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Africa, Emerging Civilizations In Sub-Sahara Africa
Various Authors
Edited By: R. A. Guisepi
Date: 2001
Native Cultures In Sub-Sahara Africa Introduction By A.D. 1200, the process of civilization was approaching global dimensions. At the same time that Europe, Asia, and the Middle East were experiencing dynamic cultural growth during the late medieval period, sub-Sahara Africa and the New World were undergoing similar changes. Indeed, both regions had developed high civilizations before the European impact of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. African and American civilizations were each distinctive, although generally similar to those in Eurasia. In all three areas, flourishing agriculture supported expanding populations, large cities, highly skilled crafts, expanding trade, complex social orders, and developing states. The basic culture of sub-Sahara Africa evolved mainly from its own traditions, while imported Eurasian culture, such as Islam, was relatively superficial. American civilizations were even more original, having developed in complete isolation from the Old World. The most noteworthy native American civilizations were those of the Mayas in Yucatan and Guatemala, the Aztecs in central Mexico, and the Incas in Peru. The Mayas are especially famous for their mathematics, their solar calendar, and their writing system, still largely undeciphered. The Aztecs and Incas conquered large populations and governed large states. Each civilization produced distinctive art, religion, values, and customs, some of which have become part of the Latin American heritage. Even today, Latin American artists often take their themes from these traditions. African civilizations before the sixteenth century compared favorably with those in Europe. Ethiopia, in East Africa, was already flourishing while the Roman Empire was disintegrating. In the tenth century, and possibly two centuries earlier, East African cities were trading by sea with Persia and India. Shortly after, the Kingdom of Ghana rose in the western Sudan. After about A.D. 1200, when European states were becoming centralized monarchies, comparable kingdoms were rising in sub-Sahara Africa, particularly in regions drained by the Niger, Congo, and Zambesi rivers. Europeans arriving after the 1400s found well-organized governments and societies bound by strong traditions. Native Cultures In Sub-Sahara Africa As late as the fifteenth century, cultures in sub-Sahara Africa were still somewhat distinct from the states, which were relatively new and often shaped by foreign influences among the ruling minorities. Most sub-Saharan Africans, even those living in powerful states, still held firmly to old loyalties associated with lineage, village, and religion. Because this respect for tradition was so typical of all these societies, we can understand them better if we first take note of their ancient cultural foundations. Geographic, Ethnic, And Historical Backgrounds Geographic factors help explain sub-Sahara Africa's relatively late state-building. Climatic changes between 5000 and 1500 B.C., which produced the Sahara Desert, limited cultural contacts with the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin. When such contacts became more frequent in the Christian era, local African traditions were deeply rooted and resistant to change. In addition, the vast space open to migration south of the Sahara decreased conflict over land, thereby lessening what had been a significant stimulus in the formation of many early Eurasian states. This factor, too, helps account for delayed political development. Although most Americans have traditionally thought of sub-Sahara Africa as an immense jungle, more than half of the area comprises grassy plains, known as savanna. The northern savanna, sometimes called the Sudan, stretches across the continent, just south of the Sahara. Other patches of savanna are interspersed among the mountains of East Africa, and another belt of grassland runs east and west across the southern continent, north of the Kalahari Desert. Between the northern and southern savannas, in the region of the equator, is jungle. Heavy rainfall here permitted the cultivation of some nutritious crops, but soils were not very fertile, and the rain forests produced many dangers, including sleeping sickness, to which both humans and animals are susceptible. Generally, the most habitable regions have been the savannas, which have favored transportation and agriculture. After the Sahara became arid, the most prominent sub-Saharan peoples were Negroid speakers of diverse but related Bantu languages. Originating in west central Africa, between the savanna and the forests, the Bantu began migrating after about 1000 B.C. For centuries, they moved south and east, ultimately spreading along the east coast. By A.D. 1000, they had reached central Natal, in what is now the Republic of South Africa. During their migrations, the Bantu absorbed or displaced other Negroid peoples of eastern and southern Africa, driving pygmies, Bushmen, and Khoisan-speaking pastoralists into the southern jungle, the Kalahari Desert, or the extreme southwestern savanna. Thus Bantu migrants provided most of sub-Sahara Africa with a common cultural identity. The Bantu migrations were closely related to agriculture and iron-working in a continuous reciprocal process. Developing agriculture expanded Bantu populations; iron tools and weapons provided the means to acquire new lands; and the resulting migrations spread both technologies through the whole sub-Sahara region. Until recently, most scholars believed that early Bantu peoples acquired agriculture from the upper Nile, via the northern savanna. More recent linguistic and archeological investigations suggest that plant domestication began independently in Ethiopia, the central Sudan, and