{{Short description|None}} <!-- This short description is INTENTIONALLY "none" - please see WP:SDNONE before you consider changing it! --> {{CS1 config|mode=cs1}} {{Redirect|African history|the study of the African past|African historiography}}
Archaic humans emerged out of Africa between 0.5 and 1.8 million years ago. This was followed by the emergence of modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') in East Africa around 300,000–250,000 years ago who spread across the world. The oral word is revered in most African cultures, and history has predominantly been passed down through oral tradition. In the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE Ancient Egypt and Kerma arose in the northeast, while the Tichitt Tradition flourished in West Africa. Between around 3000 BCE and 500 CE, the Bantu expansion swept from north-western Central Africa (modern day Cameroon) across much of Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa, displacing or absorbing groups such as the Khoisan and Pygmies.
Some societies were heterarchical and egalitarian, while others organised into chiefdoms.{{Efn|In stateless societies, oral histories centred around clan histories.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Odhiambo |first=E. S. Atieno |date=2004 |title=The Usages of the past: African historiographies since independence |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-research-and-documentation/article/abs/usages-of-the-past-african-historiographies-since-independence/CBA353B3608A35A71E2536CC673C8C73 |journal=African Research and Documentation |language=en |volume=96 |pages=3–61 |doi=10.1017/S0305862X00014369 |issn=0305-862X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> John Lonsdale famously said that "the most distinctively African contribution to human history could be said to have been precisely the civilized art of living fairly peaceably together ''not'' in states".<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/reciprocal-comparison-and-african-history-tackling-conceptual-eurocentrism-in-the-study-of-africas-economic-past/04B75AB4C085E3EA5028042A4439A45E |last=Austin |first=Gareth |title=Reciprocal Comparison and African History: Tackling Conceptual Eurocentrism in the Study of Africa's Economic Past |journal=African Studies Review |volume=50 |issue=3 |year=2007|pages=1–28 |doi=10.1353/arw.2008.0009 }}</ref>}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=González-Ruibal|first=Alfredo|date=2024-11-23|title=Traditions of Equality: The Archaeology of Egalitarianism and Egalitarian Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa (First and Second Millennium CE)|journal=Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory|language=en|volume=32|issue=1|article-number=6|doi=10.1007/s10816-024-09678-1|issn=1573-7764|doi-access=free|hdl=10261/395172|hdl-access=free}}</ref> At its peak it is estimated that Africa had around 10,000 polities, with most following traditional religions.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Meredith|first=Martin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNZ6srograIC&dq=10%2C000+states+in+africa&pg=PT15|title=The State of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence|date=2011-09-01|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-85720-389-2|language=en}}</ref> The continent has seen the rise and fall of many states,{{efn|Most states were created through conquest or the borrowing and assimilation of ideas and institutions, while others developed largely in isolation.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Southall|first=Aidan|title=State Formation in Africa|journal=Annual Review of Anthropology|volume=3|pages=153–165|year=1974|doi=10.1146/annurev.an.03.100174.001101|jstor=2949286}}</ref>}} and there have long been extensive trading networks between its regions. Some African empires and kingdoms include:
* Kush, Carthage, Numidia, Masuna, Makuria, the Fatimids, Almoravids, Almohads, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Marinids, Zianids and Hafsids in North Africa; * Wagadu, Mali, Songhai, Jolof, Ife, Oyo, Benin, Bonoman, Nri, Ségou, Asante, Fante, Massina, Sokoto, Tukulor, and Wassoulou in West Africa; * {{smallcaps|dʿmt}}, Aksum, Ethiopia, Damot, Ifat, Adal, Ajuran, Funj, Kitara, Kilwa, Sakalava, Imerina, Rombo,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History |publisher=Oxford University Press |title=History of the Mount Kilimanjaro Area |last=Bender |first=Matthew |year=2023 |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1470}}</ref> Bunyoro, Buganda, and Rwanda in East Africa; * Kanem-Bornu, Kongo, Anziku, Loango, Ndongo, Mwene Muji, Kotoko, Wadai, Mbunda, Luba, Lunda, Kuba, and Utetera in Central Africa; and * Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe, Mutapa, Butua, Rozvi, Maravi, Oukwanyama, Lozi, Lobedu,<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Maphalle |first=Kagiso Annette |date=2017 |title=Succession in woman-to-women marriages under customary law: a study of the Lobedu Kingdom |publisher=University of Cape Town|url=https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/26908}}</ref> Mthwakazi, and amaZulu in Southern Africa. From the 7th century CE, Islam spread west amid the Arab conquest of North Africa, and by proselytization to the Horn of Africa, bringing with it a new social system. It later spread southwards to the Swahili coast assisted by Muslim dominance of the Indian Ocean trade, and across the Sahara into the western Sahel and Sudan, catalysed by the Fula jihads of the 18th and 19th centuries. When the trans-Saharan, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Atlantic long-distance slave trades began, local slave systems started supplying captives for markets outside Africa. This reorientated many African economies, and created various diasporas, especially in the Americas.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lovejoy |first=Paul E. |title=Transformations of Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa |year=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=London}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sparks |first1=Randy J. |title=Where the Negroes are Masters: An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade |chapter=4. The Process of Enslavement at Annamaboe |date=2014 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-72487-7 |pages=122–161}}</ref>
Between 1870 and 1914, driven by the Second Industrial Revolution European colonisation of Africa grew rapidly in the "Scramble for Africa", and saw the major European powers partition the continent at the 1884 Berlin Conference, resulting in territory under European imperial control increasing from one-tenth of the continent to over nine-tenths.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chukwu |first1=Lawson |last2=Akpowoghaha |first2=G. N. |title=Political Economy of Colonial Relations and Crisis of Contemporary African Diplomacy |chapter=Colonialism in Africa: An Introductory Review |year=2023 |pages=1–11 |doi=10.1007/978-981-99-0245-3_1 |isbn=978-981-99-0244-6 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-99-0245-3_1}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Frankema |first=Ewout |title=An Economic Rationale for the West African Scramble? The Commercial Transition and the Commodity Price Boom of 1835–1885 |journal=The Journal of Economic History |volume=78 |issue=1 |pages=231–267 |year=2018 |doi=10.1017/S0022050718000128 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/an-economic-rationale-for-the-west-african-scramble-the-commercial-transition-and-the-commodity-price-boom-of-18351885/5A64C29764E79C75826A45F32562FB04}}</ref> European colonialism had significant impacts on Africa's societies, and colonies were maintained for the purpose of economic exploitation of human and natural resources. Though Christianity has had a long history in Africa, widespread conversions occurred under European rule in southern West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa due to successful missions, and the syncretization of Christianity with local beliefs.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Walls|first=A|title=African Christianity in the History of Religions|journal=Studies in World Christianity|volume=2|issue=2|pages=183–203|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2011|doi=10.3366/swc.1996.2.2.183|url=https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/swc.1996.2.2.183|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
The rise of nationalism gave birth to independence movements in many parts of the continent, and with a weakened Europe after the Second World War, a wave of decolonisation took place, culminating in the 1960 Year of Africa and the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 (the predecessor to the African Union), with countries deciding to keep their colonial borders.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hargreaves|first=John D.|title=Decolonization in Africa|date=1996|publisher=Longman|isbn=0-582-24917-1|edition=2nd|location=London|oclc=33131573}}</ref> Traditional power structures, which had been incorporated into the colonial administration, remained partly in place in many parts of Africa, and their roles, powers, and influence vary greatly. Many countries have experienced the rise and fall of nationalism, and continue to face challenges such as internal conflict, neocolonialism, and climate change. {{TOC limit|3}}
== History in Africa == The oral word is revered in most African cultures, and history has predominantly been passed down through oral tradition.{{Efn|Jan Vansina differentiated between "oral civilisations" and "literate civilisations", wherein the former prides the oral word over the written word and vice versa.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=142–143}} This characterisation has come under criticism by some African scholars, as it implies conflict between the oral and written. They instead contend that in reality, the situation is defined by the interaction between three ways of expression and diffusion: the oral, the written, and the printed word.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy |chapter=Orality |year=2022 |publisher=Springer |doi=10.1007/978-94-024-2068-5_296 |url=https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-024-2068-5_296 |last1=Mouralis |first1=Bernard |pages=537–539 |isbn=978-94-024-2066-1 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Bethwell Allan Ogot notes that images of Africa composed by Western writers have often been in terms of "opposites" and how they differ from an "us".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ogot |first=Bethwell Allan |title=Rereading the History and Historiography of Epistemic Domination and Resistance in Africa |journal=African Studies Review |year=2009 |volume=52 |issue=1 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1353/arw.0.0127 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/rereading-the-history-and-historiography-of-epistemic-domination-and-resistance-in-africa/775F359EADE441ABC3CB3E4A68B1B679|url-access=subscription }}</ref>}}<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Vansina |first=Jan |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000042225 |title=General History of Africa: Volume 1 |date=1981 |publisher=UNESCO Publishing |chapter=Oral tradition and its methodology}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=142–143}} In accordance with African cosmology, African historical consciousness viewed historical change and continuity, order and purpose within the framework of a person and their environment, the gods, and their ancestors, who believed themselves to be part of a holistic spiritual entity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ajaegbo|first=D.I.|date=1990|title=African Historiographical Traditions from the Earliest Times to the Second World War: An Analytical Survey|journal=Transafrican Journal of History|volume=19|pages=139–151|issn=0251-0391|jstor=24328680}}</ref> In African societies, the historical process is largely a communal one, with eyewitness accounts, hearsay, reminiscences, and occasionally visions, dreams, and hallucinations crafted into narrative oral traditions which are performed and transmitted through generations.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vansina|first=Jan|url=https://archive.org/details/oraltraditionash0000vans_g5z0/page/n9/mode/2up|title=Oral tradition as history|date=1985|publisher=Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press|others=Internet Archive|isbn=978-0-299-10214-2}}</ref>{{Rp|page=12}}{{Rp|page=48}} In oral traditions time is sometimes mythical and social, and ancestors were considered historical actors.{{Efn|In these cases, time's duration is not as it affects the fate of the individual, but the pulse of the social group. It is not a river flowing in one direction from a known source to a known outlet. Generally, traditional African time involves eternity in both directions, unlike Christians who consider eternity to operate in one direction. In African animism, time is an arena where both the group and the individual struggle for their vitality. The goal is to improve their situation, thus being dynamic. Bygone generations remain contemporary, and as influential as they were during their lifetime, if not more so. In these circumstances causality operates in a forward direction from past to present and from present to future, however direct intervention can operate in any direction.<ref name="Hama-1981"/>{{rp|page=44, 49}}}}<ref name="Hama-1981">{{cite book|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000042225|title=General History of Africa: Volume 1|chapter=The place of history in African society|year=1981|last1=Hama|first1=Boubou|last2=Ki-Zerbo|first2=Joseph|publisher=UNESCO Publishing}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=43–53}} Mind and memory shapes traditions, as events are condensed over time and crystallise into clichés.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Isichei|first=Elizabeth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3C2tzBSAp3MC&dq=african+history&pg=PP14|title=A History of African Societies to 1870|date=1997-04-13|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-45599-2|language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=11}} Jan Vansina said that interpretation requires a proficient (or better yet native) understanding of the language and culture.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vansina|first=Jan|url=https://archive.org/details/oraltraditionash0000vans_g5z0/page/n9/mode/2up|title=Oral Tradition as History|date=1985|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|others=|isbn=978-0-299-10214-2|chapter=Meaning}}</ref>{{rp|pages=83–93}} Oral tradition can be exoteric or esoteric.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bâ|first=Amadou|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000042225|title=General History of Africa: Volume 1|date=1981|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|chapter=The living tradition}}</ref>{{Rp|page=168}} Philospher Anselm Jimoh wrote that in African epistemology, the epistemic subject "experiences the epistemic object in a sensuous, emotive, intuitive, abstractive understanding, rather than through abstraction alone, as is the case in Western epistemology" to arrive at a "complete knowledge", and as such oral traditions, music, proverbs, and the like were used in the preservation and transmission of knowledge.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jimoh|first=Anselm Kole|title=Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy|date=2017|publisher=Springer International Publishing|isbn=978-3-319-40796-8|editor-last=Ukpokolo|editor-first=Isaac E.|location=Cham|pages=121–136|language=en|chapter=An African Theory of Knowledge|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-40796-8_8}}</ref>
== Prehistory == {{Main|Prehistoric Africa}} {{See also|Recent African origin of modern humans|African humid period|Sahara pump theory}} Africa is considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth, with the Human species originating from the continent.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Herrera|first1=Rene J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZF1gDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA61|title=Ancestral DNA, Human Origins, and Migrations|last2=Garcia-Bertrand|first2=Ralph|publisher=Elsevier Science|year=2018|isbn=978-0-12-804128-4|pages=61–|access-date=18 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210330032459/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZF1gDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA61|archive-date=30 March 2021|url-status=live}}</ref> During the mid-20th century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as seven million years ago ("Before Present"; BP). Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have evolved into modern humans, such as ''Australopithecus afarensis'' radiometrically dated to approximately 3.9–3.0 million years BP,<ref>Kimbel, William H. and Yoel Rak and Donald C. Johanson. (2004) ''The Skull of Australopithecus Afarensis'', Oxford University Press US. {{ISBN|0-19-515706-0}}.</ref> ''Paranthropus boisei'' (c. 2.3–1.4 million years BP)<ref>Tudge, Colin. (2002) ''The Variety of Life.'', Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-860426-2}}</ref> and ''Homo ergaster'' (c. 1.9 million–600,000 years BP) have been discovered.<ref>Sayre, April Pulley (1999), ''Africa'', Twenty-First Century Books. {{ISBN|0-7613-1367-2}}.</ref>
