History of africa

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Africa from a European perspective, 1570
Africa from a European perspective, 1812
Africa from a European perspective, 1910
Colonization, 1913
Pre-colonial empires in Africa (selection)

The history of Africa in the broadest sense begins with the beginnings of mankind . Findings from paleoanthropology and molecular biology , particularly genetic analysis, indeed suggest that the cradle of mankind was on the African continent. Africa is therefore the longest human-inhabited part of the world.

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Regional division

Due to its size, the continent has different cultural regions and areas of influence:

  • North of the Sahara:
    • Egypt is one of the oldest high cultures of mankind, which has always been in contact with other cultures in Asia, Europe and Africa;
    • the rest of North Africa (today represented by Morocco , Algeria , Tunisia , and Libya ) has been in close contact with Europe ( Roman Empire ) and the Middle East ( Islam ) since ancient times .

The Sahara hindered cultural exchange with the rest of Africa in historical times. However, it never represented an impermeable language and social barrier - criss-crossed by numerous trade routes.

The Horn of Africa , especially Ethiopia , Eritrea and Sudan , is counted as part of northern Africa as well as being understood as a transition region to southern and eastern sub-Saharan Africa . At the same time, contacts to Asia can be seen here.

  • Until about the turn of the times, Africa south of the Sahara had no extensive state structures and only had limited agriculture. The jungle , for example, makes it particularly difficult to find archaeological finds.

The languages ​​of Africa also show a north-south division. While Afro-Asian languages ​​are common in the north, Niger-Congo languages predominate in the south . There are also Khoisan and other languages.

Sources

The historical source situation in African historical research is very different, but problematic in most regions of Africa. While in Egypt the written sources go back to before 3000 BC. There are almost no sources from Central and South Africa that are older than 1000 years. The earliest written records of West Africa come from Arab authors in the 8th century AD. Archaeological investigations have only recently been undertaken in West and East Africa; in the case of the Nigerian Nok culture , for example, the terracottas found can be traced back around 2500 years date. Significantly older, Stone Age evidence can be found in many places in West Africa. Apart from North Africa, the older history of the continent is only gradually opening up to us.

The scientific study of African history begins with the German Africa explorer Dr. Heinrich Barth , who was able to inspect valuable documents and chronicles on his journey through the Sahara and Sudan from 1850 to 1855, who evaluated them and was the first historian to reconstruct large parts of the West African past. Barth was the first European scholar to recognize the importance of rock carvings for the reconstruction of history, even though his dating of rock paintings in Tassili n'Ajjer has long been unsustainable. However, in the face of rampant racism and the prevailing view among scholars that Africans were a "race" without history, he encountered great opposition and his research on African history was forgotten. It was not until the 20th century that his interdisciplinary research approach was taken up again, primarily by British and American historians, but also by African colleagues such as Albert Adu Boahen and Joseph Ki-Zerbo .

Human evolution in Africa

Africa is the cradle of humanity . Here, the earliest traces of the immediate ancestors were the people discovered and here also modern man has (Homo sapiens) from Homo erectus developed. However, due to only a small number of skeletal remains (the vast majority of human remains are completely decomposed in a fairly short time), the research results are fraught with great uncertainties, which even modern genetic investigations have not yet been able to resolve.

According to the latest paleoanthropological research, the first hominini developed in Africa seven to six million years ago from a line of development that had previously been common to the ancestors of today's chimpanzees . Ardipithecus , discovered in northeast Africa and around five million years old, moved upright on two legs, at least at times. This type of locomotion ( bipedia ) enabled the early hominini to survive both on the edge of tropical forests and in the savannah , which expanded at that time due to climatic changes.

The species of the genus Australopithecus evolved more than four million years ago - probably in East Africa .

The next big development spurt happened about 2.5 million years ago with the appearance of Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis , which were already able to make the first stone tools . The African Early Stone Age began much earlier than the European Old Paleolithic .

Homo ergaster or Homo erectus developed about two million years ago . Homo erectus was probably the first Homo - kind that left Africa and spread throughout the Near East to Europe and Asia began to spread; the European Neanderthal was a descendant of this expansion. Homo erectus is considered to be the first species of the genus Homo that was able to make fire .

