European Partition Of Africa Research Articles

"STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF A GIANT": PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON A GREAT AMERICAN

Unlike many others, I did not know Dr. John Hope Franklin as his student or as a university colleague. I did not use any of his books in my undergraduate work, since U.S. history was not my major field of study. At the doctoral level in the early 1970s, I majored in African This was a decade before Dr. Franklin published his 1985 biography of George Washington Williams, who brought worldwide attention to the plight of the Congolese in the late 19th century by condemning their brutal and inhuman treatment under the rule of King Leopold II of Belgium. Williams charged that slavery could still be found in Africa, even after its abolition throughout the world through the cooperation of the various European powers; and that workers were being exploited and denied access to the wealth they produced. This is a book that I certainly would have read in any course on European colonial rule in Africa, and used in my dissertation and published book on the European partition of Africa between 1880 and 1920. (1) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dr. Franklin admitted in his autobiography that he came across Williams's two-volume book, History of the Negro Race, published in 1883, at the North Carolina College (NCC, today North Carolina Central University) library as he was writing From Slavery to Freedom and so began [his] forty-year involvement with George Washington Williams. After publication of his book on Williams, I told him, John, you published that book ten years after I could have used it in my dissertation; and he responded, Well, you can use it in your next book. Two of my doctoral minor fields were in United States history before and after 1865. By that time, Dr. Franklin had written his definitive textbook and four monographs. Obviously, I did not read his textbook at the doctoral level, and I do not recall reading any of the monographs written before 1970, but I became well aware of who he was after entering the historical profession. When I began my collegiate teaching career at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, one course that I taught was Afro-American history. I inherited the textbook from the previous instructor who had ordered it for this class; that book was Dr. Franklin and Dr. Alfred Moss's From Slavery to Freedom, 4th edition (1974). After I began working at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), my initial classes included The Black Experience before and after 1865, and I still occasionally teach these courses. I continued to use Drs. Franklin and Moss's textbook, which has gone through five editions; and I will use the 9th edition, coauthored with Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, my classmate at Howard University, if I teach either of those courses again. After completing his B.A. degree at Fisk University and M.A. degree at Harvard University, Dr. Franklin's first teaching position was at Fisk, where he taught during the 1936-1937 academic year. When he finished his doctoral course work and written examinations at Harvard, he moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, to research and write his dissertation. While there, he taught at Saint Augustine's College from 1939 until he quit in 1943 after he asked the white president Rev. Edgar H. Gould to request a deferment for him and Rev. Gould refused, telling Dr. Franklin in a very condescending manner, that a stint in the armed services would be good for him. (2) In 1942 Dr. Franklin contacted NCC founder Dr. James E. Shepard about the possibility of teaching at NCC and about his selective service status, since Dr. Franklin had a low draft number and by then had been reclassified 1-A by his draft board. In the 1940s Dr. Shepard was the only African American to serve on the draft appeal board in North Carolina. In this role he was in a position to excuse Dr. Franklin from service during World War II. Dr. Franklin, who believed passionately in nonviolence, would later write in his autobiography that African Americans were fighting not only tyranny abroad, but racism at home and that the United States was devoted to protecting the freedoms and rights of Europeans, but had no respect for me. …

The Phenomenon of Shifting Frontiers: The Kenya-Somalia Case in the Horn of Africa, 1880s-1970s

