His To understand the history of

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To understand the history of those parts of the world which will become Modern, we will

first need to understand a little about “who” it is we are describing, and “where” they come from.

Our goal is to uncover the origins and development of the Modern World as a product of

Western Civilization, and to do that we will have to define what is meant by the “West.”

Usually, scholars use the term West to refer to Europe and its colonial satellites, like the United

States. But you should realize that this is an old fashioned, politically motivated definition,

because it places an emphasis solely on people of European backgrounds (though they did do a

lot to build modernity) to the exclusion of non-Europeans (who still had an impact on the

Modern World even if they didn’t control its main centers of influence). Therefore our definition

of the West will include those areas which directly contributed to the formation of Modernity.

For that purpose we will examine not only Europe, but also other peoples, when applicable, who

are not normally associated with the “West” in the standard, or traditional, geo-political meaning

of the term.

West Central Africa and the Archaic World

Prior to the formation of the Modern World, West Central Africa was home to

sophisticated states, and diverse groups of people. For most of the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries scholars in Europe and the United States placed very little emphasis on the

accomplishments, or cultural habits of the inhabitants of West Central Africa, but in the last few

decades scholars are re-evaluating the impact of these peoples on larger world processes. The

primary reason West Central Africa was left out of western development, at least from the

scholar’s view, was that what happened there did not seem to directly contribute to the main

economic and political features of the West as it developed in terms of capitalism and

democracy. Where West Central Africans were included was as an afterthought, or most likely,

as part of European systems, as in the exploitation of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The history

of this part of Africa, however, is more than just the slave trade, and the contribution of Africans

to the formation of modernity in the West is immeasurable. To demonstrate African impact on

the West, we will describe the cultural features of a few tribal groups, and also discuss the

development of Medieval empires in West Central Africa. Though they did not form modern

societies in Africa, West Central Africans both in their homeland and throughout the western

hemisphere are most definitely an integral part of the emergence of Modern values, and the

systems which will support those values.

Argument Note: If you didn’t notice, here’s the deal about this stuff. This first paragraph is our

introduction to an analysis of the Archaic World in West Central Africa. We make a couple of interesting claims,

and in the very last sentences set forward our thesis — what we hope to accomplish in this section, which is to tie

West Central Africa into the development of Modernity in a meaningful way.

Our first claim is about the exclusion of Africa from the real development of the West and Modernity. We

note the reason given in the past by scholarship, but what is the real reason? Refer to Rule #3 and its second

corollary, and you can find part of your answer. Since the modern world’s resources, politics, and economy were

under the control of Europeans and European related peoples, they described the past in terms of the contributions of

their own kind, and that means they needed to exclude anyone who did not look like them. And yes, if you think

about it this is as an almost Archaic method of history.

Our second claim is that the importance of Africans extends beyond slavery, which implies that not all

Africans were slaves. Few scholars would debate this, but this idea does diverge from the perception of Africans

taught in American society. Notice, we feel compelled to give a rationale about our argument, that “the history of

this part of Africa, however, is more than just the slave trade, and the contribution of Africans to the formation of

modernity in the West is immeasurable,” even though tens of millions of people in the Western Hemisphere have

ethnic ties to Africa.

Finally, we present a thesis, which we, like other text books, will do at the beginning of every chapter. You

don’t have to accept our argument, just as you don’t have to accept the arguments or ideas of any professor, but you

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should note the way we construct our argument to see if it presents a logical rendering of the facts, and makes

logical conclusion based on those facts. Just like most students, we are not using new or unique facts, but even with

the same old facts, new interpretations can be made, or confirmed.

West Central Africa, like other regions, is both geographically and ethnically diverse.

The idea of Africans as a homogenous people is a product of more recent history, which we will

discuss in conjunction with the twentieth century. West Central Africa lies directly beneath the

Sahara Desert, which stretches across northern Africa from Arabia to Morocco on the shores of

the Atlantic. The major river systems are the Senegal River on the west coast of the Atlantic just

south of the Sahara, and the Niger River, which flows from the heart of West Central Africa

down into the South Atlantic between the bights of Benin and Biafra. The Niger provided not

only a conduit for trade throughout the region, but its delta provided rich farming land where

cultivation began over 6,000 years ago — which is about the same relative time cultivation began

in the Nile Valley and in Mesopotamia. Inland there were grasslands and hard wood forests, arid

regions and tropical conditions, all of which the various peoples of West Central Africa had to

adapt to in order to form and develop their societies. Though all of the indigenous tribes formed

their own unique cultural habits, there are too many peoples to explore fully. So we will narrow

our perspective by briefly discussing a few of the groups, and focus on one particular group, the

Ibo, whose traditional homeland was east of the Niger Delta, so as to be able to make some

generalizations on stateless societies in Archaic West Central Africa.

Most textbooks of Western Civilization barely mention the patterns of life which

developed in West Central Africa, even though s100 million of their ancestors live in North

America and the Caribbean. When West Africans are mentioned it is usually only in conjunction

with how they got to North or South America, and the economic processes of Europeans which

brought them there. But there is much to learn by examining what is known about these people,

and there habits, which will contribute to our understanding of the Archaic World and its

processes.

But West Central Africa presents problems for the historian. The biggest obstacle to

understanding West African cultures is that they were “pneumonic” rather than literate, basically

meaning that they kept their records through memory and transmitted them orally, rather than

writing them down. West Central Africa did not have writing until interaction with Muslim

traders and clerics in the 7th and 8th century b.c.e., and in some cases not until the coming of

Europeans in the fifteenth century. Here is a unique difference, that of oral and literate systems,

between Modern and Archaic systems, and we in the Modern World more highly value written

records as a way to substantiate fact. But what is fact? The way something actually happened or

how we in the present perceive it happened? In oral traditions the present has a profound bearing

on the past, and orally transmitted knowledge, like the Epic of Sundiata (excerpt to follow), can

change based on the present needs of the audience listening to it, or based on the expression of

the chosen story teller.

