A HISTORY OF MODERN AFRICA: 1800 TO THE PRESENT – RICHARD J. REID - 2020
1.UNDERSTANTING THE CONTOURS OF AFRICA’S PAST
The Africa of the XX century cannot be understood in isolation from its XIX century. Africa was
underpopulated until mid-XX century. Thus, African ideologies were centered around the
celebration of fertility. One of the major challenges for ruling elites across Africa was the
construction of systems of governance to control large numbers of people. XIX century was a
period of violent political reformation. External influences influenced African cultural, economic and
political development. Islam was the most important influence before the XIX century. The coming
of Islam also involved the emergence of a long-distance slave trade, linking the Sahara to the
Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Ocean. European influence was much less than
that of Islam before the XIX century. Europe’s greatest impact came through the Atlantic slave
trade. Such external influences were not unilateral impositions, rather they involved mutual
borrowing and adaptation. For example, the Islam that came to Africa was adapted to local
circumstances, and the global faith would be greatly enriched in return.
A brief history of the study of Africa
African history as an academic discipline is relatively young. From the 1950s onward, professional
historians began to treat African history as a field for serious study. This started when Africa was
gaining independence from colonial rule. Analysing Africa’s deeper past was necessary for the
nation-building process. Before there was no attempt to reconstruct Africa’s past because there
existed a firm belief that Africa did not have a history. This belief persisted through much of the
colonial period: Africans were perceived as primitive, savage, and lacking in political and cultural
sophistication.
With the Atlantic slave trade came the rise of European racism toward Africa. Africans were seen as
meant to be slaves. Over the XVIII century, there emerged in Europe a debate around the slave
trade. The apologists defended the slave trade, arguing that Africa was a savage and backward
place and that the slave trade was a blessed release, taking Africans from their cursed
environments to the Americas. The abolitionists were opposed to the slave trade, arguing that
Europe needed to help Africa by introducing Christianity, commerce and civilization; the slave
trade caused only violence and suffering. The two groups shared the belief in African
backwardness. At the end, the abolitionist position prevailed.
Land
Africa’s natural diversity cannot be separated from the history of its inhabitants: environment and
human history are intertwined. Disease and poor soil have obstructed the growth of human
settlement in many regions; the history of Africans is in large part the struggle to adapt to hostile
environments. Africa has a very regular coastline, with very few deep bays and peninsulas. This
has meant that Africans couldn’t develop maritime travel. Except for the Mediterranean coast,
Africans had intense contact with other continents only in recent times.
We can divide the continent’s physical geography into 8 zones:
The northern Mediterranean coast - it is noted for the fertility of its soil.
The Sahara Desert - due to its drought, it’s uninhabited outside the oases. Oases and camels
facilitated long-distance caravan routes permitting contact between the Maghreb and the sub-
Saharan Africa.
The Nile Valley - it contains some of the richest cultivable land in the world.
The Sudanic belt – the name Sudan was given by the Arabs, and it means “land of the blacks”.
The west-central rainforest covers most of the west African coast, with the exception of the
Benin gap.
The highlights of Ethiopia are covered largely by volcanic material which breaks down to give a
fertile soil.
East-central Africa - it’s hot and dry, with some exceptions, such as the cool and fertile Kenyan
highlands.
Southern Africa
People
This diversity of environment facilitated the emergence of distinct languages and cultures. Africa
can be divided into four distinct language families.
The Afro-Asiatic, encompassing the northern half of the continent as well as western Asia. It
comprises the language of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Berber in North Africa, Hebrew and Arabic.
The Niger-Congo family – it covers the Bantu languages which are spoken across tropical
Africa.
Nilo-Saharan languages
Khoisan is associated with the nomadic groups of southern Africa.
Africa’s history is that of migrations and integration. For example, in North Africa, the process of
Arabization is associated with the migration of Arab nomads, the Bedouin, between the X and XIII
centuries. They brought with them Arabic language and culture, as well as Islam, and they
gradually absorbed Berber communities. This period saw the transformation of North Africa into
part of the Arabic-speaking world.
,2. WESTERN TRADITIONS – SLAVE TRADE AND LEGITIMATE COMMERCE IN ATLANTIC
AFRICA
Africa’s experience with trade was not uniform. However, it is possible to make some statements
on how international trade had a profound impact in the political and social structures. Most
dramatically, with the slave trade from the XV century onwards, millions of western and central
Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas and Europe.