AbstractThat the imperial powers created borders and frontiers which did not previously exist in Africa is a myth of recent creation often perpetuated by Euro-centric writers. Borders and boundaries had existed over time-both natural and man-crafted frontiers-the latter extended or curtailed by invasions, migrations, struggles for ascendancy and opposition to these. Frontiers shifted according to the strength or weakness of forces against those on whom the newcomers encroached. Internal upheavals also affected them as well as external incursions, among which were those of the Turks, Egyptians, Arabs and the Portuguese in the 16th century, long before the 19th century scramble for Africa. However, in this region of Africa, known as the Horn, Ethiopia had emerged as the dominant power in the Horn prior to the European arrival in the 19th century. The unification efforts of the Emperors Tewdres and Johannes IV had floundered with their deaths, but Menelik II continued the centralizing and expansionist efforts bringing under his hegemony people like the Somalis, Danakils and Bani Ami among others whose religious persuasions diverged from those of Ethiopia. These Islamic people fought Christian Ethiopia and the religious aspect of the confrontation sharpened the conflicts. Thus, even power confrontations were given the veneer of religious conflicts, a cast of mind which has survived into the present and of which the Somalis have made so much. The Kenya-Somali border with which this paper is concerned is not an isolated entity, both countries sharing before and after the European partition of Africa (as they still do) common borders with Ethiopia, Somaliland, Uganda and the Sudan. These regions experienced trans-frontier movements before and after partition sometimes intermittent, and at other times if not frequent movements of nomadic people. These were later to be reflected in the imperial powers, formulation of policies and especially in terms of the Northern Frontiers of Kenya and Uganda (in Kenya the NFD). The movements in themselves gave rise to a phenomenon of shifting frontiers. So African nomadic peoples, sovereign territories and imperial ascendancy, all contributed to this phenomenon. Treaties, Protocols, and Exchange of Notes as well as delimitation and demarcation Commissions of the imperial powers and Ethiopia, all contributed to the forging of boundaries which the African people inherited after the second World War and when they attained political sovereignty. The Anglo-Italian Protocol of 1891 which enabled both countries to define their spheres of influence in eastern Africa set the pattern for the Treaty of 1924 by which a portion of Kenya named Jubaland was ceded to Italy and later became part of Somalia. Frontiers continued to shift throughout the colonial period and often these frontiers were shifting human frontiers. But the official perceptions of the Somalis in this frontier region of Kenya and emphasis on their being different from others, assisted in the formulation of the Somali-received tradition of themselves as a people distinct from other Africans in the zone-a fact further encouraged by British government spokesmen such as Ernest Bevin after the second World War. Despite these British colonial attitudes to the Somalis, as with other African peoples, they mirrored ambivalence thus perceiving them as people with sterling qualities and equally visualizing them as a nuisance. This was seen in the manner in which the Somalis were allowed to pay a "non-native poll tax" only to be classified as "natives" ten years later.

The Phenomenon of Shifting Frontiers

That the imperial powers created borders and frontiers which did not previously exist in Africa is a myth of recent creation often perpetuated by Euro-centric writers. Borders and boundaries had existed over time-both natural and man-crafted frontiers-the latter extended or curtailed by invasions, migrations, struggles for ascendancy and opposition to these. Frontiers shifted according to the strength or weakness of forces against those on whom the newcomers encroached. Internal upheavals also affected them as well as external incursions, among which were those of the Turks, Egyptians, Arabs and the Portuguese in the 16th century, long before the 19th century scramble for Africa. However, in this region of Africa, known as the Horn, Ethiopia had emerged as the dominant power in the Horn prior to the European arrival in the 19th century. The unification efforts of the Emperors Tewdres and Johannes IV had floundered with their deaths, but Menelik II continued the centralizing and expansionist efforts bringing under his hegemony people like the Somalis, Danakils and Bani Ami among others whose religious persuasions diverged from those of Ethiopia. These Islamic people fought Christian Ethiopia and the religious aspect of the confrontation sharpened the conflicts. Thus, even power confrontations were given the veneer of religious conflicts, a cast of mind which has survived into the present and of which the Somalis have made so much. The Kenya-Somali border with which this paper is concerned is not an isolated entity, both countries sharing before and after the European partition of Africa (as they still do) common borders with Ethiopia, Somaliland, Uganda and the Sudan. These regions experienced trans-frontier movements before and after partition sometimes intermittent, and at other times if not frequent movements of nomadic people. These were later to be reflected in the imperial powers, formulation of policies and especially in terms of the Northern Frontiers of Kenya and Uganda (in Kenya the NFD). The movements in themselves gave rise to a phenomenon of shifting frontiers. So African nomadic peoples, sovereign territories and imperial ascendancy, all contributed to this phenomenon. Treaties, Protocols, and Exchange of Notes as well as delimitation and demarcation Commissions of the imperial powers and Ethiopia, all contributed to the forging of boundaries which the African people inherited after the second World War and when they attained political sovereignty. The Anglo-Italian Protocol of 1891 which enabled both countries to define their spheres of influence in eastern Africa set the pattern for the Treaty of 1924 by which a portion of Kenya named Jubaland was ceded to Italy and later became part of Somalia. Frontiers continued to shift throughout the colonial period and often these frontiers were shifting human frontiers. But the official perceptions of the Somalis in this frontier region of Kenya and emphasis on their being different from others, assisted in the formulation of the Somali-received tradition of themselves as a people distinct from other Africans in the zone-a fact further encouraged by British government spokesmen such as Ernest Bevin after the second World War. Despite these British colonial attitudes to the Somalis, as with other African peoples, they mirrored ambivalence thus perceiving them as people with sterling qualities and equally visualizing them as a nuisance. This was seen in the manner in which the Somalis were allowed to pay a non-native poll tax only to be classified as natives ten years later.

