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Ways of Seeing Africa: Colonial Recasting of African Society and Landscape in Serengeti National Park - Roderick P. Neumann, 1995
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Ways of Seeing Africa: Colonial Recasting of African Society and Landscape in Serengeti National Park

Roderick P. NeumannView all authors and affiliations
Volume 2, Issue 2
https://doi.org/10.1177/147447409500200203
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1 Edward W. Said, Culture and imperialism (London, Chatto and Windus, 1993), p. 8.
2 John and Jean Comaroff, Ethnography and the historical imagination (Boulder, CO, Westview, 1992), p. 235.
3 Ibid., p. 235.
4 Tanganyika, as the British colony was called, is now Tanzania. Throughout the paper I have used Tanganyika and colonial Tanzania interchangeably.
5 Neil Smith, Uneven development: nature, capital and the production of space (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984).
6 For example, David Collett traces livestock-herding activity in Maasailand back to 4000 BP. David Collett, 'Pastoralists and wildlife: image and reality in Kenya Maasailand', in D. Anderson and R. Grove, eds., Conservation in Africa: people, policies and practices (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 129-48.
7 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The invention of tradition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983).
8 Eric Hobsbawm, The age of empire: 1875-1914 (New York, Pantheon, 1987).
9 Terence Ranger, 'The invention of tradition in colonial Africa', in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The invention of tradition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 212.
10 John Iliffe, A modern history of Tanganyika (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp.318-24.
11 Ibid., p. 323.
12 Elizabeth Colson, 'The impact of the colonial period on the definition of land rights', in Victor Turner, ed., Colonialism in Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 193-215.
13 The Meru people, for example, incorporate over 25 clans which migrated independently to Mount Meru at different times from Maasailand, Mount Kilimanjaro and the Pare Mountains. R. P. Neumann, The social origins of natural resource conflict in Arusha National Park, Tanzania (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1992). For further discussion of ethnicity and colonially imposed tribal identities in Tanzania, see Juhani Koponen, People and production in late precolonial Tanzania: history and structures (Finish Society for Development Studies, Monography No. 2, 1988).
14 Ranger, 'The invention of tradition', p. 224.
15 Ibid., p. 247
16 Philip Curtin explains that the 'Christianized noble African' was a common representation of African people among anti-slavery writers of the nineteenth century. Philip Curtin, The image of Africa: British ideas and action, 1780-1850 (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1964) I, p. 225.
17 Richard Grove, Green imperialism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
18 D. Low and J. Lonsdale, 'Introduction', in D. Low and Alison Smith, eds., History of East Africa (Oxford, 1976) III, p. 12.
19 Iliffe, A modern history, p. 436.
20 William Beinart, 'Soil erosion, conservationism and ideas about development: a southern African exploration, 1900-1960', Journal of Southern African Studies11 (1984), pp. 52-83.
21 See, for example, Steven Feierman, Peasant intellectuals: anthropology and history in Tanzania (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1990).
22 David Anderson, 'Depression, Dust Bowl, demography, and drought: the colonial state and soil conservation in East Africa in the 1930s, African Affairs83 (1984), pp. 321-43; Beinart, 'Soil erosion'.
23 The first international wildlife conservation organization, the London-based Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire, was established in 1903 as a reaction to the Sudan administration's decision to de-gazette one of the colony's game reserves. R. Fitter and Sir Peter Scott, The penitent butchers: the Fauna Preservation Society 1903-1978 (London, FPS and Collins, 1978), p. 7.
24 P. G. Molloy (Director of Tanganyika National Parks), 'Native poaching on the western Serengeti boundaries', n.d. (c. 1955-59), Archives of the Fauna Preservation Society, London Zoological Society Library, Af/X1/NP.
25 John MacKenzie, 'Chivalry, social Darwinism and ritualized killing: the hunting ethos in central Africa up to 1914', in D. Anderson and R. Grove, eds., Conservation in Africa: people, policies and practices (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987); Neumann, The social origins.
26 Major R. Hingston 'Report on a mission to East Africa', TNA Secretariat File 19038.
27 Ibid.
28 Denis Cosgrove, Social formation and symbolic landscape (London, Croom Helm, 1984); Raymond Williams, The country and the city (New York, Oxford University Press, 1973); John Barrell, The dark side of the landscape: the rural poor in English painting 1730-1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
29 Cosgrove, Social formation; Williams, The country.
30 Cosgrove, Social formation.
31 Ibid.; Williams, The country. For a similar argument for Sweden, see Jonas Frykman and Orvar Lofgren, Culture builders: a historical anthropology of middle-class life (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1987). Related insights can be gained from the T. J. Clark's analy sis of French impressionist landscapes. T. J. Clark, The painting of modern life: Paris in the art of Manet and his followers (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1985).
