Resource Guide
An Introduction to the History of Africa
2017–2018
The vision of the United States Academic Decathlon®
is to provide students the opportunity to
excel academically through team competition.
Toll Free: 866-511-USAD (8723) • Direct: 712-326-9589 • Fax: 712-366-3701 • Email: info@usad.org • Website: www.usad.org
This material may not be reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, by any means, including but not limited to photocopy, print, electronic, or internet display (public or
private sites) or downloading, without prior written permission from USAD. Violators may be prosecuted. Copyright ®2017 by United Academic Decathlon®. All rights reserved.
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
SOCIAL SCIENCE
INTRODUCTION............. 4
SECTION II SUMMARY........................................21
Introduction...................................................................... 5
Climates.............................................................................. 5
Geographic Characteristics of the African
Continent............................................................................ 7
What Is in a Name?......................................................... 9
Peoples................................................................................ 9
Languages........................................................................11
Eurocentrism..................................................................11
Western Myths about Africa.........................11
European Religion and Myths about
Africa..................................................................... 13
West African Empires.................................................28
Ghana......................................................................31
Mali..........................................................................31
SECTION III:
EARLY AFRICAN
AFRICA—MYTH AND
CIVILIZATIONS.............23
REALITY...................... 5 Ancient Egypt.................................................................23
SECTION I:
Roman Catholicism.........................................13
Calvinism............................................................14
Eurocentrism and the Atlantic
Slave Trade...........................................................14
Afrocentrism..................................................................15
Cheikh Anta Diop...............................................16
Martin Gardiner Bernal..................................16
SECTION I SUMMARY..........................................17
SECTION II:
HUMAN ORIGINS..........18
Evidence for Human Origins in Africa.................18
Archaeological Evidence of Tools................18
Fossil and Genetic Evidence..........................18
Hunter-Gatherers, Herders, and Farmers..........20
2
Sundiata Keïta...................................................31
Mansa Musa and Mansa Kaw......................33
Ibn Battuta and Mali.......................................34
Songhay................................................................ 34
Kanem-Bornu......................................................37
Other Types of African States.................................37
SECTION III SUMMARY...................................... 38
SECTION IV:
TRADITIONAL AFRICAN
RELIGION, ISLAM, AND
CHRISTIANITY.............40
Traditional African Religion....................................40
Islam in Africa................................................................43
North Africa.........................................................43
Early Islam, Bilal, Axum, and Al-Azhar......43
West Africa.......................................................... 46
T he Sokoto Caliphate and Nana
Asma’u.................................................................47
East Africa........................................................... 48
Swahili Culture..................................................48
Christianity in Africa..................................................50
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Table of Contents
SECTION V:
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
THE ATLANTIC AND
WEST AFRICAN
SLAVE TRADE..............53
Origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade.......................53
Introduction........................................................ 53
African Slavery before the Europeans..... 54
The Portuguese and the Spanish............... 55
The Dutch, the British, and the Asante... 58
Slavery in West Africa: The Narrative of
Olaudah Equiano...........................................................62
The End of the Atlantic Slave Trade......................67
SECTION V SUMMARY....................................... 68
SECTION VI:
SECTION VI SUMMARY...................................... 83
SECTION VII:
THE RISE OF INDEPENDENT
WEST AFRICA................ 84
The End of Imperial Rule in Africa........................84
Ghana, Pan-Africanism, and Kwame
Nkrumah..........................................................................85
The Problems of Independence..............................86
Nigeria and the Nigerian-Biafran War.................86
Democracy in Independent Africa.........................88
Globalization and Africa............................................88
Challenges to National Unity in Mali....................90
Challenges to Economic Independence
in Ghana............................................................................90
Other Issues in Twenty-First Century
Africa..................................................................................92
Section VII Conclusion................................................93
SECTION VII SUMMARY.................................... 94
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Egypt and Abyssinia (Ethiopia).................. 50
Christianity from Europe...............................51
SECTION IV SUMMARY.......................................52
IMPERIALISM AND
COLONIALISM............... 70 CONCLUSION...............95
Introduction....................................................................70
TIMELINE OF EVENTS....96
The Berlin Conference................................................73
GLOSSARY.................102
The Nature of Imperial and Colonial Rule
in West Africa.................................................................75
APPENDIX: MAPS.......113
The French in West Africa: Amadou
Bamba and Touba.........................................................76
NOTES......................115
The British in West Africa: The British,
the Asante, and the Gold Coast...............................78
BIBLIOGRAPHY..........120
Challenges to Colonial Systems..............................80
Section VI Conclusion.................................................83
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
3
Westerners often create negative caricatures
when imagining the continent of Africa. Poverty,
disease, slavery, drought, and violence perhaps may
come to mind. Some of us in our ignorance even see
Africa as one country. As with people anywhere, Africans have had their share of misfortune, but they
have also been extraordinarily resilient and successful in adapting to their environments. A major
goal of this Resource Guide is to put the African experience into perspective, so you will see Africa and
Africans as part of our shared planet and representative of all human experience.
Imagine this: West Africa, the region of Africa
that we will discuss in the greatest depth in this resource guide, is about four-fifths as large as the continental U.S.—about 2.5 million square miles. West
Africa is about 2,000 miles across, almost the same
distance as that between San Diego and Atlanta.
While there is certainly a diversity of people within the United States, consider that while the U.S. is
one country, West Africa is comprised of sixteen
different nations, and Africa in its entirety has fifty-four countries. There are more than five hundred
languages spoken in West Africa and more than two
thousand languages spoken in Africa as a whole.
Here is a final statistic to consider in embracing the
sheer complexity of Africa: in terms of land mass,
Africa is more than three times the size of the United States. Given Africa’s enormous distances and diversity of peoples and climates, the history of Africa
4
is extremely complex. African history is also the oldest on Earth as human beings originated in Africa.
Remember that your resource guide on Africa
is only an introduction. The history of Africa, with
its multitude of ethnic groups, empires, and modern-day nations is incredibly wide-ranging and
multifaceted. Given the limits of space and time,
the discussion presented in this resource guide will
often focus more specifically on the region of West
Africa rather than on Africa as a whole. Some of the
themes you will study are human origins, ancient
Egypt, communal life, the slave trade, colonial rule,
independence movements, and religions. Along the
way, you will find successes and failures, heroes and
villains, slaves and freedmen, rulers and subjects,
small kingdoms and large empires as well as many
examples of human ingenuity.
NOTE TO STUDENTS: Throughout the resource
guide you will notice that some terms have been both
boldfaced and underlined—these terms are included
in the glossary at the end of the resource guide. Also,
students should be aware that early historical dates
frequently vary depending on the source and are often
highly contested. The dates presented in this resource
guide are not necessarily definitive, but are those
dates provided by the sources consulted by the author
in writing this guide.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Introduction
Section I
Introduction
Africa is often referred to as the “Mother Continent” of humanity, for in the long term of human
development, our oldest ancestors originated from
Africa. Fossil, genetic, linguistic, and archaeological evidence confirm that all the members of your
Academic Decathlon® team, as well as those you are
competing against, are your distant cousins. Your
friends and all the people across the world are your
extended family, global Africans. People have different appearances because their ancestors have lived
in different environments. Over time, all life, including humans, physically adapts to its environment to
survive. Humans who live near the equator, for example, developed darker skin to protect their bodies
from the strong sun.
The process of change in any species over time,
which was first proposed by Charles Darwin, is
called natural selection—nature selects those
most fit to survive. To put it a different way, if your
body cannot adapt to its environment, you and others like you will die. Thus, “race” is biologically not
possible. Of course, humans have different ethnicities distinguished from one another by language,
culture, and nationality, but the extraordinary fact
of humanity’s existence is our singularity, our family character, or to use our scientific description, our
shared identity as Homo sapiens. That you are human is a major lesson in life that Africa can teach us.
Let us look at humanity’s home another way.
Imagine all human pre-history and history as a towering African Baobab tree, with the Americas, Asia,
and Europe making up major branches of that tree.
Given our African origins, Africa would provide the
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Africa—Myth and Reality
If we imagine all human pre-history and history
as a towering African Baobab tree, the Americas,
Asia, and Europe would make up major branches of
the tree, and Africa would be the trunk and roots.
Photo by Bernard Gagnon - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3646805
trunk and roots to support the American, Asian, and
European branches. Human history is African history.
Climates
There are a series of different climate zones in Africa, which range from the wet tropical zone along
the equator in central Africa and become drier as
one moves to the north or south, resulting in large
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
5
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 1.1
Climate Map of Africa
Shillington 2012: 5
6
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
coast and tropical regions where high rainfall impeded land transportation.
There are thousands of examples of ancient
Saharan rock art, with some remaining visible
today.
Photo by David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada - Prehistoric
Rock Paintings, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.
php?curid=51016097
deserts in the interior of northern and southern
Africa. The exceptions are coastal regions that get
proportionately more rainfall than adjacent regions
in the interior, and the East African coast where the
climate is isolated from the rest of Africa by a mountainous ridge and is most influenced by weather in
the Indian Ocean. Generally, rainfall (or its absence)
affects African climates more than any other factor.1
One of the most interesting features of climate
change in Africa over the millennia has been the
contraction and expansion of the Sahara Desert and
its effect on life. More recently, researchers have
discovered fossils of dinosaurs and bones of ancient
peoples in the Sahara. Thousands of examples of Saharan rock art, showing long extinct animals drawn
by ancient Africans, remain visible today.2 Scholars
have concluded that the expansion and contraction
of the Sahara Desert over time led to innovations in
food production, new forms of irrigation, migratory
movements, and the formation of centralized states
along the Nile River and the Niger River to address
the problems of increasingly dense populations.3
Historians of pre-colonial and colonial Africa are
also interested in the interaction of pastoralists (animal herders) and farmers in the semi-arid Sahel region along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert
and the influence of the Indian Ocean monsoons on
East Africa. Other important climate factors include
the impact of Africa’s mountain range along its east
Africa is the world’s second largest continent
(11.7 million square miles). The continent of Africa
is mostly a plateau with over 16,000 miles of coastline and fifty-four countries. Africa contains about
20 percent of the world’s landmass. Some 20 percent
of Africa is desert, and about fifteen percent is rain
forest. Three United States, including Alaska and
Hawaii, can fit on the African continent. One United
States can comfortably stretch across North Africa’s
Sahara Desert. The Nile River, which begins south
of the equator and flows northward, is about 4,160
miles and is the world’s longest river.
The size of Africa, like the history of Africa, has
been significantly misrepresented in the past by
Western cartographers, who made it smaller compared with the rest of the world. Kai Krause attempted to correct the misconception of the relative
size of Africa in the map shown in Figure 1.2.4
The Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA) at Harvard University has created a far more complex and
deep cartographic tool for academic use. Researchers designed an open source interactive map that
overlays large databases of knowledge of Africa. It
also contains six helpful base maps: http://worldmap.harvard.edu/africamap/. You can plot national borders, overland trade routes, slave ports, language groups, and so on.
Africa is larger than the U.S., China, Europe, and
India combined. As a result, distances that need
to be traversed are much longer in Africa than in
Europe or the Middle East. One historical consequence of this was that it cost proportionately more
to transport goods for trade, so only products of
extremely high value with respect to their weight,
like gold or spices, were profitable in preindustrial
Africa. Otherwise, Africans generally relied on food
they produced in their own region, rather than importing it from far away.
Long distances and large land areas also meant
that in most places, the African population was not
very dense (the Nile River Valley was a notable exception). This lack of population density allowed
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
7
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Geographic Characteristics of
the African Continent
growing populations to find new land without having to fight for it and made control over people, rather than land, the basis for power and wealth. It also
made it possible to grow food using methods that
relied more on land than labor, such as “slash-and-
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 1.2
burn” farming, which cleared new land with fire
instead of applying fertilizer or rotating crops to
restore productivity on existing farms. Low-labor
farming methods enabled even single families to be
self-sufficient, so there was less pressure to form
Map of Africa showing its land mass relative to other countries
8
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
In a continent where long dry seasons and deserts
placed limits on farmers and where heavy rainy seasons limited travel in forested areas, rivers played
an essential role in determining where and how
humans lived and traveled. Africa has the world’s
longest river, the Nile, which flows for about 4,200
miles from Central Africa to the Mediterranean
Sea, and the world’s tenth-longest, the Congo-Zaire,
which flows 2,718 miles from Central Africa to the
Atlantic Ocean. Two other major rivers are the Niger, which flows around 2,600 miles through West
Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Zambezi, which
flows about 1,800 miles from central Africa to the
Indian Ocean.
Many of the largest rivers are navigable for extremely long distances during the rainy season. For
instance, the Niger River is navigable for more than
1,000 miles, roughly the distance between Philadelphia and Chicago. However, they all share one characteristic that makes them different from rivers
in Europe or North America—all have rapids (also
called cataracts) or waterfalls that prevent boats
from sailing all of the way to the sea. This is because
the continent is basically a large, flat “table” of fairly hard soil with relatively few mountains. Consequently, rainwater flows slowly toward the edge of
the table and “tumbles” down the last stretch to the
ocean. Although some rivers are navigable inland
for short distances from the coast, navigation to the
interior is impossible. Since the interior sections of
most African rivers are navigable for long distances,
they served as trade routes and food sources, which
provided the means for larger states and larger populations to develop. As a consequence, the largest
African populations developed in the interior, and
the coast remained sparsely populated until the Europeans arrived.
Although the continent is basically flat, there is
a long stretch of mountains and plateaus high in
eastern Africa, which was formed by the collision of
two tectonic plates, and a few older mountain ranges in western Africa that are mostly of volcanic origin. Since most travel took place on foot, the mountains were not usually a barrier to human contact.
Instead, they offered “islands” that provided a base
for people whose culture was often different from
As this political cartoon indicates, when
European powers met at the Berlin Conference in
1884–85, they divided up Africa among them. The
boundary lines of the colonies did not take into
account African ethnic groups.
that of the “flatlanders” who lived in the plains and
forests.
What Is in a Name?
The name “Africa” has not always been used to
refer to the continent of Africa. The name was initially used limitedly to refer to Roman North Africa
after the fall of Carthage in 146 bce. The Arab conquerors of the seventh century referred to the same
region as “Ifriqiya.” Subsequently, the name “Africa” was applied to the entire continent during and
after the voyages of exploration in the fifteenth century by the Portuguese and other Europeans. Later,
some Europeans began to use the word “Africa” to
describe the “Other.”5 Africa was so diminished in
the European mind that the name Africa took on a
demeaning connotation, suggesting Africans were
primitive both in culture and “race.”
Peoples
Until the early part of the twentieth century, academics were strongly influenced by Social Darwinists who took Charles Darwin’s ideas about the evolution of a single species and falsely applied them to
human societies. These Eurocentrists argued that
Western nations, which they believed were more advanced, were destined to rule those areas that they
believed were less advanced. As apologists for empire, Europeans arranged Homo sapiens into “races”
with Africans being seen as a lesser race.
As was mentioned earlier, race is a social rather
than a scientific construct. However, there is a great
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
9
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
larger groups than in places where land was more
limited.
deal of ethnic diversity within Africa. If we use a
broad definition of “ethnic group,” there are some
three thousand ethnic groups across Africa, each
with its own language dialect and culture. Physically, Africans have great variety due to the continent’s
climate zones. Think for a moment about the diverse
populations and subcultures that make up the United States today. Apply that to Africa on a much larger scale, and you will then have a better perception
of the diversity of the many peoples of Africa.
Figure 1.3
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Major West African ethnic groups include the
Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Mande, Akan, and Fula. They
are spread across several African countries because
when Europeans drew boundary lines for their African colonies in 1884–85 at the Berlin Conference,
they did not take into consideration African ethnic
groups. Of those above, only the Igbo (28 million)
of Nigeria are concentrated largely within a single
African country. In contrast, the Mande (30 million)
are spread across thirteen African countries. The
Hausa (60 million), who live across the Sahel from
Ghana to Sudan, are the largest West African eth-
Map of Bantu migration.
10
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Languages
There are about two thousand languages spoken
in Africa, which fall into five major categories: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo (including
the Bantu-speakers), Khoisan, and Austronesian.
Many Africans also speak Arabic or a European colonial language, most commonly English, French, or
Portuguese.
Arguably, the languages most interesting to Africanists who research human origins are those in
the Bantu-speaking group, which are part of the
larger Niger-Congo language family. Using advanced
computer technology that can establish word relationships between the 1,600 Bantu languages,
researchers have concluded that around 1000 bce
there was a population explosion near where Nigeria and Cameroon meet today.6 Over the course of
centuries, the Bantu-speakers expanded across the
Sahel and southward in waves, reaching northern
South Africa by about 500 ce. The Bantu-speaking
ethnic group of Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), the
Xhosa, took on clicking sounds from the Khoisan
peoples with whom they assimilated or whom they
conquered as they moved south. The “X” in Xhosa
designates one of its many clicking sounds.
Swahili, which denotes a language and a culture,
is spoken by East Africans who are largely Muslim
and were once involved in significant maritime
trading networks of the Indian Ocean. Swahili culture extends from southern Somalia to northern
Mozambique. The name “Swahili” derives from the
Arabic word meaning “coast.” Swahili is primarily
a Bantu language influenced by Arabic, Hindi, Persian, English, and Portuguese. You can see the locations and names of African language groups using
Harvard’s CGA map.
Eurocentrism
The process of adopting culture is called “centering,” and it influences how people evaluate everything they encounter. Those who employ European
beliefs and attitudes to view the world are called
“Eurocentric.” Some of their ideas include allegiance
to a national state rather than a human ruler, re-
liance on material science to solve problems, and
the use of hierarchical structures to organize each
individual’s relationships to others in society. As a
corollary, centered perspectives divide the world
into “things that are familiar” and “the Other.” This
proved useful for Eurocentrists when it came to justifying the transatlantic slave trade, imperialism,
and colonialism.7
Western Myths about Africa
Historically much of what Westerners learned
about Africa was affected by stories told by Europeans to justify slavery and colonial conquest, which
in the United States led to Jim Crow laws that were
enacted to deny newly freed slaves their civil and
political rights. Western myths about Africa developed over the last six hundred years and remained
entrenched well into the twentieth century. Marcus
Garvey (1887–1940), Martin Luther King (19291968), and many other Civil Rights activists and
leaders spent their lives working to dispel those
myths.
A representative source of Western fantasies
about Africa is the important German historian
and philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(1770–1831), who wrote the following in his major
work Philosophy of History:
Africa is not a historical continent; it shows
neither change nor development…; its Negro peoples have been capable of neither
progress nor education. As we see them today, so they have always been.8
More recently, the Regius Professor of Modern
History at Oxford University, Hugh Trevor-Roper
(1914–2003), enraged Africanists in 1963 when he
claimed on the BBC that:
Perhaps in the near future, there will be
some African history to teach. But at present there is none; there is only the history of
Europeans in Africa…. The present world is
so dominated by western European ideas,
techniques and values, that for the last five
centuries at least, in so far as the history of
the world has significance, it is only European history that counts. We cannot afford
to amuse ourselves with the unrewarding
gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant corners of the globe.9
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
11
SKT, IASD - International, NA
nic group of Muslims. You can see the locations and
names of African ethnic groups using Harvard University’s CGA maps.
Additionally, other notions of Africa have eased
into our consciousness through popular culture.
You may be familiar with certain images of Africa from Hollywood films and the media. Africa is
sometimes portrayed as an exotic place of colorful
costumes, strange customs and rituals, and unending revelry and festivals. Visions of local wildlife and
Masai warriors are the most used trope. Some movies show a wild and dangerous Africa of civil wars,
warlords, and child soldiers. For Afro-Pessimists,
Africa is broken because nothing works. Daunting
cultural, environmental, and historical challenges
plague the continent.10
Yet, Africa’s image in the West has not always
been so negative. The Greek philosophers Plato
(c. 428–c. 348 bce) and Aristotle (384–322 bce)
thought highly of Egypt and Ethiopia and considered those African states to be the most advanced
nations on earth. Plato used Egyptian knowledge
to create his program for education and teaching.
Ancient Greek traditions that held Africa in high regard remained in place in the West for more than
two thousand years—from the 700s bce to the
1500s ce.11 Old Testament Hebrews—the Jews—
concurred with the Greeks that Egypt was a place of
advanced civilization.
12
Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper enraged Africanists
with his Eurocentric views of Africa.
Photo by Rob Mieremet / Anefo - Derived from Nationaal Archief, CC BYSA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38299043
What happened? The Atlantic slave trade and
its rationalization by Europeans and Americans diminished the prestige of Africans. Those involved in
and supportive of the slave trade argued that black
Africans never developed civilization and that any
evidence of civilization in Africa was brought there
by foreign invaders. Proponents of the slave trade
also offered the spurious rationalization that Africans who were forced into chattel slavery in the
New World were being rescued from their “barbarism.”
Western myths about Africa were expanded further by attempts to diminish Egypt’s contributions
to world civilization and by categorizing Egyptian
civilization as being separate from “Black Africa.”
This delusion flew in the face of the Egyptian/Mediterranean and inner-African trans-Saharan connection that was many thousands of years old. Regardless of the environmental hostility of the Sahara
Desert, the highways across the desert were sus-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The German historian and philosopher Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is a source of Western
myths about Africa.
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The
School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Plato and
Aristotle thought highly of Egypt and Ethiopia and
considered those African states to be the most
advanced nations on earth.
tained, widespread, and reciprocal, much like the
relationships ancient Greece and Rome had maintained with inner Europe.
Some Western writers caricatured Africa as dark,
alien, and evil, portraying it as a brooding jungle.
Others described Africa as an open sunlit land of noble savages. The most prolific European mythmakers about Africa were the British. Britain’s imperial
involvement in Africa led to a library of mythmaking about the British presence all over the continent.
Until the 1950s, British literature about Africa usually conveyed a relationship of opposition between
the image of the African and that of the Briton.
For example, whereas the British were portrayed
as brave, the Africans were shown as cowardly;
where the British were seen as disciplined, the Africans were thought to lack self-control; where the
British were civilized, the Africans were savages;
Somewhat related to British power is an allegory about the relationship between British hunters
and African lions. Often conveyed by African griots (teachers who convey oral traditions), this fable
explains that because the hunters are the ones who
write the books and tell the stories, the hunters are
always shown as the ones who win. If lions wrote
the books, they would at least occasionally win.13
The point here is that until the mid-twentieth century, most descriptions of Africa and Africans were
written by Westerners, not Africans, and were about
Western experiences in Africa rather than about Africans themselves or their cultures.
European Religion and Myths
about Africa
Roman Catholicism
Although Africa lies closer to Europe than any
other continent except Asia, for a long period after
the Roman Empire there was little interaction between Europe and Africa because of conflict between Muslims and Christians.14 By the time that
contact was renewed in the sixteenth century, Europeans had developed their own ideas about how
the world worked. Many of these ideas were embodied in Roman Catholicism, the religion of the
late Western Roman Empire. During the centuries
of chaos that followed Rome’s fall, Catholicism provided explanations, order, and a basis for unity as
Europeans reestablished governments, laws, and
trade. As a result, when Europeans started to sail
along the African coast in the late fifteenth century, they brought not only a fixed set of beliefs about
the nature of humanity and its relationship to an
all-powerful spiritual creator, they also believed
they had an obligation to spread those beliefs and
feared opposition from other religions. Europeans
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
13
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
and where Britain was good, Africa was evil. Seen
through British eyes, Africa and Britain represented
two poles of a single value system. While the British understood there were Africans in intermediate
stages between the poles of civilization and savagery, four hundred years of British writing about Africa produced a literature that described not Africa or
Africans, but the British response to both. To British
eyes, Africa remained the negative reflection of the
British self-image partly to justify rule and partly to
assert subjugation.12
The Calvinists were by no means the only group
to hold racist views, but the Calvinist belief system
nonetheless had an enormous influence in the United States and in Africa.16 The legacy of their intolerance remains, as they and others—religious and
secular—helped nourish the foundation of racism
so widespread toward Africa today.
Eurocentrism and the Atlantic
Slave Trade
Portrait of the French theologian and pastor John
Calvin (1509–64).
used forced conversion to Catholicism as a way to
justify enslaving Africans.15 European Protestants,
meanwhile, used opposition to Catholicism as a reason to extend their commercial activities to Africa.
Calvinism
Calvinism, a sect of Protestantism credited to
John Calvin (1509–64), included beliefs about salvation and value that led to racist views toward
Africans. Dutch Calvinists participated in the Atlantic slave trade, especially from Elmina Castle
on the coast of Ghana, where about one million Africans began the Middle Passage to the New World.
Dutch Calvinists, along with the French Huguenots,
carried similar views to South Africa. In the United States, the Pilgrims were also Calvinists. These
groups of people believed that God chose them for a
special mission—to share everlasting bliss in heaven with God.
The original promotion of this idea—referred to
as predestination—was actually first put forward
by an African, Augustine of Hippo (354–430), who
lived in what is now northeastern Algeria. Relying
on Augustine, the Calvinists believed that for reasons only God understands, God “predestined” cer-
14
European beliefs justified a new kind of slave
trade—chattel slavery—which proved particularly destructive. Africans had practiced slavery, but
bondage within African societies was quite different from chattel (property) slavery of the West.
African slaves in most African societies had rights;
they could marry and raise families; and their children were often born free. They were not chattel of
their masters to be bought and sold. Slaves in Africa provided both reproductive and labor functions,
although at times they were killed to accompany
their deceased masters in the afterworld. African
slavery could be quite appalling, but its cruelty was
not on the same level as that of chattel slavery in the
West.17
The Atlantic slave trade was horrific and complex. While some crews from European slave ships
captured and enslaved Africans, most often Africans were captured and enslaved onshore by other
Africans seeking profit or protection. African slaves
sold to European slave ship captains were often
captured in war and were often from other ethnic
groups. Others were criminals or were given in annual tribute to acknowledge the power of one African group over another.
Whatever the immediate circumstances of enslavement, those in bondage were usually moved
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
tain believers to share heaven with God. If you were
not selected by God, then you could not enter heaven, regardless of your prayers, good works, and exemplary faith. Even individual Calvinists were never
certain they were one of the select, but at least they
had a chance, they believed, for they were Calvinists,
God’s select. Everyone else not destined for heaven
was to serve those who were. This worldview had a
decided impact on the Pilgrims’ perspective on Native Americans and the Calvinists’ perspective on
Africans.
Afrocentrism
While some crews from European slave ships
captured and enslaved Africans, most often
Africans were captured and enslaved onshore by
other Africans seeking profit or protection.
in groups from the interior to the coast, were often
imprisoned in slave fort dungeons, and were sold
in negotiations between their African captors and
visiting slave ship captains. Depending on the time
period, almost all slave ships originated from Spain,
Portugal, France, England, the United States, Holland, Norway, or Denmark. The ship captains would
sail their ships to West African or Southwest African
ports under African control and negotiate onboard
or onshore. Once ship captains and African slave
traders had concluded negotiations and brought the
slaves onboard, the Middle Passage would begin.
Although statistics vary depending on the source,
approximately 12.5 million Africans, crammed and
chained horizontally below stifling decks, began the
Middle Passage with about one to two million dying
en route.
Seeing life through African eyes inside African
culture and African environments is a good definition of Afrocentrism. You would expect Africans
who have lived their lives in Africa and have been
influenced by African culture to be Afrocentric in
the same sense that most people who grow up in
the U.S. are Eurocentric. Yet when the relationship
between Afrocentrism and Eurocentrism is considered over the last six hundred years, that link
has had a very troubled history. Eurocentric people
advocated for the Atlantic slave trade, imperialism,
and colonialism in Africa. Eurocentrists viewed Africans as objects impeding the European quest for
material gain, land, or labor.
During the mid-to-late twentieth century, two
provocative scholars—Cheikh Anta Diop (1923–
86) and Martin Gardiner Bernal (1937–2013) opposed Eurocentric views of Africa with significant
scholarship. Both Diop and Bernal concentrated on
Egypt, although from different perspectives, and in
a general sense, their scholarship could be considered Afrocentric, or Africa-centered.18 The African
independence movements of the 1950s and 1960s
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
15
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Although European self-confidence left little
room for Europeans to question their beliefs, as
more Europeans had contact with Africans, new
ideas began to emerge. For example, John Newton
(1725–1807)—an English sailor and captain of slave
ships, who later became a clergyman and abolitionist—almost died in a major storm aboard the
Greyhound in 1748. His harrowing experience led
him to ask God to forgive him for his many sins in
return for accepting Christianity. At first, like many
other Christians, including Calvinists, Newton did
not denounce slavery. In fact, he participated in or
led crews on five slave trading voyages and invested in others. Over time, however, he left the life of
a sailor and became a minister. John Newton first
published “Amazing Grace” as “Faith’s Review and
Expectation,” hymn #41, in Olney Hymns in 1779. It
was not until 1788 that Newton published his influential anti-slavery tract “Thoughts upon the African
Slave Trade.” He lived just long enough to experience
the Parliament of the United Kingdom’s passage of
the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the
Atlantic slave trade in the British empire (although
slavery itself was still permitted).
different published and unpublished works, Diop
successfully overturned racist myths about Pharaonic Egypt’s alleged white origins. Diop’s scholarship was complex and covered many disciplines,
which he summed up in UNESCO’s General History
of Africa, the first multi-volume encyclopedic series
about Africa from Afrocentric perspectives.20 While
not all scholars agree with Diop’s findings, he certainly removed Egypt from Eurocentric myth and
placed it firmly within Africa.
Cheikh Anta Diop spent much of his life analyzing
the relationship between ancient Egypt and West
Africa, especially Senegal.
also contributed to the effort to see African history
through the African experience.19
Cheikh Anta Diop
Cheikh Anta Diop was born in Senegal and educated in an Islamic school that followed the Murid
teachings of Amadou Bamba. He carried out his
advanced academic work at the University of Paris.
Like Martin Bernal, Diop drew upon his deep interdisciplinary knowledge of history, linguistics, sociology, archaeology, colonialism, and Egyptology.
Unlike Bernal, Diop also earned degrees in chemistry and worked in nuclear physics. He spent much of
his life analyzing the relationship between ancient
Egypt and West Africa, especially Senegal. His compatriots thought so highly of him they changed the
name of Senegal’s national university, Université de
Dakar, to Université Cheikh Anta Diop.
Much of Diop’s research was driven by his desire
to disprove Eurocentric notions that whites, not Africans, created the Egypt of the Pharaohs. In many
16
Martin Gardiner Bernal, who like Diop sought to
work against the legacies of European racism, imperialism, and colonialism, argued that some of the
great wisdom of Pharaonic Egypt contributed to the
glory of ancient Greek civilization—the Athens of
Socrates, his student Plato, and Plato’s student Aristotle. Using linguistics, ancient manuscripts, and archaeology, Bernal challenged Eurocentric academics to revise their understanding of the relationship
between Pharaonic Egypt and Greece.21 Many classicists and Egyptologists argued that there had been
no substantial Egyptian contribution to Greek civilization. Countering that view, Bernal argued that
ancient peoples had noted the connection between
Egypt and Greece, but during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, Europeans severed that link
because of notions of European imperial supremacy
and pseudo-scientific racism, not because of new evidence. Bernal’s arguments were quite provocative,
in part because he inferred that his academic opponents supported a racist interpretation. His critics
also challenged his use of linguistics and his interpretation of art.
Like Diop before him, Bernal helped place Egypt
among the great civilizations of the world, one created by Africans. Together with other academics,
Diop and Bernal helped to restore respect for Africa and its peoples, recovered significant portions
of the African past, and enhanced African contributions to our common humanity. Cheikh Anta Diop
and Martin Bernal spent much of their academic
lives exploring the relationship between humans
and Africa. Now that it is clear that all humans are
descendants of Africans who migrated out of Africa
about 50,000 years ago, humanity itself can now be
“centered.”
Section I of your Resource Guide has introduced
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Martin Gardiner Bernal
was based on false assertions made by Europeans
to justify slavery and colonialism. The rest of your
resource guide is devoted to sharing with you the
results of the enormous expansion in knowledge
about Africa and its peoples that has taken place
over the last seventy years.
Section I Summary

Martin Gardiner Bernal used linguistics,
ancient manuscripts, and archaeology to
challenge Eurocentric academics to revise their
understanding of the relationship between
Pharaonic Egypt and Greece.
you to evidence that supports Africa as the site of
origin for human beings. You now have a better idea
of the sheer size of the African continent, its varied climates, and its large number of ethnic groups,
languages, and cultures. You also know that until the 1950s, much of what we knew about Africa

frica is the second largest continent with
A
a very diverse assortment of people, landforms, and climates. Specific geographic
characteristics—like long distances, the location of water, and the possibilities for travel—determined where people lived, how
populations grew, and what kind of communities they formed.
From the late 1400s to the mid-1900s, West
ern knowledge about Africa was distorted
by European notions of racial, cultural, and
technical superiority. Over the centuries,
Western writers and government officials
either wrote about themselves in Africa or
interpreted sacred literature to give themselves privileged status, often in an effort to
justify the Atlantic slave trade.
With the advent of African independence
movements in the 1950s, post-independence
writers and scholars in and outside Africa
began to challenge Eurocentric myths about
Africa. Those who sought to share the reality of Africa through African eyes were called
Afrocentrists. Two of the many scholars who
contributed to presenting an African-centered view of Africa, especially Egypt, were
Cheikh Anta Diop and Martin Gardiner Bernal.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
17
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China

Section II
Evidence for Human Origins
in Africa
Natural scientists have made many new discoveries about human origins in Africa, and these revelations have added to the significant fossil evidence
that already pointed to human origins in Africa.
Scientists in the fields of anthropology, paleontology, biology, genetics, and primate zoology have all
found evidence that points toward the same conclusion—the ancestors of all humans lived in Africa. This section of the resource guide presents their
findings and conclusions.
Archaeological Evidence of Tools
Tools made of stone, bone, or clay offer one kind
of evidence of ancient human history. Humans made
tools to extend their natural physical abilities—to
withstand bad weather, to cut wood, carry water,
grind grain, and kill other animals, among other
things—so tools help us to understand how ancient
humans lived. While most tools were probably made
from materials that decayed over time, such as
wood, those made out of harder materials or which
were lucky enough to be preserved by burial or low
humidity show where humans lived, what they ate,
how they constructed shelters, and whether they
traded with others.
Many sites in Africa have yielded human tools
for study. For example, the well-known site at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where remains of H. Habilis, Australopithecus boisei, H. Erectus, and H. Sapiens
have been found, has also yielded large quantities of
stone chips, which were used as knives and projectiles. Although are still many disagreements among
18
Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where remains of
H. Habilis, Australopithecus boisei, H. Erectus, and
H. Sapiens have been found as well as large
quantities of stone chips, which were used as
knives and projectiles.
scholars, the archeological finds suggest that large
numbers of humans occupied this site for a long period of time, ate meat and plants, and may have even
developed specialized occupations like toolmaker.22
Fossil and Genetic Evidence
Fossil evidence strongly supports the origins of
humanity in Africa. The early hominid fossil record
begins in Africa about 6 million years ago.23 The earliest hominine fossils belonged to members of the
Ardipithicus group and date from over 6 million bce.
Later fossils from the Australopithecines date from
around 4.2 million bce. Additional fossils—Homo
habilis (2.4–1.4 million bce) and Homo erectus (1.89
million to 143,000 bce)—are associated with the
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Human Origins
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 2.1
Fossil evidence strongly supports the origins of humanity in Africa.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
19
Scholars have devoted much effort to explaining
how these African ancestors are related to humans
all over the world. There is general agreement that
early humans migrated out of Africa, and two major
theories about how that occurred. Paleoanthropologists believe that around 1.8 million bce members
of the genus H. erectus migrated out of Africa to Asia
and Europe, but they disagree on how that migration produced modern populations.
Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan
Wilson examined tiny structures in the cells
of women called mitochondria (mtDNA).24 By
examining mutations in the mitochondria of a large
number of women from all over the world, they
concluded that the San of Namibia were the likely
source of an ancestor of all of the women in the study,
somewhere between 140,000 to 280,000 years ago.
Based in part on the findings of Cann, Stoneking,
and Wilson, paleoanthropologists came to agree
that around 200,000 bce a new hominid, Homo sapiens, appeared in Africa. Then around 70,000 bce,
like H. erectus before them, H. sapiens migrated out
of Africa to Europe and Asia, and then to America.25
Hominids who look like us, i.e., H. sapiens, appeared
in many places in Europe and Asia by about 40,000
years ago and in the Americas by about 20,000 years
ago.
In the 1990s, improved scientific techniques enabled researchers to examine Y chromosomes in an
effort to find the earliest male ancestor of modern
humans. Ann Gibbons concluded that African men
had the greatest concentration of Y chromosomal
markers—twice as many markers as other groups
of men on Earth.26
While there is general agreement that the oldest
human ancestors lived in Africa, there are scientists
who argue that the earliest modern humans, H. Sapiens, developed elsewhere. In 1984, Milford Wolpoff
(1942– ), Alan Thorne (1939–2012), and Xinzhi Wu
(1928– ) first argued that H. sapiens evolved from
pockets of H. erectus in different regions of the world
at about the same time, giving rise to all humans today. Whichever two-stage model one supports, the
African origin of our genus Homo seems certain.
20
You can explore the evidence for and theories about
human origins here: http://www.actionbioscience.
org/evolution/johanson.html and can visualize
the appearance of ancient hominids here: http://
www.becominghuman.org/node/human-lineagethrough-time.
Hunter-Gatherers, Herders,
and Farmers
Some of the factors that enter into human decisions about how to obtain food include climate, level
of technology, the effort required, and the availability of alternatives. Archaeologists have concluded that humans hunted and gathered their food
throughout most of prehistory, but once farming
was invented, it replaced hunting and gathering in
every place where the conditions were right. That
was true in Africa, where humans became farmers
wherever there was enough water to grow plants
that humans can eat. In places that were too dry,
humans adopted an alternate strategy by raising
animals on plants (like grass) that humans cannot
eat. In places like the Sahara Desert that were too
dry even to grow grass, small groups of humans survived by hunting and gathering whatever was edible and trading at the desert edge to get the supplies
they needed.27
Given the wide range of climatic conditions in Africa, there were many ways to be successful at farming. In the dry plains that separate deserts from forests, a mixture of grain farming and animal herding
provided food. In regions that experienced longer
rainy seasons, tree crops and vegetables played a
larger role in local diets. In tropical regions where
water was not a problem, fruit trees, root crops,
and green leafy vegetables were more important.
Climate also determined what livestock could survive—camels did well in the desert but succumbed
to disease in moist areas, while cows could survive
in the Sahel and savanna, although they did poorly
in the forest where insect-born disease was a problem.
In the fifth century bc, the Greek historian Herodotus described the diet of the people who lived
along the Nile. Besides fish, beans, beef, and goose
flesh, he listed grains like wheat, barley, and another called spelt, and noted that they drank wine, milk,
and water. Herodotus also claimed that priests were
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
groups that include modern humans. The oldest fossils of humans who look like us, Homo sapiens, were
found in Africa and date from as early as 200,000
years ago.
forbidden to consume the most common items, like
fish and beans, and could only eat bread made from
wheat or barley, but not spelt.28 Since spelt required
less water and a shorter growing season, while beef
and geese needed land that would have otherwise
grown food for humans, Herodotus provides evidence that growing conditions made some food
more valuable than others, and the choice of food
was (in this instance) affected by social standing.
Farming differed from hunting and gathering
in another important aspect—the timing of the
work and the amount of work it took to get something to eat. Hunters and gatherers looked for food
when they were hungry and stopped when they
had enough because they had no way to store extra
food or transport it if they had to move. In contrast,
farmers remained in one place for the growing season and worked many days between planting and
harvest, yet they got nothing to eat until the harvest
was finished. When conditions were right, farmers
worked more and produced much more food, but
they also risked disaster if something went wrong
with the harvest. Even if they were successful, a
year’s worth of food made them a target for farmers
who had a bad harvest, or even hunters and gatherers who thought it was easier to steal from farmers. As a result, farmers developed defenses, like the
walled city of Segu in Mali, or trading relationships
with herders and fishermen to make their food supply more flexible.
Section II Summary


here are many different kinds of evidence
T
about prehistoric humans. They include human remains, tools, and human DNA. All
point toward the same conclusion—that the
ancestors of modern humans started out in
Africa.
Paleoanthropologists have found the oldest
fossils and tools in East Africa, dating from 6
million to 3.3 million bce respectively.
 Scientific advances in studying the human
genome have added genetic evidence to that
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
21
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Farmers developed defenses to protect their harvest, such as the walled city of Segu shown here.
here are two theories about how humans
T
who originated in Africa evolved and populated Earth. One theory holds that both H.
erectus and H. sapiens originated in Africa
before migrating outward to Europe, Asia,
and the Americas. Another theory contends
that while H. erectus originated in Africa, H.
sapiens could have evolved from pockets of

