World Class Education
www.kean.edu
Jay Spaulding
jspauldi@kean.edu

The script for this presentation is available for
consultation and review at:

http://www.kean.edu/~jspauldi/jlspraxisafrica.html




“Africana Studies,” the study of Africa by
African people at home and in the diaspora is
old
“African History,” as an academic discipline, is
new
In 1960 in Britain the Journal of African History
began
I am a second-generation African historian,
trained in the United States





The field is empirically complex
There are many moving parts
Many names and concepts are derived from
languages unfamiliar to non-Africans
Scholars have not established a basic
framework for understanding
No standard periodization


Africa is not exotic
Basic concepts and themes are more important
than the details







Human Origins and Prehistory (10,000,000 to
5,000 years ago)
Africans build their own history (5,000 years
ago to 1885)
Waves of foreign influence to 1600
Slave trade era (1600 to 1800)
Nineteenth Century
Colonial era (1885 to 1991)
Independence and after (1950 to the present)





First ancestor (10,000,000 years ago)
Early fossil remains (Toumai, Millennium Man)
Australopithecines
Homo erectus
“Eve” (about 200,000 years ago)





Time: 200,000 to 5,000 years ago
Haven in South Africa (200,000 to 85,000 years
ago)
Colonization of world begins (85,000 years
ago)
Mount Tubo (71,000 years ago)
Colonization of world continues


Kinship
Speech





Everybody has one native language
A community may be defined by language
Many community names used by Africanists
refer to the speakers of a single language
Languages change over time
Languages, like people, come in families





Khoisan
Nilo-Saharan
Afrasan
Congo-Kordofanian
Malagasy (came from Asia)







History of Africa similar to elsewhere
Sequence of societies invented
Each larger in scale than predecessor
Greater degrees of social inequality
Greater ecological impacts
Change driven by population increase
Not necessarily a story of “progress”







Band society
Lineage society
Chiefdoms
Early states
Empires (old agrarian)
City states
Nation states


Agriculture (about 15,000 BCE)
The state (began about 5,000 BCE)



Universal before agriculture
Gradually marginalized and suppressed by
success of agriculture over the centuries
Extinct after World War II









30-50 people
Band exogamy
Bilateral descent
Informal government
Hunting and gathering
Economy of reciprocity
Permissive child rearing
2-3 hour work day
Good health revealed in large stature







Began with agriculture
Larger groups
Unilineal kinship replaces bilateral
Patrilineal kinship (numerous livestock)
Matrilineal kinship (few or no livestock)
Few lineage societies survived intact
But lineage principles formed the basis of all
subsequent societies






Seniority: gerontocracy in politics, ancestor
veneration after death
Harsh child rearing, genital mutilation
Reciprocity dominates economics
Never peace, but rarely war: armed balance
among factions.
No government, but very elaborate codes of
rules to live by.
Ancestors enforce rules by imposing sickness,
misfortune upon the deviant


Scarcity created competition and hierarchy in
many lineage societies
Political balance and economic reciprocity gave
way to centralized, one-man control over
redistribution of the community’s surplus wealth





Hereditary, titled elites appear
Markets and trade become common
Acquisitive organized warfare
Domestic slavery, especially of women and
children
Competitive labor-organizing “big men”



The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe can take
you on a visit to precolonial Igbo society, which
exemplifies the chiefdom.
The character of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart
personifies the entrepreneurial “big man.”
(Achebe translates the actual Igbo term as
“strong man” in his subtitle.)
The character of Ezeulu in The Arrow of God
personifies the hereditary, titled elite.







State society was born in chiefdoms
A chief became a king by ceasing to
redistribute the community’s surplus wealth
What a king gathered he kept as taxes
With tax revenue he supported a new
repressive apparatus of soldiers, bureaucrats
and police
Many historians LIKE state society, or even
equate it with “civilization”
You may or may not agree
But the PRAXIS exam will probably favor the
state over other types of society





Pharaonic Egypt (c. 3000 BCE)
Nile Valley Sudan, Ethiopia (c.1000 BCE)
Sudanic Region, Zimbabwe (medieval)
Western and Equatorial Africa (early modern)
Southern Africa (1700s)




Learn to recognize the names of some African
kingdoms
Keep them on passive recall
Here are a number, arranged by region and
period of origin
PRAXIS may spell the names differently, so be
flexible

Egypt (Kemet)

Sudanese Nile Valley:

Kerma (c. 1700 BCE)
Kush (700-300 BCE)
Meroe (300 BCE – 300 CE)



Medieval Nubia (300-1400 CE):
Nobatia
Makuria (or Muqurra)
Alodia (or `Alwa)

Sinnar (1500-1821)







Old kingdoms (1000 – 500 BCE)
Axum (500 BCE – 700 CE)
Zagwe dynasty (700 – 1270 CE)
Solomonic dynasty (1270 – 1974 CE)

Sudanic:


Ghana
Mali
Songhai
Kanem
Borno
Takrur
Wadai
Baghirmi
Dar Fur

Not Sudanic:

