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This series focuses on Africa during the period of European colonial expansion. It includes anthropological studies, travel accounts from missionaries and explorers (including those searching for the sources of the Nile and the Congo) and works that shed light on colonial concerns such as gold mining, big game hunting, trade, education and political rivalries.

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103 results in Cambridge Library Collection - African Studies

Page 5 of 6

Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries
  • And of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa: 1858–64
  • David Livingstone, Charles Livingstone
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1865
  • The success of the Victorian explorer and missionary David Livingstone's first book, Missionary Travels (1857), led to his receiving government funding in 1858 for an expedition up the Zambezi River. The trip was expected to last two years, and was intended to further commercial and scientific as well as missionary aims. However, owing to internal disagreements, illness (including the death of Livingstone's wife), drought and tribal warfare, the explorers' mission took six and a half years and achieved little apart from collecting plant and geological specimens. The upper reaches of the Zambesi proved unnavigable owing to rapids and waterfalls, and the expedition was recalled. This account, published in 1865 by Livingstone (1813–1873) and his younger brother Charles, who had accompanied him, was in part an attempt to excuse the problems which had beset the expedition, and restore Livingstone's reputation in order to gain backing for further ventures.

The Lake Regions of Central Africa
  • A Picture of Exploration
  • Volume 1
  • Richard Francis Burton
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1860
  • Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–90) was an explorer who began his career in the Bombay army in 1842. While in India he developed his linguistic talent, mastering more than forty different languages and dialects. He turned to writing books in the 1850s and over the remaining forty years of his life published dozens of works and more than 100 articles. In this two-volume work, published in 1860, Burton discusses geographical and ethnological matters, while also giving space to the 'picturesque points of view which the subject offers' in recounting his journey to Zanzibar and around the lakes in present-day Tanzania. In Volume 1 Burton begins his expedition on the island of Zanzibar before moving inland to explore the Kingani and Mgeta Rivers. He crosses the Usagara mountains and ends the volume in Unyamwezi, 'the far-famed land over the moon'.

A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea
  • Divided into the Gold, the Slave, and the Ivory Coasts
  • William Bosman
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1907
  • An early example of the travel-writing genre, William Bosman's collection of letters, originally written in Dutch and first published in English in 1705, describes the geography and political and natural history of the coast of Guinea. This 1907 edition is presented as a facsimile of the 1705 version, retaining the original typography. Bosman (born in 1672) went to Africa at the age of sixteen in the service of the Dutch West India Company, and spent fourteen years on the Gold Coast. This collection of twenty letters, written to his uncle in the Netherlands, remains an important source of information about this area of west Africa in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Bosman's accounts are highly descriptive, and his writings cover all aspects of the area, from its flora and fauna to its political, social and legal systems, its enterprising natives and its climate and diseases.

A Geographical and Commercial View of Northern Central Africa
  • Containing a Particular Account of the Course and Termination of the Great River Niger in the Atlantic Ocean
  • James MacQueen
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1821
  • James MacQueen (1778–1870) was a British geographer fascinated by the problem of the River Niger. He set out to try to establish (on the basis of accounts by explorers, traders and missionaries), that one and the same river flowed continuously through Africa and into the Atlantic Ocean, thus challenging long-established beliefs that African rivers either disappeared into the sand or terminated in lakes. MacQueen documents his findings in this pioneering work, first published in 1821. Drawing on evidence from a range of authorities, he argues that previous misconceptions about the Niger had left Africa isolated from the civilised world, and shows how his discovery could open up trading opportunities between Africa and other countries, suggesting that contact with Europeans would lead to the eventual abolishment of the slave trade in the interior. This important study remains relevant to scholars of both geography and African history today.

History of South Africa since September 1795
  • Volume 4, The Orange Free State, the South African Republic, Zululand, Basutoland, Betshuanaland, and Matabeleland from 1854 to 1872
  • George McCall Theal
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    02 December 2010
    First published in:
    1908
  • George McCall Theal (1837–1919) was a prolific South African historian and civil servant. After working as a missionary between 1875–1880 he was appointed magistrate of Tamacha before taking a position as a clerk in the government and became Keeper of the Cape Colony Archives. He was appointed Colonial Historiographer in 1891. These volumes, first published in 1908, contain Theal's detailed history of South Africa between 1795–1894. Focusing on the political history of the country, Theal explores the British control of Cape Colony and the reactions of the Dutch setters to increasing British immigration, discussing the political consequences of the establishment of the various Boer Republics and the growth of Zulu power in South Africa. These volumes provide valuable details on the political history of South Africa, and reveal contemporary attitudes towards the history and ideas of colonisation. Volume 4 covers Zululand and Matabeleland between 1854–1872.

