Some Source Books for West African History

1961 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
West African ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
African History ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Varied Range

In his recent book on the Royal African Company, K. G. Davies remarked that he had found himself obliged to conduct his research as though he were working on Ancient History. I have since experienced the same feeling when dealing with a more varied range of material, and this article is a plea for subjecting the sources for African history to that kind of critical appraisal which has customarily been applied to Greek and Roman authors. In my case I was concerned only with the old European forts in West Africa, and from an antiquarian viewpoint, but the same considerations must apply more generally, and the examples that follow will, I trust, stimulate investigation of the writers where they deal with other topics.

Postcolonial States and Societies in West Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebenezer Obadare
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
African History ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Lost Decade ◽  
Independence Era ◽  
Political Landscapes ◽  
Postcolonial States ◽  
The Military

Postcolonial West African history can be understood in terms of transitions across three successive eras: a post-independence era of high nationalism; the military era, characterized by profound political and socio-economic instability; and, finally, since the early 1990s, a democratization era, marked by continued swings between fevered hopes and anguished realities. These temporalities arguably converge on a singular leitmotif, namely, the attempt by state power to preserve its privileges and the struggle by social forces to resist the state and draw effective boundaries between the private and public domains. Gloomy for most of the “lost decade” of the 1980s, the prospect for such a project appears brighter today, especially in the aftermath of pivotal shifts in the global and regional political landscapes.

scholarly journals Did the ancient Egyptians migrate to ancient Nigeria?

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jock M. Agai
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
West African ◽  
Samuel Johnson ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
African History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Literatures concerning the history of West African peoples published from 1900 to 1970 debate�the possible migrations of the Egyptians into West Africa. Writers like Samuel Johnson and�Lucas Olumide believe that the ancient Egyptians penetrated through ancient Nigeria but Leo�Frobenius and Geoffrey Parrinder frowned at this opinion. Using the works of these early�20th century writers of West African history together with a Yoruba legend which teaches�about the origin of their earliest ancestor(s), this researcher investigates the theories that the�ancient Egyptians had contact with the ancient Nigerians and particularly with the Yorubas.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: There is an existing ideology�amongst the Yorubas and other writers of Yoruba history that the original ancestors of�the Yorubas originated in ancient Egypt hence there was migration between Egypt and�Yorubaland. This researcher contends that even if there was migration between Egypt and�Nigeria, such migration did not take place during the predynastic and dynastic period as�speculated by some scholars. The subject is open for further research.

Muslim Brotherhoods in West African History

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Nobili
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
West African ◽  
The Novel ◽  
African History ◽  
Lake Chad ◽  
History Of ◽  
Independent States ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Colonial Government

Muslim Sufi brotherhoods (ṭuruq, sing. ṭarīqa) are ubiquitous in contemporary Islamic West Africa. However, they are relative latecomers in the history of the region, making their appearance in the mid-18th century. Yet, Sufism has a longer presence in West Africa that predates the consolidation of ṭuruq. Early evidence of Sufi practices dates to the period between the 11th and the 17th centuries. By that time traces of the Shādhiliyya and the lesser-known Maḥmūdiyya are available between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Chad, but it was the activities of the Kunta of the Qādiriyya and of al-ḥājj ‘Umar of the Tijāniyya that led to the massive spread of Sufi brotherhoods in the region. The authority of leaders of ṭuruq did not disappear with the imposition of European colonialism. In fact, the power of those leaders who adjusted to the novel political situation further consolidated thanks to their role as mediators between their constituencies and the colonial government. Eventually, the end of the colonial period did not signal the decline of ṭuruq in West Africa. Conversely, during the postcolonial years, Sufi brotherhoods continued flourishing despite the secular nature of West African independent states and the increasing tension with a plethora of equally rising Salafi movements.

Mali: A Bibliographical Introduction

1966 ◽  
Vol 9 (03) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Charles H. Cutter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Source Material ◽  
African History ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Historical Society ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
History Of

Bibliographical research on Mali must begin with the monumental Bibliographie générale du Mali, prepared by Paule Brasseur (Dakar, IFAN, 1964). The present essay is in no way a substitute for such a basic volume. It is an attempt to introduce the reader to some of the best and most important works concerning Mali, at the same time stressing materials that have appeared in English or since the publication of the Brasseur work. Neither the Brasseur bibliography nor this essay takes adequate account of the manuscript sources in Peul and Arabic concerning the western Sudan. Still in private hands or in the archives of Paris, Dakar, Zaria, Kano, Ibadan, or Timbuktu, these manuscripts are largely unclassified and unstudied. Once analyzed, they will provide an important source for the study of Malian history. Vincent Monteil, “Les manuscrits historiques arabo-africains,” Bulletin de l'IFAN, série B, XXVII, No. 3-4 (July-October 1965), 531-542, surveys efforts being made to collect and classify such manuscripts in West Africa. H. F. C. Smith, “The Archives of Segu,” Bulletin of News of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Supplement to Vol. IV, No. 2 (September 1959), presents a brief analysis of some of the great collection of manuscripts captured by Archinard in 1890 and now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. In addition, in “Source Material for the History of the Western Sudan,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, I, No. 3 (December 1958), 238-248, Smith surveys significant materials from the Gironcourt Collection, in the Institut de France, Paris. This is updated by him in “Nineteenth-Century Arabic Archives of West Africa,” Journal of African History, III, No. 2 (1962), 333-336, a brief listing of literary works, diplomatic correspondence between West African emirates, etc.