H. erectus in different regions of the world at
around the same time. Recent evidence supports the theory that H. erectus and H. sapiens migrated out of Africa to populate the
world.
W
ith a wide variety of climate zones, ancient
Africans had various means of getting the
food they needed to survive. Each method
had its advantages and risks, and humans
developed strategies to improve production
and minimize losses.
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China

derived from ancient tools and fossils. Data
analyzed from mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA support the African origins
of H. erectus and H. sapiens.
22
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
Section III
Ancient Egypt
Historians consider the invention of agriculture,
which increased and stabilized the human food supply, as the starting point for urban civilization. By
requiring people to remain in one place for the duration of a growing season, farming led humans to
settle in one place, construct durable housing, and
accumulate possessions. By making land valuable,
farming triggered disputes that led to the creation
of laws and government. By increasing the amount
of available food, farming promoted trade and allowed societies to pay for specialized professions,
such as priests, tool makers, governors, and military
leaders. Coincidentally, because all of these activities produced increasing numbers of objects and records, historians have found it much easier to learn
about urban civilizations than earlier hunter-gatherer groups.29
The earliest evidence of farming was found in
southwestern Asia and dates from around 10,000
bce. By roughly 3,000 bce there were urban civilizations located along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in present-day Iraq and along the Nile River in
modern Egypt. In Egypt, humans organized to take
advantage of the annual river floods, which resulted when the central African rainy season poured
large amounts of water into the Nile’s three major
tributaries—the Blue Nile and the Atbara River
from Ethiopia and the White Nile River from the
region that includes present-day Kenya and Uganda.
As they flowed north (i.e., downstream), the floods
eroded the land through which they passed and carried the resulting sediment (called silt) to Egypt,
depositing it along the Nile River’s banks. With plenty of water and sunshine plus fresh soil every year,
The Palette of Narmer contains images that led
historians to conclude that Upper Egypt, led by
Menes, conquered Lower Egypt.
Egyptian farming was some of the most productive
in the ancient world, able to support large populations and produce surpluses that paid for buildings,
art, education, and government.
The Nile Valley has three distinct regions. At the
mouth of the river is the Nile Delta, known in ancient history as “Lower Egypt.” It is a low, flat area
that is prone to flooding and which contains some of
the best soil in Africa, thanks to the annual floods.
To reach the delta, the Nile flows through a long
channel that winds between sandstone cliffs and
narrow floodplains, through a region known in ancient history as “Upper Egypt.” Upper Egypt ended
at the first of six major rapids known as “cataracts,”
and beyond that was the land called “Nubia” by the
Egyptians.
At first, there were many small communities
along the Nile River, but as the Sahara Desert dried
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
23
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Early African Civilizations
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 3.1
Map of the Nile River
24
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
The largest pyramid of all, Cheops, required
humans to lift stone blocks to a height of more
than four hundred feet.
Photo by Nina - Own work, CC BY 2.5,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=282496
out, population pressures along the river may have
led to warfare and centralization. A carved stone
tablet known as the “Palette of Narmer” contains
images that led historians to conclude that Upper
Egypt, led by Menes, conquered Lower Egypt. The
result was Egypt’s first centralized government,
called the “Old Kingdom,” which formed around
2686 bce. During this period, strong pharaohs exerted highly centralized authority over peasants,
using local nobles to transmit their orders from the
capital at Memphis (near modern Cairo), on the border between Upper and Lower Egypt.
The evidence for the power of the pharaohs comes
from the major archaeological finds of this period—
the great pyramids. A pyramid is a large structure
that served as a tomb for a pharaoh. It was constructed from blocks of stone weighing several tons
each that were brought to the construction site from
elsewhere in the Nile Valley. The pyramids were not
built in the valley itself—that would have taken up
valuable farm land—but on the plateau overlooking
the valley, at the edge of the desert. In a period when
there were no machines for moving heavy loads, all
of this had to be done using human muscle power.
The largest pyramid of all, Cheops, required humans
to lift stone blocks to a height of more than four hundred feet. The labor to do this came from Egyptian
farmers, and it had to occur when the farmers were
not busy farming, i.e., during the flood season. The
Nile floods begin at Cairo about June and reach their
maximum in September, during the hottest time of
the year in Egypt. It must have been difficult to keep
Pharaonic and
Post-Empire Egypt
Predynastic – c.5300–3000 bce
Early Dynastic Period
(Dynasties I–II) – c.3000–2686 bce
Old Kingdom
(Dynasties III–VIII) – 2686–2160 bce
1st Intermediate Period (Dynasties IX–XI
[Thebes only]) – 2160–2055 bce
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
farmers at work moving heavy stone blocks, and it
must have also required extensive organization to
provide food, water, and housing for a workforce
that probably numbered in the tens of thousands. All
of this leads historians to conclude that the leaders
of Old Kingdom Egypt possessed extensive power
and the means to control large numbers of people.
Middle Kingdom (Dynasties XI
[all Egypt]–XIV) – 2055–1650 bce
2nd Intermediate Period
(Dynasties XV–XVII) – 1650–1550 bce
New Kingdom
(Dynasties XVIII–XX) – 1550–1069 bce
3rd Intermediate Period
(Dynasties XXI–XXV) – 1069–664 bce
Late Period
(Dynasties XXVI–XXX) – 664–332 bce
Ptolemaic Period – 332–30 bce
Roman Period – 30 bce–395 ce
Source: Ian Shaw, ed. The Oxford History of Ancient
Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 480–483.
Pharaonic Egyptian culture flowered greatly
during the Old Kingdom and then retained much
of its characteristic style for millennia afterward.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
25
Egyptians regarded the earliest pharaohs of the
Old Kingdom as incarnations of the raven god
Horus.
Monumental building, for example, reached a peak
in about 2600–2500 bce (Dynasty IV), when some
of the most impressive pyramids were constructed
at Giza, and then continued over the next millennia.
Other art styles that emerged early in the Old Kingdom continued to influence art produced as much as
two thousand years later.
Egyptian religion underwent modifications over
time. Egyptians regarded the earliest pharaohs of
the Old Kingdom as incarnations of the raven god,
Horus. Without quite giving up this claim, later
pharaohs claimed to be god-descendants of Ra (also
spelled Re), the sun god, or Osiris, the god-ruler of
the underworld. Historians believe that the original
pharaohs came to rule over a country with a great
deal of religious diversity, with each of the small
original kingdoms having its own gods and local
priesthoods. One way to reconcile them all might
have been to establish an authoritative account that
would show them as members of a common pantheon, where one god was supreme, but all found an
honored place. Another solution that worked better
for the central authorities was not to worry about
26
Before the Middle Kingdom, Egyptian religion
and a belief in an eternal life were concerns of the
elite. Little was organized at the level of the peasants. During the Middle Kingdom, the priesthood
expanded, and with the construction of temples
more Egyptians began to share the experience of
faith, deities, and the possibilities of an afterlife.
The New Kingdom Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten, ruled about 1353–1336 bce) even attempted
to place these new developments under the auspices
of a single paramount god.30 A more communal religious experience was also expressed in perceptions
of the afterlife. In the Old Kingdom, only the pharaoh and those entombed with him could enter the
afterlife. During the New Kingdom, however, the famous Book of the Dead appeared, which described
how Egyptians generally could influence their own
afterlives.31
The pharaoh was not merely a deity; his personal
physical health was intimately associated with the
land, the harvest, and especially with the supply of
water from the Nile flood. If the pharaoh became ill,
the people expected a grim future, perhaps drought.
The linkage of the health of the ruler to the fate of
the people became common in much of Africa and
probably arose in various forms independently of
Egypt through time to justify the rise of the central
authority over emerging societies. In terms of law,
or Ma’at, people considered the pharaohs divine instruments of the universe who symbolized and carried out truth, justice, order, and harmony.
Free peasant communities formed the base of
Egyptian society, although some slaves also existed. During the Old Kingdom, which had its capital at
Memphis, no important social group stood between
the peasantry and the royal household. The entire
organization of the country, including foreign trade
and irrigation works, was in the hands of the royal household. Imagine such power! Peasants either
had their labor taxed or they worked on irrigation
projects and monumental architecture like the pyramids. Tens of thousands of people must have been
mobilized each year during the dry season to supplement or replace those freed from agriculture
during the flood season to create public works on
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
primacy among the gods, but to allow each group of
priests to go its own way so long as all recognized
that the pharaoh himself was a god-king incarnate
on earth.
After the first millennium of pharaonic rule, the
royal household became less efficient. Perhaps it
grew too big and unwieldy, or perhaps officials began to make their offices hereditary. In any case, the
centralized kingdom broke down after about 2200
bce, leading to the First Intermediate Period during
which political authority was fragmented. Several
local leaders claimed to be the god-king of all Egypt,
though none of them could make the claim stand.
Then, after c.2055 bce, centralized authority was
restored with the foundation of the Middle Kingdom,
but the rise of local power, which had begun during
the First Intermediate Period, remained. Landlords
and local priests—the new gentry—became an important intermediate group between the peasantry
and the royal household. Egypt also was no longer
as isolated by the surrounding deserts. Pharaohs
had already sent Egyptian naval expeditions down
the Red Sea to southern Arabia, Ethiopia, and the
horn of Africa at the end of the Old Kingdom. During
the Middle Kingdom, the naval expeditions became
more organized and frequent. Increased trade by
sea in the Levant (the eastern part of the Mediterranean) and overland contact with the Fertile Crescent also made Pharaonic Egypt less isolated than it
had been previously.
Up the Nile, several kingdoms of Nubia had existed during the Old Kingdom. Parts of Nubia probably
fell under Egyptian rule even before 2000 bce. The
first Nubian kingdoms were likely similar to Egypt
itself, with divine rule associated with rain, soil
fertility, and nature generally. Later on, during the
New Kingdom, Nubians adopted Egyptian gods and
hieroglyphic writing. Although not constant, the expansion of Egyptian culture into sub-Saharan Africa
continued for centuries.
Egypt’s contact with the outer world further increased during the Second Intermediate Period with
the invasion of the Hyksos. Historians are divided
as to just who the Hyksos were. One possibility is
that they were chariot-riding warriors who swept
down and conquered Egypt, as similar charioteers
had recently conquered Mesopotamia. Yet they also
could have simply been immigrants from Asia who
infiltrated and then rose more slowly to power with-
Pharaoh Akhenaten (center) and his family
worshiping the Aten, the supreme god.
in Egypt. In any event, the Hyksos ruled most of the
Nile delta while native Egyptians continued to rule
over Upper Egypt. Whatever their political role, the
Hyksos brought new Asian influences and technologies, including military chariots, bronze metallurgy, textile manufactures, musical instruments, olive
trees, and new breeds of cattle.
The New Kingdom began after c.1550 bce when
an Egyptian dynasty reunited Egypt. Although the
Hyksos may have assimilated into the Egyptian
population, increased foreign contact continued.
Several Egyptian armies invaded the Fertile Crescent. After 1500 bce Egypt seemed on the verge of
uniting all urban societies of the Middle East, much
as Rome later united the Mediterranean world. At
some period in the New Kingdom, Egypt did succeed
in ruling Nubia almost as far as the rainfall region
of what is now South Sudan. The growing power of
other states, however, thwarted Egyptian expansion.
After 1069 bce, a series of Asian powers succeeded each other as rulers in Egypt. The Hittites from
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
27
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
the vast scale of those that remain. This was a testament to the organizational skills of the leadership of
the Old Kingdom.
Anatolia (located in present-day Turkey), then the
Assyrians (roughly present-day northern Iraq between the Tigris and the Euphrates), and finally the
Persians conquered Egypt. In 332 bce, Alexander of
Macedonia brought Egypt under his rule. Other foreigners founded Egyptian dynasties, including Libyans from the west (people ancestral to the present-day Tuareg of the Sahara) and Egyptianized
Nubians from the south.
Well before the end of the New Kingdom, foreign
elements had strongly influenced Egyptian life and
art. Iron metallurgy came in from Anatolia. Thus,
even before the Ptolemaic rule of Egypt, foreign
cultures had already paved the way for Greek influences that would pull Egypt into the intercommunicating Hellenistic world of the Mediterranean and
the Middle East. After approximately two thousand
years, the relative stability, isolation, power, and
creative glory of the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms
of Pharaonic Egypt had passed.
West African Empires
Nilotic Egypt had the river as its lifeline and adjacent fertile land, which was replenished annually
by floods, but west of the Nile River, northern Afri-
28
ca has no major rivers, and rainfall is sparse except
along the southern coast. As a result, when large
states formed in West Africa, they were based on
the control of revenue from long-distance trade. The
rise of ancient Ghana, the first of the “savanna empires,” did not begin until several centuries after the
age of Pharaonic Egypt had ended. West Africans
did not have a written language that was comparable to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Thus, our knowledge
of ancient Ghana from before 900 ce is based on archaeology, linguistics, and indirect evidence. From
900 to 1300 ce, Arabic written sources and the
earliest oral traditions increase our understanding
of ancient Ghana. After 1300, accounts from Portuguese and other European traders sailing along the
coasts of the Gulf of Guinea—and from visitors like
Ibn Battuta who went to Mali in 1352–3 and Leo
Africanus, who visited Songhay several times—
provide written records of the African societies
they encountered. After 1600, oral traditions that
are more detailed and some written records compiled by Africans assist historians. Written sources,
however, are spotty; the written historical record of
some areas of West Africa from 1000 to 1500 has
significant gaps. Clearly, there is much we do not
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The Hyksos may have been chariot-riding warriors who swept down and conquered Egypt or could
have simply been immigrants from Asia who infiltrated and then rose more slowly to power within Egypt.
West Africans and North Africans created a network of trade routes on either side of the Sahara,
but there were only a few ways to travel across the
desert. Usually Berbers acted as intermediaries between the two groups. The exchange of gold for salt
was one of the most important transactions. Sources of West African gold came from three separate
fields, but no West African empire was ever able to
control all three: Bambuk between the Senegal and
Faleme Rivers, Bure near the upper Niger River, and
Akan in the forest and savanna of present-day Ghana (which led Europeans to call the adjacent coastline the Gold Coast). It must be noted, however, that
the eastern region of West Africa had a trade route
Figure 3.2
north from Kanem-Bornu to Tripoli that involved
no significant amounts of gold.33 Instead, caravan
merchants traded in slaves, salt, and weapons.
The West African commercial empires of Ghana,
Mali, and Songhay strove to control the trans-Saharan trade, which took place at transshipment
points located in the desert fringe areas (Sahel).
By providing a safe place for traders from different
regions to find each other, rulers could charge taxes, and traders could make shorter, more numerous
trading trips, thus increasing profits. The danger of
commercial travel in the desert was left to Tamahaq-speaking desert dwellers called Tuareg, who
transported goods through the Sahara. Each West
African empire provided a vital extension to the
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
know.32
Early African Trade Routes
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
29
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 3.3
Ghana Empire c.1050
30
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
commercial trade of North Africa, and much West
African gold ended up as currency in Europe.34
One of West Africa’s greatest dynasties—that of ancient Mali—would soon fill this vacuum in power.
Ghana, the first West African commercial empire,
was bounded by the Senegal River Valley, the upper
Niger River Valley, and the Sahara Desert in what is
today Mali and southern Mauritania, about a thousand miles northwest of the present-day country of
Ghana. Ghana’s terrain in the Sahel was predominantly grassland, and its major transshipment point
was Kumbi-Saleh. Many of its inhabitants were Iron
Age farmers under the rule of a local chief. The major
ethnic group and rulers of Ghana were the Soninke.
Over time, local rulers were integrated into a more
centralized administration that ultimately evolved
into imperial Ghana.
With the Saharan trade in chaos, it was natural
that someone would seek to restore order and take
control. The next Sahel empire was founded by Malinke herders from the area between the Senegal
and Niger Rivers. More is known about the Mali Empire than ancient Ghana, in part because the story
of its founder, Sundiata (also spelled Sunjata) Keïta,
is still told to this day in West Africa and has been
published in numerous translations.
A major catalyst for Ghana’s growth was the gold
that was mined from one of the richest goldfields in
Africa—Bambuk. Soninke merchants bought gold
from the Wangara of Bambuk, who live in present-day Senegal and the Gambia, and often transported it via the Tuareg from transshipment points
like Awdughast, Timbuktu, and Gao north toward
another transshipment point in contemporary Morocco, and from there goods were distributed across
North Africa as far as the Mediterranean coast.
In the desert between Sijilmasa and Ghana was
Taghaza, the location of great quantities of salt deposited during the evaporation of an ancient Saharan sea. As astonishing as it may sound today, the
people of ancient Ghana occasionally traded gold for
salt in equal weight. If we put this in perspective,
however, consider the necessity of salt in one’s diet
and its food preservation value. After acquiring it
from Ghana, North Africans traded gold throughout
the Mediterranean world. Other Ghanaian exports
included ivory, ostrich feathers, hides, leather, and
slaves. In return, traders in Ghana took a variety of
goods, especially weapons, textiles, horses, and salt.
In 1042 ce, Muslim Sanhaja Berbers known as
the Almoravids, who over the centuries had traded with Ghana, became Ghana’s enemies and took
control of the transshipment points. For a time they
ruled Ghana as a province of an empire that reached
into central Spain, but Ghana recovered some of its
independence within fifty years. Ghana fell for the
last time in 1203 ce to the Sosso from farther south.
Mali
Sundiata Keïta
Both Sundiata Keïta and his epic are exceptional in West African history. Sundiata is credited in
oral tradition with founding Mali, the West African
Malinke empire that succeeded ancient Ghana, although some of its earliest origins date to about 900
under the Keïtas, who were the ancestors of Sundiata. Mali, or “Mallel,” as found in Arabic literature by
the 800s ce, means “where the king resides.”35 Sundiata defeated the conquerors of Ghana, the Sosso,
at the Battle of Krina in 1235 and ruled Mali from
1235–55.
The Epic of Sundiata
Griots, who inherit their vocations as oral historians and who give performances, often accompanied by drums and koras, have theatrically
conveyed Sundiata’s life and accomplishments for
some eight hundred years.36 There are several versions of the Sundiata epic, including an entertaining and educational film, Keïta: The Heritage of the
Griot, although the film only considers Sundiata’s
life until his exile in his twenties.37 Themes in the
epic and film include the importance of lineage,
destiny, prophecy, Islam, traditional African religion, perseverance, right action, and the tension
between tradition and modernity.
From the Gambian and Senegalese river estuaries to the famous trading cities of Timbuktu and Gao
on the Niger River, the Mande-speakers of Mali built
their power on gold extracted from Bambuk and a
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
31
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Ghana
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 3.4
Mali Empire
32
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
new goldfield at Bure, which produced perhaps twothirds of the world’s production at the time. Working
with peoples in the Soninke, Kassonke, and Futanke language groups, Ancient Mali traded gold across
the Sahara to Sijilmasa and Taghaza.38
Ancient Mali was located further south than the
more arid Ghana. Mali’s farmers grew sorghum (a
grass plant that looks somewhat like corn and from
which molasses is derived), millet (another grass
plant from which cereal is made), and rice. From this
southern center of power, some distance from the
fringes of the Sahara, the Mande-speakers of Mali
spread Islam further than their North African Muslim trader predecessors.39 Those who led this process were the successors of Sundiata, the Mansas
(kings) of the Keïta clan.
Mansa Musa and Mansa Kaw
The most famous ruler of Mali after Sundiata
was Mansa (king or emperor) Musa (ruled 1312–37
ce), who is noted for his hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca)
in 1324 ce. According to Egyptian sources, Mansa
Musa’s hajj caravan of 60,000 porters included five
hundred servants dressed in gold and with staffs of
gold, and he spent so much gold that the precious
metal’s market price fell and did not recover for over
twelve years.40 As historian Ross Dunn stated, “In
the history of medieval West Africa no single incident has been more celebrated. Indeed the hajj of
Mansa Musa sums up Mali’s important place among
the kingdoms of Africa and Asia in Ibn Battuta’s
time.”41
More significant than tales of gold, Mansa Musa
promoted Islam; he financed the construction of
many mosques, including the Great Mosques of Gao
and Timbuktu, the transcription of Qur’ans, and Islamic scholarship by surrounding himself with Muslim teachers. Some of these scholars were foreigners
who had followed him back to Mali. Timbuktu became a major center of Islamic scholarship in West
Africa. Mansa Musa was well remembered for his
wealth, generosity, and good manners. Indeed, Ar-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
33
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Depiction of Mansa Musa sitting on a throne and holding a gold coin.
Mansa Musa’s predecessor, Mansa Kaw, also deserves mention because there are sources which
suggest that he may have financed a fleet of some
two thousand ships that sailed west to explore the
Atlantic Ocean. They never returned, but Mali’s
greatness has encouraged scholars to seek its connection with other epic historical events including
the crossing of the Atlantic by ship. Some scholars
speculate that Mende-speaking West Africans from
Mali made it to the New World about two hundred
years before Columbus.42
Ibn Battuta and Mali
Ibn Battuta (1304–69), who some consider the
Marco Polo (1254–1324) of Islam, visited Mali after
traveling through and working in the Muslim world
between Morocco and perhaps China and certainly India from 1325 to 1351.43 Ibn Battuta visited
Mali from February 1352 to December 1353, about
fifteen years after Mansa Musa died.44 Ibn Battuta
headed south from Tangier to Sijilmasa and joined
a caravan headed to Timbuktu.45
Along the way, Ibn Battuta described the trade
based on dromedaries, single-humped camels,
which were used to carry loads in the desert as early
as the 100s ce. A typical caravan would begin before
dawn and travel until it became too hot, at which
time the camels would be unloaded and awnings
stretched over the animals and men to protect them
from the harsh sun. As the sun receded, the caravan would set out again and continue until nightfall
whereupon they would set up camp.46
Whatever route traders took across the desert,
danger was never far. Even the veteran traveler Ibn
Battuta fell seriously ill for several months in Mali.
Ibn Battuta also commented on Tuareg he met as
“good for nothing,” perhaps because they did not
practice Islam according to his standards.47 On the
eve of the voyage of Christopher Columbus to the
New World and Europe’s Christian Reformation, the
heyday of Mali was coming to an end, but the next
Great West African empire—Songhay—was on the
rise.
34
Songhay
Although Mali continued to exist into the 1800s
as a small state, control of the desert trade passed
to Songhay (1450–1591 ce), whose people traced
their origins back to the 600s ce. Its rise to power began with the imperial policies of its founding
king Sonni Ali (?–1492), who from his base of Gao
conquered Timbuktu in 1468. Within a year after
the death of Sonni Ali, Mohammed Askia (?–1537)
seized power in a coup. During his rule, he expanded the borders of Songhay, reorganized its government, and reformed Islam. Unlike the Mande of Mali,
however, the Songhay ethnic group was a minority
in a multi-ethnic state. Their center of power was
at their capital, Gao, about three hundred miles due
east of Timbuktu on the northern bend of the Niger
River, and the Songhay practiced Islam as their faith.
Songhay eventually stretched from the coast along
the Gambia River to the Niger River in the south, to
Katsina and Agades to the east, and to Taghaza in
the north.
As with Ghana and Mali, Songhay’s power was
based on trade, especially gold. Other exports included ostrich feathers, slaves, ebony (a hard black
wood), and ivory. Imports included copper, iron,
brass, sword blades, salt, and cloth. The rulers of
Songhay enhanced Timbuktu as a center of Islamic
studies by establishing a Muslim university in the
city. Muslims from as far away as Arabia studied
there.
The historian Leo Africanus (al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi) has left a good written
account of Songhay. A Moor (Spanish Muslim) born
into nobility in Grenada (c.1485–c.1554), Leo Africanus later traveled widely in Arabia and North Africa. He visited Songhay several times, perhaps as
early as 1509 and as late as 1515. In about 1518, pirates captured him on his way back from Egypt to
Spain, and then gave him to Pope Leo X as a present.
The pontiff freed him and convinced him to convert
to Christianity whereupon the new Catholic took
the pope’s name. Pope Leo X gave Leo Africanus a
stipend and encouraged him to write. Leo Africanus
added a knowledge of Latin and Greek to his mastery of Arabic.
Leo Africanus first wrote his Description of Africa in Arabic (now lost) and later in Latin (1526).
In this text he described life in Songhay.48 He noted
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
abic scholars give more recognition to Mansa Musa
than to Sundiata, the founder of Mali, because Musa
did so much to promote Islam in Mali.
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 3.5
African Empires and Trade Routes
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
35
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 3.6
Songhay (also spelled Songhai) Empire
36
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
The end of Songhay came suddenly in 1591 when a
vastly outnumbered Moroccan army began to cross
the Sahara in an offensive against Songhay. Though
the Moroccans were outnumbered, they had the significant advantage of gunpowder technology in the
form of cannons and an early form of rifle called the
arquebus. In the Battle of Tondibi just outside Gao,
some 4,000 Moroccans defeated 18,000 cavalry and
9,000 infantry fighting for Songhay and then sacked
Gao and Timbuktu.50 Thus, the last of the three major West African empires ended just as the Atlantic
slave trade was about to significantly expand.
Ghana, Mali, and Songhay had several common
characteristics. Their power depended on regulating trade north across the desert. Much of that trade
also relied on access to at least one of West Africa’s
three major gold fields of Bambuk, Bure, and Akan.
All three empires affected Mediterranean economies to the north. Third, their rulers demanded only
allegiance and tribute, which meant control from
the center was rather loose. Finally, Africans inside
the empires largely retained their West African
cultures while becoming part of the Islamic world.
The effect of Islam on ordinary people varied, but
the rulers and their advisors were usually Muslims.
Thus, Islam helped solidify state power.
Kanem-Bornu
Although it was not directly linked to the three
western empires, a similar state developed in the
vicinity of Lake Chad. About a thousand miles east
of the Timbuktu-Sijilmasa caravan route was another north-south route across the Sahara. Once loaded with Bilma salt, the Tuareg headed south to the
land of the Hausa in northern Nigeria to trade salt
for Hausa goods before returning to their locations
across the desert after traveling some 1,500 miles.
For centuries, Tuareg have carried out a similar car-
avan trade with the Saharan oasis and salt depository of Bilma, located about 350 miles north of Lake
Chad.
The north-south Saharan trade provided the
revenue that sustained the kingdom of Kanem, located northeast of Lake Chad. Kanem was founded
by pastoral clans from the Sahel who converted to
Islam by the eleventh century. Although they had
no access to gold like the empires to the west, they
controlled a much shorter trade route to the Mediterranean coast. By raiding non-Muslim Bantu from
further south, Kanem obtained a supply of human
slaves whom they brought on a long march across
the desert to the Libyan coast, where they were
exchanged for horses (and later guns), which were
used in war to capture more slaves.
Kanem reached the height of its power from 1210
to 1248 under Mai Dunama Dibalami and then began to decline. Bornu—a state south of Lake Chad,
which made tribute payments to Kanem—rose to
take its place in the fourteenth century. After a civil
war forced the leaders of Kanem to flee to Bornu, it
became independent and served as a launching pad
for the reconquest of Kanem. By the fifteenth century, Bornu was the capital of a revived Kanem-Bornu,
and was strengthened by its ability to attract gold
traders from Akan. It remained powerful for nearly
two centuries after the fall of Songhay, but declined
after desert Tuareg armed with guns seized control
of the Bilma salt mines in the 1750s.51
Other Types of African States
Throughout Africa—and indeed throughout all
human history—the basis for state formation involved an exchange between leaders and followers.
Leaders provided law, security, and organization for
their followers, in exchange for the means needed to
operate the state. For example, in our modern-day
nation, people pay taxes (the “means”), which pay
for the army, the police, judges, people who inspect
our food, and so on. In the savanna states like Ghana
and Mali, traders paid for access to transshipment
points, which enabled them to trade more profitably,
while others paid for access to the goods brought
there by traders.
Much of what we think of as taxation took the
form of gift-giving and doing favors, and there were
many different ways for people to participate. For
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
37
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
that societies in Timbuktu and Gao had a few very
wealthy rulers and merchants while the vast majority of the populace was very poor. Women covered
their faces with a veil. Corn, cattle, milk, and butter
were available, but salt was scarce. The king maintained doctors, judges, and Muslim clerics at his own
expense. The coin of Timbuktu was unmarked gold,
but for small transactions, cowrie shells from Persia were used like coins. The king greatly promoted
the creation and sale of manuscripts, as had Mansa
Musa before him.49
teenth-century Zulu of southern Africa took this
approach to its highest level, creating a state that,
for a time, was able to prevent Europeans from conquering their land.
Sketch of Zulu King Shaka (1781–1828) from 1824.
For a time, the nineteenth-century Zulu of southern
Africa were able to prevent Europeans from
conquering their land.
example, in central Africa the Luba people occupied
an area that produced valuable minerals, so other
groups gave them presents in exchange for the right
to extract minerals. At some point in their history,
members of other groups married members of the
Luba, creating a new form of exchange—wedding
presents and favors owed to members of one’s family. Over time, those marriage networks expanded to
cover much of the Congo River basin and extended
south into present-day Angola.
Other groups formed around the herding of cattle, which took place in areas that were too dry for
farming. As a means to accumulate wealth, cattle
and other livestock are unique because they produce more cattle when they breed, and humans can
get food from them without killing them. Thus, a
cattle herd was a source of wealth that increased
over time, and the ability to give cattle as presents provided a way to attract followers. The nine-
38
Long before the Zulu were a powerful force, the
Shona of southern Africa had created a state based
on cattle that became powerful enough to control
the trade route between the Indian Ocean coast and
gold mines near the Zambezi River. As their power
increased even further, the Shona constructed Great
Zimbabwe (also known as the “house of stone”)
beginning around the eleventh century.52 It is comprised of three parts. The most impressive part is
the oval shaped Great Enclosure with walls skillfully constructed without mortar some thirty feet
high that likely enclosed the residence of the king.
The second section is the so-called Acropolis from
which the king could address subjects in the valley
below. The stone dwellings of the residents made up
the third section of Great Zimbabwe. Since the late
nineteenth century, teams of amateur and professional archaeologists have found evidence linking
Great Zimbabwe to international trade carried out
by the Swahili some 250 miles due east on the coast.
Section III Summary

ased on the Nile River and screened from
B
outsiders by distance and deserts, pharaonic
Egypt lasted for about two thousand years.
Major themes in its existence included advances in agriculture, especially irrigation,
writing, engineering, commerce, and a re-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The ruins of Great Zimbabwe

