In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Columbia journalism professor Howard W. French introduces his latest book, The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide, by arguing that it may now be time to bring Kwame Nkrumah's vision of a “United States of Africa” to fruition.1 French asserts, “Driven by his belief in Pan-Africanism, Mr. Nkrumah worked tirelessly to overcome the Balkanizing impact of colonial rule across Africa. As the world's powers turn away from the continent, it's a vision that may hold the key to realizing Africa's potential today.”2 French claims that imperial powers like the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and China have finally been withdrawing from the Continent, leaving Africa's leaders freer than ever, since the start of colonial rule, to chart their own destiny.3 French, in his previous book, made an argument for African agency in world history, seeking to counter a narrative of Western hegemony as a fait accompli since 1471.4 Thus, in his new book, French asserts that Africa's time is now. What does that mean in practical terms? Well, for one thing, it means Africans taking ownership of their own histories and their own stories.Arguments for African agency are nothing new. Africanists have been making such arguments since the start of the discipline, as demonstrated by the testimony of the late Richard Rathbone in this issue of The Journal of West African History. (For more on the Rathbone interview, see below.) Indeed, every article in this issue features African agency as the cornerstone of West African history. This journal does not long or lightly suffer submissions featuring primarily Western actors on an African stage. Thus, although it seems laborious to have to keep repeating it, this issue proclaims that West Africans made and preserved their own history! They shaped their circumstances to advance their own interests! And those West Africans and their interests were not all the same! We are in the business of repeating that message, along with Howard French and others, until more of the world understands and acknowledges it. We cannot have true equality in this world until that message goes without saying. We are not there yet.In this issue, we start the drumbeat for African agency with a fascinating piece from Nigel Browne-Davies entitled “‘The Customs of the Place’: Interracial Sexual Relationships, Economics, and the Politics of Intimacy in the Colony of Sierra Leone, 1806–1888.” In this article, Browne-Davies investigates the dynamics of interracial sexual relationships in early colonial Sierra Leone. He concludes that “the complex nature” of these relationships and “the politics and economics of intimacy” in the colony were exemplified by interracial balls, will-making, and the transfer of property by European men for “their mixed-race progeny.” Browne-Davies draws our attention to how these interracial sexual encounters “reinforced prevailing raced and gendered hierarchies in the colonial system, but also blurred social distinctions between European colonizers and colonial Sierra Leonean women, thereby strengthening the ties between the metropole and colony.” Browne-Davis often cites Durba Ghosh on mixed-race sexual relationships in India, a case study from another British colony. It is interesting to see how and where African women were able to demonstrate and utilize economic and social power in these Atlantic relationships. Of course, they exercised more power than they are often given credit for, as demonstrated so well by Browne-Davies.Kehinde Olabimtan continues the drumbeat for African agency with his article, “Missions and Indigenous Chiefs in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland: Ijaye and the Diplomacy for Religious Conversion.” Olabimtan makes the argument that African chiefs played influential roles in Christian missions in West Africa. European missionaries and colonizers had to negotiate more than they would have liked to gain entry into these West African societies, specifically in this case, the Yoruba community of Ijaye. Olabimtan uses Aarẹ Kurunmi as an example of African chiefs who received European missions into their communities but “were no pushovers” in the eventual planting of churches among their people. Rather, these chiefs’ “temperaments and governance methods shaped the pace and the fate of mission endeavors in their domains.” Olabimtan tells us that Kurunmi “might have been the most conflicted of these chiefs, but none of them received missions naïvely.” In other words, “they had their reasons for wanting them.” African chiefs wanted the material development and resources that missionaries could bring, but they were not willing to concede their power and control with their people. Instead, they played Western missionaries (British CMS and American Baptists) off against each other. Olabimtan shows us that Kurunmi “was playing a game of power in which he must remain in control of his people while being careful not to antagonize the missionaries openly and lose them. It was statecraft at its most clever maneuver.” The chiefs welcomed the missionaries while limiting what they could do. This is a unique argument for African agency in the history of the spread of Christianity in West Africa during the early colonial period.Olusegun Olatunji brings this argument for African agency to gender in West Africa. In his article, “Transcending Colonial Impositions: Continuity, Social Transformation and the Centrality of Women in Gelede Festival,” Olatunji takes issue with scholars who have claimed that modern gender constructs were a colonial imposition on the Yoruba, to show that precolonial Yoruba societies had their own occasionally ambiguous ideas about gender, giving women more diverse powers at the time. Olatunji takes a cultural historical approach to this history, examining masking ceremonies (like the Gelede Festival) to see what they can tell us about precolonial and early colonial gender norms in Yoruba society. According to Olatunji, “This finding contradicts narratives of the wholesale imposition of colonial patriarchy and African cultural stasis, offering a more nuanced understanding of how gender dynamics