In what ways has geography and Ecology Shaped and Impacted the precolonial West
African Peoples and Societies. Give specific examples to
support your conclusions/assertions, arguments
SOURCES: DO NOT USE OTHER SOURCES (Published Chapters or articles, internet
sources, etc.)- The Plagiarism Tool Will Bring Them Up.
You MUST use the following Sources for the paper.
1]. The Chapter on Ecology and Culture in West Africa by Webb, Jr.
2]. Basil Davidson, Text, Chapters 1, 2, 3.
3]. The Chapter on West African Geography.
When Grading I will check the following:
A]. Organization: Paragraph, transitioning etc. from one paragraph to the next; one them to the
next, etc.
B]. Critical Thinking: Analyzing the readings-dissecting and asking relevant questions of
your sources and answering them with verifiable evidence.
c]. Content: How well you have articulated the themes.
d]. Stylistics: Citation format, Bibliography, grammar, spelling, mechanics, etc.
PAPER SPECIFICATIONS:
HOW TO CITE USING CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE: When in word document, Click on
References- a page will open and you will see Endnotes and Footnotes. There is a chevron - for
how your Footnotes or Endnotes should be labelled. Select Numbers (1, 2, 3, forward ) NOT
Roman Numerals. Then when you need to enter a source, Click on either Endnotes or Footnotes
(Use only one- not both). As you enter a footnote or endnote, they run as 1, 2, 3, 4, until the end
of your paper. Numbers do not repeat themselves. For example, you cannot have Footnote 1 on
page 1, and Footnote 1 on page 2, Footnote 1 on page 3, etc. unless you are entering the notes
manually (which is not acceptable). You must, however, read the actual Manual to be sure on
how to enter the citation information (how to cite a book, an article in an edited work/book, an
article in a journal, a newspaper, an oral interview, Internet sources, etc.). I have attaches
Chicago Manual of Style in the syllabus and in several other locations. Chicago no longer
uses Ibid. See link for Chicago on Syllabus and on the Course Modules.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Sources you have used to compile the paper. The Chicago Manual of
Style will also show you how to compile a Bibliography/References [All Sources used to write a
paper, always written alphabetically beginning with the last name of the author. What students
label as Works Cited is a misleading phrase. NOTE: If you do not have a Footnote or Endnote where you direct me to a specific source you are using on a specific page and find the
information you have written, then you have no citation, which is Plagiarism. Penalty for
Plagiarism is 0% on the assignment.
Thank you.
Chapter 1
Copyright © 1998. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
A Very Long History
Overleaf
A rock painting from Tassili n'Ajjer, Sahara,depicting a horse and two-wheeled
chariot. (Werner FormanArchive and Musee Bardo, Algiers)
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A Very Long History
We know from scientific evidence and calculation that Africa is among
the oldest of the world's continents,and that it was there that humanity
first evolved before spreadingout acrossthe world. Through countlessforgotten centuries,modernAfrica's remote ancestorsdevelopedall the variations of appearance,of skin colour, of ways and beliefs in everyday life.
However ancient in its origins, much of this story is new in our western
world of today. Up to quite recentyears, the world knew little or nothing
aboutAfrica's extraordinaryhistorical development.It has beenmistakenly
believedthat the peoplesof Africa have had no history of their own development. Therefore,it was said and widely believedthat Africa's peoplesmust
somehowbe inferior in their nature and capacitiesto other peopleswho
do have that kind of history. This false belief has been one of the basesof
the myths and misunderstandingsof various kinds of racism.
Especiallythrough the pasthalf-century,the progressof modernscholarship and researchhas underminedall such myths, and has brought to
light the realities underlying human evolution. This notable progresshas
been rightly hailed as one of the great liberating influences of our time.
New sources of knowledge have made this progress possible. Scientific
archaeologyis one of these new sources.A fresh look at old books and
records is another. A third, no less important, has been finding out what
Africans think or rememberabouttheir past development.
This book is therefore about the political and social history, in precolonial times, of the vast and famous region of Africa known by historical
and conventionalusageas West Africa. Coined in Europe by Europeans,
this old regional name has no exact geographicalmeaning. It is simply a
handy term for all the lands (and the offshore islands) betweenabout 20°
of latitude north of the equator down to the West African coast, and
eastwardto about 15° of longitude.
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3
West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
0
1500 km
Copyright © 1998. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
.MatJ .1 . 1 W cst Africa.
In another summary and familiar usage, the huge area known as
West Africa is south of the SaharaDesert, although here again there is no
exact meaning, for where does the Saharabegin and end? The old Arab
geographershad more logic when they coined a namefor the broad belt of
territory where the true desert of the Sahararuns into and enclosesthe
beginning of the grasslandplains: they called it the Sahel, and this term,
meaning 'shore', is still sometimesused today.
In this quite arbitrary but generalway, all the lands of North Africa,
meaningthose borderingon the Mediterraneansea, are omitted, although
these have had countlesslinks with West Africa since desert travel first
beganseveralthousandyears ago. Eastward,the old label again runs into
4
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R.
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Copyright © 1998. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
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West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
trouble, for where does West Africa end and East Africa begin? Convention disagreeswith itself here, and compromisesometimesawardsimportant countriessuch as Camerounto West Africa, and sometimesnot.
No doubt these definitions will continue to change as history proceedsalong its way. The famous West Africa news magazine,now in its
sixth decadeof publication, still moves with the times and already does
homageto relatively new pan-African loyalties and interestsby allocating
weekly sections to other African regions. But for our historiographical
needsit will be best to stay with the old definitions of West Africa while
recognizingtheir limitations.
While geographicaldefinition remains fuzzy and illogical, that is not
true of its temporal application. What we are concernedwith in this book
is not the whole of West African history but with large and important
periods before about AD 1850: before, that is, the onset of the European
imperialist invasions and dispossessionsof the nineteenthcentury. For a
while, after those invasions, Africans were dispossessedof the right and
possibility of making their own history.
This impact of the outside world, meaning essentially Europe and
North America, was profound and enduring. Intentionally or not, it carried Africans into a world greatly different from their own world of precolonial times. Yet that old African world retainedits influence and value,
for Africans are the children of their past as much as any other branch of
humanity. In the caseof West Africa, accordingly,it can make no senseto
study the situation and events of today without first understandingthe
long and eventful centuriesthat came before the colonial dispossessions.
This is why the history in this book has a necessarilypowerful value
for understandingthe history of today. Its long and wonderfully varied
record opensthe doors on centuriesof pastachievement.The story of West
Africa in historical terms has formed a central part in the taming of this
enormousand difficult continentfor the benefit of humankind.But for the
Western world in particular, the story of West Africa has a very special
significance. For it was from West Africa that the ancestorsof most of
America's black peoplecame acrossthe Atlantic Oceanto settle and work
in the New World.
While addressingthe history of West Africa in the centuriesbeforethe
Europeaninvasionsand dispossessions
of the nineteenthcentury, it will be
helpful to standback from recentcenturiesand consider,briefly, the distant
origins and remotebeginningsof humanityin this grandly productiveregion.
How many people, and how did they live?
Taking Africa as a whole, and summarizinga massof more or less scientific data, we can say that the whole humanpopulationof Africa during the
6
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A Very Long History
Early Stone Age - up to, say, about 50,000 years ago - had managedto
grow in size to perhaps200,000persons.No matterwhat the exactnumber
may have been- and the figure here derives from various calculationsor
guessesas to the numbers of humanscapable of self-sustainmentbefore
the times of any systematicagriculture - humanity remainedrare and its
stability more than fragile. The total is only an estimate,but useful.