The first great West African empire was Gha
na. It amassed enormous wealth by taxing
trade between the desert to the north and
the savanna to the south, especially the exchange of salt for gold. That wealth financed
alliances based on tribute that formed the
basis of Ghana’s power until Muslim Almoravids from the north, who sought control of
Ghana’s gold trade and conversion of its population to Islam, overthrew the empire in
1042 ce.
The second great West African empire was
Mali, whose foundation is memorialized in
the Epic of Sundiata. Mali extended further
south than Ghana, allowing it access to more
fertile lands and more trade goods. Mali’s rulers, called Mansas, encouraged the spread of
Islam. One of Mali’s most notable rulers was
Mansa Musa, who gained great fame for his
generosity, his promotion of Islamic scholarship, and his hajj to Mecca.
 T
he third great West African empire, Songhay, also taxed the commercial activities
of caravans as they left or returned from
Taghaza and Sijilmasa. Like its predecessors,
Songhay was influenced by Islam brought
from the north, but because it existed later, it
also felt the influence of changes in Europe,
notably the spread of firearms, which played
a role in its conquest.
 A
lthough ancient African empires’ sparse
population and relative wealth meant that
Africans experienced less insecurity than
contemporaneous Europeans or Asians,
throughout Africa there are examples of
individuals and families who attracted followers and solidified their authority by the
ritual exchange of tributary gifts. One of the
most impressive, and most puzzling to Europeans, was Great Zimbabwe, whose leaders
used access to livestock—and later, access to
gold—as a means to attract followers. Others, like the Luba of central Congo, created
states via intermarriage.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
39
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China

ligion that promised either reward or punishment. As the centuries passed and Egypt
became less isolated, the absolute power of
pharaohs declined. Egypt was eventually
conquered by various foreign powers, including Alexander the Great.
Section IV
Traditional African Religion
The essential beliefs of Africans who follow traditional religion acknowledge God as the all-powerful
creator of both humanity and a universe infinite in
space and time. Within that universe humans are
brought into existence by a process started by God,
and pass through stages that correspond to Western ideas of infancy, childhood, adulthood, maturity,
death, and ancestry. Each stage puts an individual
closer to the creator, and thus ancestors serve as intermediaries to the creator and elders as intermediaries to the ancestors. For this reason, humans are
defined by their ancestors, and the past offers the
explanation for how the present came to be. Individuals also believe in intermediate deities with whom
they communicate. Sometimes traditional healers
acquire the power to become intermediaries.
Just as they caricatured African history, Western
academics and missionaries misconstrued traditional African religion. Without understanding its
nature, they often described traditional African religion as “primitive” and “savage.”53 Two of the first
African scholars to challenge such misconceptions
were John Mbiti (b.1931) and Bolaji Idowu (1913–
93). Both became Christian ministers—Anglican
and Methodist respectively. They shattered many
Eurocentric notions about traditional African religion.54
Although Eurocentrists characterized traditional
African religion as shallow, believers are often more
religious than either Muslims or Christians, the continent’s two majority religions. This is because traditional African religion, older than both Islam and
Christianity, permeates all components of African
40
Religious philosopher and writer John Mbiti
was one of the first scholars to challenge the
Western perception of traditional African religion as
“primitive” and “savage.”
life. In traditional African religion, there is no formal distinction between the sacred and the secular,
between the religious and non-religious, and between the material and spiritual areas of life.
To paraphrase the ideas of Mbiti, traditional African religions are not primarily for the individual,
but for the community of which a person is a part.
To be human is to belong to the whole community
and participate in the beliefs, rituals, and festivals
of that community. When Africans leave the village
for the city and abandon their religion, they can
suffer severe strain since this detaches them from
their religious foundation. Contrast this with Christianity and Islam, which require Africans to attend
a church or mosque once a week and can be readily
practiced outside one’s village. Interestingly, many
African converts to these faiths revert to their traditional beliefs in times of crisis.55
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Traditional African
Religion, Islam, and Christianity
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Gye Nyame (God’s Omnipotence)
The Ghanaian stamp above illustrates the importance of God in all matters in traditional African
religion. Gye Nyame also translates as “Except for God,” which means, for example, that nothing is
perfect, “Except for God.” Accompanied by Asante Kente cloth surrounding the Adinkra symbol,
this stamp demonstrates the power of a creator God in the traditional African religion of the Akan
people.56 While pervasive in Ghana, Gye Nyame can also convey Asante-centric views of superiority
over other Africans. The symbol came to be associated with the extension of the Asante’s hegemony
over other ethnic groups that began in the 1600s.
Followers of traditional African religion have neither sacred scriptures nor missionaries. Religion is
instead written in people’s hearts and minds and
is transmitted via oral histories and rituals and by
religious specialists, such as priests, rainmakers,
officiating elders, and kings. To understand African
traditional religion, one needs to know not only the
beliefs concerning God and the spirits, but also the
religious journey of the individual from birth to after physical death and the beliefs of the persons responsible for formal rituals and ceremonies.57
The conveyance of traditional African religion is
usually through participation in communal rituals,
which are often accompanied by drums. It is believed
that the beat and sound of the drums help those par-
ticipating in the ritual to gain access to knowledge
hidden within the spirit world—to seek answers to
pressing individual or communal questions. Sometimes the purpose of the ritual is to call upon a deity
or ancestral spirit to provide the knowledge sought.
Another form of communicating with the spirit
world of deities and ancestors is through divination. The means to carry out the ritual vary, but a
common one is “throwing the cowries.” The diviner
will toss cowrie shells and then interpret the way
they fall as a means for predicting the future or recommending certain courses of action.
Traditional African art is functional and is often
related to religion. Unlike artists in the West who
create objects to provoke admiration or intellectu-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
41
Followers face the past more fully than the present, for instead of an eternal life of bliss or damnation, those who have died take on existence as the
“living departed.” They cling as long as possible
to this world by living in the minds of their family and close friends. If libations or sacrifices of remembrance are not maintained, then the “living departed” are forced to enter a state of non-existence.
Those not yet in that stage resent being pushed
toward it. Families who do not carry out forms of
remembrance risk the “living departed” expressing
their displeasure by bringing illness or misfortune
on the family. Thus, time is two-dimensional; that
is, there is a past and present but no distant future.
About two years is as far forward as traditional African words express.
With cowrie shell divination, the diviner will toss
cowrie shells and then interpret the way they fall as
a means for predicting the future or recommending
certain courses of action.
al engagement, traditional African art is created to
carry out some kind of purpose. Sometimes its function is secular—an earring or fly whisk, for example.
Other times its function is religious. Intricate masks
and intimidating figures are often used in religious
rituals to call upon the spirits to intercede.58
Followers of traditional African religion believe
in the continuation of life after death. Unlike Christians and Muslims, this belief does not constitute a
hope for a future and a better life. To live in the hereand-now on Earth is the most important concern of
African religious activities and beliefs. Heaven and
hell are nonexistent. A person’s soul does not long
for redemption or for closer contact with God in
the next world. There is no savior who might bring
42
Paradoxically, when a person dies, he or she enters a state of personal immortality that lies not in
the future, but in the past. Thus, marriage and having children to perpetuate honoring one’s memory
are very important, as you will remain in the present through their efforts. The “living departed” only
become completely dead when the last person who
knew him or her also dies. At that point, the “living
departed” enter the state of collective immortality
and become members of the community of spirits.
This is the final destination between God and the
living.
With such a spiritual foundation, it was logical
that religion played a major role in encounters between Africans and outsiders. The two religions that
have had the greatest impact on Africa (as they have
in other parts of the world) are Islam and Christianity. Both are similar in their concept of a universal
creator, which traditional African religion also recognizes. But Islam and Christianity both claim to be
universal (i.e., not related to any particular person
or place) and for the most part they reject the idea of
intermediaries between humans and the creator. In
addition, both Islam and Christianity became ideologies of empires, so their effect on Africa was political as well as spiritual.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
about a radical reversal of a human’s earthly life.
There is no ethical-spiritual relationship between
humans and God. Human acts of worship and turning to God are pragmatic and utilitarian rather than
spiritual or mystical. Traditional African religious
practitioners see God as the creator who then largely steps aside.
Muhammad came from a prestigious tribe and
clan, the Quraysh and Hashim respectively. After
his parents died early in his life, Muhammad lived
first with his grandfather and then with his uncle
Abu Talib (?–619). He learned about camels, caravans, Bedouins, and probably traveled to Jerusalem
and Damascus to buy and sell goods. Muhammad
remained illiterate his entire life. While he could not
read or write, he had enormous talents in diplomacy
and assessing human character and had outstanding judgment. The stories about his life are called
hadith, and they form part of the foundation of Islam that directs the lives of Muslims—much in the
way that Christians attempt to live by the example
of the life of Jesus. Also like Christians with their bible, Muslims have sacred literature called the Qur’an,
which they believe is made up entirely of revelations
from Allah (God) to Muhammad conveyed through
the Archangel Gabriel.
Dogon ceremonial mask. Intricate masks and
intimidating figures are often used in religious
rituals to call upon the spirits to intercede.
Photo by Ferdinand Reus from Arnhem, Holland - Pays Dogon, CC BY-SA
2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3249564
Islam in Africa
North Africa
Early Islam, Bilal, Axum, and Al-Azhar
Islam, along with Judaism and Christianity, is one
of three great monotheistic religions attributed to
the patriarch Abraham of Ur. Approximately onefifth of the world’s population is Muslim. About two
out of five Africans are Muslim. Much of the history
of Africa has been shaped by followers of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad ibn Abdallah (c.570–632
ce) of Mecca, a city which was famous as a religious
and trading city prior to Muhammad’s birth. Mecca’s
rectangular shrine of the Ka’bah housed some 360
manifestations of various gods and goddesses of
Muhammad was around forty years old before he
received his first revelations, which called the Arabs back to one God and to abandon the false gods
they had come to revere. Part of Muhammad’s early message was presented as beliefs Meccans had
once cherished but had lost through the years—this
was symbolized by the Ka’bah, which had once been
dedicated to God but prior to the birth of Muhammad had become desecrated with some 360 gods
and goddesses. In that sense, Muhammad was a conservative advocating a return to tradition.
Another view of Muhammad, given his respect
for and treatment of women, was that he was an
advocate for women’s rights. Although opposed by
the Meccans, Muhammad ended female infanticide
and the Arab practice of a man marrying as many
women as he pleased. Muhammad effectively enforced marrying one woman, unless a man could
provide up to four wives with equal provisions and
affections. From a Muslim perspective, the improved
treatment of women came from Allah—Muhammad
was only the messenger. Muslims believe that is the
miracle of the Qur’an—they believe that it is made
up not of Muhammad’s words, but those of God.
Meccans were troubled by Muhammad’s demand
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
43
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
the practitioners of traditional Arab religion, which
adherents placed inside the Ka’bah during their annual pilgrimage held simultaneously with an annual trade fair.59 The Ka’bah is still used today by pilgrims to Mecca.
Photo by Tab59 - Flickr: Mosquée Masjid el Haram à la Mecque, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25697057
that they must be charitable. Who was Muhammad,
largely outside the power structure and illiterate,
to tell them what to do? What especially troubled
them was Muhammad’s insistence on the reality of
one unseen God. If Arabs came to believe this, what
would become of Mecca’s fame? Pilgrims might stop
bringing sacred objects representing their gods to
Mecca and the Ka’bah. The religious leaders of Mecca came to perceive Muhammad as a danger to Mecca’s prestige and wealth. Thus, Muhammad’s message was an economic threat to Mecca’s established
order. In some ways, the life of Muhammad brings
to mind Socrates who fought similar battles and
who was executed for them a thousand years earlier. Both challenged tradition and were accused of
corrupting youth and of believing in false religions.
While Muhammad did not lose his life as Socrates
did, Muhammad suffered greatly from Meccan op-
44
position. His life and mission were in doubt many
times.
Meccan persecution eventually forced the Muslims to migrate to Yathrib in 622, which soon afterward was renamed Medina, or City of the Prophet.
Shortly after arriving in Medina, Muhammad and
his followers built the first mosque, gave the first
call to prayer, and formed their congregation. Subsequent Meccan efforts to overthrow Muhammad’s
power failed. In 630, Muhammad and about 10,000
Muslims took control of Mecca against little opposition and cleansed the Ka’bah of its many gods and
goddesses.
The Umayyads, who were Muhammad’s powerful Meccan enemies and his distant relations, converted to Islam once Muhammad took the city. They
eventually created the first great Muslim caliphate
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The Ka’bah is still used today by pilgrims to Mecca.
Over time the Muslims continued to argue over
who was qualified to be caliph and thus split into
two sects, the Sunni—people of the tradition—and
the Shia—followers of Ali (601–661), cousin and
son-in-law of Muhammad. To sum this split up in
the briefest of terms: those who argued that any
rightly guided Muslim could be caliph were called
Sunni; those who claimed one had to be descended directly from Ali and Muhammad’s daughter
Fatimah (604–632) came to be called Shia. Until
about 941 ce, those we call Shia today had their
own caliphs, called Imams.60 With the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi
(c.868–c.941), perhaps in a house after leading a funeral procession at the age of five, the Shia began to
rely on spiritual leaders who were later called Ayatollahs, a term which came into frequent use during
the twentieth century. The Shia believe Muhammad
al-Mahdi remained alive and usually unseen in occultation until he was about seventy years old. Iran
is the best-known country today whose population
is largely Shia. Today, about 85 percent of Muslims
in the world are Sunni of various sects and schools
of law.
There are two important connections between
Africa and Islam during the life of Muhammad. The
first concerns the flight to Axum, Ethiopia (Abyssinia) of Muslims persecuted by Meccan leaders,
which predated the migration to Yathrib/Medina.61
Around 613 ce, the Abyssinian Negus (king) granted Muslims sanctuary. This kindness generated a
tradition that promotes eternal friendship between
the Ethiopian Coptic Christians and Muslims.
While that relationship has not always been peaceful, Muhammad explicitly encouraged Muslims to
respect Abyssinians.
A second important connection between Africa
and early Islam involves one of Muhammad’s companions from Mecca, Bilal ibn Rabah (580–640),
whose mother was an Ethiopian slave. As the first
muezzin (caller to prayer) of the followers of Mu-
An Islamic miniature depicting Bilal giving the
call to prayer.
hammad, some Muslims cite Bilal as proof that there
is no “race” in Islam, that all Muslims are as equal
in the eyes of God as the teeth in a comb. There are
claims that Bilal’s descendants migrated to West Africa and established the Keïta clan that gave rise to
Sundiata and the empire of Mali.62
When Muslim armies began to expand the ummah (community of Muslims) beyond the Arabian
Desert soon after the death of Muhammad in 632 ce,
the same Meccan leader who had tried to retrieve
Muslims from the Negus of Axum led the successful
invasion of Egypt in 640 ce. Amr ibn al-As (585–
664) created the city of Fustat (“City of the Tents”),
which became the Muslim capital of Egypt before
Cairo emerged. Africa’s second oldest mosque and
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
45
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
(empire led by the successor to Muhammad). What
they could not do outside Islam—maintain their
power—they did from within. Later accused of corruption and overthrown by the Abbasids (named
after one of Muhammad’s uncles) in 750 ce, the
Umayyads were able to retain control over a separate caliphate in Spain.
to the depth of Islam in West Africa and to the understanding of history worldwide.
A statue of Ibn Khaldun, the most famous Muslim
historian, stands in his native Tunis.
oldest university, Al-Azhar, was founded in approximately 970 by the Fatimids, a Muslim Shia group
who named themselves after Muhammad’s daughter and established the Fatimid Caliphate with its
capital at Cairo. When Sunni control of Egypt was
restored after the Crusades, Al-Azhar University
became the academic home to both Sufi and Sunni
Islam. Arguably the most celebrated Muslim university in the world, Al-Azhar retains its distinction
as both a secular educational institution and a religious mosque.63
The most famous Muslim historian, largely unknown to the West until the nineteenth century,
was for part of his life a teacher at Al-Azhar. Ibn
Khaldun (1332–1406) (Abu Zayd ‘Abdu r-Rahman
bin Muhammad bin Khaldun Al-Hadrami) wrote the
first world history text from a Muslim perspective.
His interpretation of a series of Muslim invasions
across North Africa over the centuries supported the theory that history works in cycles. Arnold
Toynbee (1889–1975), the famous British historian
who also believed in the cyclic interpretation of history, employed the ideas of Ibn Khaldun. When one
considers the rise and fall of civilizations as a way to
understand the past—as the Mayans of Mesoamerica did—Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah (Introduction
to Universal History) must now routinely be taken
into consideration.64 The intellectual influences of
Ibn Khaldun and Al-Azhar have significantly added
46
The initial expansion of Islam into Africa in the
seventh century ce took place at a time when the
Byzantine Empire controlled the Mediterranean,
and assorted warlords controlled Western Europe.
By the following century there was a military stalemate, so subsequent expansion took place more
slowly by peaceful means. Traders who followed the
desert routes south to Ghana, Mali, Songhay, and Kanem brought their values and beliefs with them, and
some found that Islam—with its belief in ethical behavior and literacy—was a useful adjunct to trade.
African leaders also recognized the advantage that
employing Muslim scholars brought to administration, and gradually Islam spread south of the Sahara into the Sahel. The most dramatic evidence was
the hajj of Mansa Musa to Mecca mentioned in the
previous section, but many ordinary Africans also
adopted Muslim beliefs.
The process was not always smooth. For many
Africans, Islam was something that could be “added” to traditional religious beliefs by acknowledging Allah as the sole creator, while still maintaining
ritual ties to ancestors and local gods. Orthodox
Muslims called this practice “syncretism,” and it
triggered numerous attempts throughout history
to “purify” the practice of Islam. One such attempt
even resulted in a revolution that established the
Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. More often these efforts
resulted in the dispatch of teachers into areas where
syncretism seemed to be a threat, and the farther
away from Mecca that one lived, the more likely that
Islam deviated from Muhammad’s teachings. West
Africa was especially distant from Mecca and thus
became the site of many reform movements, including that of the Almoravids who conquered Ghana in
the eleventh century ce, that of the Almohad who
overthrew the Almoravids, and others.
In the late eighteenth century, the Muslim world
seemed to be losing ground to Europeans. People all
over the Muslim world argued about whether this
decline was due to the strength of Europe or the
weakness of Muslims; those who believed the latter
to be the case thought the solution would be to remove influences that weakened Islam. In Africa, this
manner of thinking led to a series of jihads—reform
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
West Africa
efforts that turned into military confrontations—
which swept across the Sahel from Lake Chad to the
Senegalese coast and paved the way for the European conquest of the late nineteenth century.65 The
most influential of those jihads, in terms of numbers
affected and connections to secondary jihads, began
in northwest Nigeria and led to the creation of the
Sokoto Caliphate.
One of the most important West African Muslim
women and teachers of the nineteenth century was
Nana Asma’u (1793–1864). She was born into a mercantile society in what is today northwest Nigeria
that was both cosmopolitan and literate, thanks to
Islam. Her father, Usman dan Fodiyo (1754–1817),
often called the Shehu (Hausa for sheik), had begun
a reform movement in northwestern Nigeria before
her birth. He was a Sufi (one who helps others attain
Figure 4.1
By the time of his death, the Shehu and his followers had created the Sokoto Caliphate, which attempted to imitate Muhammad’s early community
at Medina and encouraged those whom they defeated to join ranks, as was the case with Muhammad’s
Meccan Umayyad enemies. The Sokoto Caliphate inspired other West Africans to launch reform
movements during the nineteenth century that influenced the foundations of the twentieth-century
nation states of Senegal, Mali, and Sudan.67
Nana Asma’u was exceptionally fortunate in her
education. The Shehu provided her with a wide
Qur’anic education including “philosophical texts
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The Sokoto Caliphate and Nana Asma’u
spiritual understanding) of the Qadiriyya order
who argued against corruption among the elites and
for living humbly according to the teachings of the
Qur’an and hadith.66 He encouraged all to abandon
traditional African religion and practice pure Islam.
The Sokoto Caliphate68
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
47
Nana Asma’u memorized the Qur’an, spoke four
languages, and wrote prolifically.72 Her message to
other women concentrated on piety, patience, and
kindness rather than material possessions. Character, not status, was another theme she advocated.
One of her great innovations was to teach women
who believed in Bori, a cult led by women which
ministered to psychological, social, and emotional
stress, to substitute Muslim remedies instead. Rather than ban Bori, she understood the greater power
of persuasion. She enjoined others that “If you need
rain, pray to God for it, not to pagan spirits.”73
Nana Asma’u taught people in their own languages and instructed her own students, jajis (Hausa
for itinerant women teachers), to do likewise—all
in the spirit of expanding the ummah (the Muslim
community) as they understood it during Muhammad’s time at Medina. She sought to recruit jajis
from all ages and ethnic groups to convert others
to Islam, to promote the education of women, and
to harness their talents to maintain and expand the
caliphate with Medina as its model.74 Clearly, Nana
Asma’u was one of West Africa’s most influential
nineteenth-century female leaders and arguably the
Sokoto Caliphate’s greatest woman. She exemplifies
the presence of important women in pre-colonial
West African societies.
East Africa
As in West Africa south of the Sahara, Islam
spread to East Africa by peaceful means through the
actions of traders. After the initial success of Islam
48
in the seventh century ce, the Abbassid revolution
of 750 ce triggered a new round of expansion toward Asia. Asia and East Africa had been connected
by maritime trading routes since at least the Roman Republic. By the ninth century, Muslim traders
sought deals in African ports from the Red Sea to
Zanzibar.
Swahili Culture
Despite the contrast with the overland trade
routes of West Africa, there are similarities between what happened along the Swahili coast and
the Sahel (both words are derived from the Arabic
word for “coast.). In both regions trade resulted in
cultural and ethnic exchanges, although Swahili culture survived the European colonial era with greater unity than Sahelian culture in the west.
In East Africa, Swahili traders relied on a type of
single-masted ship called a dhow that could take
advantage of ocean currents and seasonal winds in
the Indian Ocean called monsoons.75 The monsoon
winds blew north and east toward Arabia and India
from November to March, and then reversed to the
south and west back toward the Swahili coast between April and September. By using the combination of winds and currents, sailors could make long
round-trip voyages each year between Asia and East
Africa. Their activities stimulated commerce all
along the coast as farmers, craftsmen, laborers, and
local fishermen generated goods for trade.76
A dhow in the Indian Ocean, near the islands of
Zanzibar on the Swahili Coast. In East Africa, Swahili
traders relied on the dhow, which could take
advantage of ocean currents and seasonal winds.
Photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13092558
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
on prayer, mysticism, legal matters, fiqh (which regulates religious conduct), and tawhid (dogma).”69
As such, Asma’u became a religious scholar “of the
highest order, writing philosophical treatises and
preaching the urgency of following the straight path
of positive life [as exemplified by Muhammad], the
Sunna.”70 Like her father, she lived a humble and
simple life in harmony with hadiths about Muhammad. Nana Asma’u spent her life educating women from Islamic and traditional African religious
(Bori) backgrounds, from educated and uneducated upbringings, and from rich and poor families. She
spent over forty-five years writing poems and prose
that sought to teach women how to live during wartime, to follow the Sunna, and to adhere to roles of
women in the Qadiriyya community.71 Like her father the Shehu, Nana Asma’u was a Sufi.
Figure 4.2
it required intervention by major Muslim powers
to stop the European effort. In the late eighteenth
century much of the coast came under the control
of Oman from the Arabian Peninsula. In 1840, the
Omani prince Sayyid Said transferred his capital
to the island of Zanzibar and set up a commercial
empire that stretched from Iran to Mozambique.
Besides trading slaves and ivory, the sultan established clove plantations on Zanzibar that relied on
slave labor obtained in the interior.
Ibn Battuta, the great traveler who visited Mali
in 1352, also visited the Swahili coast around 1329.
He spent perhaps two months sailing by dhow and
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
East Africans from Somalia to Mozambique practiced Islam along the coast while traditional African
religion remained dominant in the interior. The development of the coast as a market for African slaves
induced non-Muslims to convert in order to avoid
enslavement. Otherwise relations between the
port cities were relatively peaceful until the arrival of the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century.
They diverted enough gold from the Swahili trade
to draw European rivals into the area and disrupt
the economies of Muslim powers further north. Individual Swahili cities attempted to resist the European encroachment, but were overpowered, and
Indian Ocean Monsoon Pattern
Source: Asians in East Africa: Images, Histories, and Portraits by Gijsbert Oonk
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
49
Christianity in Africa
Egypt and Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
The impact of Christianity on Africa began centuries before Islam arrived, thanks to the inclusion
of North Africa in the Roman Empire. As the state
religion of Rome, Christianity spread to port cities
Figure 4.3
like Alexandria and Tripoli although it had little influence in the countryside. Africans played a role in
defining Christian thought during the period after
the Western Roman Empire collapsed, and a branch
that thrived in Egypt, the Monophysites, found refuge in Ethiopia where they survived the Arab Muslim invasion.
In Christianity’s early centuries, Christian theologians argued over the nature of Jesus of Nazareth. Was Jesus God? Was Jesus human? Could Jesus
be both God and man? What was the relationship
between Jesus the son of God and God the father?
Theologians pondered these questions for centuries
before agreeing on dogma. Orthodox Christians,
including Catholics, Protestants, and Greek and
Russian Orthodox, adhere to the general answer to
those questions found in the Nicene Creed, created at the Council of Nicaea in 325 ce, that God the
Father begot Jesus. This made God the Son as eter-
The Spread of Christianity, c.300–600 ce
50
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
visiting some of the most important ports, including
Mogadishu and Kilwa.77 In the nineteenth century
a long list of European explorers (including Dr. David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley) passed
through Zanzibar on their way to the African interior. Since then the commerce of the Swahili coast has
shifted from ivory, gold, and spices to petroleum, diamonds, and other minerals, but the unique aspects
of Swahili culture, including Bantu, Arab, Persian
(Shirazi), and European influences, remain dominant in East African cities.
The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our
Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, Ethiopia, where Coptics
today believe the Ark of the Covenant resides.
nal as God the Father and became critical to understanding the nature of the Trinity.
According to tradition, St. Mark introduced Christianity into Egypt in 42 ce. At that time, Egyptians
were called Coptics and spoke Coptic. The Coptics
entered the discussion over the relationship between the human and the divine aspects of Jesus
and came to believe that Jesus had a single nature
with his divine and human nature fully united. At
the Council of Chalcedon in 451 ce, those who
advocated for the Coptic understanding of Jesus,
sometimes called Monophysites, were declared
heretics. The Orthodox view, which is supported by
the Nicene Creed and accepted by most Christians
today, is that Jesus was one person with two natures—one divine and one human. Such theological
disputes also had political implications dating back
to the Roman rule of Egypt. Some Copts were adamant in their beliefs as a means to oppose Roman
imperial power; Rome eventually adopted Orthodox
Christianity and threatened Coptic independence.
When the Muslims invaded Egypt in 640, Copts
did not come to support the Orthodox Christians
who had persecuted them as heretics. Rather, many
Copts regarded the Muslims as liberators. Others
resisted the Muslims and fled up the Nile River toward Axum in Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia).
The continued influx of Muslims along the Red Sea
coast and into the Nile Valley concentrated Christians in remote areas of the interior. Leaders who
managed to unify the refugees and local inhabitants
Ethiopian Christians believe that they possess the
Jewish Ark of the Covenant, a chest built by Moses
to house the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments. Coptic Christians believe that the Abyssinian ruler Menelik I, who traditionally is considered the son of King Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba, brought the Ark of the Covenant to Axum after traveling to Jerusalem to meet his father shortly
after reaching manhood.79 This and the subsequent
legitimization of the Solomonid Dynasty (kings descended from Solomon through Menelik) are documented in the fourteenth-century work of sacred
literature the Kebra Nagast. Coptics today believe
the Ark resides in Axum in the Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Since
only its guardian is allowed to see it, much mystery
continues to surround it.
Christianity from Europe
From the birth of Jesus until 1500, significant
Christian contact with Africans was largely confined to North and Northeast Africa. Maritime advances after 1500 enabled Europeans to explore Africa’s west coast, but from then until the advent of
modern medicine and hygiene in the late nineteenth
century, few Europeans spent much time in equatorial Africa, and they usually succumbed to diseases
for which they had few immunities.80 This, of course,
significantly reduced European missionary activity
in West Africa until the late nineteenth century.
When the New Imperialism (1870–1914) and the
Berlin Conference (1884–85) largely coincided with
advances in hygiene and medicine, missionaries began to arrive and challenge followers of traditional
African religion and Islam. Catholics, Methodists,
Anglicans, Calvinists, and Baptists established missionary stations. For West Africans in the interior,
missionaries sometimes preceded explorers, traders, and soldiers. Whatever the European form of
first contact, they introduced Africans to Christianity as well as to Western ideas and technology. Unfortunately, Europeans interpreted Christianity in
ways that demeaned Africans, including justifying
the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. Eventually West Africans like Kwame Nkrumah, who were
products of mission schools, turned their Christian
educations to their advantage by organizing resis-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
51
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
embraced Coptic Christianity as a basis for unity
and obedience to authority.78
Section IV Summary
A mission school in Akpafu, Volta-region of
Ghana, in 1899, which at that time was a German
colony by the name of Togo. When the New
Imperialism (1870–1914) and the Berlin Conference
(1884–85) largely coincided with advances in
hygiene and medicine, missionaries began to
arrive and challenge followers of traditional African
religion and Islam.


Photo Source: By Missionar der Norddeutschen Mission CC-BY-SA-3.0 via
Wikimedia Commons
tance to European rule and overthrowing colonialism.
Like many Asians and Latin Americans, Africans
also adapted Christianity to their own cultures and
initiated what has been called “the fourth great age
of Christian expansion.”81 Just as they did with Islam,
West Africans blended the teachings of established
Christian sects with local beliefs and circumstances. As a result, large numbers of small, independent
Christian churches exist throughout much of Africa.
52

frican traditional religion acknowledges a
A
single all-powerful creator of a universe in
which humans are born, live, and die in a sequence that moves from the spiritual to the
material and back to the spiritual. Within
that sequence, ancestors connect the living
to the creator and elders connect the young
to the ancestors. As a consequence, humans
are defined by their ancestors, and the past
offers the explanation for how the present
came to be.
Islam, one of the world’s major religions, had
an enormous impact on Africa. Around 40
percent of Africans today practice Islam. The
most celebrated Muslim in African history is
Bilal, a companion of Muhammad who gave
the first call to prayer in Mecca.
The first wave of Muslims invaded and settled North Africa in the seventh century
ce. Subsequently merchants and soldiers
brought Islam across the Sahara Desert to
West Africa and to East Africa along ocean
trade routes.
Christianity reached Africa during the Ro
man Empire and survived in Ethiopia after
the Muslim invasion. A second era of Christian contact began in the sixteenth century
with European overseas expansion. Christianity served as a tool for conquest and pacification. Ultimately, Christian schools provided training for Africans who led the way
to independence in the twentieth century.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China