the upper Niger, centuries before the Sahara became a desert. Regardless of which theory is correct, it is clear that a number of native crops, most notably bulrush millet and sorghum, were cultivated in the western savannah by 2000 B.C. These were diffused south to the original Bantu homelands, where they were augmented by African yams. The vitality of early Bantu agrarian society is well illustrated by the Nok culture, which flourished in central Nigeria after 1000 B.C. Its skilled gardeners provided economic support for great artists, who produced beautiful terracotta (baked clay) sculpture. Later, as the Bantu moved east and south, leaving the forest, they improved their gardening techniques and their food stocks by adopting Near Eastern grains and plantains. They also began herding cattle, sheep, and goats. With the Bantu migrations, iron-working diffused rapidly through sub-Sahara Africa. This revolution, which had recently stirred all Eurasian civilizations, was brought from Egypt to Nubia in the seventh century B.C. It appeared in the western Sudan at about the same time, apparently brought south across the Sahara by Berbers, in contact with Phoenician or Carthaginian traders. Iron was produced in the Nok culture by 500 B.C., and iron-working was known to the earliest Bantu migrants, who ultimately brought it down the east coast beyond the Zambezi by the fifth century A.D. African ironmasters became very proficient and were highly respected. In some areas of West-Central Africa, their craft assumed such ritualistic significance that their furnaces were located in secluded places. After about A.D. 900, during the second iron age, African furnaces were capable of generating higher temperatures than those in Europe before the 1700s. By then, Bantu craftsmen were producing high quality implements, as well as beautiful jewelry in copper and gold. This later era brought a climax in social evolution. Between 1300 and 1500, for example, the Bantu population increased from 21 to 30 million people. ^1 Trade also expanded significantly, not only within sub-Sahara Africa but also with the Mediterranean basin and other Eurasian areas. Rising commerce encouraged the growth of cities and the organization of large states. Such changes were most typical of the western Sudan and East Africa, which combined native African and non-African cultures. But even in the Bantu hinterlands, where foreign influences were nonexistent or only indirect, cities appeared and strong kingdoms emerged. In their institutions and values, these proto-civilizations were predominantly African. [Footnote 1: Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, Atlas of World Population History (New York: Penguin, 1978), pp. 238-259.] [See Bantu Migrations] The General Culture Pattern Although Bantu-speaking societies were remarkably diverse, their institutions, values, and aesthetic styles reflected a common pattern. Usually, authority was strongest in the village, where it was exercised by elders of extended families (lineages), who claimed descent from a great ancestor. Both custom and religion supported this system. Traditional rules governed an individual's social functions and activities, which were often performed within his or her age group. Respect for the community was paramount, speculative innovation was suspect, and selfish behavior was discouraged or punished. Political authority beyond the village was most effective where it depended upon these local loyalties. Kings based their right to rule on descent from divine ancestors but exercised such rights within the limits of customary law. Sub-Saharan economies, outside of the Sudan, Ethiopia, and the east coast, were based largely upon simple agriculture without plows and draft animals, although a primitive irrigation was in evidence. Pastoralism was common throughout the savannas, particularly among seminomadic peoples, including some Bantu-speakers. Most of the basic handicraft industries were well developed, including spinning, weaving pottery-making, carpentry, and metal-working. Using relatively crude methods, African miners procured iron, copper, and gold ores. Highly skilled craftsmen sought to protect their secrets by organizing their families into tightly knit groups. Trade was usually a function of the crafts, although specialized merchants and trading societies were often present in the cities. Generally, these economies depended upon individual skills, employed within community and family traditions. The kinship principle was fundamental to social organization throughout sub-Sahara Africa. Loyalties to the clans, each comprising all members of an extended family, living and dead, were more compelling than class interests, even in the cities. Sometimes, clans were combined in more artificial tribal systems. Tribal chiefs were often hereditary, but most were also confirmed by clan elders, who were all presumed to be at least distantly blood-related. Because tribes and lineages were older than the villages, the latter were often divided into separate kinship groups. Grouping individuals of different lineages into age-sets, such as children, apprentice warriors, and elders, helped alleviate divisiveness. Secret societies, including members drawn from mature age groups, also united lineages and encouraged loyalty to village or tribal communities. Kinship societies were typical; but many changed as they experienced productive economies, property relationships, and increasingly prevalent warfare. In the process, ancient matrilineal clans, with descent traced through women, gave way gradually to patrilineal groups, with men in control. The change was reflected in marriage customs, where the traditional dowry, supplied by the wife's family, was replaced by "bride-price," paid by the prospective husband. This enforced the idea that wives are valuable property, to be protected and used for economic