Examination of the DNA of individuals with sickle cell anaemia who reside in various geographical areas in Africa has led to the conclusion that the gene for this genetic disease arose separately in three different locations. Similar studies of sickle cell anaemia patients in the United States provide considerable information about the frequency in the United States of these three genetic variations. On the basis of such data, it is possible to estimate the percentage of slave imports from a given African locale into the United States. When this is done, there is general concordance with previous conclusions from such sources as language studies, shipping data, etc.

In the Dodoma Region of central Tanzania the people called Wagogo name a famine that struck between 1917 and 1920 the Mtunya—‘The Scramble’. This famine came after both German and British miliary requisitions had drained the arid region of men, cattle and food. The famine, which killed 30,000 of the region's 150,000 people, is more than just a good example of what John Iliffe has called ‘conjunctural poverty’. The Mtunya and the response to it by both the people of the region and the new colonial government also shaped the form of the interaction between local economy and society and the political economy of colonial Tanganyika. The Gogo, in their own interpretation of the famine, stress the ways in which this famine made them dependent on the colonial economy. For them, this famine represented a terrible loss of autonomy, a loss of the ability to control the reproduction of their own society.

This article attempts to correct the stereotype which portrays the Futanke who joined in the jihād of al-ḥājj Umar Tal in western Mali as militant Muslim warriors who were not responsive to opportunities in production and trade. It shows that Futanke officials and settlers in the area of Jomboxo (southwestern Karta) responded quickly to the possibility of producing grain, on the land and with the slaves acquired during the jihad, and marketing it at the nearby river factory of Medine, where French officials and merchants, resident African traders and nomadic gum caravan leaders converged in a brisk commerce for three decades in the late nineteenth century. The grain sales were a response to strong demand from the desert-side economy and gum trade as well as to French needs for provisions. These emerging economic interests brought the settlers into conflict with Umarian officials and a younger generation of Futanke, recruited in the 1870s and 1880s and eager to wage war to accumulate wealth and establish their position. This social and generational cleavage hindered the effort to mobilize resistance against French encroachment and conquest.

The Mahdist uprising of 1905–6 was a revolutionary movement that attempted to overthrow British and French colonial rule, the aristocracy of the Sokoto Caliphate and the zarmakoy of Dosso. The Mahdist supporters of the revolt were disgruntled peasants, fugitive slaves and radical clerics who were hostile both to indigenous authorities and to the colonial regimes. There was no known support among aristocrats, wealthy merchants or the ‘ulama. Thus the revolt reflected strong divisions based on class and, as an extension, on ethnicity. The pan-colonial appeal of the movement and its class tensions highlight another important feature: revolutionary Mahdism differed from other forms of Mahdism that were common in the Sokoto Caliphate at the time of the colonial conquest. There appears to have been no connection with the Mahdists who were followers of Muhammad Ahmed of the Nilotic Sudan or with those who joined Sarkin Musulmi Attahiru I on his hijra of 1903.

The suppression of the revolt was important for three reasons. First, the British consolidated their alliance with the aristocracy of the Caliphate, while the French further strengthened their ties with the zarmakoy of Dosso and other indigenous rulers. The dangerous moment which Muslims might have seized to expel the Europeans quickly passed. Second, the brutality of the repression was a message to slave owners and slaves alike that the colonial regimes were committed to the continuation of slavery and opposed to any sudden emancipation of the slave population. Third, 1906 marked the end of revolutionary action against colonialism; the radical clerics were either killed or imprisoned. Other forms of Mahdism continued to haunt the colonial regimes, but without serious threat of a general rising.

The Arabic text which is translated here describes a ceremony in which al-ḥājj Umar Tal, founder of a jihād and state in the Western Sudan in the mid-nineteenth century, sought to transmit his temporal and spiritual authority to his oldest son, Ahmad al-Kabīr. The ceremony occurred in 1860, just as the Umarian armies were about to embark upon a campaign against the ‘pagan’ Bambara kingdom of Segu. While the transfer of power to Aḥmad is very clearly stated in the text, the ceremony did not resolve the issue nor the conflict among the sons of Umar, which continued until the French conquest at the end of the century. The explanation for the continuing conflict lies partly in the loose structure of the original Umarian jihād against ‘paganism’ and partly in divisions among the faithful over the jihād against alleged ‘apostasy’ which Umar undertook at the end of his life against the Muslim Fulbe of Masina. The text also shows the close links between the Umarian movement and the Tijaniyya order and the ways in which important political statements can be couched in Sufi language.

