Feedback As a “Problem” in Oral History: An Example from Bonde

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 353-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Willis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
African History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Town ◽  
Written Sources

Feedback—the process by which written versions of history influence subsequent presentations of oral history—is now a well-documented process. In writing on African history, Henige in particular has emphasized the importance of feedback in oral history, and has suggested that feedback from written sources is a process of contamination which has affected oral history all over the continent.Some aspects of the oral history of Bonde, the area around the town of Muheza in northeastern Tanzania, would seem to present a counterexample to this thesis of written history as a contaminant of hitherto pure oral history: oral histories of at least two important nineteenth-century events in this area are at variance with fairly widely-available published sources. Evidence from Bonde suggests that, here at least, feedback from written sources is not a particular and unique influence on the making of oral history.

Afrika-Archiv: A New Series of the Frobenius Institute for the Purpose of Publishing Source Material

1997 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 437-439
Author(s):  
Beatrix Heintze
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Source Material ◽  
The Other ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
African History ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Written Sources

“[D]as Wirkungsvolle wird gepflegt, die Gewissenhaftigkeit schwindet; an Stelle der Fähigkeit zu bergründen, der Kraft zu überzeugen, tritt die Sicherheìt im Behaupten.”[T]hat what impresses is cultivated, conscientiousness dwindles; the capability to explain, the power to convince are replaced by self-confidence in asserting.There is nothing more absurd—yet also nothing more common—than a scholarly lifetime of publishing based on materials to which no one else has access.The series “Afrika Archiv” (“Africa Archives”) was founded recently with the aim of publishing source material referring to the history and anthropology of Africa. In this connection the term “source material” shall be considered in a very broad sense. Thus, beside the usual library and other written sources, as well as written records of oral traditions, for instance, even editions of ethnographic collections or photographic documentation will be taken into consideration. African scholars will be able to publish material from their own countries to which we Europeans and Americans have only difficult access. Western scholars, on the other hand, could publish sources from public and private European or American archives, museums, or even widely dispersed articles in periodicals and newspapers on African history of the nineteenth century which are available only with great difficulty and expenditure of time. As a reviewer once commented, such source editions will still continue to be valued when contemporary interpretations have already long fallen into oblivion.Endeavors to record systematically varied sources on the history of the continent, the cultural and scientific history of Africa, and to make the essentials generally available to the scientific public still appear inadequate.

A Historiography of German Togoland, or The Rise and Fall of a “Model Colony”

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 195-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Laumann
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
African History ◽  
African Continent ◽  
The West ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Historical Episode ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Town

The literature on German Togoland, as compared with that of most of the other former European colonies on the African continent, is far from extensive. While the colony was relatively small and short-lived, the dearth of academic work is notable, since Togoland not only was prized by the Germans as their most successful colonial venture but was also viewed as a “model colony” by contemporary observers in other European imperial nations.Only a handful of books devoted exclusively to the colony have been published since the emergence of African history in the late 1950s as an academic field in the West. The authors of these books, as well as a number of articles and dissertations, thoroughly consulted the relevant archival materials housed in Europe and North America and, to a lesser extent, in West Africa, but failed to collect the oral history of the period. Thus these studies tend to be based almost solely on the observations of Europeans and focus on the activities of the German imperialists, in particular on their administrative and economic policies. A few scholars have attempted to emphasize African experiences during this historical episode, despite a reliance on those same archival materials.The Togoland colony dates to February 1884, when a group of German soldiers kidnapped chiefs in Anécho, a town located in present-day southeastern Togo, and forced them into negotiations aboard the German warship Sophie. Further west, a protectorate was proclaimed over the Lomé area in a treaty signed in July by Gustav Nachtigal, a German Imperial Commissioner, and one Plakkoo, an official of the town of Togo, after which the new colony was named by the Germans.

