Africa and the Africans in the nineteenth century: a turbulent history

338 Pages·5.3 MB·English

by  Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine;Baker, Mary(Translator)

Africa Africans
and the
in the
Nineteenth Century

Africa Africans
and the
in the
Nineteenth Centur y
A TurbulenT His Tory
CATHerine Coquery- Vidro ViTCH
Translated from the French by Mary baker
M.E.Sharpe
Armonk, New York
London, England
Copyright © 2009 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without written permission from the publisher, M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,
80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, New York 10504.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine.
[Afrique et les Africains au XIXe siècle. English]
Africa and the Africans in the nineteenth century : a turbulent history / by Catherine
Coquery-Vidrovitch; translated from the French by Mary Baker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-0-7656-1696-8 (cloth : alk. paper) —ISBN: 978-0-7656-1697-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Africa—History—19th century. I. Title.
DT28.C6713 2009
960’.23—dc22 2008033387
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z 39.48-1984.
~
MV (c) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
MV (p) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Tables, Figures, and Maps vii
Preface to the American Edition ix
Introduction xi
Note on the Transcription of Proper Nouns xix
1. People and Their Environment: Africa’s Climate
and Demography 3
The Perils of Rainfall Variations 3
Population Growth and Decline 8
The Ecology of Health 11
Greater Demographic Disparities 11
Greater Mobility 13
The Inflow of Foreigners 14
A Harsh Environment 15
2. Political and Warlike Islam: The Maghreb and West Africa
Before the Colonial Conquest 18
The Maghreb Before the Conquest 19
The Western Sudan at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century 26
A Major Focus: Trans-Saharan Trade 36
Jihad and the Religious Islam of Conquest 47
Adrift Under Western Pressure: Samori 67
3. Political and Merchant Islam: East Africa 70
Modernity as an Option: Egypt 70
At the Crossroads of Worlds: Ethiopia 75
Old-Style Colonization: Zanzibar 85
In the Margins Between Worlds: Rab­īh 97
v
vi CONTENTS
4. Animism’s Resistance—Openness and Introversion:
Central-Western Africa 109
The Reformism of the Coastal Empires 109
The Peoples of the Interior 118
5. The Meeting of Cultures: Southern Africa 135
Upheaval at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century 136
Shaka and the Zulu Revolution: Revision of an Analysis 141
Lesotho: Colonized Bastion 143
The English, the Africans, and the Boers: The Genesis
of Segregation 147
6. Colonial Intervention 156
The Beginnings of Colonial Imperialism in Sub-Saharan
Africa 158
The Genesis of Colonial Government 166
The End of Colonial Conquests 168
Resistance 172
Algeria, from Revolt to Colonization 175
7. The Century’s Innovations 185
Slavery: A Mode of Production That Had Become Dominant 185
Christianity: The Missionary Factor in Changing Mentalities 207
Economic and Social Changes: Systems of Production
and Lifestyles 232
New Social Players: Gender Relations, Urbanization 247
Culture and the Arts 258
Conclusion 268
Notes 271
Bibliography 281
Chronology: Europeans in Africa 293
Index 299
About the Author 313
List of Tables, Figures, and Maps
Figures
1.1 Rainfall Fluctuations in the Sahel 5
1.2 Demographic Changes in Algeria 10
6.1 Algeria: Convictions Under the Indigenous Code, 1882–1919 183
6.2 Muslim Harvests of Wheat and Barley, 1872–92 184
Tables
1.1 Comparative Data on Famine and Epidemic Years in
Sahel Locations 6
2.1 Trading Terms (1776–1849): Value of a Ton of Gum
Expressed in Guinées (Pieces of Cotton Cloth) 43
7.1 Slave Exports in the Nineteenth Century 191
Maps
1.1 Major Zones of Natural Vegetation 16
2.1 Principal African Peoples and States at the Dawn
of the Nineteenth Century (just before the Great Jihads) 28
2.2 The Maghreb and West Africa in the Nineteenth Century:
Trans-Saharan Routes 38
2.3 West Africa: Primary Political Formations in the Nineteenth
Century 50
3.1 Ethiopia in the Nineteenth Century 77
3.2 Central-Equatorial Africa in the Nineteenth Century 88
3.3 Central-Eastern Africa in the Nineteenth Century 98
5.1 South Africa in the Last Third of the Nineteenth Century 136
6.1 European Penetration on the Eve of the Berlin
Conference (1884) 157
vii
viii LIST oF TABLES, FIGURES, AND MAPS
6.2 European Penetration in 1891 169
6.3 Colonized Africa on the Eve of World War I 177
6.4 Algeria in the Nineteenth Century 178
7.1 Internal and International Slave Trading in the Nineteenth
Century 187
7.2 Islam and Christianity around 1885 209
Preface to the American Edition
The goal of this book is to show how important the nineteenth century was
in the history of the African continent as a whole. My priority has been to try
to render this history as it was experienced by Africans, rather than as it has
been described by Western observers.
Naturally, Western historians tend to focus on European colonial control,
but how was that occupation experienced by Africans at the time? When we
look at it more closely, we find that, for most Africans, the colonial intrusion,
which was to have huge consequences, was not seen as the major issue in
most of the continent during this period. Of course, in North Africa, Napoléon
Bonaparte landed in Egypt in 1799 and the French in Algiers in 1830, and, in
southern Africa, the British were in the Cape in 1795. However, elsewhere,
across the vast majority of the continent, the new European presence became
crucial only in the last third of the century. Before then, many Africans were
not even aware of it. This is the reason why the European conquest enters the
picture only toward the end of this book.
At the time, what was felt to be most important were the political and re-
ligious processes that were internal to African societies. Most of them were
still independent. It is only in hindsight that it becomes apparent that some of
these changes were at least partly in reaction to outside economic influences:
for example, the gradual end of the slave trades, both across the Atlantic and,
half a century later, across the Indian Ocean, was more or less related to the
early impact of the British Industrial Revolution.
Nevertheless, the most important issues in the nineteenth century were
the ideological and cultural changes that resulted, in many areas, in mass
conversions to Islam. Christianity, by contrast, did not become popular until
the end of the century. Other crucial factors were the social and political
transformations caused by changes in the motivations behind and organiza-
tion of African slavery and the internal slave trade. The increase in internal
slavery was inseparable from world history, but, except in Portuguese areas,
it had little to do with colonization, even though its growth was used as a
justification for European colonialism at the end of the century.
ix