Ancient and early Byzantine authors: Diodorus (II, 55), ‘Pseudo-Callisthenes’, Cosmas Indicopleustes and Procopius Caesarensis—mention the navigation of the Indian Ocean by ‘Ethiopians’ of the African Horn and the Axumite Kingdom in their own ships. The hoard of Kushana gold moneys found at Dabra-Dammo confirms this. The legend in the Kebra Nagast of Ethiopian military expeditions to India incorporates reminiscences about sea voyages to India by ancient Axumites.

These maps show the paths of central eclipse for 164 total solar eclipses visible in Africa in the period A.D. 1000 to 2000. It is hoped that they may suggest periods and areas where records of eclipses might be found in oral tradition or other sources, and also that they, or their originals, will assist in at least the preliminary stages of identifying such a record with a particular eclipse. The originals have been drawn on a scale of 1: 10,000,000, and photographic copies of these and the master grid are available, on indestructible plastic, price £7. 10s. the set, from the Editors of the Journal of African History.

The study of Central African history is still in its infancy. Valuable indications can, however, be obtained by combining the study of oral traditions with that of Portuguese documentary evidence for events taking place near the coasts. It has long been known, for instance, that the overthrow of the powerful Songye rulers of the Luba country indirectly caused long-distance migrations, one of which, that of the Imbangala, came into contact with the Portuguese in Angola. Previous analyses of this migration have suggested that it culminated in the early seventeenth century. In this paper an attempt has been made to show that the Imbangala arrived in Angola much earlier, probably by the mid sixteenth century and certainly before 1575. This date indicates that the Luba invasion of Lunda, which was the direct cause of the migration, probably took place in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Finally, it has been tentatively suggested that the overthrow of Songye rule and the establishment of a new, expansionist Luba empire might have taken place as much as a century earlier, from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century.

This paper considers several questions in the economic prehistory of Ethiopia. Who domesticated the banana-like ensete, the food plant which in parts of southern Ethiopia forms a monoculture? Was the ensete cultivated in ancient Egypt? Was it once cultivated extensively in northern Ethiopia as a food plant? Did the Semites, who invaded Ethiopia from South Arabia, starting about 1000 B.C., introduce the plough to Ethiopia and first develop cereal-plough agriculture there?

The Sidama peoples of southern Ethiopia are viewed as likely candidates in ensete domestication. The evidence for ensete cultivation in ancient Egypt is weighed and judged inconclusive. The cultivation of ensete for food in northern Ethiopia is viewed as recent. The suggestion is made that cereal-plough agriculture pre-dated the Semitic invasions. The ancient Cushitic inhabitants of northern Ethiopia are seen as having been in an excellent position for contacts with countries at the north end of the Red Sea, particularly Egypt, whence wheat and barley and the plough could have been introduced.

The travel literature of medieval Jewry may yield new information about the African past. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, a case in point, throws light on the little-known eastern Sudan of the twelfth century. From the Itinerary may be reconstructed trade routes south from Alexandria to Christian Nubia, east from the Upper Nile Valley to southern Arabia and India, and west to the Fezzān and, ultimately, to the western Sudanic States. Commodities traded included wheat, raisins, figs, copper, salt, gold, precious stones, and slaves. These routes tied in with the better known trans-Saharan, Mediterranean, and Indian Ocean networks of trade. Benjamin's Itinerary describes a spectrum of political development ranging from primitive Negroids south of Aswan and the tribal Beja and Rabīʻa Arabs to the more sophisticated Arab-controlled city-State of Aswan and the Christian kingdoms of Nubia. Benjamin mentions Christian Nubia only in passing, but indicates that ʻAiwa still flourished as a trading kingdom as late as 1170.

The importance of the Christian states of Nubia in medieval times has hitherto been under-estimated by historians of Africa. There is now sufficient information to show that they played a significant part in the history of the Nile valley for some 800 years. Not only did the existence of Christian states impose a barrier to the expansion of Islam, but the Dongola kingdom at least was at times an important force in the politics of the area.

