This article is an effort to examine the way in which events during and, in some cases, before the nineteenth century shaped modern Senegambian society. It concludes:

(1) That the slave trade contributed to the development of military structures and to the polarization of Senegambian societies between a warrior élite and an industrious Muslim peasant population.

(2) That the change from the slave trade to legitimate commerce weakened the élites while strengthening the Muslim agriculturalists, who were able to accumulate guns and horses.

(3) That tensions between the two conflicting groups go back at least to the seventeenth century, and that after 1860 they led to a series of revolutionary struggles. The agents of this revolution were a series of charismatic religious leaders.

(4) That the course of this revolution was shaped by the involvement of European interests, and after 1854 increasingly by the incorporation of Senegambia in European spheres of influence.

(5) That this merely postponed certain changes. By the beginning of the colonial period, Islam was clearly dominant, and Senegambia's rural populations were heavily involved in the money economy.

This paper has attempted a new look at the course of the Tripoli-American War of 1801–5. The approach is, first, to avoid the beaten track and concentrate on the more obscure part of the story, namely, Tripoli's conduct of the war; and secondly, to attempt an explanation of Tripoli's success (or conversely America's failure) in a way that is different from the general American pattern. In this respect, emphasis has therefore been, not on the ineffectiveness of the American navy, but on three other important factors. These are: the moral and material support of the neighbouring Maghribi states for Tripoli's cause; the favourable international situation which helped Tripoli economically through the livestock trade with Malta; and thirdly, the contribution of Tripoli's navy, both as an instrument of warfare and as an economic asset. The paper concludes with an assessment of the international, dynastic, and political significance of the outcome of the war for Tripoli.

This article marks a beginning at tracing the links between Near Eastern and African Islamic resistance, through an analysis of the ways in which Pan-Islamic agents from Egypt sought to intervene in support of indigenous Moroccan efforts to resist French imperialism during the period 1900 to 1912. The first section explores the general patterns of Pan-Islamic ideology and political action, and places the study of Pan-Islam in the context of studies of African resistance to imperialism. Succeeding sections review Moroccan relations with the Near East, trace the stages of growing Near Eastern involvement in support of Moroccan resistance, which culminated in an abortive general rising in 1912, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of Pan-Islam as a transitional movement of political resistance to imperialism.

At the opening of the nineteenth century, the colonial order in South Africa was most seriously challenged on the eastern frontier, dramatized in white rebellions and the successful Xhosa-Khoi war of 1799–1802. The colonial government of the Batavian Republic, administering the Cape between 1803 and 1806, was obliged to deal with this challenge. Despite formal liberal proclamations, the Batavians believed that it was necessary to expel the Xhosa east of the Fish river and subordinate the Khoi to the white farmers once again. Their rule continued to depend on local control by the white minority. During this period, the Xhosa remained in the territory claimed by the colony. The Batavians were unsuccessful in breaking or regulating the interrelationship of white and Xhosa which was the most significant factor in frontier dynamics. At the same time, due to divisions among the Xhosa, the weakness of the whites and the skill of Lodewijk Alberti, a frontier official, the colonial order was significantly re-stabilized.

This article investigates the relationship between different phases of Somali political activity in Kenya. A clear contrast emerges between the focus, the aims and the methods adopted by the Somali pastoralists along the northern frontier and those adopted by the Isaq and Herti Somali traders in Nairobi and Isiolo. The attitude of the former towards the Colonial Government was essentially negative. Yet, while they tended to be resisters par excellence and fought against the Government on a large number of occasions between 1893 and 1916, this article shows that their resistance was much more limited than has generally been supposed and that they were never united on a clan basis in their resistance. In fact intra-clan rivalries seriously undermined the effectiveness of their activities Moreover, certain weaker Somali segments actively cooperated with the Government in order to obtain military and political support for their positions which were threatened by stronger groups.

On the other hand, Isaq and Herti traders attempted to manipulate the political institution in order to obtain additional privileges within the system. Their agitation had positive goals, for they campaigned to gain Asiatic status. They put pressure on the central organs of Government and hired lawyers to plead their case. They wrote numerous petitions and memorials to governors of the colony, to Secretaries of State and even to two British kings. They formed well-organized political associations and had contacts in British Somaliland and England. Yet, by a curious irony, it seems that the Somali Exemption Ordinance of 1919, which represented the closest they came to achieving non-native status, was not passed as a result of their campaigns. In fact, their later agitation achieved nothing; it seems to have represented a futile effort to counter the gradual erosion of privileges obtained at an earlier date.

One of the main characteristics of the Isaq and Herti agitation was its essentially sectarian character. In fighting to obtain Asiatic status they emphasized traits that isolated them from other Somali groups, and they even ended by denying that they were Somali. As such, there was a considerable disparity between their aims and those of the Somali Youth League which emerged in 1946 as the main vehicle of mass Somali nationalism, uniting the Somali pastoralists and traders in one group.