After the evolution of ''Homo sapiens'' approximately 350,000 to 260,000 years BP in Africa, the continent was mainly populated by groups of hunter-gatherers.<ref>Mokhtar, G. (1990) ''UNESCO General_History_of_Africa, Vol. II, Abridged Edition: Ancient Africa'', University of California Press. {{ISBN|0-85255-092-8}}.</ref><ref>Eyma, A. K. and C. J. Bennett. (2003) ''Delts-Man in Yebu: Occasional Volume of the Egyptologists' Electronic Forum No. 1'', Universal Publishers. p. 210. {{ISBN|1-58112-564-X}}.</ref> These first modern humans left Africa and populated the rest of the globe during the Out of Africa II migration dated to approximately 50,000 years BP, exiting the continent either across Bab-el-Mandeb over the Red Sea,<ref>Wells, Spencer (December 2002) [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman.html The Journey of Man], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110427020944/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman.html|date=27 April 2011}}. ''National Geographic.''</ref><ref>Oppenheimer, Stephen. [http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/gates2.html The Gates of Grief], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140530001241/http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/gates2.html|date=30 May 2014}}. bradshawfoundation.com.</ref> the Strait of Gibraltar in Morocco,<ref>{{Cite web |title=15. Strait of Gibraltar, Atlantic Ocean/Mediterranean Sea|url=https://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/humanimprints/slide_15.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126205023/https://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/humanimprints/slide_15.html|archive-date=26 January 2021|access-date=13 May 2020|website=lpi.usra.edu}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fregel|first1=Rosa|last2=Méndez|first2=Fernando L.|last3=Bokbot|first3=Youssef|last4=Martín-Socas|first4=Dimas|last5=Camalich-Massieu|first5=María D.|last6=Santana|first6=Jonathan|last7=Morales|first7=Jacob|last8=Ávila-Arcos|first8=María C.|last9=Underhill|first9=Peter A.|last10=Shapiro|first10=Beth|last11=Wojcik|first11=Genevieve|last12=Rasmussen|first12=Morten|last13=Soares|first13=André E. R.|last14=Kapp|first14=Joshua|last15=Sockell|first15=Alexandra|date=26 June 2018|title=Ancient genomes from North Africa evidence prehistoric migrations to the Maghreb from both the Levant and Europe|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=115|issue=26|pages=6774–6779|bibcode=2018PNAS..115.6774F|doi=10.1073/pnas.1800851115|pmc=6042094|pmid=29895688|doi-access=free|last16=Rodríguez-Santos|first16=Francisco J.|last17=Mikdad|first17=Abdeslam|last18=Trujillo-Mederos|first18=Aioze|last19=Bustamante|first19=Carlos D.}}</ref> or the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Derricourt|first1=Robin|year=2005|title=Getting "Out of Africa": Sea Crossings, Land Crossings and Culture in the Hominin Migrations|url=http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/arheo/ska/tekstovi/out_of_africa.pdf|url-status=live|journal=Journal of World Prehistory|volume=19|issue=2|pages=119–132|doi=10.1007/s10963-006-9002-z|s2cid=28059849|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222031934/http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/arheo/ska/tekstovi/out_of_africa.pdf|archive-date=22 February 2012|access-date=26 December 2013}}</ref>
Other migrations of modern humans within the African continent have been dated to that time, with evidence of early human settlement found in Southern Africa, Southeast Africa, North Africa, and the Sahara.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Goucher, Candice|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gY7cAAAAQBAJ|title=World History: Journeys from Past to Present|author2=Walton, Linda|publisher=Routledge|year=2013|isbn=978-1-134-72354-6|pages=2–20|access-date=5 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200611044204/https://books.google.com/books?id=gY7cAAAAQBAJ|archive-date=11 June 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> At the end of the Ice ages, estimated to have been around 10,500{{Nbsp}}BCE, the Sahara had again become a green fertile valley, and its African populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands in Africa, with rock art paintings depicting a fertile Sahara and large populations discovered in Tassili n'Ajjer dating back perhaps 10 millennia.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mercier|first1=Norbert|display-authors=etal|date=2012|title=OSL dating of quaternary deposits associated with the parietal art of the Tassili-n-Ajjer plateau (Central Sahara)|journal=Quaternary Geochronology|volume=10|pages=367–373|bibcode=2012QuGeo..10..367M|doi=10.1016/j.quageo.2011.11.010}}</ref> However, the warming and drying climate meant that by 5000{{Nbsp}}BCE, the Sahara region was becoming increasingly dry and hostile. Around 3500{{Nbsp}}BCE, due to a tilt in the Earth's orbit, the Sahara experienced a period of rapid desertification.<ref>[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990712080500.htm "Sahara's Abrupt Desertification Started by Changes in Earth's Orbit, Accelerated by Atmospheric and Vegetation Feedbacks"], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307060153/https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990712080500.htm|date=7 March 2014}}, ''Science Daily.''</ref> The domestication of cattle in Africa preceded agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gatherer cultures. It is speculated that by 6000{{Nbsp}}BCE, cattle were domesticated in North Africa.<ref>Diamond, Jared. (1999) ''Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies''. New York: Norton, p. 167. {{ISBN|978-0-8134-9802-7}}.</ref>
In West Africa, a wet phase ushered in an expanding rainforest and wooded savanna from Senegal to Cameroon. Between 9000 and 5000{{Spaces}}BCE, Niger–Congo speakers domesticated the oil palm and raffia palm. Black-eyed peas and voandzeia (African groundnuts), were domesticated, followed by okra and kola nuts. Since most of the plants grew in the forest, the Niger–Congo speakers invented polished stone axes for clearing forest.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ehret|first=Christopher|url=https://archive.org/details/civilizationsofa0000ehre|title=The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800|year=2002|publisher=University Press of Virginia}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=82-4}} Pygmies have inhabited Central Africa for many millennia, likely splitting into eastern and western groups around 5000{{Spaces}}BP.<ref>{{Cite journal |first1=Chiara|last1=Batini|first2=Joao|last2=Lopes|first3=Doron M.|last3=Behar|first4=Francesc|last4=Calafell|first5=Lynn B.|last5=Jorde|last6=van der Veen|first6=Lolke|first7=Lluis|last7=Quintana-Murci|first8=Gabriella|last8=Spedini|first9=Giovanni|last9=Destro-Bisol|first10=David|last10=Comas|date=2011-02-01|title=Insights into the Demographic History of African Pygmies from Complete Mitochondrial Genomes|url=https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/28/2/1099/1221651|journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution|language=en|volume=28|issue=2|doi=10.1093/molbev/m|issn=0737-4038|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240307075214/https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/28/2/1099/1221651|archive-date=2024-03-07|url-status=live}}</ref> Over 150,000 BP, there was an early dispersal of anatomically modern humans to Eastern and Southern Africa, equated with the modern-day Khoekhoe and San, the latter of whom have preserved their traditional hunter-gatherer way of life.{{Efn|Some scholars contest that cultures and identities cannot be considered fixed or invariable, especially over such a long time period.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/primordialism-and-the-pleistocene-san-of-southern-africa/45D6E61597C34A496AB5A0B6FA1C7632 |last1=Pargeter |first1=Justin |last2=Mackay |first2=Alex |last3=Mitchell |first3=Peter |last4=Shea |first4=John |last5=Stewart |first5=Brian |title=Primordialism and the 'Pleistocene San' of southern Africa |year=2016 |journal=Antiquity |volume=90 |issue=352}}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schlebusch|first1=Carina M.|last2=Malmström|first2=Helena|last3=Günther|first3=Torsten|last4=Sjödin|first4=Per|last5=Coutinho|first5=Alexandra|last6=Edlund|first6=Hanna|last7=Munters|first7=Arielle R.|last8=Vicente|first8=Mário|last9=Steyn|first9=Maryna|last10=Soodyall|first10=Himla|last11=Lombard|first11=Marlize|last12=Jakobsson|first12=Mattias|display-authors=2|date=2017|title=Southern African ancient genomes estimate modern human divergence to 350,000 to 260,000 years ago|journal=Science|volume=358|issue=6363|pages=652–655|bibcode=2017Sci...358..652S|doi=10.1126/science.aao6266|pmid=28971970|doi-access=free}}</ref>
== c. 4000{{Nbsp}}BCE – c. 600{{Nbsp}}CE == {{Main|Ancient Africa}}
=== Northeast Africa === [[File:Ancient_Egypt_map-en.svg|thumb|Map of Ancient Egypt, showing its major cities and sites, {{Circa|3150 BC to 30 BC}}]] During the 4th millennium BCE, settled agro-pastoralist populations along the Nile transitioned to ranked societies, legitimised by local belief systems. From around 3500{{Nbsp}}BCE, nomes (ruled by nomarchs) competed and expanded, with one centred in Abydos coming to rule Upper Egypt.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bard |first=Kathryn A. |date=2017-03-01 |title=Political Economies of Predynastic Egypt and the Formation of the Early State |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-016-9095-6 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Research |language=en |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=1–36 |doi=10.1007/s10814-016-9095-6 |issn=1573-7756}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hendrickx |first=Stan |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-world-prehistory/11AFB49A4D3B374F4FDD2AA9E99E5CA0 |title=The Cambridge World Prehistory |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |editor-last=Renfrew |editor-first=Colin |location= |editor-last2=Bahn |editor-first2=Paul}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=271}} Around 3100{{Nbsp}}BCE Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt to unify the region under the 1st dynasty, with the process of consolidation and assimilation completed by the time of the 3rd dynasty who formed the Old Kingdom of Egypt in 2686{{Nbsp}}BCE.<ref name="Abu Bakr-1981">{{cite book |last=Abu Bakr|first=Abdel|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000134375|title=General History of Africa: Volume 2|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1981|chapter=Pharoanic Egypt}}</ref>{{rp|pages=62–63}} The Kingdom of Kerma emerged around this time to become the dominant force in Nubia, controlling territory as large as Egypt between the 1st and 4th cataracts of the Nile.<ref>{{cite book |last=Anderson|first=J. R.|title=The Encyclopedia of Ancient History|publisher=The Encyclopedia of Ancient History|year=2012|isbn=978-1-4443-3838-6|chapter=Kerma|doi=10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah15224}} She states, "To date, Kerma-culture has been found from the region of the First Cataract to upstream of the Fourth Cataract."</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Buzon|first=Michele|year=2011|title=Nubian identity in the Bronze Age. Patterns of cultural and biological variation|url=http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=anthpubs|access-date=30 March 2017}}</ref> The height of the Old Kingdom saw the construction of many great pyramids, though under the 6th dynasty power gradually decentralised to the nomarchs, culminating in the disintegration of the kingdom, exacerbated by drought and famine. Around 2055{{Nbsp}}BCE, the 11th dynasty, based in Thebes, conquered the others to form the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, and the 12th dynasty expanded into Lower Nubia at the expense of Kerma.<ref name="Abu Bakr-1981" />{{rp|pages=68–71}} Around 1700{{Nbsp}}BCE, the Middle Kingdom fractured in two, and the Hyksos (a militaristic people from Palestine) invaded and conquered Lower Egypt, while Kerma coordinated invasions deep into Egypt to reach its greatest extent.<ref>{{cite news |date=29 July 2003|title=Tomb Reveals Ancient Egypt's Humiliating Secrets|url=http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_29-7-2003_pg9_1|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105214410/http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_29-7-2003_pg9_1|archive-date=5 November 2013|work=Daily Times}}</ref> In 1550{{Nbsp}}BCE, the 18th dynasty expelled the Hyksos, and established the New Kingdom of Egypt. The New Kingdom conquered the Levant from the Canaanites, Mittani, Amorites, and Hittites, and extinguished Kerma, incorporating Nubia into the empire and sending the Egyptian empire into its golden age.<ref name="Abu Bakr-1981" />{{rp|page=73}} Internal struggles, drought, famine, and invasions by a confederation of seafaring peoples contributed to the New Kingdom's collapse in 1069{{Nbsp}}BCE.<ref name="Abu Bakr-1981" />{{rp|pages=76–77}}
Egypt's collapse liberated the Kingdom of Kush in Nubia, which manoeuvred into power in Upper Egypt and conquered Lower Egypt in 754{{Nbsp}}BCE to form the Kushite Empire. The Kushites ruled for a century and oversaw a revival in pyramid building, until they were driven out of Egypt by the Assyrians in 663{{Nbsp}}BCE.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Elayi|first1=Josette|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OVNtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA66|title=Sennacherib, King of Assyria|date=2018|publisher=SBL Press|isbn=978-0-88414-318-5|pages=66–67|language=en}}</ref> The Assyrians installed a puppet dynasty that later gained independence and once more unified Egypt, until they were conquered by the Achaemenid Empire in 525{{Nbsp}}BCE.<ref name="Abu Bakr-1981" />{{rp|page=77}} Egypt briefly regained independence from the Achaemenids under the 28th dynasty from 404 to 343{{Nbsp}}BCE. The conquest of Achaemenid Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332{{Nbsp}}BCE marked the beginning of Hellenistic rule and the installation of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt.<ref>{{cite book |last=Riad|first=Henry|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000134375|title=General History of Africa: Volume 2|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1981|chapter=Egypt in the Hellenistic era}}</ref>{{rp|page=119}} The Ptolemaics lost their holdings outside of Africa to the Seleucids in the Syrian Wars, expanded into Cyrenaica, and briefly occupied part of Kush in the 3rd century BCE.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Török|first=László|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=irbP2hHqDAwC&redir_esc=y|title=Between Two Worlds: The Frontier Region Between Ancient Nubia and Egypt, 3700 BC-AD 500|date=2009|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-17197-8|language=en}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=384-93}} In the 1st century BCE, Ptolemaic Egypt became entangled in a Roman civil war, leading to its conquest by the Romans in 30{{Nbsp}}BCE.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Oxford Classical Dictionary|publisher=Oxford University Press|last=Fischer-Bovet|first=Christelle|url=https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-1672?rskey=gWmGR2&result=4|title=Cleopatra VII, 69–30 bce|year=2023}}</ref> Kush persisted as a major regional power until, having been weakened from internal rebellion amid worsening climatic conditions, it disintegrated amid invasions by Aksum and the Noba into Makuria, Alodia, and Nobatia around the 5th century{{Nbsp}}CE.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|last=Tsakos|first=Alexandros|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1081|title=Medieval/Christian Nubia|year=2021}}</ref>
