Early Civilizations in Africa
By contrast the area around Dar Tichitt in southern Mauritania has been the subject of much archaeological attention, revealing successive layers of settlement near what still were small lakes as late as 1200 BCE. At this time people there built circular compounds, 60-100 feet in diameter, near the beaches of the lakes. ('Compound' is the name given to a housing type, still common today, in which several members of related families share space within a wall.) These compounds were arranged into large villages located about 12 miles from each other. Inhabitants fished, herded cattle and planted some millet, which they stored in pottery vessels. This was the last era of reasonable moisture in this part of the Sahara. By 1000 BCE the villages, still made up of compounds, had been relocated to hilltop positions, and were walled. Cattle were still herded, more millet was grown, but there were no more lakes for fishing. From 700-300 BCE the villages decreased in size and farming was reduced at the expense of pastoralism.
Around 1000 B.C. much of Africa was covered in small villages of primitive peoples who shared languages that were similar to one another. Because the languages they shared are known as Bantu, these people are referred to as the Bantu people.
The Bantus lived in small villages that were governed by a chief, council, or by elders. These villages were typically made up of extended families, but marriage among people of different villages was common.
The location of Bantu villages was temporary. They tended to remain in one location until the resources in that area were exhausted. As life became more difficult, or the ground less fertile, they would move on to a new location.
The peoples living in the area of the Niger Bend at this time are ancestral to the modern Songhai. They have inhabited this area for a very long time. The antiquity of their settlement can be inferred from the fact that they speak a language belonging to the Nilo-Saharan family. This in turn suggests that were descended from the older African aquatic culture populations. The Songhai and their neighbors exploited the great River itself, and as well cultivated sorghums and millet, and hunted for wild game.
After a thousand years, Nubia gradually evolved becoming larger and more powerful. By 2000 B.C. Nubia was known as the Kingdom of Kush. The people of this kingdom traded Ivory and other treasures from Southern Africa with the peoples who lived further North.
Around 1500 B.C. Egyptian leaders sent armies in to overpower Kush. For nearly 500 years, Kush would be controlled by the Egyptians, and would be forced to pay the Pharaoh a tribute. Eventually however, around 1000 B.C. Kush was able to turn the tables, winning their freedom from Egypt. Then in 724 B.C. lead by a Kushite king named Piankhi a large and well trained Kushite army was able to invade Egypt, and control it.
In 671 B.C. the Assyrians, who had superior weaponry were able to run the Kushites out of Egypt, and rule it for themselves. The Assyrians used iron weapons, which were harder and more powerful than the bronze weapons that the Kushites used.
After leaving Egypt and returning to their original borders, the Kingdom of Kush entered a golden age. For the next 150 years, the Kushites grew wealthy. They were able to build large comfortable homes, and plan beautiful cities. This golden age was however brought to an end by a people known as the Axums, who invaded around 500 B.C. from the East.
The Axums controlled a territory along the Red Sea that allowed them to prosper from trade. After defeating the Kingdom of Kush, Axum was able to control trade into and out of much of Africa. Cargo ships from Rome, India, Persia, and Egypt brought goods in, and took Ivory and other goods out to the rest of the known world.
Around A.D. 330 the king of Axum was converted to Christianity by a pair of shipwrecked missionaries. This king declared that Christianity was to be the official religion of the nation.
The Christian nation of Axum thrived until the A.D. 600s when Muslim raiders and bandits began seizing Axum goods and territory. Unable to adequately fight back, the Kingdom of Axum became smaller, and less influential. Gradually, the people of Axum began calling their kingdom Ethiopia.
BANTU
Probably around the third century AD, Bantu people gradually began to settle along the eastern coastline of Southern Africa (modern Natal). In appearance these peoples are much larger and darker than the Khoe.
They practised mixed agriculture, keeping herds of cattle but they also cultivated crops from the north such as millet, sorghum, bulrush, pumpkins, vegetables and melon. They had a sophisticated iron age economy with trading routes across the region with particular centres of manufacturing producing copper, gold ornaments and salt.
