History of African Local Empires to 1500



Posted: Wednesday, July 13, 2011

by Waniss A. Otman
Department of Economics, University of Aberdeen

The eastern coast of Africa also changed profoundly around the close of the first millenium AD. First, Bantu-speaking from the interior migrated and settled along the coast from Kenya to South Africa. Second, merchants and traders from the Muslim world and India realized the strategic importance of the eastcoast of Africa for commercial trafiic and began to settle there. From 900 AD onwards, the east coast of Africa saw an influx of Shirazi Arabs from the Persian Gulf and even small settlements of Indians. The Arabs called this region al-Zanj, "The Blacks," and the coastal areas slowly came under the control of Muslim merchants from Arabia and Persia. By the 1300's, the major east African ports from Mombaza in the north to Sofala in the south had become thoroughly Islamic cities and cultural centres.

The language that grew out of the mix of Arabs and Bantu is one of the most common and widespread of the lingua franca (a lingua franca is a secondary language that is a combination of two or more languages): Swahili or Kiswahili (from the Arabic word sawahil which means "coast"). Swahili is primarily a Bantu language with some Arabic elements; it is written in the Arabic alphabet. Like the language, the Swahili culture was a mixture of the two cultures, Bantu and Arabic, and we call the civilizations of the African east coast "Swahili" to reflect the hybrid nature of those civilizations.

The Swahili civilizations slowly expanded southwards until they reached Kilwa in Zanzibar (from the Arabic word al-Zanj). Later, Swahili civilization carved out a small territory even further south around Sofala in Zimbabwe. While the northern cities remained localized and had little influence on African culture inland from the coast, the Sofalans actively went inland and spread Islam and Islamic culture deep in African territory.

The major Swahili city-states were Mogadishu, Barawa, Mombasa (Kenya), Gedi, Pate, Malindi, Zanzibar, Kilwa, and Sofala in the far south. These city-states were Muslim and cosmopolitan and they were all politically independent of one another; nothing like a Swahili empire or hegemony was formed around any of these city-states. In fact, they were more like competitive companies or corporations each vying for the lion's share of African trade. The chief export was ivory, sandalwood, ebony, and gold. These cities were also culturally cosmopolitan: they were formed from a cultural mix of Bantu, Islamic, and Indian influences, but commerce brought Chinese artifacts and culture as well as Indian culture.

While the Arabs and Persians were significant players in the growth of Swahili civilization, the cities were run by a nobility that was African in origin (with possible admixture of Persian or Arab blood). Below the nobility were the commoners and the resident foreigners who made up a large part of the citizenry. Like other African Islamic Africa slavery was actively practiced.

These city-states began to decline in the sixteenth century; the advent of Portugese trade disrupted the old trade routes and made the Swahili commercial centers obsolete. The Portugese wanted native Africans to have no share in African trade and busily set about conquering the Islamic city-states along the eastern coast. In the late seventeenth century, Oman then conquered all the Portuguese cities along the coast and the eastern African coast was controlled by the Omani sultanate for another two hundred years.

The single most important development in the history of northwestern Africa was the use of the camel as a transport vehicle. In ancient times, the Egyptians and Carthaginians engaged in just a trickle of commercial trade with West Africa, even though west Africa was rich in gold, precious metals, ivory, and other resources. The reason for this was the imposing barrier of the Sahara, which in Arabic simply means "The Desert." Around 750 AD, under the influence of Islamic peoples, northern and western Africans began to use the camel to transport goods across this forbidding terrain. Camels do several things exceptionally well: they can carry unbelievably heavy loads for impossibly long distances and they can keep their footing on sandy terrain. It was as if someone had invented sand ships and its effect on western African culture was just as profound as if they were sand ships. The most important developments occurred in the Sahel area just south of the Sahara; the Sahel provided southern terminal points for the goods being shipped across the Sahara. The Sahel is a dry, hot area with fertile areas and grasslands; all of the major north African kingdoms grew up in this area: Ghana, Mali, Songhay, and Kanem-Bornu: the Sahelian kingdoms.

