Group items tagged

Admittedly, the final estimates for the Saharan slave trade are very poor. This is also true for the Red Sea slave trade. However, it will be shown that all of the statistical results are completely robust with or without the estimates of slaves shipped during these two slave trades. That is, the statistical findings remain even if the Red Sea and Saharan slave trades are completely ignored because of the poor quality of their data. Combining the ethnicity data with the shipping data, estimates of the number of slaves taken from each country in Africa are constructed. 26 The construction procedure follows the following logic. Using the shipping data, the number of slaves shipped from each coastal country in Africa is first calculated. As mentioned, the problem with these numbers is that slaves shipped from the ports of a coastal country may not have come from that country, but from inland countries that lie landlocked behind the coastal country. To estimate the number of slaves shipped from the coast that would have come from these inland countries, the sample of slaves from the ethnicity data is used. Each ethnicity is first mapped to modern country boundaries. This step relies on a great amount of past research by African historians. The authors of the secondary sources, from which the data were taken, generally also provide a detailed analysis of the meaning and locations of the ethnicities appearing in the historical records. In many of the publications, the authors created maps showing the locations of the ethnic groups recorded in the documents. For example, detailed maps are provided in Higman’s samples from the British Caribbean, Koelle’s linguistic inventory of free slaves in Sierra Leone, Mary Karasch’s samples from Rio de Janeiro, Aguirre Beltran’s sample from plantation and sales records from Mexico, Adam Jones’ sample of liberated child slaves from Sierra Leone, and David Pavy’s sample of slaves from Colombia. 27 Other sources also provide excellent summaries of the most common ethnic designations used during the slave trades. These include Philip Curtin’s The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, ethnographer George Peter Murdock’s Africa: Its Peoples and Their Cultural History, and Gwendolyn Midlo Hall’s

Admittedly, the final estimates for the Saharan slave trade are very poor. This is also true for the Red Sea slave trade. However, it will be shown that all of the statistical results are completely robust with or without the estimates of slaves shipped during these two slave trades. That is, the statistical findings remain even if the Red Sea and Saharan slave trades are completely ignored because of the poor quality of their data. Combining the ethnicity data with the shipping data, estimates of the number of slaves taken from each country in Africa are constructed.The construction procedure follows the following logic. Using the shipping data, the number of slaves shipped from each coastal country in Africa is first calculated. As mentioned, the problem with these numbers is that slaves shipped from the ports of a coastal country may not have come from that country, but from inland countries that lie landlocked behind the coastal country. To estimate the number of slaves shipped from the coast that would have come from these inland countries, the sample of slaves from the ethnicity data is used. Each ethnicity is first mapped to modern country boundaries. This step relies on a great amount of past research by African historians. The authors of the secondary sources, from which the data were taken, generally also provide a detailed analysis of the meaning and locations of the ethnicities appearing in the historical records. In many of the publications, the authors created maps showing the locations of the ethnic groups recorded in the documents. For example, detailed maps are provided in Higman’s samples from the British Caribbean, Koelle’s linguistic inventory of free slaves in Sierra Leone, Mary Karasch’s samples from Rio de Janeiro, Aguirre Beltran’s sample from plantation and sales records from Mexico, Adam Jones’ sample of liberated child slaves from Sierra Leone, and David Pavy’s sample of slaves from Colombia.Other sources also provide excellent summaries of the most common ethnic designations used during the slave trades. These include Philip Curtin’s The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, ethnographer George Peter Murdock’s Africa: Its Peoples and Their Cultural History, and Gwendolyn Midlo Hall’s Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Many of the ethnic groups in the ethnicity sample do not map cleanly into one country. The quantitatively most important ethnic groups that fall into this category include: the Ana, Ewe, Fon, Kabre, and Popo, who occupied land in modern Benin and Togo; the Kongo, who resided in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola; the Makonde, localized within Mozambique and Tanzania; the Malinke, who occupied lived within Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Guinea Bissau; the Nalu, from Guinea Bissau and Guinea; the Teke, living in land within Gabon, Congo, and Democratic Republic of Congo; and the Yao from Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. In cases such as these, the total number of slaves from each ethnic group was divided between the countries using information from George Peter Murdock’s Africa: Its Peoples and Their Cultural History. Ethnic groups were first mapped to his classification of over 800 ethnic groups for Africa. Using a digitized version of a map provided in his book and GIS software, the proportion of land area in each country occupied by the ethnic group was calculated. These proportions were then used as weights to disaggregate the total number of slaves of an ethnicity between the countries. Using the ethnicity sample, an estimate of the number of slaves shipped from each coastal country that would have come from each inland country is calculated. Using these figures, the number of slaves that came from all countries in Africa, both coastal and inland, is then calculated. Because over time, slaves were increasingly being taken from further inland, the estimation procedure is performed separately for each of the following four time periods: 14001599, 1600-1699, 1700-1799, 1800-1900. In other words, for each time period, the shipping data and ethnicity data from that time period only is used in the calculations. In the end, the procedure yields estimates of the number of slaves taken from each country in each of the four slave trades for each of the four time periods listed above.