Theserare communities,spreadacrosstheir vast continent,nonetheless survived and, very gradually, set about the challengeof taming their
lands for human advantage.They left few or no recordsof their presence
outside the narrow scope of archaeologicalremains, but our scientific
linguists of today consider from their researchesthat these early peoples
developed several distinct 'mother tongues' which, in time, became the
'distant parents'of Africa's principal languagegroupings, of which three
- namely, Congo-Kordofanian,Nilo-Saharanand Afro-Asiatic - were to
acquire dominant significanceand developmentalvalue.
But they acquired this significance and value in a very distant past.
Most West African languagesseparatedfrom their 'parents'an immensely
long time ago. Emphasizingthis 'time-depth'in a memorablelectureof 1964,
the American specialist,Robert G. Armstrong, opined that 'the language
ancestralto the Niger-Congofamily of languages',sometimesreferred to
as Congo-Kordofanian,'cannot have been spokenmore recently than ten
thousandyearsago'.1This indicatesjust how ancientis the processof diversification in African languagegroups.
As these early peoples multiplied and spread across the untamed
lands,they increasedin numbers;and as they increasedin numbers,so also
did their cultures begin to vary and endlesslydivide into new identities. So
the scientific linguists tell us, if with due warnings against the dangersof
oversimplification,that by the time Africa was enteringthe Late StoneAge,
around 3,000 years ago (and none of these numbers must be taken too
literally), there were in Africa perhapsthree to four million people speaking 37 distinct African languages;and, of these, half or more inhabited
West Africa south of the SaharaDesert.
All these various communities,however divided by the processesof
cultural diversification, may be reasonablysaid to have evolved broadly
commonways of life in a multitude of local variants dictated by a correspondingmultitude of ecologicalnecessities.The so-called'ethnic' hostilities
or outright conflicts of our own time (or indeedany other time) have been
the product of one or other rivalry for some real or imagined local gain.
That is why the majority of such conflicts have been short-lived and eventually resolved. It remains, at the same time, that territorial 'safety and
possession'becamefactors of generallypersuasiveinfluence even if frontiers
1
R.G. Armstrong, The Study of West African Languages(Ibadan University Press,1964).
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7
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West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
betweencommunities- and eventuallybetweenorganizedstateformations
- remained in the forefront of consciousness.One needs also to bear in
mind, in consideringall suchmatters,the binding force of ecologicalhazards
and barriers in the form of tropical forests, deserts,and the like.
And so it continued as Africans improved their skills and farming
under sub-tropicaland tropical conditions;and the great project of taming
Africa for human benefit went forward in gradual but stubbornsteps.The
next greatadvancein the masteringof Naturecameafter about600 BC, with
the developmentand spreadof the basic technologiesof metal production
and the forging and smithing of metal tools, notably in iron. In West Africa
this crucial forward step was well installed in severallocalities - one, for
instance,in the Benuevalley (of modernNigeria), and anotherin the upper
regions of the Niger river - and the developmentof metal technologycontinued with the local evolution of types of forced-draughtfurnace and the
comparabletechnologiesof forging and smithing iron. At the same time,
populationnumbersand their diversification into different cultural and linguistic groupingscontinuedas before. The whole grandproject of populating and inhabiting this 'empty continent'had long since becomeone of the
outstandingsuccessesscored by humanity in theseearly stagesof growth.
Progressin African metallurgical skills, locally invented and locally
developed, continued after about 600 BC through centuries labelled by
historiansas the African Iron Age; and it is this Iron Age that has given us
the bulk of the historiographical record we examine in this book. The
whole period of the Iron Age, continuing in one or other degreeof innovation until very recent times, is immenselyrich in its human drama, while
the conquestof Nature moved from one stageto another,with successive
generationsbuilding, againstwhateversetbacksand disasters,on the cultures of their ancestralforebears.And it is in this complex but nonetheless
coherentand understandableprocessof diversification from common origins that we shall be able, with patient research,to perceivethe origins of
Africa's self-civilizing achievement,and come to grips with the cultural
values of Africa's self-evolvedhistoriography.
Here is where we can find the keys to elucidating otherwiseopaque
questionsof mood and temper, or trace the source and spur of African
attitudeswhich, for instance,have stubbornlycombineda firm respectfor
precedent- for 'what our parentsdid before us' - with the restless,onwardshifting readinessfor experimentthat has markedall pioneers,everywhere,
who have pushed 'beyond the known frontier' to where anything may
becomepossibleas long as humancourageand endeavourare readyto make
it so. The recordsof African history - of West African history in our study
here - are copious and insistenton the side of customand convention;but
they are also strong on the side of new initiative. The rules for successful
community life, we see,are there and are well recognized.But the changes
and chancesof fate may at any time overturn them; and then a person
8
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A Very Long History
must be ready to changecourseor shift response,no matter what the precedentsmay say or the traditional customsmay advise.
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Ideas and beliefs
Among the keys we can use to understandthe ideas of ancient peoples
are thoseof religious or spiritual belief. Modern historiography,nourished
by a vast quantity of scholarly researchinto the ethnographyof ancient
peoples,has recognizedthe centralimportanceof their conceptsof spiritual
power. This is difficult and controversialgroundto cross.But we can take,
for a safe guide, the nature of these ancient and evolving communitiesas
they grew out of the mysteriesof the Stone Age, came to grips with the
realities of food production (as distinct from mere food collection) in the
Iron Age, and built new kinds of community.
What emergesfrom the recordsof research,centrally, is that all these
peoplesawardedsupremepower to an idea of God as controlling everything and everyone,but doing this indirectly through subordinatespiritual
powers.From this governingconceptthey derived- in a multitude of various
ways of explanation-a ruling morality for everyday life: the power of
God, they held, would always reward right behaviour and punish wrong
behaviour. And from this morality they went on, again in a multitude of
different elucidations,to conceivethe instrumentsthat spiritual power might
use in fashioningrewardsand punishments.Theseinstrumentswere largely
those of magical or quasi-magicalpower: the power of sorcery or witchcraft. Here once more is a subject of great complexity. The central fact is
that the all-compelling morality of thesestructuresof behaviourrested in
its ability to reward good social behaviourand to punishthe opposite;and
thesepowerswere exercisedaccordingto well-understoodrules and maxims.
These ideas and beliefs, as we shall see, went together with inbuilt
expectations,hopeful or otherwise, as to how people would behave in
practice. When the Barotse of the Upper Zambesivalley, far into central
Africa, createdtheir rules for social behaviourthey very carefully allowed
for the conviction that personswith power over other people- chiefs and
the like - would abuseor misusethis power unlesspreventedfrom doing so.
They accordinglycounterposedeachpower-positionwith anotherdesigned
to limit the damage.The notion that pre-colonial society was a kind of
free-for-all in which any person with power could exerciseit in any way
that he or she might wish is denied in our records; and the case of the
Barotse, so well studied by Max Gluckman and his colleagues,affords
obvious and yet by no meansunique evidenceof this.2
2
Notably in M. Gluckman,The Ideas in BarotseJurisprudence(Yale University Press,1965).
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9
West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
We can think of pre-colonialAfrica's humanity, in short, as occupying a kind of spiritual battlegroundbetweenthe ideas of Good and Evil.
And in all this we have to make some effort to imagine the state of mind
of pioneeringpeoples,migrating ever more distantly into unknownterritories, as they met the difficult challengesof survival and development,and
devisedtheir practical and spiritual responsesto them.
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Climatic changeand disaster
Meanwhile, through early centuries,somepoints of decisivechangecan be
perceived.Early forms of civilization took shapein the spaciousand wellwateredgrasslandsand prairies of what afterwards- from about 2000 Be
onwards - were to becomethe arid wilderness of the SaharaDesert we
know today. These prairies becamethe focus of a New Stone Age that
developedin the fifth and fourth millennia before the Christian era. The
high point of this developmentsaw the emergence,in about 3500 Be, of
the splendid kingdoms of ancient Egypt.
