The Missing Migrants: African Seeds in the Demographer's Field

• Published in: History in Africa 1984, Vol.11, p.99-111
• Main Author: Fetter, Bruce S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Age groups; Birth rates; Censuses; Demography; Geographic regions; Life tables; Mortality; Population dynamics; Population growth rate
• ISSN: 0361-5413; 1558-2744
• DOI: 10.2307/3171630

The three principal components of demography--fertility, mortality, and migration--can each provide information for reconstructing elements of the African past. Birth rate, more than anything else, determines the reproduction of the labor force, a particular concern of many historians. Death rate is an existential measure of the quality of life; any assessment of the long-run effects of colonial rule must take into account any discernable changes in mortality patterns that may have occurred. Finally, the study of migration is essential for understanding the redistribution of people and resources which resulted from the slave trade and colonization. Although all three indicators are essential for a complete understanding of the history of a given population, they occur with substantially different rhythms. Mortality is a one-time happening for us all. Fertility depends on both partners in a sexual union, although most clearly circumscribed by menarchy and menopause in females. Migration, particularly in Africa, has affected males more frequently than females and can be, moreover, an abrupt and irregular phenomenon. Following the three activities simultaneously is thus an extremely complex undertaking. For the developed world demographers have examined whole countries for periods as far removed as the eighteenth century and individual villages for demographic phenomena reaching back to the Middle Ages. Unfortunately for students of Africa, the materials available to us are not nearly so rich. Most colonial regimes did not conduct censuses in the current sense of the word. At most, they conducted surveys or village-by-village ‘nose counts’ which, naturally, vary enormously in their reliability.