States and societies during the Atlantic slave trade
Atlantic and internal long-distance commercial systems had brought about major changes among
African societies. The major political consequence was the creation of mercantilist states,
characterized by the fusion of political and economic power; either political elites controlled the
commerce or traders acquired political power. Across western and central Africa, militarized states
arose as imported firearms made it easier for minorities to dominate large populations. The slave
trade resulted in an increased level of violence for the acquisition of slaves, resulting in the
systematic devastation of weak communities. The slave trade involved a serious loss to Africa’s
productive potential. Most of the slaves were young, the most productive members of society.
Atlantic Africa experienced no significant economic development during the era of the slave trade.
Illegal traffic: the XIX century slave trade
In the late XVIII century, European intellectuals and churches were gaining a momentum for the
abolition of the slave trade, promoting the universal right to freedom. Slave labor was no longer
viewed as profitable: economic growth relies now on industrialized systems making use of waged
labor. At first, this was not universally accepted: slave labor would continue in the US until the
1860s; Brazil was the largest illegal importer of slaves. Slavery remained legal in the British empire
until the 1830s. This said, the abolition of the slave trade by the major European powers brough
significant change. Africa was increasingly regarded as a source of raw materials and a market for
manufactured goods, rather than simply a source of slave labor. By the mid-1830s, most European
states had outlawed the slave trade, but it was extremely difficult to enforce. The Atlantic slave
trade continued through much of the XIX century. The slave trade was so deeply embedded in the
political and social configuration of African states that it was impossible to simply stop. The British
used military force to compel African rulers to accept their abolitionist demands.
Legitimate commerce
Legitimate commerce supplanted the export of human beings and involved European demand for
raw materials, natural resources, and agricultural produce from western and central Africa. Atlantic
states that relied heavily on the export of slaves struggled to make the transition to agricultural
exports. While many societies transitioned successfully, others collapsed.
Demand for vegetable oils, notably palm oil, increased with industrialization. Groundnuts were
cultivated in the Senegal-Gambia area. Some societies cultivated and exported cotton, taking
advantage of the disruption of the world’s cotton supply caused by the American civil war in the
1860s. The export of rubber was also profitable. Most of the production took place in the coastal
area because it was cheaper compared to the deeper hinterland. This imbalance caused the
migration of people from the interior to the coast. However, production techniques did not change;
the expansion of legitimate commerce simply involved the cultivation of more land, using more
labor. Thus, there was a labor shortage. Ironically, the result was an increase in slave labour to
meet demand for legitimate produce.
As now part of the global economy, Atlantic Africa was vulnerable to shifts in demand and prices
beyond its control. African producers started being indebted with the European merchants. From
the second half of the XIX century, Europeans began to penetrate into the hinterland in an effort to
bypass the African coastal middlemen and get the products directly from the producers.
Legitimate commerce did not really stimulate African economy. Africa was never an equal partner
in the global trading network. Personal freedom declined as domestic slavery increased.
Change and continuity in forest and savannah
During the commercial transition, while large empires such as Oyo (current eastern Benin and
western Nigeria) collapsed, new states came to prominence in the coastal forest and savannah
zones. The Oyo empire was weakened by internal division and the abolition of the slave trade. The
Islamic jihad of 1804 was a significant factor of the destruction of the Oyo empire. The empire’s
demise left the Yoruba states competing violently with each other, as well as with foreign invaders.
By the end of the 1830s, Ibadan (second biggest city in Nigeria) emerged as the single most
powerful Yoruba state. Several Yoruba states coalesced in order to prevent a further expansion of
Ibadan’s power. The British imposed a pax on the warring parties. The violence on Yorubaland
(current Nigeria, Togo, Benin) brough about dramatic changes. Many people moved from the
savannah southward into the forest. Islam spread into the region. Recurrent conflict led to a
military revolution: the use of firearms became common, and a professional army emerged. The
violence provided the British with a justification for intervention; missionaries introduced British
culture into coastal society. Dahomey was a dynamic and expansionist state, able to escape the
subordination to Oyo and to launch incursions into Yoruba territory. Dahomey and Asante were
examples of highly militarized and centralized states with expansionist foreign policies driven by
commercial interests. Dahomey (current Benin) was a successful slave-owning and slave-exporting
,state, resulting in a deep-rooted military culture. In Asante (current Ghana), a highly centralized
administration took advantage of commercial opportunities. Asante’s economy relied on
agriculture and gold production. Britain was prepared to become involved in local politics in order
to protect commercial interests. The area of what would become the British Gold Coast colony
provides an example of “creeping imperialism”, the process by which European governments
found themselves caught up in local politics. The British fought a series of wars with Asante. After
the successful invasion in 1873, Britain formally annexed Asante, thus establishing the Gold Coast
colony.
