MODULE I:

PRE-COLONIAL AFRICAN HISTORY

Africa, the “Dark Continent” of the Euro-American imagination, was long portrayed as a land
without history. In this unit we debunk the myths, exploring African civilization and culture in
the centuries before European colonialism. This module examines the early history of Africa,
from human evolution to colonization by European powers in the late 19th century. Topics
include: the development of states from kinship based forms of political organization, the
political, cultural, and social transformations that accompanied African conversion to Islam, a
close examination of oral epic poetry as a window into medieval empire-building in the Sahel, an
extended conversation about the role of Africa in the transatlantic slave trade, and a discussion of
the dilemmas faced by African rulers in the era of partition on conquest by European powers.
Successful students will gain a thorough introduction to the major developments in the early
history of Africa, which will serve as a solid foundation for further coursework in African history
and other African studies courses. Before then, we shall first of all introduce history as a science
of humanity with some basic considerations.

Unit 1.
General Introduction to History and African History:
Preliminary Considerations
Introduction
To learn history efficiently and effectively, it is required of the learner to be versed with some
basic preliminary considerations on the discipline. The learner should already bear in mind that
history is a discipline constructed out of sources. A mastery of these sources is critical and their
use in the context of teaching should reflect the canons of their interpretation. In the same vein,
there is need to familiarize yourself with the definitions and importance of history as an
academic discipline as well as keep track with the dynamic nature of the curriculum, syllabus
and schemes of work.

Definition of History
The question what is history? is daunting. This is because History as an academic discipline has
been variously defined. From an etymological perspective the word emanates from the Greek
historia meaning ‘learning’ or ‘knowledge by inquiry’. But by a subtle transformation, the term
has received varied definitions expressing how history has been the object of speculation and
controversy since men first began to record their actions and thoughts. It will be necessary here
to expose some of those definitions that make the conception and practice of history
controversial.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, (106-43 BC), a Roman statesman defines History as the witness
of the times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.
To Jacob Burckhardt, 1818-1897, a Swiss Historian, History is the record of what one age finds
worthy of note in another. Edward Gibbon in his book Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
1776-1788 intimates that …history…is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies
and misfortunes of mankind. For Thomas Carlyle, in Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1841, the
history of the world is but the biography of great men. The American Historical Association

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conceives History as the never-ending process whereby people seek to understand the past and
its meaning.
Will and Ariel Durant in The Lessons of History (1968) give a much more operational
definition of history. To them history is an industry, an art, and a philosophy an industry by
ferreting out the facts, an art by establishing a meaningful order in the chaos of materials, a
philosophy by seeking perspective and enlightenment.

The definition gives us a list of things to do to be good students of history.

Things to Do: What Historians How They Do It

Do:
Ferret out the Locate primary sources and
1 Discover
facts. learn the facts.
Establish a
meaningful order Examine primary sources to
2 Analyse
in the chaos of make sense out of them
materials
Seek perspective Explain the context,
3 and Interpret meaning, and significance
enlightenment of primary sources.
4 Communicate Share insights with others

History is a narration of the events which have happened among mankind, including an
account of the rise and fall of nations, as well as of other great changes which have affected the
political and social condition of the human race. John J. Anderson. 1876. A Manual of General
History. Barnes (1962), defined history as ‘the sum total of human activities of the past’. In the
same light, Marwick (1981) defined history as ‘an interpretation of past human activities’.
Similarly, Crabtree (1993) quoting his graduate advisor said that ‘history is the story about the
past that is significant and true.’ Two words of importance in the last definition of history are
‘significant’ and ‘true’. By significance, history is to tell a story about the past which captures
the essence of an event while omitting superfluous details. The historian analyses evidences and
presents only that which is significant as perceived by his particular world view. At the same
time, the historian in narrating his story is influenced by the community of historians who must
have approved his narration. Therefore, historians tend to tell stories which reflect the values of
the society in which they live. The other aspect of the above definition is truth in any historical
narration. Truth depicts any evidence that is supported by facts.
The scope of history has naturally led scholars to divide the past into manageable pieces
for study. There are a variety of ways in which the past can be divided, including
chronologically, culturally, and topically. These three divisions are mutually exclusive, and
significant overlap is often present, as in ‘the Aba Women Riot of 1929’. It is possible for
historians to concern themselves with specific and very general locations, times and topics
although the trend has been toward specification.
Traditionally, the study of history was limited to the written and spoken word. However,
the rise of academic professionalism and the creation of new scientific fields in the 19th and 20th

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centuries brought a flood of new information that challenged this notion. Archaeology and other
social sciences now provide new information including theories about the past activities of man.
Hence, history is often classified under either the humanities or the social sciences and can be
seen to be a bridge between them, incorporating methodologies from both fields of study.
Some traditional historians questioned whether these new studies were really history,
since they were not limited to the written word. A new term, prehistory, was coined, to
encompass the results of these new fields where they yielded information about times before the
existence of written records.
In general, the sources of historical knowledge could be primary, secondary or tertiary
and has been divided into three categories: written, oral and what is physically preserved
(archaeology). Historians often consult these three categories. Primary sources are also referred
to as original sources and are created at the time under study. These sources include: documents,
recordings /eye-witness accounts, diaries, etc.; secondary sources are writings and interpretations
resulting from primary sources while tertiary sources are compilations of both primary and
secondary sources such as library catalogues, bibliographies and directories.
As a discipline, history encompasses many subfields and ancillary fields, which include
chronology, genealogy, historiography, palaeography and clinometric, among many others.