The recent campaign of excavations made necessary by the building of the Aswan dam has provided much new information about the material culture of the period, and shows a much higher artistic and social development than earlier emphasis on ecclesiastical monuments had suggested. Nubia is now seen to have had a highly developed civilization with considerable urban development. Detailed study of the pottery has made possible more precise dating of buildings and objects, as well as showing periods of increased and decreased trade with Egypt.

The discovery of important frescoes in the cathedral at Faras makes it possible to study the artistic development, and also adds new material for a study of the eastern, particularly Persian, influences already suspected in Nubian art. Information about domestic life is made available by the excavations at Debeira West, the first predominantly domestic site to have been excavated, whose material remains provide new evidence on diet, crafts and agriculture.

African Oral traditions differ critically from recorded history in their treatment of time. Time is relative and ‘Historical time’ is replaced by ‘structural time’. Eastern Nigerian traditions have a beginning, the ‘remote past’, and an end, ‘the recent past’ and episodes which should belong to a middle period between these extremes are pushed either into the ‘remote’ or the ‘recent past’ or are forgotten altogether. This can be seen as soon as Eastern Delta traditions are compared with the relevant European historical records.

The paper puts forward a new interpretation of aspects of the early history of the East African coast, and in particular maintains that the immigration of the ‘Shirazi’ took place some zoo years later than the date in the latter part of the tenth century which has hitherto been accepted.

After a brief summary of the Arabic sources bearing on the history of the coast, and of the received history of Kilwa before the beginning of the fourteenth century, the two versions of the Kilwa Chronicle are examined. The Arabic version is concluded to be more reliable than the Portuguese, though very little reliance should be placed on the regnal years of the sultans as given in either.

The archaeological evidence, based chiefly on recent excavations at Kilwa, is examined, with particular reference to the coins minted on the coast. Certain types of these coins are found to have been hitherto wrongly attributed, notably those of 'Ali bin al-Hasan, which are shown to be the earliest.

An outline of the history of the coast is presented, based on the combined historical and archaeological evidence. No satisfactorily attested relics of the period of trade with the Graeco-Roman world have yet been found. The earliest settlements discovered date from the eighth to ninth century A.O., most or all of which were probably pagan, but already trading with the Muslim world. By about i ioo there were several Muslim towns on the coast. This period is related to the Debuli of the traditions.

The arrival of the ‘Shirazi’ is related to the appearance of coins of 'Au bin al-Hasan, who is identified with the first ruler of the ‘Shirazi’ dynasty at Kilwa (about A.0. I 200); Mafia was of equal importance at this time. A marked cultural break in the latter part of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century is thought to be related to a change in dynasty at Kilwa, a fresh settlement of immigrants, and the gaining of control of Sofala and the gold trade.

It is suggested that the Shirazi settlement consisted not of a migration of people from the Persian Gulf direct to Kilwa and other places, but rather a movement of settlers from the Banadir coast.

The traditions now current among the Edo of Nigeria trace the origin of the Benin dynasty and the associated cire-perdue technique of brass-casting to Ife. Some of the information recorded by European visitors to Benin since the fifteenth century is not easily reconcilable with this tradition. Material evidence, especially that contained in the Benin bronzes, and the results of archaeological investigation have also raised difficulties. It is suggested that many conflicts in the evidence could be resolved by adopting a hypothesis which would ascribe a more northerly origin to the dynasty. The Nupe-Igala area straddling the confluence of the Niger and Benue emerges as the key area in such a reconstruction of Benin dynastic affiliations. The Yoruba States would seem to be related to the same general complex, but the chronology and direction of dynastic movements still remain obscure, and the seemingly fixed points of reference become far less certain when placed in context.