gain. Within patrilineal societies, a minority of male elders governed, while women did most of the work, including agricultural labor. Such practices, however, do not prove the complete demise of matriarchal values, many of which lingered on. There were instances where wives still dominated their husbands, demanding gifts when they produced children and going back to their families when at odds with their spouses. The confusion of male and female roles is perhaps best illustrated in Bantu political institutions. Most states were headed by kings, but matrilineal descent was quite common in royal lines. This could involve complex relationships, resulting from the effort to reconcile male royal authority with the traditional practice of matrilineal succession. To solve this problem, the heir apparent was sometimes a nephew of the queen and a son of her oldest brother. In another scenario, where kings followed the common practice of marrying their sisters, the relationship may not have been sexual but merely symbolic, permitting women to share royal power in nominal patrilineal systems. There were also numerous examples of queens who held supreme authority, with or without a consort. This was not typical, but even in states where male supremacy was most pronounced, women were often powers behind the thrones. The king's mother, the queen, or both usually advised the monarch, particularly on matters pertaining to women and economic organization. On occasion, women also served as councilors or officials; they were often priests; and in a few instances, they fought as soldiers. The newer patrilineal political systems developed slowly but directly from older kinship structures. Although many Bantu-speaking societies remained "stateless," some developed kingdoms from tribal bases. Monarchs were at first tribal chiefs, some of whom managed to conquer or otherwise unite other tribes. Kings generally carried on the traditions of the lineages, claiming descent from divine ancestors who lived in a half-mythical "dreamtime" of the distant past, when they had brought a message from the gods, led their blood brothers on a great migration, or found land to settle. Kings were considered semidivine, but their actual powers were limited by traditional ceremony and law. Their rule depended upon support from lineage chiefs, village headmen, and secret societies. Some later kings appointed their own officials, but these were usually selected from local leaders. The most abiding part of the sub-Saharan African heritage was its value system, rather than its social or political institutions. Supporting such institutions were customary beliefs which shaped all aspects of life. Most common to these beliefs was a profound awareness of human interdependence. Appreciation for community and law, mingled in primitive superstitions and intuitive insights, found expression in hundreds of oral myths and stories, known to Africans from the Niger to the Limpopo. The rich Bantu heritage in art and music reflected the same communal perspectives. Such values have been common to tribal societies everywhere, but nowhere else have they endured so tenaciously into advanced stages of civilization. Religion touched every phase of human experience in sub-Sahara Africa. Specific beliefs varied from tribe to tribe, but some general tenets were common. Most Bantu-speaking peoples believed that the dead continued to influence the lives of their survivors; indeed, the ancestors were considered to remain in spirit, eliciting respect and concern from the living, who might welcome ancestors at meals or appease them when they were angry. Sub-Saharan Africans also recognized many spirits identified with natural forces, both benign and dangerous. Most of these societies also believed in a supreme being as the highest power, the source of all excellence and virtue but far removed from human understanding. Sub-Saharan Africans were remarkably skilled and sensitive artists, particularly in sculpture. Ancient sculptors carved wood, ivory, or soapstone and cast in bronze, as well as working with baked clay. The famous bronze statuary of Benin, climaxing a long development in Nigeria, has been compared in craftsmanship and aesthetic sensitivity with the best work of the European Renaissance. Statuary and sculptured architectural decorations were often used to record historical events. Despite its characteristic realism, black African sculpture also symbolized religious themes. Symbolism, religious and otherwise, was also typical of African music, especially of drum rhythms and dance. Like law and religion, music was a part of everyday life. Bantu songs recounted real life experiences such as hunting, planting, cattle trading, courtship, and the adventures of famous heroes. Unlike musical events in Europe or contemporary America, where the performing artist plays to an audience, all individuals present tended to participate. Exceptions were mostly to be found in such states as Mali and Axum, where professional musicians were kept at royal courts, according to customs prevalent in North Africa or the Middle East. African audiences in the traditional Bantu societies usually became involved by clapping or dancing. Nothing could better illustrate the prevailing adherence to communal values. Representative Bantu States The ancient common culture pattern was well illustrated by a number of emerging Bantu states in the late medieval period. They include Zimbabwe and Mutapa in contemporary Zimbabwe; Kongo, which straddled the great river in the southwest; and Benin, near the mouth of the Niger. The Mossi and Yoruba states, which arose in the Niger backcountry, were typical of numerous less powerful Bantu polities. Upon arriving in East Africa at the opening of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese found the Kingdom of Mutapa controlling 700 miles of the upper Zambezi. They learned from