As African governments have become richer of late, they have become more interested in their past, and the outside world has become more conscious that there is an African past worth investigating. Out of all these tendencies, colonial governments and newly-independent states alike have begun to put their government documents in order and to open them for historical research. This process of creating regular archives in tropical Africa has moved fast in the last decade, and it is time to begin assessing the consequences—in terms of documents now physically available, and with a view to their possible value as sources for African history.

Although the territory of the Kisama was involved in military conflicts with the Portuguese from the very beginning, because of its geographical situation it was not subjugated permanently until the twentieth century. A few chiefdoms, which are traceable through the centuries in the sources, played an important role (Ndemba, Kimone kia Songa, Kafushe Kambare, etc.). A number of different factors were favourable to the resistance of the Kisama. The Portuguese were never really interested in this province, apart from the safeguarding of shipping on the Kwanza. No mineral wealth tempted them there. Even the conquest of the salt mine of Ndemba was undertaken mainly to clear and secure the way to the hoped for silver mines of Cambambe. On the one hand, the great lack of water during the dry season made the provisioning of an army there difficult. On the other hand, at least in the Kwanza region, the dreaded tropical diseases were endemic. For the slave trade, the interior, especially Kasanje, was more profitable. Later, when the neighbouring Libolo increased in importance because of the new trade centres in the Ovimbundu territory (Bihe, Bailundu, etc.), Kisama remained off the beaten track. It is only now that the seclusion of this province, which has one of the game parks of Angola within its borders, will in all probability come to an end because of the discovery of a series of oil fields.

Liberia was fundamentally a maritime state in the nineteenth century, dependent on seaborne trade for its prosperity. Immigrant merchants and their descendants developed an extensive coasting trade in which they attempted to wrest the function of the collection and distribution of commodities from foreign competitors, thereby entering a long-established commercial system which antedated the foundation of Liberia. Small vessels manned by individuals resident along the coast and familiar with local conditions were better suited for the collection and distribution of goods than large foreign-owned merchantmen. This commercial advantage, coupled with an increase in foreign demand for Liberian palm oil and camwood early in the century and restrictions placed on African and foreign traders by the Liberian government, allowed Liberians to acquire a merchant fleet which consisted of at least 234 vessels during the century. To protect their involvement in the coasting trade, Liberians declared independence in 1847. Post-independence prosperity is indicated by the fact that Liberians owned at least 139 vessels between 1847 and 1871. However, in the last three decades of the century the Liberian coasting trade was destroyed by the depletion of camwood resources, the development of aniline dyes, the introduction of petroleum products, the competition of foreign-owned steam packets, and falling demand as a result of the general commercial recession of the period.

This article seeks to re-examine the contemporary evidence about the early history of the Maravi chieftaincies of northern Zambesia. It challenges the view that the Maravi were long established in Zambesia and became aggressive and expansionist in the late sixteenth century when the Portuguese interfered with the ivory trade. Instead it suggests that these chieftaincies were only formed in the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century by a number of different groups who migrated into the region north of the Zambezi and who conquered the existing population. Some of these intrusive groups crossed the Zambezi and attacked the wealthy Karanga states to the south, but these invasions were frustrated by the Portuguese who blocked all attempts to settle south of the river. Defeated in their efforts, the Maravi chiefs turned aside to invade the Mozambique lowlands. It was one of these incursions that in the 1580s gave rise to the legend of the marauding, cannibal Zimba.

The establishment of settled Maravi states occurred only as a result of the rise of Muzura in the first half of the seventeenth century. He defeated his rivals with Portuguese aid but was, in his turn, frustrated in his attempts to interfere in Karangaland, and in the end was badly defeated by the Portuguese in 1632. Thereafter he concentrated his activity on developing the ivory trade with the Portuguese on the Zambezi and in Mozambique Island, while the region south of the Zambezi became subject to Portuguese warlords and the trade monopoly of the captain of Mozambique.

The army of Samori Ture in 1887 was recruited from four sources: the regular army of sofa (infantrymen with firearms), the conscripted reserve of kurustigi, detachments sent by chiefs under Samori's protection, and a cavalry force consisting in part, perhaps, of volunteers. The emphasis on infantry rather than cavalry differentiated it from the armies of other nineteenth-century Islamic reformers.

Among the factors which influenced the structure and tactics of the army, as well as the diplomatic and military strategy of the Samorian state, were the supply of firearms and horses. Initially the Samorian army was armed with muskets from the coast, primarily Freetown, and horses from the north-western part of the Sudan. From mid-1891 to mid-1892 the muskets were replaced with breechloaders and repeaters obtained by direct negotiation between Samori and Freetown traders, and during this period or before it an indigenous firearms industry was established. After this, the French advance cut Samori off, partially at least, from his sources of supply; from 1893–98 the search for new supply areas was a major preoccupation of the Samorian regime. Arms came from the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast, and horses from the Mossi states. Here, as formerly in the west, Samori was able to use existing trade routes.

