Mpongwe Origins: Historiographical Perspectives

1975 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 59-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry H. Bucher
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Previous Period ◽  
The North ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Linguistic Classification

The Mpongwe people of the Gabon estuary live today in the immediate area of Libreville, the capital city of the Gabon Republic. Libreville is built on Mpongwe ancestral lands, and its history is only a small and comparatively recent chapter in the longer story of the Mpongwe and their neighbors. In the nineteenth century the expression “les Gabonais” or “the Gaboon people” had only one meaning—the Mpongwe of the estuary who were the coastal trading aristocracy.The Mpongwe are only one of the six peoples belonging to the Myèné-speaking group of Gabon. The other five are the Orungu, Nkomi, Galoa, Adyumba, and Enenga. Only the Mpongwe are patrilineal. Myèné is purely a linguistic classification, a subdivision of the Bantu language. All six of these societies fit into a circle whose circumference includes the three largest cities in Gabon today—Libreville, Port Gentil (formerly Cape Lopez), and Lambaréné (Map 1). From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, Myèné was the coastal lingua franca between the southern Cameroun and Cabinda. The Myèné societies in general, and the Mpongwe in particular, have played a key role in Gabon's past, and continue to be an influential minority in modern Gabon. In the early nineteenth century, and for an unknown previous period, the closest non-Myèné neighbors of the Mpongwe were the Benga and the related societies to the north, and the Shekiani and Bakélé to the east. The Shekiani were the couriers in the Mpongwe trade with the Bakélé and other interior societies.

From Caesarea to Athens: Greek Revival Edinburgh and the Question of Scottish Identity within the Unionist State

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Lowrey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sir Walter Scott ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Town ◽  
The North ◽  
Greek Revival ◽  
Greek Architecture ◽  
The City

In the early nineteenth century, the city of Edinburgh cultivated a reputation as "the Athens of the North." The paper explores the architectural aspects of this in relation to the city's sense of its own identity. It traces the idea of Edinburgh as a "modern Athens" back to the eighteenth century, when the connotations were cultural, intellectual, and topographical rather than architectural. With the emergence of the Greek revival, however, Edinburgh began actively to construct an image of classical Greece on the hilltops and in the streets of the expanding city. It is argued that the Athenian identity of Edinburgh should be viewed as the culmination of a series of developments dating back to the Act of Union between the Scottish and English Parliaments in 1707. As a result, Edinburgh lost its status as a capital city and struggled to reassert itself against the stronger economy of the south. Almost inevitably, the northern capital had to redefine itself in relation to London, the English and British capital. The major developments of Edinburgh in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including the New Town and the urban proposals of Robert Adam, are interpreted in this light. As the eighteenth century progressed, the city grew more confident and by the early nineteenth century had settled upon its role within the Union and within the empire, which was that of cultural capital as a counterbalance to London, the political capital. The architectural culmination of the process of the redefinition of Edinburgh, however, coincided with the emergence of another mythology of Scottish identity, as seen through the Romantic vision of Sir Walter Scott. It implied a quite different, indigenous architecture that later found its expression in the Scots Baronial style. It is argued here, however, that duality does not contradict the idea of Edinburgh as Athens, nor, more generally, does it sit uneasily with the Scottish predilection for Greek architecture, but rather that it encapsulates the very essence of Scottish national identity: both proudly Scots and British.

Reformism and Orthodox Practice in Early Nineteenth-Century Muslim North India: Sayyid Ahmed Shaheed Reconsidered

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-198
Author(s):  
SANA HAROON
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North India ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The North ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThis paper is a reconsideration of the career of the north-Indian Sayyid Ahmed Shaheed (1786–1831). I argue that Sayyid Ahmed used a Sufi devotional premise to understand and explain principles of orthodoxy. He also applied a concept of innate spiritual knowledge to reformed practice, suggesting that ordinary people, without scholarly training, could determine and apply the principles of orthodox practice of Islam for themselves and for others. His movement modified traditional seminary-centred teaching and leadership through the creation of a popular and easily transferrable system of practice rooted in the community and imprinted with the obligation to spread reformist teachings.

Chapter 6 Decline in the North in the Early Nineteenth Century

2004 ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Gordon Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Sudden Expansion ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The North

The ending of the Napoleonic war in 1815 was not followed by the same sort of bounding activity as followed the ending of the previous war in 1783, for two very obvious reasons. The sudden expansion after 1783 had resulted chiefly from the changed relationship between Britain and America; and the last few years of the Napoleonic war had themselves witnessed both "recovery" and prosperity in the whaling trade which preceded the normal return to peace-time activities. The year 1808 had been one of appalling depression in overseas trade when, because of restrictions imposed for war purposes, ports all over the country came virtually to a standstill. The whaling trade had suffered with the rest, and the prosperity of the early years of the century was briefly interrupted. Only fifty-six ships sailed for the Northern Fishery in 1808, and only nineteen for the Southern, though the aggregate value of their catches - as usually happened - remained disproportionately high....

Mendelssohn and the Idea of the North

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-139
Author(s):  
Sarah Clemmens Waltz
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
German Culture ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The North ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter re-evaluates Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Scottish’ works by placing them in the context of the early-nineteenth-century North German view of Scotland, especially as channelled through Mendelssohn’s mentors Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Carl Friedrich Zelter. Such interest in Scotland was undergirded by a belief in a shared German-Celtic past and a sense that Scottish culture was not exotic but rather essentially German. Figures in Mendelssohn’s circle participated in deliberate attempts to claim a general northern antiquity for German culture, using arguments concerning the relationship of climate, race, and character. A recontextualization of Scotland as representing a lost German past may signal additional reinterpretations of Mendelssohn’s anticipations of travel, his travel experiences, and his statements concerning folk song, as well as his Fantasy, Op. 28, originally titled Sonate écossaise.

