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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Alluvial Gold Mining and Trade in Nineteenth Century South Central Africa
Author:Phimister, Ian R.ISNI
Year:1974
Periodical:The Journal of African History
Volume:15
Issue:3
Pages:217-228
Language:English
Geographic term:Zimbabwe
Subjects:gold mining
trade
gold
history
1800-1899
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
History and Exploration
Economics and Trade
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/180670
Abstract:Because the attention of archaeologists and historians has been concentrated primarily on gold reef mining, alluvial goldwashing has received comparatively little attention, although it was apparently practised by Africans both before and after the period during which they exploited golf reef mines. Probably at its greatest volume between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, the gold trade thereafter declined, but the mining and trading of alluvial gold continued to be relatively important in the nineteenth century in what is now north-eastern Rhodesia. Largely a seasonal activity, goldwashing was normally organized on a village basis, often only with women workers. After 1896, gold-washing, was increasingly subject to interference and attempted suppression as settlers sought to exploit alluvial areas themselves and force Africans into wage labour. This attempted suppression did not always have the intended results but may be seen generally as part of the wider structural underdevelopment of the African peasantry and precolonial industries in Southern Rhodesia, Notes, summary, map.
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