Lake Chad in the Beatus Map

Whilst perusing Jean Maley's "Histoire lac Tchad durant le dernier millénaire" online recently, we noticed that the author proposed an early map depicting Lake Chad from medieval Europe. The Beatus map follows the conventions of medieval European cartography inspired by Ptolemy, but does depict a large lake south of the Sahara (Deserta arenosa, or sandy desert?) in what would roughly be the Lake Chad region. The connection to the Nile does match the incorrect view of Islamic geographers that Lake Chad and the Nile were connected. It probably resulted from a mistaken belief that the Bahr el Ghazal and the Nile were one and the same. But is it possible this map only placed Lake Chad in its correct location through chance or error? It's clearly based on ancient maps since it still refers to the "Isle of Meroe" and does not name specific places in the Lake Chad Basin. Yet unlike Isidore of Seville, the large lake believed to be the source of the Nile is not named Nilides, nor does this match show the river turning south before rising north to Egypt. 

Borno in the 1820s

Mai Ibrahim (?), who was allowed to maintain a Sefuwa court at New Birni while all effective power was in the hands of Sheikh al-Kanemi, the "George Washington of Borno"

Although dismissed by some scholars for not being the best or most useful source on Borno's past,  Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa: In the Years 1822, 1823, and 1824 by Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney remains a key text. As the first representatives of Britain to reach Borno, the trio described the trans-Saharan route used to reach it (Tripoli-Fezzan-Borno) and the climate, geography, political context, social conditions and economic factors at play in Borno and nearby regions, particularly around Lake Chad and the Sokoto Caliphate to the west. Astonishingly, some of the social features described by Denham were still relevant in 20th century Borno, if the ethnographic work of Cohen is to be relied on for Kanuri village society. Indeed, Clapperton's account actually includes extensive information on Muhammad Bello, while Denham met with Borno's Sheikh al-Kanemi several times and described his skills as a political leader. Moreover, they were accompanied by a Caribbean native, Adolphus Sympkins of St. Vincent, who may have been the first Afro-Caribbean person to reach Borno. Particularly useful were the materials in the appendix, including a court document from Kuka, extracts from a work by Muhammad Bello on the land of "Takrur" (extending from Darfur in the east to the Atlantic coast of West Africa), and various letters by Sheikh al-Kanemi and the pasha of Tripoli. 

What was perhaps most useful for our purposes, however, is the testimony of Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney on the political consolidation of Borno under the new Shehu dynasty in the 19th century. Unable to rise to the occasion of defending Borno from Fulani incursions and pillagings of the old capital and western Borno, the Sefuwa mai called for Sheikh al-Kanemi, who liberated the land from the "Felatah" jihadists and brought Kanembu and Shuwa Arab followers from Kanem. While Borno had lost some of its western territories to the Sokoto Caliphate, and faced invasions from Bagirmi and Wadai's incursions into the territory of Kanem, al-Kanemi's successful military leadership established a secure basis for a reassertion of Borno's political hegemony and influence over much of the Lake Chad Region. While former vassal states like Bagirmi and Wadai's intervention in Kanem were a threat, and Tuareg and "Biddoomah" islander raids continued, al-Kanemi established more secure conditions for Borno's subjects and traveling merchants. One cannot help but admire the man, even though his wars of conquest and raids were often generating hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of captives for the slave trade. Indeed, one must question the sincerity of al-Kanemi when he complained of the fact that Arabs would only trade for slaves. Perhaps al-Kanemi knew what Denham and Clapperton wanted to hear, and in order to promote the idea of direct exchange with Britain for manufactured goods, pretended to be personally opposed to the slave trade, which had for so long been central to Borno's trans-Saharan trade network.

But the main interest for us at the blog with regards to this text is contextualizing Borno in the 1820s within a larger "Sudanic" and African context. By this we mean Borno's relations with other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the "Sudanic" pilgrim route, trade and migration across the continent. For instance, a man Denham wished to meet, a native of Loggun who had lived in Sennar and was in Borno, would have been an interesting interview subject on the movement of people between Lake Chad and the Middle Nile. Or the fascinating Fulani "fighi" from Timbuktu, Abdel Gassam ben Maleky, en route to Mecca, who met Denham  in Kuka. The Timbuktu pilgrim's father was a "Felatah" chief of Jenne and was living on charity to make it to Mecca with caravans. Unfortunately, the young man was said to have drowned in Lake Chad after heading for Wadai. Alternatively, people from the Muslim central lands were also in the "Central Sudan," such as El Raschid, a native of Mecca who lived in Wadai and Sennar before meeting Denham in Loggun. Perhaps even more intriguing, Denham met a "Moor" fighi named Khalifa who had been to Sierra Leone ("Seralo") and knew English! Thus, despite the difficulties with Wadai and Bagirmi that made the "Sudanic" pilgrim route dangerous in the 1820s, Borno continued to host a variety of transients and migrants from different parts of Africa and the world. People who had traveled or lived in Timbuktu, Sierra Leone, Hausaland, Tripoli, Morocco, Mecca, Fezzan, Kanem, Bagirmi, Tuareg territories, Loggun, Sennar, and beyond intersected in Borno.

