Colonial Africa Research Articles

Two Kings: Empire, Abolition, and the University of Aberdeen’s First African Student

This article presents a biography and multi-generational microhistory of Nathaniel King (1847–1884), the University of Aberdeen’s first African-born student and a pioneering practitioner of Western medicine in colonial West Africa. Nathaniel’s father, Thomas King, rose from slavery to become a missionary and linguist in Sierra Leone and what would later become Nigeria. Nathaniel, born to survivors of the Middle Passage, graduated M.B., C.M. from Aberdeen in 1876, before returning to West Africa to become a prominent member of the educated elite in Victorian Lagos. The long-established historiography of Scottish ‘sojourners’ abroad has not yet explored the impact of colonial sojourners to Scotland, an itinerary travelled particularly by male students from within the empire, especially as Scotland’s universities became imperial centres of medical training. This article draws particular attention to the significance of Britain’s nineteenth-century campaign against the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the arrival of the first African-born students at Scottish universities, placing King’s history within a broader pattern of Africans born to people liberated from slave ships who ventured to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and St Andrews in the middle decades of the nineteenth century for medical training.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE EASTERN INDIAN FRINGES: THE CASE OF TRIPURA

From the dawn of human civilization, the history of mankind has recorded multiple events of conflicts, battles & wars. But it has never witnessed something destructive & devasting like World War II (1939 -1945). This global conflict between Allied & Axis powers lasted for 2191 days, involving as many as 110 million armed soldiers from 72 nations. At least 50 million people lost their lives in this great war among them 28 million were innocent civilians. Major cities across Europe and Asia, including Berlin, London, Warsaw, Tokyo, and Hiroshima, were extensively bombed and reduced to rubble. In the initial stage, the war was only confined to European nations though their colonies in Asia & Africa were indirectly affected severely. But with time, the African colonies caught fire from this war and in later stages, it spread all over Asia. India, being a British colony at that time was pushed into the war by its colonial masters who looked over the will of Indian masses. The British Government exploited India's valuable resources and labour force for the War preparations. The heat of the war also reached Tripura, a small princely state under the British Suzerainty. The involvement of Japan in the Second World War and its hasty advancement on the eastern front changed the whole scenario of the war from the Indian perspective. The fall of Burma at the hands of the Japanese brought the war to the very door of India. As a result, Tripura and the northeastern region fell under the direct threat of the Japanese offensive. In this paper, I have attempted to sketch a picture of Princely Tripura of that time concerning the Second World War. Here I have discussed extensively about the threat of Japanese invasion, economic strains, military organizations, war preparations, and other administrative activities in the state, all centred around the Second World War. In the middle of the war, the Congress-led ‘Augst movement’ or ‘Quite India movement’ increased difficulties for the trouble-torn British Raj. The turmoil created all over the country by the ‘Quite India Movement’ also impacted the state of Tripura. Here I also tried to track down the events related to the ‘Quite India Movement’ in Tripura during the war and how the ruling class of princely Tripura met those challenges. In a nutshell, through this paper, an attempt has been made to shed light on the relevant events, that took place in princely Tripura during the Second World War and analyse different events & developments related to it from various socio-economic and political aspects. Nevertheless, this paper is a small initiative for the history enthusiast to enhance the understanding of the role of Tripura in a global phenomenon like World War II and to reconstruct the events in a systematic way to conduct further study. KEYWORDS: Allied power, Axis power, Tripura, British suzerainty, Northeastern India, Invasion, Burma.

Government and Politics in the Gambia, 1816–1866

ABSTRACT This paper explores the key features of government and politics in the Gambia from Bathurst’s foundation in 1816 to the establishment of the British West African Settlements in 1866. Drawing on both contemporary and more recent primary and secondary sources, as well as on information provided by family members of officials and merchants who worked in the Gambia, the paper focuses on two main issues. First, it builds on and develops the work of Anthony Kirk-Greene by exploring the overall characteristics of the three key groups of political actors: senior Gambian government officials; British and Eurafrican merchants and traders; and the local African community. Second, it examines the relations between these groups and how these changed over time. In the case of government officials, it also considers their relations with the Colonial Office and between one another. Where possible, comparisons are made with the other British West African colonies of the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone.

