In this
article you will find another snippet from my chapter on African
American History from my nearly complete books, Fundamentals of an Excellent
Liberal Arts Education.
This
installment is the second of two concerning the African context for the history
of African America; PART ONE gave an
overview of African prehistory and history to the rise of the great West
African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai.
This second
installment (PART TWO) gives an overview of African history from the rise of
those empires to the arrival of Europeans.
PART
TWO
The Rise of
the Great West African Empires and Overview to the Arrival of Europeans
Great West African Empires
In the 8th
century there arose in West Africa the first of three great empires that would
for many centuries dominate the Sudan, the region south of the Sahara Desert
and north of the tropical forests running from Senegal in the west to the Nile
valley in the east. This first of the
three great West African empires was Ghana, which initially consolidated power
among their own people, the Soninke, then asserting power over a strong and
dynamic trading state stretching between the Senegal and Upper Niger
Rivers. Ghanaian traders bartered for
gold with traders who lived intermediately between themselves and the gold
miners who lived and labored to the far south.
The Ghanaians then sold the gold to merchants who crossed the desert and
gathered in the southernmost oases at the northern edge of the Sudan and served
as terminal points for caravans that gained fame for their journeys across the
Sahara.
During
1076-1077 A. D. (CE) the Almoravids (a fierce Berber nomad configuration that
typically guided trade caravans across the desert) broke out of the western
Sahara desert to lead a holy war northward through Morocco and all the way to
Spain (where they conquered the Umayyad Moors);
and southward to lands that included the Ghanaian empire. Several smaller kingdoms survived the
Almoravid invasion, among which was the well-organized petty kingdom of
Mal. Under the rule of three dynamic
rulers--- Sundiata, Mansa Uli, and Mansa
Musa--- Mali expanded in the course of
1220-1340 A. D. (CE) to occupy an area
in West Africa larger than had Ghana.
Ghana covered much of the western Sudan and featured one of the world’s
most opulent and cultured cities, Timbuktu.
Sundiata, Mansa Ul, and Mansa Musa embraced Islam, which had become such
a powerful cultural force throughout West Asia, North Africa, parts of
Southeast Asia, and into stretches of West and Central Africa. In 1324, Mansa Musa made a pilgrimage to
Mecca, carrying with him and spending so much gold in route that he upset the
money market in Cairo and caused an inflationary period to ensue in the trade
of the Mediterranean area that lasted for decades thereafter.
Mali
continued strong until about 1450, at which time Songhai, the wealthiest and
most powerful of these great West African empires, established rule over the
region. For at least a century and a
half, Songhai featured one of the world’s greatest civilizations. The heart of the empire nwas at about the
midpoint alog the Niger River, where the kind of trade that had made Ghana and
Mali such formidable forces in West Africa continued to flourish. Songhai reached its height during the rule of
Sonny Ali (r. 1464-1492) and Askia the Great (r. 1493-1528). Urban life thrived on the basis of the
region’s commercial vitality and on the elements of high civilization found in
Islamic law, medicine, math, science, literature, architecture, art, and
theology. Djenne was on great city of
Songhai. Timbuktu was even greater. To this latter scholars came from all over
western Asia and Africa to exchange ideas, just as merchants exchanged goods
and services. Songhai’s great mosque of
Sankore provided a fertile meeting ground for Muslim thinkers and people of all
faith endeavoring to visit one of the world’s most important urban centers. The mosque of Sankore represented a cultural
continuity between the empires of Mali and Songhai, having been designed in the
14th century by As-Saheli, one of the Egyptians brought back to Mali
by Mansa Musa after his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324.
Other Kingdoms and Societies of Africa
To the east
of Songhai lay the Hausa states, including the notable Kano and Katsina, the
development of which seems to have extended back into the 11th
century. Bu the 14th century,
powerful kings ruled these domains, which feature substantial urban centers
where craftspeople and merchants built prosperous livelihoods connected to the
regional and trans-desert trade. The
Hausa states were particularly famous for their leatherwork, which yielded much
sought-after items from the North;
European traders obtained these leather goods in the journeys to North
African and came to them collectively as Moroccan leather.
