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SUMMARY:‘Forty strokes with the rhino whip’: Violence\, collecting & e
 astern African caravan journeys in the late nineteenth century
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260519T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260519T173000
DTSTAMP:20260513T205535Z
UID:5223694b-f64e-f111-bec7-7c1e52046c40
CREATED:20260513T180523Z
DESCRIPTION:This paper explores the nature and role of violence on white-l
 ed collecting caravans during eastern Africa's late nineteenth century. Vi
 olence undergirded imperial collecting. Without physical force and threat\
 , collections would not be made. Communities who experienced the most viol
 ence at the hands of imperial caravans were also those from whom the most 
 was collected. These travelling men were not just products of but contribu
 ted to this most prolific era of imperial violence and the ‘scramble’ 
 for Africa. From the Mahdist wars to the decimation of Kikuyu communities\
 , they did not tread lightly on the earth. It was in the aftermath of the 
 1884-1885 Berlin conference that Europe’s major powers began ‘sponsori
 ng systematic collecting expeditions’\, leading to a surge in white-led 
 caravans and a subsequent escalation of violence. This paper examines how 
 men from Italy\, the Austro-Hungarian Empire\, the USA and UK\, travelling
  in Ethiopia\, Sudan\, Somalia and the Great Rift Valley\, utilised violen
 ce for their own ends\, the impact upon caravan workers and local communit
 ies\, and how this resulted in today’s museum collections in Europe and 
 the USA. It will begin by addressing the violence experienced by caravan w
 orkers\, before moving on to battlefield violence\, and the continued resa
 le market in such weaponry. The final section presents a study of intimate
  violence on caravan journeys\, encompassing the home and sexual violence\
 ; nothing was held sacrosanct by the imperial will to use brute force agai
 nst racialised peoples. This violence was not just endemic but punitive\, 
 a tool for the maintenance of European honour\, as well as mission success
  and collection creation. The collecting aspects of these accounts has bee
 n marginalised\, but with critiques of museum contents entering popular di
 scourse\, how these travellers collected in the context of violence requir
 es interrogation. \n\nFleur Martin is a historian of nineteenth century im
 perial and global history at the University of Warwick. Her thesis\, ‘Lo
 oting\, Trade & The Gift: Imperial Collecting in Eastern Africa c.1860-191
 4’\, examines the history of why and how travellers collected in Eastern
  Africa in the mid to late nineteenth century.
LAST-MODIFIED:20260513T181201Z
LOCATION:African Studies Centre - Seminar Room\, Seminar Room African Stud
 ies Centre 13 Bevington Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 6NB United Kingdom
SPEAKER:Fleur Martin (Warwick)
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