In the Niger Delta, there were smaller states which relied on overseas trade. The social mobility,
made possible by commerce, led to instability: ex-slaves worked their way into the ranks of traders
and demanded socio-political status proportionate to the wealth achieved. While the delta states
successfully transitioned from slave trade to legitimate commerce, they were increasingly
vulnerable to external developments over which they had no control. From the 1850s, Europeans
were able to bypass the Delta trading states, undermining the commercial power of the Niger.
Moreover, the international price of palm oil began a gradual decline, while cheaper substitutes
were being found elsewhere. The experience of the Niger delta states highlights the growing
powerlessness in the face of global commerce.
3. EASTERN INTRUSIONS: SLAVES AND IVORY IN EASTERN AFRICA
While the Atlantic slave trade was in gradual decline, the eastern African slave trade and ivory
trades were expanding rapidly. In large part, the escalation of these trades was linked to the
economic system controlled by the sultanate of Zanzibar, which through the XIX century was the
dominant commercial power on the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts. While Atlantic Africa saw the
undermining of warrior elites, East Africa witnessed their emergence, with the establishment of
military states who sought to control trade routes.
Commercial horizons: slaves and ivory
East African slave trade increased dramatically from the 1780s onward. The expansion of the
Russian empire cut off the supply of slaves to the Muslim world, which then looked to East Africa.
There was also high demand for slaves for the sugar and coffee plantations on the French islands in
the Indian ocean. The rapid escalation of the slave trade led to increased levels of warfare in the
interior. There were clearly opportunities for African traders to enrich themselves through
involvement in the slave trade. Ivory was also in increasing demand. Ivory was becoming
increasingly scarce and slaves had no future as an export commodity as long as the region fell
increasingly under European influence. As the XIX century drew to a close, slaves and ivory were
abandoned, and export agriculture was abruptly introduced.
Maritime empire: Zanzibar
From central east Africa – modern Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and the Zambezi valley – came
ivory, gold, and slaves. This ancient commerce gave rise to Swahili culture along the coast. The
arrival of the Portuguese at the end of the XV century put an end to a prosperous age: the
Portuguese subdued much of the Swahili coast, destroying the rich commerce. At the end of the
XVII century, a fleet from Oman chased the Portuguese away from most of the coastal settlements,
with the exception of Mozambique. The Swahili coast was under the suzerainty of the Omani
sultans. Sultan Said moved his capital to Zanzibar permanently. Under him, the Omani-Zanzibari
sphere of influence began to penetrate into the interior. When the sultan died in 1856, Oman and
Zanzibar became independent from each other. Zanzibar became the dominant force in East
African commerce until the 1880s, when the European partition destroyed its sovereignty.
Between the 1830s and the 1850s, Arab merchants established permanent entrepots (ports where
goods for import and export can be stored without paying duties). The most notorious trader was
Tippu Tip, who managed to impose himself politically on a number of societies. Arab traders
attempted to assert political influence over African rulers, in order to secure commercial interests.
The lacustrine zone
The area of the Great Lakes was characterized by good rainfall and rich soil. Politically, they shared
the principle of strong, centralized kingship. A key feature of this kingship was the absence of an
obvious heir: succession was a violent affair. The dominant kingdoms were Buganda and Bunyoro.
Bunyoro had been the leading power in the region until it lost ground to the expansionist kingdom
of Buganda, which enjoyed a high level of agricultural fertility and thus a larger population.
Buganda was characterized by a mercantilist foreign policy, who sought control of the region’s
economic resources and was driven by an advanced military culture. Interstate relations became
more violent with the expansion of the long-distance, coastal-oriented, commercial network
directed by Zanzibar. The lacustrine states would strive to become involved in this commerce.
Across modern Kenya and Tanzania, population densities were low, thus the conditions for
elaborate state formation were absent. Nonetheless, as the coastal commercial network spread
inland, the result was the emergence within many societies of new forms of political organization in
order to take advantage of the new opportunities.
The themes of local entrepreneurship and the fluidity of identities are most dramatically manifest
in the Nyamwezi, who did not exist as a “people” before the commercial dynamics of the mid-XIX
century. At the beginning of the century, the Nyamwezi developed trade routes which they
, dominated until the coastal traders began to penetrate the interior. Conflict was inevitable with the
newcomers; coastal merchants sought to get involved in Nyamwezi politics. Through possession of
firearms and the promise of commercial advantage, Arabs gained considerable power. Meanwhile,
groups of Ngoni were penetrating the area of modern Tanzania, bringing about a revolution in
terms of political structure and militarization. Conflict and endemic insecurity gave rise to armed
young men driven by the search for plunder. They came to be known as “ruga ruga” and they
formed the backbone of the emerging military states, the most successful of which was that
created by the Nyamwezi chief Mirambo. By building an army of ruga ruga, he incorporated
surrounding chiefdoms by force and created a single unified state. Mirambo took control of the
northern lacustrine trade routes. When Mirambo died, the lack of internal cohesion was
problematic. By the end of the 1880s, on the eve of the German invasion, the state had largely
disintegrated.
