This review is a further development in the Journal of African History series of archaeological surveys away from the earlier radiocarbon date lists and towards regional examinations of recent archaeological evidence on food-producing societies. It is divided into two sections that examine respectively ‘Stone Age’ pastoralists in the drier west and ‘Iron Age’ agriculturalists in the better-watered east. Relations between food producers and hunter-gatherers are examined, particularly in the west, where it is becoming increasingly difficult to make meaningful distinctions between them in view of the variety of changes that took place roughly contemporaneously in both with the introduction of domestic stock. Several local sequences are beginning to suggest that socio-economic change took place within the framework of the local community rather than by the stereotypic, ethnic replacement model where Khoi succeeds San.

There is much new evidence on communities with an agricultural economic base. The earliest evidence is examined from southern Mozambique and the Transvaal, including traces of first-millennium mercantile trade and its regional antecedents. There are contradictions between different models proposed to explain interactions with residual hunter-gatherer communities and with the natural environment. A major theme of recent studies has been the development and use of models derived from structuralist analysis of the classic ethnography of the region. Such models have given a new understanding of settlement patterns but in several respects are still the subject of controversy.

Queen Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba has recently been viewed as a usurper of the throne, largely because some contemporary documents describe her as such. But the issue of legitimacy to rule in Ndongo was a complex one, based not on a fixed constitution but a set of contradictory historical precedents which were cited to establish authority. Njinga managed to find such precedents to support her claims, which were further reinforced by her control of the chief military officials of the country. In so doing, she was able to establish her legitimacy and even became a precedent for female rule in the years that followed her death.

During the inter-war years, there were frequent reports of desertion, youth labour and atrocious conditions on the sugar estates of Natal, South Africa. Sugar production, assisted by heavy state protection, was expanding rapidly; planters recruited vigorously amongst rural Africans in Transkei to replace Indian indentured workers. They also used their political muscle in order to prevent the extension of labour regulations in the mining industry to the sugar fields and could thus employ workers rejected from the mines on health grounds as well as youths. The conflict between mines and agriculture over labour in South Africa was resolved by non-regulation of agriculture as well as by the immobilization of labour tenants on farms. Officials in the departments of Health and Native Affairs, anxious to control social disruption and minimize fatalities, tried to regulate the sugar estates. The issue divided the state and the Native Affairs Department.itself. Agrarian interests, including English-speaking planters, became particularly powerful in the inter-war years, and officials had little success in controlling them.

But African youth labour was available not simply because there was a large demand, but also because there was a supply. Youths had to work in peasant communities. Although their work was embedded in a different social ethic, there is evidence to suggest that demands on them were increasing; some ‘ran away’ to the sugar fields. Chiefs and councillors wished to control youth and child migration both because of fears about their welfare and the need for herdboys. This pattern of migration became less common in the 1940s not only because production patterns on the estates changed, but also because of social changes in the rural areas. As in other contexts, the nature of the South African labour market was partly shaped through a process of struggle within and by rural communities.

This essay outlines a general framework for thinking about African ideas about proprietary rights and considers how this might produce insights into ideas about social relations.

Drawing largely on examples from East and Central Africa, and on an analysis of property disputes pursued to the Natal Native High Court, it is suggested that the development of a customary law came first to the ‘law of persons’ and then to the ‘law of property’. Ideas and disputes relating to land and to other forms of ‘old’ and ‘new’ property are all examined. Ideas about what were and were not commodities, and about different ways of dealing with kin and with strangers, are shown to be fundamental to the understanding of disputing behaviours and the meaning of customary norms. Disputes were not simply about ownership and value but about the changing boundaries of commodity status. Ideas about appropriate behaviour regarding the transactional order between kin concerning ‘old’ property (food and cattle) extended into the dealings between strangers about ‘new’ property (acquired with money through the market), whilst the ideas and practices of the market economy had a significant effect on the way ‘old’ property was dealt with among kin. The development of the customary law related to property also has a particular relevance in understanding generational conflict in Africa.

It is argued that customary law was formed in the process of a dialogue between rulers and ruled during the colonial period. The colonial state impeded the development of individual tenure by the ‘invention’ of communal tenure but was ambivalent in response to attempts by younger men, and by women, to separate estates from the control of older males.

This article explores the dreams recorded by Ruben Um Nyobe in 1958, shortly before his death during the struggle which the Union des Populations du Cameroun waged against the terms which the French and their local allies sought to impose on Camerounese independence. The struggle should not be categorized in the inflationary rhetoric of African ‘revolutions’. Rather, it should be viewed as a movement of resistance and assertion within the colonial arena, where European authorities controlled certain strategic points while African communities maintained predominance at other locations. In this connection it is important to understand the importance which African communities in southern Cameroun attached to the world of the invisible and the ‘economy of the night’. It was in the invisible world that Africans, and especially those who were considered to be leaders and therapists in their societies, had sought to manipulate the ‘economy of the day’ and the strategic points controlled by the colonial economy and administration since the late 19th century. In this context, the dreams and annotations of Um Nyobe become significant, not as an expression of sexual preoccupations or the residual psychological orientations of his society, but as historical evidence: signs and statements of his effort to control the day, direct the struggle, and bring healing to his community, and acts of political as well as cultural significance. The colonial regime framed and affected the lives of its subjects, even to the point of consciousness and dreams, but at the same time the subjects fashioned their own space, refashioned their institutions, reinterpreted the actions of the regime and continually undermined its authority.