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Summary

Through a history of the Central African Copperbelt in the first half of the twentieth century, this chapter sets the scene for subsequent analysis. It explains the similarities and differences in the early development of the Northern Rhodesian and Belgian Congolese Copperbelts, addressing labour migration and stabilisation, mine company and colonial state policies and the identification of the Copperbelt as a ‘modern’ urban region of Africa experiencing rapid social change and therefore in need of surveillance, intervention and research. The chapter then analyses the ideas and activities of Anglophone and Belgian research institutes and the ways their assumptions and approach framed understandings of the Copperbelt. It then examines the participation of African actors in these research and knowledge production processes and considers the ways in which Africans understood the nature of Copperbelt society in the mid-twentieth century.

Summary

Slaves could be found in simpler societies, but more important and better known was the existence of slavery in most advanced states. This chapter discusses the spectrum of different types and levels of slave use. It focuses on slavery in pre-state societies and the correlation between slavery and cities, trade, and empires. Historians often distinguish between slave societies and societies with slaves. New World slavery was agricultural and can seem atavistic and primitive in comparison with contemporaneous industrialization with its wage laborers and technology. The growth of state power, like the growth of cities, typically went hand in hand with the increasing inequalities both of wealth and power that produced an elite who might desire slaves for their lifestyle, status, or profit. The racism directed against black Africans in New World slave systems was a modern, relatively systematic, and extreme example of a much more common attitude toward slaves.

Summary

Slavery and the heritage of slavery have been important in many African societies. It has been so important that many Africans have tried to suppress memories about them. This chapter gathers together three very diverse documents which inform us Africans' thought on the institution of slavery. The first comes from Cameroon. Ahmadou Sehou, a scholar from that country, has found documents associated with Lamido Iyawa Adamou, a powerful chief who defended slavery and maintained control over slaves in his chiefdom until his death in 1966. The second document comes from Ute Röschenthaler, who did research in an area that was on the major trade route to the coast in Cameroon and southeastern Nigeria. The third document comes from Ghana, known as the Gold Coast during British rule. These documents indicate the diverse ways Africans related to slavery and the slave trade.

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1 - Imagining the Copperbelts

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12 - The Mediterranean

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22 - The Ordeals of Slaves’ Flight in Tunisia

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3 results

1 - Imagining the Copperbelts

Summary

12 - The Mediterranean

Summary

22 - The Ordeals of Slaves’ Flight in Tunisia

Summary