Documented archaeological finds such as those of the Pinnacle Point people and the Broken Hill skull prove that the archaic Homo sapiens already existed in Africa around 160,000 years ago. Based on genetic analyzes, it is now certain that the spread of Homo sapiens over the other continents in Africa began.

Scientists suspect that the Khoisan , an ethnic group in southwest Africa, are the most direct descendants of the original population of Homo sapiens . See controversial hypotheses even the clicks and clicking sounds of the Khoisan as relics of the evolutionary development of the human vocal tract in Homo erectus .

Early civilizations

Beginning of arable farming in Africa

Towards the end of the last glacial period around 10500 BC. The Sahara was a green and fertile land and was repopulated by those peoples who had previously settled south of the Sahara. But around 5000 BC The region became more and more arid, so that its inhabitants were forced to migrate to climatically more favorable areas. They then established permanent or semi-permanent settlements , especially in the Nile Valley south of the second cataract. The climatic upheaval also caused the heavy and prolonged rainfall in Central and East Africa to decrease. Since then there has been a dry climate in these areas.

The oldest finds of domesticated cattle come from North Africa around 4500 BC. Among the domesticated animals were sheep and / or goats . Hunting and gathering cultures existed parallel to these pastoralist groups .

From 4000 BC The desertification of the Sahara advanced further. The increasing scarcity of important resources, especially for pastoralists, could be responsible for a migration of pastoralist groups to the regions of West Africa further south and the Nile Valley.

Around 2500 BC The cultivation of plants began in the Sahel with the pearl millet Pennisetum glaucum . The black millet, sorghum , is only known from post-Christian contexts.

Today yams and oil palms are grown in West Africa, coffee and dwarf millet in East Africa . In West Africa and the Sahel zone , foreign crops such as peanuts , cotton , watermelons and bottle gourds were also adopted . In Ethiopia, peas , lentils and flax were also domesticated.

Neolithic cultures

Rock engravings from the Neolithic in the Libyan Sahara bear witness to an early hunter-gatherer culture in the dry grasslands of North Africa during the last glacial period. 5000 years ago fishermen and hunters lived where the Sahara desert extends today. Typical of the southern Sahara is the ceramic decorated with wavy lines, the so-called "wavy-line pottery". As a result of the desertification of the Sahara, settlement was concentrated in the Nile valley. Archaeological finds show that here as early as 6000 years BC. Agriculture was practiced. Others fled the increasing drought to the southern Sahel.

Linguistic research has shown that the Bantu peoples, starting from the highlands of Adamaua , spread to the southwest and displaced the local indigenous population, the Khoisan . The timing of this migration is not known. These Bantu peoples used a specific cultivation sequence that involved pearl millet and yams . Their main weapons were bows, spears and shields. However, there is no archaeological evidence for such a movement. This is also due to the poor conservation and visibility of settlement remains in the dense rainforest.

In today's Eritrea and Ethiopia , too, there was a Neolithic culture that was in exchange with Asian and European cultures. She used her own language and grew coffee , sorghum and dwarf millet .

Remains of Stone Age cultures can be found in West Africa, such as the Gajiganna culture , which existed almost 4000 years ago in northern Nigeria or the much younger Senegambian stone circles in Senegal and Gambia .

North and Northeast Africa in Antiquity

Old Egypt

The written history came from ancient Egypt ; the Egyptian calendar served as the standard for dating during the Bronze and Iron Age cultures of the region.

Approx. 3100 BC BC Egypt was unified under the rule of Menes (Mena) , with whom the first of the 30 dynasties began, into which Egypt's ancient history is divided: Old Kingdom , Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom . The pyramids of Giza (near Cairo ), which were built in the 4th Dynasty , testify to the religious and state power of the pharaoh cult. The Great Pyramid of Cheops , the pharaohs tomb, is the only surviving monument of the Seven Wonders of the World . Ancient Egypt reached the height of power, wealth and territorial scope in the period of the new empire (1567-1085 BC).

