PRECOLONIAL
STATE-MAKING
NICHOLAS RUSH SMITH
MANSA MUSA
(?? – 1332/37)
TWO
PUZZLES
• A First Puzzle:
• Africa had relatively few
bureaucratized states prior to
colonization when compared to
Europe
PRE-
COLONIAL • State power therefore tended to be
more uneven than in Europe
STATE • Fewer central institutions and
POWER bureaucracies
• How do we explain the relative
abundance of centralized states in
Europe versus the relative lack of
centralized states in Africa?
EUROPE AND AFRICA AROUND 1200
• A second puzzle
• States that did develop were often
“tributary” states as opposed to the
territorial states of Europe
• Tributary state: A central ruler
PRE- would demand payment from
COLONIAL secondary leaders following
conquest even as they retain their
STATE formal independence
POWER
• How do we explain the differences
between the emergence of predominantly
territorial states in Europe and
predominantly tributary states in Africa?
TABLE OF • Explaining Differences in European and
CONTENTS African State-Making
• Imagining Multiple Types of Sovereignty
• Empires of Trade and Knowledge
EXPLAINING
DIFFERENCES
IN EUROPEAN
AND AFRICAN
STATE-
MAKING
• Geography, Population, and Political Choices
• Africa’s geography has created difficulties for state builders
since pre-colonial times.
• Despite being a large and resource rich land mass, Africa
SOURCES
has historically had low population densities.
OF • This makes it costly to extend infrastructure and tax
populations
UNEVEN • Attempts to enclose or tax a population within a state
STATE have often pushed those being enclosed to move
elsewhere.
POWER (1) • Exceptions that Prove the Rule
• Formal states develop primarily in floodplains of rivers or
the fertile highlands where ecology supports larger
populations or as coastal trading ports
• Esp. Niger River Valley, Nile River Valley, Ethiopia, Rift
Valley, Swahili Coast Empires
GEOGRAPHIC
COMPARISON
OF SIZE
CITIES OF 1000 PEOPLE
(CONTEMPORARY)
• Movement as a Barrier to State Building
• Pre-colonial states had difficulties expanding
because populations would simply move if
threatened with being conquered.
SOURCES • Movement was made easier by a general
reliance on rain-fed agriculture and
OF relative lack of irrigated farming.
UNEVEN
STATE • Movement Shaping Political Choices
• This tendency towards movement pushed
POWER (2) rulers to concentrate on conquering
populations rather than territory – a different
pattern than in Europe.
• .
• Warfare to Conquer People, Not Territory
• Warfare was typically directed to
conquering people, rather than taking over
territory
SOURCES • Consequences of a Political Calculus
• Conquest tended to produce tribute
OF STATE payments rather than building durable
WEAKNESS institutions
(3) • Revenue Limits States
• This dynamic disincentivized leaders from
building enduring institutions, which were
quite costly, designed to rule large
territories
IMAGINING
MULTIPLE
TYPES OF
SOVEREIGNTY
• African vs European Political Imaginations
• Sovereignty was conceived as unitary in Europe
versus multiple or shared in many parts of Africa
• Because the different costs associated with state
building in Europe and Africa, leaders on the two
IMAGINING continents imagined what it meant to rule in different
SOVEREIGNTY ways
• European rulers imagined controlling their territory
fully and absolutely to the best of their abilities
• African leaders, by contrast, imagined different centers
of power, rather than homogenous control
• Land could theoretically belong to one
person and the people on the land to
another
• Could result in a situation of multiple or
MULTIPLE split sovereignty
SOVEREIGNS • Different from the unitary model of
sovereignty of European rulers
• Conceivable in some areas that as
people moved, their ruler’s sovereignty
moved with them
PICTURING
SOVEREIGNTY:
SULTAN NJOYA’S
IMAGE OF HIS
KINGDOM
EMPIRES OF TRADE
AND
KNOWLEDGE
• Connected Africa
• Different state forms from Europe does not mean
isolation
• Long pattern of religious connection
• Christianity moved into Nubia (Ethiopia/Sudan)
in 300-400AD
• Islam moved across the Sahara into West Africa
RELIGIOUS AND in 700-800AD
TRADE
CONNECTIONS • Long pattern of trading connection
• West African trade w/Islamic caliphates starting
around 700AD
• East African coastal trade w/ Islamic traders
from as early as 100AD but picking up after
1000AD
• Trade primarily for gold, ivory, salt and slaves
• Rulers connected to outside world often acted
as brokers for these goods
PRECOLONIAL TRADE
ROUTES
• Reputedly the richest man who ever
MANSA
lived
MUSA, • Went on pilgrimage to Mecca
RULER OF • Supposedly gave away so much gold en
MALI route, it depressed gold prices in Cairo
EMPIRE • Fortune built by controlling trans-Saharan
gold and salt trade