History of Africa

460 Pages·1995·54.564 MB·English

by  Kevin Shillington

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Boston Public Library
History of Africa
Revised Edition
Kevin Shillington
Rodindale branch Library
4238 Washington Street
Ro*Un<ioU,MA02131-25l7
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St. Martin's Press
New
York
/
RO BR
DT20
For Pippa
.S47
1995*
© Kevin Shillington 1989, 1995
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1995
Printed in Hong Kong
ISBN 0-312-12598^
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Shillington, Kevin.
History of Africa/Kevin Shillington.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-12598-4
1. Africa - History. I. Title.
DT20S47 1989
960 -de19 89-31391
CIP
L
Contents
Preface v
Chapter 1 Early prehistory of Africa 1
Chapter 2 Later prehistory: the development and spread of farming and
pastoralism 14
Chapter 3 The impact of iron in northeast and west Africa 36
Chapter 4 The Early Iron Age and Bantu migrations 49
AD
Chapter 5 North and northeastern Africa to 1000 62
Chapter 6 Trans-Saharan trade and the kingdom of Ancient Ghana 78
Chapter 7 Islam and the Sudanic states of west Africa 90
Chapter 8 Eastern Africa to the sixteenth century 107
Chapter 9 Trading states of the east African coast to the sixteenth century 122
Chapter 10 Later Iron Age states and societies of central and southern Africa
AD
to 1600 138
Chapter 11 North and northeast Africa to the eighteenth century 157
Chapter 12 The Atlantic slave trade, sixteen to eighteenth century 170
Chapter 13 West African states and societies to the eighteenth century 181
Chapter 14 Central and eastern Africa to the eighteenth century 197
Chapter 15 Southern Africa to the eighteenth century 212
Chapter 16 West Africa in the nineteenth century and the ending of the slave
trade 226
Chapter 17 Central and east Africa in the nineteenth century 242
Chapter 18 Pre-industrial southern Africa in the nineteenth century 258
Chapter 19 North and northeast Africa in the nineteenth century 275
Chapter 20 Prelude to empire in Tropical Africa 289
Chapter 21 The European 'Scramble', colonial conquest and African resistance
in east, north-central and west Africa 302
Chapter 22 Industrialisation, colonial conquest and African resistance in
south-central and southern Africa 318
Chapter 23 Consolidation of empire: the early period of colonial rule 333
Chapter 24 Africa between the wars: the high tide of colonial rule 348
Chapter 25 The Second World War and Africa 364
Chapter 26 The winning of independence (1) 374
Chapter 27 The winning of independence (2) 391
Chapter 28 Africa since independence (1) 408
Chapter 29 Africa since independence (2) 422
Suggestions for further reading 434
Index 441
in
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers wish to acknowledge, with thanks, the
following photographic sources.
J. Allan Cash pp. 74; 158
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Government of Zanzibar p. 133
Associated Press p. 376 bottom
BBC Hulton Picture Library pp. 110; 132; 176; 177; 179 top; 179
bottom, 210; 224; 254; 268; 279; 281; 282; 312; 314; 355 top; 356; 359; 383; 388
British Library p. 185
British Museum p. 63
British Museum (National History) p. 5
A.F. Calvert pp. 53 right; 336; 351 bottom; 358
Alex Campbell p. 147
Cape Archives, Elliott Collection p. 215
Church Missionary Society p. 292
Mrs S. Erskine p. 76
Mary Evans Picture Library pp. 226; 288; 295
FAO p. 425 (photographJ. Van Acker)
Werner Forman Archive pp. 42; 43 top; 47 (Musee de Prehistoire et
d'Ethnographie du Bardo, Algiers); 70; 88; 96; 103; 127; 172 top; 172 bottom; 191
left; 195 top
Ghana Film Industry Corporation p. 85
Robert Harding Photograph Library pp. 3 top; 18; 27; 28; 169; 277
Andre Held pp. 48; 189
Michael Holford pp. 22; 23; 26; 65
Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow p. 3 bottom
Hutchison Photograph Library pp. 9; 11; 79; 80; 81; 93; 106; 108; 117; 135
bottom; 136; 160; 161; 166; 187; 197; 418; 419; 420
