The purpose of this conference was to discuss the present state of research on human migration and to suggest the most immediate needs for studies facilitating research and for substantive investigations, all with special reference to Africa. The following participants met for two days in Evanston, Illinois: Lyle W. Shannon, of the Sociology Department of the State University of Iowa, has completed a study of in-migration of Mexican-Americans, southern whites, and Negroes to Racine, Wisconsin, and is concerned with the functions of gatekeepers, prevailing opportunities, and experiences of change in the absorption and integration of migrants into their new community. Leonard Doob of the Psychology Department of Yale University has done work with a scale of opinions and values which has been tested with five African tribes; he is particularly concerned with acculturation and imagery as well as temporal orientation and selective migration. Edward Soja from the Geography Department at Northwestern University has been working on Kenya, mapping intranational patterns of migration, and testing the theory that clashes of cultures generate differentiation. Hans Panofsky, Curator of the African Library at Northwestern University Library, has been concerned with the economic aspects of labor migration in Ghana and bibliographically with the whole of Africa. Louise Holborn, of the Political Science Department of Radcliffe College, has been working with the refugee problem, UN resettlement projects, and international migration. Leo F. Schnore, sociologist from the University of Wisconsin, has been doing research on population redistribution and residential mobility in the United States. Francis Hsu of the Anthropology Department of Northwestern University and Duane Marble of the Geography Department were with the group briefly. Marilyn Tschanner and Roland Eves served as rapporteurs. Chairman was Franklin D. Scott of the History Department of Northwestern, who has worked on migration in general and especially on Scandinavian migration and cultural interchange.

During the summer of 1966 this writer had the opportunity to investigate the archival holdings of four European Protestant missionary societies. The purpose of this investigation was to gather information on Protestant missionary influence on the development of the Merina Kingdom of Madagascar. During the course of this research I found that these archival holdings were not only a necessary source for my limited study. The information contained in these depositories was also a valuable source of intelligence on almost every aspect of life and labor in Africa from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Unfortunately, these sources have not been used as extensively as they might be. In part, this is due to the limited scope of much of the missionary correspondence, and the awesome task of extracting what the secular historian would consider relevant from the writings of individuals whose dominant concerns were theological and often polemic.

Another, partial, explanation for the neglect of these sources --if one can use such a strong term -- stems from the general lack of information concerning these holdings and their availability to scholars. Although the most frequent users of the mission archives are missionaries themselves and church historians, the secular scholar is generally welcomed and eagerly aided by the professional staffs of the various institutions noted below. It is the intention of this brief article to indicate the location, facilities, and holdings of those four missionary archives which were used by this writer, and to furnish general information regarding other missionary organizations and depositories useful for the researcher.

In the early years of decolonization, following North African, Sudanese, and Ghanaian independence, the new African governments seemed to have an encouraging stability and set off on democratic and constitutional paths which gave evidence of promising well for the future. The turmoil which developed in the Congo immediately after independence stood out in contrast to the relative solidity of other states and found its explanation primarily in the shortcomings of the kind of rule which Belgium had imposed. Elsewhere the nationalist leaders who had led the struggle for freedom from alien domination continued in power and enhanced the sense that the new Africa was making headway.

More recently, things fall apart. Mutinies, assassinations, coups and attempted coups, and military takeovers have shaken confidence in Africa's ability to make speedy and consistent progress toward the goal it has set itself. It seemed at first as if the transition from colonialism to independence, from older worlds to modernity, might be an easier process than was feared by the pessimists, among whom, on the whole, I would number myself. Where does one have to look to find the reasons for the interruptions in the advance, or at all events for the change in direction, of so many African states? A fruitful field of inquiry, I am sure, is an examination of some of the problems confronting the new governments which were the successors to the colonial regimes in Africa, and the conditions under which they entered the world and must carry on their business. If I may give away my theme at the start, it would be essentially that governments have in a variety of ways been overloaded and unable to carry the burdens which they have assumed and which they have had thrust upon them.

