All of my work in the last fifteen years has been influenced by my association with Bill Brown. But it is perhaps especially appropriate that this piece be included in this tribute to him, for it is the first paper which I wrote after joining him, and it focused on what was always of prime concern to him: the clarification of concepts. I still recall some of our discussion when I showed him the first draft: he was with it, at least insofar as the limits of space permitted development of the topic. Perhaps I remember this because this paper was in a way an earnest of what my stewardship in his institution should be.

The paper was read at the American Anthropological Association annual meetings in Detroit, December 1954, in the Symposium on Economic Factors in Stability and Change. I made no effort then to submit it for publication in any of the appropriate journals because I had taken time out from writing my dissertation to do the paper and returned my attention to that urgent task (it was also my first year of teaching a survey course on African ethnography), and the paper was soon out of mind. Now, after a lapse of time, the question arises, should it be brought up to date? Two quite different things can be implied by this question. First, should more recent data be adduced? To do so would be to write a new paper which would have none of this one's association with W. O. Brown. Furthermore, this paper now has a certain historical value as a contemporary description of some aspects of late colonial conditions. Second, should the interpretation and conclusion be modified in the light of more recent writings? I feel that both can stand. Therefore, no change has been made in the text.

The historical study of nationalist movements in Africa is obviously of critical importance for the future history of mankind, but the relevance of such an undertaking is not quite so self-evident from the point of view of the social sciences more generally. Yet political scientists concerned primarily with the comparative analysis of contemporary political systems have come to recognize that the formative period of an organization is as important as its equivalent in the life of individuals; anthropologists and sociologists have found it useful to examine the emergence of new organizational life in Africa in order to intercept crucial aspects of the process of cultural and structural change. Scholars interested in individual behavior often discover new men in the making when they appear as actors in new organizations. If this were not enough to justify a cooperative effort on the part of researchers from a variety of academic tribes, it might be added that by reconstructing the history of nationalism social scientists can perform a significant service for their African hosts in search of a contemporary identity.

Although the origins of “nationalism” in Africa can and must be traced to at least the middle of the nineteenth century in some cases, it is evident that the period between the two world wars was one of direct preparation for the emergence of large-scale movements immediately afterwards. More is known about this period in some countries than in others, partly as a function of the more or less liberal nature of the colonial regime.

Singularly lacking in the current discussion of concepts as the appropriate basis for the new social studies curriculum are concepts which are comparative in nature. For example, the Social Studies Curriculum Center at Syracuse University identified eighteen substantive concepts that “appear to be appropriate for elementary and secondary programs in social studies.” Only one concept -- “comparative advantage” -- of these eighteen substantive concepts, however, even faintly implies a comparison. Moreover, comparative advantage is described in terms of bargaining and conflict, not in distinctive social realities. A different group of concepts was identified by the Wisconsin Social Studies Committee. The Committee attempted to identify several basic conceptual ideas that underlie the central elements of history and each of the social sciences in order “to help our young people extract meaning and bring order from the sea of facts which may otherwise inundate them.” But the concepts identified by the Wisconsin Social Studies Committee are vague and do not imply comparison of data or interpretations. The major concept identified for history, for example, is “Change is inevitable.” But what does the concept mean? Does the concept help the student in extracting meaning and bringing order to a sea of facts? More important, does the concept exclude the possibility of constants in history which may be the truth of the matter for some societies? Indeed, the concept, as stated, encourages convergent rather than divergent thinking by the student. Like a Mondrian painting, the reality depicted may be impressive but no one is quite sure what it all means.

The Ford Foundation has announced a grant of $90,000 to the African Studies Association for a three-year program to facilitate the acquisition and use of research materials on Africa. The three main projects included in the grant are: 1) compilation of a guide to Africa-related materials in U. S. archives, in cooperation with an international program to locate unpublished materials on Africa; 2) provision of inventories of materials in the United States for study of African art and humanities; and 3) United States participation in an Oxford University project to collect personal papers of British ex-colonial administrators and to collect and photograph administrative archives in Kenya.

The program will be administered by the Archives Committee of the Association. It is anticipated that microfilm copies of certain materials collected by the project at Oxford University will be made available to American scholars under the program. Further details of the program will be announced in a later issue of the Bulletin.

This report is the result of discussions and recommendations of the Archaeology Committee of the African Studies Association, which met in Chicago early in April, 1966. African archaeology is at present an international discipline producing close collaboration among scientists from different countries, and the future of archaeological research in the continent can best be viewed as an international exercise in which American palaeo-anthropologists are beginning to play an increasingly important part. These brief notes attempt to synthesize the present position in African prehistoric studies, to show the general direction in which these are being developed, and to indicate immediate priorities in basic research and training.

The 1965 Wenner-Gren Conference on African archaeology and evolutionary studies showed that palaeo-anthropology and the closely associated studies of stratigraphers and palaeontologists are now entering upon a new stage of precision in analysis, dating, and interpretation. It emphasized the absolute necessity for new basic research to be undertaken, organized as a series of team projects.

New discoveries have resulted in revised concepts of the origin and evolution of animal species, vegetation patterns, landscape features, and of man himself and his culture. This more precise knowledge has underlined the need above all to review the revised dating of human and cultural evolution in the light of the geophysical methods that now provide an absolute time scale. This is equally as applicable to archaeologists and ethnohistorians concerned with later prehistoric times as it is to those dealing with the study of early man.

Since it began active programs in 1951, the Ford Foundation has had two principal sorts of interest in the areas outside the Western world. One is to help these areas in the development efforts that are now their great preoccupation. There is a division of the Foundation called the Overseas Development Program that has this purpose. Another interest is in American capacities for understanding and dealing with the non-Western world. The Foundation's International Training and Research Program pursues this aim, through grants to universities and other academic organizations, through an area training fellowship program, and through other means. A third division of the Foundation, the International Affairs Program, supports non-academic American organizations concerned with international affairs, and adds other sorts of activities through in Europe and a general concern with peace and international order.

This article is a supplement to a previous article on the same subject published in the African Studies Bulletin. Before I list further citations omitted from Materials for West African History in the Archives of Belgium and Holland, I will discuss, in some detail, the nature of the archival material deposited in the Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague. I will attempt to enhance the brief discussions of Miss Carson while avoiding repetition of statements which seem clear and/or are adequately discussed in her book.

The General State Archives, The Hague, includes two major collections of interest to the West African historian: the Archives of the West India Companies and the Archives of the Netherlands Settlements on the Guinea Coast. Initially, one must realize that most of the seventeenth-century papers of both collections have been lost or destroyed, and that as a consequence there are many gaps among the existing manuscripts. For example, volume 81 (1658-1709) of the Archives of the Netherlands Settlements on the Guinea Coast includes only manuscripts for the following times: December 25, 1658-June 12, 1660; August, 1693; and October 12-December 31, 1709. Also, most of the seventeenth-century material is written in script, whereas the eighteenth-century manuscripts, with some exceptions, are in more conventional hand-writings.