The impact of the Dien Bien Phu Victory on the decolonization movement in Africa (1954-1960)

The Dien Bien Phu victory of the Vietnamese army over the French colonists in 1954 contributed significantly to the wave of independence in the French colonies in Africa (1954-1960). This paper analyzes the impact of this historic event in inspiring nationalist movements and promoting liberation struggles in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and the French West African countries during that period. It also examines how the Dien Bien Phu victory weakened France’s position in its colonies and influenced the independence movements there. The results show that Vietnam’s victory had a profound influence by inspiring nationalist sentiments, encouraging resistance spirits, and fueling armed uprisings against French colonialism in Africa. Moreover, it severely undermined France’s authority over its colonies, creating favorable conditions for subsequent independence movements. The research results affirm that the Dien Bien Phu Victory was a powerful catalyst that inspired and accelerated the national liberation movements in the French colonies in Africa.

‘The Happy Valley’: Temporalized Spatiality in Michael Radford’s White Mischief (1987)

ABSTRACT Contemporary times mark a fundamental shift in our sense and experience of the world. The postmodern condition — as remarked by Fredric Jameson (1991) and Jean-Francois Lyotard (1979), among others — calls for new conceptions of lived reality. Nevertheless, profound uneasiness with notions of space and time is not only a postmodernist obsession. Modernist cinema, on account of its aesthetic self-reflexivity, also grapples with ways of inscribing spatiality and temporality. The 1980s saw a resurgence of European heritage films, reminiscent of interwar years of empire (early 1920s–late 1930s), produced in Kenya. Out of Africa (dir. Sydney Pollack, 1985), White Mischief (dir. Michael Radford, 1987), and The Kitchen Toto (dir. Harry Hook, 1988) became global audience staples. Not only do these films perpetuate Western viewers’ ‘master-race’ instincts; they also reproduce ‘cult images’ of an ‘exotic’ African locale. This paper phenomenologically reflects on White Mischief’s nostalgic reconstruction of a colonial settler village, the Happy Valley, and its ultra-privileged white hedonists. It explores how materiality of physical space can aid re-inscription of time and vice versa. Turning the colonial gaze upon itself, in critical self-reflection, my analysis foregrounds profound ruptures, discontinuities and contradictions in the historical fact and experience of European colonialism in Africa.

Late Colonialism and Postcolonial Development in Africa: A Comparative-Historical Analysis of Former Italian Africa

This article analyzes the development legacies of Italian colonialism in Africa. The comparative-historical analysis shows that colonial Italy pursued “settler colonialism” in areas conducive to colonial settlement and large-scale exploitation, and “plantation colonialism” in areas with fewer resource endowments and settlement opportunities. In the immediate aftermath, while settler colonialism had a positive influence and plantation colonialism exerted a negative impact on economic prosperity, both types of Italian colonialism had strong negative effects on human development. In the post-1960 period, whereas the colonial legacy of plantation colonialism led to persistent poverty in Somalia, long-run development in Eritrea and Libya was contingent on critical junctures, which variously reinforced, destabilized, and/or transformed the institutional and developmental legacies of settler colonialism. I draw on the comparative-historical tradition emphasizing national orientation of European colonizers and natural conditions in colonized areas as key determinants of European colonialism and long-run development. However, I emphasize “factor endowments” as one such condition that defined Italian colonization strategies and institutions, finding little empirical support for factor endowments per se or precolonial ethnic centralization as principal determinants.

Skill, race, and wage inequality in British Tanganyika

High racial disparities between Europeans and Africans and high skill premiums are recurrent themes in the literature on inequality in colonial Africa. However, their determinants and effects on inequality remain underexplored. This paper investigates wage inequality, skill premiums, and racial discrimination in British Tanganyika from c. 1920 to 1960. It provides first estimates for wage inequality and race premiums in Tanganyika and extends the coverage of earlier skill premium estimates. Initially, wage inequality in Tanganyika was comparable to neighbouring Kenya and Uganda, but it remained higher in the late colonial period. A primary driver of wage inequality was racial wage disparity, which was partly caused by racial discrimination. Skill premiums also played an important and increasing role and were higher than previously thought. The Tanganyikan administration's failure to expand African education to meet skilled labour demand significantly contributed to racial income differences and wage inequality within the African labour force.