Barbot, Dapper, Davity: A Critique of Sources on Sierra Leone and Cape Mount

1974 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 25-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.E.H. Hair
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
West African ◽  
Source Analysis ◽  
African History ◽  
Publishing Houses ◽  
The Common ◽  
Good Cause ◽  
Written Sources

It is over a decade since Professor Lawrence made a plea “for subjecting the sources for African history to that kind of critical appraisal which has customarily been applied to Greek and Roman authors.” Among Anglophone African historians, the plea has largely gone unheard. Could this conceivably be because critical source analysis is dull stuff for minds accustomed to the excitement of filling blank plains of African history with elephants of speculation and castles of moralistic stance? The opportunity provided by the reprinting of the standard sources has all too frequently been lost. One editor of an essential west African source is content to remark that the contemporary translation into English he is reprinting, considered together with another contemporary translation into French, are “all [sic], for the most part, considered faithful renditions of the original Dutch.” Standards of source-verification in published African history not uncommonly fall below the standards demanded in other fields of history; even reputable publishing houses occasionally produce works whose standards of historical enquiry are so low that they have been termed, unkindly but not altogether unjustly, “Academic Oxfam for Africa.” Perhaps a case does exist for speculation and commitment in African history, perhaps non-written sources may inform in detail as well as stimulate in general; but if the African historian dares to step outside the ivory tower of African studies, and is concerned that his subject be taken seriously by the historical profession as a whole, he must perform his exercises on the common ground of historical enquiry. This means that he must include a measure of dull critical analysis of written sources. Professor Shepperson once suggested that the time had come for more ‘dull’ African history: the present paper is intended as a contribution to this and to no other good cause.

Double Dutch? A Survey of Seventeenth-Century German Sources for West African History

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 141-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Jones
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
West African ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
African History ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
English Edition ◽  
German State ◽  
Literary Output

Following the lead of two Dutch pioneers, historians have recently made considerable progress in the critical analysis of seventeenth-century European sources relating to west Africa. Many important works, however, have yet to be dealt with. Among these are the German sources, without which the other sources cannot fully be understood. Although no German state was as important in seventeenth-century trade with west Africa as the Dutch, English, French, and Portuguese, the German literary output was as significant as that of any nation except the Dutch. Having just completed a critical English edition of seventeenth-century German writings on west Africa, I think it appropriate to review the extent to which these can be regarded as primary sources. I propose to look at each author in chronological order.

Exotic Plants of Western Africa: Where They Came From and When

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 63-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley B. Alpern
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sugar Cane ◽  
New World ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
African History ◽  
New Crops ◽  
Western Africa ◽  
Asian Rice ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Southern Fringe

History in Africa carried an article in 1992 entitled “The European Introduction of Crops into West Africa in Precolonial Times.” I wrote this to correct an impression left by several historians that only maize and cassava were worth mentioning. My reading of precolonial African history had made it very clear that a great many new crops were brought to the continent during the slave-trade period. My initial geographical focus was what used to be called Lower Guinea, roughly the coast from Cape Palmas to Mt. Cameroon, but inevitably my research took in all of western Africa from Senegal to Angola and up to the southern fringe of the Sahara. My findings were admittedly interim, a sort of database for future refinement. And yet I was able to identify 86 introduced crops.It was ingenuous of me to expect that one paper would suffice to over-turn what had become conventional wisdom. In 1995 John Iliffe, in 1997 Elizabeth Isichei, in 1998 John Reader repeated the maize-cassava mantra. In 2002 Christopher Ehret expanded the duo of exotic crops to include tobacco, peanuts, New World beans, Asian rice and sugar cane. David W. Phillipson reiterated in 2005 what he had said 20 years earlier, citing only maize, cassava and bananas. And in 2006 James L.A. Webb Jr. named just four: maize, cassava, peanuts and potatoes.This pattern of minimization may reflect what seems to be a general disinclination of historians to dig deeply into botany. An important recent book titled Writing African History devotes only 17 of 510 pages to the subject.

The Canoe in West African History

1970 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Smith
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Coastal Lagoon ◽  
West African ◽  
African History ◽  
Tree Trunk ◽  
Single Tree ◽  
History Of

The canoe, carved and usually also burnt-out from a single tree trunk, played a part in the history of the coastal, lagoon and river-side peoples of West Africa similar in importance to that of the horse in the savannah states. It ranged in size from the small fishing canoe to craft over 80 ft. in length and capable of carrying, in calm waters, 100 men or more. Sails were often used, in addition to paddles and punt poles. The builders were specialists, usually living in the forests, where the most suitable trees were found.

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