But this whole epic of civilizing developmentin Egypt was accompanied by a climatic disasterwhich had great consequences
for the wider
developmentof Africa itself. From about 2000 Be there came a gradual
changein the climate of the whole of this part of the world. From being a
vast region of good rainfall and wide rivers flowing all the year round, the
grasslandplains of what is now the SaharaDesertplungedinto a fatal and
soon permanentdryness.The rains failed, the rivers dried up, the pastures
turned to sandand stone.The peoplesof theseprairies were forced to find
new homes,some to the north of the Saharaand others to the south. To
the north of the desert the land of the Pharaohs,who ruled Egypt, continued to prosperand make progress.In scienceand arts this splendidcivilization outmatchedall rivals. The tragedy for Africans was that the huge,
harsh desertsof the Saharalay betweenEgypt and the rest of Africa.
Yet the 'cut-off' betweennorthern Africa and the vast lands to the
south of the SaharaDesertnever becamecomplete.As we shall see,nomad
travellers and traderscontinuedto find their way acrossthe Sahara.Their
chief trails becamewell known, even though great courageand endurance
were required in order to use them. One of thesechief trails, the western
one, joined Morocco in North Africa to the grasslandsof the western
Sudan. This was not the country we know nowadays as the Sudan, in
north-easternAfrica. In Arabic, ever more widely used in North Africa
after the Muslim Arab conquestsof the seventhcentury AD, the country
south of the Saharawas simply the Bilad as-Sudan,'the SouthernCountry'. Another famous trail, much further to the east,led from what is now
Tunisia acrossthe Hoggar mountainsto the middle reachesof the River
10
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A Very Long History
Niger. Wells were dug along these trails; villages and towns sprangup in
the oasesthat wells made possible.Here in theseoases,once again, farming becamepossible,and some fruits could flourish, such as dates.Meanwhile, methodsof transportimproved and the horse or donkey gave way
to the camel from Arabia, widely usedfor deserttravel and transportfrom
about 2000 years ago. Having broaderfeet, the camel could move better
over sand, and it could walk much further without water than the horse.
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Farming and the beginning of the Iron Age
Meanwhile the peoplessouth of the Saharacontinuedto developand grow
in number, as we know from archaeology.And these early peoples,very
simple in their lifestyles as they may have been, possessedthe keys to the
future. They had already discoveredhow to grow food, as well as merely
collecting or gatheringedible plants. Now, severalcenturieslater, camethe
next greatdiscovery.And this development- or seriesof relateddiscoveries
- was to presideover the birth of the world we know today. As we have
seen,they developedand exploited the use of metals,but above all of iron,
for the making of tools and weapons. They initiated what historians,
looking back on its achievements,have called the Iron Age.
The Ancient Egyptians had made bronze but not iron (save in very
small quantities). Now it was found in the grasslandcountries south of
the Saharathat iron ore was plentiful, and ways of smelting of the ore to
obtain the iron from it were developed.Then new inventionsor skills were
usedto forge the iron into tools. Gradually, archaeologistshave pinpointed
the places where the African metal-workers of the Iron Age developed
their inventions. One of thesecentresof early iron-making was at Meroe
on the Middle Nile river. At that time, around 500 Be, Meroe was the
capital of a powerful kingdom - the kingdom of Kush. Another was in the
region of the confluenceof the Niger and Benue rivers, in Nigeria. Here
was the centre of the Nok Culture, so named by archaeologistsfrom its
people'sskill in making clay sculptures.
Other such centres of early iron-making have been traced to other
parts of West Africa, but also right acrossthe grasslandbelt of country to
easternand then to southernAfrica. The surprising truth is that once the
necessarytechnologieshad been developedand used, these technologies
passedfrom one Late StoneAge people to anotherin the courseof only a
few centuries.Inventing and adaptingthese technologies,African peoples
of long ago were able to masterthe harshwildernessof their continentand
make it fit for human settlementand even for prosperity. This 'taming of
a continent' through centuriesof early human developmentcomposed,in
the courseof time, one of the grand achievementsof early history. In that
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11
West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
Th8 Nok CuitUtU
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Copyright © 1998. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
Map 1.3 The Nok peoplelived in the areashown, and fragmentsof their work, in
the shapeof clay figures and other objects,have been found at the placesmarked.
period, Africans stood at the forefront of progress,and only the ancient
Chinesecame near them.
The revolutionary importanceand value of iron - far tougher than
the bronzethat Ancient Egypt had made and used- were so great that the
reasonsfor this value need some thought. A first reason was that it gave
West Africans better weaponsand tools. Iron-pointed spearswere more
useful than sharp sticks or stones. Iron-headedhoes, probably invented
some time after iron-pointed spears,were better than stone or wooden
ones. Iron-headedaxes could fell trees and shapewood much better than
stone or bronze axes.
These improvementsin equipment made it possible to grow a lot
more food. Having more food, peoplelived betterthan before.They became
more numerous.But more people neededmore farming land. Here lay a
secondreasonwhy iron was important, and why its use markedthe opening
of a new stageof development.With iron spearsand iron tools, Africans
12
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A Very Long History
could attack some of the great natural barriers of their continent. They
could penetratethe deepforests,opennew trails, defendthemselvesagainst
wild animals,and generallymove aboutwith more safety.Thereare grounds
for thinking that the Early Iron Age people of West Africa sent out many
groups of wanderers,of migrants who moved from one homeland to a
new one, through the forests of the Congo Basin and other distant lands.
Iron also brought, from about 600 Be onwards,a new sourceof military power. Those who first learnt to use it were able to rule their neighbours, especiallyif they also succeededin keepingthe secretsof its making
to themselves.Strongerpeoplesbeganto rule weaker peoples.
And as people grew more numerous,there came a need to find new
ways of ensuring law and order. Little by little, many peoples in West
Africa began forming themselvesinto states. Men began to feel the need
for organizedgovernment,and in this respectthe great Egyptian precedent
was again of new importance.
There were various reasonsfor this. With iron tools there could be
more and better farming. With more farming there began to be enough
food to maintain specialistswho worked at making tools, weaponsand
other hand-madethings. This division of labour encouragedtrade, at first
local and then long-distance,by producing a wide rangeof goods.All this,
together with the growing size of populations, required more complex
forms of political organization.
Early stateswere simple in their governmentcomparedwith thosewe
know today. Somewere ruled by a single chief or king and his counsellors.
Others were governedby a council of chiefs or elders. Others again were
formed by several neighbouringpeopleswhose chiefs were bound in loyalty to one another. Elsewhere,at the same time, there were people who
found it better to get along without any chiefs. Traditional groups such
as clans, families descendedfrom commonancestors,or age-setsof people
born at about the sametime, had influence in theseearly states,as in later
times, becausethey could underpina systemof law and order. Of courseit
is important to rememberthat no one kind of state or community is more
to be admired than another. A people with a strong central government
was not necessarilymore intelligent than anotherpeople who had no such
government.The reason why there were different kinds of states, some
with kings and some without, was that people lived under different conditions and faced different problems.They had to solve theseproblemsin
different ways.
The possibilities of trade were important in deciding what kind of
stateswere formed. Most peopleswho lived on the main routes of developing trade tended to form themselvesinto stateswith a central king or
government.One important reasonfor this was that taking part in longdistancetrade called for the kind of united decisions,especiallyon conditions of purchaseand sale of goods,that a king or centralgovernmentcould
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West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
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besttake. But other peopleswho lived far off theseroutes,and so had little
interestin trade, tendedto acceptmuch looser forms of rule. They carried
on living by the old family and clan customs of earlier times. All this
belongsto the history of Africa's Iron Age, beginningin about 600 Be and
continuing down to the threshold of modern times.