IDAFpp. 318; 361
IMPADSp. 413
J.D. Lajoux p. 33
Mansell Collection p. 298; 303; 325; 334
MARS pp. 239; 287
Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg p. 154
National Archives, Zimbabwe pp. 51; 125; 138; 150; 151; 205; 244; 248; 251; 256;
263 top; 299; 323; 326; 335; 343 top; 343 bottom; 345 top; 345 bottom; 346; 350;
355 bottom; 396
Peter Newark's Historical Pictures pp. 208; 238; 260; 271
D.W. Phillipson p. 53 left
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, p. 310
Popperfoto pp. 330; 344; 351 top; 365 top; 367; 375 left; 375 right; 376 top left; 376
top right; 386; 392; 400; 405; 429; 432
Punch p. 365 bottom
Rapho p. 109
Rivers Thompson Photograph p. 264
Roger-Viollet pp. 276; 368; 381
Royal Geographical Society pp. 235 top; 263 bottom
Royal Museum for Central Africa at Tervuren, Belgium p. 140
South African Museum, Cape Town p. 58
Staatliche Museum, Berlin p. 191 right
Henry M. Stanley p. 300
The Times p. 348
Geoffrey Williams p. 245
Windhoek Archives p. 341
Cover photograph courtesy of Colorific
The publishers have made every effort to trace the copyright holders, but if
iv they have inadvertently overlooked any, they will be pleased to make the necessary
arrangements at the first opportunity.
Preface
The study of African history came of age in the 1960s, coinciding with the
emergence of many newly-independent modern African states. Professional
historians working in the universities and archives of Africa, Europe and
north America have, over the past thirty years, produced millions of words
and hundreds of volumes on various aspects of the history of Africa.
Consequently, most African countries are now able to sport their own
'national' histories. And many of these are used as a basis for the study of
history in local schools and colleges. Similarly, regional introductory his-
tories of east, west, central or southern Africa have been written with the
needs of school and college syllabuses in mind. General histories of the
whole continent, especially those going back to earliest times, have tended
to be written to a rather more complex level of language and ideas. As a
result, the non-specialist general reader, or the senior school or college
student newly embarking on the wider history of the continent, has often
found them somewhat daunting and difficult to comprehend.
The purpose of this new History of Africa is to overcome the latter
problem by providing a simple, basic and well-illustrated text, and so bring
to the widest possible audience an introduction to Africa's long and fasci-
nating past which is both easily understood and based on the results of
some of the most recent and up-to-date research. The book pays particular
attention to social, economic, political and religious developments and the
way in which these affect the lives of ordinary people. At the same time I
have sought to provide a critical but chronological narrative which covers
most of the major developments and societies on the continent and touches
on many of the themes that have most concerned historians in recent
decades.
Starting from the earliest evolution of humankind, the book traces the
history of Africa through the millennia of the Stone Age to the rise and
decline of the states and societies of Africa in the ancient and medieval
worlds. Through the more recent centuries of increasing European in-
tervention, the focus has remained upon the indigenous African view-
points, developments and initiatives. Finally I have attempted to place the
post-colonial problems of political, social and economic development in
their proper historical context and so avoid the strongly negative tone of so
much modern writing about the contemporary African continent.
My
debt to fellow-historians of Africa is too great to enumerate here. I
have read widely in their work and only hope that my interpretation does
some justice to their efforts. Finally I dedicate this book to Pippa without
whose unstinting encouragement and support it could never have been
undertaken.