The present paper is one in a series of essays on the political economy of the West African forest kingdom of Asante (Ashanti), now located in the Republic of Ghana. In general terms it surveys and explores aspects of the crucial issue of control over subjects and land within the Asante social formation. At the broadest level, it seeks to offer a description of fluctuations in the ability of central government in Kumase to mediate and to preside over the distribution of these resources between the foundation of the state in the early eighteenth century and the present day. It is argued that until approximately the middle of the nineteenth century the history of Asante is the history of the embedding, expansion and triumph of central government control. Thereafter, for a number of reasons that are discussed, matters changed. In terms of these changes the crucial decade was the 1880s, and the paper demonstrates how, in the closing stages and the immediate aftermath of the civil war (1883–8), a revolutionary reversal was effected in the general developmental thrust of Asante history. That is, at a meeting in Kumase in 1888, and at an oath-taking ceremony at Ahyiamu in the following year, the historic control of central government over subjects and land was challenged and substantially liquidated. That the implications of this revolutionary change were distorted in a number of ways was due to the imposition of British colonial rule at the close of the nineteenth century. The remainder of the paper attempts briefly to demonstrate how, in the twentieth century, and in the context of changing socio-political conditions, the battle over resources between central government in Kumase and its opponents remains a live and complex issue.

This essay considers the life and career of the leading Mozambican intellectual of the early twentieth century, João dos Santos Albasini (1876–1922). A journalist and political activist, Albasini took advantage of the political space opened by Portugal's First Republic (1910–26) to challenge the articulation of colonial policy with respect to citizenship, land alienation, labor conscription and opportunities for education and economic participation. As a founding member of the Grêmio Africano, a Lourenço Marques social group and political lobby, he helped launch the group's newspapers, O Africano (1908–19) and O Brado Africano (1918–74). With the Grêmio newspapers as his vehicle, he sharply contrasted colonial and Republican ideals with the racism and injustice Mozambicans faced in the colonial capital of Lourenço Marques (today Maputo). The Portuguese deemed Albasini a worthy opponent, in part because of his ability to employ Portugal's most revered cultural symbols with an ironic twist.

The essay considers two sets of questions. The first set relates to the definition and analysis of issues Albasini highlighted and pursued. What was Albasini's political and social vision of possible choices within this seemingly fluid era? How does one recover and interpret Albasini's vision and style? Are their meaning and value to be found within the discourses of class struggle, ethnicity, assimilation and nationalism? To what extent did Albasini's vision shape contestation of political and social policy in colonial Mozambique in the critical first quarter of the twentieth century?

A second set of questions confronts Albasini's place in local society and his legacy. Who comprised the Grêmio Africano? What was it about João dos Santos Albasini that inspired Grêmio members and subsequent generations of Mozambicans to view him as a beacon? What did the rest of the local population think about Albasini, during his lifetime and after? What was his impact, and how did it relate to the broader issues of politics, historical agency and identity in early twentieth-century southern African history?

The strike at the Wankie Colliery in 1912 offers the labour historian of central Africa an opportunity to explore in some depth the economic and social context of an African response within a colonial industry. The system of cheap labour at Wankie periodically combined with severe production pressures to produce outbreaks of scurvy amongst the African miners. In normal years, workers alleviated the need for nutritious food by scouring the surrounding countryside but this was not possible in a drought year. Under drought conditions the outbreak of scurvy, limited access to alternative food resources and the maldistribution of rations within the compound all assumed increased importance. The policies and practices of the acting compound manager and his black compound staff served further to exacerbate tensions in the Wankie compound and precipitate a strike.

Although the strike at Wankie offers further evidence of worker consciousness in early Rhodesian industry the events in the compound should not be interpreted as a sign of real or potential African radicalism. Closer examination of the African responses at Wankie reveal the essentially conservative nature of many of the demands made by the workers. It seems possible that in Rhodesia the power of the state over a colonial political economy and the repressive nature of the compound system combined to inhibit more radical responses. At Wankie, workers questioned the functioning of a repressive system, not the system itself. In many respects events at Wankie were typical of the Rhodesian mining industry and as such the strike serves to illustrate the vulnerable class position of African workers in a colonial economy.