The Egyptians reached Crete around 2000 BC. And were conquered by invading Indo-Europeans and Semitic Hyksos . They defeated the invaders in 1570 BC. BC and penetrated into the Aegean Sea , Sudan , Libya and a large part of Southwest Asia to the Euphrates .

The importance of ancient Egypt for the development of Africa is controversial. Former Africanists generally saw Egypt as a Mediterranean culture with little impact on the rest of Africa. In contrast, recent historians claim a similar importance of Egypt for the development of African culture as that of Greece for European development. Egypt maintained lively contact with what is now Eritrea and Ethiopia and the upper Nile valley south of the Nile cataracts to Nubia ( Kush ). Relationships with the Sahel and West Africa are suspected, but have not yet been proven. Various references have been made to the fact that the sacred kingdoms of West Africa, such as the Yoruba or Akan , are likely to be traced back to Near Eastern or Egyptian influences. It was pointed out in particular that such forms of rule did not develop independently of one another all over the world, but that they were most likely exported from a cultural center such as the Ancient Near East or Ancient Egypt by emigrated peoples via Nubia to East and West Africa.

Phoenician colonization

Africa was divided into northern and sub-Saharan Africa by the “sand sea” of the Sahara and connected solely by unsafe trade routes . The Phoenician, Greek and Roman history of North Africa is presented in the articles Roman Empire and its provinces such as Maghreb , Mauritania , Africa , Tripolitania , Cyrenaica , Aegyptus etc.

In the history of North Africa , Ethiopia was the only state that (except for a brief period during the Second World War ) maintained its independence.

The countries around the Mediterranean were founded in 1000 BC. Colonized and settled by the Phoenicians from Phenicia and Carthage , for example by the Carthaginian admiral Hanno , ( 5th century BC ). The Punians defeated the Berber tribes , who then as now formed the bulk of the population, and became rulers of all of the habitable areas of North Africa west of the great Syrte, and found a source of great prosperity in trade.

Greek and Roman colonization

The Greeks founded around 630 BC. The city of Cyrene in Libya . The Cyrenaica was a thriving colony, although it was surrounded on all sides by the desert, they only little influence on the interior of Africa exercised. However, the Greeks had far more influence over Egypt. The city of Alexandria owes its foundation in 332 BC to Alexander the Great . AD and under the Hellenistic dynasty of the Ptolemies , advances were made to the south, so that news of Ethiopia was received.

The three powers Carthage, Kyrenaica and Egypt were eventually ousted by the Romans . After centuries of rivalry with Rome, Carthage finally fell in 146 BC. Within a century, Egypt and Cyrene were incorporated into the Roman Empire. Under Roman rule, the populated parts of the country became very prosperous and a Latin-speaking administration was introduced into the country. Although they had conquered the Fessan , the Romans found an insurmountable barrier in the Sahara. Probably they reached Nubia and Ethiopia, but by Emperor Nero failed dispatched expedition to discover the sources of the Nile. The most extensive representation of the geographical knowledge of the Mediterranean can be found in the writings of Ptolemy (2nd century AD), from the great lakes of the Nile, the trading posts along the Indian Ocean to Rhapta (in present-day Tanzania ) and the Niger River Had knowledge.

During this time there was a profound dependency between Asia, Europe and North Africa. The main effects of the time include the spread of classical culture around the Mediterranean, the ongoing struggle between Rome and the Berber tribes, Christianization and the cultural effectiveness of the churches in Tunisia, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Empire of Aksum

The Kingdom of Aksum was a major trading power in the Horn of Africa . It originated in the 4th century BC. Chr. And grew over the centuries to considerable size. Aksum played a major role in trade between the Indian subcontinent and the Mediterranean . The kings of Aksum also had their own coins minted . This made it the only empire in sub-Saharan Africa that had its own currency. In the Persian prophet Mani , Aksum is counted among the four most important powers in the world, along with Rome , China and Persia . King Ezana converted to Christianity in 325 and struck the cross on a coin for the first time in world history. The Christian tradition of this region continues to this day (see Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ). In its heyday, the empire of Aksum reached an area of ​​1.25 million km² and controlled today's Ethiopia , Eritrea , Djibouti , western Somalia , Yemen and southern Saudi Arabia . This gave it access to the Red Sea as well as the Nile and the Indian Ocean .

