Showing papers in "The Journal of African History in 1989"

The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature

Abstract: Recent revisions of estimates for the volume of the trans-Atlantic slave trade suggest that approximately 11,863,000 slaves were exported from Africa during the whole period of the Atlantic slave trade, which is a small upward revision of my 1982 synthesis and still well within the range projected by Curtin in 1969. More accurate studies of the French and British sectors indicate that some revision in the temporal and regional distribution of slave exports is required, especially for the eighteenth century. First, the Bight of Biafra was more important and its involvement in the trade began several decades earlier than previously thought. Secondly, the French and British were more active on the Loango coast than earlier statistics revealed. The southward shift of the trade now appears to have been more gradual and to have begun earlier than I argued in 1982. The greater precision in the regional breakdown of slave shipments is confirmed by new data on the ethnic origins of slaves. The analysis also allows a new assessment of the gender and age profile of the exported population. There was a trend toward greater proportions of males and children. In the seventeenth century, slavers purchased relatively balanced proportions of males and females, and children were under-represented. By the eighteenth century, west-central Africa was exporting twice as many males as females, while West Africa was far from attaining such ratios. In the nineteenth century, by contrast, slavers could achieve those ratios almost anywhere slaves were available for export, and in parts of west-central and south-eastern Africa the percentage of males reached unprecedented levels of 70 per cent or more. Furthermore, increasing numbers of slaves were children, and again west-central Africa led the way in this shift while West Africa lagged behind considerably.This review of the literature on the demography of the slave trade provides a context to assess the revisionist interpretation of David Eltis, who has argued recently that the slave trade and its suppression were of minor importance in African history. It is shown that Eltis' economic arguments, based on an assessment of per capita income and the value of the export trade, are flawed. The demography of the trade involved an absolute loss of population and a large increase in the enslaved population that was retained in Africa. A rough comparison of slave populations in West Africa and the Americas indicates that the scale of slavery in Africa was extremely large.

Sex Ratio, Age and Ethnicity in the Atlantic Slave Trade: Data From French Shipping and Plantation Records

Abstract: This article examines the age and sex composition of the Atlantic slave trade in the belief it was of considerable significance in shaping black society in both Africa and the Americas. Focusing on the French slave trade, two main samples are analysed. One is composed of 177,000 slaves transported in French ships during the years 1714–92, which is taken from the Repertoire des expeditions negrieres of Jean Mettas and Serge Daget. The other, derived from nearly 400 estate inventories, consists of more than 13,300 Africans who lived on Saint Domingue plantations in the period 1721–97. The results are compared with existing knowledge of the demo-graphic composition of the Atlantic slave trade to show the range of variation that existed through time between different importing and exporting regions, and to shed light on the forces of supply and demand that determined the proportions of men, women and children who were sold as slaves across the ocean. Significant and consistent contrasts are found between different ethnic groups in Africa and different slaveholding societies in the New World, many of them thus far unnoticed in the scholarly literature.

Slave Exports from West and West-Central Africa, 1700–1810: new estimates of volume and distribution

Abstract: Using new evidence on the British, French and North American slave-carrying trades, this article seeks to revise Lovejoy's recently published estimates of the levels of slave exports from West and West-Central Africa in the eighteenth century. The figures suggest that Lovejoy's estimate of the total volume of slave exports from the west coast of Africa to America between 1700 and 1810 was probably reasonably accurate, being only 8 per cent lower than the total indicated here. However, the new data reveal temporal and coastal distributions of slave exports that differ substantially from those proposed by Lovejoy. In particular, they suggest that previous work significantly understated levels of slave exports between 1713 and 1740, and again in the 1760s and 1770s. Contrary to earlier findings, in fact, it appears that slave exports from the west coast of Africa to America in the decade prior to the War of American Independence were very similar to levels attained after 1783. Furthermore, in terms of coastal distributions, it seems that the Bight of Biafra and West-Central Africa, particularly the Loango coast, contributed much more substantially to the slave traffic to America during the early decades of the century than was previously assumed. These revisions of Lovejoy's figures have important implications for movements in slave prices in Africa and for assessing the demographic effects of the trade on the slave-supplying regions. In addition, they help to improve our understanding of the relationship between the slave trade and changes in sugar and other commodity production in America during the eighteenth century.