Section V
Origins of the Atlantic
Slave Trade
Introduction
Slavery has ancient roots, although the word used
to denote it, “slav,” came into use only after Spanish
Muslims enslaved ethnic Slavs of Eastern Europe
in the 800s ce.82 Many ancient civilizations—including Sumerians, Babylonians, Jews, Egyptians,
Abyssinians, Christians, Muslims, Mayans, and Aztecs—supported the traffic in humans for profit and
for forced, unpaid labor. Some scholars have argued
that slavery may have made possible the Golden Age
of Athens (480–404 bce).83 Aristotle believed slavery was the natural order of existence because the
souls and intellectual powers of some humans were
not well formed. He said, “Some men are by nature
free, and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.”84
Between 800 and 1492, slave traders sold relatively small numbers of African slaves to buyers in
the Mediterranean world, the Middle East, and Asia
just east of Africa. With the arrival of Columbus to
the New World, circumstances changed dramatically. The new transatlantic slave trade added a dynamic dimension of millions of people to the older
trade. The transatlantic slave trade was significantly different in numbers, geography, and value.
When Europeans began arriving in greater numbers in the Middle American World in the 1500s,
they found significant levels of Native American
cultural development in the Mayan and Aztec civilizations, but little development in terms of long distance trade. This would change significantly when
A Roman soldier leads slaves in chains, relief
found at Smyrna, 200 ce. Many ancient civilizations
supported the traffic in humans for profit and for
forced, unpaid labor.
Photo by Jun - Flickr: Roman collared slaves, CC BY-SA 2.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16289799
Europeans took control of Native American land by
force and seized Native American resources valued
in European markets. The devastating consequence
of this process was the unwitting introduction of
germs to which Native American populations had
little or no immunities.85 In Central Mexico, for example, the estimated population of up to 26.3 million people in 1492 fell to 1.1 million by 1605.86 European conquerors looked elsewhere for labor to
compensate for the dramatic shortage. Seizing land
was easy enough; however, working it for agriculture or mining it for gold and silver required a new
labor force. Historian J.E. Inikori argues that once
Europeans began to use enormous amounts of African slave labor during the heyday of the Atlantic
slave trade, the slave labor economy led to the dominance of Western capitalism today and the ongoing
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
53
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The Atlantic and
West African Slave Trade
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
African Slavery Before the
Europeans
Forms of slavery existed among West African
ethnic groups long before the arrival of Europeans.
In Europe, one invested in land as private property.
In Africa, one invested in slaves as private property. Ownership of land in Africa was largely nonexistent; rather, land was controlled by the king and
ruling families, and land was given to those who
could farm it. One gained status in African societies through the acquisition of slaves, much like in
Europe one could rise in society through the acquisition of land. Historian John Thornton has argued
that, “In Africa the development of commerce and
social mobility based on commerce was intimately
linked to the growth of slavery, for slaves in villages performing agricultural work or carrying goods
in caravans or working in mines under private supervision were essential to private commercial development.”87 Whereas in Europe land was revenue
producing, in Africa slavery fulfilled that function.
Wealthy Africans also used slaves to increase
their power, as slaves could serve as loyal administrators or effective military leaders and soldiers.
Unlike in the Americas, African slaves could wield
much power. When the Portuguese began to make
their way down the west coast of the African continent, they found slaves widely available. Africans
who had the most slaves—royalty and merchants—
were also the ones with the authority to carry out
the traffic in humans. The early Europeans who initially became involved in trading African slaves simply tapped into an ancient, well-developed market,
whether on the northern edge of the Sahara or the
coast of West Africa.88
As the technology of the gun advanced in Europe,
slave traders were able to put pressure on their African counterparts to accelerate the traffic in humans.
African societies which refused were liable to find
their African enemies using the weapons against
them instead. Sometimes Africans fought wars to
gain captives to match demand; at other times they
fought to settle political differences. The winners
then sold their captives to Europeans. Sometimes
economics and politics mixed to produce the same
result—the acquisition of slaves to meet the increas-
54
ing demand of the transatlantic slave trade.
Capturing slaves in war was not the only means
by which slaves were acquired in traditional African
societies. Some Africans kidnapped others. Some Africans sold their relatives to settle grievances. Some
Africans who were convicted by judicial authorities
in their societies for adultery and theft, for example,
were enslaved to compensate society.89
Whatever the reason one became a slave in African societies, it is important to distinguish between
chattel slavery in the New World and African slavery. Both were forms of slavery, but usually were
quite different in terms of how slaves were treated.
In the New World, a slave was a piece of property
with no rights. Owners could buy and sell chattel
slaves like any other form of personal property. In
Africa, a slave was more like a member of one’s extended family. A slave’s status was not fixed as in
chattel slavery, but could be flexible. A slave might
assimilate into the owner’s family as a junior member, have children born free, and serve in tasks outside the chattel slave’s hard labor. Many slaves in
Africa were women sought for their reproductive
capacity, in contrast to New World owners who preferred men, whose strength in various forms of labor was more important.90
Some scholars have argued that the small size
of most African states along the coast of West Africa, which themselves were often broken down into
even smaller ethnic groups, contributed indirectly
to the Atlantic slave trade. Think of the area of a
large metropolitan area in the U.S., approximately
six hundred square miles, which is about half the
size of Rhode Island.91 If one keeps in mind that the
acquisition of slaves rather than land determined
wealth, the small size of most African kingdoms
is not surprising. After all, adding land expansion
to slave capture would require the expenses of an
occupation force and ruling infrastructure. Rulers would also have to negotiate with those whom
they defeated. Thus, many Africans took slaves but
passed on the land. Africans who were recently captured were usually the first to be sold to Europeans,
as ties to their captors would not have had time to
develop.
Some scholars have argued that the advanced
firearms technology of the Europeans significantly
facilitated the increase in the Atlantic slave trade.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
dependence of South American and African economies.
The Portuguese and the Spanish
Prior to Islam, the Romans brought African slaves
to Europe from North Africa. As Muslims advanced
west across North Africa in the early 700s, they
took control of the North African slave trade. Some
slaves must have crossed into Portugal and Spain
shortly thereafter, if not before, in smaller numbers,
accompanying the Saharan caravan trade. In 1441,
the Portuguese delivered their first cargo of West
African slaves to Lisbon. From 1450 until 1500, the
Portuguese imported about eight hundred slaves
each year. In 1454 and 1456, the papacy approved
Portugal’s slave trade on the grounds that the Portuguese slave traders were to advance Christianity
as well. Papal authority helped lay the foundation
for Portugal’s monopoly (asiento) of slave trading
south of Senegal in 1468. Portugal was the first of
several countries, including Holland, France, Spain,
and England, that would assume asientos over the
centuries.93
The growing number of slaves created a critical
mass of African workers, both slave and free, who
worked as bodyguards, soldiers, menial laborers,
couriers, and concubines in maritime urban Spain
and Portugal. Africans who were free formed brotherhoods and worked to free those still in bondage.
By the mid-1500s, African slaves accompanied conquistadores to explore the New World. The Spanish
carried their first enslaved human cargo from West
Africa to the Caribbean in 1518, initiating the transatlantic slave trade.94 The Portuguese followed with
shiploads to Brazil.
A new destination for slave labor—the east coast
of North America—soon came about, although it was
far less significant than Brazil and the Caribbean in
terms of the long-term Atlantic slave trade. In Au-
An engraving depicts three African slaves newly
arrived on the shores of Virginia. The first Africans
disembarked at Point Comfort, on the James River,
late in August 1619.
gust 1619, a ship, perhaps Dutch, took about twenty
Africans on the high seas from the Portuguese slave
ship Sáo Joáo Bautista, which had been crossing the
Atlantic from Luanda, Angola, to Vera Cruz, and debarked at Port Comfort, Virginia, about thirty miles
down the James River from Jamestown.95 Between
1619 and 1700, racism and profit convinced European colonists along the East Coast to pass legislation
creating the extreme form of bondage called chattel
slavery. These laws transformed humans into beasts
of burden at the disposal of their masters with little
to no oversight by the state. Once this became clear
to growing slave populations in both the Caribbean
and the Americas, slave leaders organized revolts.
Some of the largest occurred in Brazil, Jamaica, Guyana, Cuba, Mexico, Virginia, Carolina, and Louisiana.
Slaves attempted to burn New York City in 1712 and
Boston in 1723.96
Major forces behind the traffic in humans were
much the same forces that are significant drivers
of our material world today—profit and wealth.
During the implementation of plantation slavery in
the New World in the period of preindustrial capitalism, African slaves increasingly provided the intensive labor necessary for the production of plantation-grown cane sugar in the New World. (Cooler
European climates north of the Mediterranean were
not suited for cane cultivation.) As European demand increased, more slaves were required in the
New World to meet greater tonnage. Increased Eu-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
55
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Yet Thornton argues that a close review of the evidence suggests a greater force driving the increased
supply was in fact local warfare brought about by
differences between Africans themselves rather
than pressure from Europeans to produce slaves.
The defeated were enslaved and sold at the coast.
Surely there was some mix of catalysts here—both
African agency and European pressure contributed to the growth of the Atlantic slave trade—but
Thornton gives more weight to causes internal to
African politics than to external European pressure
to produce slaves.92
ropean and New World demand for cane sugar was
due not only to its desirability as a sweetener and
the high caloric content it provided in diets, but also
to its byproduct of molasses, which was used both
in cooking and in the distillation of rum.97
Figure 5.1
The origins of New World sugar-producing plantations date back to the Crusades when Arabs and
Crusaders created plantations in the Mediterranean
and supplied them with enslaved war captives. As
the European taste for sugar grew and the Crusades
ended, Italian merchants looked to slave markets
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
In addition to frequent irrigation, the fast pace of
harvesting and processing the tall grass-like plant
was critical to its success. The mill that contained
crushing, boiling, and storage facilities was proximate to the fields to facilitate production. Process-
ing sugar cane in the mill was dangerous, required
long hours, and was carried out in very hot conditions. Only slaves could be forced to carry out such
onerous work.98
Early Areas of Slave Trade and West African Gold Fields
Source: Lindsey, Captives as Commodities, 15.
56
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
Source: Beverly McMillan, ed., Captive Passage, The Transatlantic Slave
Trade and the Making of the Americas (Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky &
Konecky and Smithsonian Institution, 2002), 128–129.
proximate to the Black Sea to provide slave labor for
plantations on Cyprus and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.99
The foundation for the plantation sugar complex was already in place in the early 1400s when
the Portuguese began to explore the Atlantic world.
They first established the plantation model in Madeira, worked by slaves from the Canary Islands,
which were about three hundred miles due south.
(Both Madeira and the Canary Islands are off the
west coast of present-day Morocco.) By 1480, the
Dutch were importing several hundred tons of sugar for the European market. Soon after the plantation system was established on Madeira, the supply
of slaves from both the Canaries and the Black Sea
ended, forcing the Portuguese to turn to the slave
traders along the West African coast.100
These new European-African contacts led the
Portuguese to establish the Madeira plantation
model on São Tomé, about 180 miles due west off
the coast of present-day Gabon. The problem with
the location of São Tomé, however, was that it was
home to equatorial pathogens to which the Portuguese had little resistance. Thus, the plantations on
São Tomé attracted few Portuguese.
The Portuguese used their friendship with the
Kongo, who sold the Portuguese their war captives
The Portuguese present themselves before the
King of Kongo. The Portuguese benefited from
their friendship with the Kongo, who sold the
Portuguese their war captives to work sugar cane
on São Tomé.
to work sugar cane on São Tomé. At its peak in the
mid-1500s, São Tomé was the furthest resource-producing area from Europe that was run by Europeans
for European consumption in history, as it was some
4,500 miles away. As European exploration expanded and the European population increased in the
New World, Europeans took the model of the plantation complex at São Tomé and improved upon it
in the Americas. By the second half of the sixteenth
century, São Tomé went into significant decline as a
sugar producer due to slave revolts, tropical diseases, and the rise of sugar production in Brazil.
Early European contact with the Native Americans devastated the Native American population.
When European workers could not be found to carry out the difficult work of sugar production, especially in the Bahia region of Brazil, the Portuguese
turned to Africa. By 1600, Brazil had become the
greatest sugar producer in the world. Most of the
12.5 million slaves forcibly transported in the Middle Passage from the Africa to the Americas were
destined to work in sugar production.
Yet the acquisition of slaves, which the Portuguese first carried out largely by slave raiding, was
not initially successful. Africans were already people
with tools and weapons of iron. Some Africans also
had horses. Africans also had an ally in tropical diseases to which they had some immunity. In contrast,
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
57
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Processing sugar cane in the mill was dangerous,
required long hours, and was carried out in very
hot conditions. Only slaves could be forced to carry
out such onerous work.
The Triangular Trade
Source: Davidson, West Africa, 198.
the Portuguese were vulnerable to the pathogens of
the African tropics and succumbed to malaria and
yellow fever quite quickly. Hampered by the impact of tropical diseases, European slave raids into
the tropical maritime areas of Africa could not supply sufficient slave labor for the production of New
World sugar. Thus, some other means to acquire
African slaves had to be developed. The Portuguese
began to negotiate with Africans along the coast to
provide a steady supply of slaves for purchase.
As the maritime component of the African slave
trade gathered force, the triangular pattern of the
transatlantic slave trade began to develop. West and
southwest Africa provided the slaves. Molasses from
the sugar plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean—
an important ingredient in bread and bean recipes
and for use in feeding livestock—was exported to
58
New England. The New Englanders distilled rum
from the molasses, which they exported to both Europe and Africa. The Europeans exported processed
goods, including cloth and metal products, back to
Africa, thus initiating the maritime triangular trade
once again.101
The Dutch, the British, and
the Asante
Profits made in the Atlantic slave trade soon
gained the attention of other European powers. In
1637, the Dutch took Elmina Castle from the Portuguese. Thereafter, the Portuguese traffic in humans
was largely carried out south of the Congo River. At
first the Dutch and English fought to dominate the
Atlantic slave trade; however, pressure to supply the
plantations of the Caribbean with slave labor helped
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 5.2
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 5.3
Volume and Direction of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Source: Kwasi Konadu, Transatlantic Africa, 1440-1888 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 3.
end the squabbling. As Basil Davidson described it,
“While the seventeenth century was the period of
the establishment of the European-American trade
with West Africa, the eighteenth was the period of its
large expansion.”102 Europeans built some forty-one
castles on the West African coast in part to establish
their national interests in the transatlantic slave
trade. As plantation slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean,
and Spanish America began to increase in number
and sugar tonnage after 1625, the English, French,
Dutch, and Danes challenged the Spanish and Portuguese dominance of the business. Even so, due to
the diseases of the tropics and the organization of
the Africans, Europeans could only control the sea.
European demand for slaves continued to grow,
which in turn encouraged some Africans to raise
their level of violence inland to capture and supply
those slaves. To carry out that violence, Africans increasingly needed access to firearms from Europe.
Elmina Castle, viewed from the sea, 1668. The
Dutch took Elmina Castle from the Portuguese in
1637.
By the mid-1700s, Africans were trading slaves for
100,000 muskets per year manufactured in England.
New weapons brought new violence. Africans—including the Fon of Ardrah, Dahomey, and Whydah,
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
59
the Asante of Gold Coast, the Yoruba of Oyo, and the
Igbo of the Niger Delta—carried out much of that violence among themselves.
Basil Davidson described the process of slave
ship captains trading with West Africans:
Figure 5.4
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Buying and selling with the European and
American captains…was a tricky business. There was much bargaining. The
money used was generally composed of
trade goods like iron bars, rolls of cotton
or quantities of yams (needed by the slaveships to feed their captives as well as their
crews during the voyage across the Atlantic); cowrie shells were also an important
form of money. Any attempt by the European traders to bully or cheat their African partners was likely to be answered
by a boycott. The Africans…simply closed
the river to European trade until the Europeans made good the damage they had
caused. Here in the Delta the Europeans
had no castles and few shore stations. In-
The Expansion of the Asante Empire
Source: Davidson, West Africa, 221.
60
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
The complications of this trading system can be seen from the deals that were
made. In 1676, for instance, the captain of
the English ship Bonaventure bought one
hundred men, women, and children and
had them duly branded by his crew with
the special mark of the British Royal African Company: DY for Duke of York. For
these carefully selected captives he paid
five muskets, twenty-one iron bars, seventy-two knives, half a barrel of gunpowder
and various lengths of cotton….
As the trade increased, European crews stripped,
branded, chained, and confined slaves below deck
in extremely crowded conditions in a toxic environment replete with extreme heat, germs, stench, and
claustrophobic terror.
One of the major West African ethnic groups that
participated in the slave trade was the Asante. The
Asante originated in the early 1600s as a coalition
Figure 5.5
Diagram of a slave ship. European crews confined
slaves below deck in extremely crowded conditions
in a toxic environment replete with extreme heat,
germs, stench, and claustrophobic terror.
of Akan-speaking farmers in the region of what is
today Kumasi. In about 1695, two Asante leaders,
Osei Tutu and the priest Anokye, joined together to
enlarge their coalition and gain complete independence from their powerful neighbors. They created
Major West African Slave Regions in the 1700s
Source: Davidson, West Africa, 199.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
61
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
stead, they lived in old ships, called hulks,…
permanently anchored near the shore of
the trading towns.
The Asante expanded outward to seek participation in the lucrative trade in slaves with the Dutch
at Elmina by defeating the Denkyira, whose trade
contract with the Dutch then passed to the Asante.
In the ensuing century, the Asante continued to expand their power until they came into conflict with
the Fante and their British allies at Cape Coast Castle. Between 1807 and 1816, a series of Asante mil-
itary operations strengthened Asante control over
the Fante.
Between 1824 and 1900, the Asante and British
fought several wars, including the Sagrenti War
(1874) and the Yaa Asantewaa War (1900). Some
of the Asante’s hostility toward the British resulted from Britain’s ban on the Atlantic slave trade in
1807 and the ban on slavery within the Gold Coast
in 1875. Asantehene Osei Bonsu expressed his
objections to the ban in 1820. Yet even after 1875,
British administrators often looked the other way
when African producers of much sought after palm
oil used young African female slave labor.
Slavery in West Africa: The Narrative of Olaudah Equiano
Much of the revulsion we feel today toward the Atlantic slave trade has been stirred by the writings of slaves themselves. Olaudah Equiano is one of the most famous of those writers. He claimed
to have been born an Igbo in the mid-1740s in the eastern part of what is now Nigeria. African slave
traders captured Equiano and his sister when he was about eleven years old. About a year later, Equiano arrived at the coast, was sold to a slave ship captain, and crossed over on the Middle Passage from
the Bight of Biafra to Barbados. Before he was twenty-one, he lived as a slave in Virginia and London,
where he learned to read and write. In 1766, after serving as a slave at sea, he purchased his freedom.
He traveled widely for the next twenty years before joining the abolition movement. In 1788, he appeared before the House of Commons to argue for the improvement of conditions for slaves on slave
ships. In 1789, he published his autobiography and his plea for the abolition of the slave trade.108
While the Atlantic slave trade was not abolished in Equiano’s lifetime—that would take another ten
years or so—his famous book was translated into French, Russian, and Dutch and went through nine
British editions.109 Equiano’s book and his speeches reached thousands of Europeans who otherwise
would not have had much empathy for those who suffered so greatly in bondage. Equiano successfully
conveyed to his readers and listeners the horrors of slavery through the eyes of an ex-slave and fellow
human. The following is his recollection110 of the Middle Passage, which he experienced when he was
about twelve years old:
The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship,
which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment,
which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled
and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had
gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, (which was very different from any I had ever heard) united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed such were the horrors
of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would
have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave
in my own country. When I looked round the ship too and saw a large furnace or copper boiling,
and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate; and, quite overpowered
62
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
the legend of the Golden Stool, a unifying symbol
brought down from the sky and placed on Osei Tutu’s knees by Anokye, who instilled it with the spirit
of the Asante people. Those who accepted this story
joined in the coalition under the leadership of Osei
Tutu.
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on
the deck and fainted. When I recovered a little I found some black people about me, who
I believed were some of those who brought
me on board, and had been receiving their
pay; they talked to me in order to cheer me,
but all in vain. I asked them if we were not
to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and loose hair. They told
me I was not; and one of the crew brought
me a small portion of spirituous liquor in a
wine glass; but, being afraid of him, I would
not take it out of his hand. One of the blacks
therefore took it from him and gave it to me,
and I took a little down my palate, which,
instead of reviving me, as they thought it
would, threw me into the greatest consternation at the strange feeling it produced,
having never tasted any such liquor before.
Soon after this the blacks who brought me
on board went off, and left me abandoned
Olaudah Equiano (known as Gustavus Vassa) was
to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all
chance of returning to my native country, or a prominent abolitionist whose narrative conveyed
even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the the horrors of his first-hand experience as a slave.
shore, which I now considered as friendly;
and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled
with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo….
I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I
received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the
loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able
to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing.111
Despair began to consume Equiano. Forcing slaves to eat preserved both their lives and the profits
made from the slave trade. Thus, the sailors soon intervened to force Equiano to eat, and he describes
both the cruelty and the character of the sailors:
I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men
offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid
me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never
experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally
feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless could I have got over the nettings, I
would have jumped over the side but I could not, and, besides, the crew used to watch us very
closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have
seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly
whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself. In a little time after amongst
the poor chained men, I found some of my own nation, which in a small degree gave ease to my
mind. I inquired of these what was to be done with us; they gave me to understand we were
to be carried to these white people’s country to work for them. I then was a little revived, and
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
63
While on board, Equiano became interested in the ships themselves and wondered how they made
their way over the water.
I asked how the vessel could go? they told me they could not tell; but that there were cloths put
upon the masts by the help of the ropes I saw, and then the vessel went on; and the white men
had some spell or magic they put in the water when they liked in order to stop the vessel. I was
exceedingly amazed at this account, and really thought they were spirits. I therefore wished
much to be from amongst them, for I expected they would sacrifice me: but my wishes were
vain; for we were so quartered that it was impossible for any of us to make our escape. While we
stayed on the coast I was mostly on deck; and one day, to my great astonishment, I saw one of
these vessels coming in with the sails up. As soon as the whites saw it, they gave a great shout, at
which we were amazed; and the more so as the vessel appeared larger by approaching nearer.
At last she came to an anchor in my sight, and when the anchor was let go I and my countrymen
who saw it were lost in astonishment to observe the vessel stop; and were now convinced it was
done by magic. Soon after this the other ship got her boats out, and they came on board of us,
and the people of both ships seemed very glad to see each other. Several of the strangers also
shook hands with us black people, and made motions with their hands, signifying I suppose we
were to go to their country; but we did not understand them.113
As the Middle Passage was about to begin, the sailors took Equiano and the other slaves down into
the bowels of the ship and shackled them:
At last, when the ship we were in had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful
noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not see how they managed the vessel.
But this disappointment was the least of my sorrow. The stench of the hold while we were on
the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and
some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship’s
cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and
the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had
scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so
that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought
on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the
galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs [latrines],
into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the
groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.114
64
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
thought, if it were no worse than working, my situation was not so desperate: but still I feared I
should be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner;
for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty; and this not only shewn
towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves. One white man in particular I
saw, when we were permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the
foremast, that he died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they would have
done a brute. This made me fear these people the more; and I expected nothing less than to be
treated in the same manner. I could not help expressing my fears and apprehensions to some of
my countrymen: I asked them if these people had no country, but lived in this hollow place (the
ship): they told me they did not, but came from a distant one. “Then,” said I, “how comes it in
all our country we never heard of them?” They told me because they lived so very far off. I then
asked where were their women? had they any like themselves? I was told they had: “and why,”
said I, “do we not see them?” they answered, because they were left behind.112
Happily perhaps for myself I was soon reduced so low here that it was thought necessary to keep
me almost always on deck; and from my extreme youth I was not put in fetters. In this situation
I expected every hour to share the fate of my companions, some of whom were almost daily
brought upon deck at the point of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my
miseries. Often did I think many of the inhabitants of the deep much more happy than myself.
I envied them the freedom they enjoyed, and as often wished I could change my condition for
theirs. Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten
my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites. One day they had taken a number
of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to
our astonishment who were on the deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some
as well as we could, but in vain; and some of my countrymen, being pressed by hunger, took an
opportunity, when they thought no one saw them, of trying to get a little privately; but they were
discovered, and the attempt procured them some very severe floggings. One day, when we had
a smooth sea and moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together
(I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through
the nettings and jumped into the sea: immediately another quite dejected fellow, who, on one
account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe
many more would very soon have done the same if they had not been prevented by the ship’s
crew, who were instantly alarmed. Those of us that were the most active were in a moment put
down under the deck, and here was such a noise and confusion amongst the people of the ship
as I never heard before, to stop her, and get the boat out to go after the slaves. However two of
the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully for
thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate, hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade. Many a
time we were near suffocation from the want of fresh air, which we were often without for whole
days together. This, and the stench of the necessary tubs [latrines], carried off many. During
our passage I first saw flying fishes, which surprised me very much: they used frequently to fly
across the ship, and many of them fell on the deck. I also now first saw the use of the quadrant;
I had often with astonishment seen the mariners make observations with it, and I could not
think what it meant. They at last took notice of my surprise; and one of them, willing to increase
it, as well as to gratify my curiosity, made me one day look through it. The clouds appeared to
me to be land, which disappeared as they passed along. This heightened my wonder; and I was
now more persuaded than ever that I was in another world, and that every thing about me was
magic.115
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
As Equiano was frail from the physical and psychological trauma of the slave ship, the sailors put him
back on deck to recover for greater lengths of time. While on deck, Equiano described the continued
cruelty of the white sailors and the utter pathos of the slaves.
Usually, the cry of “Land Ho!” would inspire joy. As Equiano continues to relate from a slave’s perspective, the end of the Middle Passage only introduced another fearful chapter of the unknown.
At last we came in sight of the island of Barbadoes, at which the whites on board gave a great
shout, and made many signs of joy to us. We did not know what to think of this; but as the vessel
drew nearer we plainly saw the harbour, and other ships of different kinds and sizes; and we soon
anchored amongst them off Bridge Town. Many merchants and planters now came on board,
though it was in the evening. They put us in separate parcels, and examined us attentively. They
also made us jump, and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there. We thought by this
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
65
Once the slaves had debarked, the psychologically painful process of buying and selling began. Equiano describes that practice and how it affected family members separated by the process.
We were not many days in the merchant’s custody before we were sold after their usual manner,
which is this: — On a signal given, (as the beat of a drum) the buyers rush at once into the yard
where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve
not a little to increase the apprehensions of the terrified Africans, who may well be supposed
to consider them as the ministers of that destruction to which they think themselves devoted.
In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see
each other again. I remember in the vessel in which I was brought over, in the men’s apartment,
there were several brothers, who, in the sale, were sold in different lots; and it was very moving
on this occasion to see and hear their cries at parting. 0, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would
men should do unto you? Is it not enough that we are torn from our country and friends to toil
for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice?
Are the dearest friends and relations, now rendered more dear by their separation from their
kindred, still to be parted from each other, and thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together and mingling their sufferings and sorrows? Why are
parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely this is a new
refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates distress,
and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.117
Opponents of Equiano as well as some modern scholars have challenged Equiano’s claim that he was
born in Africa. Vincent Carretta has discovered discrepancies between Equiano’s assertions and recent
evidence suggesting he was born in South Carolina.118 Regardless, the importance of his work is not his
country of origin, but rather the general veracity of his accounts of the Atlantic slave trade, the Middle
Passage, and chattel slavery. To those points, there is no controversy.
66
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
we should be eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us; and, when soon after we were all
put down under the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us, and nothing but
bitter cries to be heard all the night from these apprehensions, insomuch that at last the white
people got some old slaves from the land to pacify us. They told us we were not to be eaten, but
to work, and were soon to go on land, where we should see many of our country people. This
report eased us much; and sure enough, soon after we were landed, there came to us Africans of
all languages. We were conducted immediately to the merchant’s yard, where we were all pent
up together like so many sheep in a fold, without regard to sex or age. As every object was new
to me every thing I saw filled me with surprise. What struck me first was that the houses were
built with stories, and in every other respect different from those in Africa: but I was still more
astonished on seeing people on horseback. I did not know what this could mean; and indeed I
thought these people were full of nothing but magical arts. While I was in this astonishment one
of my fellow prisoners spoke to a countryman of his about the horses, who said they were the
same kind they had in their country. I understood them, though they were from a distant part
of Africa, and I thought it odd I had not seen any horses there; but afterwards, when I came to
converse with different Africans, I found they had many horses amongst them, and much larger
than those I then saw.116
The End of the Atlantic
Slave Trade
Scholarship on the abolition of the Atlantic slave
trade focuses on three major topics. First, scholars
have written much on the abolitionists themselves,
including Olaudah Equiano, who appealed to the collective conscience of Europeans, especially those of
the rising middle class in England who aspired to
the civilizing ideas of the European Enlightenment
and liberalism. Other scholars have examined the
relationship between industrial capitalism and
abolition, arguing that advances in machinery and
technology made slave labor costly and obsolete.119
The inference here is that abolition was facilitated
less by conscience than it was by industrial advances and free trade capitalism, which succeeded the
economic protectionist system of mercantilism.
Still others have pointed to the impact that slave revolts in Haiti and elsewhere had on the process of
abolition. Those emphasizing this cause suggest that
if abolition did not progress voluntarily, it would be
brought about by force. Whatever the exact mix of
causes, the end of slavery was imminent as the nineteenth century began.
Some of the first Britons to oppose the Atlantic
slave trade were Quakers, who founded the first
British anti-slavery society in 1783.120 Renowned
advocates of abolition included ex-slaves Olaudah
Equiano and his friend Ottobah Cugoano, lawyer
Granville Sharp, student Thomas Clarkson, Member of Parliament William Wilberforce, former
slave ship captain John Newton, who was also the
author of the lyrics to the hymn “Amazing Grace,”
and slave ship doctor Alexander Falconbridge.121
British abolitionists first devised a plan to attack
the transatlantic slave trade. They believed that the
abolition of slavery itself would follow the end of
the traffic in humans. They successfully organized
a nationwide political campaign to promote their
plan. They held mass meetings, presented Members of Parliament with petitions signed by many
thousands of citizens, and boycotted slave-produced products, including sugar. Tactics common
to today’s protests—including provocative imagery,
bracelets, and graphic illustrations (such as that of
the slave ship Brookes)—were largely used for the
first time during the British abolitionist movement.
Although the French Revolution and slave revolts in
the French colonies of St. Domingue and Haiti temporarily slowed the British abolitionist movement,
in 1807 Parliament banned British slave trading
with all nations. The United States likewise banned
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
67
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
A German copper engraving depicting a slave revolt in Haiti in 1791. Such revolts impacted the move
toward abolition insofar as they lent support to the notion that if abolition did not progress voluntarily, it
would be brought about by force.
I
n Europe, slaves rarely held high status; in
Africa, they could often gain status. Slave
owners in the West held people as chattel, as
property with no rights; slave owners in Africa often considered slaves as junior family
members with some rights.
 Some scholars have argued that internal African conflicts contributed more to the rise
of the Atlantic slave trade than did European pressure on maritime African societies to
produce slaves.
“Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” 1787 medallion
designed by Josiah Wedgwood for the British antislavery campaign.
the traffic in humans in the same year.122 In 1838,
Parliament banned slavery throughout the British
Empire. The Danes had prohibited the slave trade to
their colonies even earlier in 1803.
The Atlantic slave trade formally ended in 1850,
but the West was not yet finished with African labor.
Before the last slave ship sailed, Europeans were
settling parts of the African continent.123 New colonies were about to be created amid a burst of European imperialism.124
Section V Summary

68
orms of slavery existed in West Africa
F
before the arrival of Europeans. One of the
major differences between European and
African societies was that in Europe people
invested in land. In Africa, because Africans
held land communally, individuals invested
in slaves as private property. Large property
owners in Europe gained status; Africans
who owned many slaves held similar sta-
lthough some African slaves entered Europe
 A
through trade with Muslims in the 700s, the
slave trade began to expand with the Portuguese in the mid-1400s. In 1454 and 1456,
the papacy approved Portugal’s slave trade
on the grounds that the Portuguese were to
advance Christianity as well. The Spanish
first entered the transatlantic slave trade in
1518. By the early 1600s, slaves were being
transported to Brazil, the Caribbean, and
North America.
 C
apitalists created chattel slavery to force
humans to produce labor-intensive sugar on
plantations first in the Mediterranean, and
then outward into the Atlantic. Slaves often
revolted against such brutal treatment.

nlike Europeans or Native Americans, AfriU
cans were often resistant to tropical diseases. Their strength in that sense contributed
to their enslavement.
 O
ver the years the triangular pattern of the
transatlantic trade developed: Africa provided the slaves for America; Brazil and the
Caribbean produced sugar and molasses for
North America; distillers from North America created rum for the European market;
and the Europeans shipped cheap cargo to
barter along the African coast for slaves.

In the 1600s, the Dutch became the world’s
leading maritime slave traders. They constructed Elmina Castle along the Gold Coast
and transformed it into one of their most
important trading centers in West Africa.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China

tus. In Europe, land was revenue-producing
while in Africa slavery fulfilled that function.

I
n return for slaves, collaborating Africans
sought guns from England. Negotiations
were often complex and were carried out
either on shore or on ship. As the trade increased, so did the brutality of the Middle
Passage. The Asante and Fante of present-day Ghana were two of the most important ethnic groups involved in the traffic in
humans with the British. After the British
banned slavery, the Asante and British carried out a series of devastating wars that
lasted through 1900.
Slave writings about the Atlantic slave trade,
chattel slavery, life as a freedman, and the
abolition movement are extremely rare. The
eyewitness accounts of Olaudah Equiano are
some of the most important and famous such


writings. Whatever the full truth is about
the authenticity of Equiano’s recollections,
the descriptive horrors of slavery and the
courage to oppose it are well expressed.
Scholarship on the abolition of the Atlantic
slave trade focuses on three major topics: the
abolitionists themselves, the relationship
between industrial capitalism and abolition,
and slave revolts in Haiti and elsewhere.
Those who led the opposition to slavery
included Quakers, freedmen, members of
Parliament, and ship captains. Abolitionists
carried out many innovative tactics, which
included mass meetings, petitions, images,
and boycotts in their attempts to end the
Atlantic slave trade. Their tactics proved so
successful in the nineteenth century that
protestors today adopt many of them to promote their causes worldwide.
he ban on slavery by no means ended the
T
subjugation of African populations by Europeans, but rather was a prelude to unprecedented European imperialism and colonialism, which was unleashed on the African
continent in the second half of the nineteenth century.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
69
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China

After the loss of Elmina, the Portuguese expanded their traffic in humans in the vicinity of present-day Angola. Soon the English
and other Europeans joined in the traffic in
humans. By the 1700s, monthly averages in
the European traffic in humans were in the
thousands. The trade was carried out largely
through some forty-one slave castles on the
West African coast.
Section VI
Introduction
European overseas trade and
the Industrial Revolution sparked
changes that altered the relationship
between Europeans and Africans.
The most visible result was the decline of the Atlantic slave trade during
the first two thirds of the nineteenth
century, but that was only one symptom of economic changes that resulted from the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution brought
about new ways to use labor, a deThe opening of the railway in the British colony of Rhodesia (now
mand for new kinds of products, and
the need to defend access to increas- Zimbabwe), 1899. Railroads reduced the cost of moving goods over
long distances.
ingly profitable world markets.
Europeans called their new trading relationship with Africans “legitimate commerce”—as opposed to slave trading; in 1807 the
British Parliament had passed the Abolition of the
Slave Trade Act, which abolished slave trading in
the British Empire. Instead of taking Africans elsewhere to produce tropical goods like sugar and
tobacco, Europeans replaced slave labor with machinery. Under the right circumstances, machines
outperformed human labor, so the amount of sugar and other products increased as the value of the
slave trade declined. This made tropical products
less expensive, so more people in Europe could afford them, and it triggered a boom in the demand for
things like tea and coffee, soaps and perfumes made
with tropical fats and scents, clothing waterproofed
with rubber, and even things like pianos, which used
elephant ivory for the keys. At the same time, the
construction of factories in Europe to make these
70
goods provided wages for new kinds of workers,
enabling them to buy things that would have been
unaffordable luxuries for their parents. Some of
these products were manufactured out of raw materials that were only available in the world’s tropical zones. Africa, the closest tropical zone to Europe,
became the focus of the new trading relationship.
Other developments accelerated further changes to the relationship between Europe and Africa.
As steam engines made transportation cheaper
and more reliable, first ships and later railroads reduced the cost of moving goods over long distances.
Improvements in medicine like quinine, which prevented malaria, made it safer for Europeans to stay
longer periods in the tropics and made it easier to
convince Europeans to go to Africa. Geographical
societies backed by business groups financed explorers who gathered information about areas in-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Imperialism and Colonialism
By the mid-nineteenth century, some Europeans
started to promote the idea of conquering Africa.
They were inspired by many things—the expansion
of Russia, the United States, and Canada across their
respective continents; frustration with African
coastal leaders who competed with European traders for the profits available from the export of goods
produced farther inland; and concern that other European countries might squeeze them out of African
markets and keep all the benefits to themselves. The
causes of the change in European attitudes toward
Africa—and the relative weight of these causes—
has provided much material for historians who attempt to answer the question: “Why did Europeans,
after centuries of trading with Africans along the
coast, decide to invade and take over most of the
continent at the end of the nineteenth century?”
Marxist theorists argued that economics explained everything—profits from the new kind of
trade enriched businessmen who used their money
to influence governments, aided by new methods of
communication like low-cost printing, which made
public opinion a factor in democracies like Great
Britain and France. Vladimir Lenin, who eventually became the leader of the world’s first communist
government, went so far as to claim that colonial
conquest was the inevitable result of capitalism’s
need to expand in search of profits.126
Since much of this scholarly debate took place in
the mid-twentieth century during the Cold War, a
time when communist and capitalist societies were
bitterly opposed to each other, there were plenty of
historians who challenged the Marxist approach.
Some said that conquest was driven by the need
for national security, others claimed that European
moral idealism was the cause, and there were even
some who argued that conquest was supported by
Vladimir Lenin, who eventually became the
leader of the world’s first communist government,
claimed that colonial conquest was the inevitable
result of capitalism’s need to expand in search of
profits.
Africans themselves. These arguments were focused in an article by Ronald Robinson and John
Gallagher, which charged that the British occupation of Egypt in the 1880s resulted from unrest in
Egypt that threatened the Suez Canal, the essential
route to India, Britain’s largest trading partner. The
threat made it possible for British imperialists to
justify the conquest, while Egyptian leaders accepted British occupation as a means to keep their own
opponents under control.127 Robinson and Gallagher’s article triggered a sequence of responses and
counter-responses that continues today,128 but there
is agreement on the starting point and the outcome.
As the map in Figure 6.1 shows, Europeans held only
a few places along the African coast in 1884. Within
fifteen years, however, they claimed control over everything but Ethiopia and Liberia.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
71
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
land from the coast. Advances in metal production
made weapons lighter, more powerful, and cheaper
to produce, giving outnumbered Europeans a greater sense of security and making it cheaper to consider conquest as a way to resolve trade disputes.
Governments become involved reluctantly, but saw
the benefit in having stable outposts along the African coast (where they could store coal for their increasingly steam-powered navies) and in receiving
taxes on the value of African exports and domestic
manufactures.125
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 6.1
Europe in Africa on the Eve of Partition, 1884-1885129
72
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
Disagreements between European nations over
both colonial and European issues led to a period
of conquest that became known as the “Scramble
for Africa.” The clearest colonial ambitions were
those of King Leopold II of Belgium, who thought
that acquiring overseas colonies might make his
small nation important. Questions about how far
Leopold could go led the new German Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck to call for a conference in Berlin to settle the questions and to avoid war between
Europeans over territory in Africa. Two months of
discussions between representatives of Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France,
Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Russia,
Spain, Sweden-Norway, Turkey, and the United States
produced the “General Act of the Berlin Conference
on West Africa, 26 February 1885.” The attending
At the Berlin Conference, European powers met
and effectively carved up Africa among themselves.
Figure 6.2
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The Berlin Conference 130
West African States and the European “Scramble,” 1883–1910131
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
73
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 6.3
The Partition of Africa, 1914132
74
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
nations agreed on matters regarding trade on the
Congo River, the slave trade in the Congo, navigation
on the Niger River, and rules to regulate European
claims to territory in Africa. European powers effectively carved up Africa among themselves without a single African present. As the straight lines
on the map in Figure 6.3 suggest, Europeans drew
boundaries across the African continent with little
consideration of Africans living in those regions.
The majority of West Africans experienced European rule conducted by the British or French, who
controlled approximately seventy-five percent of
Africa after 1918. Although there were many local
variants, scholars associate direct rule with the
French and indirect rule with the British. Both the
British and the French administered their colonies
by devising agreements with African collaborators
to collect taxes, mobilize labor for agriculture and
mining, maintain order, and provide security—all
under European control. In both systems Europeans
occupied the highest positions while Africans occupied the lowest, but they differed in how low (i.e.,
how close to African peasants) the positions held by
Europeans were allotted.
The British preferred to rule through collaboration with local chiefs already in place when the British arrived. British colonial administrator Frederick Lugard, who became the Governor of Nigeria,
called the goal the “Dual Mandate.” Colonial administrators were to rule efficiently for the economic
benefit of Great Britain in return for “uplifting” the
indigenous populations with British civilization and
material advancement.133
The French, on the other hand, sought to replace
traditional chiefs by appointing Africans educated
in French-run schools. French colonial administrators expected these collaborators to recreate the
idea of modernization which was already underway
in France. Not surprisingly, French-appointed African authorities rarely had widespread support, and
the French practice of transferring African chiefs
to rule over ethnic groups different from their own
made the situation even more challenging. Both authorities were often considered outsiders.
French colonial officials were also transferred
British colonial administrator Frederick Lugard
called the goal of administering colonies via
collaboration with local chiefs the “Dual Mandate.”
often. Their focus was not on learning and adapting to local cultures, but rather on achieving French
material and social goals and convincing educated
Africans to assimilate French culture and values.
Africans who did so came to be called évolués. The
goals of the French had some of their origins in the
French Revolution, whose motto was liberté, égalité,
fraternité. Of course, the French interpreted these
terms in ways that strengthened French rule; Africans did not have the liberté to reject French orders,
for example. They assumed that African culture was
inferior and used this noble motto to justify their attempts to transform it.
Both British and French colonies usually had a
governor or commissioner who administered with
the assistance of some kind of council or legislature.
Both the British and the French divided their colonies into regions, much like states in the U.S. are divided into counties. The French called these regions
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
75
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The Nature of Imperial and
Colonial Rule in West Africa
Most African labor was applied to producing taxable exports and constructing the infrastructure
required to export goods. Some African labor was
used to construct schools, electricity networks, and
water systems to improve the quality of life and education for Africans, but these types of projects did
not become important until after the Second World
War. By that time, such efforts came more as an
afterthought, and they failed to convince Africans
that they should remain as colonies. To pay for all
of this, Europeans taxed the African populations,
and to keep everyone in line they created courts of
justice to enforce their legal systems. Police and soldiers—often recruited from among African collaborators—helped maintain order, although there are
cases where they worked from within the colonial
system to undermine it, as was the case with many
African war veterans who joined independence
movements.134
To pull the complex colonial system together required a transportation infrastructure of railways,
roads, and harbors. Colonial officials designed and
constructed their transportation networks not only
to promote exports, but also to facilitate the movement of soldiers and police. To increase security and
generate taxable exports, European governments
offered their citizens cheap or free land taken from
Africans and incentives to invest. They distributed propaganda to promote colonial settlement and
generate support for empire.
The colonial system was very one-sided—Europeans sought African labor, but kept the Africans
out of import-export businesses, which remained in
British or French hands. Colonial officials denied Africans access to funding for entrepreneurial activities, especially mining.135 The colonial system did
little to develop local industry or manufacturing although the British model probably succeeded more
in this regard than the French did. Generally, the
emphasis was on extracting raw materials, transporting them to the coast, shipping them to Europe,
and processing them in Britain or France for their
76
Amadou Bamba maintained an autonomous
space within the French colony of Senegal.
internal and external markets. As A. Adu Boahen
writes, “the nature of the colonial system…was the
ruthless exploitation of the human and material resources of the African continent to the advantage of
the owners and shareholders of expatriate companies and the metropolitan governments and their
manufacturing and industrial firms.”136
The French in West Africa:
Amadou Bamba and Touba
The two case studies that follow will help us better understand French and British rule in West Africa and the reaction of Africans to the loss of their
sovereignty. Senegal is especially interesting because of the relationship between Sufism and French
colonialism. Rather than call for military jihad, leaders of the influential Sufi order known as the Murids
sought to create a space inside the colonial regime
in which Sufism could flourish. The French at first
did not know what to make of the founder of the Murids, Amadou Bamba. The French eventually decided to send him into exile, first in central Africa from
1895–1902 and then, after the French conquest was
completed, to southern Mauritania from 1903–07.
Prior to Bamba’s rise to power, Dammel Lat Joor
Joop, a Muslim leader, local hero, and contemporary
of Bamba, at first reluctantly supported the French.
The French, however, whittled away at Lat Joor’s
power by using his land for peanut production and
railway construction. A year after the Conference of
Berlin, Lat Joor was shot and killed by French soldiers.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
cercles, while the smallest British territorial division was the district, which was run by a district
commissioner. At the most local level, the British
carried out indirect rule by collaborating with local
chiefs, who retained much of their local power. The
French, however, usually replaced local rulers with
Africans sympathetic to the French.
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 6.4
Touba and the Murids137
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
77
across Senegal, have created cohesion among Muridiyya within Senegal and abroad. Even New York
City now celebrates “Amadou Bamba Day.”
Over the next few years, while studying hadith
and the Qur’an in exile in Mauritania, Bamba decided to establish a new Sufi order that would be more
appropriate to the culture and politics of Bamba’s
Wolof ethnic group and its colonial relationship
with the French. He called this order the Muridiyya,
meaning “novices” who seek the Lord.138
British involvement in the Gold Coast offers a second case study of colonial rule in West Africa. The
British influence began in the region of Cape Coast,
the location of the infamous slave castle. After 1850,
the British purchased the remaining Danish and
Dutch trading forts in the region, including the slave
castle of Elmina in 1872, which was as large as their
Cape Coast castle and gave them a trading monopoly in the region. This meant the British could now
charge customs duties on imports and exports to
strengthen the administration of the “Fante protectorate,” which they established near their trading
posts in 1844. The Asante, a powerful African state
located inland to the north, however, opposed the
growing British presence along the Fante coast.
Bamba’s teachings and writings, his adherents’
beliefs that he walked and prayed on water, and his
adaptability to colonialism in exchange for a space
within which to promote the Murids, secured his
place in West African history. Photos of him and the
mosque at Touba, and many examples of his likeness
In 1873, the Dutch transferred Elmina to the British without either Fante or Asante approval. The latter believed it held a right of refusal from the Dutch
and invaded the coast to assert their right. The British defended their new colonial possession and repulsed the Asante attack, and as the war deepened,
Garnet Wolseley led a British force inland. With
their advanced weapons, British soldiers defeated
The mosque at Touba was founded by Amadou
Bamba in 1887 and completed in 1963.
By 1910, Bamba announced the acceptability of
French rule. He declared the quiet struggle within
each individual to remain sinless to be the most important goal of jihad, rather than violent struggle
against the French. Bamba came to the support of
the French during the First World War, which was
particularly important because the French were at
war with the Ottoman Empire, the Sunni Muslim
sponsors of the annual hajj and the custodians of
the Holy Mosque in Mecca. In return for his support,
the French permitted Bamba to maintain his autonomous space in Senegal, remain independent from
Western schools, and retain his capital at Touba. After Bamba’s death, the French permitted members
of Bamba’s family to construct the famous mosque
at Touba, which has its own hajj of more than a million Muslims each year. The French also appreciated
the volume of peanut production carried out by Muridiyaa laborers.
78
This had not been the case in the past. During the
last half of the 1700s, the British, Fante, and Asante
had cooperated in the Atlantic slave trade. The Asante sent African captives as slaves to the coast to
the Fante, who then sold the slaves to the British and
Dutch. After the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade,
however, the Asante came to view the British as intruders, and their disagreements resulted in a series of five Anglo-Asante Wars. In 1824, the Asante
defeated the British and beheaded the British commander Sir Charles McCarthy. Three years later
the British avenged their defeat but did not venture
inland to Kumasi, the capital of the Asante. In 1844
the British signed agreements with the Fante to establish a coastal protectorate. The Asante and British resumed hostilities in 1863, but neither gained a
significant advantage.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The British in West Africa:
The British, the Asante, and
the Gold Coast
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 6.5
Asante Empire, 1750–1850140
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
79
the Asante again and occupied Kumasi briefly.139
The war of 1873 did not end hostilities between
the Asante and the British. As part of the Scramble
for Africa which got underway after the Congress of
Berlin, the British occupied Kumasi again in 1896.
After crushing another Asante revolt in 1900, Great
Britain annexed the Asante territory and declared
it a crown colony. Factors that had helped the British defeat the Asante included advances in medicine,
products of the industrial revolution, and collaboration with enemies of the Asante, especially the Fante
Confederation.
In the aftermath of the victory of 1873—whether
in the protectorate where chiefs were sympathetic
to Britain or in the colony where the British themselves ruled formally—the British imposed their
“civilizing mission.” They built British-style houses,
streets, and schools with African labor. To pay for it
all, they taxed the Africans and sought profits and
tariff revenue from palm oil exports used in Great
Britain to lubricate machines and produce soap. As
80
time went by, the British were able to employ a growing population of mixed Anglo-Africans in low-level
positions in the colonial administration or in business. This went on for more than eighty years until
the people of the Gold Coast won their independence
from Great Britain (described in Section VII).
Challenges to Colonial
Systems
After conquest ended, the highest European priority was to make the colonies pay for themselves.
In the short run this meant building railroads and
port facilities to enable African products to reach
European factories. In the longer run, it meant making African workers more productive by providing
them with education and health care. In theory,
highly productive workers would earn enough to
turn them into consumers of European products,
which governments could tax. Then governments
could use the resulting revenue to make improve-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
A wood engraving depicting the evacuation of wounded British soldiers during the Anglo-Asante Wars.
ments, both in Africa and at home.
But colonial conquest failed to eliminate the rivalries between Europeans, and in 1914 these rivalries erupted into the First World War. Although
Europeans hesitated to arm colonial Africans for
service in Europe, their officers led African troops
into battles in Africa, and when the French army ran
short of new recruits, they brought about a quarter
million Africans to the trenches on the Western
Front.141 For African civilians, the most common effect was harder work for less pay, because the colonizers pressed their subjects to produce more for
the war effort, but kept wages and prices low to free
up more money for the war at home. The effect was
uneven—Africans who lived in the cities and/or
worked for Europeans noticed it more, while those
who made their living in the local economy suffered
less. However, everyone noticed that the number of
Europeans declined as officials were pulled back to
Europe to fight. As a result, the European system
appeared vulnerable for the first time since the end
of the conquest, and as World War I dragged on,
there were strikes and revolts, which the Europeans
tried to prevent by promising improvements after
the war ended.142
After the war ended in 1918, European governments faced demands from their own citizens to repair the damage caused by the war, so the promises
made to Africans were watered down or delayed.
The French adopted a novel approach, which they
called “assimilation,” whereby a small number of
Africans were granted access to European privileges in the hope that their success would promote pa-
Italian artillery in Tembien, Ethiopia, in 1936. Any
remaining trust Africans had in Europeans was
shattered by the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
tience among the rest of the population.143 The other
European colonial powers merely stalled while they
tried to get back on their feet. It took nearly a decade for the economies of Europe to stabilize, but
just as they started to address the expectations of
Africans, a new crisis developed—a worldwide economic depression.
From 1929 to 1939, the value of world trade
dropped by more than fifty percent.144 For Africans,
this meant that the market for their products shrank,
so the price paid for their labor did too. For colonial
governments, the loss of tax revenue based on trade
meant they had to force Africans to do work to get
things done like bridge-building and road repairs.
Just like the First World War, the Great Depression
was harder on Africans who were more closely connected to the export economy, so it seemed to penalize those who had shown the most trust in the
promises made by Europeans. Without the money
needed to build schools and carry out other promises, colonial governments faced with African resistance tried to stop it with increased police activity.
When this approach proved inadequate, colonial
governments offered legal reforms that granted Africans more rights. Although the first reforms were
small and affected very few people, they raised the
expectations of change across entire colonial populations.
Any remaining trust in Europeans was shattered by the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the
only African state besides Liberia that remained independent at the end of the conquest period. As a
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
81
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Senegalese soldiers served on behalf of France
during World War I.
member of the League of Nations (the forerunner to
the United Nations), Ethiopia was theoretically the
equal of Italy in the eyes of the world. But when the
League failed to order the Italians to stop their invasion, Africans understood the European powers—
like Great Britain and France which dominated the
League—would never take action against other Europeans to protect African rights. Instead, it took
the Second World War between the Europeans to
get the Italians out of Ethiopia in 1941, but by then
a new generation of Africans had begun to resent
the sacrifices demanded by the countries that controlled them.145
The Second World War was longer and far costlier
than the First World War, so the demands it placed
on Africans were commensurately greater. This
time Europeans readily armed Africans and sent
them into combat, with the result that African families suffered more disruption and loss. The colonial
governments made more and larger promises to insure loyalty, but the Africans who survived the war
acquired other ideas. They had seen non-European
Japanese challenge the British and their American
allies, and had acquired the skills required to wage
war themselves. They also absorbed the arguments
82
used by the Allies to justify the war, like the Atlantic
Charter’s condemnation of one people’s domination
by another, and understood the meaning of Article
73 of the United Nations Charter when it called for
movement toward self-government in colonies.146
With European countries badly damaged by the
war, their promises to Africans about postwar improvements took on a new form. Instead of “assimilating” Africans into European society, they offered
that Africans could now “associate” with Europe.
This meant maintaining economic ties, but granting
political rights to Africans to decide local issues. It
also offered a way to shift the cost of development to
Africans by granting them the “right” to determine
what to develop and how to pay for it. Europeans
made some additional investments in education and
health care and built new roads, which promoted
both export production and the movement of rural
people toward coastal African cities, but they continued to favor trade over improving the quality of
African lives. As a consequence, a new generation of
African leaders found an increasing number of people who were willing to support their demands for
more legal rights and eventually independence.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
East Africa Division troops march in Burma during world War II. Europeans readily armed Africans and
sent them into combat.
Section VI Conclusion
Translating that power into effective administration proved impossible. European rivalries absorbed
a great deal of attention and resources and turned
colonized Africans into pawns in larger European
conflicts. As a result, Africans perceived European colonialism as exploitative, and when Africans
weren’t struggling to survive, they looked for ways
to take advantage of European weaknesses in order
to free themselves from colonial rule. The next section will discuss how this independence was accomplished and the consequences that followed.


