This Article follows in the series started by Fagan and continued for eastern and southern Africa by Phillipson, Sutton and Soper. The scope remains much the same, covering in time the later part of the Stone Age sequence as well as the Iron Age. Geographically, however, there are some changes: the Sudan has been excluded as it was covered by the recent review of North and West African dates, while a detailed chronological review of francophone Central Africa is in progress and therefore this region has been excluded.

This paper reviews the present state of art historical research in Nigeria with a view to clearing the ground for a more accurate interpretation of the evidence. The ancient arts of Benin, Ife, Nok, Owo, Nupe and Igbo-Ukwu are discussed, among others, and suggestions offered that might shed more light on some of the problems created by the paucity of art historical data.

Liberia was fundamentally a maritime state in the nineteenth century, dependent on seaborne trade for its prosperity. Immigrant merchants and their descendants developed an extensive coasting trade in which they attempted to wrest the function of the collection and distribution of commodities from foreign competitors, thereby entering a long-established commercial system which antedated the foundation of Liberia. Small vessels manned by individuals resident along the coast and familiar with local conditions were better suited for the collection and distribution of goods than large foreign-owned merchantmen. This commercial advantage, coupled with an increase in foreign demand for Liberian palm oil and camwood early in the century and restrictions placed on African and foreign traders by the Liberian government, allowed Liberians to acquire a merchant fleet which consisted of at least 234 vessels during the century. To protect their involvement in the coasting trade, Liberians declared independence in 1847. Post-independence prosperity is indicated by the fact that Liberians owned at least 139 vessels between 1847 and 1871. However, in the last three decades of the century the Liberian coasting trade was destroyed by the depletion of camwood resources, the development of aniline dyes, the introduction of petroleum products, the competition of foreign-owned steam packets, and falling demand as a result of the general commercial recession of the period.

Between 1917 and 1921 Robert Williams and Company recruited labour from the Moxico Province of Angola for work in the Katanga copper mines of the Union Minière. The episode is one of the better documented in a period in which comparable recruiting operations were the mainstay of the industry, and provides a case study that is also a vehicle for the analysis of the significance of recruitment both as an instrument of industrial strategy and a determinant of worker behaviour. It is argued that recruitment is characteristic of a phase in the development of the colonial political economy marked by the use of highly unskilled labour intensive techniques of production in the dominant industry. It is a mechanism designed specifically to service such techniques through the regulation of the induced supply of short-term, unskilled labour. It is further argued that it is such regulation—realized as coercion—that gives recruitment its particularity as a determinant of worker behaviour, and this paper seeks to identify from the Angolan case the precise implications which this had for the workers themselves.

In May 1941, after the Italians' capitulation, the British immediately took over the administration of Eritrea for the duration of the war and until an international body could decide the former colony's future. From 1941 to 1950, the political direction of Eritrea remained uncertain until the U.N. commission reached its compromise solution. Ultimately, the Ethiopian Government contravened the U.N. agreement and unilaterally annexed Eritrea in 1962, which set in motion the present struggle for independence.

The British Military Administration, acting as an interim government, attempted with moderate success to create an atmosphere in which all people of Eritrea might have the maximum voice in determining their political future. From the end of the war through the arrival of the U.N. commission in February 1950, there was a flurry of political activity. Although initially five political parties were formed, which in time became splintered and re-emerged as other parties, two main groups could be distinguished along geographical boundaries: the lowlands versus the highlands, separatist Muslims versus irredentist Christians. The historical suspicion and aloofness between Orthodox and Muslims continued to divide Eritrean loyalties. Affiliation, however, with one or another political party was not observed strictly on geographical or religious grounds. A small number of educated Orthodox saw no advantage in Eritrea's incorporation into Ethiopia and thus formed a pocket of Christian separatists who would have undoubtedly obtained greater allegiance had not the Orthodox priesthood threatened excommunication for anyone not espousing the Unionist cause. On the other hand a small nucleus of Muslims, mostly chiefs and landed aristocracy, favored union with the government in Addis Ababa, for their feudalistic hold on the large number of Tigrai serfs (numbering three-fifths of all Muslims in Eritrea) would have been retained under Ethiopian rule.

By the end of 1946, there was widespread but unorganized anti-unionist sentiment; elections held in 1947 by the Four Power Commission showed that a small majority of all Eritreans opposed union. The anti-Unionist cause profited from Ethiopia's intimidation and terrorist interference, which was largely counter-productive; moreover, the irredentist argument failed to convince most Muslims and some Orthodox that Eritrea would prosper under the aegis of one of Africa's least developed countries. It seems clear that terrorism and intimidation were largely Unionist tactics and that the anti-Unionist campaign became popular not so much because of Italian contributions (which were far less than those of the Ethiopian Government to its irredentist cause) but rather because of the grass-roots nature of the Muslim movement.

Unfortunately, the future of Eritrea after two commissions and voluminous reports was decided in the international arena which failed to satisfy either side, but rather planted the seeds for future conflict.