Hunters, Poachers and Gamekeepers: Towards A Social History of Hunting in Colonial Kenya*

Abstract: This paper sets out to examine the interactions between African and white hunters in colonial Kenya in an effort to understand the nature of the confrontation between the competing cultural traditions of hunting under colonial conditions. It examines the major tradition of African hunting in eastern Kenya among African residents of Kwale, Kitui and Meru districts from oral and archival materials, arguing that the place of subsistence hunting in the economy of African farmers has been systematically denigrated in the colonial literature. Next, the various representatives of the European hunting tradition in Kenya are surveyed: sportsmen, travellers, settlers, and professionals. A preliminary assessment is made of their impact on game and the growing need for conservation. The history of the game and national park departments, which administered the hunting laws and were charged with the preservation of wildlife, is next described. The records of the colonial Game Department provide a key source for the reconstruction of the attempts to control African poaching and regulate European hunting in the interests of the preservation of game and the control of the colonial economy. At the end of the colonial era, with the emergence of a new sensibility to conservation, Kenya's gamekeepers engaged in a major, successful anti-poaching campaign in eastern Kenya's Tsavo Park. This was the climactic confrontation between the two cultures in their contest for control over Kenya's wildlife resources.

Death and the Asantehene : A Historical Meditation

Abstract: This paper builds upon the author's previously published work on the forest kingdom of Asante (Ghana). It deals generally with the issue of death in Asante history and culture, and more specifically with the meanings of the mortuary rituals surrounding the deaths of Asantehenes. These issues are addressed in relation to the extensive anthropological literature concerning the cross-cultural meaning of death. The paper then concentrates on an analysis of the meaning of the very fully documented events that surrounded the death and interment of the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin in 1867. These are analysed in relation to cultural norms and historical practices, and the conclusion sets out to locate the meaning of the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin's death within the broader framework of Asante historical experience.

‘My Head Belongs to the King’: On the Political and Ritual Significance of Decapitation in Pre-Colonial Dahomey

Abstract: The kings of Dahomey in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries claimed to ‘own’ the heads of all their subjects. Contemporary European observers of the pre-colonial period understood this claim in terms of the king's exclusive (and arbitrary) right to inflict capital punishment, decapitation being the normal Dahomian method of execution. More recent Dahomian tradition, however, suggests a ritual aspect to the claim, connecting it with stories that the early king Wegbaja (the second or third ruler of Dahomey, but conventionally regarded as its true founder and the creator of many of its political and judicial institutions) prohibited the decapitation of corpses before burial, supposedly in order to prevent the misappropriation of the heads for use in the manufacture of ‘amulets’, or for ritual abuse by enemies of the deceased. The article argues, drawing upon contemporary European accounts of the pre-colonial period and ethnographic material from the neighbouring and related society of Porto-Novo as well as Dahomian traditions, that unlike many of the supposed innovations traditionally attributed to Wegbaja this prohibition of the decapitation of corpses is probably a genuine Dahomian innovation, even if its attribution specifically to Wegbaja is doubtful, but that its significance and purpose is misrepresented in Dahomian tradition. The decapitation of corpses in earlier times was probably related to the practice of separate burial and subsequent veneration of the deceased''s head as part of the ancestor cult of his own lineage. The suppression of this practice by the kings of Dahomey can be understood in terms of their desire (for which there is other evidence) to downgrade the ancestor cults of the component lineages of Dahomey, in order to emphasize the special status of the public cult of the royal ancestors, and more generally to concentrate or monopolize ritual as well as political and judicial power in the hands of the monarchy.

From Sail to Steam: the Impact of the Steamship Services on the British Palm Oil Trade with West Africa, 1850–1890.

Abstract: In the late nineteenth century the West African palm oil trade entered a period of difficulties, characterized mainly by a fall in prices from the early 1860s. Part of the reason for this lay in the introduction of regular steamship services between Britain and West Africa from 1852. As steam came to replace sail so the palm oil trade underwent major changes. These changes can be quantified fairly precisely. One effect of the introduction of steamers was the concentration of the British side of the oil trade once again on Liverpool, its original centre. Another effect was the increase in the number of West African ports involved in the trade. The most important impact was the increase in numbers of traders in oil trade from around 25 to some 150. The resulting increased competition in the trade led to amal-gamations becoming increasingly common – a process that culminated in the formation of the African Association Ltd in 1889. It was also to provide the context for the pressure exerted by some traders for an increased colonial presence in the 1880s and 1890s.

The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940. By Daniel R. Headrick. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. x + 405. £25.00.

