Sebatakgomo — a migrant worker-based movement – was founded in 1954 and went on to play a central role in the Sekhukhuneland Revolt of 1958. It was launched from within the ANC, and a number of its leaders were also members of the Communist Party. This article explores the roles played by these wider political movements in the formation of Sebatakgomo. It argues that, while ANC networks and individuals within its central leadership made an important contribution, the rural presence of the ANC was fragmentary in this period and that its central organizational strategies had been effectively checkmated by an increasingly authoritarian state. It suggests that the crucial initial impetus and strategy behind Sebatakgomo came from Communist Party members living in a migrant world and trained in the Party's history and methods of organization. In particular Alpheus Maliba, who led the Zoutpansberg Balemi Association in the northern Transvaal in the early 1940s, provided a mentor and model for Flag Boshielo, who was the driving force in the establishment of Sebatakgomo. The article also suggests that the history of Sebatakgomo provides an example of the impact of Communist Party activists in transforming the ANC into a mass organization in the early 1950s.

Based on a close examination of European travelogues and the evidence produced in the wake of the formulation of colonial gun policies, this article contends that the significance of firearms in Central Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been unduly played down in the existing literature. The first substantive section of the article charts the movement of the gun frontier in nineteenth-century north-western Zambia. It foregrounds the new technology's economic and military applications, the means through which north-western Zambians overcame some at least of its limitations, and the plurality of innovative social roles that they attributed to it. Successive sections centre on the pervasiveness of gun-running in the early twentieth century and the implementation and profound social consequences of gun control laws.

Cette contribution reconsidère le site de Garumele (Niger) à la lumière de récents travaux archéologiques. Garumele est dit dans les sources historiques avoir été la capitale de l'empire de Kanem-Borno peu avant la fondation de Birnin Gazargamo (deuxième moitié du quinzième siècle). Cet article reconcilie sources archéologiques et historiques pour évaluer la véracité de cette tradition – mais aussi pour considérer les facteurs méthodologiques et théoriques qui contribuent au mystère des origines du Kanem-Borno.

This article addresses the struggle between the temperance and wine interests in South Africa during three phases: 1890–1920, 1920–48 and 1948–65. It argues that divergent outcomes were rooted in a combination of differential levels of internal cohesion and the configuration of the political arena within which the protagonists manoeuvred for advantage. Conflicting interests within the wine industry hindered collective action, whereas the temperance movement derived strength from its decentralized modes of operation and international connections. The latter pioneered mass action alongside the art of lobbying. After 1948, the wine industry turned the tables by cementing a special relationship with the National Party, while tapping into popular nationalism, youth culture, and emergent consumerism.

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.

Pour comprendre les rapports de la politique avec l'économie au temps de la constitution de l'empire français d'Afrique noire, un coup d'çeil est indispensable sur les relations entre l'Occident et l'Afrique de 1815 è 1870. On s'aperçoit alors que les facteurs économiques en jeu étaient essentiellement Ie commerce d'exportation de quelques produits industriels ’de traite’ européens, les tissus, armes, perles, alcools, tabacs, etc.,

The relationships of the peoples of southern Africa after the establishment and expansion of the white settlement in the mid-seventeenth century can be seen in terms of both conflict and interdependence, both resistance and collaboration. The conflict often split over into warfare, not only between black and white, but also within both groups. As time passed, firearms came to be used by ever-widening circles of the combatants, often as much the result of the increased collaboration and interdependence between peoples as of the increased conflict. As Inez Sutton has pointed out, ‘in contrast to most of the rest of [sub-Saharan] Africa, the presence of a settler population ensured that the supply of arms was the most modern rather than the most obsolete’, and on the whole non-whites were acutely aware of changes in the manufacture of firearms in the nineteenth century.

This article examines the use of tradition by minority groups whose territorial incorporation into British Northern Togoland under UN trusteeship was marked by political exclusion. This contrasts with the more typical pattern of productive and inclusive relations developing between chiefs and the administering authority within the boundaries of what was to become Ghana. In East Gonja, marginalized groups produced their own chiefs while simultaneously appealing to the UN Trusteeship Council to protect their native rights. The article contributes to studies on the limits of the ‘invention of tradition’ by showing the influence of external structures on African agency and organization. As the minority groups sought UN support on the basis of their native status, the colonial power affirmed alternative versions of tradition that were perceived locally as illegitimate and thereby rendered ineffective.