The Bantu were militarily more powerful than the Khoekhoe and San, with a strong hierarchy of chiefs and monarchs, iron weapons and permanent settlements, sometimes large enough for thousands of people.
However, they remained in the lowlands in the east of the country because rainfall elsewhere, in the mountains and west of the Kei River, was insufficient to support their agriculture.
Thus the Bantu and KhoeSan occupied different parts of the region and could coexist. Indeed, there is much evidence of trade and interaction between them. The Khoekhoe commonly wore iron and copper jewelry, and the Bantu used Khoe pottery.
They practised mixed agriculture, keeping herds of cattle but they also cultivated crops from the north such as millet, sorghum, bulrush, pumpkins, vegetables and melon. They had a sophisticated iron age economy with trading routes across the region with particular centres of manufacturing producing copper, gold ornaments and salt.
The Bantu were militarily more powerful than the Khoekhoe and San, with a strong hierarchy of chiefs and monarchs, iron weapons and permanent settlements, sometimes large enough for thousands of people.
However, they remained in the lowlands in the east of the country because rainfall elsewhere, in the mountains and west of the Kei River, was insufficient to support their agriculture.
Thus the Bantu and KhoeSan occupied different parts of the region and could coexist. Indeed, there is much evidence of trade and interaction between them. The Khoekhoe commonly wore iron and copper jewelry, and the Bantu used Khoe pottery.
The Xhosa and Zulu Bantu languages took up some use of clicks and it is clear that there was intermarriage (Nelson Mandela, for instance has some KhoeSan heritage). Eventually warfare broke out as the Bantu encroached upon the San in the mountain areas of the east - but this only occurred in recent centuries.
SONGHAI
Songhai is a general term for the West Africa people groups who are descendants of the great Songhai Empire which flourished around the largest bend in the Niger River between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most historians agree that there are three major modern-day groups within the Songhai—the Zarma, the Dendi, and the Songhai . The Songhai who live in Niger Mali Nigeria and Burkina Faso
Considered one of the greatest African empires, from the early fifteenth to the late sixteenth century, Songhai was also one of the largest empires in West Africa, stretching all the way to present-day Cameroon Songhai was clearly the largest empire in African history. Conquest, centralization, and standardization in the empire were the most ambitious and far-reaching in sub-Saharan history until the colonization of the continent by Europeans. Established by the Songhai tribe circa 800 C.E., the kingdom lasted nearly 800 years, until being overtaken by Morocco
The Kaado Songhai live in Niger. Other sub-groups of the Songhai live in Mali , Burkina Faso
From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, the Songhai created a thriving culture, controlling much of the gold and salt trade across West Africa. At the height of their power, between 1464 and 1591, they ruled over a vast region covering most of what today is Mali , Burkina Faso , and western Niger
An assault in 1591 by Moroccan forces equipped with firearms was the final blow from which the Songhai state never recovered. Though the empire no longer exists, the descendants of the Songhai still live on and around the Niger River , and still retain a large amount of political power. This has resulted in tensions with the Hausa who claim more than 50% of the territory of Niger
Prior to the rise of the Songhai Empire, the region around the Big Bend of the Niger River had been dominated by the Mali Empire, centered on Timbuktu. Mali Mali
KUSH
The first African civilization after Egypt was built by an Egyptianized people who lived between the Nile River's first and third cataracts and spoke Nilo-Saharan languages. This region around the first cataract, called Nubia, had been conquered and colonized by Egypt in the fourth millenium BC. Because of this, Egyptian civilization diffused southward and a new African kingdom was built up in the floodplain around the Nile's third cataract: the Kush. Their capital city was Kerma and it served as the major trading center for goods travelling north from the southern regions of Africa.
Kush attained its greatest power and cultural energy between 1700 and 1500 BC during the Third Intermediate period in Egypt. The domination of Egypt by the Hyksos allowed Kush to come out from under the hegemony of Egypt and flower as a culture; this period ended, however, when the New Kingdom kings, having thrown the Hyksos out of Egypt, reconquered Kush and brought it under Egyptian colonial rule.