Mutapan oral tradition about two recent kings who had conquered an empire between the Zambezi and the Limpopo. The last conqueror had moved his capital north to the Zambezi, but his successors still revered the ancient stone ruins of the original capital at Zimbabwe in the southern highlands. Great Zimbabwe, which reached its peak of development between 1250 and 1450, is the most impressive among hundreds of stone ruins, dating from the same era in that region. Its great buildings, extending over sixty acres, included a palace capable of housing a thousand servants and a temple with walls ten feet thick and twenty feet high. Labor for such projects was supported by a flourishing gold trade with the coastal cities, continued later by Mutapa. Without written records, scholars cannot precisely describe the Zimbabwe polity, but Portuguese accounts of Mutapa provide some indication of what the parent civilization was like. The royal capital of Mutapa contained a palace complex within a wooden palisade. Here, in addition to the king's quarters, were those for the queens and the royal pages, who were young hostages from subject peoples, sent to serve at the Mutapan court. The royal household also included the king's personal aides, such as the captain of the guard, the king's pharmacist, the head musician, and the doorkeeper. The most powerful officials, however, were the nine "wives of the king." Of these, the top ranking "wife" was the king's sister, who was in charge of foreign affairs. Only one queen, who ranked third in the hierarchy, was a true wife. The others were chief ministers and regional governors, with their own estates, vassals, and revenues. Some were not even women, but all were related to the dynasty by symbolic marriage ties, a practice evidently carried over from a past when all the ministers were women. Another sign of an earlier female emphasis was a military contingent of women, who played a decisive part in the election of kings. This tradition-bound bureaucracy and its related lineages imposed practical limits upon the king, despite his recognized divinity. Another notable kingdom was Kongo, located near the mouth of the Congo River. It was formed in the fourteenth century when a petty northern prince named Wene led a migration into the south, married into the local ruling family, and began acquiring vassals through conquest and voluntary submission of local rulers. A typical Bantu hero, Wene took the title of ManiKongo (lord of the Kongo). His successors governed a realm which united six former states between the coast and Stanley Pool. By the time the Portuguese arrived in the 1400s, Kongo had already developed a bureaucratic monarchy. The king had a paid bodyguard and a central government, collecting taxes in copper and cloth, which served as currency in regular trade between the coast and the interior. Appointed governors and district officials enforced authority in the six provinces. In the late fifteenth century, the whole system was based upon innumerable agricultural villages, which were still organized in the old matrilineal lineages but governed by brothers and nephews. Wives and daughters did most of the work in the fields. North of Kongo, on the forested coast of southern Nigeria, was Benin, a prosperous and powerful kingdom two centuries before the Portuguese arrived. Unlike Kongo, it had grown wealthy from its merchants' overland trade with the Sudan, although it did not become Muslim or import Sudanese culture. Among Benin's greatest rulers was Ewuare, who killed his rival and took the throne in 1440. He was remembered as a powerful magician and healer but was more famous as a conqueror of 200 towns, extending Benin's boundaries to the Niger and into the Yoruba hinterlands. The kings of Benin, known as Obas, lived in a huge palace, protected by a surrounding maze of courtyards. They maintained large, well-trained armies. Aiding the king was a council, comprised of hereditary officials who were royal family members. Government outside of the capital, Benin City, was largely in the hands of town and village chiefs, also related to the ruling dynasty. In addition to Benin, other states in the Niger region profited from contacts with the Sudan but continued developing their Bantu culture. Commerce, traditionally monopolized by women at the local level, had become thriving long-distance trade by the fifteenth century, when tribal towns north and west of Benin were heavily involved in military struggles for commercial dominance. The kings (Alafins) of Oyo, one Yoruba state, began building a tributary empire. It functioned, before 1500, as a complex mix of palace councils, subkings, secret societies, and lineage organizations at the village level. Later, in the sixteenth century, Oyo would become a strong rival of Benin. The Bantu heritage was equally striking among the Mossi states of the upper Volta, on the borders of Mali and Songhai in the western Sudan. By the fifteenth century, the five original Mossi kingdoms were united in a federation of subkings, each recognizing one ruler as overlord. This potentate headed a government of sixteen ministries, his palace housed hundreds of servants, and his army included efficient cavalry units. The Mossi polity resembled its greater Muslim neighbors, except for its religion and its orientation toward the outside world. In these respects, its rulers were loyal to the spirit of their ancestral religion and their customary law. All of the states described here were closer to their native traditions than were the older and more complex polities in the Sudan, in Ethiopia, and along the East Coast. Most of these latter states espoused Islam, while Ethiopia had been Christian since the fourth century. In addition, they imported non-African languages, writing systems, art, and cultural traditions. Because they developed earlier, they have often been regarded as