Firearms in Africa
An introduction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8978786 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gavin White (University of Glasgow, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1971 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 173-184 |
| Publication date | 1971-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of African History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0021853700010628 |
| OpenAlex | W2168833762 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 25 |
| References cited | 1 |
Studies of firearms in Africa undertaken at the University of London, 1967–1970, tentatively suggest that their initial impact was less than had been expected, and that their success in war rapidly declined thereafter. Local manufacture of firearms was very limited, perhaps through lack of necessity, though gunpowder was widely produced. Identifying types of firearms is a problem, though general conclusions may be drawn from contemporary references to certain types of weapons. Effective use of firearms by Africans in war often depended on muskets being used primarily for hunting and crop protection. Availability of firearms may well have made agriculture possible in areas otherwise overrun with game. For these purposes, military arms would be less suitable than the African muskets cheaply manufactured at Birmingham, all parts being handmade and thus capable of being hand-repaired in the field. Twenty million are said to have been shipped from Birmingham, and another three million from Liège; millions of surplus military weapons must also have found their way to Africa. Yet the subject can be properly studied only in Africa, where old firearms may still be found, often with their owners still available to describe their use
Agriculture · Archaeology · Gunpowder · Political science · History · Law · Military History and Strategy
Angola and Mozambique, 1870–1905
East Africa 1870–1905
French Congo and Gabon 1886–1905
Africa on the Eve of Partition
Western Africa, 1870–1886
Western Africa, 1886–1905
North Africa
Madagascar and France, 1870–1905
The European Partition of Africa
The European Scramble and Conquest in African History
King Leopold's Congo, 1886–1908
Environment, Materiality, and Firearms
The Nawuri of Ghana and the Social Life of the Gun
Warfare in Northern Mozambique, Late Sixteenth to Late Nineteenth Centuries
The Cambridge History of Africa
Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Gunflint Assemblages
Nineteenth Century Gunflints from the Nepalese Armory
The gun-slave hypothesis and the 18th century British slave trade
Firearms Diffusion, Exotic and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the Lowveld Frontier, South Eastern Zimbabwe 1870-1920
The business of barter on the pre-colonial Gold Coast
A West African Cavalry State
The Political Ecology of the Copal Trade in the Tanzanian Coastal Hinterland, C . 1820–1905
Firearms and warfare on the Gold and Slave Coasts from the sixteenth to the ninteenth centuries
Bū Himāra's European connexion
The Import of Firearms into West Africa 1750–1807
| Unique citing works | 25 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,45 |
| Citation span | 1971 - 2025 (55) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 25 |