World Class Education www kean edu AFRICA

World Class Education www. kean. edu

AFRICA IN PRAXIS Jay Spaulding jspauldi@kean. edu

ONLINE SCRIPT The script for this presentation is available for consultation and review at: http: //www. kean. edu/~jspauldi/jlspraxisafrica. html

THE STUDY OF AFRICA “Africana Studies, ” the study of Africa by African people at home and in the diaspora is old “African History, ” as an academic discipline, is new In 1960 in Britain the Journal of African History began I am a second-generation African historian, trained in the United States

AFRICAN HISTORY IS DIFFICULT The field is empirically complex There are many moving parts Many names and concepts are derived from languages unfamiliar to non-Africans Scholars have not established a basic framework for understanding No standard periodization

TWO LESSONS Africa is not exotic Basic concepts and themes are more important than the details

PERIODS AND THEMES Human Origins and Prehistory (10, 000 to 5, 000 years ago) Africans build their own history (5, 000 years ago to 1885) Waves of foreign influence to 1600 Slave trade era (1600 to 1800) Nineteenth Century Colonial era (1885 to 1991) Independence and after (1950 to the present)

AFRICAN ORIGINS First ancestor (10, 000 years ago) Early fossil remains (Toumai, Millennium Man) Australopithecines Homo erectus “Eve” (about 200, 000 years ago)

PREHISTORY Time: 200, 000 to 5, 000 years ago Haven in South Africa (200, 000 to 85, 000 years ago) Colonization of world begins (85, 000 years ago) Mount Tubo (71, 000 years ago) Colonization of world continues

HUMANS VS ANCESTORS? Kinship Speech

ABOUT LANGUAGE Everybody has one native language A community may be defined by language Many community names used by Africanists refer to the speakers of a single language Languages change over time Languages, like people, come in families

AFRICAN LANGUAGE FAMILIES Khoisan Nilo-Saharan Afrasan Congo-Kordofanian Malagasy (came from Asia)

AFRICA BUILDS ITSELF History of Africa similar to elsewhere Sequence of societies invented Each larger in scale than predecessor Greater degrees of social inequality Greater ecological impacts Change driven by population increase Not necessarily a story of “progress”

TYPES OF SOCIETY Band society Lineage society Chiefdoms Early states Empires (old agrarian) City states Nation states

HISTORICAL TURNING POINTS Agriculture (about 15, 000 BCE) The state (began about 5, 000 BCE)

BAND SOCIETY Universal before agriculture Gradually marginalized and suppressed by success of agriculture over the centuries Extinct after World War II

LIFE IN A BAND 30 -50 people Band exogamy Bilateral descent Informal government Hunting and gathering Economy of reciprocity Permissive child rearing 2 -3 hour work day Good health revealed in large stature

LINEAGE SOCIETY Began with agriculture Larger groups Unilineal kinship replaces bilateral Patrilineal kinship (numerous livestock) Matrilineal kinship (few or no livestock) Few lineage societies survived intact But lineage principles formed the basis of all subsequent societies

LIFE IN LINEAGE SOCIETY Seniority: gerontocracy in politics, ancestor veneration after death Harsh child rearing, genital mutilation Reciprocity dominates economics Never peace, but rarely war: armed balance among factions. No government, but very elaborate codes of rules to live by. Ancestors enforce rules by imposing sickness, misfortune upon the deviant

RISE OF CHIEFDOMS Scarcity created competition and hierarchy in many lineage societies Political balance and economic reciprocity gave way to centralized, one-man control over redistribution of the community’s surplus wealth

LIFE IN A CHIEFDOM Hereditary, titled elites appear Markets and trade become common Acquisitive organized warfare Domestic slavery, especially of women and children Competitive labor-organizing “big men”

VISIT A CHIEFDOM The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe can take you on a visit to precolonial Igbo society, which exemplifies the chiefdom. The character of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart personifies the entrepreneurial “big man. ” (Achebe translates the actual Igbo term as “strong man” in his subtitle. ) The character of Ezeulu in The Arrow of God personifies the hereditary, titled elite.

