The 'history of
West Africa' can be divided into five major periods:
#Its prehistory, in which the first human settlers arrived, agriculture developed, and contact made with the
Mediterranean civilizations to the north.
#The
Iron Age empires that consolidated trade and developed centralized states.
#The slave-trading kingdoms,
jihads, and
colonial invaders of the
eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.
#The colonial period, in which
France and
Great Britain controlled nearly the whole of the region.
#The post-independence era, in which the current nations were formed.
Prehistory
Archaeological studies at
Mejiro Cave have found that early human settlers, had arrived in West Africa around 12,000 B.C.E.
Microlithic stone industries have been found primarily in the region of the Savannah where pastoral tribes existed using chiseled stone blades and spears. The tribesmen of Guinea and the forested regions of the coast were without microliths for thousands of years, but prospered using bone tools and other means. In the fifth millennium, as the ancestors of modern West Africans began entering the area, the development of sedentary farming began to take place in West Africa, with evidences of domesticated cattle having been found for this period, along with limited cereal crops. Around
3000 BCE, a major change began to take place in West African society, with microliths becoming more common in the Sahel region, with the invention of primitive harpoons and fish-hooks.
Ancient West Africa included the
Sahara, as the Sahara only became a desert in around 3000 BC (see
Sahara).
A major migration of Sahel cattle farmers took place in the
third millennium BCE, and the pastoralists encountered the developed hunter-gatherers of the Guinea region. Flint was considerably more available there and made the use of microliths in hunting far easier. The migration of the Sahel farmers was likely caused by the final
desiccation of the
Sahara desert in this millennium, which contributed greatly to West Africa's isolation from cultural and technological phenomena in Europe and the Mediterranean Coast of Africa. Nevertheless, the increased use of iron and the spread of ironworking technology led to improved weaponry and enabled farmers to expand agricultural productivity and produce surplus crops, which together supported the growth of urban city-states into empires.
By
400 BCE, contact had been made with the Mediterranean civilizations, including that of Carthage, and a regular trade in gold being conducted with the Sahara
Berbers, as noted by
Herodotus. The trade was fairly small until the
camel was introduced, with Mediterranean goods being found in pits as far south as Northern Nigeria. A profitable trade had developed by which West Africans exported
gold, cotton cloth, metal ornaments, and leather goods north across the
trans-Saharan trade routes, in exchange for
copper,
horses,
salt,
textiles, and beads. Later,
ivory,
slaves, and
kola nuts were added to the trade.
Empires
The development of the region's economy allowed more centralized states to form, beginning with the
Ghana Empire. The empire was founded in the
eighth century by
Soninke, a
Mandé peoples who lived at the crossroads of this new trade, around the city of
Kumbi Saleh. After 800, the empire expanded rapidly, coming to dominate the entire western Sudan; at its height, the empire could field an army of 200,000 soldiers. In the tenth century, however,
Islam was steadily growing in the region, and in
1052 the
Almoravids launched a
jihad against the empire, sacking Kumbi Saleh.
The first successor to the Ghana Empire was that of the
Sosso, a
Takrur people who built their empire on the ruins of the old. Despite initial successes, however, the Sosso king
Soumaoro Kanté was defeated by the
Mandinka prince
Sundiata Keita at the
Battle of Kirina in
1240, toppling the Sosso and guaranteeing the supremacy of Sundiata's new
Mali Empire.
Under Sundiata's successors, most notably his son
Wali Keita (r. c. 1255–1270) and his grand-nephew
Kankan Musa I (r. c. 1312–1337), the Mali Empire continued to expand, eventually creating a centralized state including most of West Africa. Trade flourished, while Kankan Musa I founded a university at
Timbuktu and instituted a program of free health care and education for Malian citizens with the help of doctors and scholars brought back from his legendary
hajj.
Kankan Musa's successors, however, weakened the empire significantly, leading the city-state of
Gao to make a bid for independence and regional power in the
fifteenth century. Under the leadership of
Sunni Ali (r. 1464-1492), the
Songhai of Gao formed the
Songhai Empire, which would fill the vacuum left by the Mali Empire's collapse. By the end of the century, the Songhai Empire was the dominant force in the region, and through the leadership of
Askia Mohammad (c. 1442-1538)), underwent a revival in trade, education, and
Islamic religion. A civil war over succession greatly weakened the empire, however, leading to a
1591 invasion by
Moroccan Sultan
Ahmed el-Mansour that sacked Gao and crippled the empire.
Meanwhile, south of the Sudan, strong city states arose in
Ife,
Bono, and
Benin around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Further east,
Oyo arose as the dominant
Yoruba state and the
Aro Confederacy around the 18nth and 19nth centuries in the far east in modern-day Nigeria.
Jihad and colonization
Following the collapse of the Songhai Empire, a number of smaller states arose across West Africa, including the
Bambara Empire of
Ségou, the lesser
Bambara kingdom of
Kaarta, the
Peul/
Malinké kingdom of
Khasso (in present-day
Mali's
Kayes Region), and the
Kénédougou Empire of
Sikasso.
European traders first became a force in the region in the
fifteenth century, with the 1445 establishment of a
Portuguese trading post at
Arguin Island, off the coast of present-day
Senegal; by 1475, Portuguese traders had reached as far as the
Bight of Benin. The
African slave trade began almost immediately after, with the Portuguese taking hundreds of captives back to their country for use as slaves; however, it would not begin on a grand scale until
Christopher Columbus's voyage to the
Americas and the subsequent demand for cheap colonial labor. In 1510, the
Spanish crown legalized the African slave trade, followed by the
English in
1562. By 1650 the slave trade was in full force at a number of sites along the coast of West Africa, and over the coming centuries would result in severely reduced growth for the region's population and economy. The expanding
Atlantic slave trade produced significant populations of West Africans living in the
New World, recently colonized by Europeans. The oldest known remains of African slaves in the Americas were found in
Mexico in early 2006; they are thought to date from the late 16th century and the mid-17th century.