However, when the New Kingdom collapsed in 1000 BC, Kush again arose as a major power by conquering all of Nubia. The conquest of upper Nubia, which had been in the hands of the Egyptians since the fourth millenium, gave to Kush wealthy gold mines.
Following the reassertion of Kushite independence in 1000 BC, the Kushites moved their capital city farther up the Nile to Napata. The Kushites by and large considered themselves to be Egyptians and the proper inheritors of the pharoanic titles and tradition. They organized their society along Egyptian lines, assumed all the Egyptian royal titles, and their architecture and art was based on Egyptian architectural and artistic models. Their pyramids were smaller and steeper and they introduced other innovations as well, but the Napatan culture does not on the surface appear much different than Egyptian culture.
However, when the New Kingdom collapsed in 1000 BC, Kush again arose as a major power by conquering all of Nubia. The conquest of upper Nubia, which had been in the hands of the Egyptians since the fourth millenium, gave to Kush wealthy gold mines.
Following the reassertion of Kushite independence in 1000 BC, the Kushites moved their capital city farther up the Nile to Napata. The Kushites by and large considered themselves to be Egyptians and the proper inheritors of the pharoanic titles and tradition. They organized their society along Egyptian lines, assumed all the Egyptian royal titles, and their architecture and art was based on Egyptian architectural and artistic models. Their pyramids were smaller and steeper and they introduced other innovations as well, but the Napatan culture does not on the surface appear much different than Egyptian culture.
The Kushites even invaded and conquered Egypt in a magnificent irony of history. The Napatan kings formed the twenty-fifth pharaonic dyansty in the eighth century; this dynasty came to an end with the Assyrian invasion of Egypt in the seventh century BC.
The Assyrians, and later the Persians, forced the Kushites to retreat farther south. This retreat south eventually closed off much of the contact that the Kushites had with Egypt, the Middle East, and Europe. When Napata was conquered in 591, the Kushites moved their capital to Meroe right in the heart of the Kushite kingdom. Because of their relative isolation from the Egyptian world, the Meroitic empire turned its attention to the sub-Saharan world. For most of its prosperous life, the Meroitic empire served as the middle term in the trade of African goods to northern Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. While it still continued the cultural traditions of pharoanic Egypt, the Meroites developed newer forms of culture and art because of their isolation from the northern kingdoms.
Many of these innovations occurred in the realm of government. Unlike pharoanic Egypt, the king ruled through a customary law that was established and interpreted by priests. The king was also elected, but he was elected from the royal family. As in Egypt, descent was reckoned through the mother's line. Eventually, however, this descent model produced a series of monarchs who were women, an innovation not seen in any other major civilization.
The Kushite religion closely resembled Egyptian religion. It was polytheistic and contained all the major Egyptian gods. Amon was the principal god, but as in Egyptian religion, Meroitic religion involved regional gods which were served as principal gods in their region. There are some non-Egyptian gods, such as a lion warrior god, which the Meroites probably derived from southern African cultures, but these gods were few.
The Meroitic Empire thrived throughout the last half of the first millenium BC. After three centuries of decline, it was finally defeated by the Nuba people. It's commercial importance was repalced by Aksum to the east.
The Assyrians, and later the Persians, forced the Kushites to retreat farther south. This retreat south eventually closed off much of the contact that the Kushites had with Egypt, the Middle East, and Europe. When Napata was conquered in 591, the Kushites moved their capital to Meroe right in the heart of the Kushite kingdom. Because of their relative isolation from the Egyptian world, the Meroitic empire turned its attention to the sub-Saharan world. For most of its prosperous life, the Meroitic empire served as the middle term in the trade of African goods to northern Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. While it still continued the cultural traditions of pharoanic Egypt, the Meroites developed newer forms of culture and art because of their isolation from the northern kingdoms.