Without slaves from Africa, reported an early Portuguese source, ‘it is impossible to do anything in Brazil’ Although prior arrivals are suspected, the first known landing of slaves from Africa on Brazilian soil took place in 1552. In 1580, five years after the founding of Loanda and on the eve of Brazil's sugar boom, there were no fewer than 10,000 Africans in Brazil. Fifty years later, Pernambuco alone imported 4,400 slaves annually from Africa. It also contained 150 engenhos, or a third of the total sugar-mill and plantation complex in Brazil. In 1630, the Dutch West India Company (WIC) captured Pernambuco, and within a decade Portugal had abandoned Brazil to the Dutch. It was ultimately the decision of local settlers, the moradores, to fight the West India Company that led to restoration of Portuguese control in 1654. The Dutch retreat from Brazil, however, was secured through a joint Afro-Portuguese effort which gave the Black Regiment of Henrique Dias its colonial fame. If early settlement and a sugar-based economy could not have been sustained without the African labourer, neither could the Portuguese continue to hold Brazil without the African soldier. The subsequent evolution of Brazil is no less a story of Euro-African enterprise. Exploitation of gold and diamonds in the eighteenth century, pioneering shifts of population from the coast to the interior, dilution of monoculture, formation of mining states or advent of an abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century were all dependent on the same combination. The blend of race, language and culture in contemporary Brazil confirms this evolution.

Dans une étude publiée en 1939 et traitant d'une oasis appelée S. b.rū par le géogrphe arabe al-Bakrī (1067–8) et D.b.r par l'auteur anonyme du Kitāb al-Istibsār fī 'agā’ib al-amsār (1191), oasis dont le centre porte le nom de Ŝ.b.rū dans le traité géographique d'al-Idrīsī (1154), nous avons essayé d'identifier ce lieu avec le groupe d'oasis de Koufra de nos cartes. Selon toute vraisemblance, Koufra était, dans le haut Moyen Age, une étape sur la grande voie saharienne, dont parlent certains géographes arabes médiévaux, à partir d'Ibn al-Fakīh al-Hamadānī (902–3), et qui reliait le pays de Gāna, dans le Soudan occidental, fameux par ses mines d'or, à l'Egypte. Cette voie, qui nous montre que les Egyptiens s'intéressaient depuis longtemps au commerce de l'Afrique occidentale, partait probablement de Koumbi Saleh actuel, ruines situées en Mauritanie du Sud et identifiées par la plupart des savants avec la capitale du royaume de Gāna. Elle passait, ensuite, conformément à un passage de l'ouvrage d'al-Fakīh al-Hamadānī, par les territoires de trois peuples noirs: Kūkū (aussi: Kawkaw), M.r.nda et M.rāwa, et aboutissait au Wabat Mir (« Les Oasis de l'Egypte »), c'est-à-dire a 1'Oasis de Dakhla et de Kharga. De ces trois « peuples » noirs, le premier, à savoir: Kūkū (Kawkaw), n'est pas inconnu aux autres géographes arabes médiévaux qui mentionnent un royaume et une yule de ce nom. Il s'agit du royaume négre, jadis puissant, de Songhaï et de sa capitale Gao située sur la boucle du Niger. A en croire al-Ya'kūbī, géographe et historien arabe, écrivant dans la deuxième moitié du IXe siècle (ii mourut en 897 de notre ère), c'était un important état soudanais dont la puissance égalait, a cette époque, celle du royaume de Gāna.

Linguistic evidence strongly suggests that maize penetrated the interior of tropical Africa from the coastal regions, but the timing and mode of its introduction cannot be established. The commonly repeated assertion that the Portuguese brought maize to tropical Africa from the New World cannot be documented at this juncture, although they seem certainly to have had economic motives for doing so.

Maize was probably introduced to tropical Africa at more than one point and at different times. Maize was widely grown along the coast from the River Gambia to Sâo Tomé, around the mouth of the River Congo, and possibly in Ethiopia, in the sixteenth century. There is reference to it in all these places, in Zanzibar, and around the mouth of the River Ruvuma in the seventeenth century; and it was not only mentioned but described as an important foodstuff and a major provision for slave ships between Liberia and the Niger Delta during the same century.

Much less information is available for the interior, but it clearly seems to have been unknown in Uganda as late as 1861. Until well within the present century, it was neither a major export nor a mainstay of the diet in most of eastern and central tropical Africa, the bulk of the areas where it is now of major importance.