=== Horn of Africa === In the Horn of Africa, there was the Land of Punt, a kingdom thought to have been on the Red Sea which was a close trading partner of Ancient Egypt in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. Rodolfo Fattovich equated it to the Gash Group in the Sudanese-Eritrean lowlands, and some scholars have hypothesised modern-day Somaliland, though Kenneth Kitchen and Felix Chami locate it on Zanzibar Island.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fattovich|first=Rodolfo|date=2018|title=The Archaeology of Punt|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0307513319858321|journal=The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology|volume=104|issue=2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Chami|first=Felix|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=2&queryId=a6aff8ac-57d1-4803-a9a6-a28b94c72e27|title=General History of Africa: Volume 9|date=2025|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|chapter=The Advent of Domestication in Eastern and Southern Africa}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=680}} In the Eritrean-Ethiopian Highlands, the kingdom of {{smallcaps|dʿmt}} rose c. 980 BCE as the region was incorporated into global trading networks,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fattovich|first=Rodolfo|date=2012|title=The northern Horn of Africa in the first millennium BCE: local traditions and external connections|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43854528|journal=Rassegna di Studi Etiopici|volume=4|issue=47|pages=1–60|issn=0390-0096|jstor=43854528}}</ref> and it exhibited Sabaean influences which most scholars attribute to a small migration of Sabaeans and their assimilation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=González-Ruibal|first=Alfredo|date=2025|title=Colonies and colonialism in the Horn of Africa: from the first millennium BC to the nineteenth century|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0067270X.2025.2510762|journal=Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa|volume=0|pages=1–22|doi=10.1080/0067270X.2025.2510762|issn=0067-270X}}</ref> Several scholars consider there to have been other contemporaneous states,<ref>{{Cite conference |last1=Dugast|first1=Fabienne|last2=Gajda|first2=Iwona|date=2012-10-29|title=Reconsidering contacts between southern Arabia and the highlands of Tigrai in the 1st millennium BC according to epigraphic data|url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00865945|conference=18th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies Movements in Ethiopia / Ethiopia in Movement|language=en|location=Dire Dawa}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Phillipson|first=D. W.|url=https://archive.org/details/foundationsofafr0000phil|title=Foundations of an African Civilisation: Aksum & the Northern Horn, 1000 BC-1300 AD|date=2012|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-1-84701-041-4|language=en|chapter=The First Millennium BC}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=39-40}} and {{smallcaps|dʿmt}}'s collapse in the mid-1st century BCE saw the region inhabited by small polities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fattovich|first=Rodolfo|date=2012|title=The northern Horn of Africa in the first millennium BCE: local traditions and external connections|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43854528|journal=Rassegna di Studi Etiopici|volume=4 (47)|pages=1–60|issn=0390-0096}}</ref> Modern-day Somalia was inhabited by nomadic pastoralists, and along the Horn's coast there were many ancient Somali city-states that thrived off of the wider Red Sea trade, and enjoyed a lucrative monopoly on cinnamon from Ancient India due to their freedom from Roman interference.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Njoku|first=Raphael Chijioke|url=http://archive.org/details/historyofsomalia0000njok|title=The History of Somalia|date=2013|publisher=Greenwood|others=|isbn=978-0-313-37857-7|chapter=Precolonial States and Societies}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=24-5, 33}} In the 1st century CE, the Kingdom of Aksum rose from a city-state to rule much of the northern Ethiopian-Eritrean Highlands and the Red Sea port of Adulis. Aksum was described as one of the four great powers by Persian prophet Mani in the 3rd century.<ref name="Phillips-2016">{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire|title=Aksum, Kingdom of|year=2016|last=Phillips|first=Jacke|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe159|publisher=Wiley}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Aethiopica: A{{ndash}}C|title=Aksum: History of the town and Empire|year=2003|publisher=Harrassowitz|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Encyclopaedia_Aethiopica_A_C.html?id=nobesFx6E7oC&redir_esc=y|editor-last=Uhlig|editor-first=Siegbert|last=Munro-Hay|first=Stuart}}</ref>{{rp|page=174}} Aksum's king converted from traditional religion to Christianity in the 4th century, gradually followed by the population. In the 6th century, Aksum conquered South Arabia, though struggled to maintain control over it, and began to gradually lose its dominance over Red Sea trade to Persians and Arabians.<ref name="Phillips-2016" />
=== Northwest Africa === Northwest Africa (the Maghreb) was inhabited by Berber semi-nomadic pastoralists. In the 1st millennium BCE, Phoenician migration and settlement came in search for precious metals in the Gulf of Tunis.<ref name="Warmington-1981">{{cite book |last=Warmington|first=Brian|authorlink = Brian Herbert Warmington |url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-2/page/n457/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 2|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1981|chapter=The Carthaginian Period}}</ref>{{rp|page=442}} This grew into Ancient Carthage after gaining independence from Phoenicia in the 6th century BCE, and they built an extensive trading empire with a strict mercantile network.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire|publisher=Wiley|title=Carthaginian Empire|last=Hoyos|first=Dexter|year=2016|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe235}}</ref> Carthage's collapse and conquest by Rome in the Punic Wars (3rd and 2nd centuries BCE) saw Numidia and Mauretania become major powers in the Maghreb. Towards the end of the 2nd century BCE Mauretania fought alongside Numidia's Jugurtha against the Romans in the Jugurthine War after he had usurped the Numidian throne from a Roman ally. Together they inflicted heavy casualties, with the war only ending inconclusively when Mauretania's Bocchus I sold out Jugurtha to the Romans. Around the turn of the millennium, both came under direct Roman rule.<ref name="Warmington-1981" />{{Reference page|pages=460-2}} While traditional religion predominated among Berbers, some people converted to Christianity. In the 5th century CE the Vandals conquered Roman Africa followed by the fall of Rome, though the province was reconquered by the Byzantines a century later. Large swathes of indigenous peoples regained self-governance in Masuna and its numerous successor polities in the Maghreb, including the kingdoms of Ouarsenis, Aurès, and Altava.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mahjoubi|first1=Ammar|last2=Salama|first2=Pierre|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-2/page/n457/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 2|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1981|chapter=The Roman and post-Roman period in North Africa}}</ref>{{rp|pages=495-7, 500-8}}
=== West Africa === In the western Sahel the rise of settled communities occurred largely as a result of the domestication of millet and of sorghum, and cattle pastoralism began c. 2500 BCE. Extensive east-west belts of deserts, grasslands, and forests from north to south were adapted to by their respective societies and meant that symbiotic trade relations developed in response to the differing environments.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|title=Archaeology of Senegambia|last=Canos-Donnay|first=Sirio|year=2024|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1376#acrefore-9780190277734-e-1376-div2-7|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Collins|first=Robert|url=http://archive.org/details/historyofsubsaha0000coll|title=A History of Sub-Saharan Africa|last2=Burns|first2=James|date=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|others=|isbn=978-0-521-86746-7|chapter=Empires of the plains}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=79-80}} Beginning around 4000{{Nbsp}}BCE, the Tichitt culture in modern-day Mauritania and Mali is the oldest known complexly organised society in West Africa,<ref name="Holl-1985">{{cite journal |last=Holl|first=Augustine|year=1985|title=Background to the Ghana empire: Archaeological investigations on the transition to statehood in the Dhar Tichitt region (mauritania)|url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0278416585900054|journal=Journal of Anthropological Archaeology|volume=4|issue=2|pages=73–115|doi=10.1016/0278-4165(85)90005-4|url-access=subscription}}</ref> while others included the Kintampo culture in modern-day Ghana, the Nok culture in modern-day Nigeria, and the Daima culture around Lake Chad.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wai-Andah|first=Bassey|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-2/page/n623/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 2|date=1981|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|chapter=West Africa before the seventh century}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=603-12}} Towards the end of the 3rd century CE, a wet period in the Sahel created areas for human habitation and exploitation that had not been habitable for the best part of a millennium. The Ghana Empire (also called {{Lang|snk|Wagadu}}) rose out of the Tichitt culture. It grew wealthy following the introduction of the camel to the western Sahel, which revolutionised the trans-Saharan trade that linked their capital and Aoudaghost with Tahert and Sijilmasa in North Africa.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gestrich|first=Nikolas|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-396|title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|year=2019|isbn=978-0-19-027773-4|chapter=Ghana Empire|doi=|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> Soninke tradition holds that the final founding of Wagadu occurred after Dinga did a deal with {{Interlanguage link|Bida (mythology)|lt=Bida|fr|Bida (mythologie)}} (a serpent deity who was guarding a well) to sacrifice one maiden annually in exchange for assurance regarding plenty of rainfall and gold supply.{{efn|Bida is stressed as a protective force by narrators; some versions have Bida descending from Dinga, with Dinga's children founding Wagadu. Pythons are most at home in grasslands near water, and likely came to be associated with the seasonal rains, with them rarely being seen during the dry periods. As such, snake deities feature prominently in West African traditional religions.<ref name="Conrad-1983"/>}}<ref name="Conrad-1983">{{cite journal |last1=Conrad|first1=David|last2=Fisher|first2=Humphrey|year=1983|title=The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. II. The Local Oral Sources|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/conquest-that-never-was-ghana-and-the-almoravids-1076-ii-the-local-oral-sources/01C98BFDB91C78BFAC421A8F42C02407|journal=History in Africa|volume=10|pages=53–78|doi=10.2307/3171690|jstor=3171690|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Based on large tumuli scattered across West Africa dating to this period, several scholars have speculated that there were further simultaneous and preceding states relative to Wagadu.<ref>{{cite book |last=Posnansky|first=Merrick|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentViewer.xhtml?v=2.1.196&id=p::usmarcdef_0000184265&file=/in/rest/annotationSVC/DownloadWatermarkedAttachment/attach_import_976b4f2f-4e7c-44ec-a92e-2014aa9d86f0%3F_%3D184265engo.pdf&locale=en&multi=true&ark=/ark:/48223/pf0000184265/PDF/184265engo.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A2903%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2C0%5D|title=General History of Africa: Volume 2|publisher=UNESCO|year=1981|page=729|chapter=The societies of Africa south of the Sahara in the Early Iron Age}}</ref><ref name="Holl-1985" />
=== Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa === {{Further|Bantu expansion}} In the Grasslands of northwestern Cameroon, Bantu-speaking agriculturalists started to gradually migrate south sometime between 5000 and 3000 BCE. Despite intensive research, the cause of the migrations, and that of the directions taken, is still unclear,{{Efn|An initial idea that the dispersal was caused by population pressure following the introduction of farming is generally now discounted.<ref name="Juwayeyi-2020"/>{{rp|page=23}}}} however there is consensus that there were multiple dispersal events. Around 1500 BCE, Bantu speakers reached central Cameroon. The 'Western Stream' likely followed the coast and the major rivers of the Congo system southwards to reach the southern fringe of the Congolian Rainforest around 500 BCE (some may have used the sea to circumvent the rainforest). Their arrival coincided with the spread of iron metallurgy through Central Africa. Meanwhile, the 'Eastern Stream' travelled either the northern fringe of the rainforest or the Ubangi River eastwards, and reached just west of Lake Victoria around 500 BCE. While there, Bantu speakers adopted iron metallurgy from Cushitic speakers (who had settled East Africa in the 3rd millennium BCE),<ref>{{cite book |last=Ehret|first=Christopher|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=The East African interior}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=|pages=616-20}} and coexisted with them.<ref name="Bostoen-2018">{{cite book |last1=Bostoen|first1=Koen|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-191|title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|date=2018|isbn=978-0-19-027773-4|chapter=The Bantu Expansion|doi=|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref name="Juwayeyi-2020">{{Cite book |last=Juwayeyi|first=Yusuf M.|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/archaeology-and-oral-tradition-in-malawi/7588016649895DA4A10FC2CCC6B5E336|title=Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa|date=2020|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-1-84701-253-1|chapter=The Bantu origins of the Chewa}}</ref>{{Rp|page=|pages=23-5}} Dispersal from the Great Lakes region occurred in two more streams. One went west to meet the Western Stream in DR Congo and Angola, while the other went south and spread across Eastern and Southern Africa.<ref name="Juwayeyi-2020" />{{Rp|page=26}} Around the turn of the millennium, Bantu speakers reached central modern-day Tanzania and the east coast, before rapidly moving southwards along the coast to reach modern-day Kwazulu Natal in South Africa around the 3rd century CE.<ref name="Bostoen-2018" /> Throughout this, Bantu speakers displaced, replaced, or intermarried with and absorbed hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, and agriculturalist groups.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pakendorf|first=Brigitte|last2=Filippo|first2=Cesare de|last3=Bostoen|first3=Koen|date=2011-01-01|title=Molecular Perspectives on the Bantu Expansion: A Synthesis|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/ldc/1/1/article-p50_3.xml|journal=Language Dynamics and Change|language=en|volume=1|issue=1|pages=50–88|doi=10.1163/221058211X570349|issn=2210-5832|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name="Juwayeyi-2020" />{{Reference page|page=32}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Maret|first=Pierre|title=The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology|date=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|editor-last=Mitchell|editor-first=Peter|chapter=Archaeologies of the Bantu Expansion|chapter-url=https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28041/chapter/211950453}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=636}}
== c. 600–c. 1800 == {{Main|Medieval and early modern Africa}}
=== North Africa === In the 7th century, as part of the Arab conquests which sought to spread Islamic rule,<ref name="al-Fasi-1988a">{{cite book |last1=al-Fasi|first1=Muhammad|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|last2=Hrbek|first2=Ivan|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=Stages in the development of Islam and its dissemination in Africa}}</ref>{{rp|pages=56-7}} the Rashidun Caliphate scored crucial military victories against the Byzantine Empire and expanded rapidly, conquering Egypt and the Exarchate from them in the 640s. After a brief civil war, the Rashiduns were supplanted by the Umayyads, who, after stiff resistance from Berber leaders such as Kusaila and Kahina, had conquered the Maghreb by the early-8th century.<ref name="al-Fasi-1988b">{{cite book |last1=al-Fasi|first1=Muhammad|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|last2=Hrbek|first2=Ivan|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=The coming of Islam and the expansion of the Muslim empire}}</ref>{{rp|pages=47–9}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mones|first1=H.|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|last2=|first2=|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=The conquest of North Africa and the Berber resistance}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=233-9}} Large numbers of Berber and Coptic people willingly converted to Islam, and followers of Abrahamic religions ('People of the Book') were protected,<ref name="al-Fasi-1988a" />{{Reference page|page=|pages=56-63}} though followers of traditional Berber religion were violently oppressed and often given the ultimatum to convert to Islam or face captivity or enslavement.<ref name="al-Fasi-1988b" />{{rp|pages=46}} In the 8th century the Berber Revolt rocked the Caliphate and Berber dynasties took control over the Maghreb,<ref>{{cite book |last=Talbi|first=Mohamed|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=The independence of the Maghrib}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=246-51}} while the Tulunids briefly controlled Egypt.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bianquis|first=Thierry|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=Egypt from the Arab conquest until the end of the Fatimid state (1171)}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=172-7}} In the 10th century, the Fatimids rose to power in modern-day Tunisia, established a rival caliphate, and conquered Egypt, before expanding into the Middle East. In the 11th century, the Fatimids started to collapse amidst Turkish and Crusader expansion,<ref name="Baker-2018">{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|last=Baker|first=Christine|title=Ismaili and Fatimid North Africa|year=2018|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-327?rskey=VCw0Ri&result=1}}</ref> while the zealous Almoravids conquered the Maghreb and intervened in the Christian reconquest of Iberia.