Many of these innovations occurred in the realm of government. Unlike pharoanic Egypt, the king ruled through a customary law that was established and interpreted by priests. The king was also elected, but he was elected from the royal family. As in Egypt, descent was reckoned through the mother's line. Eventually, however, this descent model produced a series of monarchs who were women, an innovation not seen in any other major civilization.
The Kushite religion closely resembled Egyptian religion. It was polytheistic and contained all the major Egyptian gods. Amon was the principal god, but as in Egyptian religion, Meroitic religion involved regional gods which were served as principal gods in their region. There are some non-Egyptian gods, such as a lion warrior god, which the Meroites probably derived from southern African cultures, but these gods were few.
The Meroitic Empire thrived throughout the last half of the first millenium BC. After three centuries of decline, it was finally defeated by the Nuba people. It's commercial importance was repalced by Aksum to the east.
AXUM
The Aksumites were a people formed from the mix of Kushitic speaking people in Ethiopia and Semitic speaking people in southern Arabia who settled the territory across the Red Sea around 500 BC. The Aksumites lived in the Ethiopian highlands near the Red Sea, and so enjoyed a strategic position in the trade routes between Yemen (in the south of the Arabian peninsula) and the cities of Nubia. They spoke a strongly Semitic language and wrote in Semitic characters; Ethiopia, in fact, has one of the longest continuous literate traditions in Africa.
We know very little about the early Axumite kingdom. Roman and Greek sources indicate that an Axumite kingdom was thriving in the first century AD; the city of Adulis is frequently mentioned because it had become one of the most important port cities in Africa.
Aksum lay dead in the path of the growing commercial trade routes between Africa, Arabia, and India. As a result, it became fabulously wealthy and its major cities, Adulis, Aksum, and Matara, became three of the most important cosmopolitan centers in the ancient world. Although they were off the beaten path as far as European history is concerned, they were just as cosmopolitan and culturally important in that they served as a crossroads to a variety of cultures: Egyptian, Sudanic, Arabic, Middle Eastern, and Indian. Perhaps an indication of this cosmopolitan character can be found in the fact that the major Aksumite cities had Jewish, Nubian, Christian, and even Buddhist minorities.
In the second century AD, Aksum acquired tribute states on the Arabian Peninsula across the Red Sea, conquered northern Ethiopia, and then finally conquered Kush. The downfall of the Nubian powers led to the meteoric rise of Aksumite imperial power. The Aksumites controlled one of the most important trade routes in the world and occupied one of the most fertile regions in the world.
The Aksumite religion was actually derived from Arabic religion. It was a polytheistic religion which believed that the gods controlled the natural forces of the universe. However, in the fourth century, Ezana, who was a folllower of Axumite religion, converted to Christianity under the tutelage of a Syrian bishop named Frumentius. Ezana declared Axum to be a Christian state, thus making it the first Christian state in the history of the world, and began actively converting the population to Christianity.
Ethiopian Christianity was slightly different from its Greek origins. Under the influence of Egyptian Christians, the Axumites believed that Christ had a single rather than a double nature (man and god): this is called Monophysite (mono=single, physis=nature) Christianity and was considered heretical in the European churches. In the fifth century AD, the Axumites replaced Greek in the liturgy and began using their own native language, Ge'ez. Finally, because of their Semitic origins, the Ethiopians believed that they were descendants of the Hebrews, who were also Semitic. They traced their origins all the way back to David. So the Ethiopians, unlike other Christians, really saw themselves as inheriting the covenants that Yahweh entered into with his chosen people (as a side note, the Ethiopic Church claims to have the Ark of the Covenant which is the chest in which the Decalogue was kept by the Hebrews).
Axum remained a strong empire and trading power until the rise of Islam in the seventh century AD. However, because the Axumites had sheltered Muhammed's first followers, the Muslims never attempted to overthrow Axum as they spread across the face of Africa. Even though Axum no longer served as a center or hub of international trade, it nonetheless enjoyed good relations with all of its Muslim neighbors. Two Christian states north of Axum, Maqurra and Alwa, survived until the thirteenth century when they were finally forced by Muslim migration to become Islamic. Axum, however, remained untouched by the Islamic movements across Africa. Because of this, the Ethiopic (or Abyssinian) Church has lasted until the present day. It is still a Monophysite church and its scriptures and liturgy are still in Ge'ez.