This article examines the origins, background, composition and policies of the National Liberation Movement, a mass political organization founded in Asante in September, 1954. The central aim of the NLM was to advance Asante claims for self-determination and to oppose the CPP in their advocacy of a constitutional settlement with the British colonial government–a settlement that would bring about a unitary government in an independent Gold Coast [Ghana]. The analysis developed here places the ‘youngmen’ of Asante, the nkwankwaa, at the centre of these events. It is argued that this somewhat enigmatic group was the catalyst behind the formation of the NLM and the resurrection of Asante nationalism that it represented. The nkwankwaa forged a dynamic popular front of resistance in Asante to what they termed the ‘black imperialism’ of Nkrumah and the CPP. In exploring the pivotal role of the nkwankwaa in the rebirth and reconstruction of Asante nationalism, the discussion addresses the legacies of indirect rule in Asante, the importance of cocoa, the development of class, and the ambiguous role of Asante's political intelligentsia. Most crucially, it is suggested that the political development of the NLM turned upon the struggle within Asante between the nkwankwaa and the Asantehene (backed by the chiefs and Asante's political intelligentsia) over the very definition of ‘nation’ and of ‘self-determination’. Thus, the article highlights the historical conflicts and contradictions within Asante society–contradictions which were softened by but not subsumed within Asante nationalism, and conflicts which were distorted, but not overshadowed, by the resilience of Asante Kotoko in the face of the centralized state. The reasons for the tenacity of Asante nationalism lay not in the struggle between Asante and what was to become the Ghanaian state, but in the unresolved struggles within Asante society.

La peur de la domination de la tribu Ibo constitua l'une des raisons majeures pour la décision du Sud-Cameroun Britannique à voter en 1961 pour quitter le Nigéria complètement et de s'unir avec la République du Cameroun. Dès les années 1920, après que la Grande-Bretagne avait obtenu un mandat international sur un part de l'ancienne colonie allemande, elle le gouvernait comme apanage du Nigéria, et le développement, que ce soit économique ou culturel, était très tardif. Les indigènes faisaient concurrence à grande peine aux immigrants du Nigéria, surtout les Ibos, dont la résilience et l'ingéniosité dans le commerce, alliés à leur manque de modestie dans le succès, provoquaient l'envie. Les politiciens camerounais contribuaient aux stéréotypes ethniques en incitant des rumeurs fantasques. Certes, des autres rivalités importaient aussi, mais dans les élections de 1954, 1957 et 1959 le mécontentement avec les liaisons au Nigéria fut clairement associé aux sentiments anti-Ibo.

Historians who have studied the rise of African opposition to colonialism in Northern Rhodesia have concentrated largely on the development of political parties and their campaigns for political rights. This paper explores some of the social and cultural elements of the popular movement against British rule through an examination of challenges to restrictions on the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages. In Northern Rhodesia as in much of British-ruled east, central and southern Africa, the colonial government banned the consumption by Africans of all European-type alcoholic drinks and placed tight restrictions on the brewing and sale of grain beers. In the immediate postwar period racially discriminatory alcohol regulations emerged as a highly emotional issue and remained so despite liberalization of the restrictions on beer and wine. But the focus of popular anger was the municipal grain beer monopolies and attempts on the part of the authorities to stamp out an illegal beer trade conducted by women brewers. Beginning in the mid-1950s this anger erupted in a series of protests and boycotts directed against municipal beerhalls. The protesters, many of whom were women, opposed the exclusion of Africans from a potentially lucrative sector of trade as well as the supposedly immoral and degrading characteristics of the beerhalls. Examination of the struggle over the beerhalls illuminates some of the diverse and contradictory sources and objectives of popular political expression during this period and in particular sheds light on the interplay among issues of race, class and gender in the nationalist movement.