AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Testing the Boundaries of Marginality: Twentieth-Century Slavery and Emancipation Struggles in Nkanu, Northern Igboland, 1920-1929 |
| Author: | Brown, Carolyn A. |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
| Volume: | 37 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 51-80 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Nigeria |
| Subjects: | slavery abolition of slavery History and Exploration Development and Technology Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Labor and Employment |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/183288 |
| Abstract: | In 1914 the Enugu Government Colliery (Igboland, Nigeria) and the construction of its railway link to the Biafran coast used slave-owning chiefs as labour recruiters. Although aware of slavery in the Nkanu clan area of Igboland the State simply outlawed the slave trade but left it to the slaves to secure their 'freedom'. Nkanu slavery was unusually pervasive, incorporating over half of some villages, with few opportunities for manumission or marriage to the freeborn. But forced labour destabilized slavery, causing unrest which reached crisis proportions in the fall of 1922. The 'Ohu' (slave) revolt of 1922-1923 presents an opportunity for historical study of the goals, ideology and strategies of indigenous slave populations creating 'freedom' within the emergent colonial order. The most important demand raised in the 1922 insurrection - for unconditional rights to land - struck at the very heart of slavery and called for the restructuring of rural social relations. The struggle transformed the slaves from a scattered subordinate group of patrilineages into an aggressive and cohesive community. The fieldwork for this article was conducted in 1986 and 1988. Notes, ref., sum. |