Zimbabwe











Oyo
Benin
Asante
Dahomey





Kongo
Tio
Luango
Luba
Lunda

Zulu




Each kingdom had a capital where the king and
court resided
Sometimes the capital was mobile
Often it was a permanent city
A company town, restricted to government and
its servants







Early states based on one ethnic group
Kings had to be culturally comprehensible to subjects
Spoke same language, worshiped same gods
Some states expanded to incorporate numerous ethnic
groups, forming old agrarian empires
Ethnic diversity freed the emperors from traditional
customary constraints on early kings
Emperors simplified and rationalized codes of law
Often created new religions, or adopted appealing alien
ones such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam




When did an early state become an empire?
Often it is debatable
Solomonic Ethiopia, Mali and Songhai were
unquestionably empires
Feel free to add to the list if you wish



A person who makes his or her living through
trade is a merchant
Merchants prefer a different type of society
In olden days, they often created independent
self-governing city states








There are two basic ways of making a living through trade.
They are the traveling trade and the hoarding trade
Most early merchants depended upon the traveling trade
Profit derived from buying something from a place where it was
cheap and moving it to sell in another place where it was
expensive
Trade typically involved luxury items of small bulk and high value
In the hoarding trade one buys at a time when something is cheap
and resells it later when the price rises
Hoarding trade typically involved food grains.
City states usually lacked control over an exploitable hinterland



In Africa, the merchant vocation was always
initially foreign
In time, however, many African people adopted
the initially-foreign lifestyle
Other African societies often found merchants
controversial, regardless of the traders’
ethnicity



A chain of city-states developed along the East
African coast during Hellenistic times and the
medieval period
A second group, largely medieval in origin,
arose at oases in the Sahara
During the slave trade period some city states
appeared on the West African coast







Sijilmasa
Awdaghost
Tadmekka
Takedda
Walata
Ghat
Murzuq








Awjila
Kufra
Agadez
Bilma
Jalo
Siwa
Jaghbub
(There are others)








Aydhab
Sawakin
Mitsawa
Adulis
Zayla
Berbera
Mogadishu
Barawa








Pate
Lamu
Manda
Malindi
Mombasa
Kilwa
Sofala
(There are others)






Dakar
Rufisque
Goree
Freetown
Cape Coast
Elmina






Lagos
Brass
Bonny
Kalabari
Douala
Luanda







Modern nation states arose when merchant
principles took over whole countries
The hoarding trade joined traveling trade
Older ethnicities were gradually suppressed
New national identities were gradually forged
Nation states arose first in Europe and North
Africa
As the modern era advanced nationalism
spread widely in Africa and elsewhere
The transition into the nation state was often
very violent









Morocco (1500s)
Tunisia (precolonial)
Egypt (precolonial)
Madagascar (1700s)
Swaziland (anti-colonial)
Lesotho (anti-colonial)
Botswana (anti-colonial)
Eritrea (1990s)
Most other modern African nations are recent
products of European colonialism



Tripoli constitution by John Locke
Mankessim Constitution
Malagasy (iMerina) codes of law






Such was the history created by African people
for themselves, when left to their own devices
African history resembles everybody else’s
history
But, Africa was not always left to itself
New historical patterns appear if we consider
outside influences
Outside influences came in waves
Here is the story up to about 1600



Hellenistic (300 BCE to 600 CE)
Islamic (600 to 1800)
Early Modern European (1400 to 1600)




Place: North Africa from Mauretania and
Morocco to Egypt and Sudan; Ethiopia; East
African coast no farther than Tanzania
Language: Greek
Religion: Christianity (Orthodox and
Monophysite)
Modern Relevance: Christian Ethiopia, Coptic
Egypt




Place: All of First Wave zone except Ethiopia;
the Sahara and Sudanic region; East Africa to
include Mozambique
Language: Arabic
Religion: Islam
Modern Relevance: Islamic North, West and
East
Africa




Place: West coast south of Morocco; East
coast as far north as northern Kenya;
Madagascar
Languages: Portuguese, Dutch
Religion: Christianity (Catholic and Protestant)
Modern Relevance: Afro-Portuguese
communities of Angola, Mozambique, West
Africa; Afrikaners of South Africa



Slave trade dominated the period from 1600 to
1800
Slavery and the slave trade were not new to
the continent at that time
But a new form of trade that began in about
1600 changed older systems




Many African societies held slaves (Some did
not)
A trade in slaves within, into and out of Africa
was very old
Conspicuous was the importation of European
slaves throughout the Middle Ages and on into
the early nineteenth century
Before 1600 the slave trade did not dominate
any society or trading system




The reason for the importance of the slave
trade from 1600 to 1800 lay in the demand for
slaves in the plantation colonies of the New
World
Conspicuously the sugar islands of the
Caribbean
Where millions upon millions of Africans were
worked to death.
Estimates of the number of African people
exported range from 10 to 100 million; 15 or 20
million seems a good guess at present


Distributed across centuries in a large and
populous continent, the loss of population was
very small, and had little direct effect.
The slave trade is very important in
AMERICAN history, but of secondary or tertiary
significance in AFRICAN history.





