In a recent article David Richardson revised estimates of the volume and African regional distribution of the eighteenth-century British slave trade. Richardson calculated that British slave vessels sailing between 1698 and 1807 – to the year of Abolition – embarked 3,052,509 slaves on the African coast. This figure falls at the midpoint between lower-bound estimates made by Curtin in 1969 and upper-bound estimates published by Inikori seven years later. Further, Richardson provided historians with the first extended year-by-year series of British slave exports; and he separated the trading data of the three principal British slaving ports of Liverpool, London and Bristol, which comprised 50, 28 and 18 per cent of the trade, respectively.

The First World War is perhaps the least studied period in the historiography of European settlement in Kenya. This paper reverses the previously held view of settler economic decline and disarray. Despite apparent problems of shipping shortages, closure of markets and loss of white manpower, settler products were grown and exported in ever-increasing quantities during the war years. The grain and livestock industries were stimulated by new wartime markets whilst plantation crops, chiefly sisal and coffee, continued the impetus of pre-war activity and substantial new planting took place. Prosperity and development, not reversal and decline, were the keynotes of the settler wartime economy. With this new evidence and understanding, it is possible to re-interpret much of the early history of colonial Kenya. The fundamental vulnerability and stuttering growth of white settlement before 1914 gave way to the gradual assertion of the settler economy over the African, with state support, during and after the war. But this assertion and growth was founded upon abnormal economic circumstances: on cheap and available labour, insatiable markets and a pre-occupied colonial state. The post-war crises of labour and market contraction, and the pre-eminence of the settler sector after 1920, therefore must be traced to this accelerated and artificial growth in the settler economy in 1914–18.

This article attempts to assess within a broad traditional context the efforts of Lubosi Lewanika, ruler of Bulozi from 1878 to 1884, and again from 1885 to 1916, to find solutions to the problems facing the Lozi state during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

So far scholars of Lozi history have been primarily preoccupied with assessing Lewanika's career within the context of European penetration. Whereas it is true that the extension of British Protection to Bulozi and North-Western Rhodesia came finally to be based on the treaties with Lewanika, for the Lozi state and Lewanika himself this was a solution to only one of a number of problems. And indeed to some sections of Lozi society, Lewanika's accommodation of the forces of the ‘scramble’ was not his greatest achievement.

So far scholars of Lozi history have been primarily preoccupied with assessing Lewanika's career within the context of European penetration. Whereas it is true that the extension of British Protection to Bulozi and North-Western Rhodesia came finally to be based on the treaties with Lewanika, for the Lozi state and Lewanika himself this was a solution to only one of a number of problems. And indeed to some sections of Lozi society, Lewanika's accommodation of the forces of the ‘scramble’ was not his greatest achievement.

The Lozi central kingship had collapsed in the middle of the nineteenth century as a result of internal political instability, a serious succession crisis, and a military defeat by the Makololo. Before the establishment of any effective colonial control, however, Lewanika had succeeded in establishing a great degree of personal control, exalted Lozi kingship above the level of ordinary people, and extended Lozi influence to its widest limits.

This paper is concerned with a vitally significant – but hitherto largely unrecovered – feature of the pre-colonial African past. Historians of Africa commonly pay conventional lip service to the idea that the structural and affective dimensions of kinship are of great, and even shaping, importance in the past of many of the societies that they study. However, such acknowledgements remain in the realm of generalization, and hardly any scholarship exists that seeks to historicize kinship in any detail. This paper tries to redress this situation. It goes beyond synchronic ethnographic commonplaces, and offers a historically documented analysis and interpretation of the operation of kinship within a specific pre-colonial context.

The subject matter is the West African forest kingdom of Asante (Ashanti), now located within the Republic of Ghana. In specific terms, the paper addresses the structural characteristics and the interpersonal dynamics of kinship within the history of the Kumase Oyoko KɔKɔɔ abusua (the ruling dynasty of Asante) between, very broadly, the 1760s and the 1880s. The discussion is centred on the evolving history of relations between individuals – most centrally the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin and the Asantehemaa Afua Sapon – within a particular ɔyafunu koro (uterine group or stirp; ‘family’) that was a componential part of the royal dynasty. The core of the paper is an analytic reading of the konnurokusΣm, a complex dynastic conflict that involved the individuals named and that occurred in the 1850s.

In sum, this paper argues that the reconstruction and analysis of the field of kinship relations within African societies – such as the example of pre-colonial Asante discussed here – places an extremely important, if hitherto neglected, tool in the hands of historians. The interpretation of events, the understanding of actions and motives, and the overall deepening of comprehension are all enriched by the use of this tool. The enrichment thereby attained – it is argued – pays appropriate and overdue attention to specifically indigenous readings of the Asante (and African) past.

In the seventeenth century, Europeans on the Gold Coast took gold pawns as security for debt, but from the early eighteenth century, they turned increasingly toward the use of human pawns. This shift was the result of a transformation in levels of demand for gold amongst African sellers, most notably the Asante, who began to secure control over local gold sources from c. 1700. The change in demand for gold was accompanied by a rise in slave prices on the West African coast, but it was the indigenous system of debt recovery that proved crucial to the success of European trade.

