The Road to Independence: Ghana and the Ivory Coast, The Cameroons from Mandate to Independence, A History of the Gambia, The New Liberia: A Historical and Political Survey, The West African Commonwealth and Mission to Ghana: Memoir of a Diplomat

1965 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 746-748
Author(s):  
D. H. Jones.
Keyword(s):  
Ivory Coast ◽  
West African ◽  
The Gambia ◽  
The West ◽  
The Road ◽  
History Of

The Garvey Movement in British West Africa

1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. L. Okonkwo
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
The West ◽  
Universal Negro Improvement Association ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Blacks ◽  
Garvey Movement ◽  
African Nationalism

The paper seeks to present new information concerning the activities of the West African branches of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. The author has included biographical profiles of the British West African Garveyites to integrate the Garvey movement into the history of West African nationalism and Pan-Africanism.It is argued that Garveyism was welcomed in British West Africa by the older cultural nationalists who saw Garveyism as an extension of Blyden's ideas. Pan-African sentiments of racial unity and solidarity of African and American blacks, pride in the history of the race, and self-help projects had wide circulation in West Africa from the latter part of the nineteenth century, as a result of Blyden's influence. Joining the branches of the U.N.I.A. was a practical demonstration of a long-standing commitment to cultural and racial nationalism among the West African elite.The Garvey movement also marked the beginning of a new era in West African nationalism. Garvey's radical pronouncements on freeing Africa from colonial rule were unacceptable to the older cultural nationalists who dominated the Garvey groups. They disavowed any interest in organizing a central nation for the race. However, Garvey's ideas may have had long-term effects. By the 1930s the idea of independence from colonial rule seemed more attractive to the West African nationalists. Garvey was one of the first to speak out boldly for freedom from colonialism.The concrete achievements of the West African branches of the U.N.I.A. were small indeed. Nigeria had the most Garveyite activity in British West Africa. There was an agent for the Black Star Line in Lagos and a branch of the U.N.I.A. and A.C.L. The Gold Coast had the least Garveyite activity, probably because of their involvement in the National Congress of British West Africa and also because of their more critical attitude towards co-operation with American blacks. They believed that Africans were best qualified to lead any joint efforts for intra-racial co-operation.

“The Art or Mystery of Physick” – Asante Medicinal Plants and the Western Ordering of Botanical Knowledge

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 27-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom C. McCaskie
Keyword(s):  
Medicinal Plants ◽  
West African ◽  
Tabular Form ◽  
The West ◽  
Global Expansion ◽  
The Core ◽  
Botanical Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree

Abstract:This paper deals with aspects of the still relatively neglected history of African medicinal plants. The core of the paper is a discussion in tabular form of the plants collected in the West African forest kingdom of Asante in 1817 by Henry Tedlie, a member of the well known English mission led by Thomas Bowdich. More generally, the paper considers episodes in the accumulation of Akan, Asante, and African plant specimens by Europeans, and the eventual classification of these in a western authorized botanical taxonomy that is now in worldwide use. The gathering of potentially medicinal plants is a little studied facet of European global expansion, from exploration to colonialism and beyond, and of the sovereign scientific orthodoxy that became established alongside it. The paper frames and discusses relevant details of this process over thelongue durée, from pre-Linnaean taxonomies to current controversies over bioprospecting.

Early European Sources Relating to the Kingdom of Ijebu (1500-1700): A Critical Survey

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 245-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
West African ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Early History ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
African History ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Original Information

The history of the Yoruba, as is well known, is very poorly documented from contemporary European sources prior to the nineteenth century, in comparison with their neighbors Benin to the east and the states of the ‘Slave Coast’ (Allada, Whydah, and Dahomey) to the west. There is, however, one Yoruba kingdom which features in contemporary European sources from quite early times, and for which at least intermittent documentation extends through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is the kingdom of Ijebu in southern Yorubaland. The availability of contemporary European documentation for the early history of Ijebu is especially valuable since the historical traditions of Ijebu itself do not appear to be very rich.Such, at least, is the impression given by published accounts of Ijebu history: although a large number of kings of Ijebu are recalled, thereby suggesting for the kingdom a considerable antiquity, and though there is some recollection locally of early contacts with the Portuguese, it does not seem that Ijebu traditions record much in the way of a detailed narrative of the kingdom's early history. At the same time, the European sources referring to Ijebu present considerable problems of interpretation, particularly with regard to establishing how far successive references to the kingdom constitute new original information rather than merely copying a limited range of early sources, and consideration of them helps to illuminate the character of early European sources for west African history in general. For these reasons, it seems a useful exercise to pull together all the available early European source material relating to Ijebu down to the late seventeenth century.

The Amazons of Dahomey

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agbenyega Adedze
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
West African ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Female Fighters

The Amazons in general come from Greek legend and myth without any palpable historical evidence. However, there is no doubt about the historical female fighters of the erstwhile Kingdom of Dahomey (Danhome or Danxome) in West Africa, which survived until their defeat by the French colonial forces in 1893. The history of the historical Amazons of the Kingdom of Dahomey stems from vast amounts of oral tradition collected and analyzed over the years, as well as written accounts by Europeans who happened to have visited the kingdom or lived on the West African coast since Dahomey’s foundation in the 17th century to its demise in the late 19th century. These sources have been reviewed and debated by several scholars (including Amélie Degbelo, Stanley B. Alpern, Melville J. Herskovits, Hélène d’Almeida-Topor, Boniface Obichere, Edna G. Bay, Robin Law, Susan Preston Blier, Auguste Le Herisse, etc.), who may or may not agree on the narrative of the founding of the kingdom or the genesis of female fighters in the Dahomean army. Nonetheless, all scholars agree that the female forces traditionally called Ahosi/Mino did exist and fought valiantly in many of Dahomey’s battles against their neighbors (Oyo, Ouemenou, Ouidah, etc.) and France. The history of the Ahosi/Mino is intricately linked to the origins and political and social development of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Ahosi/Mino are still celebrated in the oral traditions of the Fon.

