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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_0 | # A LEVEL <br> EBook
## HISTORY A
H105/HS05
African Kingdoms: A Guide to the Kingdoms of Songhay, Kongo, Benin, Oyo and Dahomey c. 1400 - c. 1800
By Dr. Toby Green
Version 1
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_1 | # CONTENTS
Introduction: Precolonial West African ..... 3
Kingdoms in context
Chapter One: The Songhay Empire ..... 8
Chapter Two: The Kingdom of the Kongo, ..... 18
c. $1400-$ c. 1709
Chapter Three: The Kingdoms and empires ..... 27
of Oyo and Dahomey, c.1608-c. 1800
Chapter Four: The Kingdom of Benin ..... 37
c. $1... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_2 | # Introduction: Precolonial West African Kingdoms in context | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_3 | This course book introduces A level students to the richness and depth of several of the kingdoms of West Africa which flourished in the centuries prior to the onset of European colonisation. For hundreds of years, the kingdoms of Benin, Dahomey, Kongo, Oyo and Songhay produced exquisite works of art - illustrated manu... | {
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However, as this is the first time that students pursuing A level History have had the chance to study African histories in depth, it's important to set out both what is distinctive about African history and the themes and methods which are appropriate to its study. It's worth beginning by se... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_5 | We now know that Trevor-Roper was wrong, and that a great deal can be known about the richness of precolonial West African kingdoms. If we are to begin with art, there is no questioning the richness of African artistic production in the centuries before colonialism. The famous Benin Bronzes, seized by a British militar... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_6 | While Benin's bronze-working dates to perhaps c. 1200 BCE, it is thought to have really begun to flourish in the 16th century. At the same time, further north and west around the Atlantic coast at Sierra Leone, the Sapi peoples were renowned ivory carvers. Sapi salt cellars, knives, and ornaments were exported from the... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_7 | These examples give a taste of the richness of the histories of exchanges between West African kingdoms and European societies in the precolonial period. Beyond the reciprocal cultural influences, African diplomacy was a commonplace. In the late 15th century, the Jolof prince Bumi Jeléen visited Portugal to seek suppor... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_8 | , the kingdom of Allada sent embassies to Spain in the 1650s, and had some diplomatic engagement with England; in the 18th century, Dahomey - a successor state to Allada - sent several embassies to Brazil. | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_9 | All this makes it clear that many West African kingdoms had complex state infrastructures and conducted diplomatic ventures which are not well known by
historians and students today. These were kingdoms heavily engaged in international trade, and they sought their own advantage just as did European actors in the trade.... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_10 | ## Themes and Methods in the Study of Precolonial West Africa
Nevertheless, the study of precolonial West Africa is complicated by two major factors. The first of these is the nature of the source material available. Whereas most Western history is written on the basis of written documents and printed books, historia... | {
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Studying history and what historians have said about history involves first of all understanding the basis on which claims are made. So it's very important to understand the sort of source base which has been used to construct the narratives of the West African kingdoms which are found in thi... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_12 | The way in which such sources work together is best understood through an example. My own book on the early trans-Atlantic slave trade - The Rise of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa 1300-1589 - was based on three major types of source. The first consisted of written records housed in archives in Portugal... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_13 | Putting together different types of sources is very important in thinking about West African history. The sources we use shape a discourse about the past. If we use European textual sources, we would believe that only the history of trade, slavery, and relations between Europeans and African kingdoms matters to precolo... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_14 | 
riddled the ideas of famous enlightenment thinkers such as David Hume and Immanuel Kant. The legacy of these ideas can be seen in Trevor-Roper's prejudice against African history, and even as recently as 2007, the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy made an infamous speech in the Senegalese... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_15 | A further consequence of these prejudices has been the tendency of people in the West to speak far too generally about "Africa". The Congolese philosopher VY Mudimbe reminds us in his book The Invention of Africa that the continent of "Africa" is itself a Western invention, which emerged in the 18th century alongside t... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_16 | The clearest example of where this essentialisation of Africa matters is through the case of slavery. It is sometimes said that "Africans sold Africans" into slavery. But this is to misunderstand precolonial "Africa", where people saw themselves not as "African" but as from Benin, Dahomey, Kongo, Oyo or Songhay; simila... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_17 | The place of slavery is of course deeply important, and controversial. So many are the misconceptions regarding slavery in Africa that it is impossible to do justice to do them here. But some comments are in order. The history of precolonial West Africa is not the same as the history of slavery: there are many other fa... