ABSTRACT:The labor historiography regarding British settlements on the West African coast in the late eighteenth century has concentrated on the successive attempts by British abolitionists in Sierra Leone to create settlements with transatlantic black labor. At the same time as these developments in Sierra Leone, Lieutenant Philip Beaver of the Royal Navy, with the support of the Bulama Association, attempted to create a society of settlers and local labor with the Bulama Settlement in present-day Guinea-Bissau in 1792–1793. The goals of the Association were to promote the values of “cultivation and commerce equaling civilization.” Upon arrival, his leadership skills and organizational abilities were tested by the rapid decimation of the settlers by disease and their intransigence towards the project. Consequently, he used local grumettas as a fungible labor source. Beaver treated the remaining settlers and grumettas as a Royal Navy captain would a crew: organization, discipline, and perseverance became the shipborne principles that were now placed on land. This article describes how labor was transformed from noncompliant settlers to the use of paid African labor. Although viewed as a failure, the Bulama Settlement illustrates that there were alternative paths to “civilization” for Africans other than the religious foundations of the Sierra Leone settlement.
{"title":"“What Rascals!” Perceptions of Free Labor in the Bulama Settlement, 1792–1793","authors":"T. Soriano","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2021.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2021.0007","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The labor historiography regarding British settlements on the West African coast in the late eighteenth century has concentrated on the successive attempts by British abolitionists in Sierra Leone to create settlements with transatlantic black labor. At the same time as these developments in Sierra Leone, Lieutenant Philip Beaver of the Royal Navy, with the support of the Bulama Association, attempted to create a society of settlers and local labor with the Bulama Settlement in present-day Guinea-Bissau in 1792–1793. The goals of the Association were to promote the values of “cultivation and commerce equaling civilization.” Upon arrival, his leadership skills and organizational abilities were tested by the rapid decimation of the settlers by disease and their intransigence towards the project. Consequently, he used local grumettas as a fungible labor source. Beaver treated the remaining settlers and grumettas as a Royal Navy captain would a crew: organization, discipline, and perseverance became the shipborne principles that were now placed on land. This article describes how labor was transformed from noncompliant settlers to the use of paid African labor. Although viewed as a failure, the Bulama Settlement illustrates that there were alternative paths to “civilization” for Africans other than the religious foundations of the Sierra Leone settlement.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2021.0007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44304626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:This article traces the trajectory followed by Rhokana Corporation and its Nkana Mine during the first five years of Zambian independence. During the period under examination, Rhokana's fortunes were shaped by the complex interaction of local, regional, and international dynamics. While existing studies have focussed on issues such as African Advancement, Zambianisation, the official embrace of socialism through humanism, and Southern Africa's intensifying liberation struggle when explaining the shifting relationship between the government and the mining companies, scholars have largely overlooked the part played by taxation regimes, deteriorating underground mining conditions, and the falling grade of ore in influencing the productivity and profitability of the copper mining industry. Nor have they paid sufficient attention to the marked rise in the price of copper at this time. This paper questions arguments that the nationalisation of the mining sector in Zambia was the result of the government's political and philosophical thinking in response to ideological change in Africa and Latin America. By contrast, it suggests that the government's decision to nationalise the industry was largely driven by the huge profits realised by the mining companies and the record dividends distributed to shareholders abroad.