32 David Lowenthal and Hugh Prince, 'English landscape tastes', Geographical Review 54 (1964), pp. 186-222; Williams, The country.
33 Williams, The country, pp. 124-25.
34 Cosgrove, Social formation.
35 Confidential letter, Secretary of State for the Colonies Amery to Governor Cameron, 24 February 1928, TNA Secretariat File 12005.
36 Passfield to Governor Cameron, 21 May 1930, TNA Secretariat File 19038.
37 Hingston 'Report on a mission'.
38 Report of the delegates of the International Congress for the Protection of Nature, Paris, June 1931, to His Majesty's Government, TNA Secretariat File 12005.
39 David Anderson and Richard Grove, 'Introduction: the scramble for Eden: past, present and future in African conservation', in D. Anderson and R. Grove, eds., Conservation in Africa: people, policies and practices (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 1-12.
40 Philip Curtin investigates two contradictory eighteenth- and nineteenth-century images of the African environment, one which emphasized intolerable heat, monstrous people and disease, and the opposite, romantic vision of tropical exuberance with the natives living off the fruits of Nature; Curtin, The image of Africa, pp. 58-87.
41 Evelyn Ames, A glimpse of Eden (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), p. 146.
42 Ibid., p. 151.
43 Report of the delegates of the International Congress for the Protection of Nature, Paris, June 1931, to His Majesty's Government, TNA Secretariat File 12005.
44 Anon. 'Note on the Convention', n.d., TNA Secretariat File 12005.
45 MacKenzie, 'Chivalry, social Darwinism'.
46 Secretary of State to Governor MacMichael, 25 March 1957, TNA Secretariat File 24979.
47 Under Secretary of State to SPFE, 2 October 1939, TNA Secretariat File 12005.
48 Comments on Major Hingston's Report on a Mission to East Africa, 9 April 1931, TNA Secretariat File 12005.
49 Tanganyika Territory, Annual Report of the Game Preservation Department, 1945.
50 Roger Swynnerton, Foreword to 'Tsetse research and reclamation in Tanganyika Territory and the role of CFM Swynnerton, CMG', Rhodes House MSS.Afr.s.1987.
51 C. F. M. Swynnerton, 'The problem of the Tsetse', lecture delivered to the Royal Colonial Institute, March and 16 April 1925. Rhodes House MSS.Afr.s.1987.
52 Tanganyika Governor Cameron to Lieutenant Amery, Colonial Office, 29 May 1929, PRO CO822/17/1.
53 Tanganyika Territory, Annual Report of the Department of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, 1936, p. 31.
54 Tanganyika Territory, Annual Report of the Department of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, 1935, p. 147.
55 Report to the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations on the Administration of Tanganyika, 1947, London.
56 Editorial, East African Agricultural Journal14 (1949), p. 175.
57 J. P. Moffett, ed., Tanganyika: a review of its resources and their development (Government of Tanganyika, 1955), pp. 59-60.
58 Ibid., p. 61.
59 Summary of Observations on the Report of the Preparatory Committee, n.d., TNA Secretariat File 12005.
60 Acting Governor Jardine to Secretary of State Cunliffe-Lister, 1 August 1933, TNA Secretariat File 12005.
61 Secretary of State to Governor MacMichael, 17 March 1934, TNA Secretarial File 12005.
62 Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Examine the Game Bill, 1940, 16 April 1940, TNA Secretariat File 27273.
63 SPFE Secretary to Under Secretary of State, 29 August 1939, TNA Secretariat File 12005.
64 Tanganyika Territory National Parks Ordinance, 1948.
65 Memorandum No. 82 for Executive Council, 22 August 1950, TNA Secretariat File 34819.
66 P. Bleackley, Secretary, Serengeti National Park Board of Trustees to Member for Local Government, Dar Es Salaam, 18 September 1951, TNA Secretariat File 10496.
67 Minutes of the second meeting of the Serengeti National Park Board of Trustees, 23 September 1951, TNA Secretariat File 10496.
