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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Somali Community at Aden in the Nineteenth Century
Author:Alpers, Edward A.ISNI
Year:1986
Periodical:Northeast African Studies
Volume:8
Issue:2-3
Pages:143-168
Language:English
Geographic terms:Aden
Great Britain
Somalia
Subjects:Somali
colonialism
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/43660375
Abstract:The Somali are generally ignored in the literature of the African diaspora, despite the existence of significant Somali communities scattered far and wide. The present paper looks at the history of one such community: the Somali at Aden in the nineteenth century. The author describes who these Somali were, what kind of work they did, how they organized themselves, how they fitted into the rapidly growing British colony, why they settled in Aden, and whether this experience may have had any effect on later Somali overseas migration. The fragmentary record of the Somali community at Aden provides evidence of a characteristic independence of spirit, and of corporate action, both in the form of numerous clan faction fights, and in work-related actions, such as the Somali domination of certain economic activities (carriage drivers and boatmen), strikes (port labourers), the demand by boatmen to have a shed constructed by the port authority, and the collective threat against forced removals. Similarly, the various ruses employed by Somali prostitutes to evade administrative control during the 1870s suggest another kind of collective strategy and incipient class consciousness. Notes, ref.
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