Kevin Shillington,
London
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CHAPTER Early prehistory of Africa
1
The 'cradle of humankind'
The English naturalist Charles Darwin first proposed his theory of
evolution in 1859 (The Origin of Species). When he applied his theory to
the origins of human beings (The Descent ofMan, 1871), he suggested that
the birthplace of humankind was probably Africa. At the time Darwin's
ideas provoked great controversy in Europe. This was partly for religious
reasons. Darwin challenged the Biblical notion that God created human-
kind and all other modern living creatures in a single, spontaneous week of
creation. Darwin's publications also came at a time of heightening
European imperial expansion. His writings thus flew in the face of
European notions of racial superiority. Many Europeans found it hard to
accept that their own most ancient ancestors had originally come from
Africa. Since the 1950s, however, scientific research in the dry savannah
grasslands and woodlands of southern, eastern and northern Africa have
provided sufficient evidence to confirm the truth of Darwin's proposition:
Africa is indeed the 'cradle of humankind'. And, what is more, it seems
that Africa is the origin not only of the human species itself, but also of
many of the more important technological innovations developed in the
ancient world of early human prehistory.
Evidence Africa is the only continent in which evidence has been found for man's
early evolution. The material evidence for human evolution depends largely
upon the recovery and examination of ancient bones, fossils, stone tools
and other artefacts.
Fossils are formed during the geological formation of rocks. Animal or
plant remains that are trapped within the rock are squeezed under pressure
so great that their imprint is left behind within the rock. If the rocks are
then broken open by further natural process or by modern human re-
searchers, a perfect imprint (a fossil) of the organic matter is revealed,
having been enclosed within the solid rock, perhaps for millions of years.
Scientific geological methods can be used to give an approximate age
to the formation of rocks and hence to their fossils. Since the late 1940s
scientists have developed the radiocarbon (Carbon-14) dating technique for
approximating the age of dead organic matter such as bones and charcoal.
Radiocarbon dating: During its lifetime all living animal and
vegetable matter absorbs a minute amount of radioactive carbon
(Carbon-14) from the atmosphere. At its death the level of Carbon-
/
14 in the object gradually declines, at a steady, measurable rate. Thus,
by measuring the amount of Carbon-14 in ancient fragments of
former living matter such as bone or charcoal, scientists are able to
calculate the approximate age of the object. The results are never very
accurate, but they are an invaluable aid to archaeologists concerned
more with chronology than with very precise dates.
The results of early radiocarbon tests were very imprecise, but recently
new techniques have been developed for more accurately dating a wider
range of dead organic material.
The earliest hominids In terms of evolution modern human beings belong to the primate family
of 'hominids'. Hominid is a general biological name for human or human-
like creatures with enlarged brains and the ability to walk upright on two
legs. For tens of thousands of years modern human beings have been the
only surviving hominids. But in the early stages of human evolution there
were a number of different hominid species. From the evidence of fossils
it appears that many millions of years ago the earliest form of hominid
evolved away from the other main family of primates, the great African
forest apes: the gorilla and the chimpanzee.
There are significant gaps in the fossil evidence and so little is known
about the earliest hominids. But it appears that some time between about
ten million and five million years ago they moved out of the tropical forest
into the more open savannah grasslands and woodlands of east Africa.
There they began to develop the techniques of standing and walking on
two legs. Exactly how and why they started doing this we do not know for
sure, but in terms of survival and evolution it had a number of distinct
advantages. In the open savannah standing upright enabled them to see
over the grassland and spot predators such as lion and leopard who hunted
them for food. Those best able to stand upright thus survived longer,
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reproduced more and passed this advantage on to their descendants.
further highly important advantage of two-legged walking was that it left
the hands free to carry food and use tools. Fingers no longer needed to be
short and strong for hanging on to branches in the forest. The early
hominids were able to evolve elongated fingers for performing intricate
tasks and, eventually, for making their own tools.
The search for the 'missing link' in the chain of evolution from apes to
human beings has fascinated scholars and the general public ever since
Darwin first proposed the connection. Recent research, however, has
provided so many 'links' in the form of fossil evidence that one scholar has
remarked: 'It would be far more truthful to say that it is the chain that is
missing whilst the links exist.' (Posnansky in Zamani, 1974, p. 53)
The Australo- The first clue to the unravelling of this story came in 1925. The South
pithecines African anthropologist Raymond Dart revealed an important discovery he
had made in a buried limestone cave near Taung in South Africa. What
Dart had discovered was the skull of a six-year-old creature, ape-like in
appearance but with certain human-like characteristics. From the shape of
the back of the skull it was possible to tell how the neck muscles would