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.

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.

Turkish Archival Sources for West African History

1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (03) ◽  
pp. 59-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. G. Martin
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Political System ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Early History ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
African History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Islamic Society

About 1960, the study of West African history took a new turn as historians became aware of the interest and value of Islamic sources for their work, particularly manuscript materials in Arabic. To be sure, the use of Arabic sources for the history of West Africa is nothing new: in 1841, W. Des-borough Cooley published his The Negroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained; or, an Inquiry into the Early History and Geography of Central Africa. But Cooley's pioneering book was discounted by later British and American writers on Africa as the work of an eccentric. In the 1880's and 1890's, many of these writers were spellbound by their vision of what Christianity might do for the African, while others were preoccupied by what they deemed to be the morally indefensible activities of the Muslims as slave-raiders and traders in West and East Africa. As late as the 1930's, the well-known British anthropologist C. K. Meek indicted Islam in northern Nigeria when he wrote: “The institution of slavery is a pivotal feature of Islamic society, and we are justified with charging Muhammadanism with the devastation and desolation in which Northern Nigeria was found at the beginning of this century.” Other writers, like Sir A.C. Burns for Nigeria, and A. W. Cardinall and W. E. F. Ward for Ghana, dismissed the Islamic side of West African history in few words, or gave it no mention at all. There were other reasons for this lack of emphasis. In northern Nigeria, for example, many British officials were apprehensive of an outbreak of “Mahdism” among the Muslims; and very frequently, French officials looked on Islam as a rival political system, dangerous and potentially subversive.

scholarly journals TERRORISM IN WEST AFRICAN HISTORY: A 21ST CENTURY APPRAISAL

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Gam Nkwi
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
21St Century ◽  
West African ◽  
African History ◽  
Key Players ◽  
History Of

This article focuses on the history of terrorism in West Africa in the first half of the 21st Century and attempts by regional and international bodies to combat it. It argues that although recently much attention has been paid to the sub region as a zone of terrorism, such terrorism has deeper historical roots and as such pre-dates the position taken by most contemporary scholars. West Africa has been a victim of terrorism over the years and to take on board only recent happenings is to do injustice to history. What has changed and continued? Who have been the key players? What attempts have been carried out by the respective organizations to stamp out terrorism?  

The Royal African Company of England's West African Correspondence, 1681-1699

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 173-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Cape Coast ◽  
General Terms ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of

This paper draws attention to an ambitious project in the publication of source material for the precolonial history of West Africa, which has recently been approved for inclusion in the Fontes Historiae Africanae series of the British Academy. In addition to self-promotion, however, I wish also to take the opportunity to air some of the problems of editorial strategy and choice which arise with regard to the editing and presentation of this material, in the hope of provoking some helpful feedback on these issues.The material to be published consists of correspondence of the Royal African Company of England relating to the West African coast in the late seventeenth century. The history of the Royal African Company (hereafter RAC) is in general terms well known, especially through the pioneering (and still not superseded) study by K.G. Davies (1957). The Company was chartered in 1672 with a legal monopoly of English trade with Africa. Its headquarters in West Africa was at Cape Coast (or, in the original form of the name, Cabo Corso) Castle on the Gold Coast, and it maintained forts or factories not only on the Gold Coast itself, but also at the Gambia, in Sierra Leone, and at Offra and Whydah on the Slave Coast. It lost its monopoly of the African trade in 1698, and thereafter went into decline, effectively ceasing to operate as a trading concern in the 1720s, although it continued to manage the English possessions on the coast of West Africa until it was replaced by a regulated company (i.e., one open to all traders), the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, in 1750.

African American Journalists in World War II West Africa: The NNPA Commission Tour of 1944–1945

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110549
Author(s):  
Oliver Coates
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
West Africa ◽  
American West ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic

The National Negro Publishers Association (NNPA) Commission to West Africa in 1944–1945 represents a major episode in the history of World War II Africa, as well as in American–West Africa relations. Three African American reporters toured the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia, and the Congo between November 1944 and February 1945, before returning to Washington, DC to report to President Roosevelt. They documented their tour in the pages of the Baltimore Afro-American, the Chicago Defender, and the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Their Americans’ visit had a significant impact in wartime West Africa and was widely documented in the African press. This article examines the NNPA tour geographically, before analyzing American reporters’ interactions with West Africans, and assessing African responses to the tour. Drawing on both African American and West African newspapers, it situates the NNPA tour within the history of World War II West Africa, and in terms of African print culture. It argues that the NNPA tour became the focus of West African hopes for future political, economic, and intellectual relations with African Americans, while revealing how the NNPA reporters engaged African audiences during their tour.