At this point the records of archaeologyand of surviving tradition
becomesufficient to enable outlines of history to be written; and we see
the gradual unfolding of early West African social structures.The general
frameworksof that society becomeever more clear. West Africans are seen
to have been living, from some 2,000-3,000years before the present,in
recognizablydistinct cultural groupings. They evolved forms and ideas of
self-governmentthat are clearly ancestralto those of later historical times,
and evento thoseof today. As we shall seefrom the recordsthat historians
have been able to refine and assemble,West African life has long ceased
to be predominantlyrural. Early settlementsdevelopednetworks of neighbouring villages or hamlets, while in some naturally advantagedregions,
such as the confines of the broad valley of the great Niger river, village
settlementsgrew into towns. There is plenty of evidencethat these early
towns had strong, coherentintercommunication,but the crucially developmental arts of writing, and thus of non-oralinterchange,would appearonly
in later centuries,and then outsidethe influence of Ancient Egypt, through
borrowing from Arabic-speakingneighbours.
All this has composeda rich and complex record. Our book here
attemptsto portray and explain some of the principal and decisive phases
or stagesof this West African history, concentratingon its main features
while conveying some of its centrally decisive initiatives.
14
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Chapter 2
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The Emergence of Trading
States and Empires
Overleaf
Terracottahead from the Nigerian Nok culture, which flourished more than 2000
years ago. (Werner FormanArchive)
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The Emergence of Trading States
and Empires
As we leave the beginningsof our history, sourcesof historical information
steadily improve and widen, partly from the recording work and skills of
the archaeologistsof the past 100 years, and partly from the uneven but
importantrecordsof Arab or Arabic-writing scholarssince aboutthe eighth
century AD (the second century of the Islamic era). The pace of human
developmentcan be seento quicken. A vivid picture of developmentover
a long period of time begins to be available.
What has to be held centrally in mind is that this gradual mastering
of a huge and often naturally hostile continent was a notable success.By
the early centuriesof the first millennium AD, African farmershad developed
their techniquesof tropical agriculture with repeatedsuccessand innovation, including important advancesin ferrous technology. They had also
developeda correspondinglyappropriaterange of cultural conceptsthat
could and did reinforce the self-confidenceand senseof corporatesurvival
among these pioneeringpeoplesin lands never yet occupiedby humanity.
All this enabled them, often with success,to meet new challengesfrom
Nature and from the problems of living in community.
BetweenaboutAD 800 and 1600, or thereabouts,West African communities grew more numerous,developednew and more effective ways of
enforcinglaw and order, and evolvednew ways of self-government.Emerging cities grew in size and number, and in the wealth they could use and
command.Specializedskills evolvedwith new kinds of craftspeople,politicians, priests, writers and men of learning. With their export and import
tradesservicing wider areas,trading cities and statesgrew into a valuable
and much admired network of commercethat reachedacrossthe whole
of westernAfrica and crossedthe Mediterraneanto southernEurope. The
wider world beganto hear about West Africa and its peoples.
Thesepeopleswere the forebearsof those that live there today. Differing amongthemselvesin languages,customsand beliefs, they nonetheless
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17
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West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
all sharedthe samekind of history becausethey also sharedthe samekind
of country: rolling plains or prairies dotted here and there with great
baobabtrees or shoulder-highthorn bushes,and watered by several big
rivers, the greatestof which is the Niger, and their tributaries.
The namesof thesepeoplesremainwell known in West Africa today,
if otherwise much forgotten: the lordly Soninke along the banks of the
Senegalriver, the ingeniousMalinke and their dyula specialistsin the arts
of trade, the devoutly independentDogon on their hillside cliffs, the warrior Akan and their Y oruba and Igbo and other neighboursof the coastal
forests,and, still famous,the Wolof of the far westernlandsof Takrur, who,
later on, first had to outface and out-manoeuvrethe incoming Portuguese
and other seafaringEuropeansbringing, as thesedid after about AD 1500,
the perils and brutalities of an entirely new Atlantic trade in the export of
African captivesforced to serve as slaves.
All are present on our journey through this history of half a continent: priests and farmers, singers of heroic ballads, namelessmen and
women grappling with the demandsand dangersof building new societies
where none had existed before. Much of their hopesand deedscannot be
told here, for the story would be too long. As the Imam Ibn Fartuasaid of
the deedsand hopes of the unforgotten Mai Idris Alooma, sultan of the
famous kingdom of Kanem four centuriesago: 'We have mentionedvery
little, passingover much from fear of being lengthy and verbose.But the
sensiblereaderwill understandthat beyond the streamthere is the sea.'l
These peoples had their own names for their countries. The word
'Sudan'cameinitially from the Arab or Egyptian tradersin theselands. It
came into general use when the Berber-speakingpeoplesof North Africa
began to adopt Arabic after the Muslim conquestsin the eighth century
AD. For them the grasslandssouth of the great desertbecamethe Bilad asSudan,the Country of the Blacks; we call them the WesternSudan.These
trading Berberswere intensely interestedin the unknown country beyond
the empty plains of the Sahara.They sent down trading expeditionsand
went into partnershipwith peoplesof the west. In the courseof time, leading peoplesbeyond the Saharabecamestrong enoughto form large states
and even empires.
Little was known or understoodin Europe about this process of
African state-formation.It was believed by Europeanhistoriansthat nothing new was done in distant Africa unless it was brought by Europeans
and their inventions. So it was thoughtthat the big empiresof the Western
Sudanowed their origins to the tradersof North Africa, who in turn had
taken their progressfrom the tradersof Europe. Modern archaeologyhas
shown these ideas to have been wrong. In 1977 excavationsby the US
j Ahmad ibn Fartua,History of the First Twelve Years of Mai Idris Alooma (aboutAD 1575),
trans. and ed. by H.R. Palmer (Lagos, Nigeria, 1926).
18
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The Emergenceof Trading Statesand Empires
archaeologistsSusanand Roderick Mcintosh at the site of an ancient city
called Jenne(now within the new republic of Mali) showedthat this city,
today a humble town on a tributary of the great River Niger, had become
a settlementof iron-making and iron-using people as early as the third
century Be, long before any such activity and enterprisewas thought to
have existedthere. This settlementat Jennegrew and prosperedacrossten
centuries; above all, as the evidence of the Mcintosh excavationsamply
demonstrated,as a centreof inter-regionaltrade acrossthesewide grasslands.
It evolvedits own internal dynamic of civilizing development,in other words,
long before the traders from North Africa had brought their influence.
Jennereachedits greatestearly developmentafter AD 750, by which time
the housingwithin its walls coveredmore than 33 hectares,a considerable
size for an urban settlementof those times.2
At about the sameperiod, notably in the 1960s,archaeologistswere
able to show that metal-makingpeoples of the Lower Niger region had
also developedstableand importanttradesin bronzeand copper,and then
in iron, much earlier than Europeanshad previouslythought possible.This
was confirmed by startling resultsfrom excavationsundertakenby the British archaeologist,ThurstanShaw, and publishedby him in 1970.3 Bronze
vesselsof a wonderful ingenuity and technicalskill were found to datefrom
as early as the ninth century AD, showing once again that these trades,
and their many consequences,
were the product of unknown early cultures
dependenton the regional stimulus of strongly local development.
From these early times, gold and ivory had been the West African
productsmost in demandby the Berber traderswho were still able to cross
the Saharaafter its desertificationbecamesevere.Trans-Saharantrade in
these itemshelped to build the comfort and splendourof Phoenicianand
Roman cities on the Mediterraneancoast, such as Carthage,Leptis and
Sabratha.But the big and continuousexpansionin the trans-Saharanlongdistance trade came after the Muslim conquestsof North Africa which
took place in the eighth century AD.
This was a tradeto everyone'sadvantage.The peoplesof West Africa,
for example,had one great needwhich the peoplesof the Sahara,or those
beyondthe Sahara,could help to supply. This was salt. It is probably true
that salt was no less valued by the peoplesof West Africa than gold was by
the peopleswho lived to the north of the desert.
So the basis of trade betweenWest Africa and the Berbers of the
Saharaoaseslay in the exchangeof salt for gold. But this was only the basis
of trade.The whole systembecame,with time, much wider, for the Saharan
Berberssold the goodsthey boughtfrom West Africans to the Arab traders
R.J. and S.K. McIntosh, 'The inland Niger delta before the empire of Mali', Journal of
African History 22 (1981), p. 1.
3 ThurstanShaw, Igbo-Ukwu (EasternNigeria) (London, 1970).
2
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West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
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of North Africa, and the tradersof North Africa in due coursesold them
againto Europeansand Asians. Europeanand Asian goodseventuallycame
down into West Africa by the samemethodsof exchange.
Many other items were tradedbesidesgold and salt. West Africa, for
example,also neededcopper,silks, and more metalware(such as pots and
pans and swords) than West Africans could make themselves.West Africa
also supplied ivory and kola nuts. Both sides bought a few slaves.
All this trade helped in the founding of cities. Most of these cities
were especiallyconcernedwith the trade acrossthe Sahara.They beganas
small trading settlements,but grew bigger as more traderscameand went.
They becamecentresfor craftsmenwho worked in leather,wood, ivory and
metals. Then city governmentswere needed,as well as men trained to be
put in chargeof keepingaccounts,of maintaininglaw and order, of looking
after the safety of citizens. Then the rulers of thesecities beganto extend
their power to ever wider regions of the neighbouringcountryside.Gradually the cities grew into states,and the statesgrew into empires.
This long historical process, from trading settlementsto trading
empires,also occurredto the north and eastof the Sahara.Trading settlementsand cities also appearedin the stony lands of the Saharaitself. These
were Berber cities. Some of them are alive to this day: Agades, Ghat and
Murzuk, for example.Others,like Walata and Tichitt, still exist but have
lost their wealth and importance. Others again, such as Audaghost and
Sijilmasa, have entirely disappeared.
The same processof city-founding and empire-buildingwent on in
the grasslandsto the south of the Sahara.Here, too, someof the old cities
of the Western and Central Sudan have disappeared,while others, like
Timbuktu, Gao and Jenne,are still there. And the main businessof these
old cities of the Sudanwas also to conduct the trade that came and went
acrossthe Saharaand was fed by the wealth of West Africa.
Perils of the Sahara
It was always hard and dangerousto conduct this trade. The Moroccan
traveller Ibn Batuta has left a vivid description of how he crossedthe
desertin 1352. He tells how he travelled down from Fez to Sijilmasa,then
one of the greatest of the market-centreson the northern side of the
Sahara.There in Sijilmasa he purchasedfour months' supply of food for
his camels. Togetherwith a company of Moroccan merchantswho were
also travelling to the WesternSudan,Ibn Batuta journeyedon to Taghaza,
a principal salt-producingcentre of the great desert. At Taghaza,he tells
us, 'We passedten days of discomfort, becausethe water there is bitter and
the place is plaguedwith flies. And there, at Taghaza,water supplies are
20
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The Emergenceof Trading Statesand Empires
laid on (by the caravan captains) for the crossing of the desert that lies
beyond it, which is a ten nights' journey with no water on the way except
on rare occasions.'Ibn Batuta continues:
We indeed had the good fortune to find water in plenty, in pools
left by the rain. One day we found a pool of fresh water between
two rocky hills. We quenchedour thirst at it, and washedour
clothes.
At that time we used to go aheadof the caravan,and when
we found a place suitable for pasturagewe would graze our beasts.
We went on doing this until one of our party was lost in the
desert; after that I neither went aheadnor lagged behind. We
passeda caravanon the way, and they told us that some of their
party had becomeseparatedfrom them. We found one of them
dead under a shrub, of the sort that grows on the sand, with his
clothes on and a whip in his hand...
Copyright © 1998. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
Many brave men died on those harsh trading journeys.
The trade continued in spite of all the dangers and difficulties. It
broughtmany changesto all the peopleswho had a part in it. This was the
trade that shapedthe growth of statesand empiresin the WesternSudan,
foremost among which was Ancient Ghana.
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Chapter 3
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Pioneers in Ancient Ghana
Overleaf
Ornamentalheadpendantin brass,depicting anotherearly West African sculptural
skill. (© Copyright The British Museum)
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Pioneers in Ancient Ghana
As the McIntosh excavationsat Jennehave revealed,West Africa's trading
statesin early times arosefrom a long and slow unfolding of farming and
businessdevelopment.But the origins of that developmentare lost to us in
the mists of time. Only with the adventof written recordscan we begin to
see through thesemists that hide the distant past.
Written records of detailed value begin, for West Africa, with the
work of highly educatedscholarsand travellers who were mostly of Muslim Spanishorigin. Of these, the most useful for our subject here was a
writer and researcherof Cordobain the old Muslim Spanishkingdom of
al-Andalus(nowadaysAndalusia).This was Abu Ubayd al-Bakri. For much
of his long life, this remarkableman worked and wrote in the wealthy and
comfortable city of Cordoba and its near neighbour Almeria. He seems
never to have travelled very far himself, but with great determinationwas
always collecting and checkinginformation from others who did.
What al-Bakri especially wanted to know was how people lived in
the then hidden lands of the Western Sudan beyond the wastes of the
SaharaDesert,information always difficult to get and then almost entirely
unknown to Europeans.Happily for us, what al-Bakri learned about the
Western Sudan and its peopleswas set forth by him in a book of prime
historical value, The Book of the Routesand Realms(in Arabic, al-Bakri's
language,Kitab al-Masalik wa'[ Mamalik), which was completedby him
in Cordoba in AD 1068. Historians will not fail to note that this was
just two years after the invasion of Saxon England by the Normans of
France. So the written history of England, substantially,can be said to
have begun around the same time as the written history of the Western
Sudan.
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West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
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The land of gold
The earliestof West Africa's big stateswas namedWagadu,known to the
Berber traders of the Saharanmarket centres as Aoukar. But the world
cameto know it by the title of its king, which was Ghana.North African
and other writers in Arabic beganto mention this importantstateof Ghana
during the eighth century AD. Soon after 770, al-Fazari wrote of it as 'the
land of gold'. In about 830 al-Kwarizmi marked it on a map. And with
al-Bakri, writing two centurieslater, the picture becomesbrilliantly clear.
The heart of this old and famous kingdom lay in its market centres.
Their position, commercially,was a strong one. They stood at the southern
end of important caravanroutes from North Africa acrossthe Sahara.But
they also stood at the northern end of other trading routes which came,
northward, from the gold-producingregion of the Western Sudan. Their
businessmencould obtain gold and ivory from their southernneighbours,
and sell thesegoodsto trans-Saharanand North African businesspartners.
Being powerful in trade,they neededto be powerful in governmentas well.
Their kings succeededin this.
Other, althoughsmaller, trading statesarosealongsideGhana,which
we shall call Ancient Ghanato distinguishit from the quite different modern
republic of Ghana.By this time generally,many peoplesin West Africa had
advancedthrough early stagesof civic development.They and their neighbours built the trading systemsof West Africa, whether here in the grassland country or, southward,in the kingdoms of the West African forest
belt near and along the coast. Theseforest kingdoms we shall visit a little
later. Meanwhile, Ancient Ghanagrew in wealth and strength.
The people who built Ancient Ghana were the Soninke, whose far
descendantslive in the modern republic of Senegal.The Soninke certainly
built an effective state before AD 773, the date of the first North African
referenceto it. It is possiblethat they were traders in this region in very
distant times. A tradition recordedin the Tarikh as-Sudan,an important
history book that was written in Timbuktu in about AD 1650, says that
there were 22 kings of Ghanabefore the beginningof the Muslim era (AD
622) and 22 kings after that. If this were true, it might place the origins of
the Ghanakingdom in about AD 300.
