Group items tagged

Farmers’ continual investment in land maintenance work was more than a way to keep slaves such as Big George occupied while waiting on snows to thaw or cotton to grow. To render the land productive and profitable, these tasks were essential. Ditching, for instance, slowed the loss of topsoil in c ultivated fields. Southern soils are highly erosive: heavily laced with clay, with lower percentages of organic material and base elements, southern “dirt” washes away easily and leaves few nutrients behind. Especially in areas with hillier topogr aphy, such as central Georgia, even gentle rains slowly eroded valuable topsoil once farmers removed vegetation from the land in preparation for planting

During the antebellum period, the foundation of southerners’ extensive land use regime was shifting cultivation. Called “clearing new ground” in plantation records and agricultural journals, this technique meant that farmers typically cultivated a third of the land they owned or rented. 14 They kept the remainder of the land in reserve to be cleared and burned periodically; in this way, farmers created new fields once the old ones were exhausted

Walston’s hired laborers’ refusal to perform tasks such as fence repair without additional wages was not an isolated labor dispute. After emancipation, contradictory ideas of “free labor” between landowners and exsla ves made land maintenance and the day-to-day autonomy of workers the subject of frequent clashes. Just as in British Guiana, East Africa, Jamaica, Brazil, and other post-emancipation societies around the globe, “the process of defining, categorizing, and selecting forms of tenure was the result of contention be tween planters, who hoped to reinstate large-scale and centralized gang-system labor, and freedmen and poor whites, who valued economic autonomy

The growing popularity of certain forms of agricultural tenure, such as the half-share or cash tenancy, helped standardize e xpectations for the terms of labor over time. By the 1870s, contracts less frequently assumed slack-time tasks were part of crop cultivation. Land maintenance work such as clearing new ground, ditching, and fence repair became jobs for which landlords had to pay additional wages or apply a credit to a laborers’ account. Contracts that stated laborers would “do all necessary repairs about the place” became significantly less frequent, unless it was included as rent for a piece of land. 37 The timeline of these changes varied from place to place, but a survey of almost forty plantations in seven states reveals a general pattern

Land use changes after emancipation reflected the new reality of the postwar southern economy as well as freed slaves’ abilities to control their own labor. However, these changes had severe and unintended ecological consequences. Eschewing onerous tasks that did little to increase their share of the crop or benefit their assigned plot was doubtless an important step in achieving some autonomy in black laborers’ work. Nevertheless, disputes over arranging and paying for land maintenance encouraged landlords to let their fences rot just a little longer or allow ditches to fill up, contributing to ongoing problems of soil erosion and crop damage by livestock

Planters’ records, agricultural publications, and other sources dis cussed the growing crisis of soil quality on cotton lands with regularity, but reduced land maintenance had other effec ts unrelated to erosion. For instance, the struggle over fence repair added momentum to a region-wide push for eliminating the open range

Ultimately, the social, political, and economic upheavals of emanci pation, as manifested in the introduction and evolution of agricultural contr acts, had ecological consequences. Whereas the ecological regime of slavery reinforced the extensive land use practices of the antebellum period, the end of slavery significantly weakened them. One way it did this was by reducing the amount of time dedicated to land maintenance (or the upkeep and clearance of the land), especially in the cotton-growing regions of the lower South. Ex-slaves expected freedom to completely transform every aspect of their lives, and for many, this meant either forgoing agri cultural labor altogether or working their own land however they chose. Doing the same labor under the same mas ter, now landlord, on the same terms was not the transformation desired.

s. Settler perceptions of the threat posed by armed Africans persuaded British conservatives to portray Africans as skilled with firearms, even as they otherwise characterized Africans as racially infe

pean settlers introduced guns to New England, pointing out that Native Americans adapted them most adroitly to the local environment. The Native Americans learned to shoot well and combined that capability with their skills in forest warfare to gain a temporary military adva

5. While Burchell was living among the Tlhaping, a man offered eight oxen in exchange for one gun, which seemed a high price until one considered the gun's usefulness for hunting. Guns remained relatively rare in this part of southern Africa until the 1850s. By the 1870s they were widespread, thanks in part to the availability of wage labor at the nearby Kimberley diamond mines. There, an old (but still powerful) rifled percussion musket could be bought for four pounds sterling, the equivalent of three months' wages, while a modern breechloader might cost twenty-five pound

nge. Second, we examine the introduction of irrigation technology to the region by the missionarie

lvation. The missionary's work on behalf of African development was depicted as a generous endeavor and one that would save the "poor benighted" Africans from spiritual d

t soon became apparent, however, that the people of southern Africa did possess a reli

Among the most prevalent "problems" recognized by the missionaries was the adherence to superstitions con? cerning the human ability to induce or withhold rainfall and the employment of so-called rainmakers during times of prolonged drough

stoms. The missio

ate a society and a

lations

Rainmaking was regarded as an obstruction to the uptake of C

southern Africa

Impressed by the effectiveness of European skills, and respectful of the gospel’s humanitarian ideals, prominent Sotho-Tswana sought to appropriate Christianity as a supplemental source of politico-religious authority.

The integrity and authority of Christians were severely challenged, and African converts as well as European missionaries confronted the apparent limits of God’s power and benevolence in a violent and politically divided world.

Moshoeshoe disarmed the threat by allowing his close relatives to become leading Christians while securing their continued allegiance through a combination of patronage and coercion.

There was tremendous variation in the experiences of Africans and their communities during the long and gradual expansion of European influence in southern Africa,

Christianity eventually became more instrumental in colonisation, but in early encounters between Africans and Europeans beyond the frontier of the Cape Colony there was limited control by anyone over its use and ownership, allowing its humanitarian and universalistic ideals to assume greater currency.

