Board of Trustees, Boston University

Caravans of Kola: The Hausa Kola Trade 1700-1900 by Paul E. LovejoyReview by: Sara BerryThe International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1983), pp. 326-327Published by: Boston University African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/217816 .

Accessed: 09/05/2014 13:00

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Boston University African Studies Center and Board of Trustees, Boston University are collaborating withJSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The International Journal of African Historical Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.74 on Fri, 9 May 2014 13:00:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

326 BOOK REVIEWS 326 BOOK REVIEWS

the goals which Africans are setting themselves. If Ake's book inspires students in Africa and elsewhere to look more carefully into such questions as well as to think again about the history of African political economy, he has made a useful contribution. It is to be feared, however, that he has set an example of radical postur- ing which may serve as a warning to overly confident liberals but will also muddy the path of serious scholarship and policy-making.

RALPH A. AUSTEN

University of Chicago

CARAVANS OF KOLA: THE HAUSA KOLA TRADE 1700-1900. By Paul E. Lovejoy. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press and Oxford University Press, 1980. Pp. x, 181.

is a carefully documented study of the changing character of the kola trade between Asante and the Central Sudan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Lovejoy has combined a thorough study of published and archival sources with a substantial body of oral data, collected by himself and others, to produce a detailed and scholarly account of the trade, with special attention to changes in its scope and organization after the jihad of Usman dan Fodio and the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate. After a brief methodological introduction, Lovejoy devotes a chapter each to the Asante kola industry and Asante state regulation of the trade; to the Hausa commercial diaspora in the Volta basin which developed during the eighteenth century; and to the development of the kola trade in relation to wider patterns of Hausa commercial activity in the eighteenth century. He demonstrates the extent to which Hausa states and traders were involved in trading networks which linked the central Sudan not only with Asante and the Volta basin, but also with Borno and the trans-Saharan trade.

The remaining four chapters concentrate on Hausa commercial expansion and commercial institutions after the jihad. The rise of Sokoto had several effects on Hausa commerce in general and the kola trade in particular. Consolidation of the Caliphate increased demand for kola, both because of the rising prosperity of the slave and plantation based economy of the Hausa heartland and because of Mus- lim rulers' encouragement of the consumption of kola to the exclu- sion of other stimulants. It also tipped the commercial balance in favor of merchants with Hausa connections. This, in turn, served to intensify an earlier tendency for traders from neighboring areas to establish bases in Kano or other Hausa towns, and to take on a Hausa identity, in order to facilitate their commercial activities.

The use of group identity as a strategy of commercial organiza- tion occurred on a sub-ethnic level as well. One of the chief con- tributions of Lovejoy's research on the kola trade is his discovery and elucidation of a form of corporate commercial network or associ- ation which came to dominate the trade in the nineteenth century. Founded by descendants of immigrant traders who had assimilated to Hausa society and culture, the associations employed some of the characteristics of kinship relations or ethnic cohesion to facili- tate the administration of far-flung trading interests and the

the goals which Africans are setting themselves. If Ake's book inspires students in Africa and elsewhere to look more carefully into such questions as well as to think again about the history of African political economy, he has made a useful contribution. It is to be feared, however, that he has set an example of radical postur- ing which may serve as a warning to overly confident liberals but will also muddy the path of serious scholarship and policy-making.

RALPH A. AUSTEN

University of Chicago

CARAVANS OF KOLA: THE HAUSA KOLA TRADE 1700-1900. By Paul E. Lovejoy. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press and Oxford University Press, 1980. Pp. x, 181.

is a carefully documented study of the changing character of the kola trade between Asante and the Central Sudan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Lovejoy has combined a thorough study of published and archival sources with a substantial body of oral data, collected by himself and others, to produce a detailed and scholarly account of the trade, with special attention to changes in its scope and organization after the jihad of Usman dan Fodio and the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate. After a brief methodological introduction, Lovejoy devotes a chapter each to the Asante kola industry and Asante state regulation of the trade; to the Hausa commercial diaspora in the Volta basin which developed during the eighteenth century; and to the development of the kola trade in relation to wider patterns of Hausa commercial activity in the eighteenth century. He demonstrates the extent to which Hausa states and traders were involved in trading networks which linked the central Sudan not only with Asante and the Volta basin, but also with Borno and the trans-Saharan trade.

The remaining four chapters concentrate on Hausa commercial expansion and commercial institutions after the jihad. The rise of Sokoto had several effects on Hausa commerce in general and the kola trade in particular. Consolidation of the Caliphate increased demand for kola, both because of the rising prosperity of the slave and plantation based economy of the Hausa heartland and because of Mus- lim rulers' encouragement of the consumption of kola to the exclu- sion of other stimulants. It also tipped the commercial balance in favor of merchants with Hausa connections. This, in turn, served to intensify an earlier tendency for traders from neighboring areas to establish bases in Kano or other Hausa towns, and to take on a Hausa identity, in order to facilitate their commercial activities.