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hrbek|first=Ivan|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=The Almoravids|last2=Devisse|first2=Jean}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=351}} Saladin, a Fatimid vizier, usurped power in the 12th century and established the Ayyubid dynasty which restored Egyptian prestige,<ref name="Baker-2018" /><ref name="Garcin-1984">{{cite book |last=Garcin|first=Jean-Claude|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4|title=General History of Africa: Volume 4|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1984|chapter=Egypt and the Muslim world}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=372-3}} while the Almohad revolution deposed the Almoravids to the east. After Christian gains in Iberia in the 13th century, the Almohads disintegrated into the Marinids, Zayyanids, and Hafsids in modern-day Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia respectively.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2022|title=The Making of the Maghrib: 1147–1500|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-322?rskey=3bNGYu&result=2#acrefore-9780190277734-e-322-div1-2|last=Fromherz|first=Allen}}</ref> In the face of Mongol expansion, Mamluk generals seized power in Egypt and expanded into the Middle East.<ref name="Garcin-1984" />{{Reference page|pages=377-81}} In the early-16th century, the Ottoman Empire rapidly conquered North Africa (save for Morocco, now under Saadi rule) to counter Spanish expansionism.{{efn|During the 15th century, the Spanish conquered the Canary Islands, and deported or enslaved the indigenous Berber population (Guanches), forcing them to work on plantations. Combined with mass killings and disease, this caused the annihilation of the Guanches. There is scholarly debate about whether it constituted genocide, and it served as a blueprint for European colonialism in the Americas.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Adhikari |first=Mohamed |date=2017 |title=Europe’s First Settler Colonial Incursion into Africa: The Genocide of Aboriginal Canary Islanders |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17532523.2017.1336863?journalCode=rahr20 |journal=African Historical Review |volume=49 |issue=1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Tostado |first=Igor |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-cambridge-world-history-of-genocide/1F6311D1DC9897A907446592ED627D77 |title=The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 1 |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |editor-last=Kiernan |editor-first=Ben |chapter=The Spanish Destruction of the Canary Islands: A Template for the Caribbean Genocide |editor-last2=Lemos |editor-first2=T. M. |editor-last3=Taylor |editor-first3=Tristan}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=595, 600}}}}<ref name="Cory-2020">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2020|title=The Ottoman Maghrib, 1505–1830|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-415?rskey=BNuSog&result=1#acrefore-9780190277734-e-415-div1-3|last=Cory|first=Stephen}}</ref> In the following centuries, over a million Europeans are estimated to have been captured and enslaved by Barbary corsairs.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2024|title=European Slaves in North Africa and North African Slaves in Europe from the Early Modern Period to the 1820s|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1595?rskey=BNuSog&result=15|last=Oualdi|first=M'hamed}}</ref> The Ottoman regencies became more independent during the 18th century.<ref name="Cory-2020" />
=== Western Sahel and Sudan === [[File:Map_of_the_Mali_Empire.png|thumb|Territory of the Mali Empire]] Wagadu was the most powerful of a constellation of states stretching from Takrur on the Senegal River Valley to Mema in the Niger Valley, all of whom were subservient to Wagadu at least some of the time.<ref>{{cite journal |last=McIntosh|first=Susan|year=2008|title=Reconceptualizing Early Ghana|journal=Canadian Journal of African Studies|publisher=Taylor and Francis|volume=43|issue=2|pages=347–373|jstor=40380172}}</ref> The Gao Empire was situated to the east of Wagadu, and controlled the salt trade.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2016|title=Gao Empire|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire|publisher=Wiley|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe312|last=McIntosh|first=Susan}}</ref> Islam had reached Gao and Takrur by the 11th century, during which the Almoravids (before their conquests north) captured Wagadu's royal seat of Aoudaghost, gaining the king's conversion, and several vassals broke free.{{Efn|Soninke oral traditions hold that, intent on invading Ghana, the Almoravid army found the king respectful of Islam, and that he willingly adopted Islam with the exchange of gold for an imam relocating to Koumbi Saleh.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Conrad|first1=David|last2=Fisher|first2=Humphrey|title=The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. I. The External Arabic Sources|journal=History in Africa|volume=10|year=1983|doi=10.2307/3171690|jstor=3171690|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/conquest-that-never-was-ghana-and-the-almoravids-1076-i-the-external-arabic-sources/4C43B158FD3D74BE744D8634781A4E0A|url-access=subscription}}</ref>{{rp|pages=23–24}}}}<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Abney|first=Graham|title=Sundiata Keita's Invention of Latin Purgatory: The West African Gold Trade's Influence on Western European Society (ca.1050–1350)|publisher=University of New Mexico|url=https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1295&context=hist_etds|year=2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hopkins|first=J. F. P.|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Corpus_of_Early_Arabic_Sources_for_West.html?id=bxPpwAEACAAJ&redir_esc=y|title=Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History|last2=Levtzion|first2=Nehemia|date=2000|publisher=Markus Wiener Publishers|isbn=978-1-55876-241-1|language=en}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=73, 98}} Despite Wagadu regaining full independence and power throughout the 12th century, this could not counteract the worsening climate and shifts in trade south and east, leading to its conquest by its former vassal Sosso c. 1200, propelling Soninke migration.{{efn|According to some traditions, Wagadu's fall is caused when a nobleman attempts to save a maiden from sacrifice against her wishes and kills {{ill|Bida (mythology)|lt=Bida|fr|Bida (mythologie)}} before escaping the population's ire on horseback, annulling Wagadu and Bida's prior assurance and unleashing a curse causing drought and famine, sometimes causing gold to be discovered in Bure (Wagadu had derived its gold from Bambouk). The Soninke generation that survived the drought were called "it has been hard for them" ({{lang|snk|a jara nununa}}).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Conrad |first1=David |last2=Fisher |first2=Humphrey |year=1983 |title=The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. II. The Local Oral Sources |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/conquest-that-never-was-ghana-and-the-almoravids-1076-ii-the-local-oral-sources/01C98BFDB91C78BFAC421A8F42C02407 |journal=History in Africa |volume=10 |pages=53–78 |doi=10.2307/3171690 |jstor=3171690|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|pages=56, 64}}}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fall|first1=Mamadou|title=Bipolarisation du Senegal du XVIe – XVIIe siécle|date=2021|publisher=HGS Editions|editor1-last=Fall|editor1-first=Mamadou|location=Dakar|pages=14–39|language=French|chapter=Les Terroirs Historiques et la Poussée Soninké|editor2-last=Fall|editor2-first=Rokhaya|editor3-last=Mane|editor3-first=Mamadou}}</ref> In the face of Sosso aggression, Sundiata Keita united the Mandinka clans and conquered Sosso and Gao, expanding across the western Sahel and Sudan to found the Mali Empire. Mali grew fabulously rich through controlling the trans-Saharan trade.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2019|title=Empire of Mali|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-266?rskey=Jft1ug&result=1|last=Cannos-Donnay|first=Sirio}}</ref> During the 14th and 15th centuries Mali experienced political instability and lost control over the Jolof Empire in Senegambia, and Sahelian trading centres to the nomadic Tuareg.{{efn|As Mali collapsed, an Islamic doctrine formulated by Al-Hajj Salim Suwari became popular among Muslims in West Africa. It called for peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-believers and religious tolerance. Historian Emily Osborn wrote that "central to Suwari’s teachings is the idea that God, not human beings, is responsible for designing and timing conversion to Islam. Suwarians consequently do not proselytize their faith to non-Muslims, and they reject militant ''jihad'' as a means to promote religious conversion."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sarr |first=Assan |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa |date=2020 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783030457594 |chapter=Islamic Philosophy in Africa |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-45759-4_15}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=272}}}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Ly-Tall|first=Madina|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4/page/n403/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 4|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1984|chapter=The decline of the Mali empire}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=174}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Levtzion|first=Nehemia|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-cambridge-history-of-africa/C022553858696B7F0FF6728ED795B8E1|title=The Cambridge History of Africa: Volume 3|date=1977|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-20981-6|chapter=The western Maghrib and Sudan}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=416}} Under Sonni Ali, Gao swept through the crumbling empire, fending off the Mossi kingdom of Yatenga and forming the Songhai Empire.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cissoko|first=Sekene|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4/page/n403/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 4|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1984|chapter=The Songhay from the 12th to the 16th century}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=191-3}} Weakened by internal conflict, in 1591 Gao was conquered by Morocco, and the political vacuum came to be filled by the Segou Empire and several other states.<ref name="Abitbol-1992">{{cite book |last=Abitbol|first=Michel|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4/page/n403/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 5|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1992|chapter=The end of the Songhay empire}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=301-7}} The once lucrative trans-Saharan trade gradually lost its prominence to the coastal Atlantic trade with Europeans, and the following centuries saw many droughts, famines, and epidemics.<ref name="Abitbol-1992" />{{Reference page|pages=316-9}}
=== Central and Eastern Sahel and Sudan === Located around Lake Chad, the founding of the Kanem Empire is typically dated to c. 700,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Obikili|first=Nonso|url=https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/27978|title=The Oxford Handbook of Nigerian Politics|date=2018|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198804307|editor-last=Levan|editor-first=Carl|chapter=State Formation in Precolonial Nigeria|editor-last2=Ukata|editor-first2=Patrick}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=39-40}} and it greatly benefited from serving as a crossroad for east–west and north-south Saharan trade, growing to encompass several peoples. Facilitated by contact with Muslim traders or nomadic Tubu, in the 11th century the Duguwa dynasty converted to Ibadi Islam,{{efn|The empire is generally regarded to have been founded by the Zaghawa people, to whom Arabic sources connect the Duguwa dynasty. The local traditional religion greatly privileged the status of rulers, who were believed to possess supernatural powers, and they had unlimited authority.<ref name="Dewiere-2024"/>}} before they were usurped by the Sunni and Kanembu Sayfawa dynasty. Under the Sayfawa, Kanem became a centre of Islamic scholarship, and extended its rule to the Kaouar and Fezzan oases, gaining even greater control over trans-Saharan trade.<ref name="Dewiere-2024">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2024|title=The Kanem and Borno Sultanates (11th–19th Centuries)|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1147?rskey=eVBBu6&result=1|last=Dewiere|first=Remi}}</ref> In Nubia, having converted to Christianity, Makuria annexed Nobatia, and halted Muslim expansion during the 7th century, with whom it signed a peace treaty. Over the following centuries Makuria defended the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria in Muslim-controlled Egypt, and entered into a dynastic or political union with Alodia during the 10th century.<ref name="Zorawski-2021">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2021|title=Christian and Islamic Nubia, 543–1820|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-407?rskey=IXD08J&result=2#acrefore-9780190277734-e-407-div1-5|last=Zorawski|first=Bogdan}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2021|title=Medieval/Christian Nubia|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1081?rskey=0LNfqH&result=1|last=Tsakos|first=Alexandros}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Jabielski|first1=Stefan|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|last2=|first2=|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=Christian Nubia at the height of its civilization}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=194-6}} A warm period in the 14th century caused Lake Chad to dry up, and Kanem became engrossed in conflict with the Tubu and Bilala; Kanem's capital was captured by the Bilala, forcing the leadership and other Kanembu to move to Bornu.<ref name="Dewiere-2024" /> Meanwhile, Islam spread through Hausaland;<ref name="al-Fasi-1988a" />{{Reference page|pages=78-9}} in the 15th century a deposed Bornu ruler fled to Kano, leading Bornu to vassalise several Hausa kingdoms.{{efn|Hausa tradition describes the division of roles between the states, where Kano and Rano were centres of the textile industry (and thus called {{Lang|hau|sarakuman babba}}; "kings of indigo"), Katsina and Daura were trade centres (called {{Lang|hau|sarakuman kasuwa}}; "kings of the market"), Zazzau supplied slave labour to the other states (called {{Lang|hau|sarkin bayi}}; "king of the slaves"), and Gobir, as the northernmost city, was tasked with the defence of Hausaland from foreign invaders (called {{Lang|hau|sarkin yaki}}; "king of war").<ref name="Amadu-1984"/>{{Reference page|page=270}}}}<ref name="Amadu-1984">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4/page/n291/mode/2up?view=theater|last=Amadu|first=Mahdi|chapter=The Hausa and their neighbours in central Sudan|title=General History of Africa: Volume 4|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1984}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=279}} Bornu also conquered Kotoko (which had grown out of the Sao civilisation), reaching the height of its power.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hansen|first=Mogens|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Comparative_Study_of_Thirty_City_state.html?id=8qvY8pxVxcwC&redir_esc=y|title=A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures|date=2000|publisher=Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters|editor-last=Hansen|editor-first=Mogens|pages=531-2|chapter=The Kotoko City-States}}</ref><ref name="Dewiere-2024" /> In Hausaland the 16th century saw the rise of Kebbi which countered Bornu influence, while Amina's Zazzau expanded south.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001/acref-9780195382075-e-0170|encyclopedia=Dictionary of African Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|last=Denzer|first=Larry|year=2011|title=Amina (c. 1533–c. 1583)}}</ref><ref name="Amadu-1984" />{{Reference page|page=|pages=277}} In Nubia, following Mamluk aggression, the plague, and the migration of Bedouin tribes to the region, Makuria and Alodia gradually collapsed and disintegrated; the Funj Sultanate came to rule the Sudan, and blocked Turco-Egyptian expansion south.<ref name="Zorawski-2021" /> To the west in modern-day Darfur and eastern Chad, after the successive Daju and Tunjur kingdoms, the 17th century saw the rise of the Bagirmi, Wadai, and Darfur sultanates,{{efn|The region was very ethnically diverse, and for the Keira dynasty of Darfur it was common to intermarry with other ethnic groups, such that the royal family was open to integrating strangers into the elite. Over the course of its existence, the expansion of the state was often done via integration and assimilation rather than by war.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bassil|first=Noah R.|date=2006-12-01|title=The Rise and Demise of the Keira Sultanate of Dar Fur|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629380601036098|journal=The Journal of North African Studies|volume=11|issue=4|pages=347–364|doi=10.1080/13629380601036098|issn=1362-9387|url-access=subscription}}</ref>}} and frequent slave-raiding of populations to their south.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2024|title=Slavery in the Mandara Mountains and Lake Chad Basin|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-890?rskey=WsWWbU&result=3#acrefore-9780190277734-e-890-div1-2|last=Chetima|first=Melchisedek}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Bagirmi, Wadai, and Darfur|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&pg=PA636|last=Collins|first=Robert|date=2005|editor-last1=Shillington|editor-first1=Kevin|pages=|isbn=1-57958-245-1}}</ref> Bornu entered into decline as it experienced droughts and lost control of trans-Saharan trade to the Tuareg and Ottomans.<ref name="Dewiere-2024" />