he Industrial Revolution altered the ecoT
nomic relationship between Europeans and
Africans and furnished the means for Europeans to take direct control over Africa.
nce the conquest was complete, EuropeO
ans had to decide what to do with their new
territories—integrate them into their own
territory, like the United States did with the
region west of the Mississippi, or use their
new power to extract a larger share of the
profits from the work done by Africans. The
perception of difference between Europeans
and Africans—a legacy of the slave trade—
made the first alternative unlikely, but there
was no clear way to achieve the second while
keeping the costs to a minimum.
 For Africans, the desire to avenge the conquest conflicted with the attraction of the
new possibilities offered by Europeans.
When Europeans involved Africans against
their own will and self-interest in two world
wars and an economic depression, even
those Africans who were attracted by European life ceased to believe they could obtain
it. Instead, they looked for ways to shape
their own lives and countries.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
83
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
For a very brief time in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, European powers commanded much of the world and justified it with Social Darwinism—the “survival of the fittest.” More
important, they had advanced weaponry to enforce
their will on the Africans they conquered. As the
poet Hilaire Belloc once wrote: “Whatever happens,
we have got / The Maxim Gun, and they have not.”147
Section VI Summary
Section VII
The End of Imperial Rule in
Africa
Independence came suddenly and rapidly to Europe’s African colonies. Despite promises made to
secure their subjects’ loyalty during the Second
World War, as the fighting drew to a close in 1945,
the colonial powers had already begun to plan how
to restore their control and use their colonies to
help rebuild their own countries. But starting in
1951 when Libya became independent, thirty-nine
African colonies became independent in the next
twenty years. Most did this peacefully, but there
were exceptions. In colonies like Algeria and Kenya, which had large European minorities who had
settled there permanently, war broke out when the
colonial power (France and Great Britain, respectively) tried to delay independence in order to safeguard settler privileges.148 The Belgian Congo had
a smaller proportion of Europeans, but they were
clustered around the extremely valuable mining
industry in the southeastern province of Katanga
(modern-day Shaba) whose shareholders pressured
the Belgian government to delay independence.149
The widest violence occurred in the Portuguese colonies—Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Guniea-Bisseau—because the government refused to
consider independence until it was overthrown in
1974.150
Several things happened at independence. In cases where independence was achieved peacefully,
large celebrations demonstrated relief, jubilation,
and a sense of national unity, or at least acceptance
by those who had hoped for another outcome. Where
84
Portuguese soldiers in Angola. The widest
violence occurred in the Portuguese colonies
because the government refused to consider
independence until it was overthrown.
independence was violent, those who lost emigrated while the rest came to terms with a government
whose first priority was eliminating any remaining opponents. In either case, new governments
received offers of aid from the two major Cold War
powers, the USA and USSR, with the understanding that they would return the favor with votes at
the United Nations, military alliances, and trade
agreements. Each new government also had to work
out its relationship with its former colonial power,
which usually involved economic and military aid,
educational and health exchange programs, and
promises to engage in future planning exercises.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
The Rise of
Independent West Africa
Ghana was the first black African country to become independent in 1957. It reached independence
thanks to the efforts of many, but the main figure
was Kwame Nkrumah, a U.S.-educated teacher who
became the leader of the independence movement.
Nkrumah was born near the coast in the western
part of what was then called the Gold Coast and attended college in the capital (Accra) before earning
three more degrees at Lincoln University and the
University of Pennsylvania. There, he met students
from other African colonies and became interested
not only in independence, but also in uniting Africans.
As a consequence, he attended the Fifth Pan-Africanist Conference in England at the end of the Second World War. There he met members of the United
Gold Coast Convention, which represented the interests of African lawyers and businessmen in discussions with the British colonial authorities over the
future of the colony. Nkrumah returned home to
work for them in 1948, but became dissatisfied with
their failure to represent the interests of ordinary
Africans. In 1949, he and his allies formed their own
party, the Convention People’s Party, and after
several years of demonstrations, strikes, and even
a term in jail, his party defeated the older party in
an election, and Nkrumah became president of independent Ghana on March 6, 1957.151
For Nkrumah, the struggle against colonialism
did not end there. He supported other independence movements and became a founder of the NonAligned Nations movement, a group that tried to
avoid alliances with either side in the Cold War.152
Nkrumah believed that the newly independent African countries had to join together to prevent a return to colonialism and to negotiate with the superpowers. In 1965, Nkrumah wrote:
In 1945 Africa largely comprised the colonial territories of European powers, and
the idea that the greater part of the continent would be independent within twenty
years would have seemed impossible to any
political observer in the immediate post-
U.S.-educated Kwame Nkrumah became the
leader of the independence movement in Gold
Coast and became independent Ghana’s first
president. He was also a strong advocate for panAfricanism.
war period. Yet, not only has independence
been achieved but considerable progress
has been made towards the establishment
of African unity. To this unity there are still
powerful obstacles but they are no greater
than the obstacles already overcome and, if
their nature is understood, they are clearly
surmountable. … No country can be completely self-sufficient or afford to ignore
political events outside its borders. Africa
is clearly fragmented into too many small,
uneconomic and nonviable States, many of
whom are having a very hard struggle to
survive.153
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
85
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Ghana, Pan-Africanism, and
Kwame Nkrumah
Senegal’s first president, Léopold Senghor, built
a party so strong that he won reelection from 1960
to 1981.
The Problems of Independence
Although winning independence was a success,
Nkrumah’s warnings were justified. Within a decade, many of the new governments had lost much
of their support, and even the concept of national
unity was in doubt. There were several reasons for
this, starting with the use of colonial borders to define the new nations. Those borders were the result
of agreements made in Europe and had nothing to
do with the allegiances of the people they regulated. Thus, members of a single ethnic group found
themselves spread across several countries, like the
Tuareg of Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Mauritania, while
a single country could contain members of several
ethnic groups who had been opponents prior to the
conquest. The struggle for independence obscured
those divisions, but the reality of independence
brought them into the open.
At the heart of the problem was economics. As
colonies, African nations provided raw materials to
industrialized countries but received few opportunities to develop industries themselves. The result
was a transfer of wealth overseas that left the new
countries independent but impoverished. Foreign
aid was intended to overcome that, but it was not
86
The result was a series of military revolts that
replaced democratic governments with one-party
states. Although there were exceptions—like Senegal whose first president, Léopold Senghor, built
a party so strong that he served as president from
1960 until December 1980—in many countries the
citizens welcomed military rule. They reasoned that
the army was the only truly national organization
in the country, and its command structure provided
stability that arguing politicians could not. Between
1963 and 1968 there were sixty-four military revolts in countries that included Togo, Algeria, Libya,
Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Congo-Kinshasa.
In the case of Nigeria, West Africa’s most populous
country, the result was a civil war.155
Nigeria and the
Nigerian-Biafran War
Nigeria became independent in 1960, but remained divided by ethnicity, religion, and colonial
practice. A large northern region of Nigeria was
dominated by Muslim Hausa people, a smaller west-
Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu
led the secession of southeastern Nigeria, which
declared its independence as the Republic of Biafra.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
enough to tackle all of the development problems at
the same time. So opponents who had formed alliances in order to gain independence became jealous
and distrustful when some projects moved forward
while others were told to wait. Government became
the biggest source of wealth in many countries, and
those without connections viewed “insiders” as corrupt. These problems were aggravated by the Cold
War powers whose promises and gifts seemed to
encourage leaders to ignore their people.154
ern region was predominantly Yoruba and Christian, and the southeastern region was mainly populated with Christian Igbo and other smaller groups.
The initial three-state solution proved unstable, and
in early 1966, Igbo officers led a military coup. That
raised fears that produced a second coup in July and
the division of the army along regional lines.
Figure 7.1
After 1970, a succession of military leaders presided over the reunification of Nigeria with some
success and even held an election that returned con-
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu
led the secession of southeastern Nigeria, which declared its independence as the Republic of Biafra.
General Yakubu Gowon took control of the rest of
Nigeria and began a campaign to reunify the country.156 Although the Biafrans won some early victories, they ran short of supplies and attracted only
limited foreign support. The war turned into a stalemate that ended after two years of blockade and
mass starvation in Biafra.
Map indicating the secession of Biafra during the Nigerian civil war.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
87
After the secession of southeastern Nigeria,
General Yakubu Gowon took control of the rest
of Nigeria and began a campaign to reunify the
country.
trol of the government to civilians in 1979. But the
new democracy barely lasted four years until, in response to new charges of corruption, the army took
over again. Power returned to civilians after the
1999 elections, but many Nigerians continued to accuse the winners of rigging subsequent elections.157
Democracy in Independent
Africa
The challenges of establishing a democracy in
Nigeria were not unique. In addition to the conflict
that resulted every time two or more political parties faced off, critics argued that political campaigns
were costly, they promoted party loyalties that interfered with national unity, and they depended on
an idea that Africans inherited from colonialism.
During the 1970s, African democracy faced further challenges. Some African nations became single-party socialist states supported by the USA’s
Cold War opponents. Another challenge was that
democracy was associated with the countries that
supported South Africa, whose racist apartheid government was condemned by nearly all other African
countries. Further distrust developed in oil-producing countries like Nigeria and Angola, where the
enormous wealth generated by the world’s oil crises
88
But then something happened that revived interest in democracy—the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989. Coming in the same year as the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, the fall of communism restored confidence in the ability of mass
movements to overcome powerful governments.
The final outcome still lies in the future, but after
the fall of communism in Europe, longtime rulers
were overthrown or resigned in countries such as
Senegal, Mali, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire,
and more. The results have not always been clean
or efficient, but they have reinforced the hope that
political change is possible.
Globalization and Africa
Another change is also underway whose effects
are more complicated—globalization. Globalization
is the creation of systems that overcome distance,
enabling things to move farther, faster, and at lower cost. Those “things” include more than just raw
materials and industrial products; they also include
money, ideas, and people. For Africa, globalization
has not only changed the economics of world trade,
it has also led to greater opportunities for Africans
to go elsewhere, for Africans and non-Africans to
learn about each other, and for foreign ideas to influence how Africans think and behave.
For example, the globalization of the resistance
to Israel and its allies by al-Qaeda inspired rebels in
the Sahara to redefine their opposition to national
African governments. The use of new media by the
Roman Catholic Church has made Africa the fastest
growing region for new converts. The Internet has
enabled cyber-criminals who claim to be Nigerian to
reach potential victims all over the world. Changes
in airfares and the construction costs of hotels allowed The Gambia to become a tourist destination
for Europeans as well as other Africans. Televised
soccer tournaments have made African athletes
like N’Golo Kante (French-born Malian) and Jerome
Boateng (Ghana) into international celebrities, and
television provided a worldwide audience when the
2010 FIFA World Cup Finals were held in South Africa. By making it easier to move people and money, globalization has increased the flow of African
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
in 1972–3 and 1978–9 increased the temptation for
corruption.
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 7.2
Map of Mali
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
89
Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (center),
photographed after addressing the press following
the 2015 terrorist attack on a hotel in Mali’s capital
Bamako.
migrants toward Europe, where higher wages offset the risk of the hazardous journey and Internet
banking provides the means to send money to relatives back home.
Challenges to National Unity
in Mali
The 2012 revolution in Mali showed many of
these forces at work. Mali is a large country (nearly
as large as Alaska) on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Two-thirds of it is virtually empty and
barely inhabitable, while the southern third contains most of the population who depend on farms
near the Niger River or live in forested mountains.
After winning independence peacefully from
France in 1960, the government was taken over
by a military officer who ruled from 1968 to 1991.
Since then there have been five presidential elections with three won by civilians, including the current president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. All of Mali’s
presidents have come from the southern part of the
country, leaving the northern minority distrustful
of the government.
To maintain national unity, the government provided northerners with extra autonomy—the right
to make local laws that differed from those in the
rest of the country—but offered little in the form of
economic development because Mali is poor and the
region is vast. Even so, that was enough to maintain
order for decades, although northerners often left
90
Their initial success triggered a mutiny in Mali’s
army and led to the rapid withdrawal of its forces
from the northern part of the country. This alarmed
Mali’s neighbors, especially those whose territory
extended into the Sahara, and many responded to a
call by ECOWAS (the Economic Organization of West
African States) for troops to aid Mali and to oppose
the mutineers. Fearing that al-Qaeda would establish a foothold in West Africa, France dispatched
troops and aircraft to fight the rebels in early 2013,
aided by Germany, the U.S., Canada, and other Western countries. After a six-month campaign, the rebels were driven out of the major northern towns,
and in July 2013 Mali held an election that had been
delayed for a year. But sporadic attacks in the north
continued, and highly visible attacks on a restaurant
and hotel in the capital city in 2015 showed that national unity has not yet been secured.159
Challenges to Economic
Independence in Ghana
In the decades after independence, Ghana was
known as an “African success story.” The construction of the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River provided electricity to process aluminum for export,
while also supplying electricity to homes and businesses as far away as the capital in Accra. Ghana
succeeded it diversifying its colonial-era economy
by adding light manufacturing, crude oil, and electricity to its exports of cocoa and gold. But the other
side of the story is imports, and that is where the
effects of globalization have been most evident.
Ghana is known for a type of locally made
high-quality cloth called Kente, which is a symbol
of traditional Africa in many places. Woven from local fibers into long strips that are then cut, joined
together, and tailored into clothing, Kente cloth has
long been a staple of Ghanaian fashion and an ex-
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Mali to find work. National unity began to unravel
after a series of droughts destroyed animal herds
and forced northerners to become refugees in the
south or in oil-wealthy countries like Algeria and
Libya. The 2011 revolution in Libya led to an exodus of contract workers who returned home across
the desert to Mali, where they joined longtime opponents of the government plus newcomers affiliated
with al-Qaeda in attacks on northern army bases in
January 2012.158
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Figure 7.3
Map of Ghana
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
91
Since globalization makes the price of transport
irrelevant, it allows manufacturers to locate wherever they want. Their choice is then subject to the
price of other costs like workers’ wages, raw materials, bank interest, and so on, with production located to take advantage of whichever factor saves
textile production, Chinese labor costs are less than
those in Africa, and neither the cost of cotton nor the
cost of shipping cloth to overseas markets is enough
to cancel the savings. If the government wanted to
revive the textile industry in Ghana, the solution
would be to make Ghana’s workers produce more for
lower wages. Even if that were possible, they would
face competition from the next country that decided
it needed to increase its share of textile manufacturing. So, in a globalizing world, Africans begin at
a disadvantage with low levels of industrialization
and small consumer markets.
Other Issues in Twenty-First
Century Africa
Although huge advances have been made in life
expectancy and other health measures, tropical Africa remains a source of diseases like malaria and
Ebola. With increased human mobility, the risk of
epidemics also increases, making Africa’s health
care a part of the problem of world health care. The
world generally tends to ignore Africa until a disaster strikes (like Ebola), but there are high-profile efforts to prevent disease, like those funded by the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation to combat malaria and
92
Weavers of Kente cloth in Ghana. By 2007 only
about one-quarter of Ghana’s Kente cloth was
actually manufactured in Ghana—the majority
came from China.
polio through measures that include not only more
doctors and medicine, but also better food.161
Critics rebel at the idea that Africans need to
accept “aid” from outsiders and argue instead that
Africans are entitled to reparations for the damage done by the slave trade and colonialism, citing
payments made to Native Americans and Japanese-Americans as precedents. In June 1992, the Organization of African Unity established a group to
look into the question, and they cited statistics that
showed the average annual income of people south
of the Sahara was about $571, compared to $24,090
in the USA, $20,000 in Great Britain, and $24,010 in
France.162 Statistics for life expectancy also showed
an enormous gap—life expectancy was found to be
about fifty years in Africa south of the Sahara compared to seventy-five in the U.S., and seventy-six
and seventy-seven in Great Britain and France respectively.163 The argument for reparations gained
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
port to neighboring African countries. Even during
the centuries when cheap European textiles arrived
by ship, local cloth producers managed to keep their
customers. But that has changed in recent years as
cheaper substitutes invaded the Ghanaian market.
By 2007 only about one-quarter of Ghana’s Kente
cloth was actually manufactured in Ghana. The majority came from China, which duplicated traditional designs using less expensive (but less durable)
fabric. The consequences of this were many. On the
one hand, it led to a decline in the demand for cotton
grown in Ghana, the closing of textile factories—,
and the loss of both highly skilled and factory jobs
associated with cloth design and production. On
the other hand, cloth traders seem unaffected, and
poor people gained access to styles once reserved
for wealthy people.160
One approach that has gained some acceptance
has been the forgiveness of debts that have accumulated since the original foreign aid payments that
followed independence. Organized by the International Monetary Fund, the Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries Initiative and the Multilateral Debt
Relief Initiative have obtained debt relief worth
about $100 billion for thirty of Africa’s poorest
countries.165
Figure 7.4
Section VII Conclusion
Although Africans obtained political independence in the second half of the twentieth century,
they remained economically dependent on a global
economy that kept them at a disadvantage in trade.
Despite offers of assistance from wealthier nations,
the problems left behind by colonialism were enormous, and Africans had no leverage beyond raw materials, military bases, and UN votes. As the situation became clear within new African countries, it
aggravated internal dissatisfaction that led to revolution. Military rule seemed to offer a way to resolve those disputes, but after almost two decades
of trying, it became clear that such challenges had
not been resolved. Although the demise of communism at the end of the 1980s removed one source of
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
support in 2001 when the World Conference against
Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in South Africa declared the
transatlantic slave trade a crime against humanity.164
Independent Africa166
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
93

Section VII Summary
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China


94
he desire for African independence existT
ed ever since the European conquest, but
the conditions that made it possible did not
come together until the end of the Second
World War. The strain of rebuilding after
the war, coupled with an increase in the
number of Africans who understood how to
manipulate European institutions, enabled
the growth of mass movements that became
strong enough to obtain independence.
espite European efforts to control the
D
outcome, once independence was obtained,
African leaders essentially did what they
wanted. These new leaders were, however,
handicapped by what they inherited from
colonialism—borders that divided people,
a set of ideas about how to govern, personal relationships that affected their alliances,
and most of all, an economic arrangement
that put Africans at a disadvantage. Within
a few years, African leaders understood that
political independence was not enough to
insure true independence, but that under-