Although historians have examined the process of pre-colonial political integration, little attention has been paid to the complementary patterns of ethnic and cultural assimilation. The Chikunda, who were initially slaves on the Zambezi prazos, provide an excellent example of this phenomenon. Over the course of several generations, captives from more than twenty ethnic groups submerged their historical, linguistic, and cultural differences to develop a new set of institutions and a common identity. The decline of the prazo system during the first half of the nineteenth century generated large scale migrations of Chikunda outside of the lower Zambezi valley. They settled in Zumbo, the Luangwa valley and scattered regions of Malawi where they played an important role in the nineteenth-century political and military history of south central Africa.

This article, based on private papers as well as missionary and government records, examines the development of missionary contact with the Tswana peoples from the first settlement at Dithakong in 1816 to the establishment of a formal British Protectorate. The author seeks to analyse the nature of ‘missionary imperialism’ as a consequence not only of missionary motives and methods—still less as the accidental interest of individual missionaries—but also as the product of practical missionary experience and frustration in African circumstances.

The absence of European administration from Bechuanaland for much of the nineteenth century gives a rare opportunity to study the effects of missionary activity on African life and polity, less complicated than usual by secular pressures and influences. And the lack of economic attraction in Bechuanaland allows a close examination of the incentives to empire. But it is likely that the trend apparent in missionary attitudes and work in Bechuanaland will be repeated in other areas, as for example in Ndebeleland and Malawi.

The missionary role in Bechuanaland was largely determined by the organization and attitudes of Tswana society; missionary methods had to be adjusted accordingly, and eventually included an appeal to the British government to intervene and reduce resistant Tswana authority. This was in the logic of the missionaries' experience. In this light of missionary history, a new importance is found for the agitation on the British government from 1882 and the definition of the Convention of London in 1884.

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.

In 1938, African political leaders in Nyasaland began seeking direct African representation on the Legislative Council and also moved towards creating a nation-wide political organization. The simultaneous emergence of these two political strategies represented a rational African attempt to refine previous techniques in the face of changing circumstances. Hitherto, district-wide Native Associations had sought to influence directly the central government secretariat. At the same time these Associations had begun centralizing their activities, with the Representative Committee, in particular, acting as a national-type pressure group. From 1930, however, the government denied the Associations direct access to the centre of its administrative system and insisted that they work through the district chiefs. Some associationists now sought to create a national movement which could circumvent the chiefs and gain access direct to the central government. But the idea was not followed up. Only after Africans had spontaneously become united on a national level and had through unified action successfully opposed the European settler demand for a Central African Union, did a growing feeling emerge that a territorial organization offered a more promising way for solving African problems. In the meantime, the government was beginning to take greater action in the fields of economic

The fortunes of Angoche revived with the growth of the slave trade, and during the 1840s it became the chief slaving port of the Moçambique coast. Numerous attacks were made on it by British and Portuguese expeditions, and the town was finally seized in 1861 by the Portuguese adventurer da Silva. The Muslims who fled from Portuguese occupation were led first by Mussa Quanto, and then, after his death in 1877, by Ussene and Farelay. They were able to confine the Portuguese to a few coastal garrisons, continue the slave trade until the end of the century, and gradually build up an anti-Portuguese ‘front’ amongst the Macua peoples of the hinterland. Farelay was not overthrown and the Macua country was not occupied by the Portuguese until 1910.

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.

Rinderpest, a highly contagious cattle disease which swept through southern Africa in 1896–7, has attracted little interest from historians. A more detailed consideration of its effect on a cattle-keeping peasantry within the context of an industrializing economy assists in illuminating some of the socio-economic and political forces operative in the 1890s.

The spread of rinderpest was acompanied by widespread suspicion and rumour. Some Europeans thought that the disease was spread by Africans. Many Africans, for their part, were convinced that rinderpest was a product of the white man's malice. Over large areas rinderpest was accepted with an attitude of fatalism and resignation. In Basutoland and East Griqualand, however, local leaders emerged who were willing to utilize grievances and rumours stemming from rinderpest for attempts at mobilization for the wider objective of revolt.

The loss of large numbers of cattle caused considerable social and economic distress in African communities. The transport system was paralysed in an economy dependent on the extensive use of the ox-wagon, and this resulted in price rises and profiteering in more remote areas. With the disappearance of the source of meat and milk Africans experienced considerable hardship and in some cases starvation. Forced into taking contingency action, activities ranged from planting vegetables to stock-thieving. Generally, however, the impoverishment of Africans caused by rinderpest contributed to the growing proletarianization of Africans and the process of labour migration. Rinderpest did not produce fundamental structural changes in Southern African society, but it did emphasize the processes which were to characterize industrial South Africa of the twentieth century.