The use of group identity as a strategy of commercial organiza- tion occurred on a sub-ethnic level as well. One of the chief con- tributions of Lovejoy's research on the kola trade is his discovery and elucidation of a form of corporate commercial network or associ- ation which came to dominate the trade in the nineteenth century. Founded by descendants of immigrant traders who had assimilated to Hausa society and culture, the associations employed some of the characteristics of kinship relations or ethnic cohesion to facili- tate the administration of far-flung trading interests and the

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.74 on Fri, 9 May 2014 13:00:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS 327 BOOK REVIEWS 327

massive caravans which plied the trade routes between Kano and Kumase. The merchants' strategy was not simply one of building com- mercial power on the basis of ethnic exclusiveness. Rather, groups such as the Agalawa, Toronkawa and Kambarin Beriberi were founded by descendants of immigrant (non-Hausa) traders, who came to identify themselves according to the Hausa notion of asaZi , which connotes community of origin rather than geneaological descent. In so doing, "they took one step towards assimilation while they retained their connections with merchants from their homeland." (p. 54) At the same time, they established a basis for what later developed into "com- mercial federations based on corporate exclusiveness" (p. 81), which greatly facilitated their expansion as profitable trading enter- prises. Lovejoy's work on these associations helps to place the work of Abner Cohen on Hausa ethnicity as a commercial strategy in broad- er and clearer historical perspective, as well as to add an import- ant chapter to the history of Muslim trading diasporas in West Africa as a whole. In addition, Caravans of Kola extends his own earlier contributions to understanding the economic history of the Hausa states in a regional perspective. The kola trade was part of a network of exchange and commercial relations which linked the Atlan- tic slave trade, the trans-Saharan trade and the economies of the Central Sudan, and which was powerfully affected by such widely scattered and disparate historical developments as the rise and consolidation of Asante, the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate and the varying fortunes of Dahomey, Oyo, and Borno.

SARA BERRY Boston University

TANZANIA: A POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Andrew Coulson . Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1982. Pp. xiv, 394. $34.95 cloth, $15.95 paper.

Andrew Coulson has produced an extensive survey of Tanzanian politi- cal economy that can serve as a useful introductory or background volume for the issues and debates of the past twenty years. Broadly speaking, he stakes out a position in between social democratic defenders of the Tanzanian scene such as Goran Hyden and Cranford Pratt and the rigorous class-determined analyses of Issa Shivji and Michaela von Freyhold. Coulson succeeds in taking a detached but

intelligent and valuable sighting on a whole range of positions on Tanzanian economic development and politics. His analyses of late colonial and early national agricultural policy is assured and fascinating. It builds up to a fine chapter on the Arusha Declara- tion, Nyerere's 1967 "intellectual coup". Coulson is right to place Nyerere above all as an ideologue of great political deftness, able to speak for a new national (and, to a great extent, continental) ruling class not in terms of crude self-interest but of ideals that mask, mystify and at times transcend that self-interest. Arusha

apparently imposed limits on the Tanzanian bureaucracy but not

crushing blows; the 'nizers felt forced to support it in principle, particularly once they felt its extraordinary popularity among the

massive caravans which plied the trade routes between Kano and Kumase. The merchants' strategy was not simply one of building com- mercial power on the basis of ethnic exclusiveness. Rather, groups such as the Agalawa, Toronkawa and Kambarin Beriberi were founded by descendants of immigrant (non-Hausa) traders, who came to identify themselves according to the Hausa notion of asaZi , which connotes community of origin rather than geneaological descent. In so doing, "they took one step towards assimilation while they retained their connections with merchants from their homeland." (p. 54) At the same time, they established a basis for what later developed into "com- mercial federations based on corporate exclusiveness" (p. 81), which greatly facilitated their expansion as profitable trading enter- prises. Lovejoy's work on these associations helps to place the work of Abner Cohen on Hausa ethnicity as a commercial strategy in broad- er and clearer historical perspective, as well as to add an import- ant chapter to the history of Muslim trading diasporas in West Africa as a whole. In addition, Caravans of Kola extends his own earlier contributions to understanding the economic history of the Hausa states in a regional perspective. The kola trade was part of a network of exchange and commercial relations which linked the Atlan- tic slave trade, the trans-Saharan trade and the economies of the Central Sudan, and which was powerfully affected by such widely scattered and disparate historical developments as the rise and consolidation of Asante, the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate and the varying fortunes of Dahomey, Oyo, and Borno.

SARA BERRY Boston University

TANZANIA: A POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Andrew Coulson . Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1982. Pp. xiv, 394. $34.95 cloth, $15.95 paper.

Andrew Coulson has produced an extensive survey of Tanzanian politi- cal economy that can serve as a useful introductory or background volume for the issues and debates of the past twenty years. Broadly speaking, he stakes out a position in between social democratic defenders of the Tanzanian scene such as Goran Hyden and Cranford Pratt and the rigorous class-determined analyses of Issa Shivji and Michaela von Freyhold. Coulson succeeds in taking a detached but

intelligent and valuable sighting on a whole range of positions on Tanzanian economic development and politics. His analyses of late colonial and early national agricultural policy is assured and fascinating. It builds up to a fine chapter on the Arusha Declara- tion, Nyerere's 1967 "intellectual coup". Coulson is right to place Nyerere above all as an ideologue of great political deftness, able to speak for a new national (and, to a great extent, continental) ruling class not in terms of crude self-interest but of ideals that mask, mystify and at times transcend that self-interest. Arusha

apparently imposed limits on the Tanzanian bureaucracy but not

crushing blows; the 'nizers felt forced to support it in principle, particularly once they felt its extraordinary popularity among the

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.74 on Fri, 9 May 2014 13:00:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions