Accommodation and Assimilation in the Landlord-Stranger Relationship

Abstract

The-landlord-stranger relationship, as it applied to arrangements between Africans as owners of the land and Europeans seeking to settle or trade upon Africa's west coast during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was all things to all parties. Africans saw these agreements as tending to contain Europeans within specified zones and forcing them to abide by African contractual regulations and proscriptions. By controlling foreigners, landlords could regulate the introduction of change and technology and maintain for themselves those by-products beneficial for continuance of local power. Naturally, landlords profited from increased trade and new markets for local products. Restricted from local politics by these agreements, Europeans often saw this relationship as little more than rents, anchorage duties, taxes, licenses, or African attempts to take advantage of European enterprise. Still, they remained on the coast, married Africans, had large families, and often sent sons abroad where they could receive a finishing education. This paper traces the evolution of the landlord-stranger relationship in the trading communities of two rivers on the Windward Coast, the Rio Nunez and the Rio Pongo (Figure 1), from approximately 1790 to 1860. Here the relationship was an agency of change and a process through which local societies allowed foreign ideas to influence local institutions. Both parties to these arrangements initially sought the security of rigid contractual tenancy guarantees. With time, however, accommodation to some European ideas and assimilation of Europeans in local institutions were the rule on both rivers.'

Da música à crioulização: uma estória de conversão

“…Sobre esse padrão de reciprocidade tão característico da região, tão central para as estruturas sociais e balizador de um largo sistema de trocas intersocietárias de longa distância, ver Dorjahn e Fyfe (1962), Rodney (1980), Mouser (1980), Brooks (1993), Sarró (2010) e Trajano Filho (1998, 2010a.…”

“…Em 1987, o "retorno às origens" ainda era o projeto hegemônico do partido no poder -o Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) -e das instituições do Estado. Por origem, Cabral se referia ao modelo das sociedades acéfalas da costa da Guiné que, segundo a melhor historiograia da região, parece ter predominado no passado pré-colonial (Barry, 1988;Brooks, 1993Brooks, , 2003Brooks, , 2010Carreira, 1972;Curtin, 1975;D'Azevedo, 1962;Hair, 1997;Havik, 2004;Mark, 1985Mark, , 2002Mouser, 1980;Niane, 1989;Pélissier, 1989;Roche, 1985;Rodney 1970;Teixeira da Mota, 1954). No país, que havia recentemente se tornado independente, esse tipo de sociedade era bem exempliicado pelos balantas, que tiveram um importante papel durante a luta pela independência.…”

The People, the Power and the Public Service: Political Identification during Guinea's General Strikes in 2007

“…An additional consequence of this mobility is that most of these rotating staff are not considered as autochthonous. In the traditional system of so‐called landlord–stranger relations, their status is that of latecomers, giving them little access to the informal decision‐making strata of rural areas which is dominated by the landowning families (Mouser, 1980). While this may have been positive in the ideological decolonization context of the post‐independence era, it now renders the practical day‐to‐day work of fonctionnaires more difficult as they have little knowledge of local political dynamics and often only a rudimentary command of the local language.…”

“…Despite losing part of their formal political powers, these founding families have retained their role in land control, which is fundamental to the landlord–stranger relationship. Tradition demands that hospitality is shown towards strangers, and their upkeep safeguarded, while at the same time landlords are granted rights of control over the services and resources the stranger might provide (Mouser, 1980). The landowning family in Forécariah has an elaborate migration history that integrates the three major ethnic groups of contemporary Guinea (Malinké, Peul and Susu) through intermarriages with the founding patriarch's line of descendants.…”

Entrustment and its Changing Political Meanings in Fuladu, the Gambia (1880–1994)

“…3 Historical and ethnographic literature related to Senegambia, and to West African cultures in general, extensively highlights the importance of attracting strangers in pre-colonial settings, as a strategy to strengthen the human resources of kinship groups, communities and even kingdoms. See Dorjahn and Fyfe (1962), Skinner (1965), Hill (1966), Quinn (1972), Fortes (1975), Galloway (1975), Wright (1977), Launay (1979), Mouser (1980), Peel (1983), Brooks (1993) and Richards (1996). Host-stranger relationships in the Mande world have been commented upon also by Amselle (1996) and Jansen (1996).…”