STATE SOCIETY State society was born in chiefdoms A chief became a king by ceasing to redistribute the community’s surplus wealth What a king gathered he kept as taxes With tax revenue he supported a new repressive apparatus of soldiers, bureaucrats and police Many historians LIKE state society, or even equate it with “civilization” You may or may not agree But the PRAXIS exam will probably favor the state over other types of society

CHRONOLOGY OF STATES Pharaonic Egypt (c. 3000 BCE) Nile Valley Sudan, Ethiopia (c. 1000 BCE) Sudanic Region, Zimbabwe (medieval) Western and Equatorial Africa (early modern) Southern Africa (1700 s)

NAMES OF STATES Learn to recognize the names of some African kingdoms Keep them on passive recall Here a number, arranged by region and period of origin PRAXIS may spell the names differently, so be flexible

NILE VALLEY Egypt (Kemet) Sudanese Nile Valley: Kerma (c. 1700 BCE) Kush (700 -300 BCE) Meroe (300 BCE – 300 CE) Medieval Nubia (300 -1400 CE): Nobatia Makuria (or Muqurra) Alodia (or `Alwa) Sinnar (1500 -1821)

ETHIOPIA Old kingdoms (1000 – 500 BCE) Axum (500 BCE – 700 CE) Zagwe dynasty (700 – 1270 CE) Solomonic dynasty (1270 – 1974 CE)

MEDIEVAL STATES Sudanic: Ghana Mali Songhai Kanem Borno Takrur Wadai Baghirmi Dar Fur Not Sudanic: Zimbabwe

EARLY MODERN WEST AFRICA Oyo Benin Asante Dahomey

EARLY MODERN CENTRAL AFRICA Kongo Tio Luango Luba Lunda

SOUTHERN AFRICA Zulu

CAPITALS Each kingdom had a capital where the king and court resided Sometimes the capital was mobile Often it was a permanent city A company town, restricted to government and its servants

EARLY STATES VS EMPIRES Early states based on one ethnic group Kings had to be culturally comprehensible to subjects Spoke same language, worshiped same gods Some states expanded to incorporate numerous ethnic groups, forming old agrarian empires Ethnic diversity freed the emperors from traditional customary constraints on early kings Emperors simplified and rationalized codes of law Often created new religions, or adopted appealing alien ones such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam

NAMES OF EMPIRES? When did an early state become an empire? Often it is debatable Solomonic Ethiopia, Mali and Songhai were unquestionably empires Feel free to add to the list if you wish

CITY STATES A person who makes his or her living through trade is a merchant Merchants prefer a different type of society In olden days, they often created independent self-governing city states

TYPES OF TRADE There are two basic ways of making a living through trade. They are the traveling trade and the hoarding trade Most early merchants depended upon the traveling trade Profit derived from buying something from a place where it was cheap and moving it to sell in another place where it was expensive Trade typically involved luxury items of small bulk and high value In the hoarding trade one buys at a time when something is cheap and resells it later when the price rises Hoarding trade typically involved food grains. City states usually lacked control over an exploitable hinterland

MERCHANTS IN AFRICA In Africa, the merchant vocation was always initially foreign In time, however, many African people adopted the initially-foreign lifestyle Other African societies often found merchants controversial, regardless of the traders’ ethnicity

AFRICAN CITY STATES A chain of city-states developed along the East African coast during Hellenistic times and the medieval period A second group, largely medieval in origin, arose at oases in the Sahara During the slave trade period some city states appeared on the West African coast

SAHARAN CITY STATES Sijilmasa Awdaghost Tadmekka Takedda Walata Ghat Murzuq Awjila Kufra Agadez Bilma Jalo Siwa Jaghbub (There are others)

EAST COAST CITY STATES Aydhab Sawakin Mitsawa Adulis Zayla Berbera Mogadishu Barawa Pate Lamu Manda Malindi Mombasa Kilwa Sofala (There are others)

WEST AFRICAN CITY STATES Dakar Rufisque Goree Freetown Cape Coast Elmina Lagos Brass Bonny Kalabari Douala Luanda

NATION STATES Modern nation states arose when merchant principles took over whole countries The hoarding trade joined traveling trade Older ethnicities were gradually suppressed New national identities were gradually forged Nation states arose first in Europe and North Africa As the modern era advanced nationalism spread widely in Africa and elsewhere The transition into the nation state was often very violent