{"title":"Profitability and Nationalisation on the Zambian Copperbelt: A Case Study of Rhokana Corporation's Nkana Mine, 1964–1969","authors":"Hyden Munene","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2020.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2020.0006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article traces the trajectory followed by Rhokana Corporation and its Nkana Mine during the first five years of Zambian independence. During the period under examination, Rhokana's fortunes were shaped by the complex interaction of local, regional, and international dynamics. While existing studies have focussed on issues such as African Advancement, Zambianisation, the official embrace of socialism through humanism, and Southern Africa's intensifying liberation struggle when explaining the shifting relationship between the government and the mining companies, scholars have largely overlooked the part played by taxation regimes, deteriorating underground mining conditions, and the falling grade of ore in influencing the productivity and profitability of the copper mining industry. Nor have they paid sufficient attention to the marked rise in the price of copper at this time. This paper questions arguments that the nationalisation of the mining sector in Zambia was the result of the government's political and philosophical thinking in response to ideological change in Africa and Latin America. By contrast, it suggests that the government's decision to nationalise the industry was largely driven by the huge profits realised by the mining companies and the record dividends distributed to shareholders abroad.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2020.0006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48816998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:This article focuses on Nigerian labor migration to the Spanish colony of Fernando Pó during the colonial era. The Spanish Labor Office recruited Nigerian men and encouraged them to bring their wives so that they could provide men some 'comfort' while in the colony for the duration of their contracts. Women—legitimate and fictitious wives, traders, and prostitutes—saw this opportunity as a way to improve their autonomy and money-earning capacities. I argue that Spanish authorities opened up spaces wherein Southeastern Nigerian women successfully strategized their way into the colony by recognizing the administration's desire for wives to join husbands. Through the use of marriage certificates and declarations, women gained access to economic and social mobility through migration. This article unveils the ideological and real tension between secular migrant recruiters who lured men with the promise of professionalized work and large incomes, Spanish and British authorities who temporarily legalized prostitution, and the Catholic colonial regime that denounced prostitution and demanded the repatriation of sex workers in clear objection to the colonial ethos, which had become embedded in presence of the sexualized female body.
{"title":"Marriage Certificates and Walker Cards: Nigerian Migrant Labor, Wives, and Prostitutes in Colonial Fernando Pó","authors":"Robin P. Chapdelaine","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2020.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2020.0005","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article focuses on Nigerian labor migration to the Spanish colony of Fernando Pó during the colonial era. The Spanish Labor Office recruited Nigerian men and encouraged them to bring their wives so that they could provide men some 'comfort' while in the colony for the duration of their contracts. Women—legitimate and fictitious wives, traders, and prostitutes—saw this opportunity as a way to improve their autonomy and money-earning capacities. I argue that Spanish authorities opened up spaces wherein Southeastern Nigerian women successfully strategized their way into the colony by recognizing the administration's desire for wives to join husbands. Through the use of marriage certificates and declarations, women gained access to economic and social mobility through migration. This article unveils the ideological and real tension between secular migrant recruiters who lured men with the promise of professionalized work and large incomes, Spanish and British authorities who temporarily legalized prostitution, and the Catholic colonial regime that denounced prostitution and demanded the repatriation of sex workers in clear objection to the colonial ethos, which had become embedded in presence of the sexualized female body.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2020.0005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47149717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence from Britain in 1965 and the sanctions it triggered have generated much scholarship. While the international dimension of sanctions has received substantial scholarly attention, what has been little accounted for are the various initiatives adopted by local non-state actors in pursuit of their self-interests. Covering three distinct but related phases in the history of Rhodesian sanctions—the build-up to UDI, UDI and sanctions, and the 1970s war—this paper analyses measures adopted by internal economic actors as influenced by the need to survive the exigencies of sanctions. By examining the parallel sectoral lobbying that the colony's tobacco sector embraced to entrench its interests, the paper provides an empirical glimpse into the practical local resistance to international sanctions, and the dynamic political and economic relations it spawned. This provides a nuanced portrayal of the complexities of Rhodesian sanctions beyond the scope of orthodox international relations literature dominating much of UDI scholarship.