Since the Third Punic War, the Romans controlled all the coastline of northern Africa. In the fourth century, however, the Romans gradually pulled out of their northern African provinces and territories. The power vacuum that they left was filled by desert Berbers, an indigenous African people (Saint Augustine, born in Carthage, may have been part Berber). The Berbers were primarily a nomadic people and would eventually play a crucial role in the spread of Islam across northern Africa. In the fifth century, however, they formed a new kingdom, called Ghana or Awkar in an area that is now southeastern Mauretania. This Berber kingdom would form the model from which all the Sahelian kingdoms would be built.

Although it originated in the late fourth century, Ghana only became a major regional power near the end of the millenium. Although the state was originally formed by Berbers, it was built on the southern edge of Berber populations. Eventually the state became dominated by the Soninke, a Mande speaking people living in the region bordering the Sahara. They built their capital city, Kumbi Saleh, right on the edge of the Sahara and the city quickly became the most dynamic and important southern terminus of the Saharan trade routes.

The state was ruled by a hereditary king called the Ghana (this is why we now call the kingdom, Ghana). The kingship was matrilineal (as was all Sahelian monarchies to follow); the king's sister provided the heir to the throne. In addition to military power, the king appears to have been the supreme judge of the kingdom.

Fuelled by its economic vitality, the kingdom of Ghana rapidly expanded into an empire. It conquered local chieftaincies and required tribute from these subordinate states. This tribute, however, paled next to the wealth generated by the commerce of goods that passed from western Africa east to Egypt and the Middle East. This trade primarily involved gold, salt, copper, and even human beings.

The kingdom of Ghana never converted to Islam, even though northern Africa had been dominated by the faith since the eighth century. The Ghanaian court, however, allowed Muslims to settle in the cities and even encouraged Muslim specialists to help the royal court administer the government and advise on legal matters.

The Berbers who had originally formed the state ultimately proved to be its demise. Unlike the Ghanaians, the Berbers, calling themselves Almoravids, fervently converted to Islam and, in 1075, declared a holy war, or jihad, against the state of Ghana. We do not know exactly how this affected the kingdom. In one scenario, the Almoravids destroy the kingdom. In another, the Ghanaians also convert to Islam and join the Almoravids in their attempt to spread Islam across Africa. Nonetheless, Ghana ceases to be a commercial or military power after 1100; for a brief time (1180-1230), the Soso people, who were rabidly anti-Muslim, controlled a kingdom making up the southern portions of the Ghanaian empire, but the Almoravid revolution effectively halted the growth of kingdoms and empires in the Sahel for almost a century.

Ghana was the most powerful empire in Western Africa, but it was not an Islamic kingdom. By the 900's, Muslims controlled most of the desert oases along the commercial routes; because of this economic power, they were able to force the king of Ghana to divide his capital city into two distinct districts, one for Muslims and one for non-Muslims.

The Almoravid movement began among the nomadic Berbers, or Almoravids, living in the desert north of Ghana. They were fervent Muslims and they declared holy war, or jihad, against the kingdom of Ghana. The Almoravids pushed Ghana over the edge, for the kingdom had for a couple centuries been close to collapse because of the spread of the Sahara desert and the overuse of agricultural land. The Almoravids so weakened the Ghanaian empire, that it finally collapsed as individual tribal groups and chieftaincies seceded.

The story of the Sudanic empire, though, still had life in it. In 1224, one of the chief that had seceded from Ghana, attacked the capital city of Kumbi-Saleh and seized the royal family. He didn't last long, though. A mere ten years later, a legendary magician and a royal hostage named Sunjata overcame the usurper and began a new empire: Mali.

The second great Sahelian kingdom was that of Mali. The Sahel is the savannah region south of the Sahara which, after 750 AD, became the center of culturally and politically dynamic cities and kingdoms because of the strategic importance of the Sahel for trade across north Africa.

The first great Sahelian kingdom was Ghana, but the Islamic revolution of the Almoravids, a Berber people living north of Ghana, splintered that kingdom. The Almoravids did not succeed in building their own Islamic kingdom in the region. The Almoravid revolution, however, led to energetic Islamic proselytizing all throughout the Sahel. Many of the ruling families converted to Islam.