This report covers the teaching of African languages in American universities and by the United States Government since September, 1961. It is based on 100 percent response to a questionnaire circulated in the spring of 1966. Data are for languages actually taken for credit, not for those that were offered but did not materialize, or that were taken on an informal basis.

The principal facts about university programs are summarized in the accompanying graph. The number of student-semester-hours is shown as a solid line, the number of schools as a broken line, and the number of different languages as a dotted line.

The most obvious trend is, of course, rapid growth. The number of schools that teach African languages and the number of languages taught have more than doubled in five years, and the number of student-semester-hours has increased nearly sevenfold. Another major trend is toward maturity. The ratio of languages to schools has remained nearly constant at about 1.4, while the number of student-semester-hours per language has risen from 57 in 1961 to 172 in 1965. The increase in number of schools and number of languages seems to be leveling off, but the number of student-semester-hours is rising at an increasing rate.

When Lovanium University was founded in October, 1954, only 10 students registered for the Department of Education. Within twelve years, 43 students graduated either in Psychology or in Education, and 54 others obtained a Diploma in Education. During the academic year 1966-1967, there were about 200 students in the Department. These are tangible results. Young people have been prepared to serve their countries in the field of education and teaching, a field which is very important in a developing country.

From the beginning the main objective of the Department has been to adapt a specifically African programme and training. The increasing success known by this Department, especially since 1963-1964, shows that it really meets the needs of a young Republic which is constantly searching for qualified African professors for secondary schools and training colleges as well as school inspectors and competent counsellors in education. The psychologists also face a very big task. Centres for school orientation and selection, as well as for vocational selection and orientation, are in bad need of qualified staff to create new centres or to extend the ones already existing.

The following documents are part of a collection of ephemeral materials published by nationalist movements of Portuguese Africa. During the past five years I have been gathering these materials in order to have them microfilmed and placed on deposit in the library of the Hoover Institution on War, Peace, and Revolution, Stanford University, where they will be available for use by interested scholars. A related objective is to translate to English the most important of these documents, edit them, and add relevant notes along with a full bibliography on each Portuguese African territory; this project is nearing completion and should be published in book form in 1967. I am grateful to the many African specialists who have assisted me on the documents collection, and it is my hope that other specialists who have documents not included in the listings below will send me photocopies or duplicates, for which I can pay expenses incurred.

This report is the result of discussions and recommendations of the Archaeology Committee of the African Studies Association, which met in Chicago early in April, 1966. African archaeology is at present an international discipline producing close collaboration among scientists from different countries, and the future of archaeological research in the continent can best be viewed as an international exercise in which American palaeo-anthropologists are beginning to play an increasingly important part. These brief notes attempt to synthesize the present position in African prehistoric studies, to show the general direction in which these are being developed, and to indicate immediate priorities in basic research and training.

The 1965 Wenner-Gren Conference on African archaeology and evolutionary studies showed that palaeo-anthropology and the closely associated studies of stratigraphers and palaeontologists are now entering upon a new stage of precision in analysis, dating, and interpretation. It emphasized the absolute necessity for new basic research to be undertaken, organized as a series of team projects.

New discoveries have resulted in revised concepts of the origin and evolution of animal species, vegetation patterns, landscape features, and of man himself and his culture. This more precise knowledge has underlined the need above all to review the revised dating of human and cultural evolution in the light of the geophysical methods that now provide an absolute time scale. This is equally as applicable to archaeologists and ethnohistorians concerned with later prehistoric times as it is to those dealing with the study of early man.

This conference was held at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, December 8 to 10, 1966, under the cochairmanship of Professor Frank Willett (Northwestern University) and Dr. Brian M. Fagan (University of Illinois). Thirteen persons in some way associated with Iron Age archaeology were official participants, and there were six observers who also contributed to the discussions. The names of these participants are listed at the end of this article. Their primary concern was with the archaeology of Africa since the origins of food production, with special reference to the Iron Age.