By 800, in any case, Ghana had become a powerful trading state.
Called Wagadu by its rulers, the name of Ghana came into general use
becauseof one of the king's titles, ghana or war chief.! Each succeeding
king was known by his own name,and also by the title of ghana. Another
There are various reasonswhy the modern state of Ghana,though situatedfar away from
Ancient Ghana, has the same name. The most important is that the modern founders of
Ghanawished to celebratethe independenceof their country - formerly the British colony of
the Gold Coast- by linking their new freedom to the glorious traditions of the past.
1
26
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Pioneers in Ancient Ghana
of his titles was kaya maghan.This means'lord of the gold', becausethe
king controlled the export of that preciousmetal.
Nothing is known about the political methodsor history of Ghana
under its early kings. What probably happenedwas that heads of large
2
families or descent-lines
amongthe Soninke,encouragedby the needsand
opportunitiesof the trade in gold and other goods with Berber merchants
of the Sahara,saw an advantagein having a single ruler, so they electeda
king from amongthemselves.This king's duty was to organizethe tradeand
keep good relations with the Saharantraders, as well as acting as senior
religious leader and as representativeon earth of the 'founding ancestors'
of the Soninkepeople.In this way the king gatheredpower. He controlled
the trade within Soninke territory. He made gifts and gave rewardsto all
who servedhim.
Next camean expansionof Soninkepower over neighbouringpeoples
who were also busy with trade: the wider the territory the Soninke could
control, the more prosperousthey would be. By 800, the king of Ghana
was able to make lesserkings or chiefs obey his laws and pay him taxes.
And so the king's wealth increased.With more wealth, he also had more
power. He could commandthe servicesof many descent-lines.He could
raise big armies. He could employ large numbersof messengersand other
servants.He could pay for the needs of a growing empire. All this we
know from al-Bakri's careful account.
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The achievementof Ghana
With the Arab conquestsfrom Arabia in the seventhand eighth centuries,
North African rulers and peoples beganto acceptconversionto the new
religion of Islam, putting behind them the memory and many of the religious beliefs of their aboriginal cultures, including the Coptic Christian
beliefs that had come to them, initially, from Byzantium. Whether by
forced or voluntary conversion,Islam now increasinglyheld sway, although
it would still be many centuries before Islam would become a majority
religion.
Becoming Muslims in the ninth and tenth centuries, many of the
Saharanlong-distancebusinessmenbeganto be madewelcome at the capital town of the reigning emperorof Ghana.But here there was no forced
2 This term will be used often in these pages.A descent-lineor lineage means just what it
says: a line of family descent,through fathers or through mothers,which links one generation
to another,and goes on for severalor for many generations.This meansthat all the successive membersof a descent-linelook back to the same'founding ancestors'.Nearly always,they
reveredtheseancestorsas personsof great authority and power in the world of the spirits.
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West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
conversionto Islam. There beganinsteada long, slow processof cultural
adjustmentto new realities, with the growing influence of Islam being of
courseamongthese.This emperorheld fast to his ancestralbeliefs, drawn
from the ancient culture of the Soninke and their neighbours; but the
advantagesof the long-distanceand trans-Saharantrade easily persuaded
him to allow the Muslim visitors to build and inhabit a town of their own.
The 'town of the Muslim traders'was 10 kilometres away from the
emperor'sown town with its surroundingsettlements.While the latter were
built in the traditional materials of West Africa - hardenedclay, thatch,
and woodenbeams- the most successfulMuslim traderspreferredto build
their housesin stone,accordingto their own customsin North Africa. It is
not known exactly where the capital was when al-Bakri wrote his book. In
the course of Ghana'slong history, the king's capital was undoubtedly
moved from one place to another. But we can add a good deal to alBakri's picture by studying the remainsof Ghana'slast capital, which lay
at Kumbi Salehabout 320 kilometres north of modern Bamako.Here too
therewas a town where the king of Ghanalived, and anothertown nearby
where the Muslim tradershad their housesand stables.At the height of its
prosperity, before AD 1240, this city of Kumbi was evidently the biggest
West African city of its day, and had as many as 15,000 inhabitants or
even more.
So long as they obeyedthe laws of Ghana and paid their taxes, the
traders from the north were sure of safety and hospitality. This was a
partnershipin long-distancetrade that went on for a very long time. Its
safety dependedon the strength of the emperor and his government.
AI-Bakri has left us a descriptionof all that. King Tunka Manin, he wrote,
'is the masterof a large empire and of a formidable power'. So powerful
was this king that he could put over '200,000 warriors in the field, more
than 40,000 of them being armed with bow and arrow'. This was surely
an exaggeration:the real strengthof the Ghanaarmies, as we know from
other North African sources,camefrom their power in iron-pointedspears.
Working from eyewitnessaccountswhich he had receivedfrom Muslim
travellers,al-Bakri describedthe pomp and majestyof King Tunka Manin:
When the king gives audienceto his people, to listen to their
complaintsand to set them to rights, he sits in a pavilion around
which stand ten pagesholding shields and gold-mountedswords.
On his right hand are the sons of the princes of his empire,
splendidly clad and with gold plaited in their hair.
The governor of the city is seatedon the ground in front of
the king, and all around him are his counsellorsin the same
position. The gate of the chamberis guardedby dogs of an
excellent breed.Thesedogs never leave their place of duty.
They wear collars of gold and silver, ornamentedwith metals.
28
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Pioneers in Ancient Ghana
The beginning of a royal meeting is announcedby the beating
of a kind of drum they call debao This drum is made of a long
piece of hollowed wood. The people gather when they hear its
sound...
These old splendourswere long rememberedamong the peoples of
the Western Sudan. As many as 600 years after al-Bakri, a writer from
Timbuktu called Mahmud Kati entertainedhis readerswith the stories of
those ancient days. In his valuable history book, the Tarikh al-Fattash, he
tells how a certain king of Ghanaof the seventhcentury,called Kanissa'ai,
possessed1,000 horses, and how each of these horses 'slept only on a
carpet, with a silken rope for halter', and had three personalattendants,
and was looked after as though it were itself a king.
Theseold legends,magnified and embroideredwith the passingof the
years,also tell how the kings of Ghanausedto give great banquetsto their
subjects,feeding 10,000 people at a time, and dispensinggifts and justice
to all who came. Such stories give an idea of the greatnessof Ghana's
reputationin the years of its power.
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Governmentof the empire
With the growth of Ghana, and of other states like Ghana, the peoples
of West Africa were inventing new methodsof living together,of governing themselves,of raising money to pay for government,and of producing
wealth. Theseways neededa single strong authority or governmentwhich
could rule over many lesserauthoritiesor governments.This centralauthority or governmentcould only, in the thought and customsof the times, be
a king.3
In states like Ancient Ghana, the power of government increased
still further. Important kings becamekings over lesserkings. They became
what are called emperors. At the heart of the explanation of why this
happenedtherewas the growth of internationaltrade. Occupyingthe lands
to the north of the upper waters of the Niger, the old Ghana rulers and
their peopleenjoyeda position of great power and value. Their towns and
trading settlementsbecamethe middlemen betweenthe Berber and Arab
tradersof the north and the gold and ivory producersof the south.
It was this middlemanposition which made Ghanastrong and prosperous.It was this that gave its rulers gold and glory. It was this that paid
Today, of course, a central governmentcan be many things besidesa king. In fact, kings
have almost disappearedfrom the modernworld. They have disappearedbecausethe stageof
social organization, which required kings in the old days, requires them no longer. People
have invented better ways of self-government.
