In late medieval and early modern times West Africa was one of the principal suppliers of gold to the world bullion market. In this context the Matter of Bitu is one of much importance. Bitu lay on the frontiers of the Malian world and was one of its most flourishing gold marts. So much is clear from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writings, both African and European. A review of this body of evidence indicates that the gold trade at Bitu was controlled by the Wangara, who played a central role in organizing trade between the Akan goldfields and the towns of the Western Sudan. It is shown that Bitu cannot be other than Bighu (Begho, Bew, etc.), the abandoned Wangara town lying on the northwestern fringes of the Akan forest country, which is known (from excavation) to have flourished in the relevant period. In the late fifteenth century the Portuguese established posts on the southern shores of the Akan country, so challenging the monopolistic position which the Wangara had hitherto enjoyed in the gold trade. The Portuguese sent envoys to Mali, presumably to negotiate trade agreements. The bid was apparently unsuccessful. The struggle for the Akan trade in the sixteenth century between Portuguese and Malian interests will be treated in the second part of this paper.

Peoples create their own histories by making choices within a framework of opportunities and constraints. In the historical interaction of small groups within a larger state and social formation, the context of constraints and opportunities changes over time, as do the choices and actions of the smaller groups. Such socio-ethnic historical processes must thus be analyzed both diachronically and dialectically.

This comparative study examines the actions of two small groups, the Beta Israel and Kemant, during three phases of Ethiopian history: the centralizing state to 1632; the urban-centered state, 1632–1755; and the regionalized but re-centralizing state, 1755–1900. In contrast to the assumptions of traditional Ethiopian historiography in which small groups were only objects of conquest and inevitable assimilation, this paper demonstrates the construction and reconstruction of group identities during several hundred years extending into the twentieth century.

The compound system that was to become a striking feature of most mining enterprises in Southern and Central Africa was first introduced in the diamond mines at Kimberley. In the period of open mining (1871–1884), Africans lived in open compounds, which gave them the freedom to spend their leisure time where they pleased. In the period of underground mining (beginning in 1885), Africans were isolated from the surrounding town in closed compounds. The closed compounds of the De Beers Consolidated Company were soon regarded as models of social welfare and aspects of their system were copied at other mining centres in Africa. However, this article questions this model for the period before 1903, when there was a complete reconstruction of the compound system and a great improvement in living conditions. Before 1903 the health and mortality record of Kimberley's closed compounds was as bad, in some cases worse, than its imitators to the north in a comparable period of development. In the period of open mining African miners died of sanitation-related diseases. However, when they were forced to live in closed compounds, lung diseases, and in particular pneumonia, which was directly attributable to overcrowded accommodation, poor diet and inadequate protection against major changes in temperature, became the greatest killer on the diamond fields. It is argued here that closed compounds were more models of labour control than of social welfare before 1903. The role and functions of the De Beers convict station are compared with the advantages mining companies derived from closed compounds. Managerial ideology about compound philanthropy is called in question, and it is shown how the closed compound system contributed towards the creation of a disciplined work force, part of which was permanently resident in Kimberley.

The article discusses the contacts between the proto-nationalist Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Society and left-wing and Communist organizations in Europe and in Britain during the 1930s. The Society represented the interests of chiefs, merchants and barristers who found their political and economic positions threatened by the depression and by the tightening up of colonial rule. The Society reacted by petitioning the British Government for greater political representation and for redress of specific grievances. Left-wing groups in Europe at first regarded the Society as a popular nationalist body and offered it support. The Profintern attempted to influence it, while organizations such as the League Against Imperialism helped the Society in its petitions to the Colonial Office and to the House of Commons. But the narrow social base of the Society made it deaf to a radical socialist programme, and incapable of organizing a mass movement which could effectively pressure the British Government.

Trading in ivory occurred early in the nineteenth century in the south-eastern region of the Victoria Nyanza. An examination of Kerebe oral tradition partially reveals the extent of African initiative in the early period of the trade. With the arrival of coastal traders, African initiative was diminished, except for outstanding leaders like Mirambo of Unyamwezi and Mutesa of Buganda. Their activities restricted the traders. Mirambo's control over the Unyanyembe–Karagwe route forced both Mutesa and the merchants to make full use of the lake for transporting goods from about 1878 to 1889. Before this time, the lake was only occasionally used for transporting ivory. Canoes provided the chief mode of transport during this period, though these were supplemented by two dhows. The lack of dhows does not reflect the lack of trade on the lake, but rather the extent of reliance upon Ganda assistance in carrying on the trade. With the Ganda in large numbers in the southern lake region for commercial reasons, the people there fell within Buganda's sphere of intervention. The Sukuma chiefdoms did not rely on Ganda military power to settle local quarrels, and thereby avoided the destruction that occurred in Buzinza. Internal factors in Buganda, however, weakened their control of the southern lake region even before the arrival of the Germans.