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_18 | , and so, as the historian Paul Lovejoy has argued, did the institution of slavery in West Africa itself. The impact of the Atlantic slave trade on West African societies was therefore vast, and certainly contributed to their economic divergence from the growing wealth of Western Europe. | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_19 | But at the same time to focus too hard on this subject runs the risk of portraying "Africans" solely as victims in the historical process, and ignoring the many achievements of West African societies which students have the chance to study on this course. As the first president of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, said... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_20 | ## Conclusion: Influences of West African Kingdoms in the World
In the end, one of the most important reasons to study precolonial West African kingdoms is that they were key - and largely forgotten - agents in the construction of so much of modern societies. Beyond their importance in their own right, and the way in... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_21 | Thinking back to the works of art we have already discussed in this introduction from Benin and Sierra Leone, there is no doubt that the figurative artistic styles developed in West Africa in the precolonial period have hugely influenced modern Western art. The leading figures in the Cubist style developed before the F... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_22 | The case of music is no less important. A generation of musicologists such as Theodore Coolen and Daniel Jatta have now shown comprehensively that the origins of blues music lie in the Senegambian region, among instruments such as the akonting and the ngoni. These instruments gave rise to the banjo, and the blues then ... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_23 | Many other examples could be cited, but all of this is to give just a flavour of the enormous importance of understanding West African histories and their place in the formation of the modern world. For a long time students of history in the West thought that little could be found out about the African past, but that t... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_24 | ## Resource List: Background reading
Sylviane Diouf (ed), Fighting the Slave Trade: West African strategies (2004; Ohio University Press)
John D. Fage with William Tordoff, A History of Africa (2002; Routledge)
Toby Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (2012; Cambridge Un... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_25 | ## Chapter One: The Songhay Empire
The history of the Songhay empire can represent much of the growth and importance of West African kingdoms during the precolonial period. Touching regions as distinct as the Gold Coast in the South, and Cairo, Mecca and Spain in the North, the influences and connections of Songhay s... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_26 | 
invasions from Almoravid Berbers. Ghāna's king had not been converted to Islam, while the Almoravids had led a jihād across North Africa and into Spain against impure practice of the faith. The Ghāna empire was the heartland of peoples known as the Soninké, and after... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_27 | Mali gradually grew to be the most powerful empire in West Africa, flourishing for two centuries on the back of the trans-Saharan gold trade. It was the heartland of the Mande peoples of West Africa, well known in North Africa and Iberia as well as in West Africa. In 1321, the Mali emperor Mansa Musa embarked on a pilg... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_28 | Mali's power began to wane in the 15th century. Its centre was in the upper Niger valley, around Djenné and the borderlands of what are now the Republics of Guinea and Mali. The locus of power began to shift further east towards the city of Gao, which was to become the capital of the Songhay empire, which flourished fr... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_29 | Songhay's importance is fundamental to many aspects of West African history. Not only did the Songhay Askias (Emperors) expand upon the Soninké traditions of kingship which characterised the empires of Ghāna and Mali, but it was also under the Askias that the role of Islamic scholars became ever more central to the art... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_30 | ## Situation in Sahelian Africa to 1450; Reasons for the rise of the Songhay Empire and collapse of Mali Empire
Scholars and students of Songhay and the wider Sahelian region are fortunate to have a number of Arabic sources (many of which have been translated into English) from which to build a picture of the past. S... | {
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gourds, wax, honey, iron goods and cloth made further south along the Niger in the town of Kukyia, regarded by many as the cradle of the first Songhay dynasty. Given the growing presence of Islamic traders in Gao through the trade, the locus of political power moved here from Kukyia in around... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_32 | In spite of the growing importance of Gao as a heartland of Songhay, the rise of Mali compromised its political independence. Songhay was indeed situated between Mali and the strong central Sahelian state of Kanem-Borno (on the borders of modern Chad and Nigeria), which was so big in the 14th century according to Al' U... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_33 | in the Niger valley was a source of agricultural tribute with organised farms for the collection of tribute. This political dependence on Mali was to remain important throughout the 14th century, when Mali rose to international prominence through its gold reserves and the pilgrimages of Mansa Musa.