As a guideline the participants were given brief reports on four recent conferences which had touched on the problems of African Iron Age archaeology. Terminology and research needs, primarily for the Stone Age, were topics at the Wenner Gren Symposium on the African Quaternary held at Burg Wartenstein, Austria, in July, 1965. The results of this symposium were reviewed at the meeting of West African archaeologists in Sierra Leone during June, 1966. This meeting also expressed concern at the shortage of manpower and resources in West African archaeology, especially in the French-speaking territories, and training facilities and other terminological problems were also discussed. The difficulties of communication and training, especially in related disciplines, were discussed by a group attending an ARC meeting on the African Arts in March, 1966.

In July-August, 1964 at Lagos, 28 countries participated in a UNESCO -United Nations Economic Commission for Africa-sponsored “International Conference on the Organization of Research and Training in Africa in Relation to the Study, Conservation, and Utilization of Natural Resources.” The following is from a resolution of that conference:

Conscious of the importance of natural resources to the national heritage of each country … Considering that development and social progress depend upon the wise exploitation of these resources … Proclaims … that extension of scientific and technical research on natural resources constitutes a factor essential to such development … Recommends that governments should devote continued and very large-scale efforts to the promotion of science and technical research….

This recognition by governments of the need to increase scientific research programs, of their responsibility for the organization of scientific research, and of the need to establish a balance between fundamental and applied research implies a previous or existing situation with a different approach which should be examined and also indicates a necessity for changes in outlook, the results of which can be followed for years to come.

The Research Liaison Committee of the African Studies Association has compiled A Directory of Studies Centers and Research Institutes Abroad engaged in Africa-oriented research. The Directory is available by individual countries or in its entirety by writing to the RLC office.

Professors Igor Kopytoff, Vernon McKay, and Benjamin Rivlin are the 1967 liaison representatives of the Association. Each has visited African universities, research institutes, and government offices during the past few months to collect information on research in progress and on the perspectives and problems of field research in the countries of Africa.

The 1968 liaison representatives have been appointed by the Association's president, William A. Hance. Professors Robert A. Lystad and Robert L. West have joined the RLC and will be traveling to Africa during the summer, 1968.

A request to scholars recently returned or going to Africa. The RLC would welcome the following information: 1. Data on research project, including title of project, discipline or disciplines reflected, financial sponsorship, home institution, academic advisor, institutional affiliation in Africa, date of departure and expected duration of stay in Africa; 2. A brief report on living conditions, actual cost in relation to anticipated cost, field problems, and any other information with would be of assistance to those planning fieldwork in Africa.

The growth of the study of the history of Africa south of the Sahara is an interesting example of contemporary intellectual developments. Until the mid-1950's African history was ignored by the historical profession in the United States even more completely than in Europe; and if an American historian had paused to consider why this was so, he would probably have anticipated Trevor-Roper's well-known verdict that the history of sub-Saharan Africa is undiscoverable (on the ground that it is not documented) and that, even if it were discoverable, it would be devoid of intellectual significance (on the ground that traditional African societies were barbarous and static). No professor with tenure at an American university was designated as a historian of sub-Saharan Africa; American publishers had produced very few books or articles dealing with African history, and Americans generally knew scarcely anything about it.

There were, however, several pioneer activities which were on the periphery of African history. At Howard University there were long-established courses on Negro history, inspired by W. E. B. DuBois and Carter Woodson, which included some West African material, but the American historical establishment paid little attention to this work. William L. Hansberry, who lectured on precolonial African history for some years, was never given tenure by the Howard authorities and was eventually excluded from the faculty. At Northwestern University, Melville Herskovits founded a program of African Studies in 1947. He invited historians to attend the seminars conducted under the program, and he himself published a book on the kingdom of Dahomey and was interested in questions of change as well as structure in African societies. Nevertheless, Herskovits was by training and status an anthropologist, and the history department at Northwestern did not provide lecture courses or seminars on African history before 1958.

Anthropologists in the United States came relatively late to a concern with Africa. It was through the study of American Indians that anthropology developed in this country. This orientation was specified long before the discipline was a recognized academic subject. Thomas Jefferson recommended the study of Indian customs and languages, and through this study a reconstruction of Indian history. Albert Gallatin in the 1830's began to give to this goal the vigor he also gave to public life. Many others, whose reputations are associated with other fields, were “intelligent dabblers” (e.g. Henry Thoreau; cf. Lawrence Willson, “Thoreau: Student of Anthropology,” American Anthropologist, LXI, no. 2 [April 1959]).

