The African Poor: A HistoryThis history of the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa begins in the monasteries of thirteenth-century Ethiopia and ends in the South African resettlement sites of the 1980s. Its thesis, derived from histories of poverty in Europe, is that most very poor Africans have been individuals incapacitated for labour, bereft of support, and unable to fend for themselves in a land-rich economy. There has emerged the distinct poverty of those excluded from access to productive resources. Natural disaster brought widespread destitution, but as a cause of mass mortality it was almost eliminated in the colonial era, to return to those areas where drought has been compounded by administrative breakdown. Professor Iliffe investigates what it was like to be poor, how the poor sought to help themselves, how their counterparts in other continents live. The poor live as people, rather than merely parading as statistics. Famines have alerted the world to African poverty, but the problem itself is ancient. Its prevailing forms will not be understood until those of earlier periods are revealed and trends of change are identified. This is a book for all concerned with the future of Africa, as well as for students of poverty elsewhere. |
Contents
The comparative history of the poor | 1 |
Christian Ethiopia | 9 |
The Islamic tradition | 30 |
Poverty and power | 48 |
Poverty and pastoralism | 65 |
Yoruba and Igbo | 82 |
Early European initiatives | 95 |
Poverty in South Africa 18861948 | 114 |
Urban poverty in tropical Africa | 164 |
The care of the poor in colonial Africa | 193 |
Leprosy | 214 |
The growth of poverty in independent Africa | 230 |
The transformation of poverty in southern Africa | 260 |
Notes | 278 |
Bibliography | 356 |
| 377 | |
Common terms and phrases
aged appears areas average became beggars begging blind Cape Town cent central century charity chief chiefly church Coast colonial common created dependent destitute drought early earned East economic employment especially Ethiopia European evidence example existed famine farm give groups Hausa Hope hospital households important income increased independent individual institutions Islamic journal labour lack Lagos land late later leprosy less living London means mission missionary Native Nigeria nineteenth Northern organisation patients perhaps period persons political poor population poverty probably problem reason received recorded regions relations relatives relief reported rich rural settlements shillings showed sick slaves Social welfare society sources South Africa southern sufferers survey took trade tradition Travels urban village wages West women workers Yoruba young
