"We Were All Slaves": African Miners, Culture, and Resistance at the Enugu Government Colliery

Abstract

African workers and European theories Udi district on the eve of conquest - slavery, power and resistance, circa 1909 chiefs, slaves, coercive labour and ritual resistance - the contested birth of the colonial state, Udi 1909-1914 glimpses of an African work ethic - work, power and race at the coal face, 1914-1920 the postwar conjecture - agitation, urbanization and the roots of military tradition, 1920-1929 the colliery on the eve of World War II - industrial elaboration and worker resistance under economic collapse, 1930-1938 the politics of productivity, unionization and the war, 1938-1945 the Iva Valley masacre of 1949 - trade union struggles in the Cold War, 1945-1950.