Africa and the Cattle Without History

The premise of this article is that African historiography has yet to embrace the genetic basis of cattle tolerance to tsetse-borne trypanosomiasis due to the literature's emphasis on human illness and landscape modification. By the early 1980s, empirical research indicated that N'Dama cattle possessed a tolerance to the disease that was heritable and, as such, could be strengthened through breeding. The Gambia's first president, who was a former veterinary surgeon, contributed to the breed's reappraisal. In exploring this history, I show how an international scientific network positioned The Gambia as a supplier of N'Dama breeding stock for livestock developments in sub-Saharan Africa. My argument is that research on cattle genetics has theoretical consequences for writing about the history of African tsetse ecosystems.