Many of the characteristic strains of African Nationalism in South Africa, as were manifest during its peak in the 1950s, may be traced back to the historical situation on the Eastern Frontier of the Cape Colony in the early nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, the Port Elizabeth–East London–Alice triangle remained a highly significant area for nationalist ideas and action, and this derived from the effects on the Xhosa of the Black–White confrontation which began here 150 years earlier. In the early part of the nineteenth century the fundamental competition for land and cattle led to White military and missionary actions which, coupled with the preaching of Christianity, promoted attitudes among the Xhosa which may be seen in all subsequent African Nationalism.

In July 1924, the Liberian government suddenly banned the Universal Negro Improvement Association from Liberia, and this after over four years of apparent co-operation with the Association in its plans to settle New World Negroes in Liberia and generally to aid Liberia financially. Yet the ban could not have surprised anyone familiar with Liberian matters. The Liberian economy, which at the advent of the Association in 1920 was in a very bad state, was beginning to recover independently of the Association. Moreover, Britain and France, which had colonies nearby, abhorred the Association's anti-colonialism crusade, and Liberia feared to alienate these powers. But most importantly, the ruling Americo-Liberian class feared that the Association's immigrants might challenge its already entrenched, privileged position in Liberia, and probably end its exploitation and oppression of Liberia's indigenous African population, which provided labour and revenue for this class and for the Liberian government generally.

Early in the twentieth century, French and British colonial scholars developed rigid, descent-based models of African pastoral societies. These models emphasized stasis partly because the scholars relied on unrepresentative samples of the pastoralists' views of their own societies, and partly because the scholars simply misinterpreted data. By the 1970s anthropologists had radically revised these models, arguing that although pastoralists generally defined themselves in terms of descent, their societies were nevertheless quite dynamic. In their view, descent was an idiom of social discourse; while pastoral societies may have operated according to the idiom in the past, the economic changes brought about by colonialism had ruptured the connection between the ideology and social practice. More recently, historians have begun to argue that pastoral societies were also dynamic before colonialism, and that there was great flexibility in the ways pastoralists reckoned social identities.

This essay draws on evidence from the nineteenth-century western Sahara to argue that pastoral societies were dynamic long before the colonial period, and that many Saharans perceived their society in this way. This evidence was neglected by the early colonial scholars and many post-colonial anthropologists in favor of those descriptions that emphasized stasis. Saharan accounts that described social dynamism were often based on the explicitly Islamic model of the Prophet Muhammad and his diverse community of supporters. This model, then and throughout Islamic history, has offered the possibility of social improvement, and therein lies the explanation for why some Saharans interpreted society as static while others saw it as dynamic. Social models that fix groups into specific ranks according to descent serve the interests of those at the higher ranks, while dynamic models serve to legitimize social mobility.

In 1918, Faith Tabernacle Congregation was established in southern colonial Ghana. This Philadelphia-based church flourished in the context of colonialism, cocoa, and witchcraft, spreading rapidly after the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. In this context, several healing cults also proliferated, but Faith Tabernacle was particularly successful because the church offered its members spiritual, social, and legal advantages. The church's leadership was typically comprised of young Christian capitalist men, whose literacy and letter writing enabled the establishment of an American church without any missionaries present. By 1926, when Faith Tabernacle began its decline, at least 177 branches had formed in southern Ghana, extending into Togo and Côte d'Ivoire, with over 4,400 members.

On the basis of identifying the likely geographic origins of African names extracted from the Sierra Leone Liberated African registers, this essay estimates the provenance of the transatlantic slave trade that drew on the Cameroons estuary between 1822 and 1837. The sample, drawn from six separate vessels, is broken down by age and sex category and constitutes about 7 per cent of all Africans who left from the region in these years. It makes possible analysis of changes over time, comparisons of age and sex with distance between embarkation point and likely provenance zone, as well as interaction between Old Calabar and the Cameroons regions in the supply of slaves. The great majority of the captives originated within 200 miles of the coast and within 120 miles of the modern border with Nigeria.

This article draws attention to the possible importance of coffee exports from Ethiopia before the mid-nineteenth century. They may well have been a factor in attempts by Ethiopian emperors in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to develop trade in Yaman, in India and with the Dutch in Java. By 1690, coffee was being exported from Zayla, and perhaps by other outlets. In 1705 and 1737 there were unsuccessful attempts by Europeans to obtain coffee direct from Ethiopia, though meanwhile the growth of plantations in European colonies had rendered such effort superfluous. Nonetheless, Ethiopia contributed to the Red Sea coffee trade during the eighteenth century, and it seems likely that coffee was exported from Enarya as well as from Harar. The kingdom of Shawa was well situated to exploit the development of coffee exports from the south-western highlands, and they would have assisted Shawa's efforts to distance itself from upheavals further north during the Zamana Masafent. The coffee trade may therefore have been more significant in the rise of Shawa in the later eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries than historians have hitherto allowed.