The Purpose/Importance of Teaching History

Most often, History as an academic discipline has been taught without paying attention to its
critical importance. Many students have taken the subject at examinations with motives
distanced from the core values of the discipline. It is important therefore to revisit this oversight.
James Smith, a history methods blogger holds that all professionals should be able to identify a
higher purpose to what they are doing, a purpose that goes beyond simply making a living.
Attorneys should be motivated by a sense of justice. Scientists should see their research as a way
to improve people’s lives. Law enforcement officers should feel a sense of civic duty.
To complement Smith’s view of teaching history and to actualize it, the teaching of
history should in most cases command relevance to its implied society. History should be
purposeful and should like any development-oriented discipline stand as a science for
development. It is in these perspectives that the importance of teaching history in our schools and
colleges should be appreciated. The reasons for teaching history can take many forms. The
importance of teaching history can be greatly captured in the following quote “In history you
have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see, and in that
record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings: fine things to
take as models, base things rotten through and through to avoid.”

1. History gives students an opportunity to develop basic skills: reading, writing, and
analytical thinking.
In the “real” world students may never need to know the details of how President Ahmadou
Ahidjo persuaded the Foumban Congressionists to accept the proposal of the Republic of
Cameroun. However, students will always need to know how to read, write, and think.
Regardless of what students decide to do with the events, the skills to explore, exploit and make
independent conclusions will be vital to their success. History teachers have a profound
responsibility to help students develop these skills at the highest levels. Teachers might use
history to develop a sense of citizenship in students. It’s not an overstatement to say that
the health of our democratic republic depends on citizens having a good sense of history.

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2. History helps students better understand the society in which they live.
Africans live in a diverse and complex society and all of us need to understand the society in
which we live. One of the best ways to understand that society is to understand its history, an
understanding that is vital not only to our personal happiness, but also the health of our society.
History as a discipline offers the avenue for understanding the very nature of the society, its
values and problems. This is as a result of the fact that societies are not static, but dynamic. Man
is concerned with the nature of his society in terms of his past activities that serve as an indicator
of the present and future. One’s history is always his beginning. In other words, man’s genesis is
always traced through history as it explains to him how he came to be, who he is and why he is
where he is today. Hence, no society can get along without the knowledge of its history.

3. History helps students better understand human beings, and in the process of
understanding others, students can better understand themselves as individuals.
In many ways history is a study of human nature and can help us identify human failures and
successes. Since all of us must live with the vulgarity and the nobility of human existence, we
should understand that studying people from the past is one of the best ways to prepare ourselves
to live with other human beings, at both their best and their worst.

4. History helps students understand people who are different.

Learning to think historically requires that students learn to avoid presentism. That is, students
must learn to study the past by minimizing the biases of the present. To understand people from
the eighteenth century students must be able to put themselves in that time period, knowing only
what the people of that time knew. If students develop this skill successfully they will then be
able to understand people from 200 years ago or 2000 years ago. They will also be able to
understand people in modern times who live on the other side of town or the other side of the
world.

5. History allows students to gain perspective and learn to see a bigger picture.
History allows students to leave the confines of their environment and see themselves as a
product of thousands of years of history. Two thousand years ago Cicero stated, “To be ignorant
of what happened before you were born is to be forever a child.”

6. History can inspire students.

Any human being might eventually face a dark night of the soul. Most people, at one time or
another, need a little inspiration, and what better place to look for inspiration than to dig into the
past. History is full of heroic individuals who found something within themselves that allowed
them to overcome tremendous obstacles. Let students learn about these people and their
triumphs. Use history to inspire students and help them learn to find within themselves the
strength and wisdom to deal with life’s hardships.

7. History can provide students with a reason for being; it can give meaning to their lives.
All of us need a reason for living, a higher purpose to our lives. Are we here to help others or
explore new frontiers? Are we here to create and bring beauty into the world? To what extent
should we define our lives by our emotional and spiritual development? Is it enough to define
our lives by hedonistic desires? Look to history. All these questions have been dealt with by
people who came before us and will help us in modern times find our own answers.

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8. History can help students feel a sense of connection.
Students should be aware of how close they are in time to the events they study in their history
classes. Considering that an average life span is seventy-five years, it was only two lifetimes ago
that it was 1857, and Abraham Lincoln had not yet been elected president of the United States.
Only three lifetimes ago it was 1782 and George Washington had not yet been elected president.
In fact, only three lifetimes ago the US Constitution had not yet been written. Students should be
taught to recognize their close connection to the past. They might know someone who survived
the Great Depression and World War II. Teachers should also recognize that the students they
teach today are likely to live into the 2060s and 2070s. The children of today’s students will
likely live into the 2100s.

9. History is entertaining and fun.

A class that turns history into a dry recitation of facts will not engage students, and there is no
reason a teacher should not make a history class an enjoyable place for students to spend time.
History is full of drama, suspense, romance, tragedy, and comedy. Let the facts speak for
themselves and students cannot help but find entertainment in stories from the past.

10. History allows students to dream and wonder; it gives them the opportunity to imagine
a better future.
History leads us to a place where we better understand each other and the world we live in. This
understanding can help us then imagine a better way to live and give us the ability to pursue our
dreams while grounded in reality.
History is to the community; what memory is to the individual. A man suffering from
loss of memory could be said to have lost his sense of identity. Similarly, a society without
history is doomed as such society will lose its sense of identity and bearing. In other words, there
will be no development since there is no knowledge of the past, no understanding of the present
and no projection into the future.
History offers students the skills of critical thinking, reasoning and analysis of issues and
development in all ramifications. It is only through historical reflections that one develops a
particular view of the world and it allows one to appreciate his / her own views and the views of
others that may seem different. The study of history does not only broaden students’ knowledge
and appreciations of the world, but offers the basis of constructive interaction and objectivity in
analysing issues. Knowing your history alongside developing your character brings your
personality into alignment with yourself. This way, you become more confident in expressing
your own views and ideas and you become more receptive to learning from others. By
cultivating the healthy habit of constant reflection, one is less likely to repeat past errors.