Abstract: The volumes cover all publications and periodicals in the human sciences which are concerned with Rwanda. ' Human science' is here understood in the broadest sense of the term, so for example, the encyclopaedia includes many works in the field of agriculture, medicine, nutrition and development which are considered relevant. Essentially, only works which are in public diffusion and which are on open access are included, but the reader is advised to consult the introduction, which specifies clearly and at length, what was and what was not considered for inclusion. Excluded, for example, are archives, acts of assemblies, purely partypolitical or religious publications, weekly and daily papers, most works of restricted circulation and most undergraduate and masters' theses, whereas doctoral theses are included. Two forms of annotation are used, depending on the type of work. The first is a simple enumeration of the chapter headings, sections and themes of the work. The second form, which is more commonly used, is as detailed a resume of the work's scope and its findings as can be fitted in a paragraph. Works are arranged alphabetically according to author, and are indexed according to subject. About 1750 subjects appear in the index. The authors felt it unnecessary (and misleading) to categorize the works into particular disciplines. The periodicals and collective works which the authors consulted are also listed. Their length is impressive, and shows how difficult and necessary it was to carry out this project. Works are included from 1863, when the existence of Rwanda was first documented, to 1987, when the book was published. Although the authors continued to include books and contributions to collective works right until publication, they were nevertheless forced to exclude entries from periodicals from 1980 onwards, otherwise the encyclopaedia would never have been completed. This encyclopaedia principally concerns Rwanda, but it will also be an important reference work for those researching the neighbouring regions in the Kivu province of Zaire, in southern Uganda and in Burundi. This reference work will substantially improve the quality and efficiency of all research concerning Rwanda.

Slave-Raiders and Middlemen, Monopolists and Free-Traders: the supply of slaves for the Atlantic trade in Dahomey c. 1715–1850

Abstract: This article, which extends and modifies the analysis offered in an earlier article in this journal (1977), examines what is known of the organization of the supply of slaves for the trans-Atlantic trade in Dahomey, with particular emphasis on the relative importance of local slave-raiding and the purchase of slaves from the interior, and on the evolution of a group of private merchants within Dahomey. It is argued that initially the kings of Dahomey sought to operate the slave trade as a royal monopoly, and relied exclusively upon slave-raiding rather than purchasing slaves from the interior. From the mid-eighteenth century, however, Dahomey did seek to operate as a ‘ middleman’ in the supply of slaves from the interior, and since its kings did not normally attempt to control this aspect of the trade this involved the emergence of a private sector in the slave trade. Although merchants in Dahomey were in origin state officials, licensed to trade on behalf of the king or ‘caboceers’ (chiefs), they subsequently acquired the right to trade on their own account also and thus became in some measure independent of the state structure. The autonomy and wealth of the merchant community in Dahomey were further enhanced by the transition from slave to palm oil exports in the nineteenth century, when leading merchants moved into large-scale oil production, using slave labour supplied by the king. There were recurrent tensions between the monarchy and the merchants over commercial policy and over the monarchy's expropriatory fiscal practices, and the conflict of interests between the two was exacerbated by the development of the oil trade, undermining the solidarity of Dahomey in the face of the European imperialism of the late nineteenth century.

Writing South African Legal History: A Prospectus

Abstract: This article outlines the approach to the writing of South African legal history being taken in a book in progress on the South African legal system between 1902 and 1929. It suggests that legalism has been an important part of the political culture of South Africa and that, therefore, an understanding of legal history is necessary to a comprehension of the South African state. It offers a critique of the liberal notion of the rule of law as a defence against state power, arguing that in the South African context ideological and legitimising explanations of law should be de-emphasised in favour of an approach which emphasises the instrumental nature of law in relation to state power. Elements of the existing legal and historical literature are briefly reviewed.The basic orientation is to consider the South African legal system as essentially a post-colonial British system rather than one of ‘Roman-Dutch law’. The study is divided into four parts. The first looks at the making of the state between 1902 and 1910 and considers the role and meaning of courts, law and police in the nature of the state being constructed. The second discusses ‘social control’. It considers the ideological development of criminology and thought about crime: the nature of ‘common law’ crime and criminal law in an era of intensified industrialisation; the development of statutory criminal control over blacks; and the evolution of the criminalising of political opposition. The third part considers the dual system of civil law. It discusses the development of Roman-Dutch law in relation to the legal profession; and outlines the development of the regime of commercial law, in relation to contemporary class and political forces. It also examines the parallel unfolding of the regime of black law governing the marital and proprietal relations of blacks, and embodied in the Native Administration Act of 1927. The final segment describes the growth of the statutory regime and its use in the re-structuring of the social order. It suggests that the core of South African legalism is to be found in the emergence of government through the modern statutory form with its huge delegated powers of legislating and its wide administrative discretions.

Slavery, Emancipation and Labour Migration in West Africa: The Case of the Soninke

