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Photographs and African History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Andrew Roberts
Affiliation:
S.O.A.S., University of London

Abstract

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Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

1 See Martin, G. H. and Francis, David, ‘The Camera's Eye’, in Dyos, H. J. and Wolff, M. (eds.), The Victorian City: Images and Realities (London, 1973), II, 227–46.Google Scholar

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3 E.g. several contributions to Mackenzie, John M. (ed), Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester, 1986),Google Scholar and Porter, Roy, ‘Seeing the Past’, Past and Present, 118 (02. 1988), 186205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Cf. Haaland, R. and Shinnie, P. (eds.), African Iron Working (Uppsala and Oxford, 1985);Google ScholarVansina, Jan, Art History in Africa (Harlow, 1984);Google ScholarBetts, R. F., ‘The Architecture of French African Empire: a neglected history’, in Etudes offertes à Henri Brunschwig (Paris, 1983), 307–18; and work on South Africa by H. Fransen and M. A. Cook, D. Picton-Seymour, and G. Herbert.Google Scholar

5 There is a very brief discussion in Curtin, Philip D., The Image of Africa (Madison, Wis., and London, 1965), facing fig. 17.Google ScholarSee also Schneider, William H., An Empire for the Masses: the French Popular Image of Africa, 1870–1900 (Westport, Conn. and London, 1982);Google ScholarPrussin, Labelle, ‘The Image of African Architecture in France’, in Johnson, G. Wesley (ed.), Double Impact: France and Africa in the Age of Imperialism (Westport, Conn., 1985), 212–3, 230–1;Google ScholarKunst, Hans-Joachim, The African in European Art (Bad Godesberg, 1967).Google Scholar The subject is only incidentally noted in Heintze, B. and Jones, A. (eds.), European Sources for Sub-Saharan Africa before 1900: Use and Abuse (Paideuma,33: Frankfurt-am-Main, 1987);Google Scholar see, e.g., Bridges, Roy C., ‘Nineteenth-century East African Travel Records’Google Scholar, Ibid. 185–6. There are useful comments on illustrations to Livingstone's Last Journals in Helly, Dorothy O., Livingstone's Legacy: Horace Wailer and Victorian Mythinaking (Athens, Ohio, and London, 1987), 110, 120, 148, 150; but unfortunately she does not discuss the contribution of the artist, J. W. Whymper.Google Scholar

6 Roberts, A. D., ‘Africa on Film to 1940’, History in Africa, XIV (1987), 189227;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSmyth, Rosaleen, ‘Movies and Mandarins: the official film and British colonial Africa’, in Curran, James and Porter, Vincent (eds.), British Cinema History (London, 1983), 129–43, 344–8;Google ScholarConvents, Guido, A Ia recherche des images oubliées: préhistoire du cinéma en Afrique (Paris, 1986).Google Scholar

7 Among a dozen books that might be mentioned, it is enough here to cite Desmond, Ray, Victorian India in Focus (London, 1982)Google Scholar and Falconer, John, A Vision of the Past [Singapore] (London, 1987).Google Scholar

8 For one attempt to combine pictures, including historical photographs, and contemporary documents, see Roberts, Andrew, Safari: Records of East Africa's Past (Lusaka, 1971).Google Scholar

9 E.g: Benjamin, A., Lost Johannesburg (Johannesburg, 1979);Google ScholarVerbeek, J. and Verbeek, A., Victorian and Edwardian Natal (Pietermaritzburg, 1982);Google ScholarNorwich, Oscar I., A Johannesburg Album. Historical Postcards (Craighall, 1986).Google ScholarPicard, Hymen W. J., Grand Parade: the Birth of Greater Cape Town, 1850–1913 (Cape Town, 1969), provides a valuable, if anonymous, photographic record of street architecture.Google Scholar

10 E.g. Shepperson, George and Price, Thomas, Independent African (Edinburgh, 1958), 132, 193, 243, 374;Google ScholarPrins, Gwyn, The Hidden Hippopotamus (Cambridge, 1980), 220–1;Google ScholarVail, Leroy and White, Landeg, Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique (London, 1981);Google ScholarWillan, Brian, Sol Plaatje (London, 1984).Google Scholar

11 Geary, Christraud, ‘Photographs as materials for African history’, History in Africa, xiii (1986), 92, 109.Google Scholar

12 For a preliminary sketch, see David Killingray and Andrew Roberts, ‘An outline history of photography in Africa’, paper for workshop on Photographs as Sources for African History, S.O.A.S., May. 12–13, 1988.Google ScholarBensusan, A. D., Silver Images. The History of Photography in Africa (Cape Town, 1966),Google Scholaris almost wholly about white photographers in South Africa, on whom see also Bull, Marjorie and Denfield, Joseph, Secure the Shadow. The Story of Cape Photography from its Beginnings up to the End of 1870 (Cape Town, 1970). For Sierra Leone, see below, n. 21.Google Scholar

13 Thomas, H. B., ‘Richard Buchta and early photography in Uganda’, Uganda j., xxiv (1960), 118.Google Scholar

14 Buchta, Richard, Die oberen Nil-Länder. Volkstypen und Landschaften dargesteilt in 160 Photographien nach der Natur aufgenommen (Berlin, 1881).Google Scholar

15 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., ‘Sources: with particular reference to the southern Sudan’, Cahiers d'etudes africaines, xi (1971), 140 n. 1.Google Scholar

16 Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, David Livingstone and Africa (Edinburgh, 1973), 113.Google Scholar

17 Falconer, J., ‘African photographs in the Royal Commonwealth Society Library’, African Research and Documentation, 32 (1983), 22–19.Google Scholar

18 Convents, G. and Stevens, D., Inventaire: Ia collection des documents photographiques de l'Union Coloniale Belge (Brussels, 1985);Google ScholarJenkins, Paul and Geary, Christraud, ‘Photographs from Africa in the Basel Mission Archive’, African Arts, 18 (1984-5), 1, 5663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarThe collections of the Royal Commonwealth Society and the Middle East Centre are available on microfiche from Inter Documentation, Zug. That of the Musée Royal Colonial Beige was briefly described by Luwel, M., ‘Les archives photographiques du M. R. C. B. a Tervuren’, Bull. Acad. Royal des Sciences Coloniales, n.s., v, iv (1959), 820–35.Google Scholar See Daly, M. W. and Forbes, L. E., Sudan in original photographs (London, 1988).Google Scholar

19 Bourdillon, Jane, ‘The photographic collection of the National Archives of Zimbabwe’, African Research and Documentation, 43 (1987), 23–7;Google ScholarNeufeld, S., ‘Historicphotograph collection management at the Society of Malawi’, Soc. Malawi J. xxxviii (1985), 91–4.Google Scholar

20 [Simpson, D., Lyon, P. and Falconer, J.] Commonwealth in Focus: 130 years of Photographic History (Melbourne, 1982).Google Scholar

21 Including Africans in Freetown, on whom see Viditz-Ward, Vera, ‘Photography in Sierra Leone, 1850–1918’, Africa, LVII (1987), IV, 510–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Grassi, Fabio and Goglia, Luigi (eds.), II colonialismo italiano da Adua all' Impero (Rome and Bari, 1982),Google Scholar reviewed by Triulzi, A. in J. Afr. Hist. XXIII (1982), 237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Lion of Judah (1981),Google Scholar reviewed by Roberts, A. D. in J. Afr. Hist. XXIII (1982), 285–6. There is a copy in the Imperial War Museum, London.Google Scholar

24 Pakenham, Thomas, The Boer War (London, 1979);Google ScholarWarwick, Peter (ed.), The South African War 1899–1902 (Harlow, 1980);Google Scholar also Meintjes, Johannes, The Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902: a Pictorial History (Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1976).Google Scholar

25 Girardet, Raoul, Le Temps des Colonies (Paris, 1976);Google ScholarGalle, Hubert and Thanassekos, Yannis, LeCongo de Ia découverte a l'indépendance (Brussels, 1983);Google ScholarTimm, Uwe, Deutsche Kolonien (Munich, 1981).Google Scholar