The European-derived populations of the United States and of South Africa have comparable situations in that each has in its own back yard, so to speak, a number of “laboratories” for the study of societies and cultures other than their own. Anthropology in each country has developed in relation to these opportunities and challenges, but in South Africa it came at a very much later period.

Americans were, in fact, among the catalysts of the development of anthropological thought in the nineteenth century, but they were scarcely cognizant of Africa. Insofar as African ethnography was developed in the nineteenth century, it was done by Europeans. The commercial, colonial, and missionary interest of European countries helped to direct the attention of anthropologists in those countries toward Africa, but also of course to Asia, Oceania, and elsewhere. In toto, Africa was less cultivated at that period than were other major areas.

I was in the Netherlands between November 1, 1966 and May 15, 1967, investigating the manuscripts concerned with the Dutch presence on the Gold Coast. My work involved research into the political and social influences of the Dutch at Elmina during the first half of the eighteenth century. Patricia Carson's book, Materials for West African History in the Archives of Belgium and Holland, served as an initial basis for my research; this article is primarily intended to supplement her citations.

Miss Carson's guide has provided students of West African history with an initial indication of the vast amount of manuscript material existing in the Netherlands. I would, therefore, like first to pay tribute to Miss Carson for the magnitude of her effort and the strength of her trailblazing work. Her guide to the manuscript materials in the Netherlands is accurate and displays a great amount of painstaking effort on her part. The fact that I am able to supplement her book, I believe, is based on my growing knowledge of the Archives of the Second West India Company and the Archives of the Netherlands Settlements on the Guinea Coast. I also had the good fortune in that the staff of the Algemeen Rijksarchief was most helpful in suggesting inventories of which Miss Carson may not have been aware or which she might have missed. In addition, I was able to check other manuscript repositories, one or two of which yielded useful citations.

This review continues the series published in previous issues of the African Studies Bulletin and which among them supplement the fourth edition of the writer's Guide to South African Reference Books (Balkema, 1965). Works published in 1965 which reached the writer too late for inclusion in the 1965 survey are also noted. Prices, where available, are given in South African rands (R1 = 1.4 U.S. dollars).

A major new atlas has been produced by the Government's Department of Planning. This Development Atlas (Government Printer, 1966, R14-90for binder and parts published to date) is loose-leaf in form and is issued in sections. Complemented by a brief but factual text, it covers such topics as physical features, administration, water resources, minerals, and mines.

The final two parts of the Africa Maps and Statistics (Africa Institute, 1962-1965) were issued in 1965. These were No. 9: Trade, Income and Aid; and No. 10: Political Development. The original plan was to publish 12 parts, but the series has been completed in 10. This publication, in loose-leaf form, will be revised in the future.

The Research Liaison Committee was established under the auspices of the African Studies Association. It is supported by a Ford Foundation grant following the Ford-sponsored ASA exploratory mission to Africa. This mission examined opportunities for new ways in which to increase cooperation between U.S. scholars concerned with Africa and individuals and academic institutions based in Africa.

Scholars from the United States constitute the largest single national group engaged in African research. In the past the responsibility for establishing friendly relations with our colleagues in Africa has been assumed by the individual scholar. However, it becomes increasingly apparent that cooperation with Africanists in Africa itself will be of the greatest importance to future research, and that the Association can play a useful liaison role in establishing this cooperation.

To facilitate communication, the Research Liaison Committee is collecting information and identifying sources of information for scholars and students proposing research in African Studies. The Committee has established an office in New York at the same address as the Association's offices and under the direction of William O. Brown, with Shirley K. Fischer as Administrative Secretary. Its objectives are first, to develop and strengthen relations among scholars concerned with Africa; and second, to maintain liaison with research institutions in Africa through visits to Africa by members of the Committee.