3
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29
West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
for its armies, and made its civilization shine with a light whose dazzling
brilliance we can still glimpse in the writings of al-Bakri. Little by little, the
peopleof Ghanaand their rulers felt the needfor a strong governmentnot
only over themselves,but also over their neighbours,so that they could
ensurepeaceand order throughouta wide region of the Western Sudan.
Only in this way could they make the best use of their middleman position. And at the sametime as they felt this need, they also had the chance
of realizing it. They were skilled workers in iron. They were able to use
iron weaponsagainstneighbourswho generally did not have any.
Their systemof governmentexpandedwith their successin trade. As
it expanded,it becamemore complicated.A king and his counsellorscould
rule over a small country. They could not rule over a large one unlessthey
could also rule through lesserkings and counsellors.Even with the swift
horsesof the WesternSudan,a king's orders would have gone too slowly
through the land, and would not have beenobeyed.So the king of Ghana
neededgovernorswhom he could place in chargeof distant provinces.
In this way there grew up a number of lesser governments,under
lesser kings or governors.These gave loyalty and paid taxes to a central
government.Comparedwith what we have today, all this was a simple
and crudesort of government.Ordinary folk ran many dangers.They were
often bullied or plundered. But the growth and conduct of trade over a
wide region meant peaceand security over this region; and many people
could benefit from this. The formation of Ghana and its growth into a
large empire marked an important stagein social development.
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Revenueand wealth of Ghana
Before leaving this subjectwe should look a little more closely at how the
emperorsruled, maintainedtheir public services,and met the expensesof
keeping law and order. For they establishedways of governmentwhich
appearedagain and again, afterwards,in the grasslandcountries of West
Africa.
Where did King Tunka Manin and the kings who ruled before him
find the wealth to pay many soldiers, and to feed and arm them? Where
did they get the meansto make rich gifts to strangersfrom other lands?
Questionslike these take us back to the economic system of the Ghana
empire. And it is al-Bakri, once again, who gives us answers.He explains
how the rulers of Ghanaused their control of the long-distancetrade.
The ruler of Ghana,al-Bakri tells us, had two main sourcesof revenue,4
of wealth with which to pay for government.These were taxes of two
4
'Revenue'meansthe money or other kinds of wealth that governmentsget from taxes.
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Pioneersin Ancient Ghana
kinds. The first of these was what we should today call an import and
export tax. This tax consistedof sums of money (or more probably their
equal in goods) which tradershad to pay for the right to bring goods into
Ghana, or to take other goods out of the empire. 'The king of Ghana',
wrote al-Bakri, 'placesa tax of one dinar of gold on eachdonkey-loadof
salt that comes into his country'. But he also 'places a tax of two dinars
of gold on each load of salt that goes out'. Similar taxes, higher or lower
in value as the casemight be, were applied to loads of copper and other
goods.5
The secondkind of tax was what we should call a production tax. It
was applied to gold, the most valuable of all the productsof the country.
'All piecesof gold that are found in the empire',saysal-Bakri on this point,
'belong to the emperor'. But this regulation was more than a means of
collecting royal wealth. It was also a way of keeping up the price of gold.
For if the emperor had not insisted on taking possessionof all pieces of
gold, al-Bakri explains,then 'gold would becomeso abundantas practically
to lose its value'.
Ancient Ghana, in short, adopted the monopoly system that is
employedto this day for anotherpreciouscommodity, diamonds.Most of
the diamondsof the world are mined by a handful of big companies.These
companieswork hand-in-handwith each other. They have agreedamong
themselvesnot to put all the diamondsthey mine on the market. If they
did, they would drive down the price, for diamondswould then ceaseto be
scarce;and what is not scarceis not expensive.Instead,the diamondcompaniessell their diamondsin small quantities,accordingto the demandfor
them, so their price stays high. The old emperorsof Ghana did much the
samewith their piecesor nuggetsof gold.
They were able to do this becauseof Ghana'sstrongtrading position.
West African gold was importantto Europeas well as to North Africa and
the Near East. In earlier times Europeanshad obtained the gold they
needed,whether for money, ornaments,or the display of personalwealth,
from mines in Europe or in western Asia. These mines were becoming
worked out at about the time of the rise of Ghana.Where else could Europeansand North Africans obtain gold? Only, as history shows,from West
Africa.
And so it cameabout that the gold usedin North Africa and Europe
was largely supplied,centuryafter century,by the producersof West Africa.
Even kings in distant England had to buy West African gold before they
could order their craftsmento make coins in this precious metal. It was
on this steadydemandfor gold that the statesand empiresof the Western
Sudanfounded their prosperity.
5
The dinar was a gold coin of North Africa.
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31
West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
Ghanabeganthe trade in gold. As time went by, other peoplesbegan
to copy Ghana'ssuccess.When Ghanadisappearedin the thirteenthcentury
AD, its place was eventually taken by another great empire built on the
same foundations and by much the same methods.This new empire was
called Mali. It carried the progressmade under Ghanato a new level of
development.
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The fall of Ghana: the Almoravids
But a long period of confusion came betweenthe fall of Ghana and the
triumph of Mali.
After about 1050, Ghana began to be invaded by Berber warriors
from the north-west, from the MauretanianSahara.These Berbers were
driven by troublesof their own, mainly poverty, into striving for a sharein
the wealth of more prosperousneighbours.Soon after AD 1000 they began
to look for a new meansof livelihood.
The solution they found, as so often in history, took a religious form.
There arose among them a devout and very strict Muslim leader called
Abdullah Ibn Yasin. He establisheda centre of religious teaching,called a
hermitage.He and those who followed him becameknown as the people
of the hermitage,al-Murabethin,or the Almoravids. Gradually, Ibn Yasin
brought the Berber communitiesof the far western lands under his influence.At the sametime his missionariesset aboutthe task of convertingthe
rulers of those statesin far westernAfrica whom they could reach, especially in Takrur (or Futa Toro), and in this they had some success.In
1056, moving northwardsinto Morocco, the Almoravids capturedthe great
city of Sijilmasa, the main northern trading centre for West African gold.
From there they went further to the north, conqueringthe rest of Morocco.
Then they crossedthe Straits of Gibraltar and took over al-Andalus, or
Muslim Spain.
A southern section of the Almoravid movementmeanwhile moved
against Ghana. Its leader, Abu Bakr, put himself at the head of a Berber
confederation,madean alliance with the peopleof Takrur, whom we shall
discuss in a moment, and waged a long war against Ghana. In 1054 he
took the city of Audaghost.In 1076, after many battles, the Almoravids
seizedthe capital of the empire.
But these invaders, like others after them, could not hold the West
African lands they had taken. There was much resistance.There were
many revolts. Abu Bakr was killed while attempting to suppressone of
these in 1087. By this time, however, the Ghanaempire had fallen apart.
Its last kings had authority over only a few of its former provinces,and we
know almost nothing about them. Great changeswere on the way.
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Pioneers in Ancient Ghana
Into Spain
wm
0
MOROCCO
300 600 900 1200 km
Man&keah
'..Sijilmasa
Main invasions by the
Almoravid expansion
Gold bearing areas of
Wangara and Boure
R.
Ni
ge
r
-....
Takrur
r
ige
R.N
Audaghost
GHANA
Diara
Wanqara
Boure
Futa Jallon
Kanqaba
Map 3.1 The Almoravid invasions.
Copyright © 1998. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
The statesthat succeededGhana
In this time of confusion, set in motion by the Almoravid Berbersbut soon
bringing other peoples into action, the Ghanaempire broke up, and some
smaller statestried to build small empiresof their own. One was the state
of Takrur. Another was Diara. A third was Kaniaga. In some of these, a
new name now enters on the scene, that of the Peul (or Pull o in the
singular) whom in English we call Fulani (or Fulah in the singular).
