Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: People and history in modern Africa / Dennis D. Cordell -- José Manuel and Nbena in Benguela in the late 1810s: encounters with enslavement / José C. Curto -- Efusetan Aniwura of Ibadan (1820s-1874): a woman who rose to the rank of a chief but whom male rivals destroyed / Toyin Falola -- Moka of Bioko (late 1820s-1899): the chief who united a Central African island / Ibrahim Sundiata -- Hamet Gora Diop (1846-1910): merchant and notable from Saint-Louis in Senegal / Mamadou Diouf -- Samuel Johnson (1846-1901) and the history of the Yorubas: Christianity and a new intelligentsia in West Africa / Toyin Falola -- Stories of Cape slavery and emancipation in the nineteenth century / Pamela Scully -- Mama Adolphina Unda (c. 1880-1931): the salvation of a dynastic family and the foundation of Fipa Catholicism, 1898-1914 / Marcia Wright -- Colonial administrator Adolphe A.M. Taillebourg (1874-1934): strict interpreter of the law or humanitarian? / Issiaka Mandé -- Louis Brody (1892-1951) of Cameroon and Mohammed Bayume Hussein (1904-1944) of former German East Africa: variety show performers and the Black community in Germany between the wars / Andreas Eckert -- Siti binti Saad (c. 1885-1950): "Giving voice to the voiceless," Swahili music, and the global recording industry in the 1920s and 1930s / Laura Fair -- Maryan Muuse Boqor (b. 1938) and the women who inspired her: memories of a Mogadishu childhood / Lidwien Kapteijns and Maryan Muuse Boqor -- Wambui Waiyaki Otieno Mbugua (b. 1928): gender politics in Kenya from the Mau Mau rebellion to the pro-democracy movement / Cora Ann Presley -- Tina (b. 1942) of Côte d'Ivoire: success in the masculine world of plantation managers / Agnès Adjamagbo -- Samba Sylla (b. 1948), Doulo Fofanna (b. 1948 or 1949), and Djénébou Traore (b. 1972): the colonies come to France / Dennis D. Cordell and Carolyn F. Sargent -- Foday (b. ca. 1974) meets the rebels in 1991: diamonds are not a boy's best friend / Doug Henry.