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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:European Explorers and Aspects of 19th Century Nupe History
Author:Kolapo, Femi J.ISNI
Year:2000-2001
Periodical:Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana (ISSN 0855-3246)
Issue:4-5
Pages:105-122
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:Nigeria
Ghana
West Africa
Subjects:slave trade
Nupe polity
travel
historiography
historical sources
History and Exploration
colonialism
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
History, Archaeology
Explorers
history
slavery
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/41406659
Abstract:Historical explanations have related the current low population density of the Middle Belt of Nigeria to precolonial slave raiding. In a 1969 article in 'Journal of African History' (p. 551-564) Michael Mason contested the applicability of the term 'slave raiding' to the 19th-century military activities of the Nupe emirate in the Nigerian Middle Belt. He argued that the only slave raiding that took place were justifiable attempts on the part of this Muslim State to periodically enforce tribute collection due to it for the protection it gave to its non-Muslim subjects. Mason posited that academics had uncritically accepted the exaggerated accounts given by European explorers such as H. Clapperton and Richard Lander of military events of which they did not have first-hand observation. The present author reviews the credibility and reliability of the primary evidence supplied by Clapperton and Lander relating to widespread slave raiding in early 19th-century Nupe. He concludes that, as travellers and eyewitnesses of events they described, they are a source of some factual and credible information that should not be dismissed. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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