Abstract: L'etude des consequences de l'emancipation des esclaves est d'une grande importance pour la comprehension de l'histoire du travail en Afrique occidentale. Le systeme social des Soninke de la haute vallee du Senegal, comme pour beaucoup de peuples saheliens a l'epoque precoloniale, reposait largement sur l'esclavage. L'apparition des migrations de travail chez les Soninke, cependant, s'explique beaucoup moins par l'abolition de l'esclavage que par la disparition progressive du commerce esclavagiste en Senegambie au dix-neuvieme siecle. En effet, c'est alors que furent substitutes a la traite interieure les migrations saisonnieres des jeunes Soninke. Ces migrations, traditionnellement orientees vers le commerce en Gambie, furent detournees vers la production d'arachide dans cette meme region, probablement sous l'influence des trafiquants d'esclaves Soninke. Quant a l'emancipation, elle ne crea nullement un exode chez les esclaves nouvellement liberes mais elle permit leur entree dans la courant des migrations saisonnieres. Dans ce sens, l'abolition de l'esclavage fut un phenomene important dans l'histoire du travail en Afrique occidentale. De plus, elle suscita des transformations dans 1'organisation du travail familial chez les Soninke, qui resulterent en un surcroit de migrants.En conclusion, l'histoire des Soninke illustre l'importance de la question des migrations traditionnelles pour la comprehension des migrations modernes en Afrique occidentale, rappelant en cela l'histoire des migrations de travail en Europe, qui furent elles aussi les heritieres de courants plus anciens de mobilite geographique.

Political Ecology in the Upper Nile: The Twentieth Century Expansion of the Pastoral 'Common Economy'

Abstract: The environment of the clay plains of the Upper Nile region in the Sudan is peculiarly harsh, imposing considerable restraints on its inhabitants, who almost all survive through mixed cultivation and herding The combination of erratic flooding, 'unreliable rainfall and uncompromising soil' has forced the development of a mainly pastoral economy, which has been well established throughout the region for a least a millennium' The standard ethnographies and ecological studies of the region have all emphasized the interdependence of cultivation and animal husbandry within local economies, and the variations in local environments which produce different balances of agro-pastoral activity2 What emerges even more clearly from an historical study of the region is that the economies of the various ethnic and political groups contained within it are linked together and form a wider regional system which enables each to survive the limitations of its specific area They have been linked through a variety of networks of exchange; some based on kinship obligations, some on direct trade Through these networks the peoples of the region have at times been able to gain regular access to the resources of areas at some distance from themselves, crossing political and ethnic boundaries to do so Survival of peoples as well as individuals depends on maintaining such access in a number of ways It is therefore not possible to discuss the local economies of the Nuer without reference to the local economies of the Dinka, nor is it possible to understand the survival of the Dinka without reference to their economic relations with the Nuer3 The scholarly image and understanding of the Nilotic pastoralists of the Sudan is based primarily on Evans-Pritchard's study of the Nuer, which was produced from fieldwork undertaken between 1930 and 1936 His work has become the point of reference for all comparative studies of pastoralists within

Bibles and Beads: Missionaries as Traders in Southern Africa in the Early Nineteenth Century

Abstract: Trade across the Cape frontier in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, and government attempts to regulate that trade, cannot be understood without first considering the role of Protestant missionaries as traders and bearers of European manufactured goods in the South African interior. From their arrival in 1799, missionaries of the London Missionary Society carried on a daily trade beyond the northern and eastern boundaries of the Cape Colony that was forbidden by law to the colonists. When missionaries of the Methodist Missionary Society arrived in the mid-1810s they too carried beads as well as Bibles to their mission stations outside the colony. Most missionaries were initially troubled by having to mix commercial activities with their religious duties. They were forced, however, to rely on trade in order to support themselves and their families because of the meagre material and monetary assistance they received from their societies. They introduced European goods among African societies beyond the Cape frontiers earlier and in greater quantities than any other enterprise until the commencement of the Fort Willshire fairs in 1824. Most importantly, they helped to bring about a transition from trade in beads, buttons and other traditional exchange items to a desire among many of the peoples with whom they came into contact for blankets, European clothing and metal tools and utensils, thus creating a growing dependency on European material goods that would eventually bring about a total transformation of these African societies.

African Women - Life Histories of African Women . Edited By Patricia W. Romero. London and Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: The Ashfield Press, 1988. Pp. vi + 200. $29.95 (£19.95) hardback; $12.50 (£7.50) paperback.

