It is argued that the Nilotic contribution to Bantu Africa consisted essentially in the infiltration of Early Iron Age communities practising a mainly agricultural economy in certain specially favourable environments by a new mode of food production in which cattle-keeping played an important part. This new way of life made possible the food-producing occupation of the drier parts of Bantu Africa, and the interaction between the new and old kinds of food-producers was the essential feature of the Later Iron Age. Wherever the new elements were present, settlement patterns became more dispersed, iron-working and pottery became the occupations of specialists, systems of inheritance changed from matrilineal to patrilineal forms, and political systems tended to become more centralized through the domination of settled cultivators by more mobile and warlike pastoral elites. Although chronological data for the Later Iron Age is as yet greatly inferior to that for the Early Iron Age, it seems likely that the process of Nilotic infiltration began during the last two or three centuries of the first millennium a.d., and spread southward through the centre of the subcontinent, so as to reach the western parts of Zambia and Zimbabwe by the tenth century. The subsequent interaction between the two kinds of food-production came about more gradually over two or three further centuries, and involved many varieties of local evolution in different areas. In southern Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe the local development of metallurgical techniques during this period was as significant as the introduction of pastoralism. But, overall, the Nilotic contribution provided the most essential features of the Later Iron Age.

Coins and weights provide evidence which can throw light on the origins of the trans-Saharan gold trade. Such a trade does not seem to have existed before the end of the third century a.d., but from 296 to 311 an irregular gold coinage was issued at Carthage, and by the end of the fourth century there were significant changes in the North African tax system to enable more gold to be collected. The solidus, a coin first issued in 312, provided the standard used for weighing gold-dust in the trans-Saharan trade, while copper, a major item of merchandise in that trade, was being imported to Jenne-Jeno by a.d. 400. This strongly suggests that the gold trade first assumed significance in the fourth century. The trade was evidently flourishing before the Arab conquest, for the Byzantine mint of Carthage produced a copious output of gold between 534 and 695. For weighing gold-dust, the standard based on the Roman ounce and the solidus was retained by the Arabs, and survived until the nineteenth century in the Western Sudan. It was also adopted by the Akan of Ghana and Ivory Coast, who made it the basis of their weight-system from about 1400 to 1900.

Until 1471 the Wangara had enjoyed a monopolistic position in the Akan gold trade, consigning bullion to the markets of the Western Sudan (see the first part of this paper). The Portuguese entered the trade in the late fifteenth century, but experienced difficulty in deflecting gold to the coast. The strong demand for labour in the Akan country obliged them to import slaves from other parts of West Africa in order to achieve competitiveness. In 1477 Jenne – the principal northern outlet for Akan gold – fell to the Songhay, and for a time the Wangara were induced to do at least some of their business with the Portuguese. Subsequently the Wangara found markets for their gold as far west as the Gambia river. In the mid-sixteenth century the ruler of Mali, his frontiers crumbling on all sides, made a bid to take control of the Wangara gold trade. His troops occupied Bitu or Bighu, the Wangara entrepot on the edges of the Akan forest country, and he may (just possibly) have ordered an attack on Elmina, the principal Portuguese post on the coast to the south. If there was such a move against Elmina, it certainly failed, and at least some of the troops in Bitu did not return to Mali but set up their own state locally: Gonja. The developing Atlantic economy, built around new supplies of gold and new demands for slaves, eclipsed the older Mediterranean economy of which West Africa had been a geographically peripheral but commercially central part. The decline of Mali, and with it Bitu, was irreversible.