sources of civilization spreading into the African interior. Such a process did take place, as is most evident on the borders of the northern savanna. Yet all innovations were integrated into older African cultures. This was true of all sub-Saharan states, but especially true of emerging southern Bantu monarchies after A.D. 1000. Hybrid Civilizations Of Sub-Sahara Africa While Bantu states in the forests and the southern highlands were evolving toward centralized monarchies, other sub-Saharan cultures were maturing into complex but varied civilizations. The western Sudan produced great empires, comparing in reputation with Eurasian imperial states. Ethiopia, a compact Christian monarchy, developed a unique identity while relatively isolated in the Abyssinian highlands. The Swahili sultanates on the east coast were independent cities, prospering in sea trade with Asia. But despite their differences, these societies were more economically advanced, more complex in political organization, more literate, and more aware of the larger world than those of the southern Bantu. Indeed, they were hybrid civilizations, with a layer of non-African values and institutions superimposed upon their native cultural foundations. Early Contacts With Non-African Civilizations Outside influences reached sub-Sahara Africa from ancient times, despite its relative isolation. Egypt expanded southward into the eastern Sudan before 2000 B.C.; Phoenicians, in their day, circumnavigated the continent, trading along the way. Later, Carthaginian galleys sailed the northwest coast, and still later, Romans reached the east coast through the Red Sea. They also traded across the Sahara, particularly after the second century A.D., when they brought Asian camels to North Africa. Following the Roman era, Eurasian influences reached Africa via the upper Nile, the ports of western Asia, and the rapidly developing caravan trade of the western Sahara. The major source of Egyptian influence upon sub-Sahara Africa was the black Nubian Kingdom of Kush. Once an Egyptian province, Kush became independent in the eighth century B.C. Its kings governed Egypt briefly before the 600s; after being driven from the north, they continued to rule the upper Nile, perpetuating an Africanized version of Egyptian culture, complete with pyramids. During the early Christian era, their capital city at Meroe became a famous iron-smelting center. Kush conducted a lively trade with Egypt, the central Sudan, Ethiopia, and Arabia. An Axumite invasion destroyed the kingdom in the fourth century, but two surviving Nubian states maintained Christianity and the traditional civilization until they were overrun by Arabs in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A second foreign influence upon sub-Sahara Africa came from pre-Islamic Arabs, who crossed the Red Sea and colonized the Eritrean coast around 1000 B.C. They interbred with native Africans to form a state called Axum, which rose on the Somali coast of Ethiopia. After destroying Kush in 350 B.C., Axum extended its control into the highlands. It brought many Semitic influences to northeast Africa, including some aspects of Judaism and a distinctive language. It also accepted Coptic Christianity from Egypt, maintaining close contacts with Near Eastern centers until it was isolated by the rise of Islam in the seventh century. Of all the early foreign influences in sub-Sahara Africa, the Islamic religion was undoubtedly the most significant. Originating in western Arabia, it spread rapidly through the Near East and North Africa in the seventh century. From Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, it was carried into the northern savanna by traders, missionaries, and conquerors. It also followed Arab and Persian sea trade from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to East Africa. With Islam came monotheism, Arabic language and writing, Arabic and Persian literature, coined money, and bureaucratic government. Islam was considerably modified by African customs, but it became a potent force, particularly in the western Sudan. Ethiopia Among the later sub-Saharan states, Ethiopia was the oldest. Historians usually record its beginnings with Axum's conquest of Kush, but Ethiopian monarchs traced their lineage back to the Hebrew King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, or Sabea, an ancient state in southwestern Arabia. Whether this is true, Axum's strong roots in Near Eastern culture were strengthened after its conversion to Christianity. Although predominantly black, its people were ethnically, culturally, and linguistically different from the Bantu. In the sixth century, the country was wealthy and powerful. Cities boasted stone houses and beautiful churches; the king wore luxurious robes and rode in chariots pulled by elephants. Axum also produced its own distinctive gold coins and conducted trade throughout the Near East, transacting business in Greek or in its own official language, known as Ge'ez. This picture changed drastically after Muslims conquered North Africa in the seventh century. They soon drove the Axumites from the Red Sea coast and into the highlands of the interior, where they fought to preserve their independence, their Christianity, and their culture. This struggle became particularly intense after the tenth century, when the country was weakened by a revolt, led by a reputedly Jewish queen in the southwest who played off Muslims against Christians, killed the Ethiopian king in battle, seized the throne, and reigned for forty years, persecuting Ethiopian Christians throughout the land. In the twelfth century, another rebellious local queen helped further Muslim influence. By the fifteenth century, however, Ethiopian monarchs had united local tribes, Christian and Muslim, into a tributary empire, whose monarch termed himself "King of Kings." The outstanding emperor of the era was