Promenades dans les campagnes d'Haiti

Candelon Rigaud

Candelon Rigaud's Promenades dans les campagnes d'Haiti, published in 1928, is an invaluable survey of the Cul de Sac plain and its varied communities, plantations, and inhabitants. Rigaud, who directed the book toward foreign audiences, presumably to attract foreign investment in agricultural and agro-industrial enterprise in the region, provides an excellent overview of the Cul de Sac plain's agricultural potential, as well as marking the impact of the Haitian American Sugar Company (HASCO). As one of the areas of Haiti formerly occupied by sugar plantations in the colonial period, the plain's colonial plantations have, for the most part, been parceled out or worked through sharecropping arrangements, like the demwatye system. 

However, as noted by various scholars,  the plain witnessed an attempt by the Haitian state and various landholders to redevelop the long-gone sugar industry in the second half of the 19th century. As part of a return to the land, some planters decided to invest in sugar mills, new transportation (the PCS railway system was built, in part, to transport cane and other goods from the plain to Port-au-Prince) and crops, such as tobacco. Perhaps due to the region's proximity to the national capital, and the tendency among various Haitian governments to grant estates and farm land to generals and soldiers, the Cul de Sac plain appears to have presented greater resistance to the growth of an independent peasantry than other parts of Haiti, but 3/4 of the plain was uncultivated in the early 1900s. According to various foreign accounts, such as Richard Hill's journey through the region in the 1830s, or Aubin's 1910 account, Haitian sharecroppers and rural workers sometimes formed their own labor cooperatives or used cooperative labor practices like the konbit to harvest cane and other crops for landowners and themselves.

Rigaud's text outlines this tentative attempts at capitalist plantations on various habitations, including Chateaublond, which was owned by Jacques Roumain's grandfather, Tancrède Auguste. But even before attempts to revive sugar production in the late 19th century, sugarcane was continuously cultivated for several distilleries. Rigaud methodically takes the reader on a journey throughout the entire plain, describing the history of each former plantation, its inhabitants, the owners, and production. It becomes increasingly clear that due to a combination of Haitian state interest, private capital, and limited foreign investment (mainly German, for the PCS railway), the Cul de Sac witnessed a burgeoning but small-scale revival of sugar, although not enough to significantly shape the export economy. The US Occupation, and with it, HASCO, however, accelerated the process by overtaking small-scale sugar producers and even entering the spirits market through its own distillery. Auguste's Chateaublond, which possessed one of the significant usines in the area, for example, was forced to terminate production once HASCO and its monopoly (plus ties to US capital) took over. 

Promenades breaks down the process through which HASCO purchased and leased land that previously belonged to various Haitians in the Cul de Sac plain, introduced scientific cultivation, improved irrigation and, in most cases, ceased using the demwatye system to produce an adequate amount of cane for its vast mill near Port-au-Prince. It would appear there was even a degree of internal migration within Haiti, with workers coming to labor on lands owned or leased by HASCO from as far away as Jacmel. Interestingly, most laborers were contracted through recruiters, and many Haitian landowners were forced into the position of supplying cane for HASCO, becoming akin to the colonos of the Caribbean sugar industry as in places like Cuba. The Haitian national bourgeoisie were coerced into a comprador class, piggybacking on US capitalist companies. 

As for the "peasants" and shifting social relations within the plain, transformations already noted by Aubin in the early 1900s appear amplified by the 1920s. HASCO, through leasing land and direct ownership, controlled over 6000 carreaux in land, most of it not worked through the local sharecropping system. Internal stratification within the peasantry intensified, in the Cul de Sac as well as the Leogane plain, as elucidated in Richman's Migration and Vodou. HASCO and US sisal companies increased the number of wage laborers in the plain, yet Rigaud concludes his text by calling attention to efforts to eradicate the demwatye system. The caco wars, opposition to the US Occupation, and other fears of the impact of dispossession and emigration on the Haitian peasant illustrate the degree of uncertainty which characterized the time. Furthermore, the HASCO strikes in 1919 and thereafter, mark a shift where rural workers, the so-called rural proletariat, appear in the annals of the Haitian labor movement. 