One of these ruling families, the Keita, forged the successor to the Ghanaian kingdom, the kingdom of Mali. As with Ghana, Mali was built off of the monopolization of the trade routes from western and southern Africa to eastern and northern Africa. The most lucrative of these monopolies was the gold trade. Mali was located farther south than Ghana; the Malians lived in an agriculturally fertile land. Mali was also locate along the upper Niger river, while Ghana had been located to the west. The bulk of the gold trade proceeded up the Niger river, so this gave Mali a firmer grip on this lucrative monopoly. Mali was not a true empire, but rather the center of a sphere of influence. The territory controlled by Mali comprised three distinct regions: the Senegal region with people speaking Niger-Kongo languages, the central Mande states occupied by Soninke and Mandinke, and the region of Gao occupied by people who spoke Songhay.

The historical founder of Mali was the magician, Sundjata, one of the most legendary figures in African history. Sundjata, who ruled Mali from 1230-1255, began as a royal slave and magician among the Soso who had inherited the Ghanaian empire. According to African oral histories, Sundjata seized the major territories through which gold was traded and so built the foundation off of which Mali would be built. He also introduced into the region the cultivation and weaving of cotton.

The most significant of the Mali kings was Mansa Musa (1312-1337) who expanded Mali influence over the large Niger city-states of Timbuctu, Gao, and Djenné. Mansa Musa was a devout Muslim who built magnificent mosques all throughout the Mali sphere of influence; his gold-laden pilgrimage to Mecca made him an historical figure even in European history writing.

It was under Mansa Musa that Timbuctu became one of the major cultural centres not only of Africa but of the entire world. Under Mansa Musa's patronage, vast libraries were built and madrasas (Islamic universities) were endowed; Timbuctu became a meeting-place of the finest poets, scholars, and artists of Africa and the Middle East. Even after the power of Mali declined, Timbuctu remained the major Islamic center of sub-Saharan Africa.

After the death of Mansa Musa, the power of Mali began to decline. Mali had never been an empire proper, and subject states began to break off from the Mali sphere of influence. In 1430, the Tuareg Berbers in the north seized much of Mali's territory, including the city of Timbuctu, and the Mossi kingdom to the south a decade later seized much of Mali's southern territories. Finally, the kingdom of Gao, which had been subjugated to Mali under Mansa Musa, gave rise to a Songhay kingdom that finally eclipsed the magnificent power of Mali.



After the decline of Mali, the kingdom of Gao reasserted itself as the major kingdom in the Sahel. A Songhay kingdom in the region of Gao had existed since the eleventh century AD, but it had come under the control of Mali in 1325. In the late fourteenth century, Gao reasserted itself with the Sunni dynasty. Songhay would not fully eclipse Mali until the reign of the Sunni king, Sonni Ali, who reigned from 1464-1492.

Sonni Ali aggressively turned the kingdom of Gao into an empire, the Songhay empire. Sonni Ali based his military on a cavalry and a highly mobile fleet of ships. With this military, he conquered the cities of Timbuctu and Jenné, the major cities of the Sahel. The Berbers, who had always played such a crucial role in the downfall of Sahelian kingdoms, were pushed far north.

Sonni Ali was succeeded by Askia Muhammad Touré (1493-1528), who established a new dynasty, the Askia. Muhammad Touré continued Sonni Ali's imperial expansion by seizing the important Saharan oases and conquering Mali itself. From there he conquered Hausaland. In addition, Muhammad Touré further centralized the government by creating a large and elaborate bureaucracy to oversee his extensive empire. He was also the first to standardize weights, measures, and currency, so culture throughout the Songhay began to homogenize. Muhammad Touré was also a fervent Muslim; he replaced native Songhay administrators with Arab Muslims in order to Islamicize Songhay society. He also appointed Muslim judges, called qadis, to run the legal system under Islamic legal principles. These programs of conquest, centralization, and standardization were the most ambitious and far-reaching in sub-Saharan history until the colonization of the continent by Europeans. Songhay reached its greatest territorial expansion under Askia Daud (1549-1582), when the empire stretched all the way to Cameroon. With literally several thousand cultures under its control, Songhay was the largest empire in African history.

While the urban centers were dominated by Islam and Islamic culture, the non-urban areas were not Islamic. The large majority of the Songhay people - around 97% - followed traditional African religions.

Songhay, however, had gotten too large; it encompassed too much territory to control. After the reign of Askia Duad, subject peoples began to revolt even though Songhay had an army of over 35,000 soldiers. The first major region to go was Hausaland; then Maghreb (Morocco) rebelled and gained control over crucial gold mines. The Moroccans defeated Songhay in 1591 and the empire quickly collapsed. In 1612, the cities of Songhay fell into anarchy and the greatest empire of African history came to a sudden close.