History of South Africa since September 1795
  • Volume 5, The Cape Colony and Natal to 1872, Griqualand West to 1880, Great Namaqualand, Damaraland, Transkei, Tembuland, and Griqualand East to 1885, Pondoland and the Portuguese territory to 1894
  • George McCall Theal
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    02 December 2010
    First published in:
    1908
  • George McCall Theal (1837–1919) was a prolific South African historian and civil servant. After working as a missionary between 1875–1880 he was appointed magistrate of Tamacha before taking a position as a clerk in the government and became Keeper of the Cape Colony Archives. He was appointed Colonial Historiographer in 1891. These volumes, first published in 1908, contain Theal's detailed history of South Africa between 1795–1894. Focusing on the political history of the country, Theal explores the British control of Cape Colony and the reactions of the Dutch setters to increasing British immigration, discussing the political consequences of the establishment of the various Boer Republics and the growth of Zulu power in South Africa. These volumes provide valuable details on the political history of South Africa, and reveal contemporary attitudes towards the history and ideas of colonisation. Volume 5 covers the colonies between 1854–1894.

History of South Africa since September 1795
  • Volume 3, The Cape Colony from 1846 to 1860, Natal from 1847 to 1857, British Kaffraria from 1847 to 1860, and the Orange River Sovereignty and the Transvaal Republic from 1847 to 1854
  • George McCall Theal
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    02 December 2010
    First published in:
    1908
  • George McCall Theal (1837–1919) was a prolific South African historian and civil servant. After working as a missionary between 1875–1880 he was appointed magistrate of Tamacha before taking a position as a clerk in the government and became Keeper of the Cape Colony Archives. He was appointed Colonial Historiographer in 1891. These volumes, first published in 1908, contain Theal's detailed history of South Africa between 1795–1894. Focusing on the political history of the country, Theal explores the British control of Cape Colony and the reactions of the Dutch setters to increasing British immigration, discussing the political consequences of the establishment of the various Boer Republics and the growth of Zulu power in South Africa. These volumes provide valuable details on the political history of South Africa, and reveal contemporary attitudes towards the history and ideas of colonisation. Volume 3 covers the colonies between 1846–1860.

History of South Africa since September 1795
  • Volume 1, The Cape Colony from 1795 to 1828, the Zulu Wars of Devastation, and the Formation of New Bantu Communities
  • George McCall Theal
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    02 December 2010
    First published in:
    1908
  • George McCall Theal (1837–1919) was a prolific South African historian and civil servant. After working as a missionary between 1875–1880 he was appointed magistrate of Tamacha before taking a position as a clerk in the government and became Keeper of the Cape Colony Archives. He was appointed Colonial Historiographer in 1891. These volumes, first published in 1908, contain Theal's detailed history of South Africa between 1795–1894. Focusing on the political history of the country, Theal explores the British control of Cape Colony and the reactions of the Dutch setters to increasing British immigration, discussing the political consequences of the establishment of the various Boer Republics and the growth of Zulu power in South Africa. These volumes provide valuable details on the political history of South Africa, and reveal contemporary attitudes towards the history and ideas of colonisation. Volume 1 covers the history of Cape Colony 1795–1828.

Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa
  • With the Subsequent Adventures of the Author
  • Volume 2
  • Richard Lander
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    18 April 2011
    First published in:
    1830
  • Hugh Clapperton (1788–1827) was a former naval officer who was determined to explore the course of the River Niger. In 1822 he set out on an expedition to trace the river by approaching it through North Africa, though this proved unsuccessful. Three years later, Clapperton tried again, with plans to start in West Africa, and the young explorer Richard Lander (1804–1834) joined his party. They arrived in Badagry (in present-day Nigeria) and eventually crossed the Niger at Bussa, before reaching Sokoto (in north-west Nigeria), where Clapperton died from an attack of dysentery. Lander returned to England and published this two-volume account of the journey in 1830. Volume 2 describes the death of Clapperton and Lander's eventual return to England, after a series of events including a near-drowning and an offer of marriage to the daughter of a Yoruba king.

John Dunn, Cetywayo and the Three Generals
  • John Dunn
  • Edited by D. C. F. Moodie
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1886
  • John Dunn (1834–95) became an infamous figure ('a perfect gorilla') in Britain after his involvement in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. A British subject who had lived all his life in South Africa, he spent his early years learning to be an expert hunter of large game before becoming a confidant of the Zulu king Cetshwayo, quickly accumulating wealth and power; although already married, he took forty-nine wives and fathered one hundred and seventeen children. However, when war broke out he sided with the British against his former friend and patron, and was rewarded with a huge tract of territory in the former Zulu kingdom. This book, published in 1886 and edited by his friend D. C. F. Moodie (1838–91), presents his side of the story, and contains fascinating insights into an extraordinary life lived among the Zulus in the nineteenth century.

