The results of recent archaeological research in the Upper Nile basin are summarized and placed within the context of the anthropological-historical debate concerning the origins of the Nuer, Dinka and Atuot as distinct ethnic groupings. The archaeological evidence demonstrates a considerable antiquity for cattle-keeping in the region, the existence of what appears to be a very widespread cultural tradition in the late first millennium a.d. characterized by a distinctive form of burial, and a hiatus in settlement in the area east of Rumbek early in the present millennium, possibly around the time when humped cattle were introduced further north. The implications of these data for the explanation of the origins of the Luo migrations are discussed.

This article seeks to illuminate some important themes in nineteenth-century South African history by examining the fate of a small chiefdom of difaqane refugees who settled in 1833 just north of the Orange River under the patronage of a French Protestant missionary. It situates the history of the Tlhaping of Bethulie against the background of the expansion of white settlement north of the Orange River and the development of colonial capitalism in the larger region. The processes of white state formation north of the Orange in the middle years of the century, especially the seminal role of British intervention during the period of the Orange River Sovereignty, are examined. The corresponding rise of white elites and the varied primitive forms of capital accumulation employed by the emerging Boer notables are investigated. The article then seeks to provide a concrete study of these themes in a local setting. These encircling developments provided the context for the rising tensions and conflicts at the Bethulie mission station and in the Tlhaping community in the 1850s. The gradual alienation of the Bethulie lands to private ownership eventually led to the destruction of the territory and the break-up of the community. These processes are examined within the context of the rise of local Boer notables and the nature of state structures in the Orange Free State Republic established in 1854. In the end those who orchestrated and benefited from the dismemberment of the Bethulie territory were those who controlled the instruments of patronage and power in the local Boer state.

This article reassesses Sir William Mackinnon's role in the evolution of Victorian imperialism in Eastern Africa. It rejects the view that Mackinnon's activities in Eastern Africa were motivated by a desire for self-glorification and attempts, by contrast, to demonstrate the relevance of business considerations. A search for shipping subsidies and railway guarantees, spreading out from British India, accompanied the Mackinnon Group's development of steamshipping and mercantile interests in Africa, in support of investments in the Persian Gulf and western India. Promotion of these interests drew Mackinnon into schemes to lease the Sultan of Zanzibar's mainland territories and to consolidate British rule in the Transvaal by the construction of a railway from Delagoa Bay. During the 1880s the Group's shipping and commercial operations were threatened by the rise of foreign competition. Behind the formation of the Imperial British East Africa Company lay the hopes of Mackinnon and his business associates that public funds could be attracted to the defence of the Group's interests in Eastern Africa and to the reconstruction of its shipping services in the western Indian Ocean.

Existing works on the colonial history of Northern Nigeria are generally agreed that the emirs who reigned during the colonial era were selected by traditional methods, that is to say, by kingmakers. This article attempts to show that in the case of Sokoto Province the emirs who were appointed during the period 1903–30, though they had traditional claims to their position, were chosen by the British and not by the kingmakers. It is suggested that during this period the British were so pre-occupied with the security of their rule that they would not leave the important function of selecting emirs to the kingmakers whom they still suspected could select anti-British princes as emirs. It is argued that this policy was largely dictated by the Administration's fear of Mahdism which, up to the end of the 1920s was seen as a real danger to British rule. Thus only overtly loyal princes were elevated to emirships, regardless of whether they had the kingmakers' support or not. The British were able to do this without causing serious political unrest because the emirates were basically ‘competitive monarchies’ which left the British room for manipulation. Finally, the article suggests that, as a result of increased confidence in the security of their rule and owing to the fact that unpopular chiefs had proved to be a liability to the government, in the early 1930s the British restored the kingmakers' right to elect emirs without overdue interference by administrative officers.

The notion of capitalist relations in Ghanaian cocoa-farming is familiar, yet their development has been relatively little studied. In Amansie district, Asante, capitalist relations of production developed as a result rather than as a cause of the cocoa ‘take-off’, c. 1900–16. This paper examines their emergence, which occurred largely during the subsequent period of much slower growth and generally lower prices. The introduction and spread of regular wage-labour, the widening and deepening burden of rent on ‘stranger’ cocoa farms, the proliferation of ‘advances’, and the introduction of farm mortgaging are described, together with the accompanying decline of slavery, pawning, and other non-wage forms of labour. Colonial officials ineffectually deplored the growth of money-lending and, to a lesser extent, that of wage-labour. From the mid-1930s, however, the tendency towards greater separation of labour from control of the farm was partly reversed by a new insistence by northern labourers on the replacement of annual wage contracts by a managerial form of share-cropping. This demand was sustained against the opposition of farmowners and despite persistent unemployment, an achievement made possible by the migrants continued foothold in subsistence agriculture in their home areas. This case of migrant labourers successfully challenging the extension of wage relations raises questions concerning the relationships between commercial agriculture and ‘precapitalist’ social relations of production in Africa generally.