Abstract: This collection of biographies offers something for everyone in African studies. For one thing, the different chapters make lively and interesting reading, and the paperback version is a bargain; for another, the very range of historical and geographical experiences assembled between these covers guarantees something of relevance for any scholar. The lives depicted here range from peasant to aristocrat, from the Horn to West and South Africa, and from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Likewise, there is a remarkable divergence in the perspective of the various contributors, whose interests include languages and literature, diplomatic and social history, cultural and development anthropology, and journalism. As the editor stresses in her introduction, 'each of these women was an unique individual, acting out her life as best she could' (p. 1). In four cases, the accounts are presented in the woman's own words, clearly distinguished from introductory or explanatory material added by the compiler. The first account, and by far the longest, is that of a contemporary Xhosa woman, presented by Harold Scheub. Mrs. Zenani describes growing up in the Transkei, set in a context of increasing conflict between Christian converts and traditionalists. I found her story to be the most richly textured and evocative. The biographies of two Northern Nigerian women are next the story of Hajiya Ma'daki, a Fulani aristocrat, presented by Beverly Mack, and that of Hajiya Husaina, a Kanuri commoner, recounted by Enid Schildkrout. Taken together, the two provide useful perspectives on British colonial rule. The shortest life history is that of Bitu, an early Muganda feminist who set up a home for pregnant girls in the 1940s and 1950s and helped them finish school, and whose story is summarized by Christine Obbo. Ivor Wilks has used oral and archival materials to reconstruct the history of Akyaawa Yikwan, a nineteenthcentury Asante woman who began a distinguished career as a diplomat after she reached menopause, and who was a key actor in Asante-British negotiations in the 1830s. The last two accounts in the collection are the story of Mama Khadija, a Swahili midwife and herbalist, told by Patricia Romero, and that of Mercha, an Ethiopian potter, whose story was recorded by Anne Cassiers. Both Mama Khadija and Mercha are twentieth-century women who make their own way through necessity, and whose close ties with their children are in stark contrast to a series of fragile and short-lived marital relationships. While there is something of interest for everyone here, it is unfortunate that in this case, the whole is perhaps less than the sum of its parts. The very diversity of the materials presented makes it difficult to draw detailed comparisons between the cases, and to sketch a larger picture of the social or economic impact of colonial rule, for example. We can only regret that editor Patricia Romero did not take this opportunity to engage broader questions about theory or methodology in the collection and analysis of women's life histories. Nevertheless, she is to be congratulated for bringing together this very readable and affordable collection of life histories, which have considerable potential for classroom use as individual accounts.

A Murder in the Colonial Gold Coast: Law and Politics in the 1940s

Abstract: This article looks at a murder case which resulted from allegations of ‘ritual murder’ in the course of Nana Sir Ofori Atta's final funeral rites in Akyem Abuakwa, Ghana, in 1944. At the level of the Akyem state, the accusations came from an affronted section within the polity, the Amantow Mmiensa, who had been defeated by the Stool in the course of the 1932–3 disturbances arising from the Native Administration Revenue Ordinance but whose grievances against the Okyenhene were of greater antiquity. The accused were all descendants of past kings of Akyem. At the level of the Gold Coast state, the case provided an arena for some of the best lawyers in the country to use their mastery of colonial law to challenge the legal and hence colonial establishment both in Accra and in London. At the imperial level, opponents of the Labour Government both from the right and the left were able to use the case to belabour a weak Secretary of State for the Colonies both within and outside the House of Commons. The Governor, Sir Alan Burns, was ultimately confronted with an entirely legal if eccentric challenge to his authority in the Gold Coast, and serious assaults on his competence in London. The article argues that the case poisoned relations between Dr J. B. Danquah, the inspiration behind the defence case, and the colonial establishment in Accra so much that the constructive relationship between some of the intelligentsia and the Governor before 1944 was destroyed. This in turn influenced the nationalists' reception of the reformed 1946 constitution and the attitude of the administration to the United Gold Coast Convention.

The Origins of African Population Growth

Abstract: This collection of seventeen essays, like most collections, is uneven and sometimes unsatisfactory, but it merits more than a routine notice because at several points it touches on the most important problem in modern African history. Most of the essays, it is true, do not. Among the connections between capitalism and demography which the book treats, the most popular with contributors is migration, which is described in Senegal, Burkina, Niger, French Equatorial Africa, Zaire, Malawi, Zambia, Angola, and South Africa (with reference to Johannesburg's population history). Although several of these essays are useful (that on the Ovimbundu especially raises interesting questions), they cover a wellworked subject which is important but not critical to Africa's demographic history. The same might be said of Myron Echenberg's essay on the population estimates made by the French military in West Africa. Patrick Manning's attempt to simulate the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on different regions of West Africa touches on more central issues. Martin Klein argues for a slave mode of production in the Western Soudan during the late nineteenth century, while Abdullahi Mahadi and J. E. Inikori contribute a provocative suggestion that the general underpopulation of West Africa so limited the market as to prevent the growth of capitalism even in the region's most developed area around Kano, although I suspect that this neglects the fact that the sheer size of the market was no guarantee of capitalist production, as the histories of India and China suggest.' Yet these chapters are not what makes the book important. It is important because it is the first collective attack on what might be called the natalist interpretation of African history. Natalism as the editors (who do not use the word) explain in their excellent introduction sees Africa in the framework of demographic transition theory. It argues that precolonial African societies had very high fertility rates because they were needed to counteract equally high mortality rates caused by disease, famine, violence, and isolation. Even so, precolonial Africa remained severely underpopulated. With the coming of European medicine, peace, and famine relief, mortality declined while fertility at first remained high. The result was the accelerating population growth which perhaps first became apparent on a continental scale between the wars and is likely to dominate African history for several generations to come. The next stage of demographic transition the decline of fertility is as yet apparent south of the Sahara only in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa.2 Natalism, then, sees the roots of Africa's present population problem in the high fertility of precolonial societies and the positive