{"title":"\"We Must Adapt to Survive\": International Sanctions, Settler Politics, and White Tobacco Farmers' Struggles for Economic Survival in Rhodesia, 1966–1979","authors":"Sibanengi Ncube","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2020.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2020.0007","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence from Britain in 1965 and the sanctions it triggered have generated much scholarship. While the international dimension of sanctions has received substantial scholarly attention, what has been little accounted for are the various initiatives adopted by local non-state actors in pursuit of their self-interests. Covering three distinct but related phases in the history of Rhodesian sanctions—the build-up to UDI, UDI and sanctions, and the 1970s war—this paper analyses measures adopted by internal economic actors as influenced by the need to survive the exigencies of sanctions. By examining the parallel sectoral lobbying that the colony's tobacco sector embraced to entrench its interests, the paper provides an empirical glimpse into the practical local resistance to international sanctions, and the dynamic political and economic relations it spawned. This provides a nuanced portrayal of the complexities of Rhodesian sanctions beyond the scope of orthodox international relations literature dominating much of UDI scholarship.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2020.0007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47996380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:For decades, the British colonial establishment in the Gold Coast believed that setting its gaze on goldsmiths was pivotal to eliminating pilfery of gold from the mines. This assumption, commonly without concrete proof, hardened colonial paranoia and was shared with Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. Both entities thought that the continuous access to gold by goldsmiths, coupled with increasing gold theft were enough basis to surveil goldsmiths—the supposed pivotal actors in a fledging illicit trade in stolen mine gold. Yet, the problem remained. As this study shows, there was a paucity of successful prosecutions against persons caught in possession of stolen mine gold, and none against a goldsmith. Ultimately, it is argued that from 1907 to 1948, central colonial laws meant to regulate the growing gold mining industry and protect its finds in the Gold Coast reveal negotiations that more than realizing their primary principle(s), increasingly limited access to gold by many indigenes. While the latter sustained an emergent illicit market for pilfered gold from the mines, it simultaneously sparked a misplaced colonial state-led surveillance that targeted goldsmiths.
{"title":"\"We Sympathise with the Mines for Pilfery That Goes on but …\": African Interests in Gold Coast Mines, Protecting Gold, and the Politics of Legislation, 1907–1948","authors":"E. Sewordor","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2020.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2020.0009","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:For decades, the British colonial establishment in the Gold Coast believed that setting its gaze on goldsmiths was pivotal to eliminating pilfery of gold from the mines. This assumption, commonly without concrete proof, hardened colonial paranoia and was shared with Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. Both entities thought that the continuous access to gold by goldsmiths, coupled with increasing gold theft were enough basis to surveil goldsmiths—the supposed pivotal actors in a fledging illicit trade in stolen mine gold. Yet, the problem remained. As this study shows, there was a paucity of successful prosecutions against persons caught in possession of stolen mine gold, and none against a goldsmith. Ultimately, it is argued that from 1907 to 1948, central colonial laws meant to regulate the growing gold mining industry and protect its finds in the Gold Coast reveal negotiations that more than realizing their primary principle(s), increasingly limited access to gold by many indigenes. While the latter sustained an emergent illicit market for pilfered gold from the mines, it simultaneously sparked a misplaced colonial state-led surveillance that targeted goldsmiths.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2020.0009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49620757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:This article addresses the adaptation problem of the nineteenthcentury Sultanate of Zanzibar in responding to the challenges posed by international commerce following the industrial and transport revolution. It focuses on the ways the government and privately-run customs agencies managed the Zanzibar market. An analysis of the institution of customs, at both formal and informal levels, captures the dynamics of trade infrastructure and facilitates an understanding of the symbiosis of political and economic powers and the subsequent process of disintegration. It further considers international trade dynamics in the context of the transport and communication revolution that occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century. Changes in the economic situation in India, the main capital market in determining the credit situation in East Africa, are taken into account, in particular those related to the imbalance in the silver and gold markets. Archival sources consulted include French naval reports, British and American diplomatic documents, commercial correspondence, and the private letters and journals of American and German merchants and commercial agents.
