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Africa (2)
MTRA. MARCELA ALVAREZ PÉREZ
Historic Resources about Africa
• Archeological problems:
– Few dig-sites
– Difficulty to date material
– Difficult access
• Oral History
– Griots: professional story-tellers
– Caution/reserve
• Written Documents
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Other peoples:
146 B.C. Roman Province
Expansion of Islam
End of 16th century: local history in Arabic language
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• Old European sources
– Archives: not yet searched or inaccessible
– Only the ones that were sent to Europe
– Only the things that were important for their immediate
activity
– Territorial limits
• Geography
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Protected Continent
Climatic issues
Destruction due to diverse factors
Existence perpetually under threat: migration
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First Inhabitants
• Cradle of mankind
• Two facts that characterize the pre-history and
determine the history of Africa and its peoples:
– Desertification of the Sahara
– Apparition of black peoples
• Unity of civilizations/related?
– linguistic
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Explaining African History
• Knowledge from the West:
– Kingdom= dominion, authority, property
– National State: borders, well defined territory, nationals
or state subjects
• Some false/prejudiced ideas
– “Originality” of African reality actually not to
different from other proto-historic realities
• African political institutions:
– In correspondence with geographical and human
realities
• Property: not territorial, but human land without value
by itself (climate, technological limitations, etc)
– Commerce, war, politics
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Anarchies, Chiefdoms, Hegemonies
• 3 levels/states of organization to classify political units
• Anarchies:
– Without a hierarchical political organization no princes,
chiefs, sovereigns
– Controversy and conflict regulated by the system
equality and liberty, law and order
– Hunters, agriculture based societies
• Chiefdoms:
– Family with more prestige/power
– Authority
– Chief: no absolute power (councils, duality with religious
power, etc. )
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• Hegemonies
– “Kingdoms” or “Empires”
– Wider areas but still no border delimitation
chiefdom with hierarchical administration, army
and “revenue” system
– Economic or Historic “provocation” needed: man
or group of men with administrative intuition,
commercial relations.
• External economic phenomena favorable
circumstances for the establishment of
hegemony link to commercial traffic
• Contact with other peoples or spontaneous
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• Iron and Firearms:
– Enable authority,
dominion
– Adaptability and
flexibility to integrate
alien
techniques/technologies
– Africanization
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PROTOHISTORICAL AFRICA
• Oldest State in Africa: oldest tradition  Ethiopia
– National Legend: King Menelik
• Ethiopian: Greek word dark face
– Ethiopia mentioned in the Bible
• Nubian Territory and Kingdom of Kush
• Abyssinia (until 1941) main characteristics:
– Strong geographical features: defense and isolation
– Hebrew/Jewish tradition from the 2nd Millennium
proximity to Red Sea
– Legend of Menelik  continuity and unity for 2 millennia
 Jewish immigration facilitated conversion
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Sir. Edward John Poynter,
The visit of the queen of Sheeba to king Solomon (1890)
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• Axum  Meroe  ancient world (Greeks)
• Ezana: first axumite king converted to Christianity
333 A.D Christian Ethiopia
– Kingdom of Kush destroyed implications for
the rest of Africa
– Links to Eastern Christianity: Alexandria and
Byzantium
• Persians, Islam: isolation from spiritual bases
– Decline in commerce general decline after 9th
Century
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• West Africa
– Population extended progressively but
without “monumental” civilizations
• Niger river less important than the Nile
• Lesser or no contact with other
civilizations
• 4 important civilizations: Nok, Tchad, Ife,
Bantu peoples from Northern Cameroon
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• Bantu Expansion
– Unity: Cultural but not ethnic/racial
– Population growth and expansion:
welfare agriculture and the use of iron
• Jungle Belt: no longer an obstacle
– Didn’t arrive to empty spaces:
• descendants from Paleolithic
civilizations
– Hamito-Semitic peoples on the eastern
coast
– Late arrivals
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• Oldest Black-African “kingdoms” without foreign influence
– Commerce, contact and exchanges with Saharan groups
– Caravan Roads: enable political organization in
“kingdoms” or “empires”
– Ghana, Mali, Songhai and Kanem-Bornu
Ghana
• Marketplace:
– Great caravans
– Main exporter of gold until discovery of America
Wealth
– Audoghast: Salt and commerce
– Not defined borders: amount of authority
• 9th to 11th centuries at the top of it extension, wealth and
power
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EXPANSION OF ISLAM
• Revelation: 610 A.C. in Mecca (Arabian Peninsula)