While new African states were emerging, coastal traders were penetrating beyond Lake
Tanganyika. The quest for ivory and slaves caused widespread disruption. Some degree of order
was imposed by Tippu Tip, who moved to eastern Congo in 1870. He operated in areas where there
was an absence of large, centralized states and was therefore able to bend societies to his will.
Around Lake Victoria, Arab traders traded successfully but they were closely supervised by Ganda
authorities. Competition for control of trade across the Lake Victoria region prompted the Ganda to
use military means to secure commercial interests. The Ganda response to commercial
opportunities was dynamic and aggressive. However, the kingdom was unable to firmly impose
itself on the external landscape. Ultimately, the Ganda would ally themselves with the British in the
colonial subjugation and indeed the name Uganda would be applied to the future colonial territory.
North-eastern Africa
The expansion of trade on the Red Sea drew the hub of Ethiopia northward. The Oromo migrated in
the mountains of the south, changing the nature of the habesha society. Many were Muslim, but
many others adopted the Orthodox Christianity. Violent regionalism was brought to an end by a
young provincial renegade, Kassa. In 1855, he renamed himself Tewodros and had himself
proclaimed emperor. Tewodros achieved a greater degree of unity in Ethiopia; much of his reign
was spent supressing insurrection. Tewodros envisaged transforming Ethiopia into an industrial
and commercial power. To this end, he welcomed Europeans whose expertise he sought to utilize
in modernizing his army. He sought alliances with the European powers he considered his equals.
Tewodros perceived Islam (embodied in the Egyptians) as Christian Ethiopia’s ancient enemy.
Regional rebellion made Tewodros lose control of much of Tigray and Eritrean plateau. In the end,
it was foreign intervention rather than internal uprising which destroyed him. Irritated by the fact
that Queen Victoria did not respond to one of his letters, Tewodros reacted by imprisoning
Europeans, Britons included. The British government dispatched an army which defeated
Tewodros’ army. The emperor shot himself rather than falling into the British hands. The Tigrayan
Yohannes IV became emperor of Ethiopia. He complemented military force with diplomacy and
employed the mechanism of intermarriage between regional ruling families to achieve political
stability. The murder of Yohannes in 1889 put an end to Tigray’s preeminence in the Ethiopian
empire as power passed to Menelik, who created modern Ethiopia. He ceded Eritrea to the Italians,
but he managed to save Ethiopia from colonialism. Menelik oversaw the building of a railway, a
modern capital city in Addis Abeba, a banking system and a communications infrastructure. Above
all, it was the appearance of European embassies in Addis Abeba which signalled the recognition of
an African sovereignty.
4. SOUTHERN FRONTIERS – COLONY AND REVOLUTION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
African state and society around 1800
The dry open grassland of modern Botswana witnessed the emergence of some of the earliest
chiefdoms, characterized by hilltop settlements, which were based on a combination of cattle-
keeping and cultivation. A similar socioeconomic system was responsible for the growth of Great
Zimbabwe, a Shona state noted for its stone structures (Zimbabwe means “place of stone”). Ngoni
speakers organized themselves in small chiefdoms, a political pattern shaped by terrain: the
numerous hills of the area are separated by valleys through which rivers flow. After about 1700,
northern Ngoni chiefdoms expanded and absorbed smaller ones due to high competition over
scarce resources. The introduction of maize by the Portuguese led to a rise in population. More
stable chiefdoms competed for the domination of lucrative trade routes to the Indian ocean.
Greater competition and meant increased levels of militarism.