=== Horn of Africa === [[File:Bete_Abba_Libanos.jpg|thumb|One of the Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, constructed during the Zagwe dynasty]] Following the birth of Islam in the early-7th century, nomadic Somalis began to convert to Islam, and it spread through the eastern Horn via ''daʿwah''.<ref name="al-Fasi-1988a" />{{Reference page|page=84}} Though Muslim-Aksumite relations were initially friendly, they soon soured.<ref name="Mekouria-1988">{{cite book |last=Mekouria|first=Tekle-Tsadik|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=The Horn of Africa}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=560}} Aksum lost control of the Red Sea, and its isolation from Christendom caused Ethiopian society to introspect and take inspiration from the Old Testament.<ref name="Tamrat-1977">{{cite book |last=Tamrat|first=Taddesse|chapter=Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn|date=1977|title=The Cambridge History of Africa: Volume 3|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-cambridge-history-of-africa/C022553858696B7F0FF6728ED795B8E1|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-20981-6}}</ref>{{rp|page=108}} Islamised Beja invaded the Ethiopian Highlands, forcing Aksum to migrate south, where, according to tradition, Aksum's expansion was met by a Jewish or traditionalist queen who destroyed the state c. 960.<ref name="Mekouria-1988" />{{Reference page|pages=563-6}} From the 11th century, the growing Somalian population expanded across the eastern Horn, with Islam key to the assimilation of other groups.<ref name="Haberland-1992">{{cite book |last=Haberland|first=Eike|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4/page/n403/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 5|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1992|chapter=The Horn of Africa}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=|pages=722-3}} During the 13th century, hegemony in the Horn was contested by the Christian Zagwe, the Muslims of Shewa, and the traditionalist Damot,<ref>{{cite book |last=Tamrat|first=Taddesse|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4/page/n403/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 4|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1984|chapter=The Horn of Africa: The Solomonids in Ethiopia and the states of the Horn of Africa}}</ref>{{rp|pages=431-2}} while the Ajuran Sultanate ruled the southern Somali clans on the coast.<ref name="Mukhtar-2016">{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire|publisher=Wiley|title=Ajuran Sultanate|last=Mukhtar|first=Muhamed|year=2016|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe146}}</ref> In the late-13th century, the Solomonic dynasty overthrew the Zagwe to found the Ethiopian Empire, while Shewa was replaced by Ifat.<ref name="Tamrat-1977" />{{Reference page|pages=131, 143}} Soon after, Ethiopia conquered Damot and the Muslim states, entering into a 'golden age'.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marcus|first=Harold G.|url=http://archive.org/details/historyofethiopi0000marc|title=A History of Ethiopia|date=2002|publisher=University of California Press|others=|isbn=978-0-520-22479-7|chapter=The Golden Age of the Solomonic Dynasty, to 1500}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=19-20}} In the 16th century Muslims united behind Adal in ''jihad'' to reconquer the Muslim lands and occupy Ethiopia, until, with Portuguese assistance, Ethiopia counter-attacked and its sovereignty was restored in a reduced state.<ref name="Haberland-1992" />{{Reference page|pages=712-5}} The 16th and 17th centuries also saw Oromo invasions into the Horn, weakening Ethiopia further and causing the collapse of Adal, while Ajuran also disintegrated.<ref name="Mukhtar-2016" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Abir|first=M.|chapter=Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa|date=1975|title=The Cambridge History of Africa: Volume 4|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-africa/ethiopia-and-the-horn-of-africa/F8A03786AA49FE91AE44D6F3A56885AA|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-20981-6}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=539-44}} Ethiopia briefly consolidated its authority in the late-17th century, though the turn of the century saw fragmentation and gradually-increasing anarchy, which continued throughout the 18th century.<ref name="Haberland-1992" />{{Reference page|page=703}}
=== West African forest regions === {{Expand section|date=February 2026}}
=== Western Congo Basin === thumb|States of the western Congo Basin, c. 1350 In the western Congo Basin, a period of state and class formation began circa 700 with three centres: one in the west around Pool Malebo, one south around the highlands of Angola, and a third north-central around Lake Mai-Ndombe.<ref name="Thornton-2020a">{{cite book |last=Thornton|first=John|title=A History of West Central Africa to 1850|date=2020|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-56593-7|chapter=The Development of States in West Central Africa to 1540|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/development-of-states-in-west-central-africa-to-1540/CE71122CF8DFD7B4B188BA34F8F65BFC}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=17-8}} By the 13th century there were three main federations of states in the western Congo Basin around Pool Malebo: the Seven Kingdoms, Mpemba, and one led by Vungu. Kongo traditions detail the founding and rapid expansion of the Kingdom of Kongo in the late-14th and early-15th centuries by Lukeni lua Nimi,{{Efn|Before Lukeni Lua Nimi's reign, traditions say that the first king crossed the Congo River from Vungu to conquer Mpemba Kasi (constituent of Mpemba), and ruled from Nsi a Kwilu (an old religious centre strategically located for trade). The first king is given as Ntinu Wene ({{literally|"King of the Kingdom"}}), and Mpemba Kasi is described as the "Mother of Kongo". John Thornton wrote that the choice of a title over a personal name indicates that this is more representative of symbolic relationships and rights of rulership rather than historical events.<ref name="Thornton-2020a"/>{{rp|pages=25-6}}}} though it was checked by the Tio Kingdom to its north (which saw Mwene Muji around Lake Mai-Ndombe to its northeast).<ref name="Thornton-2020a" />{{Reference page|pages=24-30}} In the late-15th century the Portuguese established relations with Kongo, whose ruler converted to Catholicism (eventually syncretising traditional beliefs).<ref name="Thornton-2020a" />{{Reference page|pages=37-8}} Atlantic trade began, with slaves being the most lucrative export.{{efn|Kongo forcibly moved some populations ({{Lang|kon|mubika}}) to be nearer densely-populated areas, making their surplus (ie. non-subsistent) economic output more readily available. They also became soldiers, servants, and government officials. It was the {{Lang|kon|mubika}} who were first sold to European traders as captives, thus enslaved and forced to carry out closely-supervised intensive labour on far-away plantations.<ref name="Thornton-2020a" />{{Reference page|page=53}}}} In the 16th century, Afonso I's conquests produced many captives for Kongo's monopoly, and the slave trade rapidly grew to meet demand in the Americas.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2017|title=The History of Angola|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-180?rskey=opBTuk&result=20#acrefore-9780190277734-e-180-div1-1|last=Ball|first=Jeremy}}</ref><ref name="Thornton-2020a" />{{Rp|pages=52-3}} By the mid-16th century, the Kingdom of Loango had formed north of the Congo River, and to the south Ndongo had broken free from Kongo and entered commercial relations with the Portuguese.{{efn|Kimbundu traditions recorded in the 17th century held that the first {{Lang|kmb|Ngola}} (king) was a blacksmith who had arrived from Kongo, and was "elected king because of his benevolence".<ref name="Thornton-2020b"/>{{Reference page|page=57}}}}<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2022|title=Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-997?rskey=E48jtj&result=12|last=Fonseca|first=Mariana}}</ref><ref name="Thornton-2020b">{{cite book |last=Thornton|first=John|title=A History of West Central Africa to 1850|date=2020|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-56593-7|chapter=The Struggle for Ambundu and the Founding of Angola|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/struggle-for-ambundu-and-the-founding-of-angola/0293CB3B48977422888301A3B23B2084}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=64-7}} In the late-16th century, as a concession for helping to expel Yaka invasions (from Mwene Muji), Kongo allowed the Portuguese to establish a colony at Luanda, which expanded and became Portuguese Angola.<ref name="Thornton-2020b" />{{Reference page|pages=74-8}} Over the course of the late-16th and 17th centuries, the Portuguese sought to conquer Ndongo (allied to Matamba) in the Angolan Wars;{{efn|The number of slaves exported from Portuguese Angola increased from 5000 annually in the 1590s (half of the total number of Africans exported to the Americas) to between 9000 and 12,000 (80% of the total in 1620), largely derived from warfare.<ref name="Thornton-2020c" />{{Reference page|page=113}}}} despite fierce resistance from Queen Nzinga, and brief occupation of Luanda by the Dutch (allied to Kongo), Portugal controlled most of Ndongo by the 1670s.{{efn|The Imbangala, a series of militaristic groups, served as mercenaries and were enlisted by both sides, but were especially decisive for the Portuguese. They were notorious for pillaging and causing destruction. One of the groups founded the Kasanje Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Thornton |first=John K. |date=1988 |title=The Art of War in Angola, 1575–1680 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/abs/art-of-war-in-angola-15751680/FC95083263BB3E58AF14A01643EF3BDA |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History |language=en |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=360–378 |doi=10.1017/S0010417500015231 |issn=1475-2999}}</ref><ref name="Thornton-2020c"/>{{Reference page|pages=116-9}}}}<ref name="Thornton-2020c">{{cite book |last=Thornton|first=John|title=A History of West Central Africa to 1850|date=2020|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-56593-7|chapter=Ndongo and Portugal at War|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/ndongo-and-portugal-at-war/6057AF1FECBDCD88C32C5F2898D3DD9C}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=91-122}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Thornton|first=John|title=A History of West Central Africa to 1850|date=2020|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-56593-7|chapter=Queen Njinga’s Struggle for Ndongo|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/queen-njingas-struggle-for-ndongo/1C9A81A7BA46ADD0FF917CD44BF38F1A}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=150-9}}<ref name="Thornton-2020d">{{cite book |last=Thornton|first=John|title=A History of West Central Africa to 1850|date=2020|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-56593-7|chapter=The Thirty Years War Comes to Central Africa|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/thirty-years-war-comes-to-central-africa/752FF659817B8E80D6555028C8EBC037}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=162-88}} Kongo had endured numerous civil wars throughout its history, though the rise of its vassal Soyo prevented consolidation, and the late-17th century saw Kongo fragment between royal houses as several vassals broke away; by the time of Kongo's restoration in 1709, it had ceased being the dominant regional power.<ref name="Thornton-2020d" />{{Reference page|pages=199-213}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Thornton|first=John|title=A History of West Central Africa to 1850|date=2020|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-56593-7|chapter=The Emergence of Lunda|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/emergence-of-lunda/217772278889F27A939637A817DC83EF}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=241-3}} Also during the 17th century, in the textile-producing northeast, the Boma, Yaka, and possibly the Kuba and Pende kingdoms broke away from Mwene Muji.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Thornton|first=John|date=2024|title=Mwene Muji: A Medieval Empire in Central Africa?|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/mwene-muji-a-medieval-empire-in-central-africa/2F2D9F46069847DC655F171B75636D27|journal=The Journal of African History|language=|volume=65|issue=1|pages=|doi=|issn=0021-8537}}</ref>
=== Great Lakes === {{Further|List of African Great Lakes kingdoms}}During the 1st millennium CE the Great Lakes region saw several internal migrations of Bantu-speaking people out of the Urewe culture west of Lake Victoria.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ehret|first1=Christopher|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3|title=General History of Africa: Volume 3|last2=|first2=|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1988|chapter=The East African interior}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=628-9}} Simultaneously, symbiotic relations grew between pastoralists and agriculturalists, though there was likely also some competition over land use.<ref name="Chrétien-2003a">{{Cite book |last=Chrétien|first=Jean-Pierre|url=http://archive.org/details/isbn_9781890951344|title=The Great Lakes of Africa: Two thousand years of history|date=2003|publisher=Zone Books|others=|isbn=978-1-890951-34-4|chapter=An ancient human settlement and its enigmas}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=69}} Banana cultivation (derived from Southeast Asia) had spread widely by the end of the millennium.<ref name="Chrétien-2003a" />{{Reference page|page=63}} Periods of drought made farmers dependent on cattle-keepers, while periods of heavy rainfall produced rich harvests, shifting power relations.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Collins|first=Robert|url=http://archive.org/details/historyofsubsaha0000coll|title=A History of Sub-Saharan Africa|last2=Burns|first2=James|date=2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|others=|isbn=9781107037809|edition=2nd|chapter=The Lake Plateau of East Africa}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=120}} Polities are thought to have formed around the earthwork sites of Ntusi, Bigo, and Munsa among others.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Reid|first=Andrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&q=historiography|title=Great Lakes Region: Ntusi, Kibiro, and Bigo|publisher=Routledge|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set|date=2005|editor-last=Shillington|editor-first=Kevin|language=|isbn=978-1-135-45670-2}}</ref><ref name="Robertshaw-2025">{{Cite book |last=Robertshaw|first=Peter|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396045?posInSet=2&queryId=a6aff8ac-57d1-4803-a9a6-a28b94c72e27|title=General History of Africa: Volume 9|date=2025|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|editor-last=Holl|editor-first=Augustin|chapter=The Emergence of Social Complexity in the Great Lakes Region}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=850-4}} Nyoro traditions detail the history of a 'Kitara Empire', ruled successively by the Tembuzi and Chwezi dynasties. Most scholars consider the Tembuzi to be mythical, and the Chwezi to have been historical figures, usually dated to the 14th and 15th centuries.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Robertshaw|first=Peter|last2=Taylor|first2=David|date=2000|title=Climate change and the rise of political complexity in western Uganda|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/climate-change-and-the-rise-of-political-complexity-in-western-uganda/B69306C47001A469B0B27B93C9FC792E|journal=The Journal of African History|language=en|volume=41|issue=1|pages=1–28|doi=10.1017/S0021853799007653|issn=1469-5138}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Uzoigwe|first=G. N.|date=2013|title=Bunyoro-Kitara Revisited: A Reevaluation of the Decline and Diminishment of an African Kingdom|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0021909611432094|journal=Journal of Asian and African Studies|volume=48|issue=1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Steinhart|first=Edward|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IWcYPAzVzRwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA353&dq=uzoigwe+kitara&ots=rUixnqpoDJ&sig=oh9WND3ck3Ek2iE936Neor9qvZc#v=onepage&q&f=false|title=The Study of the State|date=1981|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-90-279-3348-5|editor-last=Claessen|editor-first=H. J. M.