Sub-Saharan
Africa to 1700
by Sanderson Beck
Africa
was the birthplace of the human species, and the Nile River nurtured the long
and ancient history of Egypt. However, most of the continent, as with most of
Asia, Europe, and the Americas, did not develop urban civilization until the
last two thousand years. Before it began to dry up about four thousand years
ago, the Sahara was occupied by hunters who left marvelous rock paintings at
Tassili and domesticated sheep and wild cattle. About 1500 BC horses were
introduced in the Sahara from Egypt; about a thousand years later the camel was
imported from Arabia, and soon after that the desert was too dry for horses and
was increasingly abandoned by people as well.
Use
of camels began about the first century CE and made crossing the Sahara
practical as North Africans traded salt and other goods to the Sudan for gold
and slaves. Starting in the 7th century, Islam gradually spread in Africa.
Early Muslim travelers were astonished at the liberty the African women
enjoyed. In Walata though devout, their beauty was far from veiled, and they
could take lovers as they pleased. In the many matrilineal societies kings were
succeeded by a son of a sister.
In
772 CE al-Fazari in Baghdad called Ghana the land of gold. Ghana’s kings
controlled the Wangara gold and competed with the Sanhaja Berbers, who held
Awdaghust until Sanhaja strife enabled the Soninke of Ghana to capture that
city in 990. The city of Kumbi Saleh became a commercial and intellectual
center in the Sudan. Legends told of this region anciently called Wagadu, of
which Kumbi was the capital, saying that Wagadu was blessed with much gold that
was replenished annually thanks to a snake that guarded the kingdom. Every year
they sacrificed a virgin to the snake until the year a lover of the chosen
virgin killed the snake. The dying snake cursed Wagadu, causing the land to dry
up and the gold to cease there and move to the upper Niger River area.
Ghana’s
rulers maintained their ancestral religion and resisted Islam. In 1068 al-Bakri
wrote that Ghana’s King Tunka Menin had great power and was respected for his
love of justice and kind treatment of Muslims. Kumbi fell to the Almoravids in
1076, and many were forced to convert. Almoravid military leader Abu-Bakr ibn
‘Umar, whom Mauritanian oral traditions held responsible for dispossession of
the blacks in the Sahara by the Berber nomads, was killed in Tagant in 1087.
Plundered and with its trade disrupted, Ghana declined.
East
of Ghana, the Kanuri Sefawa dynasty was established in Kanem about the 9th
century and lasted a millennium. Gao’s King Kossoi became a Muslim in 1010 but
did not change his court ceremonies. About 1085 the second Sefawa king, Dunama
ibn Hummay, was converted to Islam; he made two pilgrimages to Mecca and died
on a third.
Declining
Ghana was finally destroyed in 1203 when Soso chief Sumaguru Kante of the
Kaniaga, which had been a vassal state of Ghana, sacked Kumbi. Sumaguru also
conquered the Mandinkas to the south by the upper Niger and put to death all
the ruler’s sons except a cripple named Sundiata, who raised a guerrilla army
and eventually defeated and killed Sumaguru in 1235. In a few years the
Mandinkas took over what had been Ghana and controlled the gold trade from Wangara.
Though essentially an agricultural community, this kingdom of Mali also traded
the Saharan salt of Taghaza and copper of Takedda, as Jenne and Timbuktu became
commercial centers. Sundiata was succeeded in 1255 by his son Wali, who went on
pilgrimage to Mecca; during his 15-year rule the Mali kingdom included Songhay.
Wali was succeeded by two brothers; the second, Khalifa, having killed people
with arrows for sport, was deposed and killed. During these troubles Songhay
became an independent kingdom under ‘Ali Kolon. Incompetent Mali kings were
controlled by court officers, though a freed slave named Sakura usurped the
throne in 1285 and expanded his power with his Mandinka army so that by the end
of the 13th century Mali sovereignty stretched from Takrur in the west to Goa
and Songhay in the east. Sakura died on his way back from Mecca, and the
legitimate line resumed.
