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You've reached Dick's Guide to World History.  This World History site covers Africa's world role from
1400 to 1800 and mentions Africa, West Africa, Senegambia, Benin, Benin City, African history, Hausu people,
Malinke people, Ibo, Guinea Coast, map, Gold Coast, Niger River, Zanzibar, Cape Colony, Taghaz, Tuareg, The
Sudan, Songhay, Kanem-Bornu, Iris Alooma, Hausland, Mohammad Toure, Fulani, Morocco, Tondibi, Ethiopia,
Bantu, London, Liverpool, Bristol, The Adal impact on Ethiopia, Massawa, Ottoman Turks, Roman Catholicism,
Alphonse Mendez, Coptic Christianity, slavery in Africa and the Atlantic slave trade.

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KEYWORDS, Africa, West Africa, Senegambia, Benin, Benin map, African history, Hausu people, Malinke people, Ibo, 
Guinea Coast (map), Gold Coast (map), Niger River, Zanzibar, Cape Colony (map), Taghaz, Tuareg,  The Sudan, Songhay, Kanem-Bornu,
Iris Alooma, Hausland, Mohammad Toure, Fulani, Morocco, Tondibi, Ethiopia, Bantu, Olauda Equiano,  The Adal impact on Ethiopia (1529),
Massawa, Ottoman Turks, Roman Catholicism, Affonso, Mendez, Coptic Christianity,
slavery in Africa had existed long before the start of the Atlantic slave trade,

When considering the role of Africa in the world community from 1400 to 1800, it is useful to understand that
slavery in Africa had existed long before the start of the Atlantic slave trade.  It existed in Africa before 600 AD.  
Overseas slave trade began 1,000 years before the Atlantic slave trade began, spurred on by Islamic principles. 
Even in the late 1990's slavery was accepted by Islamic leaders -- in and outside of Africa.
(See Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam on Slavery in the Sudan.)

At this site we will consider West Africa and East Africa.   East Africa had long dealt in slaves, especially where rulers
adhered to the Islamic faith teaching that slavery was O.K.  The slaves were highly desired by rich Africans and Asians,
who preferred young woman slaves, especially white women slaves. West Africa also eventually dealt in slavery, especially
during the 300 years that Atlantic Slave trade was profitable. The Americas -- especially South and Central America and
The Caribbean -- sought young males to work the the plantations of sugar and coffee, as well as the mines. 

Important West African areas of this period included Senegambia, which starts a bit south of the Senegal River outlet (at St. Louis)
and Benin, (Click here for map of Benin), which is at the delta of the Niger River.  Here, in West Africa, African history  recognizes
the Hausu people, Malinke people, Ibos and others. Senegambia and Benin both existed along the 2,000 mile Guinea Coast (map),
with the Ashanti area on the Gold Coast (map), and Benin laying further east at  the Niger Delta, along the Slave Coast.  Other
important areas of West Africa were The Sudan, roughly encircling the Niger River (inland from the West African Forest Line) with its
kingdoms of Songhay, Hausland, Ghana, Maliand, further east towards Lake Chad, was Kanem-Bornu. Just north of Songhay lay
the salt capitol of Africa at Taghaz ruled by Tuareg soldiers.

Senegambia communities were typically agricultural with a simple life. Benin emerged in the fifteenth an sixteenth centuries as an
unstable kingdom ruled by an Oba (king) likely to be killed soon, even by his own son. The Oba warrior kings did keep a nice clean
city, well fortified with little crime.  Over 900 brass plagues from Benin exist today.   While the Obas moved from being military leaders
to religious leaders, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Europe never conquered this territory, until the British
burned Benin City in 1898.

The Kingdom of Songahy in Western Africa was the product of the decline of Mali.   Although already facing decline in the 15^th century,
the Mali Empire still represented one of the greatest kingdoms in African history. Based in West Africa, the leaders of Mali used
control of the Trans-Saharan trade of gold, slaves, ivory and other goods to accumulate a degree of wealth that was renowned
throughout the Mediterranean world, especially in Europe. Mali, an Islamic based empire, was also famous as the site of many
Islamic centers of learning located in cities such as Timbuktu. Weakened by internal political problems, the Mali Empire was
replaced by the kingdom of Songhay in the mid-15th century. Leaders of the Songhay kingdom such as Muhammad Toure,
were able to sustain the framework of an impressive West African kingdom well into the 16^th century."  Source: http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/hcconline/hist152/52global.htm

The Sudan, roughly encircling the Niger River (inland from the West African Forest Line) with its kingdoms of Songhay, Hausland
and Kanem-Bornu

The Women of west Africa were highly prized.  West Africa, depending on agriculture, needed women to breed and create more
agricultural workers.   There was a shortage of population in West Africa, with Malaria killing infants, and all being susceptible to
hookworm, yaws, sleeping sickness (from the bite of the tsetse fly) and a mild form of syphilis. Wars, drought, excessive rain, locusts often limited agricultural production and produced famines, another cause for population depletion. The Europeans brought one more population reducer in the form of Small Pox, which caused severe population depletions in the 1738 to 1756 timeframe.  The rich West Africans got more than their share of the women needed for breeding and polygamy was everywhere.   Young men, looking for women, were often members of gangs who wore ritualistic clothes and unique personal adornments.  When a gang member found a woman he liked he would simply abduct her.  Richer men, often older than the gang members, would buy his intended woman from her family.  Extended families were common in West Africa especially among the rich and the Hausu and Malinke people.   