[1]
As the demand for slaves rose, African rulers sought to supply the demand by constant war against their neighbors, resulting in fresh captives. States such as
Dahomey (in modern-day
Benin) and the Bambara Empire based much of their economy on the exchange of slaves for European goods, particularly
firearms that they then employed to capture more slaves. European and American governments passed legislation prohibiting the Atlantic slave trade in the 19th century, though slavery in the Americas persisted in some capacity through the century in the Americas; the last country to abolish the institution was
Brazil in 1888. Descendants of West Africans make up large and important segments of the population in Brazil, the
Caribbean, the
United States, and throughout the New World.
In 1725, the cattle-herding
Fulanis of
Fouta Djallon launched the first major reformist
jihad of the region, overthrowing the local
animist,
Mande-speaking
elites and attempting to somewhat democratize their society. A similar movement occurred on a much broader scale in the
Hausa city-states of
Nigeria under
Uthman dan Fodio; an
imam influenced by the teachings of
Sidi Ahmed al-Tidjani, Uthman preached against the elitist Islam of the then-dominant
Qadiriyyah brotherhood, winning a broad base of support amongst the common people. Uthman's
Fulani Empire was soon one of the region's largest states, and inspired the later jihads of
Massina Empire founder
Seku Amadu in present-day Mali, and the cross-Sudan
Toucouleur conqueror El Hadj
Umar Tall.
At the same time, the Europeans started to travel into the interior of Africa to trade and explore.
Mungo Park (
1771 –
1806) made the first serious expedition into the region's interior, tracing the
Niger as far as
Timbuktu. French armies followed not long after. In the
Scramble for Africa in the 1880ies the Europeans started to colonize the inland of West Africa, they had previously mostly controlled trading ports along the coasts and rivers.
Samory Ture's newly-founded
Wassoulou Empire was the last to fall, and with his capture in
1898, military resistance to French colonial rule effectively ended.
Colonialism
Though the British had long occupied the coasts of its future colonies,
Sierra Leone only became an official British Protectorate in
1896,
The Gambia in
1889,
Nigeria in
1901, and
Ghana in
1902 following the subdual of the
Ashanti leader
Yaa Asantewaa. Portugal claimed
Guinea-Bissau, while
Togoland (modern-day
Togo) became a
German colony in
1884.
Liberia managed to retain its independence despite extensive territorial losses. Modern-day
Guinea,
Senegal,
Mali,
Benin,
Burkina Faso, and
Niger were consolidated into the federation of
French West Africa.
Though it shared in the horrors of the pre-colonial slave trade, West Africa was in many ways better managed than other African regions of the colonial era, enjoying small measures of self-rule in many areas. However, French and British rule still discouraged the development of local industry, preferring to force the exchange of raw materials for European finished goods. A number of taxation measures were instituted, causing many difficulties for areas whose economies were structured on
subsistence agriculture. Both France and Britain recruited troops from its colonies for
World War I and
World War II; at the end of the former, the German
Togoland was partitioned evenly between France and Britain by the
League of Nations.
Postcolonial West Africa
Following World War II, protests against European rule sprung up across West Africa, most notably in Ghana under the
Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah (
1909-
1972). Ghana became the first country of sub-Saharan Africa to achieve independence in
1957, with others soon to follow. After a decade of protests, riots and clashes, French West Africa voted for autonomy in a
1958 referendum, dividing into the states of today; the British colonies gained autonomy the following decade. In
1973,
Guinea-Bissau proclaimed its independence from Portugal, and was internationally recognized following the
1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal.
Since independence, West Africa has suffered from the same problems as much of the African continent, particularly
dictatorships,
political corruption and
military coups. At the time of his death in
2005, for example, Togo's
Étienne Eyadéma was among the world's longest-serving dictators. Inter-country conflicts have been few, with Mali and Burkina Faso's nearly bloodless
Agacher Strip War being a rare exception. The region has, however, seen a number of bloody civil wars, including the
Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), two civil wars in Liberia in
1989 and
1999, a
decade of fighting in Sierra Leone from 1991-2002, a
Tuareg Rebellion in Niger and Mali in the early 1990s, and an ongoing conflict in Côte d'Ivoire that began in 2002.
In the 1990s,
AIDS became a significant problem for the region, particularly in
Côte d'Ivoire,
Liberia, and
Nigeria.
Famine has been an occasional but serious problem in northern Mali and Niger, particularly during the
Sahel drought of the 1970s and 80s. Niger is currently undergoing
another food crisis that could develop into another major famine.
See also
★
History of Africa
★
History of Benin
★
History of Burkina Faso
★
History of Côte d'Ivoire
★
History of the Gambia
★
History of Ghana
★
History of Guinea
★
History of Guinea-Bissau
★
History of Liberia
★
History of Mali
★
History of Mauritania
★
History of Niger
★
History of Nigeria
★
History of Senegal
★
History of Sierra Leone
★
History of Togo
Notes
1. "Skeletons Discovered: First African Slaves in New World". January 31, 2006. LiveScience.com. Accessed September 27, 2006.
References
★ Davidson, Basil. ''Africa in History''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ISBN 0-684-82667-4
External links
★
Timeline of Western Sudan
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