ZDV

Mediterranean Sea.

fierce storms

Portugal’s exploring aims were largely commercial. The Portuguese wanted to find a sea route around Africa to the riches of Asia. Like other European powers, they wanted to trade directly in valuable Asian spices. The older trade routes to Asia were becoming increasingly blocked to them.

The Portuguese wanted to end Muslim control over northern Africa. That desire was one of several reasons why Portugal explored the continent in the 15th century. Spreading Christianity in Africa was another motive for Portuguese exploration, along with scientific curiosity. They also sought great wealth.

The Portuguese also wanted to establish trade with western Africa. Gold, ivory, and African slaves had long been traded across the Sahara to Muslims in the north.

By the time Henry died in 1460, his navigators had explored the coast as far south as Sierra Leone. For a time the Portuguese were busy fighting the Moroccans, and few exploring expeditions were sent out. John II became king of Portugal in 1481. Under John, the Portuguese once again began exploring Africa regularly

stone pillar

For the next 15 years, Livingstone was constantly on the move in the African interior. First, he ventured north of Cape Town into the Kalahari, a vast dry plain. By 1842 he had already traveled farther north in the Kalahari than any other European. In 1844 he traveled to Mabotsa to establish a mission station. Along the way he was mauled by a lion, and his left arm was injured. The following year Livingstone married Moffat’s daughter Mary. She accompanied him on many of his travels.

Modern exploration of the Nile basin began when Egypt conquered Sudan starting in 1821. As a result, the Egyptians learned more about the courses of the Blue Nile and the White Nile. A Turkish officer, Selim Bimbashi, led three expeditions between 1839 and 1842. Two of them reached the point in what is now South Sudan where rapids make navigation of the Nile difficult.

through the encouragement of traders and missionaries, more Africans took up firearms. They did so for many reasons, most prominently to gain sec

ys the Tswana debated customs, techniques, and habits that missionaries were promoting. The Comaroffs argue that the Tswana recognized that by accepting British dress, agricultural practices, and literacy they were accepting aspects of colonialist hegemony ranging from racial arrangements to epistemology and ontology. Perceptions of the world and the self, as well as perceptions of power, were bound up in everyday practice just as much as they were related to professing the Christian faith or pledging loyalty to the qu

Beginning about the 1860s, skilled labor became so scarce that southern African gunsmiths ceased assembling imported parts and began to import complete guns from Britain

ry, frontiersmen like Africander were hired to hunt and track for European ivory merch

n, Dutch farmers who migrated from the Cape northward in the early nineteenth century, gained a reputation as highly skilled marksm

out the Boer marksmen. Of the 24,238 men eligible to be called up for militia service, 9,996 did not own a rifle. Those who did tended to own Martini-Henrys, which were inferior to the British army's new magazine rifles, the Lee-Metford and the Lee-Enfield. The revived Boer reputation for marksmanship during the war of 1899-1902 was due in good part to Kruger's wise decision, shortly before the war, to buy thirty-seven thousand Mauser rifles, which were superior to the British weapons.29

Cape Colony, Sir Bartle Frere, embodied the full range of colonial rhetoric. When liberals challenged the disarmament of Basutoland, Frere mocked liberal arguments that "a native tr

armed with firearms [is] less formidable than one armed after their own fashion with assegai

ON THE ZULU DIALECT.

Syllabification

Euphony

This dialect is rich in nouns denoting different objects of the same genus, according to some variety of color, redundancy or deficiency of members, or some other peculiarity; thus, one noun signifies "a cow," another "a red cow," another "a brown cow," another "a white cow," another "a barren cow," etc. Abstract nouns are generally derived from adjectives by prefixing ubu, as: kulu, great; ubukulu, greatness. Proper names are taken from some object or incident in common life, thus: Untaba comes from intaba, a mountain; Ubalekile signifies "she has run away." There are very few nouns expressing the abstractions of mind, or spiritual things. Every noun consists of two parts: the initial, and the radical. The initial, whether a single letter or a syllable, is that part of the noun, which, in a modified form, re-appears in the beginning of all adjectives agreeing with it; from which also its pronoun is derived; and by which the number, class, and condition of the noun are determined. The rest of the noun is called the radical, or root. For example: um is the initial, andfazi the root, of the noun urnfazi, a woman; in the initial, and to the root, of the noun into, a thing. This initial element has sometimes been called a prefix. It is not, however, a prefix, but an essential part of the noun, without which the noun is not a noun, is not complete, and has no signification. The initial of a noun, in impressing its image upon an adjective, and in undergoing various inflections to assist in indicating the number and condition of the noun, bears a strong resemblance to the terminations of a noun in Latin and Greek. The initial elements and euphonic letters of the several classes are as follows:

The negative idea is affixed to verbs chiefly by means of the particles a and nga, thus: (1) a is inserted before the pronoun nominative, or nga before the verb, in all the modes and tenses, a, as the final vowel of a root, being changed into i in the indicative present and the imperative, and into i or e in the potential present, past, and future; (2) nga is appended to the verb in the indicative past; (3) nge is often used for nga in the potential; (4) the auxiliary ya, or za, is always omitted in the negative form of the indicative present. See the paradigm,

Prepositions.

manme! mamo! Derivation of Wo

The foregoing is the amount of the most authentic and recent information which I have been able to obtain, here and in Cape colony, respecting the languages of those numerous aboriginal tribes of Africa which dwell south of Jebel elKumr, or the Mountains of the Moon. I have already drawn out the subject to such an extent that I will say nothing of their probable orig