Another people who lived in this area of West Africa were the Ibo  "a west African culture group occupying south east Nigeria and numbering about 18,000,000. Primarily cultivators, they inhabit(ed) the richly forested tableland, bounded by the river Niger to the west and the river Cross to the east. They are divided into five main groups, and their languages belong to the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo family." Source: http://www.sneaker.net.au/docs/encyclo/C3.HTM   The lives of the Ibo was described by Olaudah Equiano, (1745-1797) a Benin citizen whose father owned slaves. He was kidnapped at the age of 11 and sent to Jamaica, then Barbados, The USA and eventually England where he obtained his manumission. He wrote an autobiography that helped describe the Ibo life. The diet included plantains, yams, beans, Indian corn, poultry, goat and castrated steer (bullock).  Pepper was used as a seasoning.  Women, when not working the farm, made clothing. 

Olauda's writing also helped awaken the English to the brutality of the Atlantic slave trade.  A short time after his death, England prohibited slavery.  While many white European Christians had joined White and Black Muslims and Africans in profitting from slave trading, it was the White European Christians who finally, in 1898, chose to use force to end this wholesale practice of profitting from human degradation.   Sadly, even today, there is some marketing of slaves by black and white Africans and Muslims. (See Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam on Slavery in the Sudan.)  Of course, in September 1982 the Christian Archbishop Desmond Tutu, (then Bishop)went further in his batt;eagainst apartheid. "Desmond Tutu appeared before the Eloff Commission of Inquiry. After politely explaining the activities of the South African Council of Churches to the government appointed commission, Tutu ended on a defiant note:  'God's purposes are certain. They [i.e. the S.A. government] may remove a Tutu; they may remove the South African Council of Churches, but God's intention to establish His Kingdom of justice, of love, of compassion, will not be thwarted. We are not scared, certainly not of the Government, or any other perpetrators of injustice and oppression, for victory is ours through Him who loves us.'"  Source: http://www.janushead.org/JHSumm99/schwerintext.cfm

The East Coast of Africa includes Zanzibar, the eastern portion of Cape Colony (map) which extends north to the Zimbawe River, Ethiopia, a Coptic Christina nation that became Christian before Christianity took root in Europe, overcame The Adal impact on Ethiopia in 1529 and refused to accept European views of Christianity.  Cities of importance on the African east coast included Massawa in Ethiopia, on the Red Sea.  Important cities on the East coast, along the Swahili coast include, Mozambique, a southern city on  the Mozambique channel separating Africa and Madagascar, Kilwa, north of KIlwa and north of Madagascar and Mogadishu at thesouthern base of the Horn of Africa..  Important historical geographic areas included Shoa, in Ethiopa and Galla to its south, as well as Adal.  Muslim Adal and the people of Galla both took Ethiopian lands.

Swahili City-States,  "By the 13th century a number of significant city-states had been established. Among these Zenj states were Mogadishu, Malindi, Lamu, Mombasa, Kilwa, Pate, and Sofala. An urban Swahili culture developed through mutual assimilation of Bantu and Arabic speakers. The ruling classes were of a mixed Arab-African ancestry; the masses were Bantu, many of them slaves. These mercantile city-states were oriented toward the sea, and their political impact on inland peoples was virtually nonexistent until the 19th century.            

The complex, advanced lake states first developed in the 14th century. Little is known of their early history. One theory is that more advanced Cushite peoples from the Ethiopian highlands came to dominate the indigenous Bantu. Other Cushites are believed to be ancestors of the Tutsi peoples of modern Tanzania, Rwand a, and Burundi. Located between Lakes Victoria and Edward, the early kingdoms ruled by the Bachwezi flourished before 1500, when they were supplanted by a wave of Luo peoples migrating from the Sudan. The new immigrants adopted local Bantu languages in Bunyoro country, but in Acholiland, Alurland, and in the Lango country (all in modern Ugand a) they retained their own separate language. New states were founded later, among them Bunyoro, Ankole, Bugand a, and Karagwe. Of these states, Bunyoro was the most powerful until the second half of the 18th century. Then Bugand a began to expand, and its armies raided throughout wide areas. An elaborate centralized bureaucracy was founded, with a majority of the district and subdistrict chiefs appointed by the kabaka ("king")." Source: http://www.fwkc.com/encyclopedia/low/articles/a/a001000511f.html#aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa001000511aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

The Swahili coast people developed a written language for the purposes of trade.  It was a mixture of Indian languages, Arabic, Persian and native African languages.  Native African languages, based upon Bantu, were not in writing.   Bantu languages provided only for oral communication.

The Ottoman Turks and Africa; The long reign of Süleyman I was the Ottoman "golden age." When he died while on a campaign in Hungary in 1566, the Ottoman Empire was a major world power. Most of the great cities of Islam--Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and Baghdad--were under the sultan's crescent flag. The Porte exercised direct control over Anatolia, the Balkan provinces south of the Danube River, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Egypt, Mecca, and the North African provinces were governed under special regulations, as were satellite domains in Arabia, in the Caucasus, and among the Crimean Tartars. In addition, the native rulers of Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and Ragusa (present-day Dubrovnik) were vassals of the sultan.
Source: http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Turkey2.html

Roman Catholicism and Africa, Alphonse Mendez,  Iris Alooma, Mohammad Toure, Tondibi, Fulani UNDER COSTRUCTION

Morocco: Runs from the northernmost tip of Africa, at Tangier, Southwest on the Coast of Northern Africa. For maps of Morocco, click here

Source Material: A History of World Societies, Fifth Edition, Volume II, Since 1500 by McKay, Hill, Buckler, Ebrey

More on the history of Africa here

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