Revolution and the Zulu impact
The mfecane which led to the emergence of the Zulu state (largest ethnic group in South Africa)
originated among the Ngoni kingdoms and involved a permanent state of war over limited
resources, the absorption of smaller chiefdoms across a wide area, and increasingly centralized
and militarized kingship. Even following their conquest by the British, the Zulu would retain a
powerful sense of national identity. The Zulu state was aggressively expansionist. Some observers
suggested that the patterns of warfare and the emergence of the Zulu state could be attributed to
European influence. Africans were imitating European models of command and battle. This racist
assumption - which implies that Africans alone are not capable of expanding in a political and
1.UNDERSTANTING THE CONTOURS OF AFRICA’S PAST
The Africa of the XX century cannot be understood in isolation from its XIX century. Africa was
underpopulated until mid-XX century. Thus, African ideologies were centered around the
celebration of fertility. One of the major challenges for ruling elites across Africa was the
construction of systems of governance to control large numbers of people. XIX century was a
period of violent political reformation. External influences influenced African cultural, economic and
political development. Islam was the most important influence before the XIX century. The coming
of Islam also involved the emergence of a long-distance slave trade, linking the Sahara to the
Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Ocean. European influence was much less than
that of Islam before the XIX century. Europe’s greatest impact came through the Atlantic slave
trade. Such external influences were not unilateral impositions, rather they involved mutual
borrowing and adaptation. For example, the Islam that came to Africa was adapted to local
circumstances, and the global faith would be greatly enriched in return.
A brief history of the study of Africa
African history as an academic discipline is relatively young. From the 1950s onward, professional
historians began to treat African history as a field for serious study. This started when Africa was
gaining independence from colonial rule. Analysing Africa’s deeper past was necessary for the
nation-building process. Before there was no attempt to reconstruct Africa’s past because there
existed a firm belief that Africa did not have a history. This belief persisted through much of the
colonial period: Africans were perceived as primitive, savage, and lacking in political and cultural
sophistication.
With the Atlantic slave trade came the rise of European racism toward Africa. Africans were seen as
meant to be slaves. Over the XVIII century, there emerged in Europe a debate around the slave
trade. The apologists defended the slave trade, arguing that Africa was a savage and backward
place and that the slave trade was a blessed release, taking Africans from their cursed
environments to the Americas. The abolitionists were opposed to the slave trade, arguing that
Europe needed to help Africa by introducing Christianity, commerce and civilization; the slave
trade caused only violence and suffering. The two groups shared the belief in African
backwardness. At the end, the abolitionist position prevailed.
Land
Africa’s natural diversity cannot be separated from the history of its inhabitants: environment and
human history are intertwined. Disease and poor soil have obstructed the growth of human
settlement in many regions; the history of Africans is in large part the struggle to adapt to hostile
environments. Africa has a very regular coastline, with very few deep bays and peninsulas. This
has meant that Africans couldn’t develop maritime travel. Except for the Mediterranean coast,
Africans had intense contact with other continents only in recent times.
We can divide the continent’s physical geography into 8 zones:
The northern Mediterranean coast - it is noted for the fertility of its soil.
The Sahara Desert - due to its drought, it’s uninhabited outside the oases. Oases and camels
facilitated long-distance caravan routes permitting contact between the Maghreb and the sub-
Saharan Africa.
The Nile Valley - it contains some of the richest cultivable land in the world.
The Sudanic belt – the name Sudan was given by the Arabs, and it means “land of the blacks”.
The west-central rainforest covers most of the west African coast, with the exception of the
Benin gap.
The highlights of Ethiopia are covered largely by volcanic material which breaks down to give a
fertile soil.
East-central Africa - it’s hot and dry, with some exceptions, such as the cool and fertile Kenyan
highlands.
Southern Africa
People
This diversity of environment facilitated the emergence of distinct languages and cultures. Africa
can be divided into four distinct language families.
The Afro-Asiatic, encompassing the northern half of the continent as well as western Asia. It
comprises the language of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Berber in North Africa, Hebrew and Arabic.
The Niger-Congo family – it covers the Bantu languages which are spoken across tropical
Africa.
Nilo-Saharan languages
Khoisan is associated with the nomadic groups of southern Africa.
Africa’s history is that of migrations and integration. For example, in North Africa, the process of
Arabization is associated with the migration of Arab nomads, the Bedouin, between the X and XIII
centuries. They brought with them Arabic language and culture, as well as Islam, and they
gradually absorbed Berber communities. This period saw the transformation of North Africa into
part of the Arabic-speaking world.
,2. WESTERN TRADITIONS – SLAVE TRADE AND LEGITIMATE COMMERCE IN ATLANTIC
AFRICA
Africa’s experience with trade was not uniform. However, it is possible to make some statements
on how international trade had a profound impact in the political and social structures. Most
dramatically, with the slave trade from the XV century onwards, millions of western and central
Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas and Europe.