Conclusion
Despite the various definitions of history, two key words are very important which should be
taken into consideration in planning and teaching history: ‘past’ and ‘man’. These words are
crucial in the study of history. This means that history deals with the study of man’s past
activities. Anything that man did in the past becomes history; it has to be so because it is those
past activities that culminate into the present condition or situation of man. Man, therefore needs
to study those past events in order to understand his present circumstances. Whatever the entry
point or motivational standpoint, the definition of history is keen to the fact that its scope of
intervention is not the present but the past. From this conclusion it could be established that

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history is a human or social science that seeks to understand the past by systematically ferreting,
analysing, interpreting and communicating thematic events as they occurred in time and space.
The study of history plays an important role in the education of secondary school
students. Through the study of history, students will develop important historical knowledge and
understandings and develop thinking, interpreting, analysing, presenting and performance skills.
These skills enable History students to understand their own past and the connections of the past
to the present. Students will then be better prepared to play a role and plan for the future. They
will have a respect for the past, and know what they can do to protect and promote their own
cultures and histories. They will become good citizens. They will be proud to tell the world who
they are, where they come from and what they have achieved.

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 Unit 2.
Peopling and Precolonial African Civilisation
Introduction
This unit argues that African civilizations underwent many changes since the continent's first set
of people began the process of state formation. Though African civilization was and remains
extremely diverse and varied, this chapter uses the common experiences of Africans in general to
provide an analysis of civilization throughout the African continent. The unit stresses the
resiliency and ability of the African peoples to adapt from early state formation to the present
day. It demonstrates how Africa was generally organized in their various milieu before the
advent of the transatlantic slave trade.

Pre-colonial Societies
The pre-colonial period in Africa is a period that can best be described as a transitional age in
Africa. The eighteenth and nineteenth century to which it belongs was a century of Islamic
revival and in most states, Islam was installed as state religion. It was also a century when the
slave trade was abolished and trade in agricultural products flourished.
Though people have lived in Africa quite some time, the use of iron tools marks the
significant moment of African civilization. Iron tools enhanced weaponry, allowed groups to
clear and manage dense forests, plod fields for farming, and basically better everyday lives.
Ultimately, iron tools allowed Africans to flourish in every environment, and thus they could live
in larger communities which led to the formation of states and kingdoms. With state formation
came the formation of modern civilizations with common languages, belief and value systems,
art, religion, lifestyle and culture.
Unlike most Euro-Asian civilizations, African societies favoured oral tradition and few
possessed written languages. Stories and oral histories documented the past, and were handed
down from generation to generation. The oral-based linguistic past of Africa remains promising
and problematic in documenting Africa’s pre-colonial past, as many of these oral histories have
either been forgotten or distorted after being retold by each passing generation. Without the
luxury of written sources, Africanist scholars of this era have had to be creative in discovering
new sources to document the continent’s precolonial past. As research in genetics, archaeology
and linguistics increases, we will know more about early African civilizations. This is not to say,
however, that we know little. Linguists have used similarities in language structures to formulate
the directional flow of pre-colonial migrations. There are four African linguistic groups
(Khoisan, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo (commonly referred to as Bantu).
Linguistic similarities exist in Bantu languages from Nigeria to Mozambique. Peoples, such as
the Zulu, Fang, Shona, Kikuyu, Swahili, Tswana, Herero, and Kongo, all are Bantu-language
speakers and their languages share similarities in structure, grammar, and key words. In Africa
today there are more than 400 Bantu languages all linked together, similar to the number of
European languages derived from Latin. This has led most scholars to conclude that most sub-
Saharan Africans came from the same ancestors that migrated throughout the continent from the
Niger-Congo area. Prominent pre-colonial African civilizations were Egypt, Nubia, Ghana, Mali,
Carthage, Zimbabwe, and Kongo. In West Africa, the empires of Sudan, Ghana, Mali, and

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Songhai all flourished. In Southern Africa, Great Zimbabwe emerged as the most complex
civilization throughout Southern Africa. In East Africa, plateau regions were suitable for cattle
grazing. The dense forests of the Congo Basin, on the other hand, made herding nearly
impossible. Other states, empires, and kingdoms dissolved throughout the era. In Central Africa,
the Kongo, Loango, Ndongo, and Tio states dissolved by the mid-seventeenth century as
economic, military and political systems shifted due to the slave trade’s impact.
Ancient Egypt though was the first major African civilization. By 4.000 BCE, Egyptians
had begun cultivating crops. Five hundred years later, these peoples evolved into the early
Egyptian states, and formed the great Egyptian civilization (with the unifying of Lower and
Upper Egypt) in 3200 BCE. Egyptian society was complex. From the building of massive
pyramids that still stand today to the development of hieroglyphics (a complex written language),
to the creation of the plot, it profoundly shaped world civilization. Despite Egypt's early success,
it was not until after 700 CE that sub-Saharan African empires could emerge and exist for longer
periods of time. With no society or civilization possessing a greater technological advantage,
Africa's greatest empires fizzled and ultimately fell apart, often being replaced by another. Mali
succeeded Ghana, and the Songhai followed Mali. Usually each empire improved upon the
social, political, commercial, and military organization established by their predecessors, albeit
in sometimes very different ways and over various parts of West Africa. By 1.000 CE, states and
civilizations emerged and thrived throughout the continent. These societies varied in structure as
they evolved to suit local environmental, political and social situations.
As time went on, West African societies grew into organized states that encompassed
more of the area and its peoples. A map of Lower Guinea coastline (modern Ghana) from the
early seventeenth century details close to forty different nation-states or kingdoms existing in the
area. Roughly 120 years later, however, these states had merged to form one state, the Asante
empire. In Southern Africa, the peoples of modern day Zimbabwe and Zambia created elaborate
civilizations. Exploiting the mineral wealth of their land, these peoples traded with their
neighbours and ultimately established a large network through the area. These societies built
permanent stone structures and houses over all of Africa. Great Zimbabwe was established
around 1.250 CE. Unique from other continents, some parts of Africa do not receive enough
rainfall to grow large surpluses of domesticated crops, and population densities remained low as
land could not produce enough food to support larger populations. As a result, precolonial
civilizations were often more mobile societies that could move to more fertile land or closer to
water supplies when needed. This was particularly true in the Eastern and Southern regions of
the continent as well as in the Sahel and desert regions of West Africa.
Pre-colonial communities were never completely isolated. Interaction between
neighbours, across regions, and even outside of the continent were common. Societies interacted
with one another through commerce, marriage, migration, diplomacy and warfare. Their fertile
land, trade routes, or cattle forced interaction with other communities. East Africa was in contact
with Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Indian traders. Portugal established Elmina (in modern day
Ghana), its first African trading outpost, in 1482. Commerce was instrumental in state formation.
Trade offered the ability to exchange local surpluses for rare foods and goods. Across the
Saharan desert and along the Swahili coastline of East Africa, vast trade networks developed.
World renowned marketplaces and massive cities emerged at trade crossroads, such as Zanzibar
and Timbuktu. For instance, it is estimated that Kumbi, a large city in the Western Sudan,
possessed a population of 15.000 to 20.000 by the eleventh century. Kings and leaders, such as
those of Ghana, controlled their areas’ local markets and received tributes from traders. Camels