26 As Susan Sontag tartly remarks (à propos her source of inspiration, Walter Benjamin), ‘Moralists who love photographs always hope that words will save the picture’, On Photography (New York, 1977; Penguin, ed., 1979), 107.Google Scholar

27 Weinberg, Eli, Portrait of a People. A Personal Photographic Record of the South African Liberation Struggle [1946–63] (London, 1981),Google Scholar reviewed by Hirson, Baruch, J. Afr. Hist. xxiii (1982), 428–9;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Unity in Action: a Photographic History of the African National Congress, South Africa, 1912–1982 (London, 1982),Google Scholar

28 Musso, Frédéric, L'Algérie des souvenirs (Paris, 1976). This is a resourceful and sophisticated exercise in the higher nostalgia, tinged with occasional sharp criticism in the captions.Google Scholar

29 Gernsheim, Helmut, A Concise History of Photography (3rd ed., New York, 1986), 114Google Scholar see also Nachum, (Tim) Gidal, , Modern photojournalism: origin and evolution 1910–1933 (New York, 1973).Google Scholar

30 Azoulay, Paul, La nostalgériefrançaise (Paris, 1980).Google ScholarFor an analysis of postcards of Bône, see Prochaska, David, ‘Reconstructing “L'Algérie Francaise'”’, in C.N.R.S., Connaissances du Maghreb: Sciences Sociales et Colonisation (Paris, n.d.), 70–3; Phyllis Martin drew this to my attention.Google Scholar

31 Luwel, M., Le Congo beige en cartes postaies anciennes (Zaltbommel, 1972), 25, 44–6, 63–4, 110. See aso Norwich on Johannesburg, cited above, n. 9.Google Scholar

32 Ovimbundu traders, according to the caption for the same picture in Arnot, F. S., Bihe and Garenganze (London, 1893), frontispiece.Google Scholar

33 The inadequacy of such generalisation is demonstrated by one photograph and caption in Commonwealth in Focus, II: here we learn that in 1874 the Lt.-Governor at Kimberley sent the Cape Governor ‘some photographic representations which I have caused to be taken’ showing African chiefs in European dress: he did this specifically in order to confound settler – and British – stereotypes of savages; and besides, ‘I may add that a large and very valuable trade is carried on by British subjects in the Native country’.Google Scholar

34 Cf. Geary, ‘Photographs’, 96–100.Google Scholar For a relevant example (not cited by Monti), see Gavin, C. E. S., The Image of the East, Nineteenth-century Near Eastern photographs by Bonfils (Chicago, 1982).Google Scholar

35 As in the campaign against atrocities in the Congo Free State. The early colonial photographer with a conscience was sensitively portrayed in a film from New Zealand, Pictures (d. Michael Black; scr. John O' Shea, 1982), which dealt with the contrasted careers of the Burton brothers during the Maori wars.Google Scholar

36 Worswick, Clark and Spence, Jonathan, Imperial China: photographs 1850–1912 (New York, 1978; London, 1979).Google Scholar

37 A glaring example of such latter-day exploitation is the film From Pole to Equator (Gianikian, d. Y. and Lucchi, A. R., 1987), in which footage by the pioneer photo-journalist Luca Comerio, much of it from Africa before 1914, is grotesquely abused by being slowed down through step-printing and shown without titles, voice-over or other aids to comprehension.Google Scholar

38 It was produced in parallel with a film about Njoya, by Heller, Peter.Google Scholar

39 A noteworthy predecessor is Maquet, Jacques, Ruanda: essai photographique (Brussels, 1957);Google Scholar see also Collart, R. and Célis, G., Burundi: 30 ans d'histoire en photos 1900–1930 (Brussels, n.d., c. 1982), which is largely based on the collections of the White Fathers. For another localised study,Google Scholar see Soulillou, J., Douala. Un sicle en images (Paris, 1983).Google Scholar