Of Trees and Earth Shrines: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Settlement Histories in the West African Savanna

2001 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 139-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Lentz ◽  
Hans-Jürgen Sturm
Keyword(s):  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
African Savanna ◽  
Frankfurt Am Main ◽  
Lake Chad ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

For a vegetation geographer and an anthropologist to come together to write on the settlement histories of segmentary societies in the West African savanna is unusual or at least rare. A few words on the origin of this cooperation therefore seem appropriate. For over ten years, in the context of an interdisciplinary research program at the Universität Frankfurt am Main, archeologists, anthropologists, linguists, botanists and geographers have been working together on the history of cultures, languages, and natural environment of the West African savanna, especially the interaction between human activity and the natural environment. That one should actually be speaking in many cases of a culturally mediated “landscape” rather than a “natural environment” is one of the outcomes of the research projects, which have focused mainly on different regions of Burkina Faso (in the sahel and Sudanese zone) and the Lake Chad area of northeast Nigeria.The present paper has emerged from a botanical and an anthropological-historical project on the history of vegetation and of settlement in south and southwest Burkina Faso. This history has been shaped by the great expansion of the Dagara-speaking population. In the last two hundred years (possibly longer), small groups of Dagara patrilineages, related and allied to one another, have migrated north and northwest, probably from the region around Wa in present-day Ghana, and have founded numerous new settlements—a process of land appropriation that is still going on today, though with changed circumstances regarding land rights (see map 1).

Excavations in Caria

1887 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 64-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. R. Paton
Keyword(s):  
Great Part ◽  
The West ◽  
The Road ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Hill ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Way

Mr. Newton in his History of Discoveries, p. 583, gives the following account of an excursion to the peninsula which lies to the west of Budrum (Halikarnassus) where he was then excavating:—We next proceeded to examine the hill with the level top. This hill is called Assarlik.Ascending from this gateway we passed several other lines of ancient walls, and on gaining the summit of the hill found a platform artificially levelled. There are not many traces of walls here. The sides of the hill are so steep on the north and east that they do not require walls. The platform terminates on the north-east in a rock rising vertically for many hundred feet from the valley below. The top of the rock is cut into beds to receive a tower. The view from this platform is magnificent.[After brief mention of several tombs passed in the way down, Mr. Newton proceeds:]The acropolis which anciently crowned the rock at Assarlik must have overlooked a great part of the peninsula and commanded the road from Halicarnassus to Myndus and Termera. From the number of tombs here, and their archaic character, it may be inferred that this was a fortress of some importance in very early times.

Office, land and subjects in the history of the Manwere fekuo of Kumase: an essay in the political economy of the Asante state

1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. C. McCaskie
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
General Consideration ◽  
West African ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Material Basis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

The fundamental reasoning underlying this paper is that, in seeking to advance our understanding of the material basis of political power in pre-colonial African polities, particular attention must be paid to the detailed reconstruction over time of the triumviral relationship between office, land and subjects. Acknowledgement is freely made of the fact that, for many (if not most) areas of Africa, this type of reconstruction is either exceptionally difficult or frankly impossible. This paper is concerned with the West African forest kingdom of Asante (Ghana) – a case evincing considerable institutional continuity and structural vigour, and one, moreover, sufficiently richly documented to permit the type and level of reconstruction posited. Specifically, and taking into account the substantial body of research already carried out on the general political history of Asante, this paper deals with patterns of authority over land and subjects as evidenced by the offices contained within the Manwere – one of the ten administrative/military fekuo of Kumase. The Manwere was created by Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin (1834–67), and in seeking to account for the political imperatives underlying the foundation, the paper explores the context of the reign and the biography and career of the first Manwerehene, Kwasi Brantuo. Particular attention is paid throughout to the way in which the relationship between office, land and subjects within the Manwere was modified or otherwise altered by the nature of the political vicissitudes through which the Asante polity passed in the period between – broadly – the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Underlying the paper, and supplying context to its conclusions, is a general consideration of the philosophy of the Asante ethic concerning such matters as wealth and accumulation, the nature of authority, and the conceptualization of citizenship.

AIDS--the leading cause of adult death in the West African City of Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Science ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 249 (4970) ◽  
pp. 793-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. De Cock ◽  
B Barrere ◽  
L Diaby ◽  
M. Lafontaine ◽  
E Gnaore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ivory Coast ◽  
West African ◽  
African City ◽  
The West

scholarly journals Presidential Term Limits and the International Community

2019 ◽  
pp. 557-584
Author(s):  
Christina Murray ◽  
Eric Alston ◽  
Micha Wiebusch
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Term Limits ◽  
West African ◽  
Central Question ◽  
The West ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Venice Commission ◽  
External Actors

Proposed changes to presidential term limits are almost always highly contested and have attracted international and regional attention. A central question that faces the external actors is the extent to which it is legitimate to take a position in presidential term limit debates. This chapter considers the policy concerning presidential term limits of three major IGOs, the UN, the AU, and the OAS. It further discusses the way in which IDEA, an IGO with a softer mandate, has responded to the debate on term limits, as well as the role of the Venice Commission, ECOWAS, DRI, the Carter Center, and the West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF). This review suggests an increasing international consensus that, in countries with a history of authoritarianism and weak democratic institutions, presidential term limits can play an important role in strengthening democratic processes and reducing the likelihood of conflict.

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