Wanderings in West Africa from Liverpool to Fernando Po
  • By a F.R.G.S.
  • Volume 2
  • Richard Francis Burton
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    18 April 2011
    First published in:
    1863
  • Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) was a British explorer, writer and ethnologist best known for his travels in Asia and Africa in the nineteenth century. This is his account, originally published in 1863, of his mission to investigate mortality in West Africa. In Volume 2 he continues to recount his explorations, from Cape Palmas through to Cape Coast, the Gold Coast, Accra, Lagos and finally Fernando Po. Through his vivid and sometimes grim recollections, Burton reveals West Africa's culture, traditions, and living and working environments, showing how slaves were exploited in the gold trade, dwellings were overcrowded and unclean, and poverty and starvation were rife, in the midst of enduring inequality between Europeans and native Africans. Providing a broad historical, political and cultural background to his findings, Burton lends a unique insight into nineteenth-century Africa, which remains of great relevance to anthropologists, historians and geographers today.

Life in the Niger, or, The Journal of an African Trader
  • William Cole
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1862
  • First published in 1862, William Cole's journal records his experiences in the highly challenging circumstances of a trading expedition to Africa. Cole outlines in graphic detail the dangers he had to endure, and describes how he 'surmounted the most glaring difficulties'. Often displaying a wry humour, Cole's memoir speaks directly to the reader, with a tone of immediacy. In an anecdotal style, he describes the customs and costumes of the natives, and their often hostile reactions to him, and recounts how he was regularly without food, arms or assistance. The journal tells of the barbarity and cruelty he witnessed, alongside occasional acts of kindness or amusing situations. Cole's thoughts frequently revert to England, displaying his homesickness and his longing to return. Describing his life in Africa as 'a mixture of smiles and tears', Cole paints a vivid picture of a European in Africa during the mid-nineteenth century.

Travels in Central Africa, and Explorations of the Western Nile Tributaries
  • Volume 1
  • John Petherick, Katherine Harriet Petherick
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1869
  • In 1861, Welsh explorer and British consul for the Sudan John Petherick (1813–82) departed for Central Africa on a mission for the Royal Geographical Society, with his wife Katherine (1827–77). First published in 1869, this two-volume account is based on notes and letters mostly written by Katherine, and describes their journey to Gondokoro, bringing boats and supplies for Captains Speke and Grant. Her descriptions provide valuable insights into African customs and traditions, particularly with regards to the condition of women, as well as information on flora and fauna observed. The work also gives an account of the controversy in which Petherick was falsely accused of taking part in the slave trade. Volume 1 focuses on the first part of the Pethericks' trip, up to their meeting with Speke and Grant.

Wanderings in West Africa from Liverpool to Fernando Po
  • By a F.R.G.S.
  • Volume 1
  • Richard Francis Burton
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    17 April 2011
    First published in:
    1863
  • Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) was a British explorer, writer and ethnologist best known for his travels in Asia and Africa in the nineteenth century. This is his account, originally published in 1863, of his mission to investigate mortality in West Africa. In Volume 1 he describes his departure from England, with accounts of the landscapes, buildings, cultures and cuisines that characterized his journey from Liverpool through Madeira and Tenerife, before recalling his first impressions of Africa on arriving in Bathurst on the Eastern Cape. In the final two chapters he recounts his findings in Sierra Leone and Cape Palmas, revealing how the positioning of settlements exposed their inhabitants to disease, adverse weather conditions, poverty and malnourishment. Set within a fascinating historical, political and cultural context, and written in vivid detail, Burton's memoirs remain of great interest and relevance to anthropologists, historians and geographers today.

Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains
  • An Exploration
  • Volume 1
  • Richard Francis Burton
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    19 April 2011
    First published in:
    1863
  • Sir Richard Burton (1821–1890) the famous Victorian explorer, began his career in the Indian army in 1842. While in India he developed his linguistic talent, mastering more than forty different languages and dialects. He turned to writing books in the 1850s and, over the remaining forty years of his life, published dozens of works and more than one hundred articles. Burton wrote this two-volume work, published in 1863, while working as the British consul in Fernando Po (modern-day Equatorial Guinea), West Africa. In Volume 1 Burton describes his journey to Abeokuta, the capital of the Egba tribe of the Yoruba nation (which was located in the south-west of present-day Nigeria). Burton gives detailed descriptions of the people he meets – including the king – and considers the relationship between the Egba and British in the context of the latters' ambitions in West Africa.