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and donkeys connected distant societies, and allowed trade to occur across the Sahara. Areas
with mineral wealth, such as Great Zimbabwe, developed mining capabilities and traded these
for manufactured goods from overseas.
With this said, there were more than 10.000 states and kingdoms before the arrival of the
Europeans, and African civilizations varied greatly in size and structure. The structure can be
divided into centralized and decentralized societies. In centralized societies often run by
monarchs or rulers, authority was in the hands of an elite few that decided laws, collected taxes,
etc. These societies tended to develop in areas conducive to agriculture or trade. The degree of
power possessed by the emperor or monarch varied from group to group with some societies
bestowing over-riding decision making responsibilities to the monarch while other leaders
possessed more of a symbolic status. The creation of divine rulers did not lead to the formation
of structured states, but instead it was often the establishment of strong states that craved
stronger governmental structures that necessitated the use of monarchs as leaders.

Political Organisation of the African Societies

There were states or societies which existed in Africa before the coming of the Europeans. The
Africans had tried to forge political, social, and economic institutions for proper management of
their affairs. There were two types of pre-colonial states, namely, centralized states (chiefly
states) and decentralized states (Segmentary/Stateless states).
Centralised States
These were chiefly states. They were highly organized and with well-developed political, social
and economic institutions. They had organized political authority centred on a chief or a King.
The King or chief promoted law and order and he was sometimes assisted by lesser or minor
chiefs to ensure effective administration. Another characteristic of these states was well
developed military machinery for maintaining security, expansion and generally internal stability
(law and order). The chiefs or kings had organized standing armies which originally were
equipped with local weapons such as spears, arrows, and bows, but later as a result of contact
with the Arabs and Europeans, the kings obtained fire arms or guns. Centralized states also had
organized economic activities particularly trade and agriculture. Most of these economic
activities were centrally controlled, i.e. they were controlled by the king through his agents.
Religion played an important role in most centralized states. It was a symbol of unity, unifying
factor, religious or vital functions were presided over by the King. Administratively most of
these states were divided into small administrative units, i.e. provinces for easy and effective
administration.
Examples of centralised states
There were several centralized states in Africa, e.g. in East Africa-there was Buganda, Bunyoro,
Toto, in Central Africa, there was Ndebele, Gaza and Lozi empires, in South Africa there was the
Zulu state while in West Africa there was Asante, Dahomey and Benin.
Decentralised States (Segmentary)
In decentralised civilizations, such as the Igbo of modern day Nigeria and Kikuyu of Kenya,
these societies were often broken up into age group systems, and power was dispersed
throughout the entire community with local elders providing leadership but with input from the
population at large. Some groups, such as the San of Southern Africa and the Pygmy of Central
Africa, formed small, mobile groups of hunter-gathers that rarely ever grew larger than a handful
of families. The states were characterised by lack of chiefly institutions, they lacked single and

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accepted political authority. They were mostly divided into several clans. The clan elders were
used to maintain law and order in such societies. The Segmentary states also lacked properly
organized military machinery. They did not have standing armies in this case each clan
organized its small force for maintenance of security, i.e. every elder was concerned about the
security of his clans. It is, therefore right to assert that civil wars were common in decentralised
states.
Hunting and gathering, herding cattle and goats, and agriculture were the primary means
of food production throughout pre-colonial Africa. The earliest societies were hunter-gatherers.
These groups often consisted of small kinship units that moved to follow animal herds or search
for sources of water. However, with advancements in technology, civilisations developed ways
to domesticate both animals and crops, and these advancements produced more regular levels of
food. Food surpluses were more common, larger populations could be better supported, and thus,
agriculture and herding soon became the dominant means of food production.
As arable land came at a premium, farming or herding societies often pushed hunter-
gatherers off of their land. Consequently, hunter-gatherers lost out on the best land, and such
lifestyles became more difficult to maintain as time wore on. Even though agricultural societies
could produce greater surpluses of food, farming was far from simple in most regions. These
civilizations usually relied heavily on human manpower and metal tools. In many parts of Africa
plod animals were susceptible to the tsetse fly, and thus it was nearly impossible for farmers to
maintain needed numbers of plod animals. As in most societies throughout the world, African
diets centred around a staple crop, such as maize, yams or bananas. Certain foods, such as
cassava and banana, were not native to Africa but instead were introduced by European and
Asian traders, flourished in Africa, and even replaced local foodstuffs as the staple of local diets
in some cultures. In most African societies, all of the people were looked after and taken care of
in some manner. Unemployment and homelessness were rare.
The survival of most segmentary states depended mostly on their economic and social
organization since they lacked chiefly institutions, economically, they mainly depended on trade,
and agriculture, e.g. through trade, they obtained goods that they needed but could not produce
while agriculture supplied enough food. In social aspects, religion played a very vital role by
acting as a unifying factor.
Examples of Decentralised States
There were several segmentary states in Africa, but the out-standing ones for our case study will
include the Igbo of modern day Nigeria, Kikuyu of Kenya, the Pygmy of Central Africa, Iteso,
and Nyamwezi.
Religion and the African Empire
Religious movement helped shape African societal structure. Following the death of the prophet
Muhammad in 632 CE, Islam spread quickly across North Africa, bringing not only a unifying
faith but a political and legal structure as well. Only those who had converted to Islam could rule
or be engaged in trade.
The first major empire to emerge in West Africa was the Ghana Empire. By 750, the
Soninke farmers of the region had become wealthy by taxing traders who traversed their area.
For instance, the Niger River basin supplied gold to the Berber and Arab traders from west of the
Nile Valley, who brought cloth, weapons, and manufactured goods into the African interior.
Since Ghana’s king controlled the gold supply, he was able to maintain price controls and afford
a strong military.