Systematic revision of the living African Slender-snouted Crocodiles (Mecistops Gray, 1844)

Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4504 (2) ◽  
pp. 151 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW H. SHIRLEY ◽  
AMANDA N. CARR ◽  
JENNIFER H. NESTLER ◽  
KENT A. VLIET ◽  
CHRISTOPHER A. BROCHU
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Valid Species ◽  
Morphological Evidence ◽  
Systematic Revision ◽  
Current State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Living Species ◽  
African Form

Molecular and morphological evidence has shown that the African slender-snouted, or sharp-nosed, crocodile Mecistops cataphractus (Cuvier, 1824) is comprised of two superficially cryptic species: one endemic to West Africa and the other endemic to Central Africa. Our ability to characterize the two species is compromised by the complicated taxonomic history of the lineage and overlapping ranges of variation in distinguishing morphological features. The name M. cataphractus was evidently originally based on West African material, but the holotype is now lost. Although types exist for other names based on the West African form, the name M. cataphractus is sufficiently entrenched in the literature, and other names sufficiently obscure, to justify retypification. Here, we designate a neotype for M. cataphractus and restrict it to West Africa. We resurrect M. leptorhynchus as a valid species from Central Africa and identify exemplary referred specimens that, collectively, overcome the obscurity and diagnostic limits of the extant holotype. We additionally indicate suitable neotype material in the event the holotype is lost, destroyed, or otherwise needing replacement, and we rectify the previously erroneous type locality designation. We provide a revised diagnosis for crown Mecistops, and revise and update previous descriptions of the two living species, including providing both more complete descriptions and discussion of diagnostic characters. Finally, we provide considerable discussion of the current state of knowledge of these species’ ecology, natural history, and distribution. 

The Garvey Movement in British West Africa

1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. L. Okonkwo
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
The West ◽  
Universal Negro Improvement Association ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Blacks ◽  
Garvey Movement ◽  
African Nationalism

The paper seeks to present new information concerning the activities of the West African branches of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. The author has included biographical profiles of the British West African Garveyites to integrate the Garvey movement into the history of West African nationalism and Pan-Africanism.It is argued that Garveyism was welcomed in British West Africa by the older cultural nationalists who saw Garveyism as an extension of Blyden's ideas. Pan-African sentiments of racial unity and solidarity of African and American blacks, pride in the history of the race, and self-help projects had wide circulation in West Africa from the latter part of the nineteenth century, as a result of Blyden's influence. Joining the branches of the U.N.I.A. was a practical demonstration of a long-standing commitment to cultural and racial nationalism among the West African elite.The Garvey movement also marked the beginning of a new era in West African nationalism. Garvey's radical pronouncements on freeing Africa from colonial rule were unacceptable to the older cultural nationalists who dominated the Garvey groups. They disavowed any interest in organizing a central nation for the race. However, Garvey's ideas may have had long-term effects. By the 1930s the idea of independence from colonial rule seemed more attractive to the West African nationalists. Garvey was one of the first to speak out boldly for freedom from colonialism.The concrete achievements of the West African branches of the U.N.I.A. were small indeed. Nigeria had the most Garveyite activity in British West Africa. There was an agent for the Black Star Line in Lagos and a branch of the U.N.I.A. and A.C.L. The Gold Coast had the least Garveyite activity, probably because of their involvement in the National Congress of British West Africa and also because of their more critical attitude towards co-operation with American blacks. They believed that Africans were best qualified to lead any joint efforts for intra-racial co-operation.

Early European Sources Relating to the Kingdom of Ijebu (1500-1700): A Critical Survey

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 245-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
West African ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Early History ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
African History ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Original Information

The history of the Yoruba, as is well known, is very poorly documented from contemporary European sources prior to the nineteenth century, in comparison with their neighbors Benin to the east and the states of the ‘Slave Coast’ (Allada, Whydah, and Dahomey) to the west. There is, however, one Yoruba kingdom which features in contemporary European sources from quite early times, and for which at least intermittent documentation extends through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is the kingdom of Ijebu in southern Yorubaland. The availability of contemporary European documentation for the early history of Ijebu is especially valuable since the historical traditions of Ijebu itself do not appear to be very rich.Such, at least, is the impression given by published accounts of Ijebu history: although a large number of kings of Ijebu are recalled, thereby suggesting for the kingdom a considerable antiquity, and though there is some recollection locally of early contacts with the Portuguese, it does not seem that Ijebu traditions record much in the way of a detailed narrative of the kingdom's early history. At the same time, the European sources referring to Ijebu present considerable problems of interpretation, particularly with regard to establishing how far successive references to the kingdom constitute new original information rather than merely copying a limited range of early sources, and consideration of them helps to illuminate the character of early European sources for west African history in general. For these reasons, it seems a useful exercise to pull together all the available early European source material relating to Ijebu down to the late seventeenth century.

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