This article provides a synthesis of the various studies which attempt to quantify the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Since the publication of Philip D. Curtin's pioneering estimates in 1969 (The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census), there have been numerous revisions of different sectors of the trade, and some scholars – notably J. E. Inikori and James Rawley – have argued that Curtin's global estimate for imports into the Americas is too low. When the revisions are examined carefully, however, it is apparent that Curtin's initial tabulation was remarkably accurate. The volume of exports from Africa across the Atlantic is here calculated at 11,698,000 slaves, while imports into the Americas and most other parts of the Atlantic basin are estimated to have been 9·8–9·9 million slaves – well within range of Curtin's original Census. Many of the revisions are based on shipping data by national carrier, rather than on series derived from estimated imports into different colonies in the Americas. Hence it is possible to substitute new data for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for many of the import-derived series used by Curtin. The results of these substitutions shift the distribution of slave exports over time but do not affect estimates of the relative scale of the trade by more than 2–3 per cent – hardly significant considering the quality of the data. Inikori and Rawley have failed to distinguish clearly between imports by colony and exports by national carrier; hence their global estimates have resulted in double counting. Further revisions are likely, nonetheless, but until the completion of detailed research comparable to the studies of David Eltis, Roger Anstey, Johannes Postma, and a dozen other scholars it is not possible to estimate the extent of future modifications. In the meantime, the current state of research on the volume of the Atlantic slave trade is summarized in a series of tables which analyse the export trade by time period, national carrier, and coastal origin. It is expected that the present synthesis will challenge historians to examine the impact of the slave trade on different parts of Africa, both to test the regional breakdown of slave exports and to assess the demographic, political, economic and social repercussions on Africa.

In the sixteenth century most iron used in west Africa was produced within the region. Extra demand may have been met from the newly established European factors on the coast. By the end of the nineteenth century, in contrast, it was the residue in demand that was satisfied from local sources, the main bulk of iron being imported via the coast and transported inland. For the larger part of this 400-year period imported iron was cheaper than locally-produced iron. What was remarkable, then, was not that iron smelting eventually died out, but that it survived for so long and could be studied in detail in the second half of the twentieth century.

It is argued that, although the decline can be related to production constraints, such as the availability of charcoal, influences originating from the rest of the community can be seen to have prolonged the survival of local iron. The organization of labour of both the iron-smelting and blacksmithing processes, together with the way in which iron was marketed, are central to the analysis. In addition, consumption factors are of the utmost importance. Apart from the prejudice against innovation, the fact that imported iron was plainly not as suitable as local iron for the purposes to which it was put, weakened its impact. Also the ritual attitude to local iron has to be taken into consideration. The present universality of non-local sources has resulted in a change in the regard paid to the metal, but it is argued that the position of the smith is unlikely to alter significantly, since it is more related to his crucial role as supplier of tools for other essential activities such as farming, than to the production of iron itself.

This paper has sought to examine the basis of capital accumulation in the Natal sugar industry from its beginnings in the late 1840s until the opening of Zululand for white settlement in 1905. It has traced the emergence of plantation production in the colony in the context of developments within the regional sugar market and the shifting patterns of the international trade. It has also sought to elucidate the weaknesses of this system which undermined and finally destroyed it in an extended crisis which lasted from the late 1860s until the turn of the century. Finally it has analysed the productive relations which emerged within this reconstructed industry, identifying the large units of production known as the miller-cum-planter concerns which combined central milling activities and extended areas of cane production in a form of monopolistic control which still profoundly affects the industry today.

Within twelve years of the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 the Transvaal was producing over one quarter of the world's annual output of gold. The Transvaal's emergence as a major gold producer took place at a time when global monetary relations were dominated by the operations of the gold standard. This article illustrates the impact of the Witwatersrand discoveries on the working of the international gold standard to 1914 and suggests that newly mined gold from South Africa eased international liquidity problems by facilitating an expansion of the gold base and money supplies without the dangers of inflation. Transvaal gold was shipped to London and sold in the City's bullion market. The establishment by South African mining companies of a complex London network of brokerage, insurance, refining and marketing facilities of gold is considered in detail. It is demonstrated that, when faced with a fixed price of gold and rising working costs on the Rand, the mining industry actively sought to minimize the marketing costs of gold in London to offset general cost inflation and to increase revenue. Finally, at the turn of the century, the Bank of England still occupied a hegemonic position in the international financial system, although, as this article shows, this hegemony was subject to periodic financial crises such as the collapse of Barings in 1890. The Bank‘s problems were thought to stem from a severe shortage of gold reserves. Recently, it has been argued that by the late 1890s British politicians and financiers encouraged the overthrow of the Kruger regime in the Transvaal in order to gain physical control over the Rand mines and thereby ease the Bank's shortages of gold. However, there are problems with this formulation and the article concludes with an alternative consideration of the complex relationship between the supplies of newly mined Transvaal gold, the international gold standard and the Bank of England's financial crises.