In
the first half of the 13th century under Dunama Dibalami the Kanuri Sefawa
dynasty expanded from east of Lake Chad to the north to take Kawar and the
Fezzan and west to include Bornu, establishing the first Kanuri empire by
military forces that included 41,000 horses. At the end of this century King
Ibrahim Nikale killed one of his sons and was assassinated. A civil war in the
next reign lost the Fezzan, where a Banu Nasur dynasty lasted a century before
it was destroyed by Arabs from the Maghrib.
The
Mali kingdom was divided into three provinces with many local chiefs. Sons of
vassal kings were often held hostage at court, and local chiefs ruled under
appointed governors. Farming, the army, and administration depended on serfs
and slaves, though some slaves could become officials, even a provincial
governor. The cavalry consisted of free men; horses were expensive and were
often purchased with slaves. Property was respected so much that when a
foreigner died in Mali, the property remained until the heir was sent for to
recover it, according to Ibn-Battuta. This Arab traveler also complained that
female servants and slaves in the court were naked.
In
the forests of West Africa farmers and some pastoralists, like the Ibo and Tiv,
had egalitarian societies based on family kinship and tribes that were free of
tribute, tax, and rent. Elders administered justice and communal activities in
small groups. The Akan people were matrilineal but had a king with attending
ministers. A council could remove the king, who might be obligated to commit
suicide; they could stop the king from going to war if they believed it was
unjust. Wolof and Serer kings of Senegambia were elected by the nobility but
were considered divine and had more power, appointing local chiefs to collect
taxes. Women could hold powerful positions and in Walo could even be chief of
state. Wolof and Serer societies were very hierarchical with defined classes of
royalty, nobility, warriors, peasants, servants, and many slaves, some of whom
held privileged positions, even advising the king. Society was also graded by
age, and secret societies enforced customs and standards of behavior, promoting
virtue in women and honor among men. Kola nuts were chewed as a stimulant and
were often given in friendship. The art of Ife indicated it was an important
center in the 11th century. Oyo was the primary state of those later called the
Yoruba people. The Oyo king had to work with the council representing seven
wards or face suicide. The secret society of the Ogboni was a check on the
council. Tradition held that the Benin line of kings to the east was started by
an Oyo king about the 14th century.
Mali’s
King Mansa Musa (r. 1312-37) was celebrated by Muslim historians for making a
famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324; his spending about 30,000 pounds of gold in
Cairo depreciated the precious metal there. In choosing between gold production
or proselytizing the Muslim faith in Wangara, Musa abandoned the latter. The
Mossi pillaged and reduced Timbuktu to ruin by about 1330 and again in 1338.
Musa broke tradition by leaving the kingdom to his son instead of the oldest
male in the family, Sulayman, who took the throne four years later and
maintained the Mali empire for twenty years. Ibn Battuta visited Mali in 1353
and noted a failed plot to overthrow the King. After Sulayman’s death a civil
war over the succession was won by Mari-Djata II, who ruled so oppressively
from 1360 to 1374 that he depleted the treasury and almost ruined the kingdom.
In the next reign the chief minister carried out military expeditions against
rebellions in Gao and beyond. In the fifteenth century Mali’s royal power
declined as the Mossi raided the subject state of Macina.
The
Songhay royal house at Gao on the Niger River had converted to Islam by the
11th century; in the 14th century the Sonni dynasty gained strength, and in
1420 Songhay’s Sonni ruler Muhammad Da’o raided Mali territory. In 1433 the
Tuareg chief Akilu-ag-Malwal occupied Timbuktu and Walata, and in 1450 Macina
became independent. Two hundred miles up the Niger River, the fishing village
of Jenne had grown into a center of Islamic learning and trade. When Mali lost
control of Timbuktu, Jenne also became independent for a half century. Sonni
‘Ali (r. 1464-92) of Songhay continued to practice his native religion but gave
contributions to mosques. Yet he mistrusted Muslims and often persecuted them.
He recaptured Timbuktu in 1468 and conquered Jenne about four years later. Naba
Nassere invaded Baghana and Walata in 1477, but in 1483 Sonni ‘Ali drove his
army out of the region. The Songhay army also pushed the Mossi south of the
Niger and raided their territory. Arab historians criticized Sonni ‘Ali for
tyrannically oppressing Muslims, but for the Songhay empire he was its founding
hero. Both the Mali and Songhay empires traded slaves for horses in order to
field a professional cavalry. Jews were resented for having become prominent,
and in 1492 the qadi al-Maghili
incited a massacre of Jews in Tuat.