standing did not make them more effective.
Besides establishing a new relationship
with their former colonial powers, African
leaders had to negotiate their relationships
with two superpowers—the U.S.A. and the
U.S.S.R.—engaged in a worldwide Cold War.
Both sides sought African raw materials,
military bases, and UN votes, but neither
viewed Africans as equals or as threats. As
a result, the only leverage that Africans had
came from playing one side against the other, while the superpowers did the same with
factions within each African country.
Few of Africa’s first elected leaders were able
to manage competing political demands, so
military officers took over. They used their
authority (and control of guns) to push internal divisions out of view, but they could
not make them go away entirely. Thus, when
Communism collapsed at the end of the
1980s, revived interest in democracy also
removed some military governments in Africa. But the economic problems remained,
and globalization has reinforced the power
of economic advantage. Africans remain in a
situation that resembles their colonial past,
where they consume foreign goods produced
with African raw materials, depend on foreigners for loans to finance development,
and compete to sell their labor more cheaply
than anybody else in order to survive. This
is “neo-colonialism”—the “new” colonialism that has outlasted colonial empires and
political independence.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
division, the economic realities and social divisions
remained unaffected. The process of globalization
has enabled new leaders to bring together the elements for new kinds of power, although it remains
to be seen whether the current leadership of African
nations will be any more effective than the leaders
that won independence.
This resource guide on Africa, and West Africa in
particular, has taken you on the longest of human
journeys—from our human origins to our global
present. The history of Africa has exemplified the
best and worst of humanity. It has given us heroic
stories and human creativity. It has also featured examples of great cruelty and prejudice. Consider the
multitude of African experiences we have learned
about: treks across the Sahara in camel caravans
from Timbuktu to Sijilmasa; the creation of great
empires based on gold, strong will, and religion; the
pathos generated by African and chattel slavery and
the brutality of the Middle Passage; the imported
economic promises rooted in capitalism, socialism,
and the Dual Mandate; independence movements
and discussions about Pan-Africanism; and the
struggle to achieve the best partnership between
ethnic identities and a sense of nationalism.
In the twenty-first century, African nations continue to nurture relationships with their former
colonial rulers, much the same way the U.S. values
its partnership with Great Britain, but they have
also moved beyond them to form new partnerships
with nonwestern countries. All humans were connected to Africa in the past; those connections have
persisted in our modern globalized world, and new
connections continue to develop in the present-day.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
95
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Conclusion
Timeline of Events
Note to Students: Dates are designated by bce and ce, which are abbreviations for “Before the Common Era
and “In the Common Era.” All bce and some ce dates are approximate and may vary depending on the source
consulted.
bce (Before the Common Era)
The earliest hominid fossils appear in Africa.
4.2 million –
Australopithecines evolve in Africa.
3.3 million –
Approximate creation date for oldest stone tools, found in Kenya, East Africa
2.4-1.4
million –
The time period for Homo habilis, the first member of the genus Homo
1.89 million–
143,000 –
The time period for Homo erectus
1.8 million –
H. erectus migrates out of Africa to Europe and Asia.
200,000 –
10,000 –
The oldest fossils of humans who look like us, Homo sapiens, appear in Africa.
Afro-Eurasian agriculture begins.
10,000–2,500 – Africa’s New Stone Age or Neolithic period
5300–3000 –
3000 –
Pre-dynastic Egypt; smaller states unify.
Improved irrigation agriculture begins in Egypt.
3000–332 –
The vast time period for Pharaonic Egypt
2686–2160 –
The Old Kingdom of Pharaonic Egypt
2600–2500 –
The Old Kingdom’s period of monument building; Egyptians construct the pyramids of
Giza.
2500–800 –
The Bronze Age in Africa; advances in irrigation create surplus crops and larger
populations barter.
96
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
6 million –
The First Intermediate Period; a period of disorder in Pharaonic Egypt
2055–1650 –
The Middle Kingdom of Pharaonic Egypt
1650–1550 –
The Second Intermediate Period of Pharaonic Egypt and the invasion of the Hyksos
1550–1069 –
The New Kingdom of Pharaonic Egypt
1069–30 –
The Post Empire Period of Pharaonic Egypt
1000 bce–
300 ce –
The population explosion of Bantu speakers takes place where Nigeria and Cameroon
meet today; they begin to move east and reach northern South Africa by about 300 ce.
700s bce–
1500 ce –
A period when ancient Greek traditions hold Africa in high regard
600s –
332–30 –
The Iron Age begins in Africa.
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
2160–2055 –
Ptolemaic Egypt
ce (In the Common Era)
42 –
St. Mark introduces Christianity to Egypt.
100 –
The first West African camel caravans travel across the Sahara.
325 –
The Council of Nicaea establishes central Christian beliefs in the Nicaean Creed.
400–1100 –
The first great West African empire of Ghana is established in the upper Niger River valley
between the Sahara to the north and tropical forests on the coast.
451 –
The Council of Chalcedon defines the relationship between the divine and human natures
of Jesus.
570–632 –
The lifetime of Muhammad ibn Abdallah, the Prophet of Islam
613 –
Abyssinian Negus (Ethiopian king) gives sanctuary to Muslims fleeing Meccan persecution.
622 –
Muslim migration from Mecca to Yathrib-Medina; year one of the Hijra calendar
640 –
Muslims capture Egypt from Byzantium’s Orthodox Christians.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
97
The Umayyad Caliphate, the first of two great Muslim Caliphates during Islam’s Golden
Age
750–1258 –
The Abbasid Caliphate, the second of two great Muslim Caliphates during Islam’s Golden
Age
800 –
Spanish Muslims enslave ethnic slavs, the origin of the word “slave.”
941 –
The end of the Imam leadership of the Shia, the minority sect within Islam
1042 –
Muslim Tuareg, also known as the Almoravids, conquer ancient Ghana.
1203 –
Ancient Ghana is completely defeated by Sosso.
1235 –
The Battle of Krina; Sundiata Keïta defeats the conquerors of ancient Ghana, the Sosso,
and creates the second great West African empire of Mali.
1235–55 –
1324 –
Mansa Musa’s hajj caravan of 60,000 porters visits Cairo and Mecca.
1329 –
Ibn Battuta visits the Swahili coast.
1352–53 –
1441 –
1450–1500 –
1450 –
1450–1591 –
1454 and
1456 –
1492 –
c.1509–1517 –
1518 –
98
Sundiata Keïta rules Mali.
Ibn Battuta visits Mali.
The Portuguese deliver their first cargo of slaves to Lisbon.
The Portuguese import about eight hundred slaves a year into Portugal.
The plantation slavery model is carried out in Madeira.
Time period of Songhay, the third great West African empire.
The pope approves the slave trade by the Portuguese on the condition that it advance
Christianity.
The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas
Leo Africanus visits Songhay.
Leo Africanus is captured by pirates and given to Pope Leo X.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
644–750 –
The Spanish transport West African slaves to the Caribbean, initiating the transatlantic
slave trade.
1550s –
Slaves accompany conquistadores in the New World.
1550s –
Slave-based sugar plantations peak on São Tomé.
1600 –
The Portuguese become the largest sugar producers due to thriving plantation slavery in
Bahia, Brazil.
1619 –
The first slaves arrive in North America at Port Comfort, Virginia, on the James River.
1625 –
The English, Dutch, French, and Danes begin to challenge Spanish and Portuguese
dominance of the transatlantic slave trade and the production of sugar.
1637 –
The Dutch take Elmina Castle from the Portuguese.
1640s –
The Portuguese expand the slave trade with Kongo in present-day Angola.
c. 1695 –
Osei Tutu and Anokye create the Golden Stool myth and unite the Asante people.
1700s –
The transatlantic slave trade peaks.
1712 –
Slaves attempt to burn New York City.
1723 –
Slaves attempt to burn Boston.
1783 –
The Quakers found the first British anti-slavery society.
1788 –
Olaudah Equiano appears before Parliament to argue for the abolition of the transatlantic
slave trade.
1789 –
Olaudah Equiano publishes his influential autobiography that is critical of the slave trade.
1807 –
Britain and the U.S. outlaw the importation of slaves into territories that they control. The
law took effect in the U.S. in 1808.
1814 –
The Asante defeat the Fante and bring them under their rule.
1820 –
Asantehene Osei Bonsu opposes the British ban on the Atlantic slave trade.
1824 –
The Asante defeat the British and behead Sir Charles McCarthy.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
1518 –
99
1826 –
The British defeat the Asante.
1838 –
Britain bans slave ownership throughout the British Empire.
1844 –
The British sign agreements with the Fante to establish a coastal protectorate in the Gold
Coast.
1863 –
The Asante and the British resume hostilities; neither gains a significant advantage.
1870–1914 –
1872 –
1873–74 –
1875 –
1884–85 –
Period of the New Imperialism in which Europe expands colonial holdings in Africa and
Asia
The ceremony of Dutch transfer of Elmina to the British takes place in April.
The Asante and the British resume warfare; Sir Garnet Wolseley defeats the Asante in early
1874.
Britain bans slavery in the Gold Coast.
The Berlin Conference establishes the rules for European imperialism in Africa.
1896 –
The British reoccupy Kumasi in the Gold Coast.
1900 –
The British defeat the Asante and proclaim a protectorate.
1910 –
Amadou Bamba collaborates with the French in colonial Senegal.
1957 –
The British grant the Gold Coast independence as Ghana under the leadership of Kwame
Nkrumah.
1957–66 –
Kwame Nkrumah leads independent Ghana.
1958 –
France’s African colonies are offered the choice between complete independence or
French federation.
1960 –
Nigeria gains independence from Great Britain; Ghana becomes a republic.
1967 –
Biafran Igbo leaders declare independence from Nigeria on May 30.
1967–70 –
100
Period of five wars between the Asante and the British in Gold Coast
The Nigerian Civil War with Biafra; more than a million people die.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
1823–1900 –
1950–60 –
2012 –
2014–16 –
Scientists in South Africa discover the oldest evidence of human creativity in tools dating
from 70,000 bce.
The Ebola virus outbreak takes place in West Africa.
Scientists publish environmental models that support the fossil and archaeological record
of the migration of Homo sapiens from Africa.
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
2016 –
The rise of significant nationalist and independence movements in Africa
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
101
Abbasids (750–1258) – one of two great caliphates during
Islam’s Golden Age; named after one of Muhammad’s
uncles; overthrew the Umayyads, the first great
caliphate
Abolition – movement to end slavery and the transatlantic
slave trade
Abolitionists – African, European, and U.S. activists
who opposed slavery in all forms and since at least the
1500s worked to end it
Abraham – the patriarch from Ur who allegedly founded
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; assuming Abraham
lived during the Jewish Age of the Patriarchs, he
would have been born sometime after 2000 bce,
perhaps as late as 1800 bce or even later, and would
have left Ur for Canaan after reaching manhood
Abu Talib (?–619) – the uncle who raised Muhammad,
the Prophet of Islam
Abyssinia – the ancient name for Ethiopia
Acropolis – in southern Africa, part of Great Zimbabwe
Adinkra – symbols created by the Asante to represent
concepts; Gye Nyame is the most famous
African slavery – bondage within African societies in
which slaves had rights to marry and raise families;
their children were often born free; they provided
functions of servitude and reproduction; see chattel
slavery
Leo (al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi)
(1485–1554) – a Moor who in 1518 was captured
by pirates and given to Pope Leo X as a present; he
was freed by the pope and took his name at baptism;
later published Description of Africa, which described
Songhay; family name was al-Hasan ibn Muhammad
al-Wazzan al-Fasi
102
Afro-Asiatic – one of five major language groups of
Africa
Afrocentrism – the perception of life through African
eyes inside African culture and environments
Afro-Pessimists – those who believe Africa has so many
problems that the foreseeable future is grim
Agades – city in Niger some 720 due east of Timbuktu;
also Agadez
Akan – one of three West African gold fields located in
the forest and savanna of present-day Ghana; the other
two are Bambuk and Bure; also a language group
Akosombo Dam – the Ghanaian hydroelectric dam on
the Volta River that opened in 1966
Al-Azhar University – a university founded in 970 in
Cairo; Al-Azhar is Sunni Islam’s most important
university in Africa and arguably the Muslim world
Ali (601–661) – Muhammad’s cousin, son-in-law, and
fourth caliph; revered by both Sunni and Shia Muslims
Allah – Arabic word for the one god
Almoravids – northern Muslim Berbers who in 1042
invaded and conquered ancient Ghana
Anglo-Asante Wars (1824–1900) – the series of five
wars between Great Britain and the Asante
Anokye – the priest who with Osei Tutu created the
legend of the Golden Stool and unified the Asante
ethnic group under Osei Tutu in c. 1695
Ardrah – the center of the slave trade of the Aja ethnic
group in southwestern Nigeria
Aristotle (384–322 bce) – a Greek philosopher who
thought highly of Egypt and Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Glossary
Arquebus – a forerunner of the rifle used against the
defenders of Songhay in 1590
Asante – a major West African ethnic group in the
southern half of present-day Ghana who participated
in the slave trade; capital is Kumasi; engaged in five
wars against the British
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Asantehene – the title of a ruling Asante leader
Asiento – the asiento or transferable contract originated
in the fifteenth-century whereby the papacy awarded
Portugal the monopoly of European trade with
Africa; by 1518 the Spanish began issuing asientos to
entrepreneurs, companies, or other governments to
supply African slaves to Spanish colonies in America
Askia, Mohammed (?–1537) – the West African leader
of Songhay who expanded its territory, improved the
structure of government, and reformed Islam
Asma’u, Nana (1793–1864) – the important West
African Muslim woman, teacher, and Sufi who
provided female leadership for the Sokoto Caliphate
in present-day northwest Nigeria
Assimilation – in French Africa the process by which
Africans adopted French culture; was a component of
direct rule
Atlantic slave trade – the maritime trade in Africans as a
commodity to the Americas or Europe
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) – born in what is now
Algeria, he was the Christian church father who
advocated for the concept of predestination and
provided many of the basic ideas of modern Roman
Catholicism
Austronesian – one of five major language groups of
Africa
Awdughast – a transshipment center in the Sahel on the
northern border of ancient Ghana
Axum – the ancient capital of Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
Ayatollah – a Muslim Shia leader who rules in the place
of the “hidden” Imam until his return; means “sign of
Allah”
Bahia, Brazil – an important region for Portuguese
plantation slavery for sugar production
Bamba, Amadou (1850–1927) – the founder of the
Murids, a Sufi order in Senegal
Bambuk – one of three West African gold fields; located
between the Senegal and Faleme Rivers; the other
two are Bure and Akan
Bantu – refers to about 535 languages in the NigerCongo language family that spread across Africa
eastward and southward beginning around 1000 bce;
today about 180 million Africans are Bantu speakers
at some level
Baobab – African trees from the genus Adansonia; major
symbol of the West African Sahel
Bedouins – the nomadic Arab ethnic group of the desert
Berbers – North African ethnic group from the Sanhaja
region that conquered ancient Ghana
Berlin Conference (1884–85) – the meeting of fourteen
Western powers who agreed on thirty-eight articles
to settle their trade and colonial disputes in Africa; no
Africans were present
Bernal, Martin Gardiner (1937–2013) – argued in Black
Athena that ancient Greek civilization was partly based
on Pharaonic Egyptian and Phoenician civilizations;
stated that Eurocentric scholars had severed that link
because of nineteenth-century notions of European
imperial supremacy and pseudoscientific racism
Biafra – the southeastern Igbo region of Nigeria that
seceded in 1967; it was forced to rejoin Nigeria in
1970 after losing the Nigerian Civil War; at least one
million Igbos lost their lives, many to starvation
Bilma – the famous salt source for Tuareg caravans headed
south to trade with the Hausa in northern Nigeria
Blue Nile – one of two major tributaries of the Nile
River; originates in Lake Tana, Ethiopia, and joins
the White Nile at Khartoum, Sudan
Bonsu, Osei (1779–1824) – the Asantehene who in 1820
voiced his opposition to the 1807 British ban on the
Atlantic slave trade
Book of the Dead – Egyptian sacred literature dating from
c. 1500 bce that laid out the path to eternal afterlife
after death
Bori – traditional African religion led by Hausa women
during the Sokoto Caliphate
Brookes – the notorious slave ship whose illustrations
of decks and shackled prone slaves were used by
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
103
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Ark of the Covenant – the Old Testament belief of a
sacred Jewish wooden chest carried by poles in which
two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments are
stored
Bure – one of three West African gold fields located near
the upper Niger River; the other two are Bambuk and
Akan
Caliph – a spiritual successor to Muhammad, the Prophet
of Islam
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Caliphates – the Umayyid and Abbasid empires of the
Muslims
Calvinism – the Protestant sect named for John Calvin
(1509–64); it holds that God has selected a few people
to share heaven and damned all others; this concept,
often called predestination, was first put forward by
the African Augustine of Hippo (354–430); some
European racism toward Africans has its origins in
the idea of predestination
Canary Islands – an early location for Portuguese and
Spanish plantation slavery
Cann, Rebecca (b.1951) – with Mark Stoneking and
Alan Wilson, she carried out the mtDNA study in
1987 that placed human origins in Africa
Cape Coast Castle – a major slave trading fort in the
Central Region of modern Ghana just east of Elmina;
it has the infamous “door of no return,” through
which thousands of Africans were shipped to the New
World; it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Capitalism – an economic system emphasizing private
ownership of the means of production and the selling
of goods for a profit
Cataract – obstructions to navigation; on the Nile River
the first cataract is at Aswan
Centering – the adjustment of physical, intellectual, and
spiritual characteristics to one’s environment
Cercles – the administrative districts of a colony under
French rule
Chad – the modern name for the former colony of French
Equatorial Africa
Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary
of Zion – the church in Axum, Ethiopia where the
Ark of the Covenant is allegedly stored
who in 1785 wrote an influential essay at Cambridge
University condemning slavery and later helped lead
the abolitionist movement in England and the U.S.
Colonialism – describes subservient relationships
between imperial powers and societies in which the
dominant group remains alien
Convention People’s Party – the anti-colonial political
party established by Kwame Nkrumah in 1949
Coptic Christians – also called Monophysites; the
largest populations are in Egypt and Ethiopia; differ
from orthodox Christians in that they believe Jesus
had a single fully united divine and human nature, not
mixed or blended; declared heretics at the Council of
Chalcedon in 451; Coptic is also an Egyptian language
Council of Chalcedon – the Christian council in 451
which determined the relationship between the
human and divine natures of Jesus
Council of Nicaea – in 325 it determined the nature
of the Trinity and the Nicaean Creed important to
Orthodox Christians
Cowries – shells from Persia used in West Africa for
small amounts of money and jewelry
Cugoano, Ottobah (1757–91) – the former slave and
abolitionist friend of Olaudah Equiano
Dahomey – a major center of the slave trade and a
kingdom of the Fon ethnic group
Darwin, Charles (1809–82) – the first advocate of natural
selection to explain the evolution of life
Davidson, Basil (1914–2010) – the first European writer
who asserted Africans had histories and civilizations
Denkyira – a Gold Coast ethnic group whose slave trade
contract at Elmina with the Dutch preceded that of
the Asante
Description of Africa – the book by Leo Africanus that
describes Songhay in the early 1500s
Dhow – a Swahili boat designed with a triangular sail
to transport goods along the East African coast by
taking advantage of the Indian Ocean’s currents and
seasonal winds called monsoons
Chattel slavery – European form of economic bondage in
which humans are considered property with no rights;
see African slavery
Diop, Cheikh Anta (1923–86) – the Senegalese
Afrocentric scholar who argued that West Africans
significantly contributed to Pharaonic Egyptian
civilization
Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846) – the student abolitionist
Direct Rule – an approach to colonial rule usually
104
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
abolitionists to generate awareness of the cruelty of
the transatlantic slave trade and slavery in general
Divination – rituals in Traditional African Religion that
attempt to communicate with the spirit world
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Dromedaries – single-humped camels used to carry loads
in the Sahara Desert as early as the 100s ce
Dual Mandate – Frederick Lugard’s application of
indirect rule; African chiefs enforced colonial laws
in return for British protection; the British gained
access to natural resources and African labor while
the Africans acquired British products and Western
knowledge
Ebola virus – a viral infection with more than an 80
percent mortality rate that travels through body fluids;
ravaged Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone from
2014–16
Ebony – a hard black wood traded in Saharan caravan
commerce
Egyptologists – academics who study ancient Egypt
Elmina Castle – the slave fortress in what is now the
coastal central region of Ghana built by the Portuguese
and later occupied by the Dutch and English; now a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Enlightenment – the advancement of rational thought
and human dignity in Europe during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries; accelerated the cause of
abolitionism
Equiano, Olaudah (1745–97) – the Igbo slave and
freedman who wrote an autobiography that described
capture, African slavery, Middle Passage, chattel
slavery, life as a freedman, and the abolition movement
Ethnicity – the category with which people may be
identified that is based on similarities of culture,
language, and ancestry
Eurocentrism – the perception of life through Western
eyes inside Western cultures and environments
Évolués – Africans who assimilated into French
civilization both in French colonies and in France
Evolution – change in species over generations due to
natural selection and the environment
Falconbridge, Alexander (1760–92) – the slave ship
doctor who lobbied for abolition and wrote of the
horrors of the slave ship; participated in the Sierra
Leone settlement for freedmen
Fante – an Akan ethnic group that founded city-states
along the central half of the Gold Coast; one of their
famous towns, Oguaa (Cape Coast), served as the seat
of early British power in the Gold Coast; the Fante in
the vicinity of Cape Coast Castle were sometimes in
partnership with or under the sovereignty of both the
Asante and the British
Fatimah (604–632) – a daughter of Muhammad and wife
of Ali
Fatimids – a Shia group who created the Fatimid
Caliphate (c.909–1171) across North Africa and the
Fertile Crescent, overthrew Sunni rule in Fustat, and
built Al-Azhar and Cairo; named themselves after
Fatimah, daughter of Muhammad
Female infanticide – the practice of killing infant girls
Fertile Crescent – land that included the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers, Phoenicia, and Palestine
Fiqh – the regulation of religious conduct; Islamic
jurisprudence
Fodiyo, Usman dan (1754–1817) – the founder of the
Sokoto Caliphate in northeastern Nigeria
Fon – the major African slave trading ethnic group in
Benin, southwest Nigeria
Fossils – preserved remnants of life, often bones
Freedmen – people freed from chattel slavery
Free trade – often associated with capitalism; an economic
policy that does not restrict imports or exports in
global markets; assumes the absence of interference
from anyone not party to the transaction, especially
governments
French Equatorial Africa – the group of French African
colonies from the Congo River north of Central
Africa to the southern border of present-day Libya; at
its height FEA included the French Congo, Gabon,
Oubangui-Chari, Chad, and French Cameroon
Fula – the major ethnic group and language of West
Africa
Fustat – an early Muslim city founded in 640 by Amr ibn
al-Asi; now part of Cairo
Futanke – a West African language group; participants
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
105
SKT, IASD - International, NA
associated with the French that sought to place
Europeans in direct contact with the African
population by assigning them to posts in local districts;
its alternative was “indirect rule,” often associated
with the British, which relied on compliant Africans
to fulfill local-level administrative posts
Gabon – a former colony in French Equatorial Africa
Gallagher, John (1919–80) – the British historian of
imperialism who teamed up with Ronald Robinson to
write the influential Africa and the Victorians and “The
Imperialism of Free Trade”
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Gambia River – West African river about 700 miles long
that empties at Banjul, The Gambia
Gao – the location of one of Africa’s Great Mosques;
capital of Songhay about 300 miles east of Timbuktu
on the east bank of the Niger River
Garvey, Marcus (1887–1940) – an advocate for emigration
of freedmen to Liberia; promoted an “Africa for the
Africans” anti-colonial project under the auspices of
the Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation
Association
Genetics – the study of genes and heredity that has
provided convincing evidence for human origins in
Africa
Ghana – the first of three great West African empires
(400–1100); was centered in the upper Niger River
valley between the Sahara to the north and tropical
forests on the coast; present-day Ghana took its name
from ancient Ghana
Gibbons, Ann (born c.1959) – an author who argued
in 1987 that genetic traits of Y chromosomal DNA
supported the African origins of men
Giza – the location of Egypt’s great pyramids built in
2600–2500 bce during the Old Kingdom’s period of
monument building
Gold Coast – the European name given to preindependence Ghana due to the proximate Akan gold
fields
Golden Stool – the legendary symbol of the spirit of the
Asante; created by Osei Tutu and the priest Anokye
in c. 1695
Gowon, Yakubu (b.1934) – the general who seized
control of Nigeria and fought the Nigerian Civil War
to force Biafra back into the country
Great Enclosure – a part of Great Zimbabwe
Great Zimbabwe – literally “house of stone”; a southern
African empire contemporaneous with the West
African empire of Mali whose economy was also
106
based on gold
Griots – West African oral historians who inherit their
vocations and give performances often accompanied
by drums and koras
Guinea – a former French colony north of Sierra Leone
that achieved independence in 1958 under the
leadership of Sékou Touré, who later gave sanctuary
to Kwame Nkrumah after the Ghanaian coup of 1966
Gye Nyame – the Adinkra symbol that means God’s
omnipotence or literally “except for God”; also
associated with Asante hegemony
Hadith – Muhammad’s words whose guidance forms
part of Muslim law
Haiti – a Caribbean French colony and the site of slave
revolt from 1791–1804
Hajj – the annual pilgrimage all able Muslims must make
to Mecca once in one’s lifetime
Hashim – Muhammad’s clan within the Quraysh in
Mecca
Hausa – the largest West African Muslim ethnic group;
live across the Sahel from Ghana to Sudan
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative – an
international effort to relieve the debt of Africa’s
poorest countries
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831) – wrote
in his Philosophy of History that Africa was not a
historical continent and showed neither change nor
development, and that its peoples were not capable of
progress or education
Hieroglyphs – the picture writing technique of the
Pharaonic Egyptians
Hominid – originally meant all human ancestors; now
sometimes also includes all great apes
Homo erectus (1.9 million–143,000 bce) – the earliest
human genus and species; abbreviated as h. erectus
Homo sapiens (200,000 bce–present) – our human genus
and species; abbreviated as h. sapiens
Horus – in Egyptian religion, god of the sky, way,
and hunting; pharaohs of the Old Kingdom were
incarnations of Horus
Hulks – old ships in the Nigerian delta where Europeans
lived and carried out trade in slaves and goods
Hyksos – the chariot-riding warriors who conquered
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
in the trans-Saharan gold trade during the ancient
empire of Mali
Lower Egypt in 1650 bce and who likely assimilated
into the Egyptian population; they brought musical
instruments, olive trees, and new breeds of cattle
Jihad – the struggle experienced by individual Muslims
to obey God; sometimes “holy war” against enemies
of Islam
Ibn al-Asi, Amr (585–664) – an early opponent of
Muhammad; later converted and conquered Egypt in
640; created Fustat, which is now part of Cairo
Jim Crow – the name given to U.S. laws designed to deny
African Americans their civil rights
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) – famous Muslim historian;
teacher at Al-Azhar University; wrote the first world
history from a Muslim perspective called Muqaddimah
Ibn Rabah, Bilal (580–640) – former African slave
in Mecca; one of Muhammad’s first converts and
as the initial muezzin gave first call to prayer in
Medina; Bilal’s descendants allegedly established the
Mandinka clan of Keïta, from which Sundiata derives
Idowu, Bolaji (1913–93) – Nigerian Methodist minister
and writer on traditional African religion
Ifriqiya – Arab name for Africa from the seventh century
Igbo – majority ethnic group in the region that declared
independence from Nigeria as the country Biafra
Imam – a descendent of Muhammad who led the Shia
until about 941 ce; also the prayer leader of a mosque
Imperialism – the comprehensive word associated with
empire and politics to describe the dominance or
sovereignty of one group over another
Ka’bah – a shrine of traditional religion in Mecca that
was incorporated into the Great Mosque of Mecca
Kanem-Bornu – a trans-Saharan embarkation point
Kassonke – a language group of West Africans;
participants in the trans-Saharan gold trade during
the ancient empire of Mali
Katsina – a major city in the far central north of Nigeria
Kaw (1300) – the Mansa of Mali who may have sent a
fleet of 2,000 ships west; Mansa Musa’s predecessor
Kebra Nagast – sacred literature of the Coptics; also called
The Book of Kings
Keïtas – the clan name for the rulers of Mali
Kente – Akan cloth made by Asante men; originally for
royalty
Khoisan – the term used to describe the San and Khoi
Khoi peoples who preceded Bantu-speakers in
southern Africa; the mitochondria of the San is the
oldest on earth; also one of five major language groups
of Africa
Kilwa – an ancient seaport and sultanate important to
Swahili mercantile trade; located in coastal Tanzania
Imperialism: Cultural – the imposition of values,
language, and beliefs by rulers in an imperial setting
King, Martin Luther (1929–68) – a leader of the U.S.
civil rights movement
Indirect Rule – the British system described by Frederick
Lugard as the Dual Mandate; carried out with the
collaboration of local chiefs
Kongo – the ethnic group in the vicinity of Luanda,
Angola, who provided slaves to the Portuguese to
work on sugar plantations on São Tomé and in Brazil
Industrial Revolution (1760–1840) – the time period
when the West gained worldwide communications
and weapons advantages and used them to create
empires across much of the world; contributed to the
obsolescence of chattel slavery
Krina, Battle of (1235) – the battle in which Sundiata
defeated the conquerors of the Ghanaians, the Sosso,
and established Mali
Islam – the world monotheistic Abrahamic religion
followed by about 40 percent of all Africans; the word
means act of submission to the will of God; about half
of West Africa’s population is Muslim
Jajis – itinerant female students and teachers of Nana
Asma’u
Kumasi – the capital of the Asante people; regional
capital in modern Ghana
Lake Victoria-Nyanza – the source of the White Nile
River
Lake Tana – the source of the Blue Nile River
Lat Joor Joop (1842–86) – the anti-colonial Wolof
king (Dammel) who was killed by the French;
a contemporary of Bamba and an inspiration to
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
107
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Ibn Battuta (1304–69) – the Moroccan world traveler
who visited Mali and the Swahili coast; wrote a major
travelogue called the Rihla
Senegalese nationalists during their struggle for
independence
opposing apartheid; first president of post-apartheid
South Africa; received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993
Lenin, Vladimir (1870–1924) – the Russian communist
revolutionary who wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage
of Capitalism to explain how imperialism was a stage
in the development of global capitalism
Mansa – the title for king or emperor of the medieval
West African empire of Mali
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Levant – the eastern part of the Mediterranean world
Liberia – the modern country on the western coast of
Africa that in 1822 became a haven for slaves seized
from slave ships and U.S. freed slaves; a resettlement
project was first promoted by the American
Colonization Society
Liberalism – Enlightenment belief that promoted
progress, liberty, and equality; contributed to the
abolitionist movement
Lincoln University – founded in 1854, it was the first
degree-granting historically black university in the
U.S.
Linguistics – the study of languages; in Africa, used to
determine the origins of Bantu, the largest indigenous
language sub-group in Africa
Lugard, Frederick (1858–1945) – the colonial
administrator in Nigeria who articulated the idea
of the “Dual Mandate” which justified British
imperialism in terms of an exchange of African labor
and resources for British technology and civilization,
to the benefit of both sides
Ma’at – a concept representing truth, justice, order, and
harmony personified by the Pharaoh
Madeira – Portuguese islands in the Atlantic that were
early locations for the plantation slavery model
Malaria – a disease caused by single-celled parasites
transmitted to humans by mosquitoes; causes flu-like
symptoms that can recur; endemic in tropical Africa
Mali – the second great West African empire during the
thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries
Mande – the language group of about 30 million people
spread across thirteen West African countries
Mandela, Nelson (1918–2013) – a Xhosa leader of
the anti-apartheid African National Congress in
South Africa; spent twenty-seven years in prison for
108
Maxim Gun – an early example of a fully automatic
machine gun; invented by American-born British
engineer Sir Hiram Maxim around 1884; enabled
small colonial armies to overcome more numerous
African armies
Mbiti, John (b.1931) – the Kenyan-born Anglican
minister and writer of traditional African religion
McCarthy, Sir Charles (1764–1824) – the British
military commander and Governor of Gold Coast
whom the Asante defeated and beheaded in 1824
Mecca – the Arabian trading town, birthplace of
Muhammad, home to the Ka’bah, and holiest city in
Islam; pilgrimage destination
Medina – formerly Yathrib, the city where Muhammad
and his followers sought sanctuary in 622
Memphis – the capital of the Egyptian Old Kingdom on
the Nile River
Menelik – the Abyssinian leader who allegedly brought
the Ark of the Covenant to Axum; the ark now
supposedly resides in the Chapel of the Tablet at the
Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion
Mercantilism – the economic system during the
sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries that sought a
positive balance of trade and the accumulation of gold
and silver as a means to strengthen a kingdom against
its opponents
Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 bce) – the second of
three kingdoms of Pharaonic Egypt
Middle Passage – a portion of the journey from Africa to
the Americas that took place on transatlantic voyages
Millet – a grain plant from which cereal is made
Mitochondria DNA (mtDNA) – the cellular structures
whose content proved that Khoisan women contained
the oldest genetic mutations of women on Earth; only
mothers pass this genetic code to their offspring
Mogadishu – an ancient seaport important to Swahili
mercantile trade; located in coastal Somalia
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Leo X (1475–1521) – the pope who baptized Leo
Africanus, gave him a pension, and encouraged him
to write his Description of Africa
Masai – a language and ethnic group in southern Kenya
and northern Tanzania of East Africa
Muhammad al-Mahdi (c.868–c.941) – the Twelfth
and “hidden” Imam of the Shia; a descendant of
Muhammad
of the Greyhound in 1748; published a tract in 1788
renouncing slavery; wrote the lyrics to the hymn
“Amazing Grace”
Muhammad ibn Abdallah (c.570–632) – the prophet of
Islam to whom the Qur’an was revealed
Nicene Creed – the orthodox view of the relationship
between Jesus the human and Jesus the God approved
by Christian leaders at the Council of Nicaea in 325
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Monotheistic – denotes belief in a single god
Monsoons – seasonal winds and currents in the Indian
Ocean that propel dhows toward Arabia and India
from November and March then reverse to the south
and west from April to September to return dhows to
the Swahili coast
Niger-Congo – one of five major language groups of
Africa; includes Bantu-speakers
Niger River – the major river of West Africa, which is
about 2,600 miles long
Mosque – a house of prayer for Muslims
Nile River – about 4,200 miles in length, the Nile is the
world’s longest river; tributaries begin in Ethiopia
and the Great Lakes region and join at Khartoum,
Sudan; flows through Egypt before emptying into the
Mediterranean Sea
Muezzin – one who gives the call to prayer five times a
day in traditional Muslim societies
Nilo-Saharan – one of five major language groups of
Africa
Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative – an effort to reduce
the debt of Africa’s and the world’s poorest countries
Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–72) – U.S.-educated Ghanaian
and Pan-Africanist leader; organized the construction
of the Akosombo Dam; overthrown via coup in 1966
Moor – a Muslim born in Spain
Muqaddimah – the cyclic interpretation of world history
from a Muslim perspective written by Ibn Khaldun
Murids – the followers of Amadou Bamba
Musa (1280–1337) – a Muslim ruler (Mansa) of Mali
noted for his hajj, piety, and generosity; financed
the construction of the Great Mosques of Gao and
Timbuktu and transcription of Qur’ans
Muslim – a follower of Islam; means “one who submits to
the will of God”
Natural selection – the mechanism that drives change in
species over time
Negus – the ancient title of kings of Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
Neo-colonialism – despite the formal end of colonial
empires, the continued sovereignty of the former
imperial rulers by other means, usually through
economic loans and policies that keep newly
independent African countries dependent on
European banks and global capitalism
New Imperialism (1870–1914) – the European material
and religious expansion in Africa that coincided with
advances in hygiene, weapons, and medicine
New Kingdom (1550–1069 bce) – the third of three
kingdoms of Pharaonic Egypt
Newton, John (1725–1807) – the slave ship captain
Nubia – the African civilization that shared its northern
border with southern Egypt and was influenced by
Egypt
Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Chukwuemeka (1933–2011)
– the military officer who led the Igbo secession of
southeastern Nigeria; leader of the Republic of Biafra
until it lost the Nigerian Civil War and reunited with
Nigeria
Old Kingdom (c.2686–2160 bce) – the first of three
kingdoms of Pharaonic Egypt
Organization of African Unity (1963–2002) – the
Africanist organization, somewhat like the UN,
created to oppose colonialism, promote human rights,
and defend sovereignty; replaced by the African Union
Orthodox Christians – includes Catholics, Protestants,
and Greek and Russian Orthodox who adhere to the
creed created at the Council of Nicaea in 325 that
explains the nature of Jesus and the Trinity
Osei Tutu – the leader who in c. 1695 created the legend
of the Golden Stool with the priest Anokye that
united the Asante ethnic group
Osiris – in Pharaonic Egypt the God-Ruler of the
underworld
Oyo – the powerful slave trading empire of the Yoruba
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
109
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Monophysites – same as Coptic Christians
Pan-Africanism – the political and economic movement
to unite African countries to give them a voice in
world affairs; promoted in different ways since the
nineteenth century by W.E.B. Du Bois, George
Padmore, C.L.R. James, and Kwame Nkrumah,
among others
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Pharaoh – the god-king of ancient Egypt’s dynasties;
protector of Ma’at, which symbolized truth, justice,
order, and harmony; translates as “great house” or
“palace”
Plato (c.428–c.348) – the Athenian philosopher and
student of Socrates who used Egyptian knowledge to
create his program for education and teaching
Polo, Marco (1254–1324) – the Venetian traveler and
merchant who spent about twenty-four years traveling
in Asia a generation before Ibn Battuta
Predestination – the belief that God has chosen a few
to share heaven; those not chosen can do nothing to
enter heaven
Prejudice – a strong belief not based on reason
Ptolemaic Egypt (332–30) – the dynasty established by
Ptolemy, which lasted for three centuries
Ptolemy (367–283) – Alexander the Great’s general who
took over Egypt and Palestine after Alexander’s death
Qadiriyya – the Sufi order of Usman dan Fodiyo and
Nana Asma’u
Quakers – the Protestant Christian religious group that
began the abolitionist movement in Great Britain in
the 1600s; founded the first abolitionist society in
England in 1783
Qur’an – the sacred literature of Islam; contains God’s
revelations to Muhammad via the Archangel Gabriel
in both Mecca and Medina; divided into 114 chapters
called surahs
Quraysh – Muhammad’s tribe, which controlled Mecca
Ra (also spelled Re) – the sun god of ancient Egyptians;
sometimes identified with the Pharaoh
Reparations Movement – efforts to get Western
countries to pay African countries to account to some
extent for slavery and colonialism; also the effort to
have the U.S. pay reparations to the descendants of
African slaves in the U.S. for chattel slavery and Jim
Crow
110
Robinson, Ronald (1920–99) – the historian who
with Jack Gallagher argued that collaboration with
indigenous populations was the key to understanding
the success of colonialism in Africa
Sahara Desert – the largest hot desert in the world,
it covers most of North Africa and measures about
3,000 miles from east to west and about 800 to 1,200
miles from north to south
Sahel – the semi-arid transitional zone that stretches
from west to east and connects West Africa to the
Sahara Desert
San – hunter-gatherers who preceded Bantu-speakers;
absorbed or conquered by the Bantu-speakers as
they migrated southward; sometimes paired with the
Khoi-Khoi into the Khoisan grouping; mitochondrial
DNA and Y chromosomes of the San are some of the
oldest on earth; also one of five major language groups
of Africa
Sanhaja Berbers – the Muslim ethnic group called the
Almoravids from the Sanhaja region of Morocco who
conquered ancient Ghana
Sáo Joáo Bautista – the Portuguese ship thought to have
transported the first African slaves to North America,
taken to Virginia’s Port Comfort colony in August
1619
São Tomé and Príncipe – the equatorial islands off the
coast of Gabon where the Portuguese created an early
example of plantation slavery
Senegal – a former French colony in West Africa; home
of Amadou Bamba, the Murids, Cheikh Anta Diop,
and Touba
Senghor, Léopold (1906–2001) – the French-educated
Senegalese political leader and intellectual who led
Senegal to independence; advocate of négritude,
which was a Pan-Africanist anti-colonial philosophy;
opposed assimilation because of its advocacy of the
inferiority of African civilizations
Sheba, Queen of – the queen associated with Solomon in
the Old Testament
Shehu – the Hausa word for “sheik” meaning ruler;
Usman dan Fodiyo was a shehu
Shia – a minority sect in Islam followed by about 13
percent of Muslims worldwide; called followers of Ali,
who was the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad;
the Shia claim that one has to descend directly from
Ali and Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah to lead
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
ethnic group in west and north central Nigeria
Shirazi – the ethnic group from Persia that contributed to
the formation of the Swahili maritime network
Shona – the ethnic group that built Great Zimbabwe
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Sierra Leone – the modern country which served as a