Ancient Civilisation

Eastern Africa."

ancient activity

Respecting the origin of these cities there has been plentiful specula- tion.

The absence of all clue to their origin, together with the fact that the ruins are situated in the heart of the country reported by the natives to be the richest of all South Africa in gold, and the discovery of old surface gold mines in the district in which they stand, have not tended to diminish speculation regarding them.

enumerated,

archmological

practical reasons.

I believe we may conclude that it formed in ancient days one of the sources of the supply of gold

s of brass; slaves, horses, mules; carpets, ivory,

The Historian

An analysis of Ndwandwe, Mthethwa and Qwabe expansion in the eighteenth century reflects three goals of each: 1) to dominate versatile pasturage; 2) to control fertile river valleys and coastal lowlands; and 3) to dominate defensible hill regions to protect precious economic assets, such as cattle and grain.26

But

But it was in the nineteenth century that the great development of the East African ivory trade took place. An

neteenth century, East Africa ranked as the foremost source of ivory in the world; ivory over-topped all rivals, ev

rade was lucrative,

The ivory trader had to know his ivory, which varies from hard to soft. On the whole, the ivory of East Africa is of the soft variety. The d

vory is white, opaque, and smooth, it is gently curved, and easily worked, and has what might be called 'spring'. Har

ivory is white, opaque, and smooth, it is gently curved, and easily worked, and has what might be called 'spring'. Hard ivory, on the other hand, is translucent, glossy and of a heavier specific gravity than soft ivory; it is more subject to extremes of temperature and more difficult to carve.

is

ding. The price on the world market was remarkably free from fluctuations; no commodity retained such a stable price as did ivory in the nineteenth ce

enya to trade for ivory. The original plans for an East African railway were based on the assumption that the haulage of ivory would be a valuable source of revenue.3

'. The shooting of cow elephants was prohibited, and all ivory below io lb. weight (raised to 30 lb. in I905) was liable to confiscation. Demarcation of reserves also followed.

a.40 Instances of infringement of the game laws and trading in illicit ivory continued to come before the courts throughout the earlier twentieth cen

SUMMARY The East African ivory trade is an ancient one: East African ivory is soft ivory and is ideal for carving, and was always in great demand. It figures prominently in the earliest reference to trading activities on the East African Coast. But the great development came in the nineteenth century when an increased demand for ivory in America and Europe coincided with the opening up of East Africa by Arab traders and European explorers. The onslaught on the ivory resources of the interior took the form of a two-way thrust-from the north by the Egyptians who penetrated into the Sudan and E

t Englishman to climb to the top was Mr. W. C. West, of Capetown, whose ascent was accomplished in June 1914. D

AN ASCENT OF KILIMANJARO 3 line 5200 metres above the surrounding plains (800 metres) to the summit of Kibo (5930

aphical base to the top. Many peaks of the world's big fold mountains, several volcanoes on the Central and South American plateaus are of course actually higher above sea-level than Kilimanjaro, but their base, be it a chain or a plateau, lies already at a considerable altitude, whilst here t

AN ASCENT OF KILIMANJARO 3 line 5200 metres above the surrounding plains (800 metres) to the summit of Kibo (5930

bove. From a base about 80 kms. in diameter, the slopes rise very gently at first, and, gradually steepening towards the summit, produce that slightly concave outline so characteristic of Kilimanjaro and of strato-volcanoes generally, and indicating the fact that the earlier lavas have been poured out in a much more liquid state than the younger ones, which were m