We know very little about the early Axumite kingdom. Roman and Greek sources indicate that an Axumite kingdom was thriving in the first century AD; the city of Adulis is frequently mentioned because it had become one of the most important port cities in Africa.
Aksum lay dead in the path of the growing commercial trade routes between Africa, Arabia, and India. As a result, it became fabulously wealthy and its major cities, Adulis, Aksum, and Matara, became three of the most important cosmopolitan centers in the ancient world. Although they were off the beaten path as far as European history is concerned, they were just as cosmopolitan and culturally important in that they served as a crossroads to a variety of cultures: Egyptian, Sudanic, Arabic, Middle Eastern, and Indian. Perhaps an indication of this cosmopolitan character can be found in the fact that the major Aksumite cities had Jewish, Nubian, Christian, and even Buddhist minorities.
In the second century AD, Aksum acquired tribute states on the Arabian Peninsula across the Red Sea, conquered northern Ethiopia, and then finally conquered Kush. The downfall of the Nubian powers led to the meteoric rise of Aksumite imperial power. The Aksumites controlled one of the most important trade routes in the world and occupied one of the most fertile regions in the world.
The Aksumite religion was actually derived from Arabic religion. It was a polytheistic religion which believed that the gods controlled the natural forces of the universe. However, in the fourth century, Ezana, who was a folllower of Axumite religion, converted to Christianity under the tutelage of a Syrian bishop named Frumentius. Ezana declared Axum to be a Christian state, thus making it the first Christian state in the history of the world, and began actively converting the population to Christianity.
Ethiopian Christianity was slightly different from its Greek origins. Under the influence of Egyptian Christians, the Axumites believed that Christ had a single rather than a double nature (man and god): this is called Monophysite (mono=single, physis=nature) Christianity and was considered heretical in the European churches. In the fifth century AD, the Axumites replaced Greek in the liturgy and began using their own native language, Ge'ez. Finally, because of their Semitic origins, the Ethiopians believed that they were descendants of the Hebrews, who were also Semitic. They traced their origins all the way back to David. So the Ethiopians, unlike other Christians, really saw themselves as inheriting the covenants that Yahweh entered into with his chosen people (as a side note, the Ethiopic Church claims to have the Ark of the Covenant which is the chest in which the Decalogue was kept by the Hebrews).
Axum remained a strong empire and trading power until the rise of Islam in the seventh century AD. However, because the Axumites had sheltered Muhammed's first followers, the Muslims never attempted to overthrow Axum as they spread across the face of Africa. Even though Axum no longer served as a center or hub of international trade, it nonetheless enjoyed good relations with all of its Muslim neighbors. Two Christian states north of Axum, Maqurra and Alwa, survived until the thirteenth century when they were finally forced by Muslim migration to become Islamic. Axum, however, remained untouched by the Islamic movements across Africa. Because of this, the Ethiopic (or Abyssinian) Church has lasted until the present day. It is still a Monophysite church and its scriptures and liturgy are still in Ge'ez.
Africa in the Late 18th Century (1870s)
By the final decade of the 18th century Africans had survived several centuries of outside interference and remained largely in control of their own destinies. Ottoman control over North Africa had declined in the face of increasing European dominance of Mediterranean Sea trade. For the most part, Egypt and the coastal settlements and ports of the Maghreb acted independently of central Ottoman authority. To the west, Morocco remained an independent kingdom, but the king’s power did not extend far beyond Morocco’s major cities.
In the desert regions to the south, trans-Saharan caravans continued to ply their trade between the southern savanna lands, the salt mines and oases of the desert, and the Mediterranean world. However, the scale of trans-Saharan trade had declined considerably from its height in the 16th century. This was largely due to the rising importance of European seaborne trade along the West African coast.