The Yoruba Toll System: Its Operation and Abolition

Abstract: THE Yoruba toll system has not been studied, in spite of its major role in the indigenous economy and politics. It is common knowledge that toll gates were prevalent in all Yoruba towns; what is less obvious is that the collection of duties from these gates was well integrated with the organization of trade and that proceeds from tolls were part of the revenues relied upon by the political elite in all Yoruba towns. Neither has the toll system received the attention it deserves in the analysis of the establishment of the colonial economy at the turn of this century. This neglect ignores the important fact that the attitude of British officials to the toll system became a major political issue in their relations with chiefs, and also generated widespread debate and responses not only among the Yoruba elite but also among European traders and officials in Nigeria and Britain. This essay sets out to fill the gap in our knowledge of this significant aspect of commerce and politics. The Yoruba toll system is examined within the context of the pre-colonial and colonial state and economy. The discussion is restricted to two dominant but related themes: how the toll system operated in the nineteenth century, and how it was subsequently reformed and abolished by the British when they imposed colonial rule on Nigeria.

‘The Natives are always stealing’: white vigilantes and the ‘reign of terror’ in the Orange Free State, 1918–24*

Abstract: During the formative years of capitalist agriculture, white farmers in the Orange Free State relied on both legal and extra-legal means to create a docile labour force of African workers. Coercive laws were a necessary component in the overall process of fashioning a rural working class out of quasi-independent squatter communities. Yet, no matter how repressive, the legal system alone was not sufficient to ensure work-discipline and docility on the white-owned farms. Frustrated with their inability to force African farm labourers to work diligently and to prevent them from deserting the farms, white farmers frequently turned to indiscriminate violence to sow terror amongst the dispossessed African rural population. White vigilantes formed a kind of paramilitary wing of the white farming class. While the state authorities never officially sanctioned vigilantism, those white farmers who used violence to intimidate their African labourers had little to fear with respect to prosecution, let alone conviction. Yet despite all their efforts to break the will of rural Africans, white farmers lived in continued fear of ‘native risings’. Rural Africans, too, remembered: the shooting incidents that occurred in the Orange Free State were indelibly etched in the collective memory of the emergent rural working class.

The Renovation of Custom in Colonial Kenya: the 1932 Generation Succession Ceremonies in Embu*

Abstract: The role of custom and tradition in the development of colonial rule in Africa has received little attention from scholars. Historians of colonial Kenya, particularly, have focused on the powerful transforming impact of the colonial state and economy and on the growth of opposition movements; they have had little to say about the processes through which previously autonomous societies negotiated their incorporation into the Kenya state. Yet by the 1920s and 1930s that state had acquired a substantial degree of popular legitimacy. ‘Customary’ institutions and rituals played an important part in the development of that legitimacy. This essay examines the institution of the genealogically defined ‘generation’ in the Embu-Mbeere area in colonial central Kenya and the ceremonies held in 1932 to mark the transition from one generation to the next. These ceremonies attracted considerable attention because they provided the occasion for the proclamation of rules, supported by the British administration, relating to the bitter issue of genital mutilation in female initiation. But this was not a crude case of the manipulation of custom. The attempt to reform female initiation was part of a larger process, of which the rituals of generation succession were elements, of building the ideological basis of a new ‘tribe’ in a society previously characterized by local autonomy and collective authority. As investigation of the succession ceremonies makes clear, the notion of a tribe dominated by appointed chiefs and identified with an exclusive territory lay at the centre of this ideology.

Oral and Written Towards a Reconstructed Past: Historical Texts from Busoga, Uganda. Edited by David William Cohen. Fontes Historiae Africanae, Series Varia III. Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press: Oxford and New York, 1986. Pp. xii + 363. £38.