AFRICAN NATION STATES Morocco (1500 s) Tunisia (precolonial) Egypt (precolonial) Madagascar (1700 s) Swaziland (anti-colonial) Lesotho (anti-colonial) Botswana (anti-colonial) Eritrea (1990 s) Most other modern African nations are recent products of European colonialism

NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONS Tripoli constitution by John Locke Mankessim Constitution Malagasy (i. Merina) codes of law

SUMMARY AND TRANSITION Such was the history created by African people for themselves, when left to their own devices African history resembles everybody else’s history But, Africa was not always left to itself New historical patterns appear if we consider outside influences Outside influences came in waves Here is the story up to about 1600

WAVES OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE TO 1600 Hellenistic (300 BCE to 600 CE) Islamic (600 to 1800) Early Modern European (1400 to 1600)

HELLENISTIC WAVE Place: North Africa from Mauretania and Morocco to Egypt and Sudan; Ethiopia; East African coast no farther than Tanzania Language: Greek Religion: Christianity (Orthodox and Monophysite) Modern Relevance: Christian Ethiopia, Coptic Egypt

ISLAMIC WAVE Place: All of First Wave zone except Ethiopia; the Sahara and Sudanic region; East Africa to include Mozambique Language: Arabic Religion: Islam Modern Relevance: Islamic North, West and East Africa

EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN Place: West coast south of Morocco; East coast as far north as northern Kenya; Madagascar Languages: Portuguese, Dutch Religion: Christianity (Catholic and Protestant) Modern Relevance: Afro-Portuguese communities of Angola, Mozambique, West Africa; Afrikaners of South Africa

THE SLAVE TRADE ERA Slave trade dominated the period from 1600 to 1800 Slavery and the slave trade were not new to the continent at that time But a new form of trade that began in about 1600 changed older systems

BEFORE 1600 Many African societies held slaves (Some did not) A trade in slaves within, into and out of Africa was very old Conspicuous was the importation of European slaves throughout the Middle Ages and on into the early nineteenth century Before 1600 the slave trade did not dominate any society or trading system

1600 TO 1800 The reason for the importance of the slave trade from 1600 to 1800 lay in the demand for slaves in the plantation colonies of the New World Conspicuously the sugar islands of the Caribbean Where millions upon millions of Africans were worked to death. Estimates of the number of African people exported range from 10 to 100 million; 15 or 20 million seems a good guess at present

HOW IMPORTANT? Distributed across centuries in a large and populous continent, the loss of population was very small, and had little direct effect. The slave trade is very important in AMERICAN history, but of secondary or tertiary significance in AFRICAN history.

SOME EFFECTS IN AFRICA Brutalized African life Created new elites New kingdoms based on slave trade (Asante, Dahomey) New diasporas of African slave merchants Whites rarely allowed to leave coast; Africans themselves monopolized procurement and delivery of slaves

PRIMARY EFFECT ON AFRICA Elites committed to trade, not industry See Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

OTHER AFRICAN SLAVE TRADES Islamic trade to Middle East, Indian Ocean trade to Mauritius, other islands

INVASIONS Morocco (Songhai) Portugal (Zimbabwe) Ottoman Empire (Ethiopia) Target: Gold-Producing Empires of Interior Result: Destruction of Empires Result: End of Gold Trade Result: Rise of Independent Merchants Result: Spread of Trade in Arms and Slaves

NINETEENTH CENTURY An unhappy era in African history Effects of “legitimate” trade Crisis in political legitimacy Islamic imperialism

“LEGITIMATE” TRADE End of slave trades abroad Commercial boom in peanuts, copra, palm oil, gum Arabic, ivory, other tropical products Slavery comes home to roost

CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY Upstart slavelord regimes Continual warfare “Islamic reform” and jihad

ISLAMIC IMPERIALISM Two 19 th-century Islamic powers annexed large parts of Africa Spread slavery, violence, Islam Egypt Oman

IMPERIAL EGYPT 1820 conquests begin By 1900, empire reaches south to Kenya, Uganda, Congo West to Benghazi, Dar Fur Ethiopia successfully resists Slaves in army, on plantations, in middle-class households

IMPERIAL OMAN 1830 s Sultan moves capital to Zanzibar Conquers coast from Somalia to the Zambeizi Expands westward halfway across continent Rules modern Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, parts of Mozambique, Zambia, much of Congo-Kinshasa Rwanda, Burundi successfully resist