This paper explores the notion of fractals – structures that display a similar degree of complexity at whatever scale they may be viewed – in relation to investigating African history. A case study of developing ethnicities in the Mambila region of the Nigeria–Cameroon borderland is presented from a fractal perspective: five levels of the history of this region, covering different time, population and physical scales, as well as different objects of explanation for each, are explored. Our general conclusion is that the different scales, or levels, at which one may view history may contain features or imply generalizations that mask features found in, or generalizations implied by, other levels.

The purpose of this article is to attempt to clarify some of the outstanding controversies in the historical and ethnographic literature on southern Mozambique. It contends that by the eighteenth century, three distinct ethnic groups— the Tsonga, Chopi, and Tonga—lived in the area. It seeks to demonstrate how and why these groups differed from each other, and how these differences affected the ethnographic map. It argues that state formation among the Tsonga began at an early date, largely because of influences emanating from the adjacent western plateau regions of south-central Africa. Most of the neighbouring Tonga peoples, however, were shielded from these influences, and did not evolve political units larger than the village authority. The exception to this generalization occurred in the south of the Tonga-speaking region, where peoples were subject to an invasion by groups of Shona origin. The resultant differences between the two Tonga-speaking groups were to be of extreme importance when both subsequently would be invaded by peoples of Tsonga origin. In the south the arrival of Tsonga speakers resulted in the formation of the Chopi; in the north Tsonga speakers absorbed and assimilated the Tonga, who might have disappeared as a distinct cultural entity had other factors not intervened before the process had been completed.

This article begins with a quotation from a local informant highlighting a perception in the Gambia/Casamance borderlands that there is a pattern linking the violence of the later nineteenth century with more recent troubles. It argues that there is some merit in this thesis, which is encapsulated in a concatenation of events: systematic raiding by Fodé Sylla led to the creation of a relatively depopulated colonial border zone which was later filled by Jola immigrants from Buluf to the southeast. In the perception of some, it is these immigrants who attracted the MFDC rebels. Mandinkas and Jolas of Fogny Jabankunda and Narang, and Karoninkas from the islands of Karone have therefore been largely unreceptive to appeals to Casamance nationalism. The article also argues that there are more twisted historical connections. Whereas in the later nineteenth century, the Jolas associated Islam with violent enslavement, they later converted en masse. Their attitude towards Fodé Sylla remained negative, whilst the Mauritanian marabout, Cheikh Mahfoudz, was credited with the introduction of a pacific form of Islam that valorized hard work and legitimated physical migration. This legacy has posed a further barrier to militant nationalism. Islam and violence remain linked, but the signs have been reversed.

This article explores the different trajectories of advertising for schnapps gin and beer in Ghana and Nigeria during the period of decolonisation and independence up to 1975. It analyses published newspaper advertisements alongside correspondence, advertising briefs, and market research reports found in business archives. Advertising that promoted a ‘modern’ life-style worked for beer, but not for gin. This study shows how advertisements became the product of negotiations between foreign companies, local businesses, and consumers. It provides insights into the development of advertising in West Africa, the differing ways in which African consumers attached meanings to specific commodities, and possibilities for the use of advertisements as sources for African history.

The Benin kingdom did not come into the British official reckoning until well into the second half of the nineteenth century, despite the fact that various European nations had been engaged in commercial contact with Benin for four centuries. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, however, Benin City fell to British troops after a dramatic build-up of rapidly succeeding events culminating in the punitive expedition of February 1897. These events, as the evidence in this article reveals, were prompted by economic rather than humanitarian considerations.

The Benin kingdom fell mainly because, in an age when the traders and the British consular officials had reasons impelling them to penetrate into the hinterland, Oba Ovonramwen was clinging to traditional policies of economic exclusiveness and monopolistic practices which inflicted economic losses on the revenues of the individual traders, the Itsekiri middlemen and the Niger Coast Protectorate government.

The increasing fear of concerted European designs on his kingdom further strengthened the Oba's adherence to his closed-door policy, which in turn increased the consul' determination to bring him under their economic and political control. This situation precipitated the events which culminated in the capture of Benin City by British forces in February 1897.

As with other powerful African rulers in the Niger Delta and on the West African Coast, the British had to settle accounts with the Oba of Benin, who had to be reconciled with the developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The fall of Benin cannot therefore be rightly divorced from the general British economic imperialism on the Niger Coast during the second half of the nineteenth century.