Brutalized African life
Created new elites
New kingdoms based on slave trade (Asante,
Dahomey)
New diasporas of African slave merchants
Whites rarely allowed to leave coast; Africans
themselves monopolized procurement and
delivery of slaves


Elites committed to trade, not industry
See Walter Rodney, How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa


Islamic trade to Middle East, India
Indian Ocean trade to Mauritius, other islands








Morocco (Songhai)
Portugal (Zimbabwe)
Ottoman Empire (Ethiopia)
Target: Gold-Producing Empires of Interior
Result: Destruction of Empires
Result: End of Gold Trade
Result: Rise of Independent Merchants
Result: Spread of Trade in Arms and Slaves




An unhappy era in African history
Effects of “legitimate” trade
Crisis in political legitimacy
Islamic imperialism



End of slave trades abroad
Commercial boom in peanuts, copra, palm oil,
gum Arabic, ivory, other tropical products
Slavery comes home to roost



Upstart slavelord regimes
Continual warfare
“Islamic reform” and jihad




Two 19th-century Islamic powers annexed large
parts of Africa
Spread slavery, violence, Islam
Egypt
Oman





1820 conquests begin
By 1900, empire reaches south to Kenya,
Uganda, Congo
West to Benghazi, Dar Fur
Ethiopia successfully resists
Slaves in army, on plantations, in middle-class
households





1830s Sultan moves capital to Zanzibar
Conquers coast from Somalia to the Zambeizi
Expands westward halfway across continent
Rules modern Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda,
Malawi, parts of Mozambique, Zambia, much of
Congo-Kinshasa
Rwanda, Burundi successfully resist




Over the eastern third of the continent
Islamic imperialism reduced people’s ability to
resist
A new wave of imperialism was on the way at
century’s end
Colonization by European powers




Much of Africa was colonized by Europe
During the century from 1885 to 1995
Consequences were profound
Let us look in some detail




1885 to World War I: The “Scramble for Africa”
World War I through World War II: Mature
Colonial Systems
1945 to 1995: “Winds of Change”
Independence to the Present: Postcolonial
Challenges




Era called the “Scramble” (British) or
“Steeplechase” (French) for Africa
What were the preconditions that made
conquest possible?
Some were European
Others were African



Capitalism
Competition
Technology:
The Machine Gun
Tropical Medicine
Steam Transport





Four Centuries of Intimate Contact with Europe
African elites Committed to Trade
African “Infant Industries” Crushed by Imports
Many Regimes Deemed Illegitimate by their
Subjects: Little Patriotism
(There were exceptions, e.g. Ethiopia,
Lesotho)






1884-1885
Major capitalist powers convene
Set guidelines for seizure and division of Africa
Without provoking war among European rivals
From 1885 to 1914 they did just that
Then fought W W I anyway




Division of Africa into strange political units
Learn their names, then and now
Learn their cities, then and now
(Map study single best PRAXIS review tactic)



Creation of “tribes”
Creation of “chiefs”
Questionable legitimacy of many colonial
groups





Each colony must be self-supporting
Africans pay for everything (including own
conquest)
“Pay” means labor
Sometimes direct
Sometimes indirectly via cash crops


Between the World Wars, African colonies set
onto several different paths
In many cases, modern lands continue to
follow these paths





Prestige and strategic advantage
Little else
Impoverished and unviable as nations
Avoided atrocity
Survival of precolonial culture




Cash crops on family farms
Coffee, cotton, peanuts, cocoa
New wealth widely distributed
Successful modern communities form





Agrobusiness rules
Rubber, sisal, bananas, sometimes cotton and
peanuts
Social melting pot, death of cultures
Colonial language dominates
Spectacular tyrannies and atrocities




Precious metals always had priority
Demand for cheap labor in gigantic quantities
Obliteration of all other modes of livelihood
Obliteration of culture




Mines, plantations, demand abundant labor
Over wide areas colonial policy obliterates all
other modes of livelihood, forcing people to
work in mines or on plantations
Pro-natalist (American: “Right-To-Life”) policies
accelerate population growth
Ultimate in modern poverty




White farms
“Native reserves”
Coercive apparatus (police, “pass books”)
Racist ideology



Big, complicated colonies
Fit more than one model
South Africa, Nigeria, Congo-Kinshasa



1950 to 1995
Wars of liberation
Peaceful transition





Libya
Algeria
Kenya
Guinea-Bissau
Angola




Mozambique
Zimbabwe
Namibia
South Africa




Neocolonial political elites in power
Continuity in economy
Continuity in society
Close relations with former colonial power




Economic specialization
Increase production
Problem: “Supply and demand”
Problem: debt



1981 turning point
International Monetary Fund
“Conditionalities”


Coups
The military in power





Corruption
Incompetence
Unpopularity of authoritarian regimes
“Non-Governmental Organizations”
Dependency on foreign patrons




Ethnic strife (Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra
Leone)
“Failed states” (Somalia, Chad)
AIDS
Islamic fundamentalism (Nigeria, Sudan,
Somalia, Algeria, Morocco, the Sahara)

I am happy to discuss any issue, and will try to
help answer questions
I am best reached via email at:
jspauldi@kean.edu

THANK YOU!