{"title":"Customs House, Steamers, and the Entrepôt: Zanzibar Trade Infrastructure Circa 1830–1888","authors":"M. Pawelczak","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2020.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2020.0008","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article addresses the adaptation problem of the nineteenthcentury Sultanate of Zanzibar in responding to the challenges posed by international commerce following the industrial and transport revolution. It focuses on the ways the government and privately-run customs agencies managed the Zanzibar market. An analysis of the institution of customs, at both formal and informal levels, captures the dynamics of trade infrastructure and facilitates an understanding of the symbiosis of political and economic powers and the subsequent process of disintegration. It further considers international trade dynamics in the context of the transport and communication revolution that occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century. Changes in the economic situation in India, the main capital market in determining the credit situation in East Africa, are taken into account, in particular those related to the imbalance in the silver and gold markets. Archival sources consulted include French naval reports, British and American diplomatic documents, commercial correspondence, and the private letters and journals of American and German merchants and commercial agents.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2020.0008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46100968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:The article explores social mobility of Africans in the rural areas of Brazil in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, specifically in the hinter-land of Rio de Janeiro in Recôncavo da Guanabara. The article examines what is known about two African women, Gracia Maria and Rosa Maria da Silva, who lived in the parishes of Iguaçu and Jacutinga. Despite the inherent hardships of captivity, the trajectories of these women can be reconstructed to some extent from their wills that portray their success in producing manioc flour and establishing alliances that enabled them to improve their social standing and their recognition as slave ladies.
摘要:本文探讨了18世纪末和19世纪巴西农村地区非洲人的社会流动，特别是在Recôncavo da Guanabara的巴西里约热内卢偏远地区。这篇文章检视住在伊瓜帕拉苏和雅库廷加教区的两位非洲妇女格拉西亚·玛丽亚和罗莎·玛丽亚·达·席尔瓦的为人所知。尽管被囚禁的生活本身就很艰难，但这些妇女的生活轨迹在一定程度上可以从她们的意愿中重建出来，她们成功地生产了木薯粉，建立了联盟，使她们能够提高自己的社会地位，并被视为女奴。
{"title":"Biographies, Slavery, and Freedom: Wills as Autobiographical Documents of Africans in Diaspora","authors":"Nielson Rosa Bezerra, Moisés Peixoto","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2020.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2020.0004","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The article explores social mobility of Africans in the rural areas of Brazil in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, specifically in the hinter-land of Rio de Janeiro in Recôncavo da Guanabara. The article examines what is known about two African women, Gracia Maria and Rosa Maria da Silva, who lived in the parishes of Iguaçu and Jacutinga. Despite the inherent hardships of captivity, the trajectories of these women can be reconstructed to some extent from their wills that portray their success in producing manioc flour and establishing alliances that enabled them to improve their social standing and their recognition as slave ladies.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2020.0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41666968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:This article explores the process of enslavement in upper Guinea during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by analyzing over one hundred autobiographical testimonies from the Freedom Narratives collection. Building on work done by P. E. H. Hair in the 1960s, it argues that testimony from people who experienced enslavement are usually the only sources that can provide specific information on the process of enslavement. Information collected from these sources allows historians to discern changing patterns over time and to contextualize enslavement in regional history. The analysis suggests that before 1820 warfare was the most common mode of enslavement, fueled by the raiding of the ceddo states and the growth of the Islamic states such as Fuuta Jalon and Fuuta Toro. After 1820, kidnapping gained in importance, especially in the area near Gallinas. The article concludes with an analysis of ninety-four additional testimonies from a slave-dealing investigation undertaken in Sierra Leone in 1853–1854, which document the growing significance of children in local slavery during the waning years of the transatlantic trade.