The power of the state to impose its self-produced categories of thought poses a major problem to Zimbabwe historiography which has often taken as unproblematic the relation between knowledge about, and control over, African societies as presented in the state's archives. This article challenges this hegemonic view of the colonial state, presenting an alternative interpretation of administrative reports on Buhera district. It shows how Buhera society became increasingly represented as the traditional, rural end of a rural-urban divide in colonial policy discourse, while, in reality, social life in the area became intimately linked to the urban economy of Salisbury.

This article attempts to assess more precisely the role of the Seventh Day Baptist movement in nothern Nyasaland as a case study in African reactions to missions and to colonial rule. Internal factors contributing to the establishment of the movement included an intense desire among Africans to acquire a western education apart from European missionary control, and the competent leadership provided by Charles Domingo. External factors included the influence of Joseph Booth and the pattern of labour migration from Nyasaland to southern Africa.

The focus of this article is an examination of the evolution of Nkrumah's political thought during the last years of his life. There is a discernible radicalization as Nkrumah's intellectual thought developed between 1966 and 1972. He had clearly abandoned the constitutional path to independence and begun to adopt revolutionary armed struggle as the only solution to Africa's myriad problems of capitalism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. The unfolding social and political struggles in Vietnam and Latin America and the unrest in America's black cities impacted profoundly on his thinking. The coup d'état which deposed Nkrumah on 24 February 1966 forced him into exile in neighbouring Guinea-Conakry. It therefore provides the political background against which Nkrumah's intellectual thinking unfolded.

This article examines a three-week long strike in Zanzibar City in August and September 1948. The strike began among labourers from the mainland at work in Zanzibar port, but spread to all African work-people in the City after an unsuccessful attempt to break the strike by the government. This attempt had led to a major demonstration and confrontation at the entrance to the port, violence being only narrowly averted.

While at one level the strike was a Zanzibar sequel to the strikes of the previous year in Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, in Zanzibar there was additional significance in the fact that the City and Island's work-force were in very large proportion men from the East African mainland. Zanzibar's dependence on mainland labour had begun in the early decades of the twentieth century. In those years mainland labour had been particularly well-paid, by the standards of the time. By the late 1940s however, mainland labour in Zanzibar was as poor as, perhaps poorer than, its mainland counterparts. Besides, the political structure of the Protectorate aggravated sentiments of alienation since mainlanders were not regarded as permanent residents for whom the government should have any particular concern: nor were mainlanders represented in the legislature.

Even after the strike was over the colonial authorities saw only a need for labour reforms rather than political re-structuring to accommodate mainlanders. The strike however had briefly united all Africans, indigenous and mainlander. When, a decade later, this unity of Africans, mainlander and indigenous, town and plantation labourer and peasant, was re-formed, revolution followed. As a portent, therefore, Zanzibar's strike is of particular significance.

Trade with European merchants along the Guinea Coast was very important in the history of the Yoruba in the nineteenth century. But until 1870 almost all this trade was done by the western Yoruba peoples. All the important ports (Porto Novo, Badagry and Lagos) were located on the western sea-board of the Yoruba country, and from these ports trade routes radiated inland. Moreover, along the routes, Christian missionary evangelism spread. The eastern Yoruba country remained out of the stream of these formative developments.

About 1870, however, owing to obstructions to trade on the western routes, the government of the British colony of Lagos tried to open a new route in the east as a roundabout means of tapping the main centres of trade in the west. But this route, the Ondo Road, soon became a great formative force in the lives of the peoples of the eastern Yoruba provinces. Compared with the main western routes, the trade on the new route was quite small. Nevertheless, its demands resulted in vastly increased productivity both in the agriculture and local manufactures of the people. Also it was along this route that missionary work—as evidenced by the building of mission stations, churches and schools—at last began to affect the eastern Yoruba areas.

The recent Curtin–Inikori debate has revealed a basic shortcoming in the historiography of the eighteenth-century French slave trade. In computing the size of the French trade, historians have too long relied either on questionable estimates published by eighteenth-century authors or on published material about one port, Nantes. Enough material exists in various French archives to produce a more accurate appraisal of at least one aspect of the trade. An analysis of captains' reports and other documents shows that French exports from Africa were somewhat greater than Curtin believed, and that Curtin's errors resulted from limitations imposed by the published data. At the same time, it is almost impossible to know how many slaves were imported into the French West Indies during the eighteenth century, as an illegal British trade accounted for a significant percentage of the slaves delivered to the French colonies.

The history of medieval West Africa is defined by the age of three great empires that succeeded one another: Ghāna, Māli, and Songhay. How did these empires come to frame our view of the West African past? To answer the question, we have to understand first how the European and Eurocentric concept of an empire was imposed on a specific African context and why it thrived. In this respect, the case of Sudanic empires in particular illuminates the process of history writing and scholars’ relationship with their time and object of study. In the last few years, Sudanic empires have made a prominent return to the historical conversation. I propose here a critical reflection on ‘empire’ and ‘imperial tradition’ in the western Sahel based on europhone and non-europhone (Arabic) historiographies, from the first histories written in postmedieval West Africa to those produced by twenty-first-century scholarship.