Mali's power was s... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_34 | It was thus the growth of centres such as Djenné which epitomised the rise of the Mali empire. With the pilgrimage of Mansa Musa in the 1320s, the reputation of this West African kingdom became famous on a global stage. Al-Sa'di described how Mansa Musa's party included 60,000 soldiers and 500 slaves, each of which bea... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_35 | , on all sides, are elephant tusks one beside the other. He has with him his arms, which are all of gold - sword, javelin, quiver, bow, and arrows. ...About 30 slaves stand behind him, Turks and others that are bought for him in Egypt. One of them carries in his hand a parasol of silk surmounted by a dome and a bird of... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_36 | The reign of Mansa Musa was to prove the high point of the Mali empire. According to Al-Sa'di it was after this that Songhay and Timbuktu submitted to Mali, while the Mansa also ordered the construction of a mosque in Gao and a palace in Timbuktu on his return from Cairo and Mecca. However from this high watermark in t... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_37 | to make a stand against them. [The Tuareg] said: 'The sultan who does not defend his territory has no right to rule it.'So the Malians abandoned Timbuktu and returned to Mali".
This retreat was part of the gathering storm which faced Mali from around 1400, as it faced attacks not only from the Tuareg but also from th... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_38 | The decline of Mali was thus a major feature of political life in the Sahelian region of West Africa in the 15th century. The growing connections of the region to North Africa through the gold trade had given rise to more powerful states in the region, who began to jockey for position, A source of instability, it was a... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_39 | high-handedness and the violation of people's rights in the latter days of their rule". Resentment grew, and when alternative political powers rose in the 15th century, along with the power of kingdoms such as Songhay, it was all too easy for the Sonnis to prise loyal dependants away from Mali and thereby to support th... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_40 | ## Sonni and Askia Dynasties; Sonni Ali and the Capture of Timbuktu in 1468; Territorial Expansion, Nature and Development of the Military
The great epoch of Songhay expansion occurred in the second half of the 15th century under Sonni Ali and the early 16th century under his successor, Askia Mohammed. The adoption o... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_41 | Sonni Ali came to power in 1464 following the death of his predecessor, Sonni Souleiman Dam. Where Souleiman had led Songhay expansion to the West, Ali continued the tradition. He led military campaigns against the Mossi, against the Tuareg to the North, and conquered the city of Djenné in 1472 after a siege said to ha... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_42 | Nevertheless, Sonni Ali's relationship with the Muslim clerics was not quite so brutal as this picture portrays. Even Al-Sa'di recognised that "despite his bad treatment of the scholars, Sunni 'Ali acknowledged their worth, and showed kindness and respect to some of them. He would say, 'were it not for the scholars, li... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_43 | A great part of the hostility of Timbuktu's scholars towards Sonni Ali was owing to the success of this ruler whose attachment to Islam was weak. Though he did profess Islam, and the North African scholar Al-Maghili acknowledged that he prayed and observed the fasts at Ramadan, Sonni Ali retained an attachment to nonIs... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_44 | Sonni Ali's political success was indeed remarkable. During the 28 years of his reign, he not only captured Timbuktu and established an empire stretching from Gao to beyond Djenné in the west and north into Tuareg lands, but he also incorporated peoples from many different backgrounds: Dogon, Mande, Soninké and Tuareg.... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_45 | It is an important factor that power within Songhay was at this time polarised; the initial successor to Ali, Sonni Bâro, was opposed by a Muslim faction, and in the battle of Angao on April 2nd 1493 their choice won. Askia Mohammed - previously the Tondi-farma, or governor of the Bandiagara province in western Songhay... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_46 | A major feature of Askia Mohammed's reign was his expansion of the kingdom, in continuity with what had gone before. He proceeded to seek to extend Songhay's boundaries, twice attacking Agades (in central Niger) in 1501 and 1515, and annexing Katsina and Kano (in northern Nigeria, 1514) to the east. Campaigns were
also... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_47 | Ideological transformations and consolidations were thus major aspects of Askia Mohammed's rule. Having come to power with the support of the Muslim segment of Songhay, an important aspect of his rule was his improved treatment of the Ulemas in comparison to the reign of Sonni Ali. The scholars did not forget his work,... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_48 | Such cultural innovations continued under his son, Askia Dawūd (1548-82), when an imperial library was established and Songhay's power consolidated. Al-Sádi described how Dawūd was "eloquent, a born leader, generous, magnanimous, cheerful and good-humoured, fond of joking...he had calligraphers copying books for him, a... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_49 | ## Political, social, military and economic nature of the Songhay empire: Problems and achievements, administration and political centralisation
In order to sustain this rapid political expansion, Songhay required not only a well-equipped, organised and trained military force but also the administrative capacity to r... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_50 | consolidate royal authority over these distant provinces, Ali made regular voyages, and also established royal residences in 3 of them, Kukyia, Kabara and Dirma. The central administration of the empire was however run from Gao, where there were the imperial administrative offices, an imperial council of military leade... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_51 | One indice of the growing administrative capacity of Songhay is the diversity of titles which grew along with the empire. Farmas were governors, and there were many of these throughout the provinces of the empire. There were in addition key officers related to property and taxes, including the Fari-Mondiyo (overseer of... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_52 | Under Askia Mohammed, several new innovations followed in order to consolidate the running of the empire. He established an entirely new office, the Kanfari, as a viceroy of the growing western provinces and gave the role to his brother 'Umar Kondiakka; he then left the empire in the Kanfari's hands during the 2 years ... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_53 | Beyond the officials whose titles have already been noted above, there were several key officials who executed the commands of the Askia and the Sounna. Chief among them was the Chancellor, or secretary to the Askia, who was in charge of diplomatic correspondence and executing imperial law. In addition to overseeing ro... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_54 | towns to the north. At Taghāza, the major salt mine in the Sahara, one official was there to charge taxes on the salt imports, while another handled goods imported or exported by canoe along the Niger. All the markets of the empire were frequented by tax collectors of the Askia, meaning that the income base of the empi... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_55 | ## Importance of Timbuktu as a Centre of Learning; Role of Lawyers and Clerics in Sharia; the economy (including gold, salt, agriculture, trade, slavery, taxation)
Timbuktu gained fame in the Western world through the 17th and 18th centuries as a centre of unparalleled riches and learning. In truth its heyday was dur... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_56 | Al Sa'di tells us that Timbuktu was founded circa 1100 by the Tuareg who came from the deserts to the north of the settlement on the Niger. They used to come with their herds to graze at this site during the dry season, when water was scarce elsewhere; once the rains came, they would return to the north. By and by the ... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_57 | Timbuktu accepted Mali's rule in 1336, recognising the power which had come following Mansa Musa's pilgrimage, and his status in the Islamic worlds across the Sahara. The 14th century saw a period of pronounced expansion, and by the 1380s the city had well-built houses spaced out from one another, armed camps to the no... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_58 | Thus it was in the 16th century that Timbuktu reached its heights of independence. There was a governor, the Timbuktu-koi, appointed directly by the Askia, a dedicated tax collector, and a military commander based at nearby Kabara. Its reputation as a centre of learning and its connections to the centres of the Islamic... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_59 | arbitrary exactions made by Songhay officials, and helped to preserve its strength. A centre of learning and trade, Timbuktu became the hub of the Songhay empire which it could barely do without.