From the 17th to the 19th century in sub-Saharan West Africa—from the Sénégal River estuary in the west to Cameroon in the east and as far south as Angola—political and economic life was dominated by the demands of the European-controlled Atlantic slave trade. By the late 18th century the scale of this trade had reached unprecedented heights, with up to 100,000 captives exported every year. The wars that generated this traffic in captives dominated life in the interior. States with standing armies became more centralized and more powerful, dominating smaller, village-based communities. For the most part, European presence was confined to coastal fortresses, which were fortified against European rivals rather than local Africans. Coastal African rulers tolerated the European presence because the European fortresses provided useful trading links that strengthened their positions against their own African rivals.
Two important developments occurred in 18th-century West Africa that presaged large-scale change in the 19th century. First, by the mid-18th century a rise in Islamic reformist zeal led to several jihads and the establishment of new Islamic states in Fouta Djallon (in what is now Guinea) and Fouta Toro (in Senegal). Second, in the 1780s and 1790s Britain helped freed slaves from Britain and North America establish settlements in the British territory of Sierra Leone. The Islamic states of Fouta Djallon and Fouta Toro served as inspirations for larger 19th-century West African jihads, while the colony of Sierra Leone was symbolic of the emerging abolitionist movement that would eventually bring an end to the Atlantic slave trade.
By the 19th century foreign powers dominated the East African coast, but in the inland regions indigenous Africans still largely controlled their own fates. The southern Arabian sultanate of Oman extended its influence to the northern Swahili coast in the 17th century, expelling the Portuguese from the Kenyan coast by 1700 and from the island of Zanzibar in 1729. To the south, along the Mozambique coast, the Portuguese remained the dominant trading power. This region supplied captives to meet the rising French demand for slave labor on sugar plantations on Mauritius and other French-held Indian Ocean islands.
In the interior, west of Lake Victoria, the lakeside kingdom of Buganda had grown to surpass Bunyoro, its older rival, in regional strength. To their south, Rwanda and Burundi had become powerful mountain kingdoms. The Nyamwezi people of the interior of present-day Tanzania were professional traders, carrying ivory between the lake kingdoms and the coast. Meanwhile, in the north, the Christian empire of Ethiopia continued to be a regional power in the highlands, while the Ottoman Empire controlled the coastal region of Eritrea.
For centuries, the trade in captives had dominated the commercial activity of Central Africa. North of the densely forested Congo River Basin the Bornu sultanate declined by the 18th century, and its place was taken by the sultanates of Wadai and Darfūr to the east. These states conducted slave raids through what is now southern Chad and the Central African Republic and transported captives eastward through Kordofan to southern Sudan and the Nile River Valley. South of the Congo River Basin the Kazembe Empire had grown to eclipse the former Luba and Lunda empires of the region and was a powerful trading state. Meanwhile, the histories of the forest peoples of the Congo River Basin are some of the least known in Africa beyond their riverine trade contacts with peoples and states to the north, south, and west. However, these peoples became more and more threatened as Swahili slave raiders penetrated ever farther into the forest.
In the 18th century Sotho and Tswana states emerged on the grasslands south of the Limpopo River. As was the case with the earlier Toutswe states of eastern Botswana, cattle were an important source of power and wealth, and conflict between peoples over cattle ownership was a regular feature of 18th-century life. Across much of southern Africa population was still relatively sparse. In this setting, political change was fluid and ongoing: Dynastic clashes and disputes over cattle often led to the breakup of states and the establishment of new ones.
In the Cape of Good Hope region, the spread of Dutch-speaking settlers known as Boers (ancestors of South Africa’s modern Afrikaners) had largely been halted in the east by effective resistance from Xhosa herders and farmers who were themselves eager to expand their chiefdoms westward. The strategic position of the Cape to world sea trade, however, was to draw it into inter-European conflicts. The British seized the Cape from the Dutch permanently in 1806 (after having first occupied it from 1795 to 1803), adding a new dimension to European influence in South Africa.