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 Soon, however, a new kingdom emerged. By 1200 CE, under the leadership of Sundiata
Keita, Mali replaced Ghana as the leading state in West Africa. After Sundiata’s rule, the court
converted to Islam, and Muslim scribes played a large part in administration and government.
Miners then discovered huge new deposits of gold east of the Niger River. By the 14th century,
the empire was so wealthy that while on a hajj, or pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, Mali’s
ruler Mansa Musa gave away enough gold to create serious price inflation in the cities along his
route. Timbuktu, the capital city, became a leading Islamic centre for education, commerce, and
the slave trade.
Factors that Helped in State Formation
By 1800 most societies had developed state structures although they may not have been so
sophisticated. Several factors combined to make this state formation possible. They include:
1. Strong and charismatic leadership was significant factor because the need for security
made political leaders essential. It is the political leaders who later organised the military
economic and social structures of their respective societies. In this respect strong and able
leadership became important in state formation and obtained goods they could not produce.
2. Trade was another important factor in state formation. Some states developed state
structures because they lived near caravan routes and had therefore got involved in the long
distance trade. Through trade contacts they were able to obtain fire arms and other goods
especially from the coastal Arabs and later Europeans. Fire arms became an important military
asset and contributed to the growth of centralized states. Some societies even traded with their
neighbours before entering the long distance trade.
3. The military factor was vital especially in centralized states. By 1800 many parts of
Africa were undergoing a period of Iron Age and this provided military tools. Able leaders were
tried to mobilise their people and created standing armies. These were used to maintain stability,
security and territorial expansion.
4. Religion was an important social factor in many societies. It acted as a unifying factor.
5. There were natural factors (environmental) such as good climate and fertile soils. This
encouraged agriculture, led to abundance of food and eventually high population growth. In
some areas availability of minerals, such as salt and iron became a source of revenue.
6. Advancement in technology levels was yet another important factor. In the period of
Iron Age, people such as the Banyoro, Nyamwezi were able to make iron equipment which they
sold to their neighbors. These were sometimes used as weapons and also helped to increase
agricultural production.
Conclusion
In summary of this lesson make sure that the learners should be able to:
• Give a brief background of pre-colonial Africa.
• Define the two types of pre-colonial African societies.

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 Unit 3.

Slavery and Slave Trade in Africa

Introduction
Slavery in Africa, the institution of slavery as it existed in Africa, and the effects of world slave-
trade systems on African people and societies. As in most of the world, slavery, or involuntary
human servitude, was practiced across Africa from prehistoric times to the modern era. When
people today think of slavery, many envision the form in which it existed in the United States
before the American Civil War (1861-1865): one racially identifiable group owning and
exploiting another. However, in other parts of the world, slavery has taken many different forms.
In Africa, many societies recognised slaves merely as property, but others saw them as
dependents who eventually might be integrated into the families of slave owners. Still other
societies allowed slaves to attain positions of military or administrative power. Most often, both
slave owners and slaves were black Africans, although they were frequently of different ethnic
groups. Traditionally, African slaves were bought to perform menial or domestic labour, to serve
as wives or concubines, or to enhance the status of the slave owner.
Traditional African practices of slavery were altered to some extent beginning in the 7th
century by two non-African groups of slave traders: Arab Muslims and Europeans. From the 7th
to the 20th century, Arab Muslims raided and traded for black African slaves in West, Central,
and East Africa, sending thousands of slaves each year to North Africa and parts of Asia. From
the 15th to the 19th century, Europeans bought millions of slaves in West, Central, and East
Africa and sent them to Europe; the Caribbean; and North, Central, and South America. These
two overlapping waves of transcontinental slave trading made the slave trade central to the
economies of many African states and threatened many more Africans with enslavement.

I. Forms of Slavery
(Chattel slavery, Domestic service, Pawnship, Military slavery, Slaves for sacrifice, Local slave
trade).
Multiple forms of slavery and servitude have existed throughout African history and were
shaped by indigenous practices of slavery as well as the Roman institution of slavery (and the
later Christian views on slavery), the Islamic institutions of slavery via the Arab slave trade, and
eventually the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery was a part of the economic structure of African
societies for many centuries, although the extent varied. Ibn Battuta, who visited the ancient
kingdom of Mali in the mid-14th century, recounts that the local inhabitants vied with each other
in the number of slaves and servants they had, and was himself given a slave boy as a
"hospitality gift." In sub-Saharan Africa, the slave relationships were often complex, with rights
and freedoms given to individuals held in slavery and restrictions on sale and treatment by their
masters. Many communities had hierarchies between different types of slaves: for example,
differentiating between those who had been born into slavery and those who had been captured
through war.
The forms of slavery in Africa were closely related to kinship structures. In many African
communities, where land could not be owned, enslavement of individuals was used as a means to