CONSEQUENCES Over the eastern third of the continent Islamic imperialism reduced people’s ability to resist A new wave of imperialism was on the way at century’s end Colonization by European powers

EUROPEAN COLONIZATION Much of Africa was colonized by Europe During the century from 1885 to 1995 Consequences were profound Let us look in some detail

PERIODS IN COLONIAL HISTORY 1885 to World War I: The “Scramble for Africa” World War I through World War II: Mature Colonial Systems 1945 to 1995: “Winds of Change” Independence to the Present: Postcolonial Challenges

1885 to WWI Era called the “Scramble” (British) or “Steeplechase” (French) for Africa What were the preconditions that made conquest possible? Some were European Others were African

EUROPEAN PRECONDITIONS Capitalism Competition Technology: The Machine Gun Tropical Medicine Steam Transport

AFRICAN PRECONDITIONS Four Centuries of Intimate Contact with Europe African elites Committed to Trade African “Infant Industries” Crushed by Imports Many Regimes Deemed Illegitimate by their Subjects: Little Patriotism (There were exceptions, e. g. Ethiopia, Lesotho)

CONFERENCE OF BERLIN 1884 -1885 Major capitalist powers convene Set guidelines for seizure and division of Africa Without provoking war among European rivals From 1885 to 1914 they did just that Then fought W W I anyway

BASIC COLONIAL POLICIES Division of Africa into strange political units Learn their names, then and now Learn their cities, then and now (Map study single best PRAXIS review tactic)

SUBDIVISION OF COLONIES Creation of “tribes” Creation of “chiefs” Questionable legitimacy of many colonial groups

BASIC IMPERIAL ECONOMICS Each colony must be self-supporting Africans pay for everything (including own conquest) “Pay” means labor Sometimes direct Sometimes indirectly via cash crops

MATURE COLONIAL SYSTEMS Between the World Wars, African colonies set onto several different paths In many cases, modern lands continue to follow these paths

“CINDERELLA” COLONIES Prestige and strategic advantage Little else Impoverished and unviable as nations Avoided atrocity Survival of precolonial culture

“PEASANT” COLONIES Cash crops on family farms Coffee, cotton, peanuts, cocoa New wealth widely distributed Successful modern communities form

PLANTATION COLONIES Agrobusiness rules Rubber, sisal, bananas, sometimes cotton and peanuts Social melting pot, death of cultures Colonial language dominates Spectacular tyrannies and atrocities

MINING COLONIES Precious metals always had priority Demand for cheap labor in gigantic quantities Obliteration of all other modes of livelihood Obliteration of culture

LABOR RESERVOIRS Mines, plantations, demand abundant labor Over wide areas colonial policy obliterates all other modes of livelihood, forcing people to work in mines or on plantations Pro-natalist (American: “Right-To-Life”) policies accelerate population growth Ultimate in modern poverty

SETTLER COLONIES White farms “Native reserves” Coercive apparatus (police, “pass books”) Racist ideology

MIXED SITUATIONS Big, complicated colonies Fit more than one model South Africa, Nigeria, Congo-Kinshasa

AFRICAN INDEPENDENCE 1950 to 1995 Wars of liberation Peaceful transition

WARS OF LIBERATION Libya Algeria Kenya Guinea-Bissau Angola Mozambique Zimbabwe Namibia South Africa

PEACEFUL TRANSITION Neocolonial political elites in power Continuity in economy Continuity in society Close relations with former colonial power

DEVELOPMENT Economic specialization Increase production Problem: “Supply and demand” Problem: debt

DEBT CRISIS 1981 turning point International Monetary Fund “Conditionalities”

MILITARY SOLUTIONS Coups The military in power

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT Corruption Incompetence Unpopularity of authoritarian regimes “Non-Governmental Organizations” Dependency on foreign patrons

CRISES OF LEGITIMACY Ethnic strife (Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone) “Failed states” (Somalia, Chad) AIDS Islamic fundamentalism (Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, Morocco, the Sahara)

CONCLUSION I am happy to discuss any issue, and will try to help answer questions I am best reached via email at: jspauldi@kean. edu THANK YOU!