|language=|chapter=Emergence of the kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara|editor-last2=Skalník|editor-first2=Peter}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=355}} Though earlier scholars often interpreted Kitara as an expansive empire, most recent scholars are sceptical,{{efn|Several historians regard the 'Kitara Empire' to have been a colonial construct created by British administrators and adopted by Nyoro historians to regain the Lost Counties. The concept came to be adopted by Ugandan nationalists as an ancient unification of Uganda predating British rule, and it is popular among the Ugandan population and still features in some recent histories.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Doyle |first=Shane |date=2006 |title=From Kitara to the Lost Counties: Genealogy, Land and Legitimacy in the Kingdom of Bunyoro, Western Uganda |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504630600823684 |journal=Social Identities |volume=12 |issue=4}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schmidt |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Vk5VBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA445&dq=ntusi+bigo&ots=D-rY-i80K9&sig=mhtCJBbDKToEKLBopxlT2zPwiYs#v=onepage&q=ntusi%20bigo&f=false |title=Rethinking Colonial Pasts Through Archaeology |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-969669-7 |editor-last=Ferris |editor-first=Neal |language= |chapter=Deconstructing Archaeologies of African Colonialism: Making and Unmaking the Subaltern |editor-last2=Harrison |editor-first2=Rodney |editor-last3=Wilcox |editor-first3=Michael}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=445-63}}}} and Peter Robertshaw considered the Chwezi to have been religious leaders who utilised networks of hill-top shrines{{efn|The shrines were dedicated to ancestral spirits of clans, and were common across the Great Lakes. They were closely associated with healing and collective prosperity, and served as centres.<ref name="Robertshaw-2025" />{{Reference page|pages=854-5}}}} to project authority.<ref name="Robertshaw-2025" />{{Reference page|pages=849-50, 854-6}} Around 1500, severe droughts and famine destabilised the region, occurring again during the early-17th and 18th centuries.<ref name="Chrétien-2003b">{{Cite book |last=Chrétien|first=Jean-Pierre|url=http://archive.org/details/isbn_9781890951344|title=The Great Lakes of Africa: Two thousand years of history|date=2003|publisher=Zone Books|others=|isbn=978-1-890951-34-4|chapter=The formation of monarchical states}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=142-3}} Luo-speaking peoples migrated from the Upper Nile basin into modern-day Uganda, and a Biito dynasty replaced the Chwezi in Bunyoro-Kitara.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Great Lakes Region: Kitara and the Chwezi Dynasty|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set|publisher=Routledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&q=historiography|last=Kiyaga-Mulindwa|first=David|date=2005|editor-last=Shillington|editor-first=Kevin|language=|isbn=978-1-135-45670-2}}</ref> The Siita dynasties of Nkore, Karagwe, and Haya states were replaced by Hinda dynasties, who trace their origin to the last Chwezi king and his cattle-keeper Ruhinda.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Great Lakes Region: Karagwe, Nkore, and Buhaya|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set|publisher=Routledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&q=historiography|last=Reid|first=Andrew|date=2005|editor-last=Shillington|editor-first=Kevin|language=|isbn=978-1-135-45670-2}}</ref><ref name="Ogot-1984">{{Cite book |last=Ogot|first=Bethwell Allan|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4|title=General History of Africa: Volume 4|date=1984|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|chapter=The Great Lakes region}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=|pages=511, 514}} To the east, Buganda was founded sometime in the first half of the second millennium, traditionally by Kintu.{{efn|Ganda traditions say that in the region of Buganda Kintu is said to have found various indigenous clans ({{Lang|lug|banansangwawo}}) who had thirty kings prior to Kintu's arrival. Kintu defeated their last king, Bemba Musota. Further clans are said to have migrated in from the east. According to tradition, Kintu disappeared after having founded the kingdom. Buganda likely initially controlled the counties of {{Interlanguage link|Kyadondo|ceb}}, {{Interlanguage link|Busiro|ceb|Busiro County}}, and {{Interlanguage link|Mawokota|ceb|}}.<ref name="Kiyaga-Mulindwa-2005"/><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Buganda|encyclopedia=The Nile: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mBjHEAAAQBAJ&dq=buganda+%2214th+century%22&pg=PA78|last=Shoup|first=John A.|date=2017-05-12|language=en|isbn=978-1-4408-4041-8}}</ref>{{Rp|page=80}} Nyoro tradition says that Kimera, Buganda's third king, came from Bunyoro following the collapse of the Chwezi to found a Biito dynasty in Buganda.<ref name="Kiyaga-Mulindwa-2005"/> Prominent scholars such as Apollo Kaggwa and Lloyd Fallers considered Buganda's dynasty to have been local in origin, developing from ''primus inter pares'' patrilineal groups, which corroborates with the power clan heads had in Buganda's early history.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beattie|first=John|url=https://archive.org/details/nyorostate0000beat|title=The Nyoro State|date=1971|publisher=Clarendon Press|others=|isbn=978-0-19-823171-4|chapter=Conclusion: Bunyoro and Buganda}}</ref>{{Rp|page=256}}}}<ref name="Kiyaga-Mulindwa-2005">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Buganda: To Nineteenth Century|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&pg=PA636|last=Kiyaga-Mulindwa|first=David|date=2005|editor-last1=Shillington|editor-first1=Kevin|pages=636–650|isbn=1-57958-245-1}}</ref>{{Rp|page=80}} To the south, small states associated with clans saw increasing numbers of pastoralists who grew dominant and amalgamated them into the kingdom of Rwanda towards the end of the 15th century.<ref name="Ogot-1984" />{{Reference page|pages=516-8}} Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, Bunyoro raided states to the south such as Nkore and Rwanda. Mpororo rose and fragmented during the 18th century, while Buganda rapidly expanded at the expense of Bunyoro to become the major power in the region.<ref name="Chrétien-2003b" />{{Reference page|pages=147-56}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Webster |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-5 |title=General History of Africa: Volume 5 |last2=Ogot |first2=B. A. |last3=Chrétien |first3=Jean-Pierre |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO Publishing |chapter=The Great Lakes region: 1500–1800}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=801-2}}
=== Eastern Congo Basin === In the central Congo Basin, farmers, fishermen, and hunters (often Pygmies) built symbiotic relations,<ref name="Vansina-1984">{{Cite book |last=Vansina|first=Jan|url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287|title=General History of Africa: Volume 4|date=1984|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|chapter=Equatorial Africa and Angola: Migrations and the emergence of the first states}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=554}} and the Balega organised into {{Lang|lea|bwami}} (socio-political collective 'grades' within a hierarchy). Mongo peoples migrated throughout the northeastern Congolian Rainforest, eventually organising into polities called {{Lang|lol|nkumu}}.<ref name="Vansina-1984" />{{Reference page|page=|pages=563-4}} Some groups highly valued socio-political equality and disapproved of leaving it.<ref name="Vansina-1984" />{{Reference page|page=559}} In the Upemba Depression, people traded with the Copperbelt, and graves dated to the 8th century contained objects associated with authority, such as anvils and ceremonial axes.{{efn|In Central African traditions, the first king is often said to have been a blacksmith.<ref name="de Maret-2013"/>{{Reference page|page=880}}}}<ref name="de Maret-2013">{{Cite book |last=de Maret|first=Pierre|url=https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28041/chapter-abstract/211957126?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false|title=The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2013|isbn=9780199569885|editor-last=Mitchell|editor-first=Peter|chapter=Recent Farming Communities and States in the Congo Basin and its Environs|editor-last2=Lane|editor-first2=Paul}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=878-80}} Jan Vansina wrote that in the southern savanna 'lords of the land' held priestly roles due to their special relationship with the spirits of the land, and held sway over multiple villages, effectively ruling embryonic kingdoms. Accordingly, as lineages grew, authority was opportunistically absorbed or incorporated by force.<ref name="Vansina-1984" />{{Rp|pages=557-8}} The centre of the Luba Empire is yet to undergo archaeological research, meaning knowledge about its rise is limited;<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Political Complexity North and South of the Zambezi River|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-69|last=Schoeman|first=Maria|date=2017}}</ref> its foundation is typically dated to the 14th/15th centuries,<ref name="Oliver-2001">{{Cite book |last=Oliver|first=Roland|url=https://archive.org/details/medievalafrica1200rola|title=Medieval Africa, 1250{{endash}}1800|last2=Atmore|first2=Anthony|date=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|chapter=From the Lualaba to the Zambezi}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=181}} though scholarly estimates range from the 8th to 17th centuries.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mulundwe|first=Banza Mwepu|title=Le mythe des origines des Baluba|date=2001|publisher=Dikasa|page=61|language=fr}}</ref><ref name="Reefe-1981">{{Cite book |last=Reefe|first=Thomas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNZ9EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA23|title=The Rainbow and the Kings: A History of the Luba Empire to 1891|date=1981|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-33490-8|language=|chapter=The myth}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=59}} Luba-Katanga traditions (likely telescoped{{efn|ie. compressing historical events and processes}}) detail the arrival of sacred kingship ({{Lang|lub|bulopwe}}) in the narrative about tyrannical-conqueror Nkongolo and the prodigy Kalala Ilunga, where it is brought by the noble hunter Mbidi.<ref name="Oliver-2001" />{{Reference page|page=182}}<ref name="Reefe-1981" />{{Reference page|pages=23-40}} Meanwhile, a Lunda state formed in the Nkalany Valley (estimates range from c. 1450 to c. 1700),<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vansina|first=Jan|date=1998|title=Government in Kasai before the Lunda|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/220882|journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies|volume=31|issue=1|pages=1–22|doi=10.2307/220882|issn=0361-7882}}</ref> and Lunda traditions say that queen Lueji married Mbidi's grandson and hunter Chibinda, whose son was the first Mwata Yamvo.{{efn|Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore wrote that the tradition likely represented a long process wherein a royally-commissioned Luba hunting expedition was sent to the Lunda and settled among them, gradually amalgamating Lunda polities into a state.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Oliver |first=Roland |url=http://archive.org/details/medievalafrica1200rola |title=Medieval Africa, 1250{{ndash}}1800 |last2=Atmore |first2=Anthony |last3= |first3= |date=2001 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |others= |isbn=978-0-521-79024-6 |chapter=From the Lualaba to the Zambezi}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=183}} Giacamo Macola however said that the differing institutions and linguistic data indicated that there was mutual cultural borrowing rather than a conquest.<ref name="Macola-2015" />}}<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Lunda: Mwaant Yaav (Mwata Yamvo) and Origins|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set|publisher=Routledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&q=historiography|last=Hoover|first=Jeff|date=2005|editor-last=Shillington|editor-first=Kevin|language=|isbn=978-1-135-45670-2}}</ref> In the 18th century, Lunda rapidly expanded into an extensive commonwealth across the southern savanna, using the institutions of perpetual kinship and positional succession to incorporate peoples.{{efn|'Positional succession' was where a successor would take on their predecessor's identity, relationships, and duties, while 'perpetual kinship' involved permanent kinship ties between positions.<ref name="Macola-2015" />}}<ref name="Macola-2015">{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire|publisher=Wiley|title=Luba-Lunda states|last=Macola|first=Giacomo|year=2015|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe060}}</ref> Lunda lost several rulers in a long conflict (eventually won) against Kanyok to the north, and conquered the Pende and Yaka kingdoms in the west.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=The Emergence of Lunda|date=2020|title=A History of West Central Africa to 1850|last=Thornton|first=John|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/emergence-of-lunda/217772278889F27A939637A817DC83EF|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-56593-7}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=225-8}} The most important constituents in the east and south were Kazembe, Luvale, and Kanongesha.{{efn|According to Mutumba Mainga, before Lunda's policy of expansion, an offshoot of its dynasty migrated south to found the Lozi Kingdom in western modern-day Zambia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mainga |first=Mutumba |url=http://archive.org/details/buloziunderluyan0000bull |title=Bulozi under the Luyana Kings: Political Evolution and State Formation in Pre-Colonial Zambia |date=1973 |publisher=Longman |isbn=978-0-582-64073-3 |chapter=Migration and settlement}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=11-3, 17-20}}}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Macola|first=Giacomo|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.32155385|title=A Violent History: Power and Conflict in the Congo Basin from the Nineteenth Century to the Present|date=2025|publisher=Leuven University Press|isbn=978-94-6270-451-0|chapter=The "Ancien Régime"}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=33}} Meanwhile, Luba expanded its number of tributaries, in some cases using its widely acknowledged prestige to intervene in succession disputes and distribute ritually-powerful royal regalia related to {{Lang|lub|bulopwe}}, in other cases using conquest.<ref name="Macola-2015" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Reefe|first=Thomas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNZ9EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA23|title=The Rainbow and the Kings: A History of the Luba Empire to 1891|date=1981|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-33490-8|language=|chapter=Dynastic history in the eighteenth century}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=108}}