Indigenous Written Sources for the History of Bonny

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 185-196
Author(s):  
Susan M. Hargreaves
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Niger Delta ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Additional Material ◽  
Court Records ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
History Of ◽  
Similar Character ◽  
Written Sources

It is well known that indigenous contemporary written documentation exists for the precolonial and early colonial history of some of the coastal societies of South-Eastern Nigeria. The best known example is Old Calabar, for which there exists most notably the diary of Antera Duke, covering the years 1785-88, a document brought from Old Calabar to Britain already during the nineteenth century. More recently John Latham has discovered additional material of a similar character still preserved locally in Old Calabar, principally the Black Davis House Book (containing material dating from the 1830s onwards), the papers of Coco Bassey (including diaries covering the years 1878-89), and the papers of E. O. Offiong (comprising trade ledgers, court records, and letter books relating to the period 1885-1907). In the Niger Delta S. J. S. Cookey, for his biography of King Jaja of Opobo, was able to use contemporary documents in Jaja's own papers, including correspondence from the late 1860s onwards. In the case of the neighboring community of Bonny (from which Jaja seceded to found Opobo after a civil war in 1869), while earlier historians have alluded to the existence of indigenous written documentation, they have done so only in very general terms and without any indication of the quantity or nature of this material.

INTENSIVE SLAVE RAIDING IN THE COLONIAL INTERSTICE: HAMMAN YAJI AND THE MANDARA MOUNTAINS (NORTH CAMEROON AND NORTH-EASTERN NIGERIA)

2012 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
WALTER E. A. VAN BEEK
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
History Of

ABSTRACTA rare document, the diary of a slave raider, offers a unique view into the sociopolitical situation at the turn of the nineteenth century in the colonial backwater of North Cameroon. The Fulbe chief in question, Hamman Yaji, not only kept a diary, but was by far the most notorious slave raider of the Mandara Mountains. This article supplements the data from his diary with oral histories and archival sources to follow the dynamics of the intense slave raiding he engaged in. This frenzy of slaving occurred in a ‘colonial interstice’ characterized by competition between three colonial powers – the British, the Germans and the French, resilient governing structures in a region poorly controlled by colonial powers, and the unclear boundaries of the Mandara Mountains. The dynamics of military technology and the economics of this ‘uncommon market’ in slaves form additional factors in this episode in the history of slavery in Africa. These factors account for the general situation of insecurity due to slave raiding in the area, to which Hamman Yaji was an exceptionally atrocious contributor. In the end a religious movement, Mahdism, stimulated the consolidation of colonial power, ending Yaji's regime, which in all its brutality provides surprising insight in the early colonial situation in this border region between Nigeria and Cameroon.

scholarly journals Oral Histories of a Layered Landscape: The Rushworth Oral History Project

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keir Reeves ◽  
E. Rebecca Sanders ◽  
Gordon Chisholm
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Landscape Analysis ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Cultural Complexity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Town

This article reflects the authors’ experience of undertaking an oral history project in the regional Victorian town of Rushworth. The authors of the article contend that to conduct an investigation of the natural and cultural heritage of the town and surrounding forests is also to engage in an archaeology of historical landscapes. The authors, after articulating the theoretical and methodological issues of oral history, name and trace the various historical layers of the landscape of Rushworth and the forest that surrounds the town. They argue that the use of oral history in conjunction with cultural landscape analysis enables a deeper understanding of the cultural complexity of the history of Rushworth and the surrounding region. Broader issues concerning regional identity and the role of historians in providing a greater understanding of the community in the present day are also evaluated.

