World Class Educationwww.kean.edu

Jay Spauldingjspauldi@kean.edu

The script for this presentation is available for consultation and review at:

http://www.kean.edu/~jspauldi/jlspraxisafrica.html

“Africana Studies,” the study of Africa by African people at home and in the diaspora is old

“African History,” as an academic discipline, is new

In 1960 in Britain the Journal of African History began

I am a second-generation African historian, trained in the United States

The field is empirically complex There are many moving parts Many names and concepts are derived

from languages unfamiliar to non-Africans

Scholars have not established a basic framework for understanding

No standard periodization

Africa is not exotic Basic concepts and themes are more

important than the details

Human Origins and Prehistory (10,000,000 to 5,000 years ago)

Africans build their own history (5,000 years ago to 1885)

Waves of foreign influence to 1600 Slave trade era (1600 to 1800) Nineteenth Century Colonial era (1885 to 1991) Independence and after (1950 to the

present)

First ancestor (10,000,000 years ago) Early fossil remains (Toumai, Millennium

Man) Australopithecines Homo erectus “Eve” (about 200,000 years ago)

Time: 200,000 to 5,000 years ago Haven in South Africa (200,000 to 85,000

years ago) Colonization of world begins (85,000

years ago) Mount Tubo (71,000 years ago) Colonization of world continues

Kinship Speech

Everybody has one native language A community may be defined by

language Many community names used by

Africanists refer to the speakers of a single language

Languages change over time Languages, like people, come in families

Khoisan Nilo-Saharan Afrasan Congo-Kordofanian Malagasy (came from Asia)

History of Africa similar to elsewhere Sequence of societies invented Each larger in scale than predecessor Greater degrees of social inequality Greater ecological impacts Change driven by population increase Not necessarily a story of “progress”

Band society Lineage society Chiefdoms Early states Empires (old agrarian) City states Nation states

Agriculture (about 15,000 BCE) The state (began about 5,000 BCE)

Universal before agriculture Gradually marginalized and suppressed

by success of agriculture over the centuries

Extinct after World War II

30-50 people Band exogamy Bilateral descent Informal government Hunting and gathering Economy of reciprocity Permissive child rearing 2-3 hour work day Good health revealed in large stature

Began with agriculture Larger groups Unilineal kinship replaces bilateral Patrilineal kinship (numerous livestock) Matrilineal kinship (few or no livestock) Few lineage societies survived intact But lineage principles formed the basis of

all subsequent societies

Seniority: gerontocracy in politics, ancestor veneration after death

Harsh child rearing, genital mutilation Reciprocity dominates economics Never peace, but rarely war: armed

balance among factions. No government, but very elaborate codes

of rules to live by. Ancestors enforce rules by imposing

sickness, misfortune upon the deviant

Scarcity created competition and hierarchy in many lineage societies

Political balance and economic reciprocity gave way to centralized, one-man control over redistribution of the community’s surplus wealth

Hereditary, titled elites appear Markets and trade become common Acquisitive organized warfare Domestic slavery, especially of women

and children Competitive labor-organizing “big men”

The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe can take you on a visit to precolonial Igbo society, which exemplifies the chiefdom.

The character of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart personifies the entrepreneurial “big man.” (Achebe translates the actual Igbo term as “strong man” in his subtitle.)

The character of Ezeulu in The Arrow of God personifies the hereditary, titled elite.

State society was born in chiefdoms A chief became a king by ceasing to

redistribute the community’s surplus wealth

What a king gathered he kept as taxes With tax revenue he supported a new

repressive apparatus of soldiers, bureaucrats and police

Many historians LIKE state society, or even equate it with “civilization”

You may or may not agree But the PRAXIS exam will probably favor

the state over other types of society

Pharaonic Egypt (c. 3000 BCE) Nile Valley Sudan, Ethiopia (c.1000 BCE) Sudanic Region, Zimbabwe (medieval) Western and Equatorial Africa (early

modern) Southern Africa (1700s)

Learn to recognize the names of some African kingdoms

Keep them on passive recall Here are a number, arranged by region

and period of origin PRAXIS may spell the names differently,

so be flexible

Egypt (Kemet)

Sudanese Nile Valley:

Kerma (c. 1700 BCE) Kush (700-300 BCE) Meroe (300 BCE – 300 CE)

Medieval Nubia (300-1400 CE): Nobatia Makuria (or Muqurra) Alodia (or `Alwa)

Sinnar (1500-1821)

Old kingdoms (1000 – 500 BCE) Axum (500 BCE – 700 CE) Zagwe dynasty (700 – 1270 CE) Solomonic dynasty (1270 – 1974 CE)

Sudanic:

Ghana Mali Songhai Kanem Borno Takrur Wadai Baghirmi Dar Fur

Not Sudanic:

Zimbabwe

Oyo Benin Asante Dahomey

Kongo Tio Luango Luba Lunda

Zulu

Each kingdom had a capital where the king and court resided

Sometimes the capital was mobile Often it was a permanent city A company town, restricted to

government and its servants

Early states based on one ethnic group Kings had to be culturally comprehensible to

subjects Spoke same language, worshiped same gods Some states expanded to incorporate numerous

ethnic groups, forming old agrarian empires Ethnic diversity freed the emperors from

traditional customary constraints on early kings Emperors simplified and rationalized codes of

law Often created new religions, or adopted

appealing alien ones such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam

When did an early state become an empire?