The article as a whole argues that the observations of Leo Frobenius in West Africa between 1907 and 1912, though they are commonly ignored by Anglo-American archaeologists and anthropologists, contain material which is of value to the historian of early twentieth-century West Africa. The author examines Frobenius's methods and observations in the light of his own statements (some of them in works which have not been translated into English or French) and suggests various outside sources which could be used to check the reliability of Frobenius's accounts.

The attitude of Anglo-American anthropologists is explained in terms of developments in anthropological theory since the First World War.

The article examines the defects of Frobenius's anthropological method, as exemplified by his work among the Kabré of North Togo shortly after their ‘pacification’ by the Germans; and suggests that the observations themselves may be more reliable than Frobenius's method would lead one to expect.

The article then considers Frobenius's archaeological method as exemplified by his work in Ife, argues that he was somewhat unscrupulous in forcing the sale of artefacts, and also, that by failing to keep adequate site records or even to supervise the digging himself, he destroyed a considerable amount of archaeological evidence at Ife. Historians should, however, study his work in Ife to note where such destruction has taken place, and what kind of evidence has been destroyed.

The article suggests outside sources, both oral and written, which might enable historians to check the veracity of Frobenius's account of his own method, and also the reliability of the observations themselves. Finally, it is suggested that an assessment of the reliability of his observations in Togo and Nigeria might be generally indicative of the reliability of his observation throughout West Africa in the period 1907–12.

Mitchell maintained that the relationship between the Protectorate Government of Uganda and the Native Government of Buganda was that of protected rule rather than of indirect rule. In order to implement his policy of protected rule, he planned a reorganization in Buganda, involving the substitution of a Resident for a Provincial Commissioner and the withdrawal of district officers to the centre, where the Resident and his staff would offer advice to the Kabaka. Mitchell did not envisage that the Protectorate Government's influence would thereby be weakened, since he assumed that the Kabaka would be obliged to follow advice which was given to him. Under the Agreement of 1900, however, the Kabaka was specifically required to act upon such advice only in the case of the implementation of Lukiiko resolutions. Relations between the Kabaka and both the Protectorate Government and his own Ministers steadily deteriorated during Mitchell's governorship, and the deposition of the Kabaka was even considered. For these reasons, Mitchell proceeded cautiously with his reorganization and it was left to his successor, Dundas, to complete it. Owing largely to the restricted power of the Governor under the Agreement to impose his wishes upon the Kabaka, the changes introduced resulted in a steady decline in the influence which the Protectorate Government could exert in Buganda.

Caught between schools of sociogy, historians of North Africa over the past twenty years have concetrated on the first century of European colonization, 1830–1930. The previous thousand years of the Muslim period remain enigmatic, their interpretation still heavily dependent upon the work of Ibn Khhaldūn. In conclusion to his volume of the 1952 edition of Ch.-A. Julien's Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord, R. Ie Tourneau characterized this ‘medieval’ period as one of political failure. With particular reference to Morocco, Gellner and more recently Abun-Nasr have, in their various ways, sought to explain an absence of effective government in terms of Ibn Khhaldūn's cyclical theory of the rise and fall of dynasties, taking the traditional Moroccan distinction between a Bilād al Makhzan and a Bilād al-Sība to represent the antithesis between the civilized and the primitive on which that theory rests. Islam is seen as a positive influence on behalf of central government. Neither scheme is satisfactory, perhaps because like Ibn Khhaldūn they are both too concerned with the central power. Taking North Africa as a whole, it seems better to begin with a division of authority in the pre-colonial period into the secular and the religious, the first represented by tribes and local lordships (as well as cities) and by the central government itself, the second by the men of religion, ‘ulamā’ and murābiṭūn. From a position protected by reverence and sustained by endowments, the latter operated as consultants rather than commanders, with the proviso that it was always open to the man of religion to use his prestige and wealth to step across into the realm of secular power. Progress from there to the top, on the other hand, was exceptional. The control of the central government was a great prize, and for that reason the system normally restricted competition by reserving it to the members of an exclusive group, whether a royal family as in Morocco and Tunisia or a regiment of soldiers as in Algiers. The overthrow of that ruling group was difficult, achieved in any given instance only after years of preparation. It is hard to infer a general rule. Islam was employed to justify the claimant as occasion offered, the justification(s) advanced becoming in the event an historical myth on behalf of the successful candidate and – his dawla, his dynasty or state. Any residual Islamic content inherent in the throne as distinct from its occupant can scarcely be isolated as an independent factor. In practice it may have amounted to little more than acceptance of government, whether Muslim or Christian, as a necessary evil.