Zara Yakob (1434-1468), who achieved internal unity for Ethiopia and security among its warlike Muslim neighbors, most of whom he defeated and reduced to vassalage. He is best remembered as a stern reformer who stamped out heresy, strengthened the Ethiopian Church, and reorganized the bureaucracy. He also established tentative relations with the pope, seeking European aid against his Muslim enemies. Unpopular at the time, this policy later led to alliance with the Portuguese. Zara Yakob held sway over a loosely controlled tributary state, but within his immediate environs he ruled as an absolute autocrat, surrounded by hundreds of courtiers and servants. He was aided by two chief ministers, two chief justices, a secretary, and a chaplain. The "Negus" (Emperor), as head of the Church, appointed the bishops and took an active part in church administration. Although he traveled constantly about the country, accompanied by his enormous retinue, the Negus allowed the public to see him only on rare occasions, when he appeared on a high platform, specially built for the purpose. Like the Middle Eastern states, to which it was closely related in history and culture, Ethiopia developed a male-centered society. According to Ethiopian legend, the first king, a son of the Queen of Sheba, swore at his coronation that Ethiopia would never be ruled by a woman. The king, though a Christian, usually had three wives and numerous concubines, who were kept secluded in their own quarters of the household. They had few political duties. Although the queen mothers were honored, and one might occasionally serve as regent for a young son, their political influence, like that of the royal wives, usually had to be exerted through some sympathic male of status. As among Arabs and Jews, this influence was often beneficial and decisive, despite its unofficial nature. On the other hand it could be quite disruptive when it resulted in palace intrigues and conspiracies among royal mothers, maneuvering to gain the throne for their sons. The economy of medieval Ethiopia was based primarily upon local agriculture. Axum's extensive commerce declined after the eighth century, as it shifted gradually from the sea to land trade with the interior. Nevertheless, the country enjoyed moderate prosperity, as evidenced by bountiful public revenues and lavish expenditures in church-building. The Emperor received tribute and taxes, mostly in goods, which were stored in warehouses. In addition, the monarch's daily needs were largely supplied by local rulers or officials, who entertained his entourage as it moved from place to place. Ethiopia acquired a rich cultural heritage, drawn mainly from the Middle East. Its traditions, even before the Christian era, were generated from the religious lore of Palestine and Arabia. Consequently, its most enduring cultural expressions were its churches, the most famous of which are the beautiful and awe-inspiring rock-hewn cathedrals of Roha, built after the eleventh century in the reign of the legendary Emperor Lalibela, who was declared a saint by the Ethiopian Church. These huge architectural projects compare favorably with similar temples in India for their ingenious engineering. This religious accent was typical of all scholarly and aesthetic pursuits, particularly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when Ethiopians produced innumerable biblical translations, theological treatises, biographies of saints, historical chronicles, illuminated manuscripts, and mural paintings. Swahili Cities In East Africa From ancient times the East African coast was involved in long-range maritime trade. Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Arab traders regularly operated as far south as Zanzibar before Bantu migrants arrived in early Christian times. The rise of Islam furthered commercial expansion in the Indian Ocean, but East Africa was not much affected until the twelfth century, when a wave of Arab and Persian commercial colonists begantransforming primitive trading settlements into flourishing Muslim commercial cities. During the peak period of Swahili civilization, between 1200 and 1500, the east coast was studded with thirty-seven city-states along the 1500 miles between Mogadishu in the north and Sofala in the south. Among the best known were Malindi, Mombasa, and Kilwa. Most Swahili cities were on islands, protected by sea from the foreign Bantu world of the mainland. Common people in the cities were from that world, either as descendants or migrants. Free intermarriage between a Middle Eastern elite and native inhabitants had produced a diverse racial mixture, described later by the Portuguese as varying from black through tawny to light, according to locality and social class. Swahili, the language of these cities, was mainly Bantu, but included some Arabic, Persian, and Hindu. Islam was usually the official religion, although shaped by local beliefs and customs. Generally, the culture was a synthesis of African and Middle Eastern, with the latter more pronounced among the upper classes. The Swahili cities were independent, with some temporary exceptions. At times, one city might exact tribute from its neighbors, or a number of states might federate in time of war. But commercial competition made such cooperation difficult to maintain and curtailed political expansion toward the Bantu interior, where kingdoms like Mutapa played one coastal city against another. Within the cities, governments were usually headed by monarchs (sultans), assisted by merchant councils, holy men, or royal relatives. Although the sultans were typical Muslim rulers in most respects, the common order of succession was drawn from the Bantu matrilineal tradition. When a sultan died at Kilwa, Pate, or numerous other cities, the throne passed to one of the head queen's brothers. As the Muslim Middle East became the commercial center of