In this
article you will find another snippet from my chapter on African American
history from my nearly complete book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts
Education.
This
installment is the first of two concerning the African context for the history
of African America; this PART ONE gives
an overview of African prehistory and history to the rise of the great West
African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai.
A second
installment (PART TWO) concerning the African context for the history of
African America will continue the overview from the rise of those empires to
the arrival of Europeans.
PART ONE
The
Prehistory and History of Africa to the Rise of the Great West African Empires
I. African Origins
Africans: Ancestors to All Humankind
The
ancestors of all human beings were from Africa.
About 4
million years ago, the hominid Australopithecus dwelt in
East Africa; this creature had a much
smaller brain than would be the case for homo sapiens (modern human),
but its body featured many characteristics of the human. Around 2.5 million years ago, the hominid homo
habilis appeared alongside Australopithecus and put its larger
brain to work fashioning tools of rock and wood.
Approximately
1.5 million years ago, the hominid homo erectus walked upright
and put its still larger brain to work to produce fire for cooking food and
generating warmth. Homo erectus was the
first hominid emigrant population, heading generally on a
northeastwardly trek, into Southeast, South, Central, and East Asia.
Approximately
200,000 years ago the modern human, homo sapiens, with
three-pound brain and the full physical and mental characteristics of humanity,
appeared in places just a bit northward in the same general region of East Africa
as homo
erectus. Homo sapiens became the
second emigrant population to make its way out of Africa but followed a
different trek than that of homo erectus, heading most notably
to what we today know as Europe, encountering the creature homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal
human). The Neanderthals coexisted
with homo
sapiens but by about 75,000 years ago had been variously absorbed or
competitively overwhelmed by these true humans.
Human beings then spread out with remarkable swiftness over the
globe: Eurasia by about 150,000 B.C.,
Australia by 100,000 B.C. (BCE), the Bering Strait into the Americas by about
12,000 B.C. (BCE).
So by 12,000
B. C. (BCE), descendants of common African ancestors covered the globe. The people who populated the globe developed
many distinct cultures and many varieties of tools, diets, social arrangements,
and early religious expression as they adapted to particular geographic
settings and climatic demands. Skin
pigmentation developed in evolutionary fashion, according to the processes of
natural selection, producing a range between the very light-skinned northern
Europeans and dark-skinned Africans.
People on
the continent of Africa were among the first to make tools. They were the first to make bone tools, and
they were among those producing tools in five main traditions: Oldowan (simple chopping and flake
tools), biface (hand axes chipped on both sides for cutting), flake
(small cutting and flaking tools), single-stone blade (many usable
blades from a single stone), and microlith (small tools used as
projectile points and for carving softer materials). Around 800,000 years ago fishers living in the
basin of the Congo River invented sophisticated tackle to catch giant catfish.
In Africa,
as elsewhere, people came to discover that implantation of certain seeds can
produce a predictable crop, yielding the possibility of settled village
life. When this happened, humanity moved
from the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) phase into the Neolithic (New Stone Age)
phase. People in Egypt were among the
first to cultivate crops, doing so along the majestic Nile River. Neolithic societies arose in sub-Saharan Africa
during 6,000-3,000 B. C. (BCE), about the same time that agricultural societies
were also developing in Europe.
Classical Egypt
About 3100
B.C. (BCE), King Menes of Upper (southern) Egypt superintended victory over a
competing kingdom in Lower (northern) Egypt, setting up a capital at Memphis,
just south of the fertile Nile Delta region.
King Menes and his successors during an early stage lasting until about
2700 B. C. (BCE) were considered divine, the living embodiment of the
falcon-god Horus. Farmers tilling the
rich soil along the Nile River irrigated their fields and used some of the
world’s first plows.
During the
period of 2686-2181 B. C. (BCE) known as the Old Kingdom, Egyptians constructed
the pyramids. Among the most notable of
these were the first product of this kind of construction, the Step Pyramid in
Memphis in honor of the pharaoh Zoser, designed by his vizier (prime minister),
Imhotep; and the multi-chamber Great
Pyramid at Gaza, highly advanced in technique and intricacy, overseen by the
pharaoh Khufu.
Internal
rivalries and invasion by Asiatic tribesmen from the Sinai caused chaos,
decline, and the eventual fading of the Old Kingdom into the First Intermediate
Period (2181-2050 B. C. [BCE]). The
pharaoh Montuhotep II inaugurated a new dynasty that began the period of c.
2050-1786 known as the Middle Kingdom.
Montuhotep II and successors such as Amenemhat I and those in the
familial line Senruset I, II, and III superintended military campaigns
southward to Nubia and northeastward to Palestine and Syria. Motivation for the pharaohs’ sponsorship of
these campaigns focused on certain raw materials for which the Egyptians had
more need than supply: ivory, gold, and
other precious metals in Nubia; timber
and precious stones and metals in Palestine and Syria.
The period
of the Middle Kingdom featured vigorous activity of many sorts: A large-scale reclamation and irrigation
project in the area of Fayum increased Egypt’s supply of food; the development of the cuneiform writing
system increase the efficiency of scribes in recording governmental decrees,
religious events, and commercial transactions.
The creations of Egyptian statuary and jewelry conveyed a sense of the
wide geographical universe inhabited by the Egyptians, whose artists and
artisans used numerous materials of foreign origin.