The conventional view of the Moroccan nationalist movement argues that its success was rooted in the experience of the Second World War in Morocco. However, this overlooks the critical differentiation in popular response to nationalist ideas that developed over the period from 1926 to independence in 1956. Whereas the pre-war nationalist movement was urban-based, with a strong middle-class and Salafiyyist tradition behind it, and picked up support from other urban groups that suffered from the Great Depression in the 1930s, it consistently lacked the essential concomitant of a broad rural base. This was in part due to the effective control of rural areas maintained by the French administration, but also arose from the development of a new élite in rural areas that had a clear interest in acquisition and control of land. Although this group had antecedents that originated from pre-colonial times, it was the conditions of the Protectorate and the development of a money-based economy which allowed it to flourish while other aspects of indigenous economic activity declined. This group, which may be considered to constitute a ‘kulak’ class, thus had an evident interest in supporting the French Protectorate authorities, and little concern for nationalist aspirations, particularly since it was also closely associated with the French administration of rural areas through its role in the caïdat. It was only when this élite found its economic interests threatened, and realized that the nationalist movement had the support of the Sultan, that its political concerns were redirected. This change occurred in 1947 with the Tangier speech, in which Mohammed V implicitly rejected French tutelage and, by inference, turned to the nationalist movement to support his dynasty. The speech coincided with the end of the consequences of the 1945 famine, which gave the nationalist movement its opportunity to extend its network into rural areas. It was this development, rather than the Second World War itself, that ensured the ultimate success of the Moroccan nationalist movement.

‘High apartheid’ in the 1960s was marked by intensified efforts to redraw urban areas along racial lines and quash black South Africans' schooling and employment ambitions. The 1953 Bantu Education Act became infamous for limiting African educational opportunities. Yet this article shows how women in Umlazi Township, outside of Durban, schooled their children – despite and indeed because of apartheid's oppressive educational and urban policies. Drawing on oral histories and archival records, it explores the ‘bond of education’, the gendered material-emotional family connections that enabled schooling and resulted from schooling. In the face of increasingly insecure intimate relations, a booming economy, and expanded basic education, mothers' attention to their children's and grandchildren's education grew in importance and scale: education required sacrifices but promised children's eventual support.

Administrative commitment to customary law among the Nuer wavered under British rule. Its value was first briefly appreciated as a means of obtaining the effective submission of the people to government authority. By igio dissatisfaction with the rate of progress of submission led provincial officials to abandon active involvement in the settlement of internal disputes among the Nuer, but in doing so they ceased to have any real contact with the peoples they tried to govern. Withdrawal from settlement of internal cases made it impossible for administrators to arbitrate external disputes between the Nuer and their neighbours. In the 1920s government supervision of the settlement of disputes once again became a central part of administrative policy, and by the end of that decade customary law and leaders were subordinated to government control. Innovations from the 1920s to the 1940s were concerned mainly with procedure and enforcement. By the last decade of Anglo-Egyptian rule in the Sudan the administration of law had become the main function of Nuer administration, and reforms in the legal procedure meant reforms in the administrative structure.

European mining companies in the nineteenth-century Gold Coast failed because they were unable to solve the problem of ‘primitive accumulation’. Their failure to solve the problem of primitive accumulation was attributable to a variety of factors, including financial manipulations by ‘share-pushers’ and ‘concession-mongers’, managerial and technological inadequacies, and the refusal of the colonial state to employ that degree of force which would have been necessary to overcome the resistance by Africans to the sale of their labour-power to the mines. The resistance mounted by African gold diggers was such that they not only refused to sell their labour-power to the mines, but also out-produced the European mining companies for most of the period under review, while those few Africans who did sell their labour-power to the mines formed a small and highly transient labour force which engaged in a largely individualistic form of resistance characterized by their consistent refusal to work at the pace demanded by management, and to turn over to management the entirety of their day's output. Thus not only did the resistance of Africans contribute to the failure to solve the problem of primitive accumulation, and to the consequent weakness of the European mining companies, but conversely the weakness of the European mining companies contributed to the structuring of the mines'labour force, and to the forms of resistance waged by mineworkers.

The author reviews the developing uses of oral sources in recent Africanist history, and argues that the original expectations about ‘oral tradition’ derived from contemporary structural functionalism. Changing one's model of social action therefore entails a change in the evaluation of oral data, and some of the consequences, according to different social theories, are sketched out. In particular, the perspectives of P. Bourdieu can, with modifications, permit the development of systematic ethno-historiography.

This paper is intended as the first of a biennial series summarizing for the benefit of historians the latest developments in radiocarbon dating for the later prehistory of eastern and southern Africa. Ninety new dates have been released during the past year and these are discussed and evaluated in comparison with dates obtained previously. It should be emphasized that many of the dates included in this paper are here published in advance of fully detailed reports, which are in preparation by the archaeologists concerned, and that some of the conclusions reached are provisional pending a fuller examination and evaluation of the archaeological data.

