That many studies in African and imperial history neglect women and gender is a commonplace. Using a case-study – the British Cape Colony and its frontier zones – this article attempts to demonstrate some consequences of this neglect. It argues, firstly, that it generates empirical inaccuracies as a result of the insignificance accorded to gender differentiation and to women themselves. Secondly, representations of women as unimportant, and men as ungendered, result in flawed analysis of both men and the colonial encounter. This view is argued in detail for two events: an 1825 slave rebellion and an 1856–7 millenarian movement. The article concludes that if gender and half the adult populace are marginalized in this way, the price is frequently interpretations which have limited purchase on the past.

This article is concerned with the loss of their land to the whites by the September family and their struggle to regain it. Abraham (‘Holbors’) September, an exslave, was a member of the Baster community of the Gordonia settlement (1880–89) where he was the first person to lead water from the Orange River to irrigate land. The article traces the estabishment of the Gordonia settlement and the granting of land in it, and its government as part of British Bechuanaland (1889–95) and the Cape Colony (1895–). It discusses the historiography of the loss of land by Basters to whites, testing explanations of land loss by subsequent historians against written records and oral tradition, with attention to the role of ‘land lawyers’. Abraham September died in 1898. The remainder of the article focuses on the September family as a case-study of land loss. It deals with the administration of his estate – in the course of which his land was ‘sold’ to whites – from the different points of view of the official record and of oral tradition. It then outlines correspondence in the archives from 1920 through to the 1960s protesting against this land alienation as a failure to implement the will of Abraham September and his wife Elizabeth. It concludes with some comments on sources. Is the official record or oral tradition a more accurate reflection of what happened to the land of the September family?

This essay considers the life and career of the leading Mozambican intellectual of the early twentieth century, João dos Santos Albasini (1876–1922). A journalist and political activist, Albasini took advantage of the political space opened by Portugal's First Republic (1910–26) to challenge the articulation of colonial policy with respect to citizenship, land alienation, labor conscription and opportunities for education and economic participation. As a founding member of the Grêmio Africano, a Lourenço Marques social group and political lobby, he helped launch the group's newspapers, O Africano (1908–19) and O Brado Africano (1918–74). With the Grêmio newspapers as his vehicle, he sharply contrasted colonial and Republican ideals with the racism and injustice Mozambicans faced in the colonial capital of Lourenço Marques (today Maputo). The Portuguese deemed Albasini a worthy opponent, in part because of his ability to employ Portugal's most revered cultural symbols with an ironic twist.

The essay considers two sets of questions. The first set relates to the definition and analysis of issues Albasini highlighted and pursued. What was Albasini's political and social vision of possible choices within this seemingly fluid era? How does one recover and interpret Albasini's vision and style? Are their meaning and value to be found within the discourses of class struggle, ethnicity, assimilation and nationalism? To what extent did Albasini's vision shape contestation of political and social policy in colonial Mozambique in the critical first quarter of the twentieth century?

A second set of questions confronts Albasini's place in local society and his legacy. Who comprised the Grêmio Africano? What was it about João dos Santos Albasini that inspired Grêmio members and subsequent generations of Mozambicans to view him as a beacon? What did the rest of the local population think about Albasini, during his lifetime and after? What was his impact, and how did it relate to the broader issues of politics, historical agency and identity in early twentieth-century southern African history?

Although nationalism in Tanzania, as elsewhere in Africa, has been criticized for its shortcomings, and a ‘Dar es Salaam School’ has been charged with succumbing to its ideological biases, few historians have revisited or questioned Tanzania's dominant nationalist narrative – a narrative created over 25 years ago. Biographies written in aid of this narrative depict nationalism in the former Trust Territory of Tanganyika as primarily the work of a few good men, including ‘proto-nationalists’ whose anti-colonial actions set the stage and provided historical continuity for the later western-oriented ideological work of nationalist modernizers.

The life history narratives of women who became activists in the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) in the 1950s disrupt this view of progressive stages toward an emerging nationalist consciousness which reflected and borrowed heavily from western forms and ideals. They suggest that Tanganyikan nationalism was also and significantly the work of thousands of women, whose lives and associations reflected trans-tribal ties and affiliations, and whose work for TANU served to both construct and perform what nationalism came to signify for many Tanzanian women and men. Women activists did not simply respond to TANU's nationalist rhetoric; they shaped, informed and spread a nationalist consciousness for which TANU was the vehicle.

Neither ‘extraordinary’ individuals (the usual subjects of male biography) nor ‘representative’ of ‘ordinary people’ (often the subjects of life histories), TANU women activists' lives reveal the severe limitations of the dichotomous characterizations of traditional biographical forms. Together, their narratives constitute a collective biographical narrative of great significance for our understanding of nationalism and nationalist movement in the former Tanganyika.