• Hiyra: 622
• Prophet Muhammad dies: 632
• Ridda Wars: 634
• By 640 Egypt is conquered treaty signed with the
Coptic church will affect Christian Africa
• 652: treaty with the Nubians enables them to go
south—slaves, freedom of commerce and worship—
would last 6 centuries
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• 640-680: Muslims cross Suez isthmus, reach
the Atlantic Ocean
– Conquest, occupation and conversion
– Berber converts: conquest of Spain
– African peoples that reject Islam: migration to
Saharan and Sudan regions
• resistance
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• Two important African Muslim states/caliphates
• Almoravids (1047-1147)
– End of Ghana
– Extension: Mauritania, Morocco, West Algeria,
South of Spain
• Almohades (1146-1269)
– More contact with heart of Islam
– Extension of Islam to sub-Saharan Africa through
commerce and Sufi masters
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• Islam in the western African Savannah
– Region between the desert and the jungles:
trans-Saharan commerce social-political
development and urban centers before Islam
• Islamic expansion: profound effects in the
region from the 9th century onwards
– Changes nature of government, Africa
incorporated to written history
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• Western Savannah: Bilad al-Sudan
– Tran-Saharan commerce: high demand of southern
goods
– Knowledge of the riches of Ghana gold coins
– Expansion of Islam through commerce
– Conflicts over resources relations between
savannah inhabitants and Muslim populations not
seriously damaged
• 11th-12th centuries: some chiefs/rulers have
converted to Islam
– Complex religious systems that coexist, and merge
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• Conversions: first on the higher social levels
– Rulers and merchants the poor/rural groups
• “religion of the court and commerce”: economic
and political power
• Positions of power in need of a wider world
view local deities out of reach need for a
religion with a similar global perspective
• Islam does not replace African religions: Syncretism
• Rulers: balance between religious systems
– Some places in which African culture was stronger
• Africanization of Islam: Islam in Africa/African Islam
– Similar process than other religions or Islam in
other regions (i.e. Persia)
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• Africanization process: less foreign, more familiar
• Interaction of Africa with Islam:
– Key role in the history of both the religion and the
continent
• 2 sceneries: fast expansion through North Africa and
gradual expansion to the Savannah
– Religious and cultural change in the North
– Process developed through centuries
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• Kingdom of Mali
– Purely black from its beginning
– Region rich in gold mines
• Beginning of 11th century: its ruler, Keita, converts to Islam
– Attempts to explore the Atlantic Ocean
• 1312-1337: large empire, relations with Egypt
– Pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324: meets Venetian merchants
– Mission: to link the black and Arab worlds
• Development and monopoly of trans-Saharan
commerce
– Voyage that helps to eliminate a myth about Africa:
• African peoples were not interested in matters beyond
their borders
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– Education: scholars sent to Fez extend Islamic
education
• Timbuktu: University of Sankore
– 1352 Ibn Battuta—capital of Mali contact point of
civilizations
• Rustic costumes and habits, but organization
qualities
• Prosperous agriculture, growing commerce
• Peace and order
• 1360: Splendor of Mali ends
– Incursions from the north and south
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Sankore University
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Djenna Mosque, Tombuctú
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Songhai Kingdom
• Songhai people sack capital of Mali towards the year
1400
• Sonni Ali (Ali Ber): most important conqueror of black
Africa
– Creates empire between 1468 y 1492 large enough
to interest John II of Portugal: sends an embassy
• Declares himself enemy of Islam: threat to black peoples
• 1492: after his death Gral. Askia Muhammad begins
new dynasty with help of the Ulama
– First time that the Savannah Muslims demand an
Islamic government
– Named “Caliph of the Sudan” in 1495 after
pilgrimage to Mecca
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– Well organized empire: provinces with governors,
permanent army, scholars in main cities, 150 Islamic
schools in Timbuktu between 1549-1582
• Arrival of the Moroccan:
– Towards end of the 16th century: Sultan Mulay
Ahmed expels the Songhai to exploit gold mines
(April 1591)
• Interest lost by 1620: Moroccan army starts choosing
their own rulers
• Mixed marriages, loss of power
• By 1770 the Tuareg invade the city of Gao
• Political anarchy does not end civilization level of
Timbuktu
– Tarik al Fettach y Tarik al Sudan
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Sossos, Tekruris, Mossis and Bambara
• Kings and peoples with periods of
prosperity, power and notoriety
• Several anarchies in the region: little
importance to the historian only when
great “personalities” arise
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