Developing a photographic equipment description tool: insights from the Tropical Research Institute Collection in Lisbon

Photographic equipment that had been used in scientific missions in Portugal’s former Asian and African colonies and now held in the National Museum of Natural History and Science at Lisbon University are the focus of this study. It has been acknowledged that the description tool for cataloguing and accession used within the institution was too generic and could not account for the intersected fields and data necessary for characterising the technical and historical specificities of this equipment. To overcome this need, a literature review and a national and international survey were carried out to understand the descriptive methods and tools commonly used elsewhere. From this work it was concluded that there is no appropriate tool available. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the authors decided to begin focussing on designing a multilevel description prototype tool suitable for the specificities of the project and the collection. The prototype was then discussed and evaluated in a working session with a group of Portuguese photographers, conservators and cultural heritage sector workers. The collaborative nature of that work allowed for the improvement of the prototype, which is now under further review. This article presents the scope and concept behind the design of the description tool, and outlines the various working stages undertaken and the contents and structure covered by the prototype.

The Lingering Echoes of Slavery and Colonisation in Africa

The Lingering Echoes of Slavery and Colonisation in Africa

Commercial fishery no-take zones for African penguins minimize fisheries losses at the expense of conservation gains

Abstract The African penguin population has declined precipitously in recent decades, and if current rates of decline persist, this species could become extinct in the wild by 2035. Resource extraction of small pelagic fish prey by the purse-seine fishery around African penguin breeding colonies has been identified as a demographically meaningful threat to African penguins. Consequently, long-term, effective no-take zones around breeding colonies have been endorsed by an expert panel of scientists constituted by the South African government. Here, we consider the six largest South African penguin colonies that currently hold 76% of the global population. We evaluate the adequacy of different no-take zone options using a trade-off mechanism recommended by the expert panel. For all six colonies except Bird Island, Algoa Bay, which is subject to the least fishing pressure, the current no-take zone delineations are assessed as having little benefit to the African penguin and little to no cost to the purse-seine fishery. Four of the six current no-take zones include ≤50% of the African penguins’ core foraging areas. Alternative no-take zones that approximate a more balanced trade-off offer more impactful alternatives to the current fisheries restrictions. Given the urgent need to implement evidence-based conservation interventions for the endangered African penguin, we recommend the substitution of the current no-take zones with those proposed herein.

The colonial labour question: Trade and social expenditure in interwar Africa

Access to education and health care are core development goals of the United Nations since its inception. Today, almost all countries have education and health systems in place. In former colonies, the historical roots of these systems can often be traced back to colonial times. In this article, we argue that spending on social services for the local population was seen as a necessary condition to expand the trade-based colonial economy especially in the initial stage of social services dating back to the interwar period. Using novel data on health and education expenditure in 35 former British and French African colonies during the height of their empires (1919–39), we show that trade volumes account for a large share in the variance of expenditure on education but not health services, and that present-day expenditures partly reflect these patterns. Our results suggest that similar mechanisms are at play within the two empires and differences between them are in degree rather than in kind.

Religious freedom and welfare in Africa

AbstractObjectiveRegions with multi‐ethnicity like Africa benefit from religiosity and freedom for improved mental and physical well‐being. Although religious freedom in its original sense advocates for peace, there are questions about whether it results in making healthy decisions that are beneficial to one's well‐being. This argument is made in light of the crimes carried out globally in the name of religious freedom, even though it is considered to be wrongly expressed if the expression does not improve well‐being. As a symbol of democracy, religious freedom is expected to boost sentiments of personal authenticity and belonging, and enhance support networks. This study explores the impact of freedom of religion on basic welfare in 49 African countries from 2000 to 2020.MethodologyTo control for potential endogeneity, the authors adopted the smoothed instrumental‐variables quantile regression strategy. The outcome variable of basic welfare is measured using an index that includes life expectancy, literacy rate, and calorie supply while religious freedom is proxied on a 4‐point scale that indicates the extent to which individuals could freely express their religious beliefs.ResultsThe findings reveal a statistically significant positive impact of freedom of religion on basic welfare in Africa. It manifests itself in protecting the rights of individuals, especially the most vulnerable, and promotes social belonging and cohesion. In addition, the results reveal that freedom of religion enhances basic welfare in both former British and French African colonies when the differences in the legal systems are considered.ConclusionsThe study's findings support the religious freedom‐welfare enhancing relationship and are consistent after considering life expectancy and literacy rate as indicators of basic welfare. Policymakers are encouraged to promote democracy and healthy religious behaviors that enhance basic well‐being.