haven for slaves taken from seized slave ships and
Africans who fought for the British against the
Americans in the Revolutionary War
Sijilmasa – the ancient city located in southeastern
Morocco one thousand miles north of Timbuktu in
the Sahara Desert; destination via Taghaza for West
African camel caravans laden with gold, salt, and
other items
Slav – the word from which the word “slavery” originated;
referred to an Eastern European ethnic group
Slavery – the social or legal system in which people are
involuntarily held as property with no rights (Western
chattel slavery) or in which they have the somewhat
flexible status of extended family members (African
slavery); the word originated from the Muslim
enslavement of ethnic Slavs of the Black Sea region
in the 800s
Slave Trade Act of 1807 – the Parliamentary act in Great
Britain that abolished the Atlantic slave trade
Social Darwinists – those who attempted to apply
Charles Darwin’s biological ideas about the evolution
of species based on natural selection to imperial and
colonial expansion on a global scale
Socrates (469–399 bce) – the Athenian teacher of Plato;
promoted ethics by engaging in dialogues described
by Plato; executed for believing in false gods and
corrupting the youth of Athens
Sokoto Caliphate – the Muslim empire founded in the
early nineteenth century in present-day northeastern
Nigeria; created by Usman dan Fodiyo to imitate
Muhammad’s early community at Medina
Songhay (1450–1591) – the third of three great West
African Sahelian empires; sometimes spelled Songhai
Soninke – the major ethnic group and rulers of ancient
Ghana
Sonni Ali (? –1492) – the founder of the Songhay empire
Sorghum – an edible grain plant from which molasses is
derived
Sosso – the empire that brought an end to the great West
African empire of Ghana in 1203; ancient Ghana had
been in decline after its losses to the Almoravids in
1042
St. Domingue – a Caribbean French colony and the site
of a slave revolt in 1791
Stoneking, Mark (b.1956) – with Rebecca Cann and
Alan Wilson carried out the mtDNA study in 1987
that placed human origins in Africa
Sudan – the region where the Blue and White Nile
Rivers meet at Khartoum; region of northern
Nubia; contested region between French and British
imperialists; shared a border with French Equatorial
Africa
Sufi – a part of the Sunni tradition that developed as a
mystical alternative to more worldly Muslim practices;
also a mystical Muslim who helps other Muslims
attain spiritual understanding
Sundiata Keïta – established the West African Malinke
empire of Mali that succeeded ancient Ghana; ruled
from 1235–55; the most famous West African epic is
about Sundiata’s life and is still told today
Sunna – Muhammad’s actions whose guidance forms
part of Muslim law
Sunni – the largest Muslim sect containing about 85
percent of Muslims; “people of the tradition;” in
contrast to the Shi’a, who insisted that Muslim leaders
had to descend from Muhammad, Sunnis argued that
any rightly guided Muslim could be a caliph
Swahili – an East African maritime language and culture
made up predominantly of Muslims and Bantuspeakers; extends from southern Somalia to northern
Mozambique; means “coast” and is influenced by
Arabic; some Swahili claim an ancestral connection
to Shirazi, a city in southwestern Iran
Taghaza – a location of great quantities of salt deposited
during the evaporation of an ancient Saharan sea;
approximate midway point on the Timbuktu-Sijilmasa
caravan trade route
Tamahaq – the language of the Tuareg who often
transported goods across the Sahara between ancient
Ghana and Sijilmasa
Tangier – a major port city of Morocco and the home to
Ibn Battuta
Tawhid – oneness of God in Islam; Islamic dogma
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
111
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Muslims; their defunct leaders were called Imams;
those who lead them today are called Ayatollahs
Tools – in the context of human origins in Africa, stones
and bones honed to achieve a sharp edge to function
in ways that extended natural human abilities;
prehistoric tools provide valuable evidence about the
lives of the humans who used them
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Touba – the center of Murid Islam in Senegal; home of
Murid’s Great Mosque and annual pilgrimage
Toynbee, Arnold (1889–1975) – the British historian
who believed in the cyclic interpretation of history
Traditional African religion – spiritual practices whose
rituals promote bonds with ancestors, help from
nature and spirits, and seek knowledge of the near
future; there is no sacred literature, no afterlife, no
apocalypse, and no separation between the spiritual
and secular world
Transatlantic slave trade – often called the Middle
Passage in which about 12.5 million enslaved Africans
were brought to the New World by Europeans as
chattel slaves for labor between the sixteenth and
nineteenth centuries
Triangular trade pattern – the transatlantic slave trade
pattern of traffic of humans and goods between
Africa, the Americas, and Europe
Tripoli – the northern destination of the eastern part of
the West African trans-Saharan trade from KanemBornu
Tuareg – the nomadic pastoralists of the Sahara; also
called Berbers
Umayyads (661–750) – the descendants of Muhammad’s
powerful Meccan enemies who took control of Islam
about a generation after the death of Muhammad; the
first of the two caliphates of the Golden Age of Islam;
the second was the Abbasid Caliphate
112
Ummah – the Arabic word for the entire worldwide
Muslim community; first established at Medina
Wangara – Bambuk sellers of gold to Ghanaian merchants
who transported it to Sijilmasa
White Nile – one of two major tributaries of the Nile;
originates in Lake Victoria-Nyanza on the western
border of Kenya and joins the Blue Nile at Khartoum,
Sudan
Whydah – the major slave trading center conquered by
Dahomey in 1727
Wilberforce, William (1759–1833) – the member of
Parliament who led the political campaign to abolish
the transatlantic slave trade; resulted in the Slave
Trade Act of 1807
Wilson, Allan (1934–91) – with Rebecca Cann and
Mark Stoneking carried out the mtDNA study in
1987 that placed human origins in Africa
Wolseley, Garnet (1833–1913) – the British officer whose
forces defeated the Asante in the Anglo-Asante War
of 1874
Xhosa – the major ethnic group and language of Bantuspeakers in South Africa
Y chromosomal DNA – the part of DNA that showed
African men to have the oldest genetic markers; only
fathers pass this genetic code to their offspring
Yathrib – the city some 270 miles north of Mecca where
Muhammad and his followers migrated in 622; soon
after their arrival Yathrib was renamed Medina
Yellow fever – a viral infection transmitted by mosquito;
impeded the European conquest of tropical Africa
Yoruba – the major Nigerian ethnic group that
participated in the transatlantic slave trade; created
the Oyo kingdom in southwestern Nigeria
Zimbabwe – the southern African country in which
Great Zimbabwe is located; means “house of stone”
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Timbuktu – a major embarkation port for caravans
traveling north across the Sahara Desert to Taghaza
and Sijilmasa and the site of an important school of
Islamic scholarship
Appendix: Maps
AFRICA
20
0
20
Minsk
U.K.
Amsterdam
BELARUS
Berlin
Warsaw
London
NETH.
GERMANY
POLAND
Kyiv
Brussels
BEL.
LUX. Prague
UKRAINE
CZ. REP.
SLOV.
Paris
Vienna
MOL.
AUS.
Budapest
SWITZ.
HUNG.
FRANCE
ROM.
SLO.
CRO.
Belgrade Bucharest
IRE.
North
Atlantic
Ocean
40
ITALY
AND.
Corsica
PORTUGAL
AZORES
(PORTUGAL)
Lisbon
SPAIN
Alexandria
Amman
Cairo
JORDAN
KUWAIT
EGYPT
MALI
r
Nige
Nig
er
GHANA
TOGO
Lomé
Yamoussoukro Accra
LIBERIA
Abidjan
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
0
Equator
SAO TOME
AND PRINCIPE
São Tomé
Annobón
Moundou
ue
Ben
CAMEROON
Douala
GABON
Kampala
Kisangani
BURUNDI
Lake
Tanganyika
Kinshasa
ANGOLA
(Cabinda)
Mbuji-Mayi
ANGOLA
St. Helena
Kitwe
Zambe
zi
Lilongwe
Harare
Walvis Bay
Tropic of Capricorn
Windhoek
NAMIBIA
Saint Helena, Ascension,
and Tristan da Cunha
BOTSWANA
Gaborone
Pretoria
Johannesburg
SOUTH
(U.K.)
e
ng
Or
a
AFRICA
Cape Town
Victoria
SEYCHELLES
Glorioso Islands
(FRANCE)
COMOROS
Moroni
Cidade
de Nacala
Blantyre
Mayotte
(admin. by France,
claimed by Comoros)
Juan de Nova
Island
(FRANCE)
Mozambique
Beira
Channel
Tromelin Island
(FRANCE)
Mahajanga
Toamasina
MOZAMBIQUE
ZIMBABWE
20
Dar es
Salaam
MALAWI
ZAMBIA
Lusaka
Lubango
0
Zanzibar
Lake
Nyasa
Lubumbashi
Namibe
Indian
Ocean
Mombasa
Dodoma
TANZANIA
Luanda
South
SOMALIA
Mogadishu
KENYA
Nairobi
Kigali
Pointe-Noire
Atlantic
Prov.
admin.
line
ETHIOPIA
RWANDA
DEM. REP. Bukavu
Lake
Victoria
OF THE CONGO
Bujumbura
Brazzaville
Ascension
Hargeysa
UGANDA
Congo
REP. OF
THE
CONGO
Libreville
Addis
Ababa
Socotra
(YEMEN)
Juba
Bangui
Yaoundé
Arabian
Sea
Gulf of
Djibouti Aden
DJIBOUTI
SOUTH
SUDAN
CENTRAL AFRICAN
REPUBLIC
(EQUA. GUI.)
Ocean
20
Ni
le
N'Djamena
NIGERIA
Abuja
Ogbomoso
Ibadan
Lagos
PortoNovo
Malabo
Gulf of Guinea
SUDAN
Zinder
Kano
Asmara
Khartoum
le
Ni
CÔTE
D'IVOIRE
CHAD
Niamey
BURKINA
FASO
Ouagadougou
BENIN
GUINEA
SIERRA LEONE
Monrovia
OMAN
YEMEN
Sanaa
ERITREA
Omdurman
Agadez
Wh
ite
Nile
Bamako
Muscat
U.A.E
SAUDI
ARABIA
Admin.
boundary
NIGER
Timbuktu
Dakar
GUINEA-BISSAU
Conakry
Freetown
Abu
Dhabi
Port Red
Sudan Sea
Nouakchott
SENEGAL
Banjul
THE GAMBIA
Bissau
Persian
Gulf
BAHR.
QATAR
Riyadh
Aswan
Al Jawf
IRAN
Baghdad
Jerusalem
ISRAEL
Al Jizah
LIBYA
LEB. SYRIA
Eu IRAQ
Damascus phrates
Beirut
MAURITANIA
Praia
AFG.
is
Tigr
CYPRUS
e
Blu
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
ARM.
Tehran
Benghazi
Tropic of Cancer
TURKMENISTAN
Ashgabat
AZER.
TURKEY
Nouadhibou
CAPE VERDE
Caspian
Sea
GEO.
Ankara
Mediterranean Sea
Western
Sahara
20
UZBEKISTAN
MACE.
ALGERIA
Laayoune
Tashkent
Sea of
Azov
Athens
Tripoli
(SPAIN)
Aral
Sea
Volg
a
GREECE
TUNISIA
MOROCCO
KAZAKHSTAN
BULG.
MALTA
Marrakech
CANARY ISLANDS
ALB.
60
RUSSIA
Black Sea
Sofia
KOS.
MONT.
Sicily
Constantine
Fès
Casablanca
Danube
SER.
Sardinia
Tunis
Algiers
Oran
Rabat
(PORTUGAL)
Rome
Madrid
Strait of Gibraltar
MADEIRA ISLANDS
BOS.&
HER.
40
Antananarivo
Bassas
da India
(FRANCE) Europa
Island
(FRANCE)
MADAGASCAR
20
MAURITIUS
Reunion
(FRANCE)
Maputo
Mbabane
SWAZILAND
Maseru
Durban
LESOTHO
Indian Ocean
Port Elizabeth
Scale 1:51,400,000
TRISTAN
DA CUNHA
Azimuthal Equal-Area Projection
0
800 Kilometers
0
Gough Island
40
800 Miles
Boundary representation is
not necessarily authoritative.
20
Port
Louis
St. Denis
0
20
40
Political Map of Africa, 2012.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
40
60
803535AI (G00392) 6-12
113
SKT, IASD - International, NA
40
AFRICA
0
20
Minsk
U.K.
Amsterdam
BELARUS
Berlin
Warsaw
London
NETH.
GERMANY
POLAND
Kyiv
Brussels
BEL.
LUX. Prague
UKRAINE
CZ. REP.
SLOV.
Paris
Vienna
MOL.
AUS.
Budapest
SWITZ.
HUNG.
FRANCE
ROM.
SLO.
CRO.
Belgrade Bucharest
BOS.&
HER.
ITALY
Madrid
SPAIN
Rabat
(PORTUGAL)
Oran
Fès
Casablanca
Tunis
Constantine
Marrakech
CANARY ISLANDS
LIBYA
S
MAURITANIA
Aswan
A
Nouakchott
BURKINA
FASO
CÔTE
D'IVOIRE
SIERRA LEONE
Monrovia
Lomé
Yamoussoukro Accra
LIBERIA
Abidjan
NIGERIA
Abuja
Nig
er
GHANA
Vo TOGO
l
ta
N'Djamena
Kano
SAO TOME
AND PRINCIPE
Equator
CONGO
GABON
Annobón
Kampala
Kisangani
BASIN
Brazzaville
Pointe-Noire
BURUNDI
Lake
Tanganyika
Mbuji-Mayi
Kitwe
Saint Helena
Zambe
zi
M
G
E
IB
ID
R
NAMIBIA
IS
LV
Pretoria
SOUTH
A
Or
a
ng
e
AFRICA
Cape Town
TR
EN
CH
Moroni
Glorioso Islands
(FRANCE)
Mayotte
(admin. by France,
claimed by Comoros)
Juan de Nova
Island
(FRANCE)
Mozambique
Beira
Channel
Tromelin Island
(FRANCE)
Mahajanga
Toamasina
Antananarivo
Bassas
da India
(FRANCE) Europa
Island
(FRANCE)
Port
Louis
St. Denis
MADAGASCAR
20
MAURITIUS
Reunion
(FRANCE)
Maputo
Mbabane
SWAZILAND
Maseru
Durban
LESOTHO
Indian Ocean
Port Elizabeth
Scale 1:51,400,000
Azimuthal Equal-Area Projection
TRISTAN
DA CUNHA
0
Gough Island
40
C
20
Victoria
SEYCHELLES
COMOROS
Cidade
de Nacala
KALAHARI
DESERT
Gaborone
Dar es
Salaam
MOZAMBIQUE
BOTSWANA
Johannesburg
ERT
(U.K.)
Windhoek
DES
G E
R I D
Ocean
Saint Helena, Ascension,
and Tristan da Cunha
Walvis Bay
W
Tropic of Capricorn
A
20
Mombasa
Blantyre
ZIMBABWE
Indian
Ocean
Zanzibar
MALAWI
Harare
N
South
Atlantic
0
Kilimanjaro
Dodoma
Lilongwe
ZAMBIA
Lusaka
Lubango
Namibe
SOMALIA
Mogadishu
Lake
Nyasa
Lubumbashi
ANGOLA
Prov.
admin.
line
(highest point in
Africa, 5895 m)
TANZANIA
Luanda
Socotra
(YEMEN)
E
NT
AMIRA
(Cabinda)
Arabian
Sea
Hargeysa
KENYA
Nairobi
Kigali
Kinshasa
ANGOLA
L
EY
ETHIOPIA
RWANDA
DEM. REP. Bukavu
Lake
Victoria
OF THE CONGO
Bujumbura
(EQUA. GUI.)
Ascension
Addis
Ababa
UGANDA
Congo
REP. OF
THE
CONGO
Libreville
São Tomé
20
Gulf of
Djibouti Aden
DJIBOUTI
(lowest point in
Africa, -155 m)
SOUTH
SUDAN
Juba
Bangui
Yaoundé
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
Lac'Assal
W
CENTRAL AFRICAN
REPUBLIC
CAMEROON
Douala
Gulf of Guinea
0
Moundou
ue
Ben
Ogbomoso
Ibadan
Lagos
PortoNovo
Malabo
Asmara
SUDAN
Zinder
Ouagadougou
BENIN
GUINEA
OMAN
YEMEN
Sanaa
ERITREA
Omdurman
Khartoum
le
Ni
GUINEA-BISSAU
Conakry
Freetown
Bamako
Muscat
U.A.E
Red
Sea
Port
Sudan
CHAD
Niamey
Abu
Dhabi
SAUDI
ARABIA
Admin.
boundary
A
Agadez
MALI
r
Nige
R
e
Blu
SENEGAL
Banjul
THE GAMBIA
Bissau
A
NIGER
Timbuktu
Dakar
H
BAHR.
QATAR
Riyadh
ile
Praia
KUWAIT
Persian
Gulf
hit
eN
CAPE VERDE
JORDAN
Ni
le
Nouadhibou
20
Amman
Cairo
EGYPT
Tropic of Cancer
IRAN
Baghdad
Jerusalem
ISRAEL
Al Jizah
Western
Sahara
I C
A N T
- AT L
M I D
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Alexandria
Benghazi
ALGERIA
Laayoune
AFG.
LEB. SYRIA
CYPRUS
Eu IRAQ
Damascus phrates
Beirut
Mediterranean Sea
Tripoli
(SPAIN)
Tehran
MALTA
TUNISIA
MOROCCO
TURKEY
GREECE
Athens
Sicily
L
MADEIRA ISLANDS
Sardinia
Algiers
TURKMENISTAN
Ashgabat
AZER.
ARM.
Ankara
ALB.
Caspian
Sea
GEO.
BULG.
MACE.
is
Tigr
Strait of Gibraltar
Black Sea
Sofia
KOS.
UZBEKISTAN
A
Lisbon
Rome
Danube
SER.
MONT.
Tashkent
Sea of
Azov
V
AZORES
(PORTUGAL)
Corsica
Aral
Sea
0
E
AP
RI
SE
800 Kilometers
0
800 Miles
Boundary representation is
not necessarily authoritative.
20
40
60
40
803510AI (G00392) 6-12
Map of Africa with National Boundaries and Some Topographical Features, 2012.
114
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
AND.
PORTUGAL
KAZAKHSTAN
Volg
a
FT
40
60
RUSSIA
RI
Nor t h
Atlantic
Ocean
40
T
IRE.
EA
20
GR
40
1. F or more detail about climate, see Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, Africa
and Africans (Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1995), 19-23.
2. Paul Sereno, Skeletons of the Sahara, 55 minutes, National Geographic,
2013, DVD.
3. See especially Susan Keech McIntosh, “Changing Perceptions of
West Africa’s Past: Archaeological Research Since 1988” in Journal of
Archaeological Research 2, no. 2 (June 1994): 165-198.
4. K
ai Krause, “The True Size of Africa,” <http://kai.sub.blue/images/TrueSize-of-Africa-kk-v3.pdf>, accessed 6 August 2016.
5. S ee especially John Parker and Richard Rathbone, African History: A Very
Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 4 – 5.
6. For an explanation on the use of Bantu words to reach conclusions
about prehistoric Africans, see Funso Afolayan, “Bantu Expansion and Its
Consequences,” in Toyin Falola, ed., Africa 1, African History Before 1885
113-136 (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2000 & 2003): 113-126.
For the origin of proto-Bantu see Joseph Greenberg, “The Languages of
Africa” in International Journal of American Linguistics XXIX, n.1, (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1963): 6-38.
7. F or more on this topic, see Frederick Cooper, “Conflict and Connection:
Rethinking Colonial African History,” in The American Historical Review 99,
no. 5 (December 1994): 1516-1545.
8. T his quote is derived from several paragraphs within J. Sibree’s English
translation of G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History (New York: Wiley and
Sons, 1900), 98-99.
9. D
erived from Hugh Trevor-Roper, “The Rise of Christian Europe,” The
Listener, LXX: 1809 (Nov. 28, 1963), 871-5.
10. S ee “Preface” in Erik Gilbert and Jonathan T. Reynolds, Africa in World
History: From Prehistory to the Present. Second Edition (Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Pearson, 2008).
11. T o remove religious bias from dating systems when discussing secular
global topics such as human origins, bce and ce replaces divine status
inherent in bc and ad. The life of Jesus of Nazareth is still used as the
marker between bce and ce, but only his human life is recognized here. bc
means “Before Christ,” which implies divinity. ad in English means in the
year of our Lord, which is also intimately connected to the Christian faith.
12 . F or more on this generally, see C.E. Carrington, The British Overseas:
Exploits of a Nation of Shopkeepers (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1950) and Frederick Lugard, “Memo No. 1” in Political Memoranda:
Revision of Instructions to Political Officers on Subjects Chiefly Political and
Administrative, 1913-1918 (London: Waterlow and Sons, 1919, 2nd ed.),
reprinted in William H. Worger, Nancy L. Clark and Edward A. Alpers,
Africa and the West: A Documentary History. Volume 2 from Colonialism to
Independence, 1875 to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2010), 22.
forces which had already taken North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.
Martel’s descendant Charlemagne pushed the “border” south of the
Pyrenees Mountains, but Muslims continued to control most of the
Iberian Peninsula and all of North Africa. Meanwhile the Eastern Roman
Empire (a.k.a. Byzantine Empire) continued to compete with Muslims in
Asia for influence in the Black Sea and Mediterranean regions. Then the
First Crusade got underway in 1095, and relations deteriorated. The last
big stage in this conflict occurred as the Ottoman Empire expanded its
control in southwestern Europe in the early sixteenth century.
15. O
n the role of Catholicism in 15th century Spanish government, see Philip
D. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic
History, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 60-62. On
the accommodation between Catholic clergy and commercial slaving
interests, see John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life
in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 65-67.
16. For more on this, see Andre Gunder Frank, “Development and
Underdevelopment in the New World: Smith and Marx vs. the
Weberians,” Theory and Society 2, no. 4 (Winter, 1975): 431-466.
17 . F or more details on the transatlantic slave trade, see J.E. Inikori, “Africa
and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade,” in Africa 1, African History Before 1885,
ed. Toyin Falola (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2000 & 2003), 289411.
18. T he use of Afrocentric in an academic sense is often associated with
sources contaminated by Western prejudices used to justify the Atlantic
slave trade and colonialism. For that perspective, see Molefi Kete Asante
and Abu S. Abarry, eds., African Intellectual Heritage: A Book of Sources
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996) and Stephen Howe,
Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes (New York: Verso, 1998).
19. T his topic is well developed in Jan Vansina, Living with Africa (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1994).
20. C
heikh Anta Diop, “Origin of the Ancient Egyptians.” In General History
of Africa, II, ed. G. Mokhtar (London: UNESCO and Heinemann: London,
1981), 27 - 83. Perhaps his most widely read book is The African Origin of
Civilization—Myth or Reality (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1974).
21. M
artin Gardiner Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical
Civilization, I-III (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987, 1991,
and 2006).
avid W. Phillipson, African Archaeology, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University
22. D
Press, 1993), 25-29.
13 . Djeliba Kouyaté, Keïta: The Heritage of the Griot, DVD, directed by Dani
Kouyaté. San Francisco: California Newsreel, 1994.
23. For two illustrations demonstrating the origins of humanity, see
“Phylogenetic Relationships of Humans and Other Primates,” The
Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny, https://
carta.anthropogeny.org/ resources/phylogeny (accessed 30 October
2016) and “The Human Lineage Through Time,” Becoming Human, The
Institute of Human Origins, http://www.becominghuman.org/node/
human-lineage-through-time (accessed 30 October 2016).
14. The competition began with the Battle of Tours in 732 ce when a
Frankish army led by Charles Martel stopped the advance of Muslim
24. R
ebecca L. Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Alan C. Wilson, “Mitochondrial
DNA and human evolution,” Nature, 325 (1 January 1987): 32-36.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
115
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Notes
26. A
nn Gibbons, “Y Chromosome Shows That Adam was an African,” Science
237 (31 October 1997): 804-805.
27. W
illiam C. Barnett, “The Geography of Africa” in in Africa, vol. 1. African
History Before 1885, ed. Toyin Falola (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic
Press, 2000 and 2003), 36-38. See also David W. Phillipson, African
Archaeology, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1993), 117-121.
28. H
erodotus, The Histories (New York, NY: Penguin, 1985), 143.
29. M
anfred B. Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003), 20-25.
30. F or more on Egyptian religion, see Funso Afolayan, “Civilizations of the
Upper Nile and North Africa,” in Africa, vol. 1. African History Before 1885,
ed. Toyin Falola (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2000 and 2003):
73-108 and Constance B. Hilliard, ed., Intellectual Traditions of Pre-Colonial
Africa (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998), 14-20.
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
31. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, translation and commentary by Wallace
Budge and introduction by John Romer (New York, Penguin Press, 2008).
32. Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354, ed. and trans., H. A. R.
Gibb (London: Broadway House, 1929; Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham
University,
2001),
http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1354ibnbattuta.asp (accessed 12 August 2016). See also Leo Africanus, The
History and Description of Africa, I - III, ed. Robert Brown, trans. John
Pory (London: Hakluyt Society, 1896; Google Books, 2009), https://
archive.org/stream/worksissuedbyha01unkngoog#page/n7/mode/2up
(accessed 12 August 2016). Ibn means “son of.”
33. F or more information, see Edward William Bovill, The Golden Trade of the
Moors (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1995).
34. Basil Davidson, West Africa before the Colonial Era, A History to 1850
(London: Longman, 1988), 25-34 and A. G. Hopkins, An Economic History
of West Africa (Harlow: Longman Group Ltd., 1993), 71-73 and 78-87.
35. F or more information on the Mali Empire, see Nana Yaw Sapong, “Mali
Empire,” in The Encyclopedia of Empire, ed. by John MacKenzie (Hoboken,
NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2016).
Adas, ed., 31-32 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).
44. F or another view of Ibn Battuta in Africa, see Said Hamdun and Noël King,
Ibn Battuta in Black Africa (Princeton, NJ: Markus-Wiener Publishing, Inc.,
1994), 30 and 74.
45. H
amdun and King, Ibn Battuta, xxvi. See also Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn
Battuta, 296-309. Dunn recounts in engaging detail Ibn Battuta’s visit to
Mali.
46. D
unn using Ibn Battuta’s words in Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta,
296-297.
47. D
unn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, 307 and 290-309 more generally. See
also Ibn Battuta, Ibn Battuta in Black Africa, Noel King and Said Hamdun,
ed. (Princeton, NJ: Marcus Weiner Publishers, 1994).
48. L eo Africanus, History and Description of Africa, in Alfred Andrea and
James Overfield, eds. The Human Record: Sources in Global History,
Volume II, 3rd Edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998): 46-49.
49. “Leo Africanus describes Timbuktu,” extracted from Leo Africanus,
History and Description of Africa, translated by John Pory (London:
Hakluyt Society, 1896, originally 1600 and put online by Learn NC, UNC),
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-colonial/1982 (accessed 21
August 2016).
50. A
bd-al-Rahman al-Sadi, “The Coming of Judar Pasha to the Sudan”
(extract from Tarikh al-Sudan) in Robert O. Collins, Western African History
Text and Readings, vol. 1 (New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, 1990), 3638 and Bovill, The Golden Trade of the Moors, 174.
51. A
thorough description of the West African sahelian empires can be
found in J. I. Dibua, “Sudanese Kingdoms of West Africa” in Toyin Falola,
editor, Africa, vol. 1. African History Before 1885 (Durham, NC: Carolina
Academic Press, 2000 & 2003), 137-158.
52. F or information on the Shona, see D. N. Beach, The Shona and Zimbabwe,
900-1850: An Outline of Shona History (New York: Holmes & Meiers
Publishers, 1980).
53. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, African Writers Series
(London: Heinemann Publishers, 1969), 8-10.
36. D
jibril Tamsir Niane, Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali, translated by G.D.
Pickett, Longman African Writers Series, rev. ed. (London: Longman
Group Ltd., 2006). For more about the history of ancient Mali and
Sundiata, see Bamba Suso and Banna Kanute, Sunjata, translated by
Gordon Innes with Bakari Sidibe and edited by Lucy Duran and Graham
Furniss (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1999) and Fa-Digi Sissoko. The
Epic of Son-Jara. A West African Tradition, translated and annotated by
John William Johnson (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press,
1992).
54. In addition to Mbiti’s African Religions and Philosophy, see John S.
Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, African Writers Series (London:
Heinemann Publishers, 1975). Generally, also see Bolaji E. Idowu, African
Traditional Religion: A Definition (New York: Orbis Books, Maryknoll, 1973).
eïta: The Heritage of the Griot (1995), DVD, directed by Dani Kouyaté (San
37. K
Francisco: California Newsreel, 1995).
58. A
mong outstanding web sites about African art and traditional African
religion, as well as other components of African life is “Art and Life in
Africa,” Museum of Art, University of Iowa, https://africa.uima.uiowa.
edu/ (accessed 17 August 2016), especially “Topic Essays,” https://africa.
uima.uiowa.edu/topic-essays/ (accessed 17 August 2016). Wonderful
images of Africans and their culture enthrall this deeply educational
web site.
oss Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. A Muslim traveler of the 14th
38. R
Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 292. For other
helpful sources, see Edward William Bovill, The Golden Trade of the Moors
(Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1995); David C. Conrad, Empires
of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali and Songhay (New York: Facts on File,
Inc., 2005); and A.G. Hopkins, The Economic History of West Africa (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1973).
55. Mbiti, African Religions, 2-5.
56. A
dinkra symbols were created by Akan peoples like the Asante to
represent concepts.
57. Mbiti, African Religions, 3-4.
39. S ee especially D.T. Niane, “Mali and the Second Mandingo Expansion,” in
UNESCO General History of Africa, Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth
Century, Vol. IV (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 117-171.
uch of this is demonstrated in the respectful film about Muhammad
59. M
and the early years of Islam, The Message, VHS, directed by Moustapha
Akkad, Filmco International Productions, 1977. An updated DVD is
available as The Message (30th Anniversary Edition), 2005 in English and
Arabic.
40. D
avidson, West Africa before the Colonial Era, 42-43. See also Niane, “Mali,”
UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. IV, 146-151.
60. D
o not confuse one of the twelve Shia with the leader of a mosque today,
also called an imam.
41. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, 290.
61. T he flight to Axum was sudden, but the migration to Yathrib/Medina was
planned and carried out in small groups and quietly over months. Thus,
the hegira to Yathrib/Medina is best translated as a migration.
42. A
provocative book not accepted by all academics that examines the
evidence supporting African influences in Latin American civilizations
is Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in
Ancient America, Journal of African Civilizations Series (New York: Random
House, 1976).
43. F or a critical discussion of the Marco Polo comparison, see Richard Eaton,
“Islamic Essay as Global History,” In Islamic & European Expansion, Michael
116
62. F or more on this, see David C. Conrad, “Maurice Delafosse and the PreSunjata Trône du Mande,” in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, 46, no. 2 (1983): 1983.
63. M
ore information on Al-Azhar may be found in Nasser Eabbat, “Al-Azhar
Mosque: An Architectural Chronicle of Cairo’s History,” in Muqarnus 13
(1996): 45-67.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
25. https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/
65. O
ne way that Muslim jihad paved the way for European conquest was by
giving West Africa a reputation for warfare and turmoil that European
imperialists used to justify colonialism—the “civilizing mission” that
required Europeans to bring peace to Africans. The jihads also disrupted
trans-Saharan trade routes, leading states south of the Sahara to
turn increasingly to traders along the coast for imported goods, and
thereby increasing the political influence of Europeans along the coast
(because they could offer “deals” to their allies and withhold them from
Africans who resisted). By the mid-nineteenth century, most Europeans
considered the slave trade to be evil and Muslims to be the main reason
why it continued, so the expansion of Muslim states in West Africa was
also viewed as a threat to anti-slavery efforts.
66. B
everly Mack and Jean Boyd, One Woman’s Jihad, Nana Asma’u, Scholar
and Scribe (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2000), 2-8.
67. F or more on West African jihads, see A.S. Kanya-Forstner, The Conquest
of the Western Sudan (Cambridge University Press, 1969), 15-20 and Julius
O. Adekunle, “The Jihads in West Africa,” in Toyin Falola, ed. Africa, Vol. 1.
African History Before 1885 (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2000
& 2003): 299-319.
68. Mack and Boyd, One Woman’s Jihad, 3.
69. Mack and Boyd, One Woman’s Jihad, 7.
84. A
ristotle, Politics, Book One, Benjamin Jowett, trans. (Kitchener, Canada:
Batoche Books, 1999), 9.
85. U
sing African and American settings, Jared Diamond effectively explores
this in Guns, Germs, and Steel (2005), DVD, directed by Tim Lambert
(Washington: National Geographic Society, 2005).
86. Inikori, “Africa in World History,” 94.
87. J ohn Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 78.
88. Thornton, Africa and Africans, 92-97.
89. P
.E.H. Hair, “The Enslavement of Koelle’s Informants,” The Journal of
African History Vol. 6, No. 2 (1965): 196-201.
90. L isa Lindsey, Captives as Commodities, The Transatlantic Slave Trade
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008, 59-60.
91. T hornton, Africa and Africans, 105.
92. T hornton, Africa and Africans, 122-123.
93. J .E. Harris, “The African Diaspora in the Old and New Worlds,” in UNESCO
General History of Africa, vol. V, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth
Century, ed. B.A. Ogot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 113.
94. B
asil Davidson, West Africa before the Colonial Era, A History to 1850 (New
York: Longman, 1998), 196-197.
95. H
arris, “African Diaspora,” 118 and John Thornton, “The African
Experience of the ’20 and Odd Negroes’ Arriving in Virginia in 1619,”
William and Mary Quarterly, 55, 3 (1998): 421-434.
96. Harris, “African Diaspora,” 121.
97. The relationship between slavery, sugar, and European demand
is explored in Erik Gilbert and Jonathan Reynolds, Trading Tastes,
Commodity and Cultural Exchange to 1750 (Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006), 84-102.
70. Ibid., 9.
98. Gilbert and Reynolds, Trading Tastes, 87-88.
71. Ibid., 11.
99. Gilbert and Reynolds, Trading Tastes, 90.
72. S ee Nana Asma’u, The Collected Works of Nana Asma’u, 1793-1864, edited
by Jean Boyd and Beverly Mack (Ann Arbor: Michigan State University
Press, 1997).
100. Gilbert and Reynolds, Trading Tastes, 91-94.
73. Mack and Boyd, One Woman’s Jihad, 41.
74. Mack and Boyd, One Woman’s Jihad, 91.
75. F or a good discussion and a photo of the dhow see Ross Dunn, “The
Arabian Sea,” in The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. A Muslim traveler of the
14th Century, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 118-122.
76. M
ark Horton and John Middleton, The Swahili, The Social Landscape of a
Mercantile Society (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 5-25.
77. D
unn, Adventures of Ibn Battuta, 122-128.
78. F or more on the Copts, see Joseph E. Harris, Africans and their History
(New York: New American Library, 1987), 45-51.
79. Information on the Ark of the Covenant and lineage of Ethiopian kings
back to Menelik I can be found in Miguel F. Brooks, compiler, editor and
translator, A Modern Translation of the Kebra Nagast (The Glory of Kings)
(Lawrenceville, NJ: The Red Sea Press, 1995). For an older translation with
thirty-two plates, see E.A. Wallis Budge, Kebra Nagast, The Queen of Sheba
and Her Only Son Menyelek (Oxford and London: Oxford University Press,
1932), especially chapters 21-33, available online at http://www.sacredtexts.com/chr/kn/kn000-0.htm (accessed 11 November 2016).
80. V
iera Pawliková-Vilhanová, “Christian Missions in Africa and Their Role
in the Transformation of African Societies,” Asian and African Studies 16,
no. 2 (2007): 252-255.
81. Pawliková-Vilhanová, “Christian Missions,” 258. 82. J .E. Inikori, “Africa in World History: the Export Slave Trade from Africa
and the Emergence of the Atlantic Economic Order, ” in UNESCO General
History of Africa, vol. V, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century,
ed. B.A. Ogot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 74-75.
83. A
.H.M. Jones, “The Economic Basis of the Athenian Democracy,” Past &
Present No. 1 (Feb., 1952): 18-31.
ilbert and Reynolds, Trading Tastes, 99-100 and Davidson, West Africa,
101. G
196-197.
102. Davidson, West Africa, 188.
103. Davidson, West Africa, 190.
104. D
avidson, West Africa, 199-205.
105. D
avidson, West Africa, 205.
106. F or more detail on the series of wars between the Asante and British,
see Albert Adu Boahen, Ghana: Evolution and Change in the Nineteenth
and Twentieth Centuries (London: Longman, 1975).
107. J oseph Dupuis, Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (London: Henry
Colburn, 1824), Google Books, 162-164, https://books.google.com/
books?id=YpIoAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_
summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed 2 September
2016).
108. Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
Written by Himself With Related Documents, ed. Robert J. Allison (Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2007).
109. L indsey, Captives as Commodities, 120.
110. The original spelling, style, punctuation, and grammar have been
retained.
111. Equiano, Narrative, vol. 1, chap. 2, in ed. Allison, 64-65.
112. Equiano, Narrative, vol. 1, chap. 2, in ed. Allison, 65-66.
113. Equiano, Narrative, vol. 1, chap. 2, in ed. Allison, 66.
114. Equiano, Narrative, vol. 1, chap. 2, in ed. Allison, 66-67.
115. Equiano, Narrative, vol. 1, chap. 2, in ed. Allison, 67-68.
116. Equiano, Narrative, vol. 1, chap. 2, in ed. Allison, 68-69.
117. Equiano, Narrative, vol. 1, chap. 2, in ed. Allison, 69.
118. Equiano, Narrative, vol. 1, chap. 2, in ed. Allison, 24-27; Vincent Carretta,
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
117
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
64. I bn Khaldûn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, edited,
translated and introduced by N. J. Dawood, Franz Rosenthal, and Bruce
Lawrence respectively (Princeton: Princeton University, 2015). The
comparable work of Arnold Toynbee is A Study of History, 2 vols. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, abridged edition, 1963). Another perspective
can be found in Mohammed Umer Chapra, “Ibn Khaldun’s Theory of
Development: Does It Help Explain the Low Performance of the PresentDay Muslim World?” in The Journal of Socio-Economics 37, Issue 2 (April
2008): 836–863, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S1053535707000960 (accessed 8 November 2016).
119. See especially Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1944); David Eltis, Economic Growth
and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1987); and J.E. Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in
England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
120. Lindsey, Captives as Commodities, 118.
121. In addition to Equiano’s Narrative, their major works include Thomas
Clarkson and Ottobah Cugoano: Essays on the Slavery and Commerce
of the Human Species, ed. Mary-Antoinette Smith (Ontario: Broadview
Editions, 2010); Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments
on the Evil of Slavery and Other Writings, ed. Vincent Carretta (New York:
Penguin, 1999); Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade
on the Coast of Africa (London: J. Phillips, 1788; Google Books, 2007),
https://books.google.com/books?id=DccNAAAAQAAJ&printsec=
frontcover&dq=Falconbridge,+Alexander&hl=en&sa=X&ved=wiH55n
tkfvOAhXC7SYKHcSSCrEQ6AEIJjAB#v=onepage&q=Falconbridge
%2C%20Alexander&f=false (Accessed 1 September 2016); John Newton,
Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade (Charleston: BiblioBazaar, 2010);
and Robert and Samuel Wilberforce, ed., The Correspondence of William
Wilberforce, vols 1-2 (London: John Murray, 1840). The film Amazing
Grace (2007) recreates the abolitionist movement through the life of
Wilberforce (2007). Youssou N’Dour, considered in the next section
on Sufi Islam in Senegal, starred as Olaudah Equiano. See Amazing
Grace (2007), DVD, directed by Michael Apted (London: Ingenious Film
Partners 2 LLP, 2007).
122. Lindsey, Captives and Commodities, 128-132.
123. O
n the end of the slave trade to Brazil in 1850, see Leslie Bethell, The
Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade (London: Cambridge University
Press, 1970).
124. For the discussion of the relationship between the abolitionist
movement and the rise of European imperialism in Africa, see Adam
Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost (New York: Mariner Books, 1998).
125. S ee Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire (Oxford University Press, New
York, 1981).
126. V
. I. Lenin, Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (New York:
International Publishers, 1939). On the development of Marxist
interpretations, see Anthony Brewer, Marxist Interpretations of
Imperialism: A Critical Survey (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980).
On the influence of settlers on decolonization, see Henry S. Wilson,
African Decolonization (London, Great Britain: Edward Arnold, 1994),
126-127.
onald Robinson & John Gallagher, “The Imperialism of Free Trade” in
127. R
The Economic History Review, vol. 6, no. 1 (1953), 1-15.
128. R
onald Robinson & John Gallagher developed their thesis more fully in
Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1967). For examples of the responses, see William Roger
Louis, Imperialism: The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy (New York:
New Viewpoints -- Franklin Watts, 1967).
Africa (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1922). For Lugard’s ideas
in summary see also Bruce Fetter, ed., “Lord F.D. Lugard, The Dual
Mandate in British Africa,” Colonial Rule in Africa, Readings from Primary
Sources, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), 96–98.
134. O
n political activity by African veterans in the period of decolonization
in French West Africa, see chapter 9 in Myron Echenberg, Colonial
Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960
(Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 1991). On veterans in the Gold Coast,
see David Killingray, “Soldiers, Ex-Servicemen, and Politics in the Gold
Coast, 1939–50” in The Journal of Modern African Studies 21, No. 3 (Sept.,
1983), 523–534.
135. F or more details, see Raymond Dumett’s El Dorado in West Africa: The
Gold-Mining Frontier, African Labor, and Colonial Capitalism in the Gold
Coast, 1875 – 1900 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1998).
136. A
. Adu Boahen, African Perspectives on Colonialism (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1987), 62.
137. D
avid Robinson, Muslim Societies in African History, New Approaches
in African History, Martin Klein, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 191.
138. Robinson, Muslim Societies in African History, 186.
139. F or an account of the war in 1873 between the British and the Asante,
see Bruce Vandervort, Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830–1914
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 84–101.
140. R
obert O. Collins and James M. Burns, A History of Sub-Saharan Africa
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 138.
141. O
n Africans who fought in France, see Myron Echenberg, “`Morts pour
la France’: the Tirailleurs Sénégalais and the Second World War” in
Journal of African History, vol. 26, no. 4 (1985), 373-380.
142. F or an overview of the impact of the First World War in Africa, see Basil
Davidson, Modern Africa: A Social and Political History, 3rd edition (New
York, Longmann, 1994), 6-10. For details about the war on African soil,
see Byron Farwell, The Great War in Africa (1914-1918) (New York: W. W.
Norton & Co., 1986).
143. J ean Suret-Canale, French Colonialism in Tropical Africa: 1900-1945,
translated by Till Gottheiner (New York: Pica Press, 1971), 83-86.
144. J . M. Roberts, The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century. The History of
the World, 1901 to the Present (Penguin, 2004), 343.
145. F or more detail on the interwar period, see the chapter on “Forces
of Change in the 1930s” in John Hargreaves, Decolonization in Africa
(London & New York: Longman, 1988), 32-48.
146. S ee the chapter on “War and the African Empires 1939-45” in Hargreaves,
Decolonization in Africa, 49-67.
147. Hilaire Belloc, The Modern Traveller (London: Edward Arnold, 1898), 41.
148. O
n the influence of settlers on decolonization, see Henry S. Wilson,
African Decolonization (London, Great Britain: Edward Arnold, 1994),
126-127.
149. F or a brief overview of Belgium’s decolonization see Wilson, African
Decolonization, 173-174. For more detail, see Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja,
The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: a people’s history (London: Zed Books
Ltd., 2003), 94-120.
obert O. Collins, James McDonald Burns, and Erik Kristofer Ching, eds.,
129. R
Historical Problems of Imperial Africa (Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1994),
6B.
150. W
ilson, African Decolonization, 179-189. For detail on one example, see
Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique: The Revolution Under Fire (London: Zed
Books, 1984), 37-51.
130. A
n online version of the original text of the Berlin Conference can be
found at Jim Jones, “General Act of the 1885 Conference of Berlin,”
History 312, West Chester University, http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/
his312/misc/berlin.htm (accessed 12 September 2016).
avid Birmingham, Kwame Nkrumah: The Father of African Nationalism
151. D
(Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1990), 1-35.
131. Kevin Shillington, History of Africa (New York: Macmillan, 2005), 306.
132. R
obert July, A History of the African People (Prospects Heights, Ill.:
Waveland Press, 1998), 307. An online interpretation of this map in color
can be viewed at Michigan State University, Habari Za Ndugu, http://
reginaldtz.tumblr.com/post/32085143345/map-colonial-partition-ofafrica-1914-source (accessed 15 September 2016).
152. O
n the foundation of the Non-Aligned Nations movement, see
“History and Evolution of Non-Aligned Movement” (New Delhi:
Goverment of India Ministry of External Affairs, August 22, 2012)
downloaded from https://mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?20349/
History+and+Evolution+of+NonAligned+Movement on December 18,
2016.
153. Excerpt from Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of
Imperialism (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1965).
133. See generally Frederick Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical
118
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man, (Athens: University
of Georgia, 2005); and Catherine Obianju Acholonu, The Igbo Roots of
Olaudah Equiano (Owerri, Nigeria: Afa Publications, 1989).
77-80.
155. G
eorge B. N. Ayittey, Africa Betrayed (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc.,
1992), 135-139.
161. A
vaneesh Pandey, “Bill Gates’ Foundation To Invest $5 Billion In Africa
Over The Next 5 Years” in International Business Times (July 18, 2016),
downloaded from http://www.ibtimes.com/bill-gates-foundationinvest-5-billion-africa-over-next-5-years-2392306 on December 16,
2016.
156. C
. Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafra: Selected Speeches with Journals of Events,
vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Row Perennial Library, 1969), 8-34.
162. “ GNI per capita, Atlas Method,” The World Bank, http://data.worldbank.
org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD (accessed 19 November 2016).
157. Festus Iyayi, “The Conduct Of Elections And Electoral Practices In
Nigeria” (paper delivered at the Nigerian Bar Association Conference
in Abuja on 24th August, 2004), downloaded September 29, 2013 from
http://www.dawodu.com/iyayi1.htm.
163. S ee the assessment of Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, “Reparations to
Africa and the Group of Eminent Persons,” Cahiers d’études africaines
(2004): 81–97, http://etudesafricaines.revues.org/4543 (accessed 27
Sept. 2016).
158. H
annah Armstrong, “Crisis in Mali: Root Causes & Long-Term Solutions”
(US Institute for Peace Brief 149 , May 31, 2014), downloaded from https://
www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PB149-Crisis%20in%20Mali-Root%20
Causes%20and%20Long-Term%20Solutions.pdf on December 16,
2016. See also Andrew Morgan, “The Causes of the Uprising in Northern
Mali” in ThinkAfricaPress (February 6, 2012), downloaded from https://
afrique-europe-interact.net/693-0-ursachen-text---engl.html
on
December 18, 2016.
164. “ Declaration,” World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Article 13 (31 Aug. –8 Sept. 2001), 6,
