Cannibalism Myths, Empire, and Identity in Colonial Sierra Leone

Cannibalism Myths, Empire, and Identity in Colonial Sierra Leone PDF Author: Katrina HB Keefer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666965790
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
In 1913, Sierra Leone bore witness to a Special Court convened to hear cases of cannibalism. Described as “Human Leopards,” those accused of ritually killing and eating others were associated with a criminal group, and in the wake of the cases, many accused and convicted Human Leopards were executed or exiled from the colony. Contemporary writers described these events in the rhetoric of the “civilized world” triumphing over the “barbaric,” and newspapers of the period wallowed in the lurid idea of shapeshifting cannibals lurking to murder and devour the innocent. Cannibalism Myths, Empire, and Identity in Colonial Sierra Leone by Katrina HB Keefer offers new perspectives on these trials, delving closely into the transcripts of the 1913 Human Leopard cases. Through careful analysis of evidence and modern scholarship, it’s clear that cannibalism was never at play in these murder cases, and Keefer presents a complex web of judicial overreach, colonial ambitions, xenophobic fears, socio-political turmoil, animals whose habitats were being encroached upon, and powerful initiation societies.

Cannibalism Myths, Empire, and Identity in Colonial Sierra Leone

Cannibalism Myths, Empire, and Identity in Colonial Sierra Leone PDF Author: Katrina HB Keefer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666965790
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1913, Sierra Leone bore witness to a Special Court convened to hear cases of cannibalism. Described as “Human Leopards,” those accused of ritually killing and eating others were associated with a criminal group, and in the wake of the cases, many accused and convicted Human Leopards were executed or exiled from the colony. Contemporary writers described these events in the rhetoric of the “civilized world” triumphing over the “barbaric,” and newspapers of the period wallowed in the lurid idea of shapeshifting cannibals lurking to murder and devour the innocent. Cannibalism Myths, Empire, and Identity in Colonial Sierra Leone by Katrina HB Keefer offers new perspectives on these trials, delving closely into the transcripts of the 1913 Human Leopard cases. Through careful analysis of evidence and modern scholarship, it’s clear that cannibalism was never at play in these murder cases, and Keefer presents a complex web of judicial overreach, colonial ambitions, xenophobic fears, socio-political turmoil, animals whose habitats were being encroached upon, and powerful initiation societies.

Children, Education and Empire in Early Sierra Leone

Children, Education and Empire in Early Sierra Leone PDF Author: Katrina Keefer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351134418
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
Nineteenth-century Sierra Leone presented a unique situation historically as the focal point of early abolitionist efforts, settlement within West Africa by westernized Africans, and a rapid demographic increase through the judicial emancipation of Liberated Africans. Within this complex and often volatile environment, the voices and experiences of children have been difficult to trace and to follow. Enslaved children historically are a challenging narrative to highlight due to their comparative vulnerability. This book offers newly transcribed data and fills in a lacuna in the scholarship of early Sierra Leone and the Atlantic world. It presents a narrative of children as they experienced a set of circumstances which were unique and important to abolitionist historiography, and demonstrates how each element of that situation arose by analyzing the rich documentary evidence. By presenting the data as well as the individuals whose lives were affected by the mission schools (both as teacher or pupil) this study has sought to be as complete as possible. Underlying the more academic tone is a recognition of the individual humanity of both teachers and students whose lives together shaped this early phase in the history of Sierra Leone. The missionaries who created the documents from which this study arises all died in Sierra Leone after having profound impacts on the lives of many hundreds of pupils. Their students went on to become important historical figures both locally and throughout West Africa. Not all rose to prominence, and the book reconstructs the lives of pupils who became local tradespeople in addition to those who had a greater social stature. This book attempts to offer analysis without forgetting the fundamental human trajectories which this material encompasses.

African Conflicts and Informal Power

African Conflicts and Informal Power PDF Author: Mats Utas
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1848138857
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
In the aftermath of an armed conflict in Africa, the international community both produces and demands from local partners a variety of blueprints for reconstructing state and society. The aim is to re-formalize the state after what is viewed as a period of fragmentation. In reality, African economies and polities are very much informal in character, with informal actors, including so-called Big Men, often using their positions in the formal structure as a means to reach their own goals. Through a variety of in-depth case studies, including the DRC, Sierra Leone and Liberia, this comprehensive volume shows how important informal political and economic networks are in many of the continent’s conflict areas. Moreover, it demonstrates that without a proper understanding of the impact of these networks, attempts to formalize African states, particularly those emerging from wars, will be in vain.