Hausalandis in the center of northwestern Africa immediately south of the Sahara desert. Until the 1100's, Hausaland was made up of a number of decentralized agricultural and pastoral villages. However, beginning in the late twelfth century, these villages combined into several kingdoms ruled by partly divine kings. The first of these centralized kingdoms was Daura.

These kingdoms were in close contact with one another since they all shared a common language, Hausa. In the late 1300's, Islam began to filter into Hausaland, but only very slowly and only by means of commercial activities. However, in the 1450's, a group of people from the Senegal River, the Fulani, began immigrating in large numbers into Hausaland. The Fulani immigration was driven by the desertification of north and western Africa; a pastoral people, the Fulani were in search of a land that could support them and their herds. The Fulani were also fervent Muslims, so they not only brough Islam and its books, they also began to set up Islamic schools and learning centers all throughout Hausaland.

The Hausa kingdoms, particularly after the influx of Islam, were closely allied with Kanem-Bornu to the east. Because of the military presence of Kanem-Bornu, the Hausa kingdoms were stable and peaceful.

The Sahel, or the region immediately south of the Sahara desert in central and western Africa, saw four of the greatest African empires. The largest and longest lasting was Ghana, followed by Mali and its successor, Songhay. Near central Africa, however, arose another great empire called Kanem around 1200. Kanem was originally a confederation of black tribes, but by 1100, a group of tribes called the Kanuri settle in Kanem and in the thirteenth century the Kanuri began to conquer the surrounding areas.

They were led by one of the great figures of African history, Mai Dunama Dibbalemi (1221-1259), who was the first of the Kanuri to convert to Islam. Dibbalemi declared jihad, or "holy war," against surrounding chieftaincies and so precipitated one of the most dynamic periods of conquest in Africa.

At the height of their empire, the Kanuri controlled territory from Libya to Lake Chad to Hausaland. These were strategic areas: all the commercial traffic through north Africa had to pass through Kanuri territory. As a result of the military and commercial growth of Kanem, the Kanuri slowly changed from a nomadic to a sedentary people.

In the late 1300's, civil strife within Kanuri territory began to seriously weaken the empire so that by the early 1400's, Kanuri power shifted from Kanem to Bornu, a Kanuri kingdom south and west of Lake Chad. When Songhay fell, this new Kanuri empire of Bornu grew very rapidly. The Kanuri grew powerful enough to unite the kingdom of Bornu with Kanem during the reign of Idris Alawma (1575-1610). Idris Alawma was a fervent Muslim and set about building a Muslim state all the way west into Hausaland in northern Nigeria. This state would last for another two hundred years, but in 1846, it finally succumbed to the growing power of the Hausa states.

The Mwenemutapa or Zimbabweans were a Bantu-speaking people in south-eastern Africa. As with all the Bantu who migrated from central Africa to the south and to the east, the ancestors of the Mwenemutapa brought iron-smelting and agriculture with them to the region south of the Zambezi River. The region was dominated by the Swahili city-state of Sofala; Zimbabwe, however, was rich in gold. Because of the wealth of Zimbabwe and the importance of Sofala as a trading city, the Zimbabweans from 1000 AD onwards were exposed to Chinese, Persian, and Indian crafts and culture. The growing trade encouraged the Zimbabweans to centralize their government. Originally ruled by ruler-priests, the Mwenemutapa developed a military and economic kingship of astonishing power and efficiency.

The first of these centralized states was Great Zimbabwe (Zimbabwemeans "stone enclosure") around 1300. Great Zimbabwe was a fortification surrounded by huge, elliptical stone walls made without any mortar. By 1500, Great Zimbabwe dominated the Zambezi Valley both militarily and commercially (the Mwenemutapa empire); because of this, the new ideas about divine kingship spread throughout the valley and changed the social structures of most of the Bantu people living there.

Great Zimbabwe was so far inland that it never felt the political or cultural effects of Islam during its existence. It is perhaps one of the few African urban culture south of the Sahara to be a fully African civilization, built off of no cultural ideas imported from outside Africa.
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