Unfortunately, Rigaud, due to his class position and vested interest in further development of the plain, seems to endorse HASCO and its alleged beneficial impact on the Cul de Sac, but his firsthand account remains indispensable for any future project exploring the history of the company. Its impact on the region was tremendous, and surely was a culmination of a process of earlier attempts at capitalist agriculture in Haiti, as outlined by historian Michel Hector for the period 1860-1915. Perhaps, as suggested by Richman, shifts in the nature of Vodou, its hierarchic elements, and the rise of elaborate ceremonies, reflects this growing inequality and insecurity of the time. Future posts shall examine in more detail these elements, particularly in tracking the evolution of the Cul de Sac plain after the 1920s.

The Neoliberal City

The always informative David Harvey speaking on neoliberalism and the city. This brings back memories of Adolph Reed and Frances Fox Piven's similar approach to the neoliberal city and the transition from the industrial city. 

World Maps!

 

Ptolemy's world map

 World map by 6th century traveler and writer, Cosmas Indicopleustes. Depicts a flat world that is very difficult to read. The fellow, an Alexandrian Greek, traveled to Axum in Ethiopia as well as southern India.

Ibn Hawqal's 10th century world map, south on top.

Kashgari Map, from the 11th century. Map oriented to east on top.

Al-Idrisi's map of the world for the king of Sicily, Roger II from the 12th century. The map depicts the Nile and Niger as connected rivers,  since it was a widely held belief among Islamic geographers that the two rivers were one and the same. Notice how it depicts the two sources of the Nile, one in the highlands of Ethiopia and the White Nile's deep in East Africa. Besides not representing sub-equatorial Africa very well, this map is a surprisingly accurate depiction of the "Old World." Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and East Asia is definitely lacking in detail, as well as southern Africa.

Hereford Map, medieval Germany. Dated back to ca. 1285.

Psalter Map depicting the world from 13th century Christian European perspective. East is at the top of the map.

Pietro Vesconte's world map, oriented to the east at the top. 14th century.

Portion of the Catalan Atlas, 14th century, depicting Europe, Mediterranean and northern Africa

Da Ming Hun Yi Tu, from 15th century China, depicting the world centered on China and East Asia. The earliest known world map from East Asia, it depicts Europe and Africa very poorly. By this era, after centuries of contact with Islamic geographers and traders, as well as Chinese navigators and trade in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia, the cartographer had a general idea of Europe and Africa. Africa is depicted with a gigantic lake in the interior, probably due to hearing about the Great Lakes of East Africa from contact with Islamic and East Africans.

Kangnido map from the early 15th century, Korea. Depicts Europe and Africa quite poorly, with the same mega-lake in the interior of Africa that we see in the Da Ming Hun Yi Tu map. Of course, it's centered on China and East Asia, so there are obvious problems there. Check out the labeled portion of western Afro-Eurasia here:

De Virga world map from early 15th century. Seems to semi-accurately depict the continent of Africa, at least getting parts of the western, southern, and eastern coasts several decades before the Portuguese reached the Cape of Good Hope.

Fra Mauro world map from 1457 with a South-North orientation. Fra Mauro knew about the coasts of southern Africa, referring to the Cape of Good Hope as "Cape Diab" and used many Indian and Arabic names for portions of the southern and eastern coasts of Africa. It's quite fascinating to see such an accurate depiction of a portion of the African continent that was indeed connected with the much broader Atlantic and Indian ocean worlds and cultural contact zones than previously thought. Indeed, Swahili, Shona, and other peoples interacted with and traded with Arabs and Persians on the East African coast as far south as Mozambique during the Middle Age. And it's perfectly plausible that Zheng He's expeditions crossed over into the western coast of the African continent in the early 15th century. 

Cantino Planisphere from early 16th century depicts the Americas, Africa, and Eurasia.

Ruysch Map of 1507

Pietro Coppo map from 1520

Jean Rotz's world map made in the mid-16th century

Columbus map depicting known world before crossing the Atlantic. As you can see, West Africa figures prominently here and there are two West Africans visible.

 Based on Mateo Ricci's mappa mundi made in China in the early 17th century

In summation, I suppose my reasoning for including this list of extensive world maps is to illustrate that peoples living in different areas of the "Old World" knew about each other and had sufficient seafaring and traveling to document it through these amazing maps. Africa, for instance, was never the "Dark Continent" because so many Islamic, Asian, and even European geographers had a great idea of the continent's varied topography, waterways, and interior. Indeed, ancient Islamic maps suggest a keener understanding than one would expect of the Nile's sources in East Africa. Ignoring the obvious error of a Nile-Niger rivers combined, and the heavily flawed Islamic maps drawing on Ptolemaic worldviews, these earlier maps are not too horribly inaccurate.