Interpreting documentary sources on the early history of the Congo Free State: the case of Nogongo Luteta's rise and fall

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Periodical article

Title:	Interpreting documentary sources on the early history of the Congo Free State: the case of Nogongo Luteta's rise and fall
Author:	Gordon, David M.
Year:	2014
Periodical:	History in Africa (ISSN 1558-2744)
Volume:	41
Pages:	5-33
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Congo (Democratic Republic of) Congo Free State
Subjects:	traditional rulers Arabs military operations historical sources historiography
About person:	Ngongo Luteta (-1893)
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/hia.2014.6
Abstract:	This paper considers an under-used and under-discussed archive of unpublished documentary sources that concern the rise and fall of an eastern Congolese warlord, Ngongo Luteta, during the late nineteenth century. It argues that Africanist historians not only need to pay greater attention to unpublished documentary sources - the weight of methodological discussion usually orients around oral sources - but also to treat them with the same interpretive rigor as oral sources. The argument is demonstrated by discussing the existing studies of Ngongo Luteta, which tend to focus on oral fieldwork even while they often employ documentary sources, and, then, pointing to some interpretive strategies for unpublished documentary sources that suggests a more complicated history of the interactions between Ngongo Luteta and the emergent Congo Free State. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]