Speaking with Vampires

Speaking with Vampires PDF Author: Luise White
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520922298
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
During the colonial period, Africans told each other terrifying rumors that Africans who worked for white colonists captured unwary residents and took their blood. In colonial Tanganyika, for example, Africans were said to be captured by these agents of colonialism and hung upside down, their throats cut so their blood drained into huge buckets. In Kampala, the police were said to abduct Africans and keep them in pits, where their blood was sucked. Luise White presents and interprets vampire stories from East and Central Africa as a way of understanding the world as the storytellers did. Using gossip and rumor as historical sources in their own right, she assesses the place of such evidence, oral and written, in historical reconstruction. White conducted more than 130 interviews for this book and did research in Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia. In addition to presenting powerful, vivid stories that Africans told to describe colonial power, the book presents an original epistemological inquiry into the nature of historical truth and memory, and into their relationship to the writing of history.

Ordering Africa

Ordering Africa PDF Author: Helen Tilley
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526118718
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
African research played a major role in transforming the discipline of anthropology in the twentieth century. Ethnographic studies, in turn, had significant effects on the way imperial powers in Africa approached subject peoples. Ordering Africa provides the first comparative history of these processes. With essays exploring metropolitan research institutes, Africans as ethnographers, the transnational features of knowledge production, and the relationship between anthropology and colonial administration, this volume both consolidates and extends a range of new research questions focusing on the politics of imperial knowledge. Specific chapters examine French West Africa, the Belgian and French Congo, the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Italian Northeast Africa, Kenya, and Equatorial Africa (Gabon) as well as developments in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. A major collection of essays that will be welcomed by scholars interested in imperial history and the history of Africa.

The Man-leopard Murders

The Man-leopard Murders PDF Author: David Pratten
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
This book is an account of murder and politics in Africa, and an historical ethnography of southern Annang communities during the colonial period. Its narrative leads to events between 1945 and 1948 when the imperial gaze of police, press and politicians was focused on a series of mysterious deaths in south-eastern Nigeria attributed to the 'man-leopard society'. These murder mysteries, reported as the 'biggest, strangest murder hunt in the world', were not just forensic but also related to the broad historical impact of commercial, Christian and colonial aid relations on Annang society.

Sweet Battlefields

Sweet Battlefields PDF Author: Mats Utas
Publisher: Mats Utas
ISBN: 9150616773
Category : Child soldiers
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description


The Colonial Present

The Colonial Present PDF Author: Derek Gregory
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1577180895
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
In this powerful and passionate critique of the 'war on terror' in Afghanistan and its extensions into Palestine and Iraq, Derek Gregory traces the long history of British and American involvements in the Middle East and shows how colonial power continues to cast long shadows over our own present. Argues the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11 activated a series of political and cultural responses that were profoundly colonial in nature. The first analysis of the “war on terror” to connect events in Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq. Traces the connections between geopolitics and the lives of ordinary people. Richly illustrated and packed with empirical detail.

The Return of Hans Staden

The Return of Hans Staden PDF Author: Eve M. Duffy
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421404214
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Hans Staden’s sixteenth-century account of shipwreck and captivity by the Tupinambá Indians of Brazil was an early modern bestseller. This retelling of the German sailor’s eyewitness account known as the True History shows both why it was so popular at the time and why it remains an important tool for understanding the opening of the Atlantic world. Eve M. Duffy and Alida C. Metcalf carefully reconstruct Staden’s life as a German soldier, his two expeditions to the Americas, and his subsequent shipwreck, captivity, brush with cannibalism, escape, and return. The authors explore how these events and experiences were recreated in the text and images of the True History. Focusing on Staden’s multiple roles as a go-between, Duffy and Metcalf address many of the issues that emerge when cultures come into contact and conflict. An artful and accessible interpretation, The Return of Hans Staden takes a text best known for its sensational tale of cannibalism and shows how it can be reinterpreted as a window into the precariousness of lives on both sides of early modern encounters, when such issues as truth and lying, violence, religious belief, and cultural difference were key to the formation of the Atlantic world.

Cabo Verdean Women Writing Remembrance, Resistance, and Revolution

Cabo Verdean Women Writing Remembrance, Resistance, and Revolution PDF Author: Terza A. Silva Lima-Neves
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793634904
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Cabo Verdean Women Writing Remembrance, Resistance, and Revolution: Kriolas Poderozas documents the work and stories told by Cabo Verdean women to refocus the narratives about Cabo Verde on Cabo Verdean women and their experiences. The contributors examine their own experiences, the history of Cabo Verde, and Cabo Verdean diaspora to highlight the commonalities that exist among all women of African descent, such as sexual and domestic violence and media objectification, as well as the different meanings these commonalities can hold in local contexts. Through exploring the literary and musical contributions of Cabo Verdean women, the Cabo Verdean state and its transnational relations, food and cooking traditions, migration and diaspora, and the oral histories of Cabo Verde, the contributors analyze themes of community, race, sexuality, migration, gender, and tradition.