariat. Mau Mau emerged, by 1952, as the dominant African political force at the cost of alienating most non-Kikuyu tribes, and intensifying divisions and hatreds within Kikuyu society. Although Mau Mau did not have definite plans for a large-scale guerrilla war when the State of Emergency was declared in October 1952, nor was it prepared for such a war, it was certainly developing along these lines. There was a large measure of continuity between pre-Emergency Mau Mau and the forces which were later engaged in the forest fighting. The forest fighting was primarily a response, not of the bewildered Kikuyu masses, but of an organized militant and violent movement. It is not suggested that Nakuru's model applies to other Kikuyu areas. On the contrary, it is suggested that the full story of Mau Mau in Kenya will be revealed only after a series of intensive local studies have been undertaken.

The Role of the Missionaries in Conquest Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the Eastern Cape 1800–1852 . By Jane Sales. Cape Town: A. A. Balkema, 1975. Pp. viii + 176. £7.50.

Abstract: Between 1800 and 1850 the Coloured people were a power in the eastern Cape Colony. During the 'Servants War' of 1799 they drove the encroaching Boers out of Uitenhage district. They then made terms with the white authorities, and Coloured levies fought for the Colony in the Xhosa Wars of 1819, 1835 and 1846. Each time they displayed outstanding qualities of loyalty and bravery. They also demanded equal treatment with white levies and generally showed great independence of spirit. This behaviour reflected their attitude in peacetime. Some, no doubt, submitted quietly to lives of servitude. But many tried to support themselves without wage labour and fiercely resisted attempts to force them into service. Coloured hostility—rather than its own sense of philanthropy—obliged the Government to abandon a 'vagrancy law' which the Cape Legislature put forward in 1834, 1847 ^ 8siThe wealthier colonists, who saw the legislation as a means of obtaining labourers, took a jaundiced view of Coloured independence. They berated the Coloureds as 'truculent', 'surly' and 'idle'. Nevertheless they had a healthy respect, born of experience, for the Coloureds' fighting abilities: as late as 1852 in the long-settled districts of the western Cape rumours of a Coloured uprising were enough to cause a panic among numbers of Boers and drive them into laager.

Frontier Disputes and Problems of Legitimation: Sokoto–Masina Relations 1817–1837

Abstract: The nature of relations between the neighbouring West African caliphates of Sokoto and Hamdullahi in the early nineteenth century has been the subject of speculation by students of the western and central Sudan from the time of Barth's visit to the area in the mid-nineteenth century. Now, working from several new manuscript finds and the evidence built up by scholars who have studied the two caliphates in detail, a tentative reconstruction of relations between the states in the crucial period 1817–37 is possible. What emerges is evidence of an intricate balance between the two caliphates and their mutually acknowledged spiritual advisers from the Kunta confederation in the Azaouad in which economic and strategic priorities as well as internal politics and theological matters all seem to play a role in determining the nature of relations between Hamdullahi and Sokoto.

Africa Since 1875 Africa since 1875: A Modern History. By Robin Hallett. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1974. Pp. ix+866. $15.00. Paperback (Africa only) £2.80.

Abstract: and tribal heroes (p. 63)? In fact one of the refreshing features of Nok is the variety in the subject matter, which ranges from elephants and monkeys to axe-bearing men and baskets of food. In discussing South African agriculture the early dates for Cape sheep, which are one of the exciting discoveries of the early 1970s, could have been mentioned. Katanga is used throughout the book whereas the name for the past half dozen years has been Shaba. It is easy to go on picking up similar points with which to disagree. Nevertheless, the book provides an admirable synthesis and should prove to be a very useful introduction to early African history. It is exceptionally well illustrated with maps, diagrams and photographs.

The General Strike in Zanzibar, 1948

Abstract: This article examines a three-week long strike in Zanzibar City in August and September 1948. The strike began among labourers from the mainland at work in Zanzibar port, but spread to all African work-people in the City after an unsuccessful attempt to break the strike by the government. This attempt had led to a major demonstration and confrontation at the entrance to the port, violence being only narrowly averted. While at one level the strike was a Zanzibar sequel to the strikes of the previous year in Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, in Zanzibar there was additional significance in the fact that the City and Island's work-force were in very large proportion men from the East African mainland. Zanzibar's dependence on mainland labour had begun in the early decades of the twentieth century. In those years mainland labour had been particularly well-paid, by the standards of the time. By the late 1940s however, mainland labour in Zanzibar was as poor as, perhaps poorer than, its mainland counterparts. Besides, the political structure of the Protectorate aggravated sentiments of alienation since mainlanders were not regarded as permanent residents for whom the government should have any particular concern: nor were mainlanders represented in the legislature. Even after the strike was over the colonial authorities saw only a need for labour reforms rather than political re-structuring to accommodate mainlanders. The strike however had briefly united all Africans, indigenous and mainlander. When, a decade later, this unity of Africans, mainlander and indigenous, town and plantation labourer and peasant, was re-formed, revolution followed. As a portent, therefore, Zanzibar's strike is of particular significance.

French Policy Towards Trading With African and Brazilian Slave Merchants, 1840-1853

Abstract: FROM the early I830S to the mid-i85os both France and Great Britain played major roles in repressing the Atlantic slave trade. In I83I France joined England in crusading against the slave trade by accepting Britain's proposal for mutual rights of searching merchant vessels off the slave coasts. Although the right of search agreements were terminated in i845, for the next ten years the two nations continued their united effort against the slave traffic by equipping squadrons to intercept slavers off the African coast. From i83I to I855 France and Great Britain not only co-operated in working for the abolition of the slave trade, but they also waged their own individual campaigns against it.' The Whigs and Tories in England, the governments of the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, and the Second Empire in France, were unanimous in denouncing this traffic as evil, illegal, and immoral. It is paradoxical, therefore, that during approximately this same period both the British and French governments permitted their nationals to be involved indirectly in the slave trade by cooperating with slave merchants and by transporting to Africa goods destined to be used for the purchase of slaves.2 Adverse publicity and abolitionist pressures in Britain seem to have restrained somewhat the actions of English merchants in their dealings with the West Coast of Africa, but French commercial interests were under no such restraint. From i840 to the early I85os French merchant houses and shippers transported and sold merchandise, and on occasion ships, to African and Brazilian slave dealers with impunity. Different French governments repeatedly reviewed the moral and legal implications of their merchants' actions, but