摘要:本文通过分析《自由叙事》选集中的一百多篇自传体证词，探讨了十八、十九世纪上几内亚的奴役过程。它以P. E. H. Hair在20世纪60年代所做的工作为基础，认为经历过奴役的人的证词通常是提供奴役过程具体信息的唯一来源。从这些来源收集的信息使历史学家能够辨别随时间变化的模式，并将地区历史中的奴隶制置于背景中。分析表明，在1820年之前，战争是最常见的奴役模式，受到对塞多州的袭击和伊斯兰国家(如Fuuta Jalon和Fuuta Toro)的发展的推动。1820年以后，绑架变得越来越重要，尤其是在加利纳斯附近地区。文章最后分析了1853年至1854年在塞拉利昂进行的一项奴隶交易调查中的94个额外证词，这些证词记录了在跨大西洋贸易日益衰落的年代，儿童在当地奴隶制中的重要性日益增加。
{"title":"Enslavement in Upper Guinea during the Era of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Biographical Perspectives","authors":"S. Kelley","doi":"10.1353/AEH.2020.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AEH.2020.0002","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article explores the process of enslavement in upper Guinea during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by analyzing over one hundred autobiographical testimonies from the Freedom Narratives collection. Building on work done by P. E. H. Hair in the 1960s, it argues that testimony from people who experienced enslavement are usually the only sources that can provide specific information on the process of enslavement. Information collected from these sources allows historians to discern changing patterns over time and to contextualize enslavement in regional history. The analysis suggests that before 1820 warfare was the most common mode of enslavement, fueled by the raiding of the ceddo states and the growth of the Islamic states such as Fuuta Jalon and Fuuta Toro. After 1820, kidnapping gained in importance, especially in the area near Gallinas. The article concludes with an analysis of ninety-four additional testimonies from a slave-dealing investigation undertaken in Sierra Leone in 1853–1854, which document the growing significance of children in local slavery during the waning years of the transatlantic trade.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/AEH.2020.0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47776131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:What can family biographies, life stories and memories of individuals tell us about the sociohistorical transformations of domestic slavery in Benin? By focusing on the generational dynamics among the Ologoudou, a family of former slaves, this article attempts to shed some light on how economic, social and school trajectories have influenced the situation of descendants of slaves in Benin over the generations. The case of the Ologoudou family, descended from a Yoruba slave who arrived in Ouidah in the mid-nineteenth century, shows that domestic slaves, placed under particular conditions, may have had the capacity to take their fate into their own hands and not only to be passive beings as they are often described.
{"title":"A Path from Slavery to Freedom: The Case of the Ologoudou Family in Southern Benin","authors":"Samuel Lempereur","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2020.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2020.0001","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:What can family biographies, life stories and memories of individuals tell us about the sociohistorical transformations of domestic slavery in Benin? By focusing on the generational dynamics among the Ologoudou, a family of former slaves, this article attempts to shed some light on how economic, social and school trajectories have influenced the situation of descendants of slaves in Benin over the generations. The case of the Ologoudou family, descended from a Yoruba slave who arrived in Ouidah in the mid-nineteenth century, shows that domestic slaves, placed under particular conditions, may have had the capacity to take their fate into their own hands and not only to be passive beings as they are often described.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2020.0001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44351410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:Labor migration to the British colonies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from India have been the subject of numerous global studies. Capitalist demands for cheap and sustainable labor facilitated the migration of indentured labor to Africa, the Caribbean, Mauritius and Fiji. Women were an integral part of the indentured labor migration. This article provides a critical discussion on the role of primary sources and life histories in the construction of historical narratives of indentured women in Natal, South Africa. It examines primary sources, both printed and unpublished, which include official reports of the Protector of Indian Immigrants, passenger lists and Ship Captain and Medical Officers’ Reports as well as oral biographies of women under indenture. By problematizing historical sources and methodology, this article seeks to highlight the complexities of writing the narratives of women under indenture in Natal. It also proposes the need to seek new approaches, interpretations and frameworks so that the hidden and subjective voices of women can shift from the margins to the center in the histories of indenture.
{"title":"Voices and Memories of Indentured Women in Natal","authors":"K. Hiralal","doi":"10.1353/aeh.2020.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aeh.2020.0003","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Labor migration to the British colonies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from India have been the subject of numerous global studies. Capitalist demands for cheap and sustainable labor facilitated the migration of indentured labor to Africa, the Caribbean, Mauritius and Fiji. Women were an integral part of the indentured labor migration. This article provides a critical discussion on the role of primary sources and life histories in the construction of historical narratives of indentured women in Natal, South Africa. It examines primary sources, both printed and unpublished, which include official reports of the Protector of Indian Immigrants, passenger lists and Ship Captain and Medical Officers’ Reports as well as oral biographies of women under indenture. By problematizing historical sources and methodology, this article seeks to highlight the complexities of writing the narratives of women under indenture in Natal. It also proposes the need to seek new approaches, interpretations and frameworks so that the hidden and subjective voices of women can shift from the margins to the center in the histories of indenture.","PeriodicalId":43935,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/aeh.2020.0003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42792977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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