Abstract: prehensive guide to the main historical events and personalities, even of the past hundred years, in each country. Each volume is strong in one or two historical areas. Mundt has painstakingly researched the history of each ethnic group and major town within Cote d'lvoire, an extremely valuable undertaking for a country of such numerous, and complex, local loyalties. By contrast, Oyewole has focused on the emergence and evolution of institutions of central government under colonial rule, on the development of colonial educational policy, and on the crises and structural transformations of Nigeria's federal system since Independence. He also provides fascinating biographies of numerous western Nigerian political, religious and academic personalities, with a smaller number of such entries for the other regions of the country. A short 'Addenda' section covers events since 1984, when the main body of the manuscript was completed. While the main value of Oyewole's volume to the historian undoubtedly lies in its 'inside view' of the past 50 years of political change as seen from Lagos and Ife, the main value of Mundt's book lies less in its dictionary entries than in its superb bibliography. In contrast to Oyewole's volume, which has 340 pages of dictionary entries but only 38 pages of bibliography, Mundt's work has an almost equal split between the two. 106 pages are devoted to an admirably presented set of references to books, articles and unpublished theses on virtually all aspects of Ivoirian history and current affairs. The dictionary entries are fully cross-referenced to this bibliography, and its coverage of historical work appears to be comprehensive. All the major Ivoirian, French, English and American writers are represented, either by their publications or (where these have yet to appear) by doctoral theses. The fields of economic, social and cultural history are as well covered as the central Scarecrow themes of political and administrative developments. Historians beginning work on Cote d'lvoire would be well advised to invest in this volume for the bibliography alone; overall, the work is marred only by some very indistinct maps. Curiously, despite the series' emphasis on current events, the shift of Cote d'lvoire's political capital in 1983 from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro (mentioned in the text on pp. xvii and 138) does not appear to have registered with the Press's cartographer.

Iwe Itan Ọyọ: A Traditional Yoruba History and its Author

Abstract: This article offers a translation of M. C. Adeyẹmi's book, A History of Old and New Ọyọ, completed in Yoruba in 1914. The original text comprises 32 pages, divided into ten short chapters, six of which treat the history of Ọyọ from the origins to 1914. The remaining four chapters examine cultural and political institutions. The translation retains the flavour of the original text which stems from a tradition of Yoruba oral historiography. M. C. Adeyẹmi was trained by the C.M.S., and had a Bachelor of Arts degree in education at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone. Between 1911 and 1942, he combined the functions of educationalist and missionary. His short book, which refers to no published or unpublished written work, is based on Ọyọ oral traditions describing the major developments in the political history of Ọyọ. The author did not moralise on wars and the collapse of the Ọyọ empire, nor did he use the book as a means of propagating Ọyọ hegemony in Yorubaland.The book is significant in many ways: it is a representative example of Ọyọ traditions as they existed at the beginning of this century; it complements Johnson's The History of the Yorubas where both describe the same event; it is very useful for understanding how ‘traditional’ historians study society; and it provides new information on Ọyọ in the nineteenth century and on some cultural features of the Yoruba.

Préliminaires pour une histoire des Sao

Abstract: The identity of the Sao to the south of Lake Chad has remained obscure despite the efforts of archaeologists, ethnographers and historians. To solve the problem, it is necessary to look at the historical circumstances in which they passed into legend as the ancestors of the present occupants of the region, namely the creation of the empire of Borno to the west and south of the lake in place of Kanem to the north-east. The conflicts involved in this creation lasted from the beginning of the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, and produced the main historical references to the Sao apart from oral tradition, always as enemies of the new rulers among the native population. The first applies to the fourteenth century, but all the others are from the contemporary record of the campaigns of Mai Idrīs Alauma by Ibn Furṭū in the sixteenth century, where we learn of the Sao-Gafata in the neighbourhood of the Bornoan capital Gazargamo, and of the Sao-Tatala on the flood-plain southwest of the lake. Elsewhere on the flood-plain, the various peoples are referred to by recognisably modern names: Ngama, Makari, Kotoko. It seems probable that in the work of Ibn Furṭū we find the last use of a term which the incoming Kanembu had originally used to describe all the inhabitants of their new Bornoan dominions, then employed as an adjective for each particular population, until with the suppression of the Sao-Gafata and Sao-Tatala it was abandoned except as the name of a legendary people ancestral to Kanuri and non-Kanuri groups alike. The most probable explanation of the term itself is that it meant ‘city’ or ‘city-dwellers’, describing the inhabitants of the walled villages or towns of the flood-plain as perceived by their conquerors the Sayfuwa rulers of Kanem-Borno at the outset of their imperial adventure.

A Note on Slavery, Seclusion and Agrarian Change in Northern Nigeria

Abstract: For geographers and others working on contemporary development issues in Africa, the historical perspective is of considerable significance. Such topics as the incidence and form of indigenous slavery and slave-trading in pre-colonial times are particularly pertinent to modern-day studies of population and rural development, and work published by historians is read with interest by researchers outside the discipline. Thus, some years ago, discussion was generated between geographers and historians on the impact of slave raiding in Nigeria's ‘Middle Belt’, initially stimulated by a paper in the Journal of African History. As the subsequent debate illustrated, the relationship between modern population density and settlement patterns and pre-colonial slavery is a fascinating one.