Eurasia, maritime trade of the Swahili cities figured largely in the commercial development of three continents. Kilwa became the major port for gold sent through Egypt to Europe. Iron ore, exported from Malindi and Mombasa, supplied the furnaces of India. A number of Chinese expeditions visited the coast in the early 1400s (see ch. 8), exchanging porcelain for typical African products, including exotic animals such as ostriches, zebras, and giraffes. In this era of their greatest prosperity, the Swahili cities built stone mosques and palaces, adorning their buildings with gold, ivory, and other wealth from nearly every major port in southern Asia. Kilwa impressed the famous Muslim scholar-traveler Ibn Batuta as the most beautiful and well-constructed city he had seen anywhere. Archeological excavations revealing the ruins of enormous palaces, great mansions, elaborate mosques, arched walkways, town squares, and public fountains have confirmed this evaluation. The main palace at Kilwa, built on the edge of an ocean cliff, contained over 100 rooms, as well as an eight-sided bathing pool in one of its many courtyards. The Swahili cities produced their own characteristic culture. Their beautiful architecture, borrowed from Arabia and Persia, was matched by a Swahili literature, written in an Arabic script. Poems, ballads, and letters in Swahili reflected the perspectives of a Muslim urban elite. Most common people, however, were only indifferent converts to Islam, which they accepted while holding to their own orally expressed traditional beliefs. A few miles inland from the cities, the lives of Bantu villagers were relatively untouched by the ways of the coastal cities. Empires Of The Western Sudan More than the Swahili cities and Ethiopia, the great states of the western Sudan were based upon native African traditions. The old Bantu ways remained very strong, particularly among women, who outwardly accepted the imported Muslim religion but retained their attachment to old customs and freedoms. Yet despite this pull of the past, the area was much affected by outside contacts, particularly those arising from trans-Saharan trade with the Mediterranean lands to the north. Following the third century, when camels were first employed in this trade, large caravans, sometimes including 10,000 pack animals, made regular trips across the dangerous desert, carrying North African salt in exchange for West African gold. To these great expeditions, the Niger River offered a secure watering and resting place. Here were people who knew the savanna and could easily find the still distant gold-producing areas. Thus Africans living near the great bend of the river came into control of the lucrative gold and salt trade. Many traders were women, particularly those operating in local markets, where rising prosperity and accumulating wealth increased the traffic in foods and luxury goods. Ghana The earliest of the kingdoms of the western Sudan was Ghana (not to be confused with the modern state of the same name). It arose on the upper Niger during the fourth century as a loose federation of village states, inhabited by Soninke farmers. According to unconfirmed legends, it was first ruled by a Berber dynasty, which was overthrown about A.D. 700, when Kaya Maghau led his kinsmen in an uprising, killed the last white ruler, and established a Soninke dynasty. Kaya was remembered as a great warrior, who expanded Ghana's boundaries while furthering trade across the desert. Ghana reached its peak in the eleventh century. The Arab chronicler al-Bakri noted in 1067 that the army was 200,000 strong, with many contingents wearing chain mail. The king, who had not converted to Islam, was considered divine and able to intercede with the gods. He appointed all officials and served as supreme judge. When he appeared in public, he was surrounded by advisors and princes of the empire, along with personal retainers holding gold swords, horses adorned with gold-cloth blankets, and dogs wearing gold collars. Ghana's wealth derived partially from its efficient irrigation agriculture, but the gold trade was an even more significant factor. The king claimed every gold nugget coming into the country, leaving ordinary citizens the right to buy and sell only gold dust. Taxes were levied on the many goods crossing Ghana's borders. The commercial emphasis is evident in al-Bakri's description of the capital, Kumbi-Saleh. This was really two towns, some six miles apart, one occupied by the king and his retinue and the other by foreign merchants. Even the merchants' town had twelve mosques, two-storied stone houses, and public squares. This, along with the Muslim legalists and theologians who lived in Kumbi-Saleh, suggests a prevailing Islamic influence, although the king publicly consulted priests of the traditional cults. Ghana's decline and eclipse in the early thirteenth century remains something of a mystery. One Muslim account of an Almoravid invasion from Morocco, around 1080, has been seriously questioned by recent scholarship, without completely resolving the question. Later kings apparently accepted Islam, but this may have been voluntary. At any rate, Ghana remained intact but weakening for another hundred years. In 1203, its rule was ended by the uprising of a petty vassal, who was later overthrown by Sundiata, founder of Mali. Mali After defeating and killing the tyrant who had subjugated his kinsmen and murdered his brothers, Sundiata took over Ghana and gained control of the desert gold trade. Thus began a new ruling dynasty in the western Sudan. Sundiata's immediate descendants converted to Islam, which aided their further conquests, until by the fourteenth century, Malian kings ruled over more than forty million people and 400 towns in the entire Sudan-Sahel region of West Africa, which stretched from beyond the upper Niger to the Atlantic. The kingdom was at the height