=== The East African coast and interior, and Madagascar === The East African coast and coastal archipelagos were dotted with proto-Swahili settlements, each with productive locally-developed industries.<ref name="Sheriff-2017">{{cite book |last1=Sheriff|first1=Abdul|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-152?rskey=QZrXh6&result=1#acrefore-9780190277734-e-152-div1-3|title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|last2=|first2=|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2017|isbn=|chapter=The Swahili in the African and Indian Ocean Worlds to c. 1500|doi=}}</ref> They participated in Indian Ocean trade, and converted to Islam from c. 800, enabling them to participate in Muslim trading networks.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ichumbaki|first1=Elgidius|url=https://oxfordre.com/anthropology/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.001.0001/acrefore-9780190854584-e-267|title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology|last2=Pollard|first2=Edward|year=2021|isbn=|chapter=The Swahili Civilization in Eastern Africa|doi=|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> Trade boomed from the 10th century, and major city-states included Manda, Shanga, Mombasa, and Kilwa, the latter of which seized control of the Sofala gold trade from Mogadishu (according to the ''Kilwa Chronicle'') and expanded its control along the coast.<ref name="Sheriff-2017" /><ref name="Beaujard-2017">{{Cite book |last=Beaujard|first=Philippe|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Swahili_World.html?id=EyE6DwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y|title=The Swahili World|last2=|first2=|date=2017|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-43016-2|editor-last=Wynne-Jones|editor-first=Stephanie|language=|chapter=The progressive integration of eastern Africa into an Afro-Eurasian world-system, first–fifteenth centuries ce|editor-last2=LaViolette|editor-first2=Adria}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=371-2}} The interior was inhabited by pastoralist Cushitic and Nilotic speakers, along with Bantu speakers who continued to expand and adapt to their lands while absorbing the former two;<ref>{{cite book |last=Ehret|first=Christopher|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4|title=General History of Africa: Volume 4|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1984|chapter=Between the coast and the great lakes}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=481-94}} the 17th century saw the establishment of tributary systems that stabilised the region.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ochieng|first=William|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4/page/n403/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 5|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1992|chapter=The interior of East Africa: The peoples of Kenya and Tanzania, 1500–1800}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=829}} Madagascar had been settled by Austronesians who had traversed the Indian Ocean in outrigger canoes, likely sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries.{{efn|Malagasy oral traditions describe finding a population from an earlier wave, the {{Lang|mg|Vazimba}} (a 'way of life' rather than an ethnic group), who over time were displaced and absorbed.<ref name="Randrianja-2009"/>{{rp|pages=70-1}}}}<ref name="Randrianja 2009">{{cite book |last=Randrianja|first=Solofo|title=Madagascar: A short history|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2009|chapter=Settlement (400–1099)|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/madagascarshorth0000rand/page/42/mode/2up}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=19-20}} The Antalaotra controlled trade on the northwest coast, while Malagasy societies organised and competed with one another over the island's estuaries and bridgeheads.{{efn|{{Lang|mg|Hasina}} was regarded as a spiritual force which imbued people with authority and facilitated social and political organisation. Over time, it became central to the development of a Malagasy ideology of kingship.<ref>{{cite book |last=Randrianja |first=Solofo |title=Madagascar: A short history |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2009 |chapter=Settlement (400–1099) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/madagascarshorth0000rand/page/42/mode/2up}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=43}}}}<ref name="Randrianja-2009">{{cite book |last=Randrianja|first=Solofo|title=Madagascar: A short history|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2009|chapter=Transforming the island (1100–1599)|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/madagascarshorth0000rand/page/42/mode/2up}}</ref>{{rp|pages=48, 52–53}} In the 15th century, trade routes for Zimbabwean gold shifted north, weakening Kilwa.<ref name="Beaujard-2017" />{{Reference page|page=375}} The Portuguese arrived at the coast soon after, and exploited divisions between coastal city-states to gain control over them while utilising a powerful navy.<ref name="Salim-1992">{{cite book |last=Salim|first=Ahmed|url=https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-4/page/n403/mode/2up|title=General History of Africa: Volume 5|publisher=UNESCO Publishing|year=1992|chapter=East Africa: The coast}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=756-60}} Meanwhile, southern Madagascar was integrated into global trade; the Sakalava Empire rose to dominate west-coastal trade, accompanied by numerous other states, and the island saw several failed European colonial ventures.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Madagascar: Malagasy Kingdoms, Evolution of|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set|publisher=Routledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&q=historiography|last=Campbell|first=Gwyn|date=2005|editor-last=Shillington|editor-first=Kevin|language=|isbn=978-1-135-45670-2}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2016|title=Malagasy empires (Sakalava and Merina)|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire|publisher=Wiley|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe056|last=Campbell|first=Gwyn}}</ref> In the 17th and 18th centuries, Lamu-Swahili cities rebelled against the Portuguese and allied the Omani Empire which supplanted Portuguese rule.<ref name="Salim-1992" />{{Reference page|pages=767-70}}
=== Zambezia and the Zimbabwean Plateau === Just south of the Limpopo River, from c. 1000 growing wealth and inequality at Bambandyanalo led the population to move to the foot of Mapungubwe Hill c. 1220,{{efn|The population at Bambandyanalo were agropastoralists, and maximised agricultural productivity in the semi-arid environment by moving large cattle herds to graze on other communities' lands in exchange for goods or services, which forged new socio-political relations. They also participated in the Indian Ocean trade via Swahili city-states, benefiting from the Limpopo-Shashe confluence being a trade centre.<ref name="Chirikure-2015" />{{Reference page|page=|pages=20, 22}}}} while the ruler settled its flat summit;{{efn|Hills served as rainmaking sites; after this move, Mapungubwe Hill became the sole such site, with its settlement by the ruler increasing his ritual power.<ref name="Huffman-2005" />{{Reference page|pages=32-4}}}} the Mapungubwe state grew to cover {{Convert|30000|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}}. Around 1300, amid unknown events and shifting trade routes north, the state collapsed, and Great Zimbabwe, with its monumental dry-stone walls, rose to become the region's main political and economic centre.<ref name="Chirikure-2015">{{Cite book |last1=Chirikure|first1=Shadreck|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3pa7CgAAQBAJ&dq=kingdom+of+mapungubwe&pg=PT6|title=Mapungubwe Reconsidered: A Living Legacy: Exploring Beyond the Rise and Decline of the Mapungubwe State|last2=Delius|first2=Peter|last3=Esterhuysen|first3=Amanda|last4=Hall|first4=Simon|last5=Lekgoathi|first5=Sekibakiba|last6=Maulaudzi|first6=Maanda|last7=Neluvhalani|first7=Vele|last8=Ntsoane|first8=Otsile|last9=Pearce|first9=David|date=2015-10-01|publisher=Real African Publishers Pty Ltd.|isbn=978-1-920655-06-8|language=en}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=|pages=17-20}}<ref name="Huffman-2005">{{Cite book |last=Huffman|first=Thomas|url=https://archive.org/details/mapungubweancien0000huff/mode/2up?view=theater|title=Mapungubwe: Ancient African civilisation on the Limpopo|date=2005|publisher=Wits University Press|others=|isbn=978-1-86814-408-2}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=30-55}} Its {{Lang|sn|mambo}} (king) controlled the gold trade exporting to the east coast, and the state likely covered {{Convert|50000|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}}.<ref name="Chirikure-2020">{{Cite journal |last=Chirikure|first=Shadreck|date=2020-06-01|title=New Perspectives on the Political Economy of Great Zimbabwe|journal=Journal of Archaeological Research|language=en|volume=28|issue=2|pages=139–186|doi=10.1007/s10814-019-09133-w|issn=1573-7756|doi-access=free}}</ref> In the 15th century a new trade route was founded along the Zambezi directly to the goldfields, contributing to the decline of Great Zimbabwe and the rise of Butua near the goldfields to its west and the Mutapa Empire on the northern Zimbabwean Plateau.<ref name="Waarden-2012">{{Cite book |last=Waarden|first=Catrien Van|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u1SqMwEACAAJ|title=Butua and the End of an Era: The Effect of the Collapse of the Kalanga State on Ordinary Citizens : an Analysis of Behaviour Under Stress|date=2012|publisher=Archaeopress|isbn=978-1-4073-1019-0|language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=50}}<ref name="Mudenge-1988b">{{Cite book |last=Mudenge|first=S. I. G.|url=http://archive.org/details/a-political-history-of-munhumutapa|title=A Political History of Munhumutapa, c. 1400–1902|date=1988|publisher=Zimbabwe Publishing House|isbn=0949932302|chapter=Munhumutapa Empire from the Foundation to the Martyrdom of Fr Silveira: c. 1400 to 1561}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=39}} After having left Luba territory in the 11th century,<ref name="Juwayeyi-2010">{{Cite journal |last=Juwayeyi|first=Yusuf M.|date=2010-08-01|title=Archaeological excavations at Mankhamba, Malawi: An early settlement site of the Maravi|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2010.491947|journal=Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa|volume=45|issue=2|pages=175–202|doi=10.1080/0067270X.2010.491947|issn=0067-270X|url-access=subscription}}</ref> the Maravi arrived near Lake Malawi around the 15th century and incorporated the pre-existing Chewa politico-religious structure into their state.<ref name="Juwayeyi-2020c">{{Cite book |last=Juwayeyi |first=Yusuf M. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/archaeology-and-oral-tradition-in-malawi/7588016649895DA4A10FC2CCC6B5E336 |title=Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa |date=2020 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |chapter=The origins and migrations of the Chewa according to their oral traditions|isbn=978-1-84701-253-1}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=50-2}} During the early-16th century, the Portuguese gained greater control over Zambezian trade.<ref name="Mudenge-1988b" />{{Reference page|page=55}} In the 17th century Muzura rapidly expanded the Maravi empire but failed to expel the Portuguese from Zambezia.<ref name="Juwayeyi-2020e">{{Cite book |last=Juwayeyi|first=Yusuf M.|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/archaeology-and-oral-tradition-in-malawi/7588016649895DA4A10FC2CCC6B5E336|title=Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa|date=2020|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-1-84701-253-1|chapter=Long-distance trade and the rise of the Maravi Empire}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=196-203}} In 1629 the Portuguese vassalised Mutapa by intervening in a succession conflict;<ref name="Mudenge-1988g">{{Cite book |last=Mudenge|first=S. I. G.|url=http://archive.org/details/a-political-history-of-munhumutapa|title=A Political History of Munhumutapa, c. 1400–1902|date=1988|publisher=Zimbabwe Publishing House|isbn=0949932302|chapter=The 'Puppet' Munhumutapas: Portuguese Ascendancy South of the Zambezi c. 1624 to 1684}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=258}} the influx of {{Lang|pt|prazo}}-holders (settlers) in Mutapa caused widespread lawlessness and insecurity, which exacerbated the devastation caused by drought, famine, and disease in the mid- to late-17th century.<ref name="Mudenge-1988g" />{{Reference page|pages=266,270-1}}<ref name="Beach-1980b">{{Cite book |last=Beach|first=David|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Shona_Zimbabwe_900_1850.html?id=Wzx1AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y|title=The Shona & Zimbabwe 900-1850: An Outline of Shona History|date=1980|publisher=Pearson Education|isbn=978-0-435-94505-3|language=|chapter=The Mutapa state}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=132-3}} The 1680s and '90s saw the rise of Changamire Dombo who conquered Butua to found the Rozvi Empire and expelled all Portuguese from the Plateau.<ref name="Beach-1980b2">{{Cite book |last=Beach|first=David|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Shona_Zimbabwe_900_1850.html?id=Wzx1AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y|title=The Shona & Zimbabwe 900–1850: An Outline of Shona History|date=1980|publisher=Pearson Education|isbn=978-0-435-94505-3|language=|chapter=The Rozvi and the Changamire state}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=230-5}} Around the same time, some members of the Rozvi dynasty migrated south and conquered the Venda groups in the Soutpansberg to found the Singo state; the kingdom fragmented around 1780 following shifting trade routes south and a succession conflict.<ref name=":11">{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Loubser|first=Jannie|title=The Venda-Speaking People|date=2024|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1215|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> The Maravi state collapsed amid succession crises in the 18th century,<ref name="Juwayeyi-2020f">{{Cite book |last=Juwayeyi|first=Yusuf M.|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/archaeology-and-oral-tradition-in-malawi/7588016649895DA4A10FC2CCC6B5E336|title=Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa|date=2020|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-1-84701-253-1|chapter=The demise of the Maravi empire}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=204}} which also saw many migrations and the resettlement of much of the southern and central Plateau, replacing local dynasties and gradually weakening Rozvi power.<ref name="Beach1980">{{Cite book |last=Beach|first=David|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Shona_Zimbabwe_900_1850.html?id=Wzx1AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y|title=The Shona & Zimbabwe 900–1850: An Outline of Shona History|date=1980|publisher=Pearson Education|isbn=978-0-435-94505-3|language=|chapter=The Resettlement of the Central and Southern Shona Country}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=279-307}}
=== Southern Africa === {{Expand section|date=February 2026}}
==c. 1800{{En dash}}c. 1935== {{Main|Colonial Africa}}
{{Further|History of West Africa#Slave trade|History of Central Africa#Slave trade|History of East Africa#Slave trade|History of Southern Africa#Slave trade|History of North Africa#European colonial period|History of West Africa#Colonial period|History of Central Africa#Colonial period|History of East Africa#Colonial period|History of Southern Africa#Colonial period}}
Between 1878 and 1898, European states partitioned and conquered most of Africa. For 400 years, European nations had mainly limited their involvement to trading stations on the African coast, with few daring to venture inland. The Industrial Revolution in Europe produced several technological innovations which assisted them in overcoming this 400-year pattern. One was the development of repeating rifles, which were easier and quicker to load than muskets. Artillery was being used increasingly. In 1885, Hiram S. Maxim developed the maxim gun, the model of the modern-day machine gun. European states kept these weapons largely among themselves by refusing to sell these weapons to African leaders.<ref name="Collins-2007">{{cite book|last1=Collins|first1=Robert O.|author1-link=Robert O. Collins|last2=Burns|first2=James M.|year=2007|title=A History of Sub-Saharan Africa|location=NY|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-68708-9|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofsubsaha0000coll}}</ref>{{rp|pages=268–269}}
African germs took numerous European lives and deterred permanent settlements. Diseases such as yellow fever, sleeping sickness, yaws, and leprosy made Africa a very inhospitable place for Europeans. The deadliest disease was malaria, endemic throughout Tropical Africa. In 1854, the discovery of quinine and other medical innovations helped to make conquest and colonization in Africa possible.<ref name="Collins-2007"/>{{rp|pages=269}}
There were strong motives for conquest of Africa. Raw materials were needed for European factories. Prestige and imperial rivalries were at play. Acquiring African colonies would show rivals that a nation was powerful and significant. These contextual factors forged the Scramble for Africa.<ref name="Collins-2007"/>{{rp|pages=265}}
In the 1880s the European powers had carved up almost all of Africa (only Ethiopia and Liberia were independent). The Europeans were captivated by the philosophies of eugenics and Social Darwinism, and some attempted to justify all this by branding it civilising missions. Traditional leaders were incorporated into the colonial regimes as a form of indirect rule to extract human and natural resources and curb organized resistance.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Kyed|first1=Helene Maria|title=Introduction: Traditional Authority and Democratization in Africa|date=2007|work=State Recognition and Democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa: A New Dawn for Traditional Authorities?|pages=1–28|editor-last=Buur|editor-first=Lars|url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230609716_1|access-date=2024-12-07|place=New York|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|language=en|doi=10.1057/9780230609716_1|isbn=978-0-230-60971-6|last2=Buur|first2=Lars|editor2-last=Kyed|editor2-first=Helene Maria|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Colonial borders were drawn unilaterally by the Europeans, often cutting across bonds of kinship, language, culture, and established routes, and sometimes incorporating groups who previously had little in common. The threat to trade routes was mitigated by poor policing and African entrepreneurs (viewed as smugglers) who exploited the differing tax and legal schemes.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Boundaries, colonial |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History |publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&pg=PA636 |last=Hargreaves |first=John |date=2005 |editor-last1=Shillington |editor-first1=Kevin |pages= |isbn=1-57958-245-1 }}</ref>
thumb|right|upright=1.25|Areas controlled by European powers in 1939. British (red) and Belgian (marroon) colonies fought with the Allies. Italian (light green) with the Axis. French colonies (dark blue) fought alongside the Allies until the Fall of France in June 1940. Vichy was in control until the Free French prevailed in late 1942. Portuguese (dark green) and Spanish (yellow) colonies remained neutral.