68 District Commissioner Maasai/Monduli to District Officer Ngorongoro, 5 March 1955, TNA Arusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
69 National Park Director Molloy to District Commissioner Maasai/Monduli, 8 December 1955, TNAArusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
70 Provincial Commissioner's notes on meeting with 110 Maasai at Ngorongoro, 23 June 1954, TNAArusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
71 Acting Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province to Member for Local Government, 20 May 1955, TNAArusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
72 Report of the Serengeti Committee of Enquiry, 1957 (Tanganyika Territory, 1957), p. 27.
73 Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province to Member for Local Government, 28 February 1955, TNA Arusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
74 Robert Gordon, The Bushman myth: the making of a Namibian underclass (Boulder, CO, Westview, 1992).
75 Collett, 'Pastoralists and wildlife'.
76 R. H. Gower, 'Two views on the Maasai', Tanganyika Notes and Records26 (December 1948), pp. 60-67.
77 Collett, 'Pastoralists and wildlife', p. 138.
78 Hingston, 'Report on a mission'.
79 Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province to Member for Local Government, 19 January 1955, TNA Arusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
80 Notes on a meeting between the Chairman of the National Park Board of Trustees, Director of National Parks and the Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province, 28 March 1955, TNAArusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69 (emphasis added).
81 Barclay Leechman, Chairman of the Serengeti National Park Board of Management, in the minutes of the Serengeti National Park Board of Management meeting, 23 July 1953, TNA Secretariat File 40851.
82 Acting Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province to Director of National Parks, 8 June 1955, TNA Arusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69. The PC pointed out that a recent census had determined that 82 out of 216 families cultivating in the Crater are Maasai.
83 Tanzania National Parks Director Molloy to Provincial Commissioner Northern Province, Report on Human Inhabitants, Serengeti National Park, 8 June 1955, TNA Arusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
84 Notes on an informal discussion held at the Ngorongoro Rest Camp among members of the SNP Boards of Trustees and Management, TNA Arusha Regional File T3/2, Accession No. 69.
85 Tanganyika Territory, Annual Report of the Department of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, 1929, p. 8, and Tanganyika Territory, Annual Report of the Department of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, 1933, p. 81.
86 Confidential letter, District Commissioner, Maasai/Monduli to Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province, 23 June 1952, TNA Arusha Regional File T3/2, Accession No. 69.
87 Report of the Serengeti Committee of Enquiry, 1957 (Tanganyika Territory, 1957).
88 Moffett, Tanganyika, p. 375.
89 Ibid., p. 531.
90 Notes on the Baraza (meeting) held at Ngorongoro on 23 June 1954 (DC Maasai/Monduli?), TNA Arusha Regional File, Accession No. 69.
91 Notes on an informal discussion held at the Ngorongoro Rest Camp among members of the SNP Boards of Trustees and Management, TNA Arusha Regional File T3/2 Accession No. 69. The notes state that the park administration 'would be both willing and able to evict all non-Maasai from the park within a year or two'.
92 Confidential letter District Commissioner Maasai/Monduli to Provincial Commissioner Northern Province, 23 June 1952, TNA Arusha Regional File T3/2, Accession No. 69.
93 Memorandum on Serengeti evictions, Provincial Commissioner, Northern Province, 19 January 1955, TNA Arusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
94 Ibid.
95 Molloy, Tanzania National Parks Director to Provincial Commissioner Northern Province, Report on Human Inhabitants, Serengeti National Park, 8 June 1955, TNA Arusha Regional File G1/6, Accession No. 69.
96 Wilkins, SNP Board of Management to SNP Board of Trustees, 16 February 1954, TNA Secretariat File 10496.
97 The Serengeti National Park, Tanganyika Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1956 (Tanganyika Territory, 1956).
98 Report of the Serengeti Committee.
99 Beinart, 'Soil erosion'.
100 Report of the Serengeti Committee, p. 3.
101 Ibid., p. 16.
102 Ibid., p. 23.
103 Ibid., p. 15.
104 Proposals for Reconstituting the Serengeti National Park, Tanganyika Sessional Paper No. 5 of 1958 (Tanganyika Territory, 1958).
105 Tanganyika National Parks, Reports and Accounts of the Board of Trustees July 1959 to June 1960.
106 Smith, Uneven development.
107 For example, see Collett, Pastoralists and wildlife.
108 Williams, The country, p. 124.
109 T. A. Volkman, 'The hunter-gatherer myth in southern Africa', Cultural Survival Quarterly10 (1986), pp. 25-32.
110 Gordon, Bushman myth, p. 183.
111 Ibid:, pp. 33-42.
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