HST 362:

WEST AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN CONNECTION

This course is intended as a foundation for Comparative Black History and as a key to understanding African history. Designed for students with African and American interests, it examines the politics, economy and culture of West African societies during the period from about 1500 to the end of the precolonial period in the late 19th century. This corresponds to the time when the Atlantic slave trade had an enormous impact on West Africa and the time when millions of Africans, unwilling immigrants to the Americas, laid the foundations of African-American societies. In the course we will study four themes: first, West African cultures, economies and states; second, the transformations of these cultures in West Africa; third, the ways in which the slave trade and slavery functioned within West Africa and between West Africa and the Americas; fourth, the formation of Afro-American cultures, particularly in the Caribbean, Surinam and colonial South Carolina.

The course will combine lecture, film, reports and discussion. I count on active preparation and participation from students, and take this into serious account in grading your performance. This syllabus is a guide to the course. Don't leave home without it.

Work and grading. First, you will be expected to keep up with readings and participate actively in discussion, e-mail communications, and role plays; participation will count for 10% of the grade. Second, papers. 40% of the grade will come from 2 short papers of about 5-7 pages each; both papers should include light but critical annotation of the written and electronic sources used. The first paper will be due in late September on a fixed topic. Your second paper will come out of your work in a "working group" with at least one other student colleague; you will make an oral report together, and produce a written report, either together or separately. The due date for those reports will be determined by the subject you work on, and where it fits in to the syllabus. Third, exams. 25% of the grade will be based on a midterm, given just before the spring break, and 25% on the final; both of these exams will be in essay format, and you will be to include all relevant materials (audio-visuals, readings, lectures, class presentations) in your answers.

In your written work for this (or any other) course, do not plagiarize. Plagiarize means to "steal and use as your own." You are guilty of plagiarism when you fail to use quotation marks when you are quoting or when you use someone else's idea without citing your source in a note. It is a serious offense, often punished by failure in the course; it may even result in expulsion from the university. At the very least, a paper containing plagiarism will be failed.

You will find the following books and Course Pack to get you through the course. First, you will use Basil Davidson, The African Genius (required), to give anthropological background to West African societies. Second, you will need David Robinson and Douglas Smith, Sources of the African Past (recommended), for material on two West African societies and states, to provide training in how to work historically and critically with sources. Third, you will use John Thornton, Africa and Africans (required), to background on West African history and African-American history; Thornton makes the "connection" which is the key to this course. Fourth, you will want Philip Curtin, ed, Africa Remembered (required) to "personalize" that connection with narratives about individual slaves taken from West Africa to the Americas. Fifth, you will need Peter Wood, Black Majority (required), to show how one group of West Africans and Angolans refashioned a society for themselves in colonial South Carolina. Finally, you will need the Course Pack (required) (available at Paper Image and SBS), to provide need articles and book chapters important throughout the semester. All of these materials are also available at Assigned Reading in the Main Library.



Week 1

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SOCIETIES OF WEST AFRICA

Required Reading: Davidson, Genius, 17-234

CP #1 (maps et al)

Film: Davidson, "Caravans of Gold"

Weeks 2 and 3

WEST AFRICAN SOCIETIES, #1: AKAN AND ASANTE

Required Reading: CP 2 (Tarikh readings)

Robinson and Smith, Sources, ch 5

Recommended Reading: Curtin, Africa Remembered, 99-189

Fage, West Africa, 96-110 (Ass Rdg)

I Wilks, "She who blazed a trail: Akyaawa Yikwaa of Asante," in P Romero, ed, Life Histories of African Women, 113-39 (Ass Rdg)

Film: "Atumpan"





Week 4

THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

Required Reading: Thornton, Africa and Africans, Part I and 152-62, 183-92.

Film: "Atlantic Slave Trade"

Week 5

WEST AFRICAN SOCIETIES #2: SENEGAMBIA

Required Reading: Curtin, Africa Remembered, 13-59

CP 4-5 (2 Klein articles)

Weeks 6 and 7

WEST AFRICAN SOCIETIES #3: NORTHERN NIGERIA

Required Reading: Curtin, Africa Remembered, 193-216

Robinson, "The Jihads of the Western Sudan" (Ass Rdg)

Robinson and Smith, chapter 4

Video: Davidson, "Kings and Cities"

Weeks 8 and 9

WEST AFRICAN SOCIETIES #4 and 5: DAHOMEY AND YORUBALAND

Required Reading: CP 6-10 (Morton-Williams, Law, Barnes, Bay, Blier)

Curtin, Africa Remembered, 217-333

Recommended Reading: Fage, History of West Africa, 96-104 (reread)

Film: "The World Began at Ile-Ife"

Week 10

FREETOWN AND THE EFFORT TO ABOLISH THE SLAVE TRADE

Required Reading: John Peterson, Province of Freedom: A History of Sierra Leone 1787-1870, 229-69 (Ass Rdg)

reread Curtin, Africa Remembered, pp. 199-206, 215-6, 311-322, 332-3.

Recommended Reading: Fage, West Africa, 111-46

Film: "Son of Africa: Olaudah Equiano"

Weeks 11-14

THE CREATION OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURES

Required Reading: Thornton, Africa and Africans, Part II

Wood, Black Majority

CP 12 (Wood)

Film: "I Shall Moulder Before I Shall Be Taken"

Week 15

CONCLUSION: WEST AFRICAN SOCIETIES AND EUROPEAN COLONIAL RULE

Required Reading: Davidson, African Genius, 235-64