The State, Religion, and Violence in Colonial and Postcolonial Malawi

In the histories of both colonial and postcolonial Malawi, there have been cases of religious-related violence, both in its physical and non-physical forms. Such cases have led to the deaths of the “perpetrators” of violence and ‘innocent’ believers, destruction of property, prison detentions, and even the forced removal of citizens from the country. This paper analyzes two case studies, one in which private citizens perpetrated the violence, led by a preacher called John Chilembwe, of the Providence Industrial Mission (PIM), challenging British colonial authorities during the second decade of the twentieth century. In the second case, the focus is on the independent Malawi government, which used violence against members of the Jehovah’s Witness (JW) religious sect from the early 1960s to the early 1990s, owing to the Witnesses’ disassociation from the demands of the secular state. Using data primarily drawn from various archives and other published studies, this paper argues that the use of ‘religious-based violence’ is not just a domain ‘reserved’ for those experiencing oppression, exclusion, and marginalization. Rather, authoritarian governments, like the one that emerged in postcolonial Malawi and other parts of Africa, also resorted to using ‘religious-based violence’ to serve as a tool for eliminating ‘non-conforming’ religious sects and organizations. In doing so, this paper contributes to the various fields of scholarship, including the relationship between religion and violence in modern Africa and the dynamics and operations of the state in both colonial and postcolonial Africa.

Varroa destructor mite population dynamics in africanized honeybee (Apis mellifera) colonies in a semi-arid region.

Most published data on mite infestation rates in semi-arid regions have been collected over only 3 or 4 months during a specific period of the year. Therefore, the aim of this study was to observe parasite-host dynamics of hygienic and non-hygienic Africanized bee colonies considering environmental factors that may influence Varroa destructor mite infestation rates in a semi-arid region. To this end, the brood puncture method was applied to 37 colonies, forming two groups, namely G1, encompassing 16 hygienic colonies, and G2, comprising 21 non-hygienic colonies. After forming the groups, 300 worker bees from each colony were examined monthly for mite infestations and the data were correlated with climatological records. The monthly infestation average was considered low, below 10%, except in November, when it reached 12.19% ± 6.45. No statistically significant difference was observed for inter-group infestation rates (P > 0.05). When mite infestation rates were associated with climatic variables, they were linked to colony losses (32%) due to swarming. No significant correlations between hygienic behaviour and parasite infestation rates were noted. Nonetheless, these results support the idea that there is no need to apply acaricides for V. destructor control in Brazil.

TRANSNATIONAL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT: AN EARLY EPISODE FROM COLONIAL SOUTHERN AFRICA

Cross-border tourism marketing and promotion is a widely endorsed approach for encouraging regional tourism development. The aim in this paper is to uncover an early historical example of regional tourism development which occurred in colonial Southern Africa. Using archival sources the study pinpoints the contributions of publicity material produced by South African Railways for the promotion of tourism in the territories of colonial Zimbabwe and Mozambique. In encouraging international tourism to South Africa during the 1920s and 1930s there was an understanding that South Africa’s leading national tourism assets were best packaged together for ‘transnational tourism development’ with marketing for the iconic attraction of Victoria Falls as well as Lourenço Marques. The destination which was promoted as ‘South Africa’ in tourism guidebooks did not correspond with the geopolitical entity of the Union of South Africa, instead it embraced the attractions of Portuguese-controlled Mozambique and several tourism products in the British-controlled territory of Rhodesia.

Uncaged Angels: Ecofeminist Literary Ornithology as Citizen Science in the Nineteenth Century

This article examines how women’s ornithological literature facilitated their participation in scientific research and political activism in the nineteenth century. Despite the many confining associations between women and birdcage imagery in Victorian culture, female involvement in the observation of birds was instrumental in the period’s transferring of women’s activity from the private to the public sphere in Britain, the United States and colonial South Africa. By focusing on birdwatching as an early form of what Alan Irwin defines as citizen science (1995), it is possible to explore how women’s ornithological nature writing encouraged environmental advocacy, thus fomenting female autonomous expression in the male-dominated field of natural history. The texts analysed here therefore anticipated ecofeminist approaches to avifauna, allowing for women’s subversive excursions into nature which dissolved the restrictions of the normative ‘angel in the house’.

O colonialismo e as identidades em trânsito em Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida

Considering the large population flow between Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies after the end of Portuguese domain over the African colonies, the existence of complex and conflicting identities, such as that of the returnees, has been accentuated in contemporary times. In view of this finding, the objective is to analyze the influence of Portuguese colonization in Africa in the construction of the identities of Cartola and Aquiles, characters from Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso, by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. In the movement of leaving the colony and going to the metropolis, crises linked to belonging and identity are accentuated as aspects of the Portuguese colonial imaginary are illuminated. For this purpose, authors who establish the relationship between identity, literature and history, such as Eduardo Lourenço and Margarida Calafate Ribeiro, are analyzed. In this way, it is observed that the life condition imposed on the returnees demarcates an epic in reverse, which allows us to conclude that the marks of Portuguese exploration are planted beyond territorial limits and demarcate subjective territories.