One of our greatest sources for understanding West Central African cultures comes

through the oral tradition as related by a chosen story teller, which each tribe or village would

have to keep retell its history, and stories. The story teller, in many places called a Griot,

memorized official tales, lineages, stories and mythology, and past them down to a successor.

Note in the opening passages of Sundiata how the Griot explains his mission, and the inherent

traditional quality of his office, which was handed down within his family. You can also think

about how this office and the substance of the stories shape the identity of the Griot, rather than

the Griot shaping his own identity. The Griot kept more than records and lineages, but also

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functioned as an entertainer, and therefore, what was recited was subject to embellishment by the

perspectives of both the Griot, and that of the listener.

From our perspective in the Modern World oral transmissions are not seen as totally

reliable as sources of truth, and to that purpose the written records of Arab and European

travelers have provided the bulk of sources used by scholars. These travel accounts are equally

as subjective as sources of fact, since they describe the point of view of an outsider, and not the

point of view of West African peoples themselves. Why is that a problem? Consider this.

Europeans lived in colder climates than those West African regions they came into contact with

in the 1400s and after. Cold necessitates, most likely, a basic need for more clothing than would

be needed in a sub-tropical or tropical environment. To the West African adapting to the hot

conditions by wearing little clothing seemed natural and normal, but Europeans were shocked by

the nakedness they encountered and believed it to be sinful. To illustrate, here is a passage from

a fifteenth century European’s account of Gold Coast dwellers which gives a vivid account of the

differences between West Africa and Europe. “Their noblemen pounce and raise their skins in

diverse figures like flowers damask. And although they go in a manner all naked, yet many of

them, especially their women, are … laden with collars, bracelets hoops and chains, either of gold

copper or ivory … some wear one on each arm and leg wherewith they are often galled, as to

become in a manner lame; yet they will by no means leave them off. Some wear also on their

legs great shackles of bright copper which they think to be no less comely. They likewise make

use of collars, bracelets, garlands and girdles of certain blue stones like beads. Some of their

women wear on their bare arms, certain fore sleeves made of plates of beaten gold; on their

fingers they wear rings of gold with a knot or wreath … they are very wary in bargaining and will

not lose the least spark of gold.” To the European this was a gaudy display, but to the West

African body ornament and fewer clothes were a product of their cultural values, and a practical

consequence of the tropics.

The modern sciences of archeology, anthropology, botany and linguistics provide some

source material by examining the remains of plants, food supplies, buildings, tools, and other

human remains, but they are also subject to making conclusions based on their own cultural

perspectives. As you can see, sources are a problem faced by the historian, and they can never

truly replicate what conditions were in the past. Yet even with the problem of gaining an

objective perspective, we still can make some useful conclusions about the patterns of life which

existed in Archaic West Central Africa, and our analysis can also form the basis by which we can

compare similar societies in other regions, such as Europe and America.

Argument Note: Hopefully our argument has so far kept to the basic outline laid out in our introduction. We have

dealt with some of the logic behind the virtual exclusion of West Africa from standard Western Civilization texts by

chalking it up to source problems, rather than diving into problems of racism. But we’ll get to those. First we

wanted to discuss different sources how they might possibly reflect why Modern observers initially may have

looked on West Africans as lacking culture. This strategy is less confrontational, which professor’s often like, but it

also gets to the root of the matter which is that West Africans left behind different sources than what western

scholars equate with real data — meaning written records

West Central Africa — Stateless Societies and Tribal Life

In general there are similarities between many of the peoples of West Central Africa just

prior to the dawn of the Modern Age, even though they are ethnically, linguistically, and

culturally different. People in unincorporated, or stateless, areas were arranged primarily in

tribal organizations centered on local villages. Agriculture and mixed husbandry — raising

animals — provided daily sustenance, though some tribes were semi-nomadic hunters and

gatherers. The indigenous religious system of the area was animistic, meaning a belief in a spirit

world inhabiting natural forms, such as animals, and forces of nature. Many tribes also believe

in a Creator spirit from which life came into being, though each tribe generally has their own

unique conception of creation. Tribes inhabited traditional areas, and competed for resources

with neighboring tribes in an effort to do what comes most natural to our species, perpetuate our

own group.

One of the most well known tribes of the inland tribe of forest region north of the

southern Atlantic coast was the Ashanti, or Asante, who would incorporate into a powerful

confederacy in the eighteenth century. One of the Akan peoples of present day Ghana, the

Ashanti were an agricultural people, as well as hunters and gatherers, typical of Archaic semi–

nomadism. from small beginnings these people gradually extended their power and authority

both by diplomacy and force of arms making tributary provinces of other tribes. While the

Ashanti were skilled iron workers, their greater reputation as warriors kept them from being

incorporated into the great medieval kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Songhai. The tribe had a

reputation of cruelty, employing sacrifice in pursuit of their religious beliefs, which was usually

practiced on criminals and prisoners of war.

The Fanti were the coastal neighbor of the Ashanti. Due to the sandy grassland of coastal

region the Fanti were less agricultural, and therefore developed extensive trade inland and across

regions of products from the sea, fish, shells, ornaments. The Fanti were not as prone to warring

as the Ashanti, probably because trade demands diplomacy over force, and so they developed

allies for economic reasons.

Several related tribal groups, such as the Oyo, Ife, Yoruba, and Ibibio lived at the

convergence of the Benue and Niger rivers. This network of waterways provided a large area of

mud and water, shaded by the stately but never changing evergreen mangrove (tropical forest)

through which the main artery of the Niger river sinks down into the surf of the Atlantic Ocean.