This preliminary discussion of the process of assimilation in eighteenth-century Senegal considers how Africans were drawn into the French colonial community through employment; trade; marriage and concubinage; and also through the Portuguese Creole communities to the south of Cape Verde. The extent of their assimilation is discussed with reference to religion; participation in civic institutions; and the acceptance of certain European values. Finally the question of how deeply the colonial community was influenced by African values is briefly raised.

During the reign of Alafin Onigbogi, probably in the early sixteenth century, the Oyo capital, Oyo-ile, was abandoned to the Nupe from across the Niger. It was reoccupied only after an exile lasting some three-quarters of a century. During their exile the Alafin settled at several places in the marches of Borgu and Yorubaland, and finally founded a new capital at Oyo-Igboho.

This essay, after referring to the oral traditions of the Yoruba on which it is mainly based, describes the withdrawal of the Oyo into Borgu and attempts to identify the various halting places of the Alafin. The traditions about the founding and settling of the new capital at Igboho under Egunoju, and the existing remains of the new capital, are examined, and then the reigns of the four Alafin of Oyo-Igboho. Under Orompoto (who may have been a woman) and Ajiboyede, military successes were scored against the Borgu and Nupe, and under Abipa the Alafin's internal authority was decisively asserted. The period seems to have been one of both military and constitutional reform, and the morale of the Oyo was further improved by the introduction of new forms of religion. Under Abipa the Oyo were able to return to their former capital, and in the succeeding reigns the kingdom began to expand until it became probably the most important of the Guinea States.

Tentative suggestions are made in the essay about the chronology of the period. In particular it is postulated that Oyo-ile was abandoned about 1535, Igboho founded about 1555 Oyo-ile reoccupied about 1610.

Between 1580 and 1640 the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns strengthened the commercial partnership which previously existed with respect to the supply of Guinea slaves to the Spanish Indies. The conduct of the slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast involved the active participation of the African chiefs, as well as the services of a considerable number of resident Portuguese traders, known as lançados. Before 1640, while Iberian unity prevailed, the main source of discord in the area lay in the fact that the Spanish slave ships, with the help of the lançados and the chiefs, were able to disregard the regulation that all ships loading slaves on the Upper Guinea Coast should pay duties at Santiago (Cape Verde islands), which the Portuguese used as the hub of their administration. After 1640 the restored Portuguese monarch attempted to exclude Spain from the commerce of the Upper Guinea Coast, and in the process, alienated the lançados and the African chiefs.

The History of Dahomey, written by Archibald Dalzel in 1793, has been used extensively as a source for Dahomean history. This article shows that the book is a polemic written in order to counter the charges of the British anti-slave trade movement and to prevent any further Parliamentary action being taken against the trade.

As late as 1960, in the hinterland of Gisaka (Rwanda), community life was strangely reminiscent of what we know of life in the early continental European manor. The Rwandese manor was largely self-sufficient. The relationships of the peasant to lord of the manor were of a privi legis nature. Competition for chiefly (or lordly) favours was keen. The necessity to court the chief had caused courtship to be institutionalized. The successful courtesans, usually of the nobility, attended the chief directly and were often part of the administrative staff of the manor.

The practice of commendation was usual; homage was paid with the identical gesture as in Europe, and the functional equivalent of the don annuel appeared in the form of an institution called kubaka inkike (‘to repair the enclosure’).

The career of Martinez provides a guide to the economic and political fortunes of the Brazilians in the coastal States of the Bight of Benin in the eighteen-forties, fifties, and early sixties. The first phase of his career took place while the Brazilian slave trade was still at its height; the second phase covered the successful Brazilian adaptation to the new commercial patterns involved in the introduction of the palm oil trade; the third phase took place when Brazilian commerce was in decline following increased British intervention and growing contact between European merchants and the African States. The graph of his political influence follows exactly that of his commercial affluence. In the early eighteen-forties he was a prominent figure in the confused politics of the Bight. In the late forties he was as influential in Dahomey as Francesco Felix De Souza had been in the previous decade. At the end of his life his importance had declined so much that he was unable to prevent the King of Dahomey entering into an agreement which would have dealt a final blow to his commercial position.