In the
central Sudan, around Lake Chad, lay another great state, Kanem-Bornu, the
rulers of which had been Muslin from as early as the 11th century. One of the oldest and largest of the African
states, Kanem-Bornu retained its independent existence until the latter years
of the 19th century, when European traders finally succeeded in
bringing it under control.
In the
mountains toward the eastern end of the Sudanic belt lay Ethiopia, a Christian
empire that was the successor state to Axum.
Monarchical states made a later appearance south of the Sudan, but
empies such as the Benin and the Oro in Yorubaland (Nigeria), whose people
produced some of the world’s great sculptures, flourished well before the
arrival of the Europeans in the 15th century. African peoples in other part of the
continent also established kingdoms and empoires, especially in the expansive
territory south of the equator into which the Bantu language had spread
Over several
millennia, a cluster of kingdoms flourished between the great lakes of East
Africa, including Rwanda and Buganda.
South of the Congo (Zaire) forests lived the peoples of the Luba-Lunda
group of kingdoms, and the monarchical state of Kongo emerged as a dominant
force south of the river estuary that in colonial times (from the late 19th
century) would bear its name.
Much farther
to the South, on the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian plateau, was the empire of Monomotapa,
the wealth of which was derived from a lucrative trade in gold on the East
African coast at sofala, a coastal outpost of the rich trading city of
Kilwa. Associated with this kingdom of
Monomotapa was the Great Zimbabwe, a walled enclosure built mainly in the 14th and 15th
centuries n a site that ahd been used for ritual purpose since 1000 A. D. (CE).
General Characteristics of African
Societies
Throughout
these magnificent kingdoms and in those areas where a more decentralized style
of
governance
prevailed, a wide variety of cultural styles described the lives of
Africans. West African were known
for their skill as farmers and Artists.
They excelled in cultivating rice, building boats, and navigating along
coasts. Many were experts in producing
textiles and baskets. Others fashioned
clothing from skins and fur. Some became
expert in producing weapons, utensils, and ceremonial objects from iron,
copper, and precious stones. Heights of
artistry were reached by many West Africans who used these same materials to
produce jewelry, metalwork, and sculpture.
The
topography of Africa was and is enormously varied, featuring tropical forests,
expansive deserts, and broad grassland.
Many African societies are matrilineal, with inheritance and property
rights descended from the mother. Many
are also matrilocal, meaning that it is the groom who leaves his own family t
live with or near the family of the bride.
Kinship was very important in traditional African society. Ancestors are considered the links to the
past, and descendants were considered the bridge to the future. Both were part of the family broadly construed. Typically hundreds of family members,
including people of several generations, gathered together in clan associations
to conduct common business and to maintain religious rituals preserving the
lint to those who had lived before.
People in
West African traditionally worshiped their ancestors, seen as the vital link
between the supreme creator and the people of humankind and nature. The indigenous religions of West Africa are
animistic: worshipers devote their
ceremonies and ritual observations to spirits believed to dwell in animals,
forests, rivers, and rocks. Nature was
and is seen as a thing worthy of respect, awe, care and caution.
The Enduring Legacy of Africa for
African-Americans
The arrival
of Europeans in the 15th century would eventually alter the course
of African history in ways that would be important not only to the people of
the vast continent, but for the entire world, as well. Later, in the 19th and 20th
centuries, almost all of Africa would come under the control of
European
colonial powers which exerted a might based on superior military hardware and
oceangoing prowess. More immediately
important to the history of people of African origin in the Americas would be
the slave trade that developed from the fifteenth century, following a pattern
of commercial interaction that included
participants of four continents: Africa,
South America, North America, and Europe.
Those people
of African descent who were torn from their homeland came with a rich store of
cultural treasure that people of European descent could not wrench from their
brains, no matter how disrespectfully the slave traders abused African
bodies. The cultures of Africa, alive in
the brains and bodies of those people brought to American from Africa as
slaves, would be one of the major cultural streams enriching the lives of
people from the Western Hemisphere, including the United States.
