Africa (2)MTRA. MARCELA ALVAREZ PÉREZ

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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– 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– 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

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

• 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 arrivals14

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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

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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