evolved during the colonial period.” Olatunji explains why he chose the Gelede Festival to make this argument, claiming that “the centrality of gender in Yoruba life is exemplified by the Gelede festival, where men placated the mystical women through the Efe and Gelede spectacles, showcasing the enduring interplay between gender, spirituality, and societal structure.” Olatunji claims that this study offers valuable insight into the “resilience and adaptability of cultural practices, while challenging monolithic narratives and assumptions about gender dynamics” in precolonial and colonial Yorubaland. By doing so, he highlights “the importance of indigenous cultural institutions like the Gelede festival in shaping and preserving gender dynamics, even in the face of external pressures and transformation.” In other words, Yoruba people did not cave into Western gender constructs. They exhibited their own agency through the Gelede tradition.Finally, before we get to the Rathbone interview, Emmanuel K. Akyeampong brings us his excellent article, “Private and Public Selves: Emotions in the Life and Political Career of Kwame Nkrumah,” providing a wider context (or in some ways, a narrower, more personal context) for Nkrumah's Pan-Africanism. Akyeampong takes a theoretical approach with the history of emotions to help illuminate the inner life of this enigmatic West African leader. He asserts, “Those close to Nkrumah commented on his temperament, his mercurial moods, and the power of his charisma. But studies of Nkrumah have primarily focused on his public figure. Nkrumah held strong personal beliefs about organized religion, money, and women; beliefs formed in his years abroad and that informed his decisions as a politician in Ghana and as head of state.” Akyeampong endeavors to examine the context for these beliefs and how they influenced Nkrumah's political decisions, especially his interactions with what Nkrumah described as Africa's “triple heritage”: Christianity, Islam, and African indigenous religions. Akyeampong deftly walks us through the history of Nkrumah's involvement with each of these religious traditions. Thus, along with the sociocultural historical approach of the history of emotions, Akyeampong also contributes to the historiography of African intellectual history, as he highlights the inner thoughts and feelings of this West African political giant who, at the end of the day, was a human being just like the rest of us. Akyeamong does a wonderful job of drawing out that humanity and demonstrating not only the agency of Nkrumah but also of others who interacted with him on a personal level.Concluding this drumbeat for African agency, we have the Rathbone interview–our very first interview for our brand-new forum called “Eagle on the Iroko”—from which we get to hear echoes from the past on the development of African history as a discipline. Drawing on an Igbo adage that recognizes extraordinary human beings, this forum will feature conversations with senior scholars whose vision, labor, and intellectual creativity have profoundly shaped the field of West African history. Like the eagle that perches on the mighty iroko tree, these scholars have stood apart through their pioneering research, their mentorship of generations, and their lasting contributions to the discipline. “Eagle on the Iroko” will provide readers with an opportunity to learn from their journeys, reflect on the evolution of the field, and celebrate the legacies that continue to inspire future scholarship.For our first “Eagle on the Iroko” interview, members of two younger generations of historians of modern Ghana—Trevor Getz, Jennifer Hart, and Tony Yeboah—draw out Richard Rathbone's memories and reflect on the legacies of his mentorship and scholarship. This interview, which reads like a story, is inspirational; it is a joy to read. Rathbone's testimony raises questions about Michel-Rolph Trouillot's distinction between historical actors and historical narrators.5 Of course, Rathbone was primarily the latter, but an argument could also be made that he often inhabited a bit of the former. In any case, Rathbone's life demonstrates that this distinction can often become blurred, as Trouillot acknowledged. Rathbone did not just study West African history: he lived and experienced so much of decolonization and early independence in Ghana. He met Nkrumah. He was in Ghana for its first coup d’état in 1966. Walter Rodney was his classmate at SOAS. He spoke with Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Modibo Keïta, and Basil Davidson. Rathbone represented the second generation of Africanists after the early pioneers like Roland Oliver, John Fage, Jan Vansina, and Philip Curtin. He never gave up trying to win respect for the discipline from the rest of the academy. Rathbone asserts—and I agree with him—that Africanists are the best at utilizing nontraditional methodological approaches to write history. The reader will note a lot of warmth and respect between Rathbone and his interlocutors. This interview was a gift to all of us. Richard Rathbone went to be with the ancestors in 2024. He was eighty-one years old.In closing this chorus reminding us of the importance of African agency in African history, let me quote from a part of the Richard Rathbone interview: “But you couldn't essentialize about ‘Ghanaians.’ Ghanaians were individuals. They were the product of their background and their own individual intellect and their aspirations and so on, and I was very touched by the variety of that right from the beginning, and it has always been a crusading matter in terms of being a teacher—saying ‘don't tell me what Africans do—I am interested in this African and that African—they are not a generalizable commodity, any more than you are,’ as it were.” Don't generalize. Don't essentialize. Don't label. Don't reduce to a stereotype. Treat every West African, every African, every American, every European, every Asian . . . indeed, every human . . . with respect and dignity. We each have agency to help shape the world around us. West Africans had that agency in the past. They still do . . . with or without a United States of Africa.
Mark W. Deets (2025) studied this question.