12
increase the influence a person had and expand connections. This made slaves a permanent part
of a master's lineage and the children of slaves could become closely connected with the larger
family ties. Children of slaves born into families could be integrated into the master's kinship
group and rise to prominent positions within society, even to the level of chief in some instances.
However, stigma often remained attached and there could be strict separations between slave
members of a kinship group and those related to the master.
A. Chattel slavery
Chattel slavery is a specific servitude relationship where the slave is treated as the property of the
owner. As such, the owner is free to sell, trade, or treat the slave as he would other pieces of
property and the children of the slave often are retained as the property of the master. There is
evidence of long histories of chattel slavery in the Nile river valley and Northern Africa, but
evidence is incomplete about the extent and practices of chattel slavery throughout much of the
rest of the continent prior to written records by Arab or European traders.
B. Domestic service
Many slave relationships in Africa revolved around domestic slavery, where slaves would work
primarily in the house of the master but retain some freedoms. Domestic slaves could be
considered part of the master's household and would not be sold to others without extreme cause.
The slaves could own the profits from their labour (whether in land or in products), and could
marry and pass the land on to their children in many cases.
C. Pawnship
Pawnship, or debt bondage slavery, involves the use of people as collateral to secure the
repayment of debt. Slave labour is performed by the debtor, or a relative of the debtor (usually a
child). Pawnship was a common form of collateral in West Africa. It involved the pledge of a
person, or a member of that person's family, to service another person providing credit. Pawnship
was related to, yet distinct from, slavery in most conceptualizations, because the arrangement
could include limited, specific terms of service to be provided and because kinship ties would
protect the person from being sold into slavery. Pawnship was a common practice throughout
West Africa prior to European contact, including amongst the Akan people, the Ewe people, the
Ga people, the Yoruba people, and the Edo people (in modified forms, it also existed amongst
the Efik people, the Igbo people, the Ijaw people, and the Fon people).
D. Military slavery
Military slavery involved the acquisition and training of conscripted military units which would
retain the identity of military slaves even after their service. Slave soldier groups would be run
by a Patron, who could be the head of a government or an independent warlord, and who would
send his troops out for money and his own political interests.
This was most significant in the Nile valley (primarily in Sudan and Uganda), with slave
military units organized by various Islamic authorities, and with the war chiefs of Western
Africa. The military units in Sudan were formed in the 1800s through large-scale military raiding
in the area which is currently the countries of Sudan and South Sudan.
Moreover, a considerable number of the men born between 1800 and 1849 in West African
regions (today Ghana and Burkina Faso) and abducted as slaves to serve in the army in Dutch
Indonesia. Interestingly, soldiers were on average 3 cm taller than other West African population.
Furthermore, data showed, that West Africans were shorter than North Europeans but of almost

13
equal height to South Europeans. This was mainly related to the quality of the nutrition and
healthcare.

E. Slaves for sacrifice

Human sacrifice was common in West African states up to and during the 19th century. Although
archaeological evidence is not clear on the issue prior to European contact, in those societies that
practiced human sacrifice, slaves became the most prominent victims.
The Annual customs of Dahomey was the most notorious example of human sacrifice of slaves,
where 500 prisoners would be sacrificed. Sacrifices were carried out all along the West African
coast and further inland. Sacrifices were common in the Benin Empire, in what is now Ghana, and
in the small independent states in what is now southern Nigeria. In the Ashanti Region, human
sacrifice was often combined with capital punishment.

F. Local slave trade

Many nations such as the Ashanti of present-day Ghana and the Yoruba of present-day Nigeria
were involved in slave-trading. Groups such as the Imbangala of Angola and the Nyamwezi of
Tanzania would serve as intermediaries or roving bands, waging war on African states to capture
people for export as slaves. Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood have provided an
estimate that of the Africans captured and then sold to Europeans around 90% of those who were
shipped in the Atlantic slave trade. Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African
American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites
and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been
impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."
The entire Bubi ethnic group descends from escaped intertribal slaves owned by various
ancient West-central African ethnic groups.

II. Traditions of Slavery Within Africa

Slavery existed in some of Africa's earliest organized societies. More than 3,500 years ago,
ancient Egyptians raided neighbouring societies for slaves, and the buying and selling of slaves
were regular activities in cities along the Nile River. However, whereas the Egyptians left behind
written records of their activities, most other early African states and societies did not. Therefore,
our understanding of most early African practices of slavery is based on much more recent
observations of African traditions regarding slavery and kinship and on oral histories.

A. Origins
In Africa, as in many places around the world, early slavery likely resulted from warring groups
taking captives. Such captives were of little use, and often some bother, when kept close to their
homes because of the ease of escape. Therefore, they were often sold and transported to more
distant places.
Warfare was not the only reason for the practice of slavery in Africa, however. In many
African societies, slavery represented one of the few methods of producing wealth available to
common people. Throughout the African continent there was little recognition of rights to private
landholding until colonial officials began imposing European law in the 19th century. Land was
typically held communally by villages or large clans and was allotted to families according to
their need. The amount of land a family needed was determined by the number of labourers that
family could marshal to work the land. To increase production, a family had to invest in more

14
labourers and thus increase their share of land. The simplest and quickest way to do this was to
invest in slaves. To help service this demand, many early African societies conducted slave raids
on distant villages.

B. Slaves’ Roles
Women constituted the majority of early African slaves. In addition to agricultural work, female
slaves carried out other economic functions, such as trading and cotton spinning and dyeing.
They also performed domestic chores, such as preparing food, washing clothes, and cleaning.
Powerful African men kept female slaves as wives or concubines, and in many societies these
women stood as symbols of male wealth. Male slaves typically farmed and herded animals.
Those who belonged to wealthy families and especially of ruling lineages of states also worked
as porters and rowers, and learned crafts such as weaving, construction, and metalwork. New
slaves were sometimes given menial tasks while experienced slaves did the more difficult and
dangerous work, such as mining and quarrying.
Some male, and fewer female, slaves held positions of high status and trust within their
societies. In precolonial states in the interior of West and Central Africa, slaves often served as
soldiers and confidants of high officials. With their necessarily limited ambitions and
dependence on their masters, slaves were considered the ideal persons to be close to men in
power. In a few cases, female slaves assumed power and influence as well. For example, in the
19th century in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey (now southern Benin), women served in
the royal palace and formed the kingdom's soldier elite.