Understanding Timbuktu's strength involves a grasp of the key links between Islam and long-distance commerce throughout We... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_60 | The transnational links of the Islamic scholars of Timbuktu were far too many to enumerate here Mansa Musa returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca with an Egyptian scholar, Sidi Abderrahman et Temini, who was said to have declared that the scholars were much better versed in the knowledge of the Qu'ran than he was; while... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_61 | Al Sa'dî lists an impressive range of scholars from Timbuktu who studied and travelled to places as far apart as Katsina (Nigeria), Marrakesh (Morocco), Mecca and Medina (Saudi Arabia). To give an idea of the frequency of these exchanges, we can take his description of the life of the scholar Abü'Abd Allāh Muhammad ("t... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_62 | Gao, from which Songhay supplied Tripoli in Libya and Cairo in Egypt. Another major axis ran through Timbuktu and was fuelled by the gold trade: this saw gold mined in the forests of what is now Ghana, traded north to the city of Djenné, and from here to Timbuktu and then northwest to Morocco and Ceuta, Fez, Marrakesh,... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_63 | The practice of slavery was certainly an important part of the Songhay imperial economic system. When Askia Mohammed asked the jurist Al-Maghilli for advice as to the ruling of his empire (c. 1500), he noted that one practice commonly found was that "some will sell a slavegirl and the purchaser will take possession of ... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_64 | ## Reasons for decline of the Songhay Empire, particularly succession crises; Civil War of succession and Moroccan Invasion (1591)
Songhay's power started out, as we have seen, under Sonni Ali, who was a king whose adherence to Islam went with his continued openness to the religious practices of his ancestors. Askia ... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_65 | Under Sonni Ali, therefore, the actions linked to longstanding African religious and ritual practice were not clamped down upon. With the new Askia dynasty, however, and the increasing importance of Timbuktu and the Ulemas, such practices were frowned upon. As the historian Bruce Hall has shown, it was also in the 16th... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_66 | The political powers of Islamic law therefore grew through the 16th century, along with the power of the scholars and the place of Timbuktu in the Songhay empire. Islamic
law in the empire was run from Timbuktu, where the qadi (judge) was the fountainhead of Islamic law. The qadi had various auxiliaries, including juri... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_67 | These connections were important to Songhay's place in the world and its sense of autonomy and power. However, as the 16th century unwound, tensions grew. Many of these were linked to the different factions which arose as the empire grew, and more and more peoples were incorporated into it. There was an episode of majo... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_68 | Why, then, was there such a strong tension in Songhay when it came to succession? There were perhaps two core reasons. The heterogynous nature of the Songhay empire, and the different peoples that lived there, meant that there were always groups vying for control of the empire; and this was something that was perhaps e... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_69 | These civil wars of the succession were temporarily forestalled by the rise to power in 1588 of Askia Ishaq II. However the internal strife had weakened Songhay terminally. Recognising the weakness of a trading power increasingly seen in Fez as subordinate, Mülây Ahmed wrote to him from Morocco and asked for the taxes ... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_70 | ## Conclusion
For almost 150 years, the undisputed power at the heart of West Africa was constituted by the Songhay empire. At first this was characterised by a political culture which blended African traditions of religion and kingship with those of the Islamic world. As the power of the Songhay empire rose, the imp... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_71 | Thereafter no great power controlled the Niger bend for two centuries or more. The area which had been Songhay became ruled by a power known as the Arma, which rapidly grew independent from Morocco. The political elite of the Arma were descended from the Moroccan conquerors, but spoke Songhay; thus Songhay's political ... | {
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"Header 2": "Conclusion",
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_72 | The transformations of Songhay were part of deeprooted changes which overtook the Sahel in the period between 1500 and 1800. It was not just the region of Songhay that was affected. As we have seen, Songhay, too, was connected with areas a far flung as Senegal and Nigeria. Sonni Ali himself had been raised in the regio... | {
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"Header 2": "Conclusion",
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_73 | One such arose in the last decade of the 18th century. Uthman dan Fodio was a Fula scholar from the Sokoto region, who was heavily influenced by scholars from Timbuktu. In the early 19th century he led an Islamic reform movement which transformed the political landscape of northern and central Nigeria, leading to a suc... | {
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"Header 2": "Conclusion",
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"start_index": 1923
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_74 | warfare and resistance in the slave revolts that took place in Brazil and Cuba in the 19th century, as the historian Manuel Barcia Paz has shown.