Criminality and Conflict in Rural Stellenbosch, South Africa, 1870–1900

Abstract: Local studies are sorely needed in South African historiography in order to illuminate relations between dominators and dominated as the colonial political economy was restructured in the wake of the mineral discoveries of the late nineteenth century. Stellenbosch farmers had to confront, for the first time since emancipation, the implications of the proletarianization of the underclass of the Western Cape. In the context of an expanding economy and diversified labour market, labourers left, or threatened to leave, farm employment. Farmers now recognized that the control and power which they had exercised over labourers was a matter of open conflict. This was a time of depression and uncertainty for farmers who faced competition in their overseas markets, the ruining of their vineyards by phylloxera and what they perceived as insubordination and disloyalty by farm labourers at home. The criminal records of the Resident Magistrate provide the lens through which the article examines the changing dynamics of labour relations on the farms of Stellenbosch district between 1870 and 1900. A comparative perspective helps to inform the analysis of the meaning of theft, arson and assault in rural Stellenbosch. For a time labourers were able to exploit a measure of leverage against the farmers, but this was not to last, and by the early 1900s the tide had again turned in favour of the dominant class.

African Economic History: the first twenty-five years

Abstract: The appearance of a new text on African economic history is important in its own right, and it also provides an occasion to take stock of the academic capital accumulated by a generation of research in this field. In broad terms the subject has followed, and to some extent has helped to mark out, the contours of modern African studies as a whole: the shift from Eurocentric to 'indigenous' points of view, the adoption of 'bourgeois' and then of radical approaches, the geographical migration of scholarly interest from west to east and then to south Africa, and the recent revival of colonial economic history, albeit of a novel kind. Against this background, Ralph Austen has attempted two particularly demanding feats of academic athleticism: the marathon task of encompassing what is now a substantial body of literature, running from the distant time when the Yoruba came, as they say, ' out of a hole in the ground' to the present day; and the high vault of interpreting it. The assessment which follows will focus on Austen's new book, but will also append some broader observations on the future of the subject. Scholars who attempt to synthesize a wide range of material quickly discover that they have a limited number of tools and an infinite array of intractable difficulties. The problem of presentation, for example, invariably involves a choice among imperfect solutions. Austen's solution takes the form of a series of close encounters with the detailed literature. An alternative technique, adopted by Wrigley, relies on high gliding interspersed with occasional swoops to ground level. Wrigley's is the more stylish means of travel for those who have no fear of flying; Austen's committed hand-to-hand combat clears more undergrowth. Indeed, the great strength of this book lies in its careful summaries of numerous, usually self-contained, debates on a range of topics traversing many centuries. Austen's decision to concentrate on sub-Saharan Africa admittedly eases the task of comprehension, but there still remains a weighty body of specialized research published in several languages and scattered, for the most part, in diverse and often obscure journals. The outcome is sometimes a set of long and inconclusive baseline exchanges between liberals and Marxists, but the author proves to be a remarkably even-handed referee, and every page provides evidence that his text is the product of many years of reading and careful reflection. Austen splits his material into ten chapters prefaced by a brief Introduction which sets out the scope, organization and argument of the book. The Introduction prompts two comments (leaving aside the argument itself, which will be considered later). The first comment concerns Austen's use of the contrast between 'market' and 'structural' approaches to refer to liberal and radical perspectives. Readers

The Saro in the political life of early Port Harcourt, 1913–49

Abstract: The western-educated Krio population of Sierra Leone participated in British imperial activity along the West African coast in the nineteenth century. Facing a far more complex ethnic configuration than their counterparts in Yorubaland, the Sierra Leoneans (Saro) in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, acquired much influence through the manipulation of class and ethnic relations. Though most Saro here had a modest education and were working-class, a few came to form the cream of the petty-bourgeoisie and were active in economic life and city administration. Potts-Johnson, arguably their most famous member, developed a flair for operating in his middle-class world, and also in the cultural orbit of the local and immigrant working-class. I. B. Johnson, another prominent Saro, lacked this quality. Though presenting a homogenous ethnic front, celebrated in the Sierra Leone Union and in church activity, Saro society was sharply polarized on class lines, a weakness not to be lost on the numerically superior and ambitious indigenous population. Faced with a choice, the indigenes opted for the avuncular Potts-Johnson, for whom they felt a greater social affinity than for the more distant I. B. Johnson. After Potts-Johnson, however, no Saro was to be allowed scope to develop a similar appeal.

Sex Ratio and Ethnicity: a Reply to Paul E. Lovejoy

Abstract: I feel I should make clear that the ethnicity data in my article were intended only to shed light on the question of sex ratio. They do not provide an accurate reflection of the ethnic make-up of the eighteenth-century French slave trade, nor even of the trade to Saint Domingue. For this reason, I would hesitate to compare them, as Professor Lovejoy does, to Patrick Manning's projections based on decennial samples of plantation papers. The relatively high proportion of Hausa, Nupe and Voltaic slaves that Lovejoy remarks on was caused by the preponderance of post-1780 sources in my sample.