of its power and prosperity during the reign of Mansa (King) Musa (1312-1337). Musa was perhaps the first African ruler to be known throughout the civilized world of western Asia and Europe. He was a great soldier, consolidating his control over a vast domain. He also encouraged the growth of Islam in his lands, importing Muslim scholars and architects to promote learning, build mosques, and implement his political authority. His fame abroad resulted mainly from his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, when his thousands of retainers and generous gifts completely amazed his hosts along the way. Gold expended then in Cairo caused ruinous Egyptian inflation for a generation. Mansa Musa ruled over a state more efficiently organized than the relatively crude European kingdoms of the time. On the north and northeast were loosely held tributary kingdoms of diverse populations, including some Berbers. To the south were more closely controlled tributary states, under resident viceroys, appointed by the Mansa. Elsewhere, particularly in the cities, such as Timbuktu, provincial administrators governed directly in the king's name and at his pleasure. The central government included ministries forfinance, justice, agriculture, and foreign relations. Ibn Batuta visited Mali in 1352 and left a detailed description of the country. He was most impressed by its law and justice, which guaranteed that no man "need fear brigands, thieves, or ravishers" anywhere in the Mansa's vast domain. Batuta praised the king's devotion to Islam but was disappointed that so many Malians were not Muslim. He noted also that the unveiled women were most attractive but lacking in humility. He was astounded that they might take lovers without arousing their husbands' jealousy and might have male friends, with whom they regularly discoursed on learned subjects. Batuta was describing the city of Walata, where he found women better educated and enjoying more freedom that in other countries he had visited. ^2 He might have said the same about a number of Sudanese trading cities, including Adoghast, Kumi Saleh, Gao, and Timbuktu. [Footnote 2: Rhoda Hoff, Africa: Adventures in Eyewitness History (New York: A. Walck, 1963), pp. 10-13.] After Mansa Musa's death, his successors found the large empire increasingly difficult to govern. They were plagued by poor communications, the diversity of cultures, and the competition of rising states, whose rulers were also converting to Islam. One of the rebellious states was Songhai, farther down the Niger. Before the end of the fourteenth century it had won its independence. Within another century it had conquered Mali. Other Sudanese States Songhai reached its zenith during the reigns of Sonni Ali (1464-1492) and Askia Muhammed (1493-1528). Sonni Ali captured Timbuktu in 1468, while conquering most of Mali, When he died, after thirty years of ruthless military dictatorship, Askia Muhammed set about reorganizing the whole empire. He created central ministries, an appointed provincial administration, a professional army, and an enlarged fleet of canoes, which constantly patroled the Niger. He also reformed taxation, instituted a systems of weights and measures, and regularized judicial procedures. During his reign, the Sankore mosque in Timbuktu became so renowned as a center of learning that a contemporary traveler noted more profit being made from bookselling than from any other trade. When Askia Muhammed died, Songhai was respected throughout the western Islamic world. Another rising Savanna state after the fourteenth century was Kanem-Bornu, located near Lake Chad in the central Sudan. By the eleventh century, the parent kingdom of Kanem was a prosperous contemporary of Ghana. After being overrun by invaders and then reconquered by earlier migrants to Bornu in the west, it emerged a second time after 1400. As did those of Mali, the women of Kanem-Bornu enjoyed a high social status. From the tenth century, they had held important government positions; the king's mother was an official advisor along with his chief wife and eldest sister. The kings commanded a large army, which they used to extend their territories. Like the Mansas of Mali, they attempted, with some success, to impose their Islamic religion upon their people. In the fifteenth century, they developed close relations with pro-Turkish regimes in North Africa and the Middle East, thus increasing their trade and their military support. Farther west, between Lake Chad and the Niger, were the seven independent Hausa kingdoms, each organized as a city-state. Before the eleventh century, Hausa kings were hampered by a lingering matrilineal system, in which each monarch shared power with a queen mother and other female councilors. Later, as the cities began prospering in trans-Saharan trade, and as commercial rivalry increased, their weaknesses became more evident. This situation changed some after the fourteenth century, when most of the kings accepted Islam, using it to free them from old matriarchal restraints and prepare literate officials for governing the villages. The new Muslim age of despotism, competition, and warfare decisively weakened the traditional status of Hausa women. One king of Kano, in the late 1400s, even had his wives and thousand concubines secluded, as was the custom in the Muslim Middle East. All the Sudanese states, despite their significance in the trans-Saharan trade, were relatively weak and insecure. Their Islamic culture, which generated literary and architectural achievements, was a thin veneer over a traditional African way of life. Royal administrators were hard pressed to control lineage chiefs and self-sustaining villages. Ultimately, Sudanese polities depended upon able kings; inefficient monarchs invariably brought collapse. Fonte: International World History website |
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