These Fulani were to make severalbig contributionsto West African
history. The biggest of these will be described later on. Meanwhile we
should note that the Fulani were and are a West African peopleof a somewhat different physical stock from most of their neighbours, but who
spoke (and speak) a languagerelated to the languagesof Senegal.
They seem to have originated in the lands that lie near the upper
watersof the Niger and Senegal rivers, and to have sharedtheselands with
peoples like the Soninke who played a leading part in the formation of
Ghana.They appearto have begunas cattle-keepingfarmers,which is what
many of them remain to this day.
When Ghanasufferedthe blows of Abu Bakr and his armies,the Fulani
of Takrur (in the northern part of modern Senegal)becameindependent.
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33
West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
They in turn set out upon the road of conquest.After aboutAD 1200 they
took control of the kingdom of Diara, once a province of Ghana. Their
most successfulleader, whose name was Sumanguru,seizedKumbi Saleh,
then the capital of Ghana,in about 1203. Meanwhileother Fulani andallied
peoplesbecamepowerful in anotherold Ghanaprovince, the kingdom of
Kaniaga.
But this new attemptat building an empire out of the ruins of Ghana
met with no better fortune than the Berber efforts led by Abu Bakr. Two
developmentsbrought Sumanguru'senterprise to defeat. The first was
that the Muslim traders of Kumbi Saleh, Ghana'slast capital, rejected
Sumanguru'soverlordship.For reasonsthat were no doubt partly religious
and partly commercial,they left Kumbi Saleh and travelled northward,to
form a new trading centreat Walata, far beyondthe reachof Sumanguru's
soldiers. Secondly, and more important, in about 1240, Sumanguruwas
challengedby the Mandinka peopleof the little stateof Kangaba,near the
headwatersof the River Niger. The two armies fought each other at a
famous battle, which is still remembered.Sumanguruwas defeatedand
killed. His chiefs and generalsretreatedto Takrur.
Sumanguru'sdefeat openeda new chapter in history. For the little
state of Kangabawas the heart and core of the future empire of Mali. It
was to be the Mandinka peoplewho would now bring peaceand order to
wide regions of the WesternSudan.
Copyright © 1998. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
Summaryof Ghanadates
Some time after AD 300 Origins of Ghana.
Soon after 700
New trade begins with Muslims of
North Africa and Sahara.
About 1050
Ghanaat height of its power.
AI-Bakri describesKing Tunka Manin
(in 1067).
Beginning of Almoravid invasion.
1054
Almoravids captureAudaghost,one
of Ghana'simportant trading towns.
1076
Almoravids capture Ghanacapital
(probably Kumbi Saleh).
About 1203
Sumangurutakes Kumbi Saleh.
About 1240
End of Ghanaempire.
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Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr/
In Emmanuel Akyeampong, Themes in West African History (Ch. 2)
Webb looks at ecological zones in West Africa:
1. Arid grasslands on the Saharan edge- Sahel only animals and plants that
have adapted to the very arid conditions can survive here.
2. The Savanna to the south- grasslands
The woodlands to the south
3. Green rainforests north of the Gulf or Guinea.
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr/
Argues that the environment did not determine the way of life in West Africa.
That, pioneers in West Africa innovated and adapted to their environment.
Identifies major innovations:
1. Tool-making- - clearing, clothing, shelter, storage containers, and weapons.
2. The use of fire- cooked meat, fish , and plants.
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr/
West Africa has diverse faun and flora .
Region characterized by presence of micro parasites-
1). The Tsetse fly- causes a disease called Trypanosomiasis (African sleeping
sickness).
2). Malaria
These two disease influenced human settlement patterns and culture.
Sleeping sickness is endemic throughout the rainforests, woodlands, and
grasslands.
Control-burning bush, habitat for the tsetse fly – the carriers of the disease.
(p. 37)
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr
Malaria dominant in all West African ecological zones:
From the Sahel to the rainforests.
Humans evolved genetic defense
1). Duffy antigen.
2). Sickle-cell- which provide some immunity to the disease.
Downsize- it causes sickle-cell anemia in humans
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr
The First Era
Agricultural innovation-
Initially, pioneers dug up tubers- they choose the best and developed a
genetically modified yam.
6000BCE, They started planting these yams, 1dts millennium BCE, the white
and yellow Guinea yams became staple food crop (p/ 39).
Ecology and Culture in West Africa, James L. A.
Webb, Jr.
In the Sahel and Savanna
4th-3rd Millennium, Experimentation with wild grasses led to the development
of millet and sorghums and wild rice.
Domestication of these crops let to population growth.
Beginning of 1st millennium CE, West African societies well settled.
In the millennium before the common era, new changes occurred:
The camel replace the horses and oxen as principal beast of burden in North Africa
(300-600 CE).
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
o
By 800 CE, camel caravans were regularly travelling across the Sahara (p. 43).
o
The main goods exported were gold and captives.
o
Social and political organization followed to organize gold mining, and the
use of force to protect these goods.
o
This led to growth of empires:
o
Ghana (c.800-1240)
o
Mali (1240-1464)
o
Songhay (1464-1591)
o
Political violence resulted from wars to capture slaves.
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
Introduction of Islam
o In the 7th and 8th centuries Islam
became important.
o Islam conducive to trade.
o Brought Islamic learning.
o Code of Conduct and Belief System.
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
The Atlantic Influence
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade involved slaves.
West African societies had evolved to fill the labor shortage.
Societies divided into dependents and slaves.
In the Trans Saharan Trade, slaves were exchanged for horse, steel (used to
make weapons and farming implements.)
TASL had significant political impact:
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
1). Political impact- states base don slave trade.
2). Military growth- Sell slaves for firearms.
3). Insecurity.
4). Human suffering.
Good effect of TASL
1). Transfer of New World crops with very high caloric yields – corn (maize),
cassava (manioc), peanut (groundnuts), and potato.
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
After
1830s, slave trade abolition of the
TASL, coastal communities now planted
vegetable oil, crops such as the peanut,
palm-kernel, and palm oil.
Led to new gendered division of labor.
Men controlled the cash crops- vegetable
crops.
Women specialize din the grain food crops
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
Colonial Era
Railways and roads constructed to extract crops from the interior.
Some of the crops depleted soil fertility- cotton in the Sahel, cocoa in Ghana
etc.
Benefits
1). Flow of incomes.
2). Introduced European paper currency- replaced cowrie shells and brass
manila currencies.
3). Adoption of global consumerism.
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
Colonial economies practiced pseudo-scientific racisms-
Which assume the inferiority of Africans.
They sought to introduce market forces or use of coercion in agriculture.
Desertification of the Sahara blamed on destructive human land use
practices.
After WWII, the British, French and later their international partners joined
forces to construct large storage dams on major West African rivers:
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
Senegal, Niger, Volta.- water for irrigation and HEP.
Policy adopted “top down”, where Africans were ignored.
Outside “development experts” poured in.
Loss of Global Wildlife habitats
Africans blamed for deforestation
Opening up new land due to population growth.
NGOS, moved in to protect wildlife – World Wildlife Fund for Nature.
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
In Central Africa Republic, they established a police force to protect wildlife
from forest people. –who were thought to be ecologically destructive.
20/21 centuries
Transformation resulting from growth of urban centers.
Railways and roads constructed to move export crops.
Rural-Urban migration- which increased when West African governments
begun subsidizing imported food crops for urban population.
Ecology and Culture in West Africa,
James L. A. Webb, Jr.
Farmers had no incentives to grow food crops for urban settlers
Some moved to cities.
Impact of Urbanization.
1). Children born in cities have no knowledge of rural ways of life and
ecology.
2). Rice flows in from South east Asia,
4). Clothes woven on looms in England, East Asia, and North America.
5). Watch TV- that foods them with new socio-cultural messages.
6). Globalization of West Africa.
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