Sub-Saharan Africa [individual assignment]
Sub-Saharan Africa during the modern period
Songhai
In the 1400s, the West African state of Songhai emerged to take power over the weakened Mali Empire. Its leader, Sunni Ali (ruled 1464–1493), consolidated his empire by appointing governors to oversee the provinces, building a large army, and creating an imperial navy to patrol the Niger River.
Songhai’s most famous ruler was Askia Mohammed, a general who came to the throne by overthrowing the previous monarch (aski, his adopted name, means “usurper”). Between 1493 and 1528, Askia expanded Songhai’s boundaries and created a complex bureaucracy to centralize his power. A builder of many mosques, he used Islam to justify his rule. He expanded trade, and Songhai’s growing merchant class generated wealth by exchanging salt and gold. A fictional account of his reign, The Epic of Askia Mohammed. Is a classic of the West African oral tradition, performed by griot storytellers since the 1500s.
The lucrative trans-Saharan trade flowed through the city of Gao, which brought salt, textiles, and metal in exchange for gold and slaves.
All Songhai emperors were Muslims who supported the construction of mosques, schools, and an Islamic university at Timbuktu. Though Islam served as the cultural foundation of the empire and a key element in establishing cooperation with Muslim merchants, traditional African religious beliefs were not fully abandoned.
Just as Europeans were making inroads into Africa, the Songhai Empire began to lose control of its subjects. The empire went into decline and was defeated by the Moroccans in 1591, made easier by use of firearms by the Moroccans.
Asanti (Ashanti) Empire
In the 1600s and 1700s, other West African societies warred on and imprisoned their neighbours, then sold the captives to European slavers. In particular, the Ashanti (Asante) kingdom, founded by Osei Tutu in 1680, grew immensely powerful because its leaders sold gold and slaves to Europeans in exchange for muskets and gunpowder. The Asanti were more prepared to face invasions due to its highly organized military. Accordingly, the Asanti greatly expanded its territory.
Kongo
In the fourteenth century, the Kongo emerged as a centralized state along the west coast of central Africa. In this organized state, a powerful king ruled, and officials oversaw military, judicial, and financial affairs. In 1482, a small Portuguese fleet arrived and initiated commercial relations, and within a few years the Portuguese had developed a close political and diplomatic relationship with the king. The Portuguese did not conquer Kongo outright, they took hostages and compelled it to enter a long and coercive partnership.
To improve relations, kings like Affonso I converted to and spread Christianity across the kingdom. They took European names and gave Portugal favourable trade terms and the right to use their ports.
Kongo had little choice, but in many ways, its ties with Portugal enriched and strengthened it. The Portuguese brought great wealth to Kongo, exchanging textiles and weapons for gold, silver, ivory, and slaves. Eventually, the Portuguese dealings undermined the king’s authority and led to conflict. With Dutch help, Kongo expelled the Portuguese in the mid-1600s, but fell into disunity and later suffered recolonization/
The Portuguese defeated the Kongo's forces in 1665, and the kingdom never fully recovered.
Ndongo (Angola)
South of Kongo, the Portuguese established a small trading post in Ndongo, or Angola, as early as 1575 for the sole purpose of expanding their trade in slaves from the interior. As a result, Angola grew into a powerful state and when the Portuguese attempted to further exert their authority and control, Queen Nzinga (1583–1663) fiercely resisted. For 40 years, the warrior queen led her troops in battle, studied European military tactics, and made alliances with Portugal’s Dutch rivals. Despite her efforts, in the end, she could not unify her rivals nor overcome the superior weaponry of the Portuguese.
Dutch Boers in South Africa
In the mid-1600s, control of South Africa passed from the Portuguese to Dutch colonists called Boers. Also known as Afrikaners, the Boers enslaved the African herding tribes nearest them, including peaceful Xhosa, and then encountered a stronger and more warlike group, the Zulu. Many wars broke out between the Zulu and the Boers, and later the English, who arrived on the scene somewhat later.
East Africa
On the shores of East Africa, Swahili city-states (from the Swahili language, mix of Bantu and Arabic) flourished between 1000 and 1500. Here, nearly forty autonomous urban centres were sprinkled along 1,500 miles of coastline. All were heavily involved in the Indian Ocean trade network, and all were multiethnic, with Persians, Arabs, and others migrating here and mixing with the local Africans. Also adding to these cities’ populations were migrants from India and Southeast Asia. Islam, along with other religions and traditions, played a prominent role on the East African coast and a few of these city-states came to be ruled by Arab sheiks or merchant families. Key ports included Mogadishu, Mombasa, Sofala, and Zanzibar. The arrival of the Portuguese colonists and merchants in the early 1500s changed this region. Portuguese power in East Africa was broken during the 1600s and 1700s, both by other Europeans – particularly the Dutch and the English – and Omani Arabs who rose up against Portuguese rule in the 1650s. Expelling the Portuguese from their home port of Muscat, the Omanis proceeded down the East African coast, starting in the 1690s and continuing into the early 1700s, pushing the Portuguese out of many cities, including Zanzibar and Mombasa.
Experts’ questions
1. What factors influenced the history of African nations?
2. What were the similarities and differences between the African nations of the given period? What were the causes of their prosperity and decline?
3. Compared to (with) nations from other geographical zones, what were the distinct features of the given African ones? (Before answering, read other nations in the theme 9 section).