http://www.un.org/WCAR/durban.pdf (accessed 21 Nov. 2016).
159. T he description of the war is based on newspaper accounts published in
2012 and 2013 in several on-line Malian newspapers including Le Pays,
L’Essor, L’Indépendant and Le Républicain which appeared at www.essor.
ml and www.malijet.com. Other sources included articles published by
The Guardian (Great Britain), Jeune Afrique (France), L’Express (France)
and others. All downloaded articles are in the collection of Dr. James
Jones (jjones@wcupa.edu).
160. Ian Taylor, China’s New Role in Africa (Boulder CO: Lynn Rienner, 2010),
165. See International Monetary Fund, “Debt Relief Under the Heavily
Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative,” International Monetary Fund
Fact Sheet, 20 Sept. 2016, http://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/
Sheets/2016/08/01/16/11/Debt-Relief-Under-the-Heavily-IndebtedPoor-Countries-initiative (accessed 24 Sept. 2016) and “The Multilateral
Debt Relief Initiative,” International Monetary Fund Fact Sheet, 2015,
https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/mdri.htm (accessed 23 Sept.
2016). See also The World Bank, “Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC)
Initiative, Relieving the World’s Poorest Countries of Unmanageable
Debt Burdens,” 10 Oct. 2014, http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/
debt/brief/hipc (accessed 24 Sept. 2016).
166. J uly, African People, 503.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
154. N
juguna Ng’ethe, “Strongmen, State Formation, Collapse, and
Reconstruction in Africa” in I. William Zartman, editor, Collapsed States:
the disintegration and restoration of legitimate authority (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Riener Publishers, Inc., 1995), 251-261.
119
Primary Sources
Africanus, Leo. The History and Description of Africa,
3 vols. Translated by John Pory and edited by
Robert Brown. London: Hakluyt Society, 1896;
Google Books, 2009. https://archive.org/stream/
worksissuedbyha01unkngoog#page/n7/mode/2up
(accessed 12 August 2016).
Asma’u, Nana. The Collected Works of Nana Asma’u, 17931864. Edited by Jean Boyd and Beverly Mack. Ann
Arbor: Michigan State University Press, 1997.
Battuta, Ibn. Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354.
Translated and edited by H. A. R. Gibb. London:
Broadway House, 1929; Medieval Sourcebook,
Fordham University, 2001. http://sourcebooks.
fordham.edu/source/1354-ibnbattuta.asp (accessed 12
August 2016).
_______. Ibn Battuta in Black Africa. Noel King and
Said Hamdun, ed. Princeton, NJ: Marcus Weiner
Publishers, 1994.
de las Casas, Bartolomé. A Brief Account of the Destruction
of the Indies. Or, a Faithful Narrative of the Horrid and
Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and All Manner of
Cruelties, That Hell and Malice Could Invent, Committed
by the Popish Spanish Party on the Inhabitants of WestIndia, Together With the Devastations of Several Kingdoms
in America by Fire and Sword, for the Space of Forty and
Two Years, from the Time of Its First Discovery by Them.
The Project Gutenberg EBook <www.gutenberg.org>.
Released: 9 January 2007 [EBook #20321]. English
Translation of Brevisima relacion de la destruccíon de las
Indias. Seville, Spain (1552). (accessed 31 July 2016).
“Colonialism.” Map originally from Michigan State
University and placed online by Habari Za Ndugu.
http://reginaldtz.tumblr.com/post/32085143345/
120
map-colonia l-pa r tition-of-a frica-1914-source
(accessed 15 September 2016).
Dupuis, Joseph. Journal of a Residence in Ashantee.
London:
Henry
Colburn,
1824;
Google
Books,
2008.
https://books.google.com/
b o o k s ? i d =Yp I o A A A A Y A A J & p r i n t s e c
=frontcover& source=gbs _ ge _ summar y_ r& cad
=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed 2 September
2016).
The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Translated and commentary
by Wallace Budge and introduction by John Romer.
New York, Penguin Press, 2008.
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life
of Olaudah Equiano Written by Himself With Related
Documents. Edited with an Introduction by Robert J.
Allison. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2007.
Fetter, Bruce, ed. Colonial Rule in Africa, Readings
from Primary Sources. Madison: The University of
Wisconsin Press, 1979.
“General Act of the Conference of Berlin Concerning the
Congo.” The American Journal of International Law 3,
no. 1 (1909): 7-25.
“Global AIDS Update, 2015.” UNAIDS. Geneva: Joint
UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, 2016. http://www.
who.int/hiv/pub/arv/global-aids-update-2016-pub/
en/ (accessed 24 September 2016).
Ibn Khaldûn. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to
History. Edited by N.J. Dawood. Translated by
Franz Rosenthal. Introduction by Bruce Lawrence.
Princeton: Princeton University, 2015.
International Monetary Fund. “Debt Relief Under the
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.”
International Monetary Fund Fact Sheet, 20 September
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Bibliography
_____. “The Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative.”
International Monetary Fund Fact Sheet, 2015.
https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/mdri.htm
(accessed 23 September 2016).
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Jones, Jim. “General Act of the 1885 Conference of
Berlin.” History 312, West Chester University. http://
courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his312/misc/berlin.htm
(accessed 12 September 2016).
Macmillan, Harold. “The Wind of Change Speech, 3
February 1960.” In African Yearbook of Rhetoric 2, 3
(2011): 27-39.
Newton, John. Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade.
Charleston: BiblioBazaar, 2010.
Niane, Djibril Tamsir. Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali.
Translated by G.D. Pickett. Longman African
Writers Series, rev. ed. London: Longman Group
Ltd., 2006.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
African Institute for Economic Development and
Planning. http://www.uneca.org/idep (accessed 23
September 2016).
_____. “United Nations Ten Year Capacity Building
Programme for the African Union - Second
Triennial Review” 2014. http://www.uneca.org/
publications/united-nations-ten-year-capacit ybuilding-programme-african-union-second-triennial
(accessed 23 September 2016).
U.S. Congress. House. “H.R.40 - Commission to Study
Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act,”
114th Congress, 2015-2016. https://www.congress.
gov/ bill /114th-congress/house-bill /40/all-info
(accessed 23 September 2016).
Voyages Database. 2009. Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade Database. Archived by Emory University,
Atlanta, GA. http://www.slavevoyages.org (accessed
31 July 2016).
Wilberforce, Robert Isaac and Samuel, eds., The
Correspondence of William Wilberforce, Vols. 1-2.
London: John Murray, 1840.
Worger, William H., Nancy Clark, and Edward Alpers,
eds. Africa and the West, A Documentary History. Vol. 1,
From the Slave Trade to Conquest, 1441-1905. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010.
The World Bank. “GNI per capita, Atlas Method, 1992.”
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.
CD (accessed 19 November 2016).
_____. “Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC)
Initiative, Relieving the World’s Poorest Countries
of Unmanageable Debt Burdens,” 10 October 2014.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/debt/brief/hipc
(accessed 24 September 2016).
_____. “Population Growth, 2015.” http://data.
worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW (accessed
20 November 2016).
World Health Organization. “Malaria Country Profiles,
2015,”
http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/
country-profiles/en/ (accessed 20 Nov. 2016).
_____. “World Malaria Report 2015, Summary.”
Geneva: WHO, 2016. http://apps.who.int/iris/
b i t s t r e a m / 10 6 6 5/ 2 0 52 2 4 / 1 / W H O _ H T M _
GMP_2016.2_eng.pdf?ua=1 (accessed 24 September
2016).
Secondary Sources
Abd-al-Rahman al-Sadi, “The Coming of Judar Pasha to
the Sudan” (extract from Tarikh al-Sudan). In Robert
O. Collins. Western African History Text and Readings,
vol. 1. New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, 1990.
_____. There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra.
New York: The Penguin Press, 2012.
_____. Things Fall Apart. Edited by Francis Abiola Irele.
London: W.W. Norton, 2009.
_____. The Trouble with Nigeria. New York: Heinemann,
1984.
Acholonu, Catherine Obianju. The Igbo Roots of Olaudah
Equiano. Owerri, Nigeria: Afa Publications, 1989.
Adams, Jill. “Human Evolutionary Tree.” Nature
Education 1 (1) (2008): 145. http://www.nature.com/
scitable/topicpage/human-evolutionary-tree-417
(accessed 13 November 2016).
Adas, Michael. “High” Imperialism and the “New” History.
Essays in Global and Comparative History Series,
edited by Michael Adas. Washington: American
Historical Association, 1993.
Adekunle, Julius O. “The Jihads in West Africa.” In Toyin
Falola, editor, Africa, vol. 1. African History Before
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
121
SKT, IASD - International, NA
2016.
http://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/
Sheets/2016/08/01/16/11/ Debt-Relief-Underthe-Heavily-Indebted-Poor-Countries-Initiative
(accessed 24 September 2016).
Afolayan, Funso. “Bantu Expansion and Its
Consequences.” In Toyin Falola, editor, Africa, vol. 1.
African History Before 1885, 113-136. Durham, NC:
Carolina Academic Press, 2000 and 2003.
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
_____. “Civilizations of the Upper Nile and North
Africa.” In Toyin Falola, editor, Africa, vol. 1. African
History Before 1885, 73-108. Durham, NC: Carolina
Academic Press, 2000 and 2003.
Africans in America. Produced and Designed by Ted Sicker
and Julia Whiteney. PBS Online. Boston: WGBH,
1998.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html
(accessed 1 September 2016).
Allen, James de Vere. Swahili Origins. Athens, Ohio:
Ohio University Press, 1993.
Amazing Grace (2007). DVD. Directed by Michael Apted.
London: Ingenious Film Partners 2 LLP, 2007.
Amenumey, D.E.K. Ghana: A Concise History from PreColonial Times to the 20th Century. Accra: Woeli, 2008.
Amistad (1997). DVD. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Universal City, CA and New York: DreamWorks and
HBO, 1997.
Anthony, David W. “Migration in Archeology: The Baby
and the Bathwater.” American Anthropologist, New
Series 92, no. 4 (December 1990): 895-914.
Aristotle. Politics, Book One. Translated by Benjamin
Jowett. Kitchener, Canada: Batoche Books, 1999.
“Art and Life in Africa,” Museum of Art, University of
Iowa. https://africa.uima.uiowa.edu/ (accessed 17
August 2016).
Asante, Molefi Kete. The History of Africa, The Quest for
Eternal Unity. New York: Routledge, Taylor and
Francis, 2015.
Asante, Molefi Kete and Abu S. Abarry, editors, African
Intellectual Heritage: A Book of Sources. Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1996.
Ayittey, George. Africa Betrayed. New York: St. Martin’s,
1992.
_____. Africa in Chaos. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998.
Barnett, William C. “The Geography of Africa” in in
Africa, vol. 1. African History Before 1885, ed. Toyin
Falola (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2000
and 2003), 36-38.
122
Beach, D. N. The Shona and Zimbabwe, 900-1850: An
outline of Shona History. New York: Holmes and
Meiers Publishers, 1980.
Belloc, Hilaire. The Modern Traveller. London: Edward
Arnold, 1898.
Bernal, Martin Gardiner. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic
Roots of Classical Civilization. Vols. I-III. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press (1987, 1991,
and 2006).
Bethell, Leslie. The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade.
London: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Birmingham, David. Kwame Nkrumah: The Father of
African Nationalism. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University
Press, 1990.
Blaufarb, Rafe and Liz Clarke. Inhuman Traffick, The
International Struggle Against the Transatlantic Slave
Trade. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community: Plantation
Life in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1979).
Boahen, Albert Adu. African Perspectives on Colonialism.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
_____. Ghana: Evolution and Change in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries. London: Longman, 1975.
_____. Topics in West African History. London: Longman,
1980. Bohannan, Paul and Philip Curtin, Africa and
Africans. 4th ed. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland
Press, 1995.
Bovill, Edward William. The Golden Trade of the Moors.
Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1995.
Brewer, Anthony. Marxist Interpretations of Imperialism:
A Critical Survey. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1980.
Brizuela-Garcia, Esperanza and Trevor Getz. African
Histories, New Sources and New Techniques for Studying
African Pasts. Boston: Pearson, 2012.
_____. “African Memories and Perspectives of the
Atlantic Slave Trade” in African Histories, New Sources
and Techniques for Studying African Pasts by the same
authors. San Francisco: Pearson Education, 2012.
Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and
Justice. “The Report on Slavery and Justice.” 2007.
http://www.brown.edu/Research/Slavery_ Justice/
report/ (accessed 23 September 2016).
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
1885, 299-320. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic
Press, 2000 and 2003.
Bull, Mary. “Indirect Rule in Northern Nigeria.” In Essays
in Imperial Government Presented to Margery Perham,
edited by Kenneth Robinson and Frederick Madden.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963.
Cann, Rebecca L., Mark Stoneking, and Alan C. Wilson.
“Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution.” Nature
325 (1 January 1987): 32-36
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Carretta, Vincent. Equiano, the African: Biography of a SelfMade Man. Athens: University of Georgia, 2005.
____, ed. Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and
Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Other Writings.
New York: Penguin, 1999.
Carrington, C. E. The British Overseas: Exploits of a Nation
of Shopkeepers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1950.
Center for Academic Research and Training in
Anthropogeny. “Phylogenetic Relationships of
Humans and Other Primates.” https://carta.
anthropogeny.org/ resources/phylogeny (accessed 30
October 2016).
Chamberlain, M.E. The Scramble for Africa. London:
Longman, 2010.
Chapra, Mohammed Umer. “Ibn Khaldun’s Theory
of Development: Does It Help Explain the Low
Performance of the Present-Day Muslim World?”
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Islamic Research and Training
Institute, revised 3 April 2006. http://www2.uned.es/
congreso-ibn-khaldun/pdf/12%20Umer%20Chapra.
pdf. (accessed 28 August 2016).
Clarke, John Henrik, ed., with Amy Jacques Garvey.
Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa. New York:
Vintage Books, 1974.
“Cleaning up Nigerian oil pollution could take 30 years,
cost billions.” UN News Centre, 4 Aug. 2011. http://
www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39232&
Cr=pollution&Cr1=#.V-0b9WCQK70 (accessed 24
September 2016).
Cohen, William B. European Empire Building, NineteenthCentury Imperialism. Problems in Civilization Series,
edited by David Pinkney. St. Louis: Forum Press,
1980.
_____. The Partition of Africa: Illusion or Necessity. New
York: John Wiley and Sons, 1969.
Collins, Robert O. and James M. Burns. A History of SubSaharan Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007.
Collins, Robert O., James M. Burns, and Erik Kristofer
Ching, eds. Historical Problems of Imperial Africa.
Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1994.
Collins, Robert O., James MacDonald Burns & Erik
Kristofer Ching, eds., Problems in African History: the
precolonial centuries (New York & Princeton: Markus
Wiener Publishing, Inc., 1993), 1-4.
Conrad, David C. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana,
Mali and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2005.
_____. “Maurice Delafosse and the Pre-Sunjata Trône du
Mande.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies 46, no. 2 (1983): 335-337.
Cooper, Frederick. “Conflict and Connection: Rethinking
Colonial African History.” In The American Historical
Review 99, no. 5 (December 1994): 1516-1545.
_____. Decolonization and African Society: The Labor
Question in French and British Africa. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Crowder, Michael. “Indirect Rule: French and British
Style.” Africa: Journal of the International Africa
Institute 34, no. 3 (1964): 197-205.
Curtin, Philip. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1972.
_____. The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays
in Atlantic History. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998.
Daget, S. “The Abolition of the Slave Trade.” In
UNESCO General History of Africa. Vol. VI, Africa in
the Nineteenth Century until the 1800s, edited by J.F.
Ade Ajayi, 64-89. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1989.
Darwin, Charles. On the Origins of Species by Means of
Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races
in the Struggle for Life. New York: Literary Classics,
1930.
Davidson, Basil. The African Slave Trade. Oxford: James
Currey, 1961.
_____. The Black Man’s Burden. London: James Currey,
1992.
_____. Modern Africa, A Social and Political History. New
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
123
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Budge, E. A. Wallis, trans. The Kebra Nagast. 1932. http://
www.sacred-texts.com/chr/kn/ (accessed 28 August
2016).
_____. West Africa before the Colonial Era, A History to
1850. New York: Longman, 1998.
Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of
Slavery in the New World. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006.
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
“Declaration.” World Conference against Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance,
Article 13 (31 Aug. - 8 Sept. 2001). United Nations.
http://www.un.org/WCAR/durban.pdf (accessed 21
Nov. 2016).
Desert Odyssey (2001) DVD. Episode 2 of Africa. Directed
by Graham Booth, Africa Series of Nature. New
York: National Geographic, 2001.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel (2005), 3 DVDs.
Directed by Tim Lambert. Washington: National
Geographic Society, 2005.
Dibua, J. I. “Sudanese Kingdoms of West Africa” in Toyin
Falola, editor, Africa, vol. 1. African History Before 1885
(Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2000 &
2003), 137-158.
Diop, Cheikh Anta. The African Origin of Civilization—
Myth or Reality. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1974.
_____. “Origin of the Ancient Egyptians.” In UNESCO
General History of Africa, Vol. II, edited by G. Mokhtar,
27-83. London: UNESCO and Heinemann, 1981.
Diouf, Sylviane A., ed. Fighting the Slave Trade: West
African Strategies. Athens: Ohio University Press,
2003.
Donnan, Elizabeth, ed. Documents Illustrative of the
History of the Atlantic Slave Trade to America, 4 vols.
Washington, DC: Carnegie Institute, 1930-1935.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/
lookupid?key=olbp66186 (accessed 2 September
2016).
Doron, Roy and Toyin Falola. Ken Saro-Wiwa (Ohio Short
Histories of Africa). Athens, OH: Ohio University
Press, 2016.
Dumett, Raymond E. El Dorado in West Africa: The GoldMining Frontier, African Labor, and Colonial Capitalism
in the Gold Coast, 1875-1900. Athens: Ohio University
Press, 1998.
Dunn, Ross E. The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. A Muslim
traveler of the 14th Century. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986.
124
Eabbat, Nasser. “Al-Azhar Mosque: An Architectural
Chronicle of Cairo’s History.” Muqarnus 13 (1996):
45-67.
“Early Human Use of Marine Resources and Pigment
in South Africa.” Becoming Human. Institute of
Human Origins. http://www.becominghuman.org/
node/news/early-human-use-marine-resources-andpigment-south-africa (accessed 31 October 2016).
Eaton, Richard. “Islamic History as Global History.” In
Islamic and European Expansion, Michael Adas, ed.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993.
Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs
Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960. Portsmouth
NH: Heinemann, 1991.
Echenberg, Myron. “`Morts pour la France’: the Tirailleurs
Sénégalais and the Second World War.” In Journal of
African History, vol. 26, no. 4 (1985), 373-380.
Egypt. Youssou N’Dour and Fathy Salama. Nonesuch
Records Compact Disc, 2004.
Eltis, David. “A Brief Overview of the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade.” Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Database. http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/
essay (accessed 30 August 2016).
_____. Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic
Slave Trade. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
_____. “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic
Slave Trade: A Reassessment.” William and Mary
Quarterly 58, no. 1 (2001): 17-46.
Eltis, David and David Richardson. “Introductory Maps.”
Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.
Originally published in Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave
Trade. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.
http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/intro-maps
(accessed 30 August 2016).
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life
of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.
Written by Himself. London: Printed and Sold by the
Author, 1789.
Falconbridge, Alexander. An Account of the Slave
Trade on the Coast of Africa. London: J. Phillips,
1788; Google Books, 2007. https://books.google.
com / b o ok s? id=D cc NA A A AQA AJ& pr i nt s e c
=frontcover& dq=Fa lconbridge,+A lexander& hl
=en& sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiH55ntkfvOAhXC7
S Y K H c S S CrE Q 6 A E I Jj A B # v = o n e p a g e & q =
Falconbridge %2C%20Alexander&f=false (accessed 1
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
York: Longman, 1994.
Falola, Toyin. The African Diaspora: Slavery, Modernity,
and Globalization. Rochester: University of Rochester
Press, Boydell and Brewer, 2013.
_____, ed. Africa, African History Before 1885, vol. 1, 299319. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2000 and
2003.
Falola, Toyin and Amanda Warnock, eds. Encyclopedia of
the Middle Passage. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007.
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Farwell, Byron. The Great War in Africa (1914-1918). New
York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1986.
Fayemi, Ademola Kazeem and Steven Samuel Olusegun.
“Africa Versus the West on Reparation.” Peace Review,
vol. 1, Issue 3 (2014): 380-387.
Fieldhouse, D.K. Colonialism, 1870-1945, An Introduction.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981.
Folarin, Sheriff. “Africa’s Leadership Challenges in the
21st Century: A Nigerian Perspecive.” African Journal
of Political Science and International Relations 7, Issue
1 (April 2013): 1-11. http://www.academicjournals.
org/article/article1381826593_Folarin.pdf (accessed
21 Nov. 2016).
Frank,
Andre
Gunder.
“Development
and
Underdevelopment in the New World: Smith and
Marx vs. the Weberians.” Theory and Society 2, no. 4
(Winter, 1975): 431-466.
Getz, Trevor R. and Liz Clarke. Abina and the Important
Men, A Graphic History. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2016.
Gibbons, Ann. “Y Chromosome Shows That Adam was
an African.” Science 237 (31 October 1997): 804-805.
Gide, André. Travels in the Congo. Translated by Dorothy
Bussey. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962.
Gilbert, Erik and Jonathan T. Reynolds. Africa in World
History, From Prehistory to the Present. Boston: Pearson,
2012.
_____. “Sugar and Slavery” in Trading Tastes, Commodity
and Cultural Exchange to 1750 by the same authors.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.
Goetz, Nathnaiel H. “Humanitarian Issues in the Biafra
Conflict.” New Issues in Refugee Research Working
Paper No. 36. Malibu, CA: Pepperdine University,
2001.
http://www.unhcr.org/3af66b8b4.html
(accessed 24 September 2016).
Gomez, Michael. Exchanging our Country Marks: The
Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and
Antebellum South. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1998.
_____. Reversing Sail, A History of the African Diaspora.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Gordon, April and Donald Gordon. Understanding
Contemporary Africa. London: Lynne Rienner, 2012.
Greenberg, Joseph. “The Languages of Africa.” In
International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol.
XXIX, n.1, 6-38. Chicago University Press, 1963.
Hair, P.E.H. “The Enslavement of Koelle’s Informants.”
The Journal of African History 6, no. 2 (1965): 193-203.
Hallett, Robin. Africa since 1875: A Modern History. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974.
Hamdun, Said and Noël King. Ibn Battuta in Black Africa.
Princeton, NJ: Markus-Wiener Publishing, Inc.,
1994.
Handler, Jerome S. and Michael L. Tuite, Jr., comps. The
Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A
Visual Record. http://slaveryimages.org/ (accessed 2
September 2016).
Hanlon, Joseph. Mozambique: The Revolution Under Fire.
London: Zed Books, 1984.
Hargreaves, John D. Decolonization in Africa. London and
New York: Longman, 1988.
Harms, Robert. The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds
of the Slave Trade. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Harris, Joseph E. Africans and their History, 2nd rev. New
York: Penguin Group, 1998.
_____. “The African Diaspora in the Old and New
Worlds.” In UNESCO General History of Africa. Vol.
V, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century,
edited by B.A. Ogot, 113-136. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1992.
Headrick, Daniel R. The Tools of Empire, Technology and
European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Herbstein, Manu. Ama, A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
New York: Picador Africa, 2005.
_____. Ama, A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade. http://
www.ama.africatoday.com/ (accessed 30 August
2016).
_____. The Boy who Spat in Sargrenti’s Eye. Accra:
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
125
SKT, IASD - International, NA
September 2016).
Herodotus, The Histories (New York, NY: Penguin, 1985),
143.
Hill, Robert A. “Marcus Garvey, `The Negro Moses’”.
New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for
Research in Black Culture, n.d., http://exhibitions.
nypl.org/africanaage/essay-garvey.html (accessed 11
August 2016).
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Hilliard, Constance B., ed. Intellectual Traditions of PreColonial Africa. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998.
—. “History and Evolution of Non-Aligned Movement”.
New Delhi: Goverment of India Ministry of
External Affairs, August 22, 2012. Downloaded
from https://mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?20349/
History+and+Evolution+of+NonAligned+Movement
on December 18, 2016.
Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in
the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2005.
_____. King Leopold’s Ghost. New York: Mariner Books,
1998.
Hopkins, A.G. The Economic History of West Africa. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1973.
Howard-Hassmann, Rhoda E. “Reparations to Africa
and the Group of Eminent Persons.” Cahiers d’études
africaines (2004): 173-174. http://etudesafricaines.
revues.org/4543 (accessed 27 September 2016).
Howe, Stephen. Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined
Homes. New York: Verso, 1998.
_____. ed. The New Imperial Histories Reader. London:
Routledge, 2010.
“The Human Lineage Through Time.” Becoming
Human. Institute of Human Origins. http://www.
becominghuman.org/node/human-lineage-throughtime (accessed 30 October 2016).
Idowu, Bolaji E. African Traditional Religion: A Definition.
New York: Orbis Books, Maryknoll, 1973.
Iliffe, John. Africans, The History of a Continent. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Inikori, J.E. “Africa in World History: the Export Slave
Trade from Africa and the Emergence of the Atlantic
Economic Order.” In UNESCO General History of
Africa. Vol. V, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth
Century, edited by B.A. Ogot, 74-112. Berkeley:
126
University of California Press, 1992.
_____. Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A
Study in International Trade and Economic Development.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
____. “Africa and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.” Africa.
vol. 1, African History Before 1885, edited by Toyin
Falola, 289-411. Durham: Carolina Academic Press,
2000 and 2003.
Inniss, Lolita Buckner. “A Critical Legal Rhetoric
Approach to ‘In Re African-American Slave
Descendants Litigation.’” Journal of Civil Rights
and Economic Development 24, Issue 4 (2010) http://
scholarship.law.stjohns.edu /jcred /vol 24/iss4/2
(accessed 20 September 2016).
Iyayi, Festus. “The Conduct Of Elections And Electoral
Practices In Nigeria.” Paper delivered at the Nigerian
Bar Association Conference in Abuja on 24th August,
2004. Downloaded September 29, 2013 from http://
www.dawodu.com/iyayi1.htm.
Jacobs, Zenobia and Richard G. Roberts. “Human
History Written in Stone and Blood: Two Bursts of
Human Innovation in Southern Africa during the
Middle Stone Age.” American Scientist 97, no. 4 (JulyAugust 2009): 302-309.
James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’ouverture
and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Penguin
Random House, 2001.
Janssen, Claudia Irene. “Addressing Corporate Ties
to Slavery: Corporate Apologia in a Discourse
of Reconciliation” (2012). Faculty Research and
Creative Activity, Paper 5. http://thekeep.eiu.edu/
commstudies_fac/5 (accessed 22 September 2016).
Jones, A.J.M. “The Economic Basis of the Athenian
Democracy.” Past & Present No. 1 (Feb., 1952): 13-31.
July, Robert. A History of the African People. Prospects
Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1998.
Kanza, Thomas. The Rise and Fall of Patrice Lumumba:
Conflict in the Congo. Rochester, VT: Schenkman
Books, 1994.
Keïta: The Heritage of the Griot (1995). DVD. Directed by
Dani Kouyaté. San Francisco: California Newsreel,
1995.
Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience, An
Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
2010.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Techmate Publishers, 2016.
King, Martin Luther. Excerpts from “I Have a Dream
Speech.” Delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington DC on 28 August 1963. http://www.let.
rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/martin-luther-kings-ihave-a-dream-speech-august-28-1963.php (accessed
10 August 2016).
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Ki-Zerbo, Joseph. UNESCO General History of Africa.
Vol. 1, Methodology and African Prehistory. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981.
Klein, Herbert. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
_____. The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the
Atlantic Slave Trade. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1978.
Knight, F.W. with Y. Talib and P.D. Curtin. “The African
Diaspora.” In UNESCO General History of Africa. Vol.
VI, Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1800s,
edited by J.F. Ade Ajayi, 749-772. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1989.
Konadu, Kwasi. Transatlantic Africa, 1440-1888. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2015.
Laumann, Dennis. Colonial Africa, 1884-1994. African
World Histories Series, Trevor Getz, ed. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013.
Lenin, V. I. Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism.
New York: International Publishers, 1939.
Leopards of Zanzibar (2001). DVD. Episode 7 of Africa.
Directed by Graham Booth, Africa Series of Nature.
New York: National Geographic, 2001.
Lindsey, Lisa. Captives as Commodities, The Transatlantic
Slave Trade. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice
Hall, 2008.
Louis, William Roger, ed. Imperialism: The Robinson
and Gallagher Controversy. Modern Scholarship on
European History, ed. Henry A. Turner, Jr. New
York: New Viewpoints, 1976.
Lovejoy, Paul. “Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus
Vassa, alias Olaudah Equiano, the African.” Slavery
and Abolition 27, no. 3 (2006): 317-347.
_____. Salt of the Desert Sun. A History of Salt Production
and Trade in the Central Sudan. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003.
_____. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in
Africa. Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2000.
Lugard, Frederick D. The Dual Mandate in British Tropical
Africa. London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1922.
_____. “Memo No. 1.” In Political Memoranda: Revision
of Instructions to Political Officers on Subjects Chiefly
Political and Administrative, 1913-1918. 2nd ed.
London: Waterlow and Sons, 1919. Reprinted in
William H. Worger, Nancy L. Clark and Edward A.
Alpers, Africa and the West: A Documentary History.
Volume 2 from Colonialism to Independence, 1875 to the
Present. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Mack, Beverly and Jean Boyd. One Woman’s Jihad, Nana
Asma’u, Scholar and Scribe. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 2000.
Manning, Patrick. Slavery and African Life, Occidental,
Oriental, and African Slave Trades. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Mazrui, Ali A. “Global Africa: From Abolitionists to
Reparationists.” African Studies Review 37, no. 3 Dec.,
1994): 1-18.
_____. 1986. “Tools of Exploitation.” Part 4 of the 9-Part
Series, The Africans: A Triple Heritage. VHS and DVD.
Washington, DC: WETA and PBS.
_____. “Towards the Year 2000.” In UNESCO General
History of Africa. Vol. VIII, Africa since 1935. Edited
by Ali Mazrui. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993.
Mbiti, John S. African Religions and Philosophy. African
Writers Series. London: Heinemann Publishers, 1969.
_____. Introduction to African Religion. African Writers
Series. London: Heinemann Publishers, 1975.
McIntosh, Susan Keech. “Changing Perceptions of West
Africa’s Past: Archaeological Research Since 1988.”
Journal of Archaeological Research 2, no. 2 (June 1994):
165-198.
McMillan, Beverly, ed. Captive Passage, The Transatlantic
Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas. Old
Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky and Smithsonian
Institution, 2002.
McNeill, William H. “Human Migration in Historical
Perspective.” In Population and Development Review
10, no. 1 (March 1984): 1-18.
The Message, The Story of Islam (1976 and 2005). VHS
and DVD. Directed by Mustapha Akkad. Troy, MI:
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
127
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Killingray, David. “Soldiers, Ex-Servicemen, and Politics
in the Gold Coast, 1939-50.” The Journal of Modern
African Studies 21, no. 3 (Sep., 1983): 523-534.
(accessed 19 November 2016).
The Middle Passage (2000). DVD. Directed by Guy
Deslauriers. New York: HBO, 2003.
Nkrumah, Kwame. Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame
Nkrumah. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1957.
Miller, Joseph C., ed. Slavery and Slaving in World History:
A Bibliography. London: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.
_____. Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism.
London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965.
_____. Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan
Slave Trade, 1730-1830. Madison: University of
Wisconsin, 1988.
Northrup, David. Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Morris, James. Farewell the Trumpets, An Imperial Retreat.
New York: Helen and Kurt Wolff Book, Harcourt
Brace and Co, 1978.
Mortimer, Edward. France and the Africans: 1944-1960.
New York: Walker and Company, 1969.
Mosley, William G. Taking Sides, Clashing Views on
African Issues. Dubuque, IO: McGraw-Hill, 2007.
“Muhammed and Women.” Muhammed: Legacy of a
Prophet.
http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/ma_
women.shtml (accessed 27 August 2016).
Naagbanton, Patrick. “The Spirit of Saro-Wiwa Rises.”
New Internationalist 477 (Nov. 2014): 22-24, 3.
http://search.proquest.com.jprox y.lib.ecu.edu /
docview/1618147062?accountid=10639 (accessed 15
November 2016).
Nadel, George H. and Perry Curtis, ed. Imperialism and
Colonialism. New York: Macmillan, 1964.
Neogy, Rajat and Chinua Achebe. “On Biafra, a
Conversation with Chinua Achebe,” Transition 26
(1968). Reprinted in Transition, no. 75/76, “The
Anniversary Issue: Selections from Transition, 19611976 (1997): 222-231.
Ng’ethe, Njuguna. “Strongmen, State Formation,
Collapse, and Reconstruction in Africa” in I. William
Zartman, editor. Collapsed States: the disintegration
and restoration of legitimate authority. Lynne Riener
Publishers, Inc.: Boulder Colorado, 1995.
Niane, Djibril Tamsir. “Mali and the Second Mandingo
Expansion.” In UNESCO General History of Africa,
Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century, Vol.
IV, 117-171. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1984.
“Nigeria Launches $1 Billion Ogoniland Clean-up
and Restoration Programme.” United Nations
Environment Programme News Centre (2 June
2016).
http://www.unep.org/newscentre/default.
aspx?Doc u ment I D =27076& A r t ic leI D =36199
128
_____. ed. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2002.
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo from Leopold to
Kabila: a people’s history. London: Zed Books Ltd.,
2003.
Ojukwu, C. Odumegwu. Biafra: Selected Speeches with
Journals of Events, vol. 1. New York: Harper & Row
Perennial Library, 1969.
“Outreach Programme on the Rwanda Genocide and
the United Nations.” NY: UN Department of
Public Information, 2013. http://www.un.org/en/
preventgenocide/rwanda/education/rwandagenocide.
shtml (accessed 27 September 2016).
Owen, Roger and Bob Sutcliffe, eds. Studies in the Theory
of Imperialism. London: Longman, 1972.
Pandey, Avaneesh. “Bill Gates’ Foundation To Invest $5
Billion In Africa Over The Next 5 Years.” International
Business Times (July 18, 2016). Downloaded from
http://w w w.ibtimes.com/bill-gates-foundationinvest-5-billion-africa-over-next-5-years-2392306 on
December 16, 2016.
Parker, John and Richard Rathbone. African History: A
Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007.
Parsons, Timothy H. The British Imperial Century, 18151914. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
Pawliková-Vilhanová, Viera. “Christian Missions in
Africa and Their Role in the Transformation of
African Societies.” Asian and African Studies 16, no. 2
(2007): 249-260.
Perbi, Akosua A. A History of Indigenous Slavery in Ghana
from the 15th to the 19th Century. Accra: Sub-Saharan,
2004.
Phillipson, David W. African Archaeology. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Porter, Andrew. European Imperialism, 1860-1914. Studies
in European History Series, Richard Overy, ed.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Anchor Bay, 2005.
Rapley, John. Globalization and Inequality: Neoliberalism’s
Downward Spiral. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,
2004.
Roberts, J. M. The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century.
The History of the World, 1901 to the Present. Penguin,
2004.
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Robertson, Claire C. and Martin Klein. Women and
Slavery in Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1983.
Robinson, David. Muslim Societies in African History. New
Approaches in African History, Martin Klein, ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Robinson, Ronald & John Gallagher. Africa and the
Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism. New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1967.
Robinson, Ronald & John Gallagher. “The Imperialism of
Free Trade” The Economic History Review, vol. 6, no.
1 (1953), 1-15.
Robinson, Ronald. “What America Owes to Blacks and
What Blacks Owe to Each Other.” Berkeley Journal of
African-American Law and Policy 6, no. 1 (2004): 1-13.
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjalp/vol6/iss1/1
(accessed 27 September 2016).
Robinson, Ronald and John Gallagher. “The Partition of
Africa” in New Cambridge Modern History. Vol. XI.
Material Problems and World-Wide Problems, 18701898. Ed. by F.H. Hinsley. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1962. 593-594, 639.
Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
_____. “Mali Empire” in The Encyclopedia of Empire.
Edited by John MacKenzie. Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Schachter-Morgenthau, Ruth. Political Parties in French
Speaking West Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
Scott 2002 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Volume 3,
Countries of the World, G-I. Edited by James Kloetzel.
Sidney, Ohio: Scott Publishing Company, 2001.
Scott 2009 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogs. Volume 3,
Countries of the World, G-I. Edited by James Kloetzel.
Sidney, Ohio: Scott Publishing Company, 2008.
Semmel, Bernard. Imperialism and Social Reform, English
Social-Imperial Thought, 1895-1914. NY: Anchor
Books, 1968.
Shaw, Ian, ed. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000.
Shillington, Kevin. History of Africa. New York:
Macmillan, 2005.
Sissoko, Fa-Digi. The Epic of Son-Jara. A West African
Tradition. Translated and annotated by John William
Johnson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1992.
Smith, Mary-Antoinette, ed. Thomas Clarkson and Ottobah
Cugoano: Essays on the Slavery and Commerce of the
Human Species. Ontario: Broadview Editions, 2010.
Smith, Tony, ed. The End of European Empire, Decolonization
after World War II. Problems in European Civilization
Series, John Ratté, ed. London: D.C. Heath, 1975.
Robinson, Ronald and John Gallagher with Alice
Denny. Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of
Imperialism. London: Macmillan Press, 1961.
Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth Stamp Catalogue, West
Africa 2012. “Nigeria/Biafra.” London: Stanley
Gibbons, Ltd., 2012.
Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1974.
Stavrianos, L.S. The World to 1500, A History. Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1988.
Rooney, David. Kwame Nkrumah. Vision and Tragedy.
Accra, GH: Sub-Saharan Publishers, 2007.
Steger, Manfred B. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 20-25.
Rowe, Roger, Lorne T. Sonley, Kurt Gall, Maurice
Fenn, and Joany Guillard: Economic Advisory
Mission to Ghana (September - November 1965)
for the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development. 1966. Public Sector Development
Problems and Programs in Ghana (Vol. 2, Annexures 1,
3-5, and 7), mimeo, Washington.
Streets-Salter, Heather and Trevor Getz. Empires and
Colonies in the Modern World, A Global Perspective.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Sapong, Nana Yaw B. “Asante Kingdom” in The
Encyclopedia of Empire. Edited by John MacKenzie.
Sullivan, Margaret Lo Piccolo. “The Epic of Sundiata:
Using African Literature in the Classroom.”
National Council for the Social Studies. http://
www.socialstudies.org/system/f iles/publications/
se/6204/620403.html (accessed 13 August 2016).
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
129
SKT, IASD - International, NA
London: Macmillan, 1994.
Suret-Canale, Jean. French Colonialism in Tropical Africa:
1900-1945, translated by Till Gottheiner. New York:
Pica Press, 1971).
_____. Drawing Meaning into History: Student Imagery
and Philosophies of History. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall
Hunt, 2015.
Suso, Bamba and Banna Kanute. Sunjata Translated by
Gordon Innes with Bakari Sidibe and edited by Lucy
Duran and Graham Furniss. New York: Penguin
Putnam Inc., 1999.
Wilks, Ivor. Asante in the Nineteenth Century, The Structure
and Evolution of a Political Order. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Shanghai Foreign Language School Affiliated to SISU - Shanghai, China
Taylor, Ian. China’s New Role in Africa. Boulder CO: Lynn
Rienner, 2010.
Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the
Atlantic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
UNESCO General History of Africa. 8 Vols. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981-1993.
Unsworth, Barry. Sacred Hunger. New York: W.W. Norton,
1992.
Vandervort, Bruce. Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa,
1830-1914. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1998.
Van Sertima, Ivan. They Came Before Columbus: The
African Presence in Ancient America. Journal of African
Civilizations Series. New York: Random House, 1976.
Vansina, Jan. Living with Africa. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1994.
Walvin, James. Atlas of Slavery. Harlow, England: Pearson
Longman, 2005.
Wilburn, Kenneth. “Africa to the World! Nkrumahera Philatelic Images of Emerging Ghana and PanAfricanism, 1957-1966.” African Studies Quarterly 13,
Issues 1 and 2 (Spring 2012): 23-54. http://asq.africa.
ufl.edu/willburn-spring12/ (accessed 24 September
2016).
130
_____. Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom
of Asante. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995.
Williams, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1944.
Wilson, Henry S. African Decolonization. London, Great
Britain: Edward Arnold, 1994.
Wolfe, Martin. The Economic Causes of Imperialism. Major
Issues in History Series, C. Warren Hollister, ed.
London: John Wiley and Sons, 1972.
Worger, William H., Nancy L. Clark, and Edward
A. Alpers, eds. Africa and the West, A Documentary
History. Vol. 1, From the Slave Trade to Conquest, 14411905. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
_____. Africa and the West, A Documentary History. Vol. 2,
From Colonialism to Independence, 1875 to the Present.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Wright, Harrison M., ed. The “New” Imperialism, Analysis
of Late Nineteenth-Century Expansion. Problems in
European Civilization Series, Ralph W. Greenlaw
and Dwight E. Lee, eds. Lexington, MA.: D.C.
Heath, 1961.
Zartman, I. William, editor. Collapsed States: the
Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority.
Boulder, CO: Lynne Riener Publishers, 1995.
USAD Social Science Resource Guide • 2017–2018
SKT, IASD - International, NA
Tauxier, Louis. Histoire des Bambara. Paris: Librairie
Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1942.