This article examines the institution of blood partnership, first theoretically, and then with reference to northern Equatorial Africa and Dar al-Kuti, a Muslim slave-raiding and slave-trading state. Contemporary anthropologists described blood partnership schematically as the exchange of blood and of conditional curses between two individuals or groups for the purpose of guaranteeing co-operation. They also suggested that blood partnership created bonds analogous to kinship. Blood alliances were concluded almost exclusively between parties who were not related genealogically, and promoted security, co-operation and long-distance trade. They were particularly important among societies outside highly centralized states, where they provided the ideology and mechanism for wider action embracing unrelated groups. Northern Equatorial Africa was just such an area, and, in the nineteenth century at least, blood pacts were very common. The article looks at blood partnership in the region generally, pointing out how foreigners, Muslims as well as Europeans, adopted the institution as a means of allying themselves with local leaders. Muslim penetration of the region is examined, and the infiltration of the zariba system of the southwestern Sudan into Ubangi-Shari (in what is now the Central African Empire) is outlined. The second half of the article deals specifically with Dar al-Kuti. Oral testimony and written evidence are combined to present a picture of blood partnership among the Banda, the most important non-Muslim people included in the state. The analysis is then extended to show how Muslims in the region, mainly the Runga from the Chad basin, led by Kobur and then by al-Sanusi, used blood pacts to foster their political and economic ambitions among non-Muslim peoples south of the Islamic frontier.

The article considers the origin and validity of statements made by Budge, MacMichael, Crawford and Arkell associating the establishment of Ottoman control over Lower Nubia and the Suakin-Massawa region with Sultan Selim I. These statements are derived from Na‘ūm Shuqayr's Ta'rīkh al-Sūdān, which has two principal relevant passages. In the first, Shuqayr combines, and dates with misleading precision, two traditional anecdotes concerning Nubia, one derived from Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia (1819), the other an aetiological legend of a frontier-fight. The second passage mentions a legendary invasion of Abyssinia by Selim, and relates to a Fūnj (or ‘Abdallābī) claim to Arab ancestry. The personal connexion of Selim I with these exploits is wholly mythical: it is excluded by the detailed account of his acts during 1517 given by the contemporary chronicler, Ibn Iyās. The establishment of Ottoman rule in these two regions was the achievement of Özdemir Pasha in the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, about the middle of the sixteenth century. The legend of the frontier-fight may refer to an even later episode, in the last quarter of that century.

The earliest mention of firearms in the central Sudan appears to be from the time of Idris Alooma, ruler of Bornu in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Ibn Fartuwa says of Alooma:

Among the benefits which God (Most High) of His bounty, beneficence, generosity, and constancy conferred upon the Sultan was the acquisition of Turkish musketeers and numerous household slaves who became skilled in firing muskets.

This article documents a landmark dispute between British Petroleum (BP) and the Nigerian tax authorities that occurred over a N130 million (£100 million) capital gains tax assessment arising from an intra BP Group transfer of its 50 per cent shareholding in Shell/BP Nigeria. This was necessitated by a BP transaction in Abu Dhabi. This tax assessment, which was more than twice the yearly cash flow of BP's Nigerian operations at the time, ignited a chain of events and schemes that saw the British government covertly and overtly providing support to BP, with the primary goal of influencing the outcome of the dispute in order to protect the interests of both the British government and BP. Evidence in this article highlights the complexities of postcolonial relationships between centre countries and African ex-colonies.

Scholarly and popular histories of Kenya largely agree that African Second World War veterans played a central role in the Kenya Land Freedom Army. Former African members of the colonial security forces have reinforced these assumptions by claiming to have been covert Mau Mau supporters, either after their discharge, or as serving soldiers. In reality, few Mau Mau generals had actual combat experience. Those who served in the colonial military usually did so in labor units or support arms. It therefore warrants asking why so many Kenyans accept that combat veterans played such a central role in the KLFA and in Kenyan history. Understanding how veterans of the colonial army have become national heroes, both for their wartime service and their supposed leadership of Mau Mau, reveals the capacity of popular history to create more useful and inclusive forms of African nationalism.

The Yoruba toll system has not been studied, in spite of its important place in Yoruba economy and politics. This essay fills the gap by examining toll collection among the Yoruba-speaking states of south-western Nigeria. It is divided into two parts, the first on the practice of toll collection during the pre-colonial era and the second on the changes introduced by the colonial administration. For the pre-colonial, it emphasizes the dominant aspects of the system, most notably the significance of toll revenue in relation to other sources of income; the control of toll gates by chiefs in order to appropriate the revenues; the character and privileges of collectors; and the features of collection at the toll gates, especially the duties imposed and their implications for trade.

