African Fiscal Systems as Sources for Demographic History: the Case of Central Angola, 1799–1920

Author:

Heywood Linda,Thornton John

Abstract

In evaluating statistical information found in reports of European travellers, historians have not paid sufficient attention to the possibility that African states possessed reasonably competent fiscal systems. This is demonstrated by a study of the demographic information about the central highlands of Angola collected in the 1850s by the Hungarian traveller Lázló Magyar, who probably used oral fiscal records about the numbers of villages in the area to make a detailed series of population estimates.Our study of the population data left by Magyar suggests that it is reliable and can be used to show population trends in central Africa from 1800 to 1900. Population appears to have increased rapidly in the central highlands during this period, probably because of the importation of slaves, while it decreased dramatically after 1850 in the lands of the Lunda empire to the east.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

History

Reference38 articles.

1. Magyar, Reisen, 200.

2. Heywood, ‘Production’, 102, 109.

3. The slave trade in eighteenth century Angola: effects on demographic structures;Thornton;Canadian J. Afr. Studies,1980

4. The Map is drawn from the same sources as Chart 1. We have drawn the base map onto squared paper using the (U.S.) Army Map Service Series at 1:2,000,000 scale as a base for hydrography and some physical features (this map also places contours at 100-meter intervals) and have matched these against the map illustrating Magyar's book. Magyar's map contains several errors: although he calculated the position of a number of places by astronomical methods, his latitude and longitude grid is off by nearly a degree in each dimension. Secondly, he made numerous minor errors in the hydrography for the north of the map, and several serious errors in hydrography for the southern areas (the rivers that flow north and south are shown flowing northwest to southeast). Thus we have had to redraw Magyar's map, making use of his hydrography and physical features and narrative description in the text. In view of the importance of the surface area calculations, however, we have tried to harmonize Magyar's estimates of area with the areas in the redrawn map (not a difficult task, in many cases there is a very close correlation). Magyar attempted to draw kingdom boundaries on the map, and we have respected these as much as possible, although his boundaries are much changed in our map in the south and southeast. We have supplied district boundaries, using mountain ranges and rivers as boundaries where apparently indicated, and have been more arbitrary where such obvious features are lacking.

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