The introduction and spread of plague in the Great Lakes region of East Africa, c.1700–1900: a palaeogenetic and social history

Abstract

This article reconstructs and explains the introduction and spread of plague in the Great Lakes region of East Africa in the pre- and early colonial period (c.1700–1900). It argues that plague arrived and focalised in the region, which was marked by isolation from the outside world, towards the end of the seventeenth century and in unique circumstances of human migration, triggered by climatic anomaly and environmental factors. The most likely route of introduction was along the Nile, from Egypt and Sudan. Subsequent spread waves, each characterised by different spatio-temporal contours, were triggered largely by anthropogenic and demographic factors (including conflicts and human migration), but it was not until the colonial period that the disease left the region and spread farther east to the Swahili Coast and beyond. The article conjoins both textual and non-textual evidence, including recent palaeogenetic work (the study of ancient DNA), to demonstrate the value of an inherently interdisciplinary approach to plague history.