RECENT studies addressing the ‘African diaspora’ have sought to provide global context for the experience of people of African descent. The two books under review – each a major contribution to studies of the African diaspora – provide an opportunity to take stock of the emerging genre of historical and cultural studies of which they are a part. The perspective of the African diaspora has the advantage of locating movements and connections of Africans around the world, and in so doing has the power to inform and sometimes surprise. From such a perspective, for instance, Alberto da Costa e Silva notes that during the 1860s a French bookseller in Rio de Janeiro sold a hundred copies of the Qur'an each year, mainly as clandestine sales to slaves and ex-slaves. This evidence confirms the continuing significance of Islam in Brazil, and raises the possibility that the religious practice was sustained through continuing contacts with West Africa. Over a century later, novelist Alice Walker launched a headline-grabbing campaign against female circumcision in Africa. As Joseph McLaren shows, Walker's campaign reflected not the shock of an African-American's initial encounter with the complex social practices of the African continent, but her considered judgment after decades of visits to East Africa. These examples suggest the range and interest of linkages across wide distances that may be elicited through studies of the African diaspora. They reflect the contributions of an academic enterprise that is apparently settling into a permanent place on the scholarly and curricular scene.

As a study of some Islamic factors involved in the construction of oral narrative by Manding bards, this article is chiefly concerned with two distinct cases in which griots have borrowed important legendary figures from the literature of Arabia. It is found that Bilali, described by traditional genealogists as progenitor of the ancient ruling branch of the Keita lineage, originated as Bilāl ibn Rabāḥ, a companion of Muhammad and the first mu'adhdhin. Genealogies or descent lists of early Malian rulers still contain names that have apparently survived from pre-Islamic times, but in most instances these early forebears of chiefly rank have been moved forward into the Islamic era and displaced as founding ancestors by figures like Bilali, who originated in Muslim Arab literature. Similarly, at the lower levels of the social hierarchy, major artisan classes like the blacksmiths and leatherworkers have adopted their own collective ancestors from Islamic tradition.

In the case of Surakata, collective ancestor of Bambara and Mandinka griots, it is recalled that he began as Surāqa ibn Mālik, in Arab tradition an enemy of Muhammad who became an early convert to Islam, a conversion that seems to have had a special resonance in a West African setting where many people have made the same shift. Pre-Islamic themes in Manding oral tradition have in many cases been obliterated by the bards' preoccupation with Islamic subjects, particularly events from the life and times of the Prophet. However, despite the pervasiveness of Islamic themes, the blood motif found in some accounts of griot ancestry indicates that at least the essence of certain elements of pre-Islamic West African culture survives in Manding oral tradition.

For a variety of reasons the extent, number and severity of Ndebele raids upon the Shona-speaking peoples have been greatly exaggerated in the past. Moreover most studies of the Ndebele have failed to take into account the fact that the Ndebele conquered an already well-established Shona state with an economy linked with the Indian Ocean trade. This article seeks to show that the bulk of Ndebele raiding before 1873 was a response to both the political and military threat of the Changamire Rozvi dynasty and to the economic needs of the state that had been taken over. Even so, Ndebele raids were limited in extent and duration, and the two decades after 1873 saw a steady revival of Shona strength. In spite of Ndebele raids aimed at preventing this process, the independent Shona strengthened themselves by re-arming and ‘alliances’, and were able to take part in the eventual overthrow of the Ndebele kingdom.

This article is a condensed version of a paper presented at the History Workshop, Gaborone, September 1973.

RAPID population growth is commonly depicted as one of the greatest problems facing modern Africa. For decades, the tendency of birth rates to exceed mortality rates has prompted predictions of land shortage, resource depletion and mass starvation. Underlying causes of high fertility are hypothesized to have been an unusually high demand for human agricultural labour, ‘traditional religious pronatalism’ and a ‘horror of barrenness’, while in some areas the later colonial period saw a shortening of the durations of post-partum sexual abstinence and lactation. Mortality decline from the 1920s is commonly linked to the establishment of cash crop economies, networks of roads and railways, and the diffusion of western medicine, maternity facilities, missionary activity and primary education. Yet the empirical evidence supporting this model of population growth is contradictory. Areas such as Buhaya, Buganda and Bunyoro should have experienced rapid demographic expansion by natural increase in the colonial period according to dominant theories but instead experts in the early decades of this century feared the extinction of the Haya, Ganda and Nyoro. This paper will attempt to explain why population decline among the Nyoro was more severe than anywhere else in colonial Uganda, and probably East Africa.