This was a reform movement led in northern Nigeria, but whose intellectual hinterland took in Timbuktu and, therefore, Songhay. When in the early 1960s, politicians in newl... | {
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"Header 2": "Conclusion",
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_75 | ## Factbox
| 900s: | Gao's power becomes established in <br> Songhay |
| :-- | :-- |
| 1068: | Al Bakri writes that only a Muslim could rule <br> Gao |
| 1076: | Fall of Ghana empire to the Almoravids |
| c. 1100: | Timbuktu established |
| 1200s: | Rise of the Mali Empire |
| 1321-24: | Mansa Musa of Mali goes on pi... | {
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"Header 2": "Factbox",
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_76 | | 1514: | Annexation of Katsina and Kano (in northern <br> Nigeria) |
| 1528: | Askia Mohammed deposed by his son |
| 1548-82: | Reign of Askia Dawud |
1588-91: Reign of Ishaq II
1591: Moroccan invasion of Songhay | {
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"Header 2": "Factbox",
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_77 | ## Resource List
Manuel Barcia Paz, Soldier-Slaves in the Atlantic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
PF de Moraes Farias, Medieval Arabic Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2003)
Bruce Hall, A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 16001960... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_78 | # Chapter Two:
## The Kingdom of the Kongo, c.1400-c. 1709
The Kingdom of Kongo was long one of the most famous West African kingdoms in the world. From the moment that the Portuguese navigators led by Diogo Cão arrived at the estuary of the Congo river in 1482, the Kongo kingdom embark... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_79 | Like many other kingdoms around the world, Kongo's fate was in the end intertwined with its geopolitical manoeuvrings. In the early 17th century, the Kongo kings embarked on a diplomatic offensive with the United Provinces (Dutch Republic), seeking the Republic's assistance in challenging Portuguese trading monopolies ... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_80 | which contributed to a religious revival and the birth of the Antonian movement under Beatriz "Kimpa Vita" in the early 18th century.
For two centuries, therefore, Kongo was a kingdom well-known on the world stage. Radical transformations reshaped the kingdom, bringing new administrative structures, reshaping the rel... | {
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208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_81 | Kongo's achievements were many. Kongolese religious art remains a testament to the way in which Kongolese religious traditions were incorporated into Catholicism, creating a Kongolese version of Christianity which laid the foundations for the Catholicism of many enslaved Africans in the New World, as the historians Lin... | {
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"start_index": 2549
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_82 | Kongo had therefore globalised and incorporated outside influences, yet Kongo culture remained resolutely Kongolese throughout. This experience of pluralism and cultural retention would stand the societies of WestCentral Africa in good stead to retain their vitality when colonialism began almost two centuries later. Po... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "The Kingdom of the Kongo, c.1400-c. 1709",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 3543
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_83 | ## Situation in West-Central Africa in c. 1400: Reasons for the Rise of Kongo
When the Portuguese arrived in Kongo in 1482 the kingdom was already well-established. Although there are no written records for the pre-Portuguese period, oral traditions taken down in the 15th and 16th centuries give a good idea of how Ko... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Situation in West-Central Africa in c. 1400: Reasons for the Rise of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 0
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_84 | Traditions collected in the early 17th century suggested that the ruling clan of Kongo, the Mwissikongo, had migrated south across the Congo river, probably at some time in the 14th century, and had then conquered the peoples living there and established the kingdom. Modern historians however have questioned this narra... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Situation in West-Central Africa in c. 1400: Reasons for the Rise of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 902
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_85 | , since many oral traditions associate the founders of Kongo with the blacksmith class, as is also the case in the Angolan kingdom of Ndongo to the south. | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Situation in West-Central Africa in c. 1400: Reasons for the Rise of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 1878
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_86 | The nature of power structures in early Kongo was deeply related to household patterns; a point stressed for the Republic of Guinea by the historian Emily Lynn Osborn. In Kongo, the core of political and household authority was the kanda, or lineage. Migration formed a central aspect of how the kandas spread their powe... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Situation in West-Central Africa in c. 1400: Reasons for the Rise of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 2035
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_87 | This structure of federal power, constructed through expansion of kandas and the household alliances which they built, allowed Kongo's power to stretch very widely prior to the arrival of the Portuguese. Many sources tell us that Kongolese political power was recognised to the north in the kingdom of Loango (now in the... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Situation in West-Central Africa in c. 1400: Reasons for the Rise of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 3123
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_88 | By the time that the Portuguese arrived, therefore, a strong core of Kongo culture had been established. Kongo was a deeply hierarchical society, something which the Portuguese recognised and understood. Power was vested in a ruling class, the Mwissikongo, and there was a strong division between the mbanza (town) and v... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Situation in West-Central Africa in c. 1400: Reasons for the Rise of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 3786