States and societies during the Atlantic slave trade
Atlantic and internal long-distance commercial systems had brought about major changes among
African societies. The major political consequence was the creation of mercantilist states,
characterized by the fusion of political and economic power; either political elites controlled the
commerce or traders acquired political power. Across western and central Africa, militarized states
arose as imported firearms made it easier for minorities to dominate large populations. The slave
trade resulted in an increased level of violence for the acquisition of slaves, resulting in the
systematic devastation of weak communities. The slave trade involved a serious loss to Africa’s
productive potential. Most of the slaves were young, the most productive members of society.
Atlantic Africa experienced no significant economic development during the era of the slave trade.
Illegal traffic: the XIX century slave trade
In the late XVIII century, European intellectuals and churches were gaining a momentum for the
abolition of the slave trade, promoting the universal right to freedom. Slave labor was no longer
viewed as profitable: economic growth relies now on industrialized systems making use of waged
labor. At first, this was not universally accepted: slave labor would continue in the US until the
1860s; Brazil was the largest illegal importer of slaves. Slavery remained legal in the British empire
until the 1830s. This said, the abolition of the slave trade by the major European powers brough
significant change. Africa was increasingly regarded as a source of raw materials and a market for
manufactured goods, rather than simply a source of slave labor. By the mid-1830s, most European
states had outlawed the slave trade, but it was extremely difficult to enforce. The Atlantic slave
trade continued through much of the XIX century. The slave trade was so deeply embedded in the
political and social configuration of African states that it was impossible to simply stop. The British
used military force to compel African rulers to accept their abolitionist demands.
Legitimate commerce
Legitimate commerce supplanted the export of human beings and involved European demand for
raw materials, natural resources, and agricultural produce from western and central Africa. Atlantic
states that relied heavily on the export of slaves struggled to make the transition to agricultural
exports. While many societies transitioned successfully, others collapsed.
Demand for vegetable oils, notably palm oil, increased with industrialization. Groundnuts were
cultivated in the Senegal-Gambia area. Some societies cultivated and exported cotton, taking
advantage of the disruption of the world’s cotton supply caused by the American civil war in the
1860s. The export of rubber was also profitable. Most of the production took place in the coastal
area because it was cheaper compared to the deeper hinterland. This imbalance caused the
migration of people from the interior to the coast. However, production techniques did not change;
the expansion of legitimate commerce simply involved the cultivation of more land, using more
labor. Thus, there was a labor shortage. Ironically, the result was an increase in slave labour to
meet demand for legitimate produce.
As now part of the global economy, Atlantic Africa was vulnerable to shifts in demand and prices
beyond its control. African producers started being indebted with the European merchants. From
the second half of the XIX century, Europeans began to penetrate into the hinterland in an effort to
bypass the African coastal middlemen and get the products directly from the producers.
Legitimate commerce did not really stimulate African economy. Africa was never an equal partner
in the global trading network. Personal freedom declined as domestic slavery increased.
Change and continuity in forest and savannah
During the commercial transition, while large empires such as Oyo (current eastern Benin and
western Nigeria) collapsed, new states came to prominence in the coastal forest and savannah
zones. The Oyo empire was weakened by internal division and the abolition of the slave trade. The
Islamic jihad of 1804 was a significant factor of the destruction of the Oyo empire. The empire’s
demise left the Yoruba states competing violently with each other, as well as with foreign invaders.
By the end of the 1830s, Ibadan (second biggest city in Nigeria) emerged as the single most
powerful Yoruba state. Several Yoruba states coalesced in order to prevent a further expansion of
Ibadan’s power. The British imposed a pax on the warring parties. The violence on Yorubaland
(current Nigeria, Togo, Benin) brough about dramatic changes. Many people moved from the
savannah southward into the forest. Islam spread into the region. Recurrent conflict led to a
military revolution: the use of firearms became common, and a professional army emerged. The
violence provided the British with a justification for intervention; missionaries introduced British
culture into coastal society. Dahomey was a dynamic and expansionist state, able to escape the
subordination to Oyo and to launch incursions into Yoruba territory. Dahomey and Asante were
examples of highly militarized and centralized states with expansionist foreign policies driven by
commercial interests. Dahomey (current Benin) was a successful slave-owning and slave-exporting
,state, resulting in a deep-rooted military culture. In Asante (current Ghana), a highly centralized
administration took advantage of commercial opportunities. Asante’s economy relied on
agriculture and gold production. Britain was prepared to become involved in local politics in order
to protect commercial interests. The area of what would become the British Gold Coast colony
provides an example of “creeping imperialism”, the process by which European governments
found themselves caught up in local politics. The British fought a series of wars with Asante. After
the successful invasion in 1873, Britain formally annexed Asante, thus establishing the Gold Coast
colony.