‘Here is No Resisting the Country’. The Realities of Power in Afro-European Relations on the West African ‘Slave Coast’

Perceptions of the earliest stages of interaction between European nations and the indigenous peoples of Africa, from the beginnings of European maritime expansion in the fifteenth century to the nineteenth century, are easily clouded by consciousness of the subsequent imposition of European rule over almost the entire African continent. There has, arguably, been a tendency to read back into earlier periods the military and political dominance which became manifest in the European Partition of Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. The temptation is, perhaps, especially strong in relation to the history of the Atlantic slave trade, which appears so obviously damaging to the African societies involved that it is readily assumed that their participation in it must have been somehow coerced. Although strongest in popular perceptions, this tendency has been reflected in the work of some academic historians also: perhaps most emphatically in the general survey of Afro-European commercial relations by the late Walter Rodney, which remains probably the most widely read book on African history. There we are told, for example, that ‘From the beginning, Europe assumed the power to make decisions within the international trading system […] Above all, European decision-making power was exercised in selecting what Africa should export – in accordance with European needs.’ Primarily, according to Rodney, this was a question of disparity of economic power; but ‘as a last resort’ armed force could be used ‘to ensure the pursuit of favourable policies in the dependent areas’.

DISPUTE OVER WALVIS BAY—ORIGINS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NAMIBIAN INDEPENDENCE

WALVIS BAY is the only developed deep-water port along Namibia's coastline. It will therefore be crucial for the country's future, as it may enable an independent state of Namibia to achierre structural independence from neighbouring countries. But the control of Walvis Bay, and more importantly its ownership, are the object of a political dispute between the Republic of South Africa and the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO). WhiLe the former claims that Walvis Bay is South African territory and administers it as a part of the Cape province, SWAPO and the United Nations consider Walvis Bay as an integral part of Namibia. Despite SWAPO's claim, the question of Walvis Bay has been excluded from the negotiations for Namibian independence. This implies the pos sibility that Walvis Bay may in time become a South African enclave within an independent Namibia. Pretoria would thus be able to maintain considerable economic and political leverage over Namibia. It could, therefore, restrict the country's options for structural independence from South Africa and retard the process of decolonization in Southern Africa. But in order to assess the present, and future, importance of Walvis Bay, attention has to be drawn to its history, as the origins of the present dispute are to be found in the late nineteenth century's European partition of Africa. Existing historiography does not satisfactorily answer what the economic, political and strategic importance of Walvis Bay was in the past. If mentioned at all, it is generally relegated to footnotes in historical accounts of Namibia as a German colony, and, subsequently, as a mandated territory of the League of Nations under South African control. An examination of the history of Walvis Bay thus fills an historiographical lacuna and, more importantly, helps to identify the central features of the present political dispute, as well as to assess its possible implications for the ftlture of Namibia. The main argument in this article is as follows: since the British annexation of Walvis Bay in 1878, the importance of the Bay was reflected less in its economic performance as a port per se than in its perceived economic potential and political significance as the only point of access from the sea to the interior. Prior to the First World War, as today, this asset was,

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920.

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920.

Sylvia M. Jacobs. <italic>The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880–1920</italic>. (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, number 55.) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1981. Pp. xiv, 311. $27.50

Journal Article Sylvia M. Jacobs. The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880–1920. (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, number 55.) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1981. Pp. xiv, 311. $27.50 Get access Jacobs Sylvia M.. The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880–1920. (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, number 55.) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1981. Pp. xiv, 311. $27.50. Walter L. Williams Walter L. Williams University of Cincinnati Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 86, Issue 5, December 1981, Pages 1166–1167, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/86.5.1166 Published: 01 December 1981

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920

The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880-1920

The European partition of Africa: Coincidence or conjuncture?

(1974). The European partition of Africa: Coincidence or conjuncture? The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: Vol. 3, The Partition of Africa, pp. 1-54.