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_89 | ## Kongo's Imperial Structure: The political, social, military, and economic development of the Kingdom
Kongo's political organization was far from a static one. At the core of the political development of the kingdom of Kongo was the tension between the traditional lineage structure of households and the kingdom on ... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Kongo's Imperial Structure: The political, social, military, and economic development of the Kingdom",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 0
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_90 | Mbanza Kongo was at the heart of political organization of the Mwissikongo ruling class. In the late 15th century the city already had a royal palace, a defensive palisade,
and a central plaza where visitors were received and coronations took place. After Afonso I (Mvemba a Nzinga) took power in a civil war against h... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Kongo's Imperial Structure: The political, social, military, and economic development of the Kingdom",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 609
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_91 | In common with many centralized power structures around the world, Kongo's growth in power in the 16th century was accompanied by new political structures. 16th century sources generally present the kingdom as having 6 provinces, each of which was ruled by a governor: Mbamba, Nsoyo, Nsundi, Mpanga, Mbata and Mpemba, wi... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Kongo's Imperial Structure: The political, social, military, and economic development of the Kingdom",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 1671
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_92 | This growth was financed by increases in trade, taxation, and central power. There was an increase in tribute (taxation) from the provinces to Mbata through this period, as the urban population grew and required greater provisions to sustain itself. Trade also grew, both with the Portuguese and into the interior of Kon... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Kongo's Imperial Structure: The political, social, military, and economic development of the Kingdom",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 2218
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_93 | The 16th century was thus a time both of the development of the power of Kongo, and also when the seeds were sown for the unravelling of that power. The tribute paid by provinces to the centre was made
possible by the kanda structure of lineages: labour was organised through the lineages and thus this social model for ... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Kongo's Imperial Structure: The political, social, military, and economic development of the Kingdom",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 3299
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_94 | The tensions came to a head in 1568, with the first direct challenge to Kongo's growing authority in the form of invasions of Mbanza Kongo by a group of people called the "jagas" by the Portuguese. In the 17th and 18th centuries, "jaga" became a generic term to refer to rebellious peoples outside the sphere of Portugue... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Kongo's Imperial Structure: The political, social, military, and economic development of the Kingdom",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 4234
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_95 | The rise of the slave trade had therefore created a reaction which threatened the survival of the kingdom. The manikongo, Álvaro I, was forced to flee, and asked the Portuguese for assistance, and troops were sent from São Tomé. Mbanza Kongo was retaken in 1570, but this placed the manikongo in debt to the São Tomé tra... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Kongo's Imperial Structure: The political, social, military, and economic development of the Kingdom",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 5011
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_96 | ## Conversion to Catholicism: Religious Change and Development in the Kingdom of Kongo
When the expedition fleet of Diogo Cão arrived at Kongo in 1482, they returned to Portugal with ambassadors from the kingdom despatched by the manikongo Nzinga a
Nkuwu. Once these returned two years later, diplomatic ties were es... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Conversion to Catholicism: Religious Change and Development in the Kingdom of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 0
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_97 | Conservative adherents to Kongolese religion resisted this process, however, and Nzinga a Nkuwu himself retreated from full-blown Catholicism in the latter part of his reign. One of the principal stumbling blocks was the issue of monogamy. While Catholic writers saw Kongolese resistance to this as grounded in lust and ... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Conversion to Catholicism: Religious Change and Development in the Kingdom of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 564
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_98 | The political role of the new cult rapidly became important in Kongo. The Mwissikongo used Catholicism and the access it gave to Portugal as a means of centralizing power, with this religious change thus being a key part of the process of political centralization discussed in the preceding section. Access to the power ... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Conversion to Catholicism: Religious Change and Development in the Kingdom of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 1491
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf_chunk_99 | The reign of Afonso (1509 - c. 1542/3) then consolidated the Christianity of the elites, and Afonso was unquestionably a devotee of the faith. However, after his death and the accession of Pedro I (Nkanga a Mvemba) in 1542/3 and then Diogo I (Nkumbi a Mpudi) in 1545, things changed. The arrival of Jesuit missionaries i... | {
"Header 1": "Chapter Two:",
"Header 2": "Conversion to Catholicism: Religious Change and Development in the Kingdom of Kongo",
"image_references": [],
"images_base64": [],
"start_index": 2307
} | 208299-african-kingdoms-ebook-.pdf |
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