Oral History and the Business History of Emerging Markets

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEOFFREY JONES ◽  
RACHAEL COMUNALE
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Business History ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shed Light

This article highlights the benefits that rigorous use of oral history can offer to research on the contemporary business history of emerging markets. Oral history can help fill some of the major information voids arising from the absence of a strong tradition of creating and making accessible corporate archives in most countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It also permits a level of nuance that is hard to obtain even if written archives are accessible. Oral histories provide insights into why events did not occur, and why companies have chosen certain industries over others. Oral history can also shed light on hyper-sensitive topics, such corruption, which are rarely formally documented.

scholarly journals Slaves and Slavery in Kingston, 1770–1815

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (S28) ◽  
pp. 39-65
Author(s):  
Trevor Burnard
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Atlantic ◽  
British America ◽  
History Of ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade ◽  
The Town

AbstractHistorians have mostly ignored Kingston and its enslaved population, despite it being the fourth largest town in the British Atlantic before the American Revolution and the town with the largest enslaved population in British America before emancipation. The result of such historiographical neglect is a lacuna in scholarship. In this article, I examine one period of the history of slavery in Kingston, from when the slave trade in Jamaica was at its height, from the early 1770s through to the early nineteenth century, and then after the slave trade was abolished but when slavery in the town became especially important. One question I especially want to explore is how Kingston maintained its prosperity even after its major trade – the Atlantic slave trade – was stopped by legislative fiat in 1807.

Islam, gender and urbanisation among the Mafa of north Cameroon: the differing commitment to ‘home’ among Muslims and non-Muslims

Africa ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
José C. M. van Santen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Security ◽  
National Level ◽  
Marked Change ◽  
Specific Pattern ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Northern Cameroon ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Town

The history of the town of Mokolo, in the heart of the land of the Mafa (in northern Cameroon), exhibits a specific pattern of urbanisation that seems characteristic of Islamic frontier zones generally in Africa. The town was founded as a settlement for converted slaves towards the end of the nineteenth century by Fulbe chiefs who regularly raided the area. Since that time urbanisation has largely gone hand in hand with Islamisation. It has involved, therefore, a marked change of identity for Mafa converts in the town, with drastic consequences for their relationship with their areas of origin in the mountains. The article emphasises, moreover, that the implications of Islamisation/urbanisation differ along gender lines. Although for both men and women the Muslim community in town provided specific forms of social security, the motives for migration, and the ways men and women were included in the urban community, differed sharply. In the 1980s, owing to political changes at the national level, the pressure to convert to Islam decreased throughout northern Cameroon. Since then the number of migrants to town who do not convert has increased rapidly. Mokolo used to be a Muslim town. In the 1990s, however, it has become more and more a Mafa town, and thus symbolises the revival of Mafa ethnicity as a truly region-wide force.

Travel Writing, Experiences, and Silences: What is Left Out of European Travelers' Accounts—the Case of Richard D. Mohun

1997 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 53-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Barrett-Gaines
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
African History ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

Recent contributions to this journal have taken various approaches to travelers's accounts as sources of African history. Elizabeth de Veer and Ann O'Hear use the travel accounts of Gerhard Rohlfs to reconstruct nineteenth-century political and economic history of West African groups who have escaped scholarly attention. But essentially they use Rohlfs' work as he intended it to be used. Gary W. Clendennen examines David Livingstone's work to find the history under the propaganda. He argues that, overlooking its obvious problems, the work reveals a wealth of information on nineteenth-century cultures in the Zambezi and Tchiri valleys. Unfortunately, Clendennen does not use this source for these reasons. He uses it instead to shed light on the relationship between Livingstone and his brother.John Hanson registers a basic distrust of European mediated oral histories recorded and written in the African past. He draws attention to the fact that what were thought to be “generally agreed upon accounts” may actually reflect partisan interests. Hanson dramatically demonstrates how chunks of history, often the history of the losers, are lost, as the history of the winners is made to appear universal. Richard Mohun can be seen to represent the winners in turn-of-the-century Central Africa. His account is certainly about himself. I attempt, though, to use his account to recover some of the history of the losers, the Africans, which Mohun may have inadvertently recorded.My question is double; its two parts—one historical, one methodological—are inextricably interdependent. The first concerns the experience of the people from Zanzibar who accompanied, carried, and worked for Richard Dorsey Mohun on a three-year (1898-1901) expedition into Central Africa to lay telegraph wire. The second wonders how and how well the first question can be answered using, primarily, the only sources available to me right now: those written by Mohun himself.

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