== c. 1935{{En dash}}present == {{Main|Postcolonial Africa}}
{{Further|History of North Africa#Post-colonial period|History of West Africa#Post-colonial period|History of Central Africa#Post-colonial period|History of East Africa#Post-colonial period|History of Southern Africa#Post-colonial period}} {{See also|Decolonisation of Africa|Neocolonialism|CFA franc|Status of forces agreement|Historical African place names}}
upright=1.25|thumb|Order of independence of African nations, 1950–2011|alt=An animated map showing the order of independence of African nations, 1950–2011
Imperialism ruled until after World War II when forces of African nationalism grew stronger. In the 1950s and 1960s the colonial holdings became independent states. The process was usually peaceful but there were several long bitter bloody civil wars, as in Algeria,<ref>Alistair Horne, ''A savage war of peace: Algeria 1954–1962'' (1977).</ref> Kenya,<ref>David Anderson, ''Histories of the hanged: The dirty war in Kenya and the end of empire'' (2005).</ref> and elsewhere. Across Africa the powerful new force of nationalism drew upon the advanced militaristic skills that natives learned during the world wars serving in the British, French, and other armies. It led to organizations that were not controlled by or endorsed by either the colonial powers nor the traditional local power structures who were viewed as collaborators. Nationalistic organizations began to challenge both the traditional and the new colonial structures, and finally displaced them. Leaders of nationalist movements took control when the European authorities evacuated; many ruled for decades or until they died. In recent decades, many African countries have undergone the triumph and defeat of nationalistic fervour, changing in the process the loci of the centralizing state power and patrimonial state.<ref>Gabriel Almond and James S. Coleman, ''The Politics of the Developing Areas'' (1971)</ref><ref>Festus Ugboaja Ohaegbulam, ''Nationalism in colonial and post-colonial Africa'' (University Press of America, 1977).</ref><ref>Thomas Hodgkin, ''Nationalism in Colonial Africa'' (1956)</ref>
The wave of decolonization of Africa started with Libya in 1951, although Liberia, South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia were already independent. Many countries followed in the 1950s and 1960s, with a peak in 1960 with the Year of Africa, which saw 17 African nations declare independence, including a large part of French West Africa. Most of the remaining countries gained independence throughout the 1960s, although some colonizers (Portugal in particular) were reluctant to relinquish sovereignty, resulting in bitter wars of independence which lasted for a decade or more.
The last African countries to gain formal independence were Guinea-Bissau (1974), Mozambique (1975) and Angola (1975) from Portugal; Djibouti from France in 1977; Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom in 1980; and Namibia from South Africa in 1990. Eritrea later split off from Ethiopia in 1993.<ref>Henry S. Wilson, ''African decolonization'' (E. Arnold, 1994).</ref> The nascent countries, despite some prior talk of redrawing borders, decided to keep their colonial borders in the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) conference of 1964 due to fears of civil wars and regional instability, and placed emphasis on Pan-Africanism, with the OAU later developing into the African Union.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Touval|first=Saadia|title=The Organization of African Unity and African Borders|journal=International Organization|volume=21|issue=1|pages=102–127|date=1967|doi=10.1017/S0020818300013151|jstor=2705705}}</ref> During the 1990s and early 2000s there were the First and Second Congo Wars, often termed the African World Wars.{{sfnp|Prunier|2009|p=72}}<ref>{{cite book|last=Prunier|first=Gerard|url=https://archive.org/details/africasworldwarc0000prun|title=Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe|publisher=Barnes & Noble|year=2014|isbn=978-0-19-537420-9|access-date=20 October 2014|url-access=registration}}</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|Africa|History}} * Architecture of Africa * History of science and technology in Africa * Military history of Africa * Genetic history of Africa * Economic history of Africa * African historiography * {{section link|List of history journals|Africa}} * List of kingdoms in Africa throughout history * List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Africa
==Notes== {{notelist}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Sources== * {{cite book|title=Les Prairies D'Or|others=Ed. and Trans. Charles Barbier de Meynard and Abel Pavet de Courteille|last=Al-Mas'udi|first=Ali ibn al-Husain|author-link=Al-Masudi|year=1861–1917|volume=9 vols.|publisher=Imprimerie Nationale|location=Paris}} * {{cite book|last1=Collins|first1=Robert O.|author1-link=Robert O. Collins|last2=Burns|first2=James M.|year=2007|title=A History of Sub-Saharan Africa|location=NY|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-68708-9}} * {{cite book|last1=Diamond|first1=Jared M.|author-link=Jared Diamond|title=Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies|date=1997|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-03891-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kLKTa_OeoNIC|language=en}} * {{cite book|author-link=Christopher Ehret|last=Ehret|first=Christopher|year=2002|title=The Civilizations of Africa|location=Charlottesville, Virginia|publisher=University of Virginia|isbn=0-8139-2085-X}} * {{cite book|last1=Gomez|first1=Michael|title=African dominion: a new history of empire in early and medieval West Africa|date=2018|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, NJ|isbn=978-0-691-17742-7}} * {{cite book|editor-link1=Nehemia Levtzion|editor1-last=Levtzion|editor1-first=Nehemia|editor2-last=Hopkins|editor2-first=John F.P.|title=Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West Africa|publisher=Marcus Weiner Press|place=New York, NY|year=2000|isbn=1-55876-241-8}} * {{cite book|title=The Case of Rhyme versus Reason: Ibn al-Rumi and His Poetics in Context|first=Robert C.|last=McKinney|publisher=Brill|location=Leiden and Boston|year=2004|isbn=90-04-13010-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kfjbp__dVNYC}} * {{Cite book|last=Mamdani|first=Mahmood|date=1996|title=Citizen and subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism|publisher=Fountain Publishers|isbn=978-0-85255-399-2|location=Kampala|oclc=35445018}} * {{cite book|last1=Nicholson|first1=Paul T.|first2=Ian|last2=Shaw|year=2000|title=Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-45257-1}} * {{cite book|last=Prunier|first=Gérard|year=2009|title=Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kp93kUfdhC0C|isbn=978-0-19-970583-2}} * {{cite book|last=Shillington|first=Kevin|author-link=Kevin Shillington|year=2005|title=History of Africa|edition=Revised 2nd|location=New York City|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=0-333-59957-8}}
==Further reading== * UNESCO Publishing (1981–2024) ''General History of Africa'' * Cambridge University Press (1975–1986) ''The Cambridge History of Africa'' * Shillington, Kevin (1989) ''History of Africa'' (4th edition, 2019) * Clark, J. Desmond (1970). ''The Prehistory of Africa''. Thames and Hudson * Davidson, Basil (1964). ''The African Past''. Penguin, Harmondsworth * Falola, Toyin. ''Africa'', Volumes 1–5. * FitzSimons, William. "Sizing Up the 'Small Wars' of African Empire: An Assessment of the Context and Legacies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Warfare". ''Journal of African Military History'' 2#1 (2018): 63–78. {{doi|10.1163/24680966-0020100}} * {{Cite book|last=French|first=Howard|year=2021|title=Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War|location=New York|publisher=Liveright Publishing Company|isbn=978-1-63149-582-3|oclc=1268921040}} * Freund, Bill (1998). ''The Making of Contemporary Africa'', Lynne Rienner, Boulder (including a substantial "Annotated Bibliography" pp. 269–316). * July, Robert (1998). ''A History of the African People'', (Waveland Press, 1998). * Lamphear, John, ed. ''African Military History'' (Routledge, 2007). * Reader, John (1997). ''Africa: A Biography of the Continent''. Hamish Hamilton. {{ISBN|0-241-13047-6}} * Thornton, John K. ''Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500–1800'' (Routledge, 1999).
===Atlases=== * Ajayi, A.J.F. and Michael Crowder. ''Historical Atlas of Africa'' (1985); 300 color maps. * Fage, J.D. ''Atlas of African History'' (1978) * Freeman-Grenville, G.S.P. ''The New Atlas of African History'' (1991). * Kwamena-Poh, Michael, et al. ''African history in Maps'' (Longman, 1982). * McEvedy, Colin. ''The Penguin Atlas of African History'' (2nd ed. 1996). [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140513213/ excerpt]
===Historiography===
* Afolayan, Funso (2005). "Historiography of Africa" ''Encyclopedia of African History'' * Falola, Toyin (2011). "African Historical Writing" ''The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 5: Historical Writing Since 1945'' * Fage, John D. "The development of African historiography." ''General history of Africa'' 1 (1981): 25–42. [http://repository.out.ac.tz/403/1/Vol_1._Methodology_&_African_Prehistory_editor_J.KI-ZERBO(FILEminimizer).pdf#page=48 online] * Odhiambo, E.S. Atieno (2004). "The Usages of the past: African historiographies since independence" ''African Research and Documentation'' 96 * {{citation|url=http://www.manning.pitt.edu/pdf/2013.Manning.JAH.pdf|doi=10.1017/S0021853713000753|title=African and World Historiography|journal=The Journal of African History|volume=54|issue=3|pages=319–330|year=2013|last1=Manning|first1=Patrick|s2cid=33615987}} * {{cite journal|last1=Manning|first1=Patrick|year=2016|title=Locating Africans on the World Stage: A Problem in World History|journal=Journal of World History|volume=27|issue=3|pages=605–637}} * Philips, John Edward, ed. ''Writing African History'' (2005) * Whitehead, Clive. "The historiography of British Imperial education policy, Part II: Africa and the rest of the colonial empire." ''History of Education'' 34.4 (2005): 441–454. [http://www.worldpece.org/sites/default/files/artifacts/media/pdf/2005_whitehead_the_historiography_of_british_imperial_education.pdf online] * Zimmerman, Andrew. "Africa in Imperial and Transnational History: multi-sited historiography and the necessity of theory." ''Journal of African History'' 54.3 (2013): 331–340. [https://histoire.ens.fr/IMG/pdf/zimmerman_-_africa-in-imperial-and-transnational-history-.pdf online]
==External links== * "[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-evolution-and-the-science-of-human-origins/ Race, Evolution and the Science of Human Origins]" by Allison Hopper, ''Scientific American'' (5 July 2021). * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100815022804/http://www.worldtimelines.org.uk/world/africa Worldtimelines.org.uk – Africa] The British Museum. 2005 * [http://historyscoper.com/africahistoryscope.html The Historyscoper]. * [http://africanhistory.about.com/od/countryhistoryatoz/u/PeoplePlaces.htm About.com:African History] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071213144544/http://africanhistory.about.com/od/countryhistoryatoz/u/PeoplePlaces.htm |date=2007-12-13 }}. * [https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/index.shtml The Story of Africa] BBC World Service. * [https://www.pbs.org/wonders/fr_wn.htm Wonders of the African World], PBS. * [http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CIVAFRCA/ABOUT.HTM#Purpose Civilization of Africa by Richard Hooker], Washington State University. * [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/te_index.asp?i=Africa African Art] Metropolitan Museum of Art. * [https://web.archive.org/web/20190519102901/http://www.africankingdoms.com/ African Kingdoms, by Khaleel Muhammad]. * [https://web.archive.org/web/20120401181050/http://web.up.ac.za/default.asp?ipkCategoryID=12651%2F Mapungubwe Museum] at the University of Pretoria * [http://www.omarviktor.com/project-diaspora Project Diaspora] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018021941/https://www.omarviktor.com/project-diaspora |date=2021-10-18 }}. * [http://www.kushcom.co.uk/history-of-africa/programme-information/ Kush Communications |Media Production Company London].
{{History of Africa}} {{Africa topics}} {{History by continent|state=expanded}} {{Authority control}}
some of Ghana's vassals Category:History of Africa Category:Archaeology in Africa