Often it is debatable Solomonic Ethiopia, Mali and Songhai

were unquestionably empires Feel free to add to the list if you wish

A person who makes his or her living through trade is a merchant

Merchants prefer a different type of society

In olden days, they often created independent self-governing city states

There are two basic ways of making a living through trade.

They are the traveling trade and the hoarding trade Most early merchants depended upon the traveling trade Profit derived from buying something from a place where

it was cheap and moving it to sell in another place where it was expensive

Trade typically involved luxury items of small bulk and high value

In the hoarding trade one buys at a time when something is cheap and resells it later when the price rises

Hoarding trade typically involved food grains. City states usually lacked control over an exploitable

hinterland

In Africa, the merchant vocation was always initially foreign

In time, however, many African people adopted the initially-foreign lifestyle

Other African societies often found merchants controversial, regardless of the traders’ ethnicity

A chain of city-states developed along the East African coast during Hellenistic times and the medieval period

A second group, largely medieval in origin, arose at oases in the Sahara

During the slave trade period some city states appeared on the West African coast

Sijilmasa Awdaghost Tadmekka Takedda Walata Ghat Murzuq

Awjila Kufra Agadez Bilma Jalo Siwa Jaghbub (There are others)

Aydhab Sawakin Mitsawa Adulis Zayla Berbera Mogadishu Barawa

Pate Lamu Manda Malindi Mombasa Kilwa Sofala (There are others)

Dakar Rufisque Goree Freetown Cape Coast Elmina

Lagos Brass Bonny Kalabari Douala Luanda

Modern nation states arose when merchant principles took over whole countries

The hoarding trade joined traveling trade Older ethnicities were gradually

suppressed New national identities were gradually

forged Nation states arose first in Europe and

North Africa As the modern era advanced nationalism

spread widely in Africa and elsewhere The transition into the nation state was

often very violent

Morocco (1500s) Tunisia (precolonial) Egypt (precolonial) Madagascar (1700s) Swaziland (anti-colonial) Lesotho (anti-colonial) Botswana (anti-colonial) Eritrea (1990s) Most other modern African nations are

recent products of European colonialism

Tripoli constitution by John Locke Mankessim Constitution Malagasy (iMerina) codes of law

Such was the history created by African people for themselves, when left to their own devices

African history resembles everybody else’s history

But, Africa was not always left to itself New historical patterns appear if we

consider outside influences Outside influences came in waves Here is the story up to about 1600

Hellenistic (300 BCE to 600 CE) Islamic (600 to 1800) Early Modern European (1400 to 1600)

Place: North Africa from Mauretania and Morocco to Egypt and Sudan; Ethiopia; East African coast no farther than Tanzania

Language: Greek Religion: Christianity (Orthodox and

Monophysite) Modern Relevance: Christian Ethiopia,

Coptic Egypt

Place: All of First Wave zone except Ethiopia; the Sahara and Sudanic region; East Africa to include Mozambique

Language: Arabic Religion: Islam Modern Relevance: Islamic North, West

and East Africa

Place: West coast south of Morocco; East coast as far north as northern Kenya; Madagascar

Languages: Portuguese, Dutch Religion: Christianity (Catholic and

Protestant) Modern Relevance: Afro-Portuguese

communities of Angola, Mozambique, West Africa; Afrikaners of South Africa

Slave trade dominated the period from 1600 to 1800

Slavery and the slave trade were not new to the continent at that time

But a new form of trade that began in about 1600 changed older systems

Many African societies held slaves (Some did not)

A trade in slaves within, into and out of Africa was very old

Conspicuous was the importation of European slaves throughout the Middle Ages and on into the early nineteenth century

Before 1600 the slave trade did not dominate any society or trading system

The reason for the importance of the slave trade from 1600 to 1800 lay in the demand for slaves in the plantation colonies of the New World

Conspicuously the sugar islands of the Caribbean

Where millions upon millions of Africans were worked to death.

Estimates of the number of African people exported range from 10 to 100 million; 15 or 20 million seems a good guess at present

Distributed across centuries in a large and populous continent, the loss of population was very small, and had little direct effect.

The slave trade is very important in AMERICAN history, but of secondary or tertiary significance in AFRICAN history.