C. Slavery and Kinship

Kinship (connection to a family by blood or marriage) has always been extremely important in
Africa as an essential component of a person's identity and ability to survive in society.
Traditionally, those without kin were essentially lost–not considered real persons by society.
Slaves, taken in battle or in slave raids, were cut off from their kin. In some societies, however,
slaves were viewed as dependents, and could, over time, become identified as members of their
owners' extended families. Many African societies decreed that children of slave owners by their
slaves could not be sold or killed. Also, after three or four generations, descendants of slaves
could often shed their slave status. Thus slavery, on one hand, cut people off from their kin but,
on the other hand, provided them with the possibility of becoming attached to other families and,
after several generations, reintegrated into the web of kinship.
None of the above possibilities should suggest that enslaved Africans liked what was
happening to them, accepted slavery willingly, or normally rose quickly in status. However,
early African traditions of slavery appear more benign when compared to the institutionalized
systems of slave trading that would develop later. As African states began providing slaves for
export by Arabs or Europeans, slavery became much more central to the economies and politics
of those states and more of a threat to Africans in general.

III. Effects of Slave Trades on Africa

Around the 15th century BC, Egypt's New Kingdom enslaved non-Africans, such as Jews from
Palestine, through warfare and imported them to the Nile Valley. As an African importer of non-
African slaves, however, ancient Egypt is a notable exception to the rule. Africa's role in the

15
history of transcontinental slave trading has generally been as a provider or exporter of slaves for
use outside of Africa.
After the 5th century BC, Greeks and, later, Romans came to dominate the Mediterranean
Sea. Both of these slave-owning powers raided North Africa extensively for slaves. This practice
of using Africa as a source of slaves would be adopted and expanded first by Arab Muslims and
later by Europeans.

A. The Trans-Saharan and East African Slave Trades

The spread of Islam from Arabia into Africa after the religion's founding in the 7th century AD
affected the practice of slavery and slave trading in West, Central, and East Africa. Arabs had
practiced slave raiding and trading in Arabia for centuries prior to the founding of Islam, and
slavery became a component of Islamic traditions. Both the Qur'an (Koran) (the sacred scripture
of Islam) and Islamic religious law served to codify and justify the existence of slavery. As
Muslim Arabs conquered their way westward across North Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries,
their victorious leaders rewarded themselves with Berber captives, most of whom were
eventually enrolled in Muslim armies. Over time, large segments of North Africa's Berber
population converted to Islam. The religion spread to the camel herders of the Sahara Desert,
who were in contact with black Africans south of the Sahara and who traded small numbers of
black slaves. Muslim Arabs expanded this trans-Saharan slave trade, buying or seizing increasing
numbers of black Africans in West Africa, leading them across the Sahara, and selling them in
North Africa. From there, most of these slaves were exported to far-off Asian destinations such
as the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia (in present-day Turkey), Arabia, Persia (present-day
Iran), and India.
The trans-Saharan slave trade grew significantly from the 10th to the 15th century, as
vast African empires such as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and Kanem-Bornu developed south of the
Sahara and marshalled the trade. Arab slave raiders also penetrated south, up the Nile River to
present-day Ethiopia, capturing thousands of slaves and sending them down the Nile to Egypt.
Over the course of more than a thousand years, the trans-Saharan slave trade saw the movement
of at least 10 million enslaved men, women, and children from West and East Africa to North
Africa, the Middle East, and India. The slaves and their descendants contributed to the harems,
royal households, and armies of the Arab, Turkish, and Persian rulers in those regions.
Also, by the 9th century, seafaring Muslims from Arabia and Persia had made their way
down the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa, obtaining African slaves in ports from Mogadishu
(in present-day Somalia) to Sofala (in present-day Mozambique) and conveying them to western
Asian cities to work. The culture of the East African coastal regions was strongly influenced by
Arab and Persian traders, many of whom intermarried with Africans, thus producing the Swahili
people and culture. Between the 9th and the 13th centuries, this Arab-Persian-Swahili population
established cities and city-states along the East African coast. These cities and states captured or
purchased slaves from the East African interior for domestic and agricultural tasks. In the 18th
and 19th centuries, as plantation agriculture developed in the region, the East African slave trade
increased dramatically.
Scholars’ opinions differ on the issue of the long-term effects of Islam on African
slavery. Some believe that Islamic law helped regulate slavery, thus limiting its abuses; these
scholars often argue that because Islam encouraged the freeing of slaves upon their master's
death, it increased instances of emancipation. Other scholars believe that Islam led to the

16
expansion of slavery, arguing that at the time that slavery was growing in the parts of Africa
coming under Islamic influence, slavery was declining in most of medieval Europe.
Between the 7th and the 15th century, the trans-Saharan and East African slave trades
spurred the gradual expansion of slavery within Africa. The slave trades contributed to the
development of powerful African states on the southern fringes of the Sahara and in the East
African interior. The economies of these states were dependent on slave trading. Neighboring
states competed with one another for trade, leading to wars, which in turn led to the capture of
more slaves. Slave raiding in West, East, and Central Africa became more common and wide-
ranging. When European explorers and traders arrived in West Africa beginning in the 15th
century, they found and began using well-established slave-trade networks. While the trans-
Saharan and East African slave traders continued until the early 20th century, they were
overshadowed by the Atlantic slave trade after the 15th century. The Atlantic slave trade dwarfed
the trans-Saharan and East African trades in terms of volume of export, impact on African
practices of slavery, and lasting effect on Africa in general.

