History of Africa

It later spread southwards to the Swahili coast assisted by Muslim dominance of the Indian Ocean trade, and from the Maghreb traversing the Sahara into the western Sahel and Sudan, catalysed by the Fula jihads of the 18th and 19th centuries.

[20] 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.

[56] In the steppes and savannahs of the Sahara and Sahel in Northern West Africa, the Nilo-Saharan speakers and Mandé peoples started to collect and domesticate wild millet, African rice and sorghum between 8,000 and 6,000 BC.

[79]: 63  The Kingdom of Kerma emerged around this time to become the dominant force in Nubia, controlling an area as large as Egypt between the 1st and 4th cataracts of the Nile, with Egyptian records speaking of its rich and populous agricultural regions.

[79]: 73  Internal struggles, drought and famine, and invasions by a confederation of seafaring peoples, contributed to the New Kingdom's collapse in 1,069 BC, ushering in the Third Intermediate Period which saw Egypt fractured into many pieces amid widespread turmoil.

In the midst of this, Kush regained total independence from Egypt, and they would persist as a major regional power until, having been weakened from internal rebellion amid worsening climatic conditions, invasions by both the Aksumites and the Noba caused their disintegration into Makuria, Alodia, and Nobatia in the 5th century AD.

Towards the end of the ancient period, northern Ethiopia and Eritrea bore the Kingdom of D'mt beginning in 980 BC, whose people developed irrigation schemes, used ploughs, grew millet, and made iron tools and weapons.

Aksum's rise had them rule over much of the regions from the Lake Tana to the valley of the Nile, and they further conquered parts of the ailing Kingdom of Kush, led campaigns against the Noba and Beja peoples, and expanded into South Arabia.

Further north-west, the Maghreb and Ifriqiya were mostly cut off from the cradle of civilisation in Egypt by the Libyan desert, exacerbated by Egyptian boats being tailored to the Nile and not coping well in the open Mediterranean Sea.

[94]: 255–256  The Second Punic War broke out when the Romans opportunistically took Sardinia and Corsica whilst the Carthaginians were putting down a ferocious Libyan revolt, with Carthage initially experiencing considerable success following Hannibal's infamous crossing of the alps into northern Italy.

In a 14 year long campaign Hannibal's forces conquered much of mainland Italy, only being recalled after the Romans conducted a bold naval invasion of the Carthaginian homeland and then defeated him in climactic battle in 202 BC.

[103] In the 4th millennium BC the Congo Basin was inhabited by the Bambenga, Bayaka, Bakoya, and Babongo in the west, the Bambuti in the east, and the Batwa who were widely scattered and also present in the Great Lakes region; together they are grouped as Pygmies.

[123]: 47–48 With intentions to expand further in all directions, the Muslims returned to the Maghreb to find the Byzantines had reinforced the Exarchate and allied with the Berber Kingdom of Altava under Kusaila, who was approached prior to battle and convinced to convert to Islam.

Initially having become neutral, Kusaila objected to integration into the empire and in 683 destroyed the poorly supplied Arab army and conquered the newly-found Kairouan, causing an epiphany among the Berber that this conflict was not just against the Byzantines.

[123]: 49  Unorthodox sects such as the Kharijite, Ibadi, Isma'ili, Nukkarite and Sufrite found fertile soil among many Berbers dissatisfied with the oppressive Umayyad regime, with religion being utilised as a political tool to foster organisation.

[125]: 172, 260  Late in the 9th century, a revolt by East African slaves in the Abbasid's homeland of Iraq diverted its resources away from its other territories, devastating important ports in the Persian Gulf, and was eventually put down after decades of violence, resulting in between 300,000 and 2,500,000 dead.

The Fatimids' authority collapsed due to intense internal struggle in political rivalries and religious divisions, amid Christian invasions of Egypt, creating a power vacuum in North Africa.

From there the Ayyubids captured Cyrenaica, and went on a prolific campaign to conquer Arabia from the Zengids and the Yemeni Hamdanids, Palestine from the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Syria and Upper Mesopotamia from other Seljuk successor states.

[136]: 108  To the east in the 9th and 10th centuries, the Somali clans such as the Dir and other groups formed states in the Harar Plateau, including Fatagar, Dawaro, Bale, Hadiya, Hargaya, Mora, Kwelgora, and Adal, with the latter centred on the port city of Zeila (previously Avalites).

In the late 12th century Kilwa wrestled control of Sofala in the south, a key trading city linking to Great Zimbabwe in the interior and famous for its Zimbabwean gold, which was substantial in the usurpation of Mogadishu's hegemony, while also conquering Pemba and Zanzibar.

[151]: 48  Societies organised at the behest of hasina, which later evolved to embody kingship, and competed with one another over the island's estuaries, with oral histories describing bloody clashes and earlier settlers often pushed along the coast or inland.

This section is being written The 7th to 13th centuries in West Africa were a period of relatively abundant rainfall that saw the explosive growth of trade, particularly across the Sahara desert, and the flourishing of numerous important states.

[172] While the historical validity of these legends is unknowable, the Arab geographer al-Yaqubi, writing in 872/873 CE (AH 259), describes a kingdom called "HBShH" with a city named "ThBYR" located between the Niger and the Kanem–Bornu Empire which may refer to Hausa.

[173] Following the Bantu migrations, a period of state and class formation began circa 700 with four centres; one in the west around Pool Malebo, one south around the highlands of Angola, a third north-central around Lake Mai-Ndombe, and a fourth in the far southeast in the Upemba Depression.

The following decades saw the Mamluks reach their greatest extent with efficacious economic reforms, however the threat of the growing Ottomans and Portuguese trading practices in the Indian Ocean posed great challenges to the empire at the turn of the 16th century.

[189] In 1321, a religious dispute between Amda Seyon and the Mamluk sultan which involved threats to tamper with the Nile gave Ifat's Haqq ad-Din I pretext to invade and execute an Ethiopian envoy.

Between 1324 and 1325 his entourage of over 10,000, and hundreds of camels, all carrying around 12 tonnes of gold in total,[193][194] travelled 2700 miles, giving gifts to the poor along the way, and fostered good relations with the Mamluk sultan, garnering widespread attention in the Muslim world.

[165]: 147–152  Despite Mali's fame being attributed to its riches in gold, its prosperous economy was based on arable and pastoral farming, as well as crafts, and they traded commonly with the Akan, Dyula, and with Benin, Ife, and Nri in the forest regions.

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.

[220][221]: 212  This movement towards utilising oral sources in a multi-disciplinary approach culminated in UNESCO commissioning the General History of Africa, edited by specialists drawn from across the African continent, publishing from 1981 to 2024.