Brutalized African life Created new elites New kingdoms based on slave trade

(Asante, Dahomey) New diasporas of African slave merchants Whites rarely allowed to leave coast;

Africans themselves monopolized procurement and delivery of slaves

Elites committed to trade, not industry See Walter Rodney, How Europe

Underdeveloped Africa

Islamic trade to Middle East, India Indian Ocean trade to Mauritius, other

islands

Morocco (Songhai) Portugal (Zimbabwe) Ottoman Empire (Ethiopia) Target: Gold-Producing Empires of Interior Result: Destruction of Empires Result: End of Gold Trade Result: Rise of Independent Merchants Result: Spread of Trade in Arms and Slaves

An unhappy era in African history Effects of “legitimate” trade Crisis in political legitimacy Islamic imperialism

End of slave trades abroad Commercial boom in peanuts, copra,

palm oil, gum Arabic, ivory, other tropical products

Slavery comes home to roost

Upstart slavelord regimes Continual warfare “Islamic reform” and jihad

Two 19th-century Islamic powers annexed large parts of Africa

Spread slavery, violence, Islam Egypt Oman

1820 conquests begin By 1900, empire reaches south to Kenya,

Uganda, Congo West to Benghazi, Dar Fur Ethiopia successfully resists Slaves in army, on plantations, in middle-

class households

1830s Sultan moves capital to Zanzibar Conquers coast from Somalia to the

Zambeizi Expands westward halfway across

continent Rules modern Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda,

Malawi, parts of Mozambique, Zambia, much of Congo-Kinshasa

Rwanda, Burundi successfully resist

Over the eastern third of the continent Islamic imperialism reduced people’s

ability to resist A new wave of imperialism was on the

way at century’s end Colonization by European powers

Much of Africa was colonized by Europe During the century from 1885 to 1995 Consequences were profound Let us look in some detail

1885 to World War I: The “Scramble for Africa”

World War I through World War II: Mature Colonial Systems

1945 to 1995: “Winds of Change” Independence to the Present:

Postcolonial Challenges

Era called the “Scramble” (British) or “Steeplechase” (French) for Africa

What were the preconditions that made conquest possible?

Some were European Others were African

Capitalism Competition Technology:

The Machine GunTropical MedicineSteam Transport

Four Centuries of Intimate Contact with Europe

African elites Committed to Trade African “Infant Industries” Crushed by

Imports Many Regimes Deemed Illegitimate by

their Subjects: Little Patriotism (There were exceptions, e.g. Ethiopia,

Lesotho)

1884-1885 Major capitalist powers convene Set guidelines for seizure and division of

Africa Without provoking war among European

rivals From 1885 to 1914 they did just that Then fought W W I anyway

Division of Africa into strange political units

Learn their names, then and now Learn their cities, then and now (Map study single best PRAXIS review

tactic)

Creation of “tribes” Creation of “chiefs” Questionable legitimacy of many colonial

groups

Each colony must be self-supporting Africans pay for everything (including

own conquest) “Pay” means labor Sometimes direct Sometimes indirectly via cash crops

Between the World Wars, African colonies set onto several different paths

In many cases, modern lands continue to follow these paths

Prestige and strategic advantage Little else Impoverished and unviable as nations Avoided atrocity Survival of precolonial culture

Cash crops on family farms Coffee, cotton, peanuts, cocoa New wealth widely distributed Successful modern communities form

Agrobusiness rules Rubber, sisal, bananas, sometimes cotton

and peanuts Social melting pot, death of cultures Colonial language dominates Spectacular tyrannies and atrocities

Precious metals always had priority Demand for cheap labor in gigantic

quantities Obliteration of all other modes of

livelihood Obliteration of culture

Mines, plantations, demand abundant labor

Over wide areas colonial policy obliterates all other modes of livelihood, forcing people to work in mines or on plantations

Pro-natalist (American: “Right-To-Life”) policies accelerate population growth

Ultimate in modern poverty

White farms “Native reserves” Coercive apparatus (police, “pass books”) Racist ideology

Big, complicated colonies Fit more than one model South Africa, Nigeria, Congo-Kinshasa

1950 to 1995 Wars of liberation Peaceful transition

Libya Algeria Kenya Guinea-Bissau Angola

Mozambique Zimbabwe Namibia South Africa

Neocolonial political elites in power Continuity in economy Continuity in society Close relations with former colonial

power

Economic specialization Increase production Problem: “Supply and demand” Problem: debt

1981 turning point International Monetary Fund “Conditionalities”

Coups The military in power

Corruption Incompetence Unpopularity of authoritarian regimes “Non-Governmental Organizations” Dependency on foreign patrons

Ethnic strife (Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone)

“Failed states” (Somalia, Chad) AIDS Islamic fundamentalism (Nigeria, Sudan,

Somalia, Algeria, Morocco, the Sahara)

I am happy to discuss any issue, and will try to help answer questions

I am best reached via email at: jspauldi@kean.edu

THANK YOU!