An Adulterine Castle on Faringdon Clump, Berkshire

1936 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. T. Leeds
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North Slope ◽  
Market Place ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The North ◽  
White Horse ◽  
Sandstone Rock ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Hill ◽  
Oxford Road

From the market-place at Faringdon the Oxford road mounts steadily, passing under the north slope of the hill known variously as Faringdon Clump or Faringdon Folly. The hill is a rounded knoll, the summit of which stands 505 ft. O.D. and, besides being a well-known landmark in the Vale of White Horse, commands an extensive prospect in every direction. Like Cumnor Hurst, Shotover, Brill and others, it is one of a series of undenuded caps of Cretaceous sands overlying Berkshire oolites that crop out at intervals between Faringdon and Aylesbury. The sands are ferruginous, dark yellow with lighter sands below, divided by a layer of sandstone rock. On the summit of the hill is a clump of beeches and Scotch firs, probably planted here, as on so many similar eminences, in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.

Charity, Finance, and Legitimacy: Exploring Stateless-Capital Status in Early Nineteenth-Century Dublin and Edinburgh

2019 ◽  
pp. 009614421987786
Author(s):  
Joe Curran
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Sharp Contrast ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Central State ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Functions

Nineteenth-century Dublin and Edinburgh were “stateless capitals”; they were no longer home to parliaments but still had many of the characteristics of a capital city. This article begins to explore the idea that the stateless capital constitutes a particular type of city. It analyses philanthropic activity to assess how middle-class life in each city was affected by their positions as stateless capitals. In particular, it examines the significance of the close interactions between central state and philanthropy that helped to shape stateless-capital status in early nineteenth-century Dublin but not Edinburgh. It argues that central state intervention in Dublin did not dampen the vibrancy of associational culture, but it did politicize philanthropy, reducing voluntary organizations’ ability to mediate social conflict. More seriously, the provision of parliamentary grants to Dublin’s charities damaged the city’s image, making it appear unable to perform basic urban functions. This was in sharp contrast to Edinburgh’s image as Scottish metropolis.

scholarly journals COLLABORATORS, COLLABORATION, AND THE PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE IN NAPOLEONIC ITALY, THE OPPIZZONI AFFAIR, 1805–1807

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMBROGIO A. CAIANI
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Active Agent ◽  
Local History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Direct Control ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fine Line ◽  
History Of ◽  
Made In ◽  
Going Native

ABSTRACTThe recent bicentennial commemorations of the Napoleonic empire have witnessed a proliferation of new studies. Scholars now possess much more sophisticated conceptual tools than in past decades with which to gauge the problems faced by French imperial administrators throughout Europe. Well-trodden concepts, like centre/periphery or collaboration/resistance, have been reinvigorated by more sophisticated understandings of how rulers and ruled interacted in the early nineteenth century. This article argues that, while much progress has been made in understanding problems of ‘resistance’, there is more to be said about the other side of the same coin, namely: ‘collaboration’. Using the micro/local history of a scandal in Napoleonic Bologna, this article wishes to reaffirm that collaboration was an active agent that shaped, and often shook, the French imperial project. The biggest problem remained that, despite ‘good intentions’, collaborators sometimes simply did not collaborate with each other. After all, imperial clients were determined to benefit from the experience of empire. The centre was often submerged by local petty squabbles. This article will use a specific micro-history in Bologna to highlight the extent to which Napoleonic empire builders had to thread a fine line between the impracticalities of direct control and the dangers of ‘going native’.

scholarly journals The Scottish Reformations and the Origin of Religious and Civil Liberty in Britain and Ireland: Presbyterian Interpretations, c.1800-60

2014 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Civil Liberty ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
The North ◽  
Modern Period

This article examines Presbyterian interpretations in Scotland and Ireland of the Scottish Reformations of 1560 and 1638–43. It begins with a discussion of the work of two important Presbyterian historians of the early nineteenth century, the Scotsman, Thomas McCrie, and the Irishman, James Seaton Reid. In their various publications, both laid the template for the nineteenth-century Presbyterian understanding of the Scottish Reformations by emphasizing the historical links between the Scottish and Irish churches in the early-modern period and their common theology and commitment to civil and religious liberty against the ecclesiastical and political tyranny of the Stuarts. The article also examines the commemorations of the National Covenant in 1838, the Solemn League and Covenant in 1843, and the Scottish Reformation in 1860. By doing so, it uncovers important religious and ideological linkages across the North Channel, including Presbyterian evangelicalism, missionary activity, church–state relationships, religious reform and revival, and anti-Catholicism.

scholarly journals Evidence for Thailand's Missing Social History: Thai Women in Old Mural Paintings

2002 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alec Gordon ◽  
Napat Sirisambhand
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Gender History ◽  
Thai Women ◽  
The North ◽  
Mural Paintings

With the burning of central Thailand's capital city, Ayudhya, in 1767 and the destruction of virtually all the records kept there by the centralized bureaucracy of that kingdom, and with the Burmese occupation of the north and the devastating years of fighting around 1800 to drive them out, there is virtually no written record left at all for Thailand prior to the nineteenth century. There is a little material on rulers and some of their activities, but for social history the record is nearly blank. Is there then no way to write a social history or a gender history for Thailand?

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