In
the early 14th century four Kanuri kings, all sons of ‘Abd Allah ibn Kaday,
were killed fighting the So, though Idris ibn Ibrahim Nikale managed to get
along with the Bornu people and ruled for about 25 years. The second half of
the century was filled with wars against the pastoral Bulala, again killing
four Kanem kings in a row and forcing the next mai (divine king) Umar ibn Idris to move the capital to
Bornu west of Lake Chad. In 1391 mai Bir
ibn Idris complained to the Egyptian Sultan Barquq of Arab raids on his Kanem
people, but he ruled a third of a century. In the late 14th century nomadic
Arabs came in to the western Sahara and raided caravans so much that trade
shifted to Timbuktu in the east. In the 15th century the Kanuri revived in a
second empire.
Some
political history of Kano survived in “The Song of Bagauda.” Population
increased in this fertile land as others suffering famine migrated to Kano.
Larger territory was conquered by a series of kings called sarki. Gijimasu (r. 1095-1134) had
established the city of Kano, and his son Tsaraki (r. 1136-94) subdued most of
the chiefdoms in the area except Santolo. Muslims helped Yaji (r. 1349-85)
conquer the Santolo and destroy its religious center of traditional sacrifices.
The 15th sarki Kananeji
(r. 1390-1410), using horse armor, iron helmets, and coats of chain-mail,
invaded and occupied Zaria (Zazzau). The wealthy war-chief Dauda (r. 1421-38)
brought a more sophisticated administration with Bornu titles. When a deposed
Bornu ruler took refuge in Kano about 1425, the Bornu mai made the Hausaland towns pay
tribute to Bornu during the reign of Kano sarki Abdullahi Burja (r. 1438-52). Katsina had to send a
hundred slaves each year to the Bornu capital at Ngasargamu. In the 15th
century the most powerful states in the Hausaland were Katsina, Kano, Zaria,
and Gobir. The spread of Islam put more emphasis on the higher Hausawa
god Ubangiji rather
than possession by the oskoki spirits
that were subordinated asjinn.
During
the Kano reign (1452-63) of Ya‘qub, kola nuts were introduced into Hausaland.
The Kano sarki Muhammad
Rumfa (1463-99) made Kurmin Jakara into a market, built mosques, and consulted
a council of nine, letting trusted slaves handle finances. His conversion to
Islam was marked by his cutting down the sacred tree and replacing it with a
mosque. During his reign the series of wars between the Kano and Katsina began.
Sarki Muhammad Korau (r. 1445-93) founded the walled city of Katsina at the
site of an iron mine. His successor Ibrahim Sura (r. 1493-98) imprisoned his
subjects who refused to pray.
In
1415 the Portuguese captured Ceuta on the Moroccan side of the Gibraltar
Straits. After their fleet was destroyed at Tangier, they abandoned it in 1437;
but they began colonizing the Azores two years later. In 1441 Antam Gonçalves
seized two Africans on the coast of Rio d’Oro and took seven captives back to
Lisbon. Two years later Nuno Tristao took captives from the Senegal region, and
the next year a company was set up in Lagos to exploit the African slave trade.
A fort was built at Arguin in 1445, and the next year Portuguese explorers
arrived in western Malinke. Ten years later a Venetian reported that the
Portuguese were stealing about a thousand people a year from the west African
coast, and plantations were established on the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde
Islands, and on Sao Tomé, using African slaves.
The
Portuguese attacked Tangier in 1471, also taking Arzila and Larache. That year
the expedition led by Fernao Gomes discovered the lucrative region they called
the “Mine” (El Mina) that
became known as the Gold Coast. In a 1480 treaty Portugal gave up the Canary
Islands to Spain, and the Spanish promised not to interfere in the Guinea
trade. Portuguese led by Azambuja began building the Sao Jorge da Mina fortress
in 1482, and the next year Portuguese captain Diogo Cao reached the Kongo;
missionaries tried to convert the natives to Christianity while ambassadors and
goods were exchanged with Lisbon. In 1485 d’Aveiro began trade and diplomatic
relations with the Benin empire.
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