Historians have written extensively about agricultural extension services and the linkages between colonial administrations and rural communities in British Africa. Most studies argue that it is possible to identify a qualitative shift in strategies between the inter- and the post-war periods. The former is characterized by modest attempts at promoting soil conservation, while the latter is described as a period when colonial governments in British Africa – guided by scientific knowledge – tried to transform peasant agriculture to increase production. This article questions this division by using colonial Malawi as a case. It reveals that the strategies and intensity of agricultural extension services changed over time but that the aim of intervention, i.e. to combat soil erosion, remained the focal point throughout the colonial period. This shows that it is important to distinguish between strategies and scale of intervention on the one hand and their aims and contents on the other. Changes in the former took place within the conservation paradigm. Additionally, this article reveals that agricultural extension services were directed by colonial officials' perceptions about African farmers rather than detailed empirical knowledge about existing farming methods.

Although the importance of the African role in the South African War (1889-1902) is now recognized, this study of the Bakgatala ba ga Kgafela is the first to demonstrate an African perception of events and argue that the Kgatla initiated military action and pursued goals independent of a simple British vs. Boer formula. The war created major economic and political opportunities for the Kgatla, a people physically separated and colonially partitioned. Half the Kgatla lived in the Kgatla Reserve of the British-ruled Bechuanaland Protectorate, and the other half lived in the Saulspoort area of the western Transvaal under Boer rule. Their leader, Linchwe I (1874–1924), maintained his capital at Mochudi in the Protectorate and received only partial allegiance from the Saulspoort Kgatia. Soon after the war began, Linchwe involved his regiments actively in fighting alongside the British in the Protectorate and raiding on their own in the Transvaal in an effort to eliminate Boer settlement and political control in Saulspoort and other areas of the western Transvaal. Kgatia regiments also emptied Boer farms of cattle which, in addition to restoring the national herd decimated by the 1897 rinderpest, Linchwe used in establishing his political hold over the Saulspoort Kgatia. Protectorate officials were grateful for Kgatia support, but Linchwe disguised the extent and nature of Kgatia operations and concealed from the British his political objectives. Linchwe's campaign made possible in the years following the war the reunification of the Kgatia under his authority, the distribution of wealth among all his people and the reduction of colonial interference in the political lives of his people.

The Funj Sultanate was the most easterly of the chain of Muslim dynastic States which at one time stretched south of the Sahara through Bilād al-Sūdān. Founded early in the sixteenth Christian century (tenth Hijri¯; century) by a king traditionally called ‘Amāra Dūnqas, its centre was on the Blue Nile, around the town of Sennar (Sinnār).

Not long ago the present writer observed that the oldest original Nigerian chancery documents so far reported to survive go back to about the year 1820, and bear the seals of Muhammad Bello, Sultan of Sokoto, and of Muhammad al-Amīn, Sultan of Bornu. It is virtually certain that in time earlier specimens than these will come to light, and especially original examples of the letters issued by the founder of the Sokoto dynasty, Usuman dan Fodio himself. Concerning official letters and autographs of Dan Fodio, indeed, unconfirmed reports have come in on several occasions. Pending their documentation, it may be of interest to present here a more than usually authoritative transcript of a letter issued by the Shehu Dan Fodio, which has lately come into the custody of the Jos Museum, and which offers proof (were any needed) that chancery letters in the Arabic language played a part in Dan Fodio's system of government.

This article attributes early twentieth century Maasai conservatism to the Maasai social structure and in particular to the warrior (moran) age-grade. Modernizing changes meant different things to different groups. To some Maasai elders they meant increased political power and wealth. But to the warriors they constituted a threat to their already declining status and entailed new and onerous obligations like road work. Governmental efforts to transform and modernize the Maasai were met by small-scale warrior rebellions. There were three such uprisings–in 1918, 1922 and 1935. All three were carried out by the warriors in defiance of the wishes of the elders and occurred at times when the government was seeking to alter Maasai society. The 1918 rebellion was over the recruitment of children for school; that of 1922 over attempts to do away with essential features of the moran system; and that of 1935 in opposition to road work. The Maasai warriors were effective resisters of change because of their considerable autonomy within their society and their esprit de corps.

The Sixth List contains many dates from Eastern and Southern Africa. An important sequence of dates from Malawi is published, indicating that the Iron Age there had begun as early as the third century A.D. The beginnings of the Zambian Early Iron Age are well established by the fourth century, while important new dates for ‘Dimple-based’ wares in Rwanda and Kenya place that pottery type within the same time span.

The Palabora dates from the Transvaal indicate that the Limpopo valley was settled by Iron Age people by the eighth century, and numerous isolated samples are recorded. The five dates from Ife in Nigeria confirm that the terracotta sculpture there was being made before European contact, while numerous samples for earlier sites are published.