A Geographical Survey of Africa
  • Its Rivers, Lakes, Mountains, Productions, States, Population, etc.
  • James MacQueen
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1840
  • James MacQueen (1778–1870) was a British geographer and also one of the most outspoken critics of the methods of the British anti-slavery campaign in the 1820s and 1830s. Although he never visited Africa, he became an acknowledged expert on the continent, through reading all available accounts, ancient and modern, as well as interviewing slave merchants while managing a sugar plantation in the West Indies. This work was published in 1840, and was aimed at assisting the expansion of colonial trading interests. In the preface he is critical of the efficacy of British attempts to eradicate the slave trade, and also of the ill-preparedness and often fatal ignorance of many explorers. He believed that with better information and planning, European involvement in Africa could be much more effective, and that the slave trade could be better reduced by the work of missionaries and by increased trade than by military intervention.

Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa
  • With the Subsequent Adventures of the Author
  • Volume 1
  • Richard Lander
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    19 April 2011
    First published in:
    1830
  • Hugh Clapperton (1788–1827) was a former naval officer who was determined to explore the course of the River Niger. In 1822 he set out on an expedition to trace the river by approaching it through North Africa, though this proved unsuccessful. Three years later, Clapperton tried again, with plans to start in West Africa, and the young explorer Richard Lander (1804–1834) joined his party. They arrived in Badagry (in present-day Nigeria) and eventually crossed the Niger at Bussa, before reaching Sokoto (in north-west Nigeria), where Clapperton died from an attack of dysentery. Lander returned to England and published this two-volume account of the journey in 1830. Volume 1 recounts the voyage out, travel inland through Africa, and arrival at the river, while describing the people encountered in a part of Africa that was barely known to Europeans during this period.

Writings on Education in West Africa
  • Hannah Kilham
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    21 October 2010
    First published in:
    1828
  • Hannah Kilham (1774–1832) was a missionary whose aim in her work in the Gambia and Sierra Leone was to teach children in their own indigenous languages rather than in English. In order to do so she learned the Wolof language from African sailors in London and later, in Sierra Leone, collected specimens of thirty languages through her encounters with freed slaves. The first of two publications reissued in this volume, Kilham's Report on a Recent Visit to the Colony of Sierra Leone (1828), discusses the state of education in the colony as well as the general condition of its people. The second, Claims of West Africa to Christian Instruction through the Native Languages (1830) also discusses the system of education, outlining the process of tuition, and emphasising the need for Bible translations into African languages. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=kilhha

History and Ethnography of Africa South of the Zambesi, from the Settlement of the Portuguese at Sofala in September 1505 to the Conquest of the Cape Colony by the British in September 1795
  • Volume 1, The Portuguese in South Africa from 1505 to 1700
  • George McCall Theal
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    02 December 2010
    First published in:
    1907
  • George McCall Theal (1837–1919) was a prolific South African historian and civil servant. After working as a missionary between 1875–1880 he was appointed magistrate of Tamacha before taking a position as a clerk in the government and became Keeper of the Cape Colony Archives. He was appointed Colonial Historiographer in 1891. These volumes, first published in 1907, contain Theal's detailed history of South Africa between 1505–1795. Theal discusses the formation of the colony from the first Portuguese conquests, exploring the Dutch colonial establishment and administration. Theal also describes the societies of the various indigenous peoples of South Africa and their relations with the colonists. This volume provides valuable details on the administration of the Dutch colony, and reveals contemporary attitudes to the ideas of history and colonisation. These volumes are reissued from the expanded 1910 edition.

History and Ethnography of Africa South of the Zambesi, from the Settlement of the Portuguese at Sofala in September 1505 to the Conquest of the Cape Colony by the British in September 1795
  • Volume 3, The Cape Colony to 1795, the Koranas, Bantu, and Portuguese in South Africa to 1800
  • George McCall Theal
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    02 December 2010
    First published in:
    1910
  • George McCall Theal (1837–1919) was a prolific South African historian and civil servant. After working as a missionary between 1875–1880 he was appointed magistrate of Tamacha before taking a position as a clerk in the government and became Keeper of the Cape Colony Archives. He was appointed Colonial Historiographer in 1891. These volumes, first published in 1907, contain Theal's detailed history of South Africa between 1505–1795. Theal discusses the formation of the colony from the first Portuguese conquests, exploring the Dutch colonial establishment and administration. Theal also describes the societies of the various indigenous peoples of South Africa and their relations with the colonists. These volumes provide valuable details on the administration of the Dutch colony, and reveal contemporary attitudes to the ideas of history and colonisation. These volumes are reissued from the expanded 1910 edition. Volume 3 covers the years 1745–1795.

Page 5 of 6