Structurally Kilimanjaro consists of three single strato-volcanoes, each of which has had its own

-volcano. The three cones whose centres of eruption lie on an almost straight line running west to east, are Shira in the west, Kibo in the centre, and Mavenzi in the east. Shira, the oldest, 4000 metres high, is to-day only a ruin with the remains of its former crater-wall forming a ragged more or less horizontal spur protruding from the western slope of its

eighbour. The second in age is Mavenzi, 5270 metres high, whose former crater, though much destroyed by erosion, is still well recognizable and opens by two deep barrancos towards the north-east. The centre is taken up by Kibo, 5930 metres, the youngest and highest of the three component volcanoes, and the only one which still shows an intact crater and a perpetu

KILIMANJARO FROM THE NORTH-EA

Kibo, however, shows a peculiarity, unique as far as our knowledge goes, in that its large central crater forms an island-like region of fusion, interrupting the region of feeding, t

latter thus being of annular shape and enclosing a dischargeless glacier ar

ior Commissioner of Moshi, Messrs. P. Nason and F. J. Miller, and myself. The first day's march of seven hours took us through cultivated Chaga Land in an easterly direction to the little kingdom of Marang'u, which had supplied the porters for most of the former expeditions, and whence a good path leads through the forest belt. This march across the lower slopes of the mountain entailed a good many ups and downs caused by the deeply eroded radial valleys, but it also afforded us a fair insight into the life of a most interesting people. Nowhere in East Africa have I seen anything approaching the high standard of culture that is exhibited by the sturdy inhabitants of the cultivated zone of Kilimanjaro

Grouped together in a number of little chieftaincies, the Wachaga are certainly a happy blend of the agricultural Bantu and the Hamitic herdsman. This is very probably due to the initiative of powerful and despotic rulers who, by imposing their will, led the masses to more intensive labour and thus to higher forms of civilization, and have understood how to make the best of the very favourable conditions which the well-watered mountain

tropical forest, we rested on the lowest patch of grass at about 2000 metres. A further climb of a little more than an hour took us through the temperate rain-forest to the lowest of Dr. Foerster's huts (2730 metres), which we reached soon after noo

rd but healthy work are well built, sturdy, and tough. To see their women balancing huge bundles of thatch descend along a steep and slippery path, slim and erect, is a fine sight. And as to the men, our porters gave a good exhibition of their staying powe

e advantages of the cool dark shade. It probably requires the trained eye of the botanist to distinguish between the lower and upper tropical rain-forest. As far as I could see they both agree in their main characteristics, i.e. tall trees growing out into the light from a dense undergrowth, and large smooth shiny leaves adapted to a highly increased transpira

ht and heat there. The uppermost portion of the temperate forest consists almost entirely of tree-heather growing to a height of io to 15 metres. A most curious fact, and one which requires further investigation, is the absence of that bamboo belt which is found everywhere in East Africa above the rain-forest and, according to Uhlig, is particularly well developed on Mount Meru, only some 80 miles distant from

I wish to add a few words on the economic function of the forest be

But the meteorological conditions of the mountain are such that a considerable portion of the vapour-laden atmosphere reaches the

regions above the forest before condensation has taken place, and the same is the ease with most of the moisture which the forest plants them? selves exhale again in the course

regions above the forest before condensation has taken place, and the same is the ease with most of the moisture which the forest plants them? selves exhale again in the cours

As the export ivory trade in particular expanded far into the interior of

As the export ivory trade in particular expanded far into the interior of eastern Africa in the nineteenth century , rising wealth and changing fashions led increasing numbers of people to give up their local barkcloth or hide dress for imported woven cloth.

s the ivory frontier expanded, so too did the

However, ivory kunguru’s fortunes. Kunguru is the probable origin of the iconic ‘Maasai plaid’, the red and

The quest for ivory was never-ending. The price on the world market was remarkably free from fluctuations; no commodity retained such a stable price as did ivory in the nineteenth c

central Africa Ruth

My interest in the literature on the ivory trade and in 19th-century thinking about trade and its effects on Africa arose