B. The Atlantic Slave Trade

The Atlantic slave trade developed after Europeans began exploring and establishing trading
posts on the Atlantic (west) coast of Africa in the mid-15th century. The first major group of
European traders in West Africa was the Portuguese, followed by the British and the French. In
the 16th and 17th centuries, these European colonial powers began to pursue plantation
agriculture in their expanding possessions in the New World (North, Central, and South
America, and the Caribbean islands), across the Atlantic Ocean. As European demand grew for
products such as sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton, and as more New World lands became
available for European use, the need for plantation labour increased.
West and west central African states, already involved in slave trading, supplied the
Europeans with African slaves for export across the Atlantic. Africans tended to live longer on
the tropical plantations of the New World than did European labourers (who were susceptible to
tropical diseases) and Native Americans (who were extremely susceptible to "Old World"
diseases brought by the Europeans from Europe, Asia, and Africa). Also, enslaved men and
women from Africa were inexpensive by European standards. Therefore, Africans became the
major source, and eventually the only source, of New World plantation labour.
The Africans who facilitated and benefited from the Atlantic slave trade were political or
commercial elites–generally members of the ruling apparatus of African states or members of
large trading families or institutions. African sellers captured slaves and brought them to markets
on the coast. At these markets European and American buyers paid for the slaves with
commodities–including cloth, iron, firearms, liquor, and decorative items–that were useful to the
sellers. Slave sellers were mostly male, and they used their increased wealth to enhance their
prestige and connect themselves, through marriage, to other wealthy families in their realms.
The Africans who were enslaved were mostly prisoners of war or captives resulting from
slave raids. As the demand for slaves grew, so did the practice of systematic slave raiding, which
increased in scope and efficiency with the introduction of firearms to Africa in the 17th century.
By the 18th century, most African slaves were acquired through slave raids, which penetrated
farther and farther inland. Africans captured in raids were marched down well-worn paths,
sometimes for several hundred miles, to markets on the coast.
From the mid-15th to the late-19th century, European and American slave traders
purchased approximately 12 million slaves from West and west central Africa. A small

17
percentage of these slaves, particularly in the early years of the trade, were sent to Europe,
especially to Spain and Portugal. Most, however, were shipped across the Atlantic for sale in
Portuguese-administered Brazil; the British, French, Dutch, and Danish islands of the Caribbean;
Spanish-controlled South and Central America; and the British North American mainland (later
the United States and Canada). The Atlantic crossing, known as the Middle Passage, was
nightmarish for slaves, who were poorly fed, subject to abuses at the hands of the crew, and
confined to cramped storage holds in which diseases spread easily. Historians estimate that
between 1.5 and 2 million slaves died during the journey to the New World.
The Atlantic slave trade differed from previous practices of slavery and slave trading in
Africa in its huge scope and its importance to the economies of world powers. While traditional
African slavery was practiced largely to help African communities produce food and goods or
for prestige, slave labour on European plantations in the New World was crucial to the
economies of the colonies and therefore to the economies of the colonial powers. This global
economic demand for African slaves altered African practices of slavery. In much of Africa,
slavery became a more central, structural element of African life, as rulers and wealthy elites
sought to accumulate more and more slaves, for sale as well as for their own use. In addition to
the systematic and institutional practice of slave raiding, other practices were introduced in
African states to bring in even more slaves, including enslavement as punishment for crimes and
religious wrongdoing. As a result, by the 19th century vast numbers of black Africans in West
and Central Africa faced the threat of being enslaved.

IV. The End of Slavery in Africa

As humanitarian sentiments grew in Western Europe with the 18th-century Age of
Enlightenment and as European economic interests shifted slowly from agriculture to industry, a
movement to abolish the slave trade and the practice of slavery came into being in the Western
world. In 1807 the slave trade was outlawed in Britain and the United States. Britain outlawed
the practice of slavery in all British territory in 1833; France did the same in its colonies in 1848.
In 1865, following the American Civil War, the U.S. government adopted the 13th Amendment
to the Constitution, ending slavery in the United States. The Atlantic slave trade continued,
however, until 1888, when Brazil abolished slavery (the last New World country to do so).
While the Atlantic slave trade was dying down around 1850, the trans-Saharan and East
African slave trades were at their peaks. In the 1850s the Ottoman Empire nominally outlawed
slavery in much of the Islamic world, but this had only a minor effect on the slave trade. One of
the main justifications European powers gave for colonizing nearly the entire African continent
during the 1880s and 1890s was the desire to end slave trading and slavery in Africa. By the
dawn of the 20th century, European forces had defeated most African slave trading states, and
the trans-Saharan and East African slave trades came to an end.
Although colonial authorities began outlawing slavery in some African territories as early
as the 1830s, the complete legal abolition of slavery in Africa did not take place until the first
quarter of the 20th century. By that time, however, slavery was deeply ingrained in most African
societies, and thus the practice continued illegally. Slaves who became liberated often did so by
escaping and going to the colonial authorities or by simply leaving the areas in which they had
been held to take up residence elsewhere. In some places, enslaved persons held that status
throughout their lives, despite the legal prohibition. It was not until the 1930s that slavery in
Africa was almost totally eliminated.

Conclusion

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The ending of the slave trade and slavery in Africa had wide-ranging effects on the African
continent. Many societies that for centuries had participated in an economy based on slave labour
and the trading of slaves had difficulty finding new ways to organize labour and gain wealth.
Meanwhile, colonial governments in Africa that outwardly disapproved of slavery still needed
inexpensive labourers for agriculture, industry, and other work projects. As a result, African
leaders and former slave owners, as well as colonial officials, often developed methods of
coercing Africans to work without pay or for minimal compensation. Moreover, the outlawing of
slavery did not erase the pain and stigma of having been a slave. Many descendants of slaves
were affected by this stigma for generations after slavery was abolished.

19