The second part explains the steps taken by the new colonial administration to regulate toll collection after 1893, notably by the reduction of customs houses and the printing of tariffs. These reforms failed to solve the problems of corruption by toll clerks and evasions and smuggling by traders, or allay the fear that the imposition of tolls constituted an obstacle to modern commerce. Consequently, the colonial administration decided to abolish the system, and was able to achieve this between 1904 and 1908. Both reforms and abolition were possible because of the gradual approach adopted, the administrative and military power available to the administration, and its ability to generate alternative sources of revenue to maintain itself and pay the chiefs. There can be no doubt that abolition was a major step towards the constitution of the colonial economy.

The Sereer-Safèn are a minority population in a predominantly Wolof and Muslim region. During the colonial period the Safèn were ruled by Wolof chiefs, who treated them as a conquered population. Until the First World War, Safèn resistance was based on preserving a separate religious and ethnic identity, symbolized by the village shrine and matrilineal descent. Conversion to Islam had its roots in the crisis created by military recruitment. When the Safèn were forced to give soldiers to the French, ‘maternal uncles’ used their authority over their ‘nephews’ to recruit soldiers. Today this act is remembered as a ‘betrayal’ that called into question the legitimacy of the matrilineal system of labor and inheritance. Conversion to Islam has been studied by focusing on long-term Islamization rather than the moment of conversion. Oral testimony from converts emphasizes changes in behavior, funeral rites, inheritance and patterns of labor and power in the village community.

Weyane was a spontaneous, localized peasant uprising with limited objectives. It occurred in 1943 because several disaffected social groups in the eastern part of Tigrai believed that they could defeat or at least extract substantial concessions from a weak transitional government. The multiplicity of objectives roughly correspond to the divergent interests of the participants: the sectarian nobility wanted a greater share in the regional reallocation of power, the semi-pastoral communities of the lowlands were interested in pre-empting feudal incorporation, and the highland cultivators wanted to terminate the excessive demands of officialdom and militia. The convergence of these forces made Weyane possible; the disorganization of the ruling strata and the subsequent defection of a segment of the territorial nobility enormously enhanced the peasants' capacity for collective action. But this very heterogeneity comprised the peasants' objectives. The revolt lacked a coherent set of goals, nor did it have a specific program for social action. The rebels attacked neither the legitimacy of the monarchy nor the ideological basis of the Ethiopian aristocracy. In the end, Weyane buttressed the feudal order, and was probably instrumental in strengthening Ethiopia's neo-colonial link with the West. In the aftermath of rebellion, the Tigrai nobility did get its rights and prerogatives recognized, to the same extent that the nobility in the other northern provinces did. The government undercut the nobility's political autonomy, but paid the price of reinforcing their social position. On the other hand, in reaction to Weyane, the state destroyed the social basis of clan authority and autonomy, and reduced the Raya and Azebo to landless peasants. Weyane marked the end of conflict between centrifugal and centralizing forces, but did not eliminate the social roots of popular protest.

African Oral traditions differ critically from recorded history in their treatment of time. Time is relative and ‘Historical time’ is replaced by ‘structural time’. Eastern Nigerian traditions have a beginning, the ‘remote past’, and an end, ‘the recent past’ and episodes which should belong to a middle period between these extremes are pushed either into the ‘remote’ or the ‘recent past’ or are forgotten altogether. This can be seen as soon as Eastern Delta traditions are compared with the relevant European historical records.

One of the major developments in West Africa since the later seventeenth century has been the emergence of the powerful inland Empire of Ashanti and its gradual expansion towards the coast. This process ultimately brought the Ashantis into contact with the Fantes, the conquest of whom was necessary if the Empire was to extend to the sea. Their relationship, therefore, forms a central theme in the history of the Gold Coast in modern times. But problems were created by it which extended far outside the bounds of native politics. The existence on the coast of European trading settlements in close rivalry with each other meant that any serious local upheaval was bound to have wide repercussions. For economic reasons, Europeans could not remain indifferent to changes in the balance of power which would affect trade routes from the interior to the forts and, in particular, the future of the Fante states whose people, by the eighteenth century, had long acted as middlemen in the slave trade.