In the Niger Delta, there were smaller states which relied on overseas trade. The social mobility,
made possible by commerce, led to instability: ex-slaves worked their way into the ranks of traders
and demanded socio-political status proportionate to the wealth achieved. While the delta states
successfully transitioned from slave trade to legitimate commerce, they were increasingly
vulnerable to external developments over which they had no control. From the 1850s, Europeans
were able to bypass the Delta trading states, undermining the commercial power of the Niger.
Moreover, the international price of palm oil began a gradual decline, while cheaper substitutes
were being found elsewhere. The experience of the Niger delta states highlights the growing
powerlessness in the face of global commerce.
3. EASTERN INTRUSIONS: SLAVES AND IVORY IN EASTERN AFRICA
While the Atlantic slave trade was in gradual decline, the eastern African slave trade and ivory
trades were expanding rapidly. In large part, the escalation of these trades was linked to the
economic system controlled by the sultanate of Zanzibar, which through the XIX century was the
dominant commercial power on the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts. While Atlantic Africa saw the
undermining of warrior elites, East Africa witnessed their emergence, with the establishment of
military states who sought to control trade routes.
Commercial horizons: slaves and ivory
East African slave trade increased dramatically from the 1780s onward. The expansion of the
Russian empire cut off the supply of slaves to the Muslim world, which then looked to East Africa.
There was also high demand for slaves for the sugar and coffee plantations on the French islands in
the Indian ocean. The rapid escalation of the slave trade led to increased levels of warfare in the
interior. There were clearly opportunities for African traders to enrich themselves through
involvement in the slave trade. Ivory was also in increasing demand. Ivory was becoming
increasingly scarce and slaves had no future as an export commodity as long as the region fell
increasingly under European influence. As the XIX century drew to a close, slaves and ivory were
abandoned, and export agriculture was abruptly introduced.
Maritime empire: Zanzibar
From central east Africa – modern Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and the Zambezi valley – came
ivory, gold, and slaves. This ancient commerce gave rise to Swahili culture along the coast. The
arrival of the Portuguese at the end of the XV century put an end to a prosperous age: the
Portuguese subdued much of the Swahili coast, destroying the rich commerce. At the end of the
XVII century, a fleet from Oman chased the Portuguese away from most of the coastal settlements,
with the exception of Mozambique. The Swahili coast was under the suzerainty of the Omani
sultans. Sultan Said moved his capital to Zanzibar permanently. Under him, the Omani-Zanzibari
sphere of influence began to penetrate into the interior. When the sultan died in 1856, Oman and
Zanzibar became independent from each other. Zanzibar became the dominant force in East
African commerce until the 1880s, when the European partition destroyed its sovereignty.
Between the 1830s and the 1850s, Arab merchants established permanent entrepots (ports where
goods for import and export can be stored without paying duties). The most notorious trader was
Tippu Tip, who managed to impose himself politically on a number of societies. Arab traders
attempted to assert political influence over African rulers, in order to secure commercial interests.
The lacustrine zone
The area of the Great Lakes was characterized by good rainfall and rich soil. Politically, they shared
the principle of strong, centralized kingship. A key feature of this kingship was the absence of an
obvious heir: succession was a violent affair. The dominant kingdoms were Buganda and Bunyoro.
Bunyoro had been the leading power in the region until it lost ground to the expansionist kingdom
of Buganda, which enjoyed a high level of agricultural fertility and thus a larger population.
Buganda was characterized by a mercantilist foreign policy, who sought control of the region’s
economic resources and was driven by an advanced military culture. Interstate relations became
more violent with the expansion of the long-distance, coastal-oriented, commercial network
directed by Zanzibar. The lacustrine states would strive to become involved in this commerce.
Across modern Kenya and Tanzania, population densities were low, thus the conditions for
elaborate state formation were absent. Nonetheless, as the coastal commercial network spread
inland, the result was the emergence within many societies of new forms of political organization in
order to take advantage of the new opportunities.
The themes of local entrepreneurship and the fluidity of identities are most dramatically manifest
in the Nyamwezi, who did not exist as a “people” before the commercial dynamics of the mid-XIX
century. At the beginning of the century, the Nyamwezi developed trade routes which they
, dominated until the coastal traders began to penetrate the interior. Conflict was inevitable with the
newcomers; coastal merchants sought to get involved in Nyamwezi politics. Through possession of
firearms and the promise of commercial advantage, Arabs gained considerable power. Meanwhile,
groups of Ngoni were penetrating the area of modern Tanzania, bringing about a revolution in
terms of political structure and militarization. Conflict and endemic insecurity gave rise to armed
young men driven by the search for plunder. They came to be known as “ruga ruga” and they
formed the backbone of the emerging military states, the most successful of which was that
created by the Nyamwezi chief Mirambo. By building an army of ruga ruga, he incorporated
surrounding chiefdoms by force and created a single unified state. Mirambo took control of the
northern lacustrine trade routes. When Mirambo died, the lack of internal cohesion was
problematic. By the end of the 1880s, on the eve of the German invasion, the state had largely
disintegrated.