By 1786,
processes pf late dynastic decline set in, and Egyptian history entered the
Second Intermediate Period, for the last half of which (1674-1570 B.C. [BCE]) the technologically advanced
Hyksos people stormed across Central and West Asia to enter Egypt, utilizing
their chariots and iron weapons to subdue the local Egyptian population. They constructed a new capital named Avaris
and for the most part satisfied themselves with rule of Lower (northern) Egypt,
probably commanding tribute from but not exerting direct control over Thebes
and other southern areas traditionally under the rule of the pharaohs.
In 1570 B.
C. (BCE), the locally powerful Theban ruler, Kamose, worked with his brother
(Ahmose) to conquer Avaris, expel the Hyksos from Egypt, and inaugurate the
first dynasty of the New Kingdom (c 1570-1085 B. C. [BCE]). During the rule of the New Kingdom pharaohs,
Egypt reasserted itself as one of the major powers of the ancient African and
Mediterranean world, stretching territorially from the Sudan to Syria, and
edging close to the Nubians of the Horn of Africa, conquering them for a time
and gaining direct access to their gold mines
Religious focus was directed toward Amun-Re (Amon-Ra), conjoining the
chief Theban deity Amun (Amon) with the sun god Re (Ra) long worshiped
throughout the land of the pharaohs.
Notable
pharaohs of Egypt during the period of the New Kingdom included Hatshepsut (r.
circa 1417-1379 B. C. (BCE), one of several female pharaohs who took power
during a stretch of time when the line of male heirs ran thin; Akhenaton (Ikhnaton, 1370-1362 B. C. [BCE]),
a dynamic ruler who attempted to redirect worship toward Aton, the sun’s disk,
and constructed a new city named after himself (on the site of the modern Tel
el Amarna); and Ramesses (Ramses) I, II,
and III--- who during the decades
after1320 (when Ramses I took power) expanded to areas, such as Palestine and
Nubia, typically held when the power of the Egyptian pharaohs was greatest.
The last
pharaohs of the New Kingdom were not as successful as had been earlier
occupants of the throne in contending with Hittites to the east, Libyans to the
west, piratical “sea peoples” to the north, and Nubians to the south. The New Kingdom fell under pressure from such
outsiders, and from internal divisions, in 1085 B. C. (BCE). During much of the 9th and 8th
centuries B. C. (BCE), Libyans controlled Egypt, at first in the dynastic style
of the pharaohs and then as an array of city-states. The Nubians controlled Egypt for several
decades after 712 B. C. (BCE) and the Assyrians asserted dominance for a while
before the pharaoh Psamtik I (r. 664-610 B. C. [BCE]) established a line of
native Egyptian rulers. Then, weakened
by military confrontations with the Babylonians, the Egyptians submitted to
conquest by the Persians, who controlled Egypt for most of the years from 525
until 323 B. C. (BCE).
In 323 B. C.
(BCE), the forces of Alexander the Great smashed their way into Egypt to
establish the magnificent city of
Alexandria and reorient Egyptian civilization towards that rich blend of Greek,
Roman, and Arab influences known as Hellenistic civilization. Then, some ten centuries later (7th
century A. D. [CE]), another great invading force--- that of the Muslims--- reoriented Egyptian civilization once again,
the Muslims were hugely important for
their intellectual prowess in incorporating the scholarly, literary, and artistic works of Graeco-Roman
civilization into a cultural realm that was dominated religiously by
Islam.
Kush, Meroe, and Axum
Under
pressure from the Assyrians, the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa retreated southward in
the 7th century B. C. (BCE) to Kush, where the Nubians (Kushites) mastered the
iron-making skills learned from the Assyrians and built a stable and prosperous
kingdom focused at the Fourth Cataract, in the great “S” bend of the Nile, and
eastward into the regions that we today know as Ethiopia and Somalia. This land at the time was very fertile and
able to support large herds of cattle;
by the 6th century B. C. (BCE), the borders of Kush stretched
to the south of present-day Khartoum.
As years of
grazing depleted the soil, the people of Kush trended toward Meroe, south of
the Atbara River’s confluence with the Nile.
The great state of Meroe had abundant resources in iron ore and the wood
necessary to smelt it; heaps of slag
that to this day appear across this land bear witness to the thriving iron
industry of Meroe. Protected by a
well-armed cavalry, traders of Meroe exchanged goods with counterparts in
Egypt, Arabia, and India. The empire’s
artists and artisans blended influences from Egypt, the Hellenistic world, and
India to produce works stunning in their adaptation of these diverse styles to
themes appropriate to the geographical setting of Meroe.
Desiccation
of the land induced a decline in the wealth and military might of Meroe, which
left the land vulnerable to an attack from nearby Axum in 350 A. D. (CE). Here the mostly black Africans of Meroe
blended with a population that had in the 7th century B. C. (BCE)
migrated from today’s Yemen across the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa. The Axumite court was stage for ethnically
diverse representatives from West Asian and the Mediterranean, bringing
Hellenistic, Greek Orthodox, Arabian, Persian, and Indian influences. The Muslim conquest of the Arabian peninsula
and then Egypt disrupted the sea trade on which much of Axum’s power and
prosperity had depended, precipitating a decline. But from time to time the Axumite society
reasserted the cultural greatness of the days of glory, and particularly during
the medieval era underwent a renaissance.
The modern urban center of Axum is the holy city of the Coptic
Christians.
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