Link
Abstract
This article reconstructs and explains the introduction and spread ofplague in the Great Lakes region of East Africa in the pre- and earlycolonial period (c.1700–1900). It argues that plague arrived and focalisedin the region, which was marked by isolation from the outside world,towards the end of the seventeenth century and in unique circum-stances of human migration, triggered by climatic anomaly and environ-mental factors. The most likely route of introduction was along the Nile,from Egypt and Sudan. Subsequent spread waves, each characterised bydifferent spatio-temporal contours, were triggered largely by anthropo-genic and demographic factors (including conflicts and human migra-tion), but it was not until the colonial period that the disease left theregion and spread farther east to the Swahili Coast and beyond. Thearticle conjoins both textual and non-textual evidence, including recentpalaeogenetic work (the study of ancient DNA), to demonstrate thevalue of an inherently interdisciplinary approach to plague history.