A “Fanatic in Morality”: The “Native” Question, Revisions, and Emotional Intensity in Anthony Trollope’s South Africa (1878)

ABSTRACT This article compares the manuscript and two published editions of Anthony Trollope's understudied travelogue South Africa (1878), exploring the affective impetus driving the inconsistency and revisions in his articulations concerning the “native” question in South African colonies. It argues that Trollope's inability to fully legitimise Britain's colonisation of South Africa through conventional discourses stems from the profound impact of his immediate affective responses to the atrocity of colonialism. Trollope wrote with great haste as he travelled, in order to preserve his immediate emotions and thoughts experienced during his travels. In the travelogue, his scepticism of British colonialism ebbs and flows as he vacillates between moral scruples and conservatism during the writing and revision process. This article illuminates a neglected facet of nineteenth-century British travel writing: the travellers’ fluctuating emotions contributed to the subtle fluidity of their narratives of colonialism, complicating their complicity in perpetuating racial and colonial ideologies.

The good intentions of federalism

The article is devoted to substantiating the controversial thesis that federalism is not an autonomous type of political structure. Federations are interpreted as a set of specific failures of different origins in the course of following the basic modern scenario of the formation of a unitary nation-state with a consolidated (civil) political identity. The article has for theoretical basis the actor approach, which interprets the political form of the federation as a derivative result of a conflict pact between the central and peripheral elites. In this methodological perspective, the history of the concept of federalism is examined and a comparative historical analysis of the world federal experience is carried out. As a result, a number of interrelated author's conclusions were formulated. First, it is shown that the original Kantian project of a world federation of states has little in common with federalism, which refers to the description of the internal structure of individual societies. Secondly, the conclusion is substantiated by the fact that in the modern theory of federalism a harmful mainstream tradition has developed, which scales as a normative successful experience the centralizing federalism in the United States. Thirdly, the cultural and historical features of the formation of two families of federations are highlighted and analyzed, one of which is associated with the acquisition of independence by offshoots of the West, and the other was formed by the later processes of the collapse of the colonial empires of the West and the liberation of colonies in Africa and Eurasia. Fourthly, it is argued that the federal political structure at the theoretical level was intended to reconcile, at the basis of the political project of Modernity, the liberal utopia of a universal and culturally homogeneous civil nation and the actual cultural diversity of any modern states, which is a permanent source of erosion of its political sovereignty and differentiation of collective identities. Fifthly, it is proved that all derived political, legal, economic and other signs of federalism are due to one initial problem - the legitimation and subsequent institutionalization of the conflict between the central elite and regional elites, challenging the indivisibility of political sovereignty and demanding political autonomy. Sixth, federalism as a changeable pact of elites in specific historical societies does not provide convincing grounds for its qualification as an autonomous political form compared to a unitary nation-state. The final conclusion is that the political format of federalism in most states is a long-term way of formalizing the political divorce of cultural communities that could not create a common political nation.

'Microcosm of the Pacific': Colonial encounters at the Central Medical School in Fiji.

While larger British colonies in Africa and Asia generally had their own medical services, the British took a different approach in the South Pacific by working with other colonial administrations. Together, colonial administrations of the South Pacific operated a centralised medical service based on the existing system of Native Medical Practitioners in Fiji. The cornerstone of this system was the Central Medical School, established in 1928. Various actors converged on the school despite its apparent isolation from global centres of power. It was run by the colonial government of Fiji, staffed by British-trained tutors, attended by students from twelve colonies, funded and supervised by the Rockefeller Foundation, and jointly managed by the colonial administrations of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France and the United States. At the time of its establishment, it was seen as an experiment in international cooperation, to the point that the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific called it a 'microcosm of the Pacific'. Why did the British establish an intercolonial medical school in Oceania, so far from the imperial metropole? How did the medical curriculum at the Central Medical School standardise to meet the imperial norm? And in what ways did colonial encounters occur at the Central Medical School? This article provides answers to these questions by comparing archival documents acquired from five countries. In doing so, this article will pay special attention to the ways in which this medical training institution enabled enduring intercolonial encounters in the Pacific Islands.