In contrast with the imperial period, historians have overlooked African exile politics during the subsequent decades of one-party and military rule. Focusing on the Malian case, this article proceeds in three parts. The first section explores the creation in Africa, in particular in Ivory Coast and Senegal, of clandestine opposition movements to Moussa Traoré's regime. The second section focuses on Europe, particularly France, where dissidents benefitted from an unparalleled openness of the political system compared to that seen in African countries. The final section investigates the influence of these networks spanning Africa and Europe on the formation of pro-democracy organizations in Mali and the final overthrow of the Traoré regime in 1991. Theorizing exile as a process which enabled activists to operate in abeyance despite repression – before being able to emerge more openly – refines our understanding of political transitions which were driven by the juncture of internal and external dynamics.

Recent literature has emphasised the political and economic opportunities afforded to peoples living in African borderlands by the existence of permeable inter-state boundaries. This article examines the history of the Darfur-Chad borderland under colonial rule and finds that serious risks existed for those attempting to circumvent state authority in order to take advantage of such opportunities. State-led attempts to control these borders, though always incomplete, were often characterised by considerable violence. The limits of state power did not therefore straightforwardly translate into an accommodation with border societies. That said, this was also a border zone characterised by complex interaction and negotiation between state and local forms of regulation, and by multiple forms of sovereignty. This led to the emergence of plural and hybrid forms of authority, now repeatedly observed in studies of contemporary African borderlands, but rarely fully historicised.

It has long been well known that West Africa in the nineteenth century was the scene of a number of Islamic politico-religious movements promoted by Fulani or Tukulor mujaddidīn. It is also common knowledge that these movements resulted in the establishment, inter-alia, of three great confederations of emirates each recognizing an amīr al-mu'minīn. Thus we have:

(a) The ‘Fulani Empire’ in Hausaland and neighbouring territories (founded by Usman dan Fodio from 1804) of which certain important elements persist in the governmental and social structure of the Northern Region of Nigeria down to the present day;

(b) The ‘Fulani Empire’ of Macma (founded from 1818 by Ahmadu bi Hammadi) persisting until 1863;

(c) The ‘Empire’ of Al-Hajj 'Umar b. Sa'īd (founded from 1848) which covered an area of some 150,000 square miles in the Upper Niger-Senegal region (including the land of the Caliphate of Macina which it destroyed) and was broken up by the French at the end of the nineteenth century.

The article chronicles the diasporic life of the Cyprus-born Ethiopian priest Yoḥannǝs (1509–65), who, after traveling far and wide across Europe and to Portuguese India, eventually settled in Rome and served the papacy for over two decades. Rare language skills and a cosmopolitan coming of age enabled his remarkable ecclesiastical career as an agent of the Counter-Reformation. Shortly before an untimely death, Yoḥannǝs became the second black bishop and the first black nuncio in the history of the Roman Church, rare appointments that would not be accessible to black Africans again until the 20th century. His unique experience represents a significant addition to the available historiography on blacks in early modern Europe and calls into question some commonly held assumptions in African diaspora studies.

This article argues that trade rather than confrontation was the predominant theme of the early years of interaction between the Kikuyu and the British. It suggests that the Southern Kikuyu in particular enjoyed an important initial period of co-existence with the British, the economic basis of which was a rapid expansion in the 1890s of an already existing trade in agricultural produce with caravans moving along the road to Uganda. This development was, however, not universally welcome among the Southern Kikuyu, and there was a clash of interest between those concerned with an increased production of agricultural surplus, and those whose economic interests were centred on livestock. The death of Waiyaki removed from the scene the most influential trading elder and facilitated, from the areas previously under his influence, hostile opposition to the trading activities now centred upon the permanent fort of the Imperial British East Africa Company. The steady increase of food production encouraged the emergence of a number of Southern Kikuyu traders; this was particularly true for Kinanjui, who had established himself at a time when the military resources of the I.B.E.A. Co. were negligible and poorly organized. It is argued that Kinanjui's status can no longer be regarded as merely the result of assistance from the British. It was significant that the British did not at any time prior to 1900 deploy at Fort Smith a permanent garrison of troops. There existed instead a balance of military resources which made possible an important local arena of political activity between the Southern Kikuyu and the British. The Northern Kikuyu, by contrast, despite their longer-standing trading contacts with the coast, were denied similar opportunities by virtue of more positive policies of control directed initially towards revenue collection.

The name of John Hawley Glover is not often included among the founders of Nigeria. In fact, when he left Lagos in 1872 after fifteen years' service in the region he may well have felt that he had been dismissed under a cloud. Yet in the 1870s Glover was regarded as one of Britain's greatest African proconsuls. It was said that he was the most successful African negotiator since Maclean, that he was as well known in West Africa as Livingstone in the east. After Yoruba was brought under British control in the 1890s, Sir Gilbert Carter said he had only fulfilled what Glover had attempted over a quarter of a century before.