While new African states were emerging, coastal traders were penetrating beyond Lake
Tanganyika. The quest for ivory and slaves caused widespread disruption. Some degree of order
was imposed by Tippu Tip, who moved to eastern Congo in 1870. He operated in areas where there
was an absence of large, centralized states and was therefore able to bend societies to his will.
Around Lake Victoria, Arab traders traded successfully but they were closely supervised by Ganda
authorities. Competition for control of trade across the Lake Victoria region prompted the Ganda to
use military means to secure commercial interests. The Ganda response to commercial
opportunities was dynamic and aggressive. However, the kingdom was unable to firmly impose
itself on the external landscape. Ultimately, the Ganda would ally themselves with the British in the
colonial subjugation and indeed the name Uganda would be applied to the future colonial territory.
North-eastern Africa
The expansion of trade on the Red Sea drew the hub of Ethiopia northward. The Oromo migrated in
the mountains of the south, changing the nature of the habesha society. Many were Muslim, but
many others adopted the Orthodox Christianity. Violent regionalism was brought to an end by a
young provincial renegade, Kassa. In 1855, he renamed himself Tewodros and had himself
proclaimed emperor. Tewodros achieved a greater degree of unity in Ethiopia; much of his reign
was spent supressing insurrection. Tewodros envisaged transforming Ethiopia into an industrial
and commercial power. To this end, he welcomed Europeans whose expertise he sought to utilize
in modernizing his army. He sought alliances with the European powers he considered his equals.
Tewodros perceived Islam (embodied in the Egyptians) as Christian Ethiopia’s ancient enemy.
Regional rebellion made Tewodros lose control of much of Tigray and Eritrean plateau. In the end,
it was foreign intervention rather than internal uprising which destroyed him. Irritated by the fact
that Queen Victoria did not respond to one of his letters, Tewodros reacted by imprisoning
Europeans, Britons included. The British government dispatched an army which defeated
Tewodros’ army. The emperor shot himself rather than falling into the British hands. The Tigrayan
Yohannes IV became emperor of Ethiopia. He complemented military force with diplomacy and
employed the mechanism of intermarriage between regional ruling families to achieve political
stability. The murder of Yohannes in 1889 put an end to Tigray’s preeminence in the Ethiopian
empire as power passed to Menelik, who created modern Ethiopia. He ceded Eritrea to the Italians,
but he managed to save Ethiopia from colonialism. Menelik oversaw the building of a railway, a
modern capital city in Addis Abeba, a banking system and a communications infrastructure. Above
all, it was the appearance of European embassies in Addis Abeba which signalled the recognition of
an African sovereignty.
4. SOUTHERN FRONTIERS – COLONY AND REVOLUTION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
African state and society around 1800
The dry open grassland of modern Botswana witnessed the emergence of some of the earliest
chiefdoms, characterized by hilltop settlements, which were based on a combination of cattle-
keeping and cultivation. A similar socioeconomic system was responsible for the growth of Great
Zimbabwe, a Shona state noted for its stone structures (Zimbabwe means “place of stone”). Ngoni
speakers organized themselves in small chiefdoms, a political pattern shaped by terrain: the
numerous hills of the area are separated by valleys through which rivers flow. After about 1700,
northern Ngoni chiefdoms expanded and absorbed smaller ones due to high competition over
scarce resources. The introduction of maize by the Portuguese led to a rise in population. More
stable chiefdoms competed for the domination of lucrative trade routes to the Indian ocean.
Greater competition and meant increased levels of militarism.
Revolution and the Zulu impact
The mfecane which led to the emergence of the Zulu state (largest ethnic group in South Africa)
originated among the Ngoni kingdoms and involved a permanent state of war over limited
resources, the absorption of smaller chiefdoms across a wide area, and increasingly centralized
and militarized kingship. Even following their conquest by the British, the Zulu would retain a
powerful sense of national identity. The Zulu state was aggressively expansionist. Some observers
suggested that the patterns of warfare and the emergence of the Zulu state could be attributed to
European influence. Africans were imitating European models of command and battle. This racist
assumption - which implies that Africans alone are not capable of expanding in a political and