The main export goods were gold , emeralds , tortoiseshell and ivory . Mainly silk and spices were imported . The development of its own alphabet (see Ethiopian script ) and the Obelisk of Aksum are proof of cultural heyday . It is just one of several giant obelisks that were used as gravestones for royal tombs. The 24 meter high granite block was brought to Rome during the brief colonization of the Italians under Benito Mussolini , where it stood until 2005. In the course of the expansion of Islam in the 7th century, the empire of Aksum fell into disrepair, the Zagwe dynasty took control of its successor state, from which the empire of Abyssinia emerged .

Africa in the Middle Ages

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Trans-Saharan Trade

Recent research suggests that it was as early as the 6th century BC. There were trade contacts between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean world . The earliest participant in the Trans-Saharan trade was Carthage , who traded with the Garamanten , a Berber people living in Fessan , along the Bornus road . The Bornus Strait ran between Libya and Lake Chad . The main commodities were gold , luxury goods and slaves , for which there was a brisk and steady demand in both Carthage and Rome . The decline and destruction of Carthage in 146 BC BC probably did not have much of an impact on trade, especially since Rome simply replaced Carthage. The increasing spread of the camel in North Africa since the 1st century AD was of great importance for the upswing of the Trans-Saharan trade . Very little is known about the state organization of the West African peoples in antiquity. Ptolemy mentions the kingdom of Agisymba in the 2nd century AD , which is probably located in today's Niger .

From the 5th century onwards, the rise of the Ghanaian Empire in the western Sahara saw a renewed boom in trade. With the emergence of a social upper class in the Niger-Senegal area, the demand for luxury goods from the north increased significantly. The intensification of trade was also facilitated by the state protection of Ghana. In exchange for the gold of the Wangara, the North African traders mainly supplied salt from the salt pans of Taghaza ( northern Mali) and Idschil (western Mauritania), as salt was very popular in tropical West Africa. The end point of trade in the Maghreb was Sidschilmasa until the 11th century . On the Bornus Strait between Lake Chad and Tripoli , slaves have been the most important export product since ancient times. Salt came from the oases of Bilma and Fachi in this area. The most important import products from North Africa were horses , fabrics and weapons .

The empire of Kanem-Bornu owed its wealth and stability to the Trans-Saharan trade . This empire may have emerged from the ancient trading centers on the shores of Lake Chad. It consisted of two halves of the empire: one to the west ( Bornu ) and one to the east ( Kanem ) of Lake Chad. The Agisymba mentioned by Ptolemy could have been a forerunner of this state. After the destruction of the rule of the Garamanten by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi around 666 AD, the rulers of the Duguwa dynasty slowly expanded their power north to ensure the security of the trans-Saharan trade connections. In the middle of the 11th century the empire stretched from Kanem-Bornu to Fessan. In the course of the Islamization of Kanem-Bornu, the Sefuwa gained control of the empire. In the 13th century they expanded again and ruled the entire area between Darfur and the house states in what is now Nigeria. The Kanem Bornu Empire existed in this expansion until the beginning of the colonial invasion in the 19th century.

The colonization of the African coastal areas and the rise of transatlantic trade led to the gradual decline of the trans- Saharan trade. Nevertheless, the trans-Saharan trade was able to maintain its economic importance for the empires in the Sahel region until the middle of the 19th century. After that, the ban on the slave trade , which was slowly being implemented in the Ottoman Empire , finally brought trade to a standstill.

Empire of Ghana

The empire of Ghana emerged from the Soninke tribe in the Upper Niger and Senegal Rivers in the 5th century . At that time the Soninke had already controlled all the important intermediate stations along the western trade route. The capital was Koumbi Saleh , 200 kilometers north of Bamako . Like all other empires that arose in this part of the world, this part of the world based its wealth essentially on the transport of gold and ivory from West Africa to the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

In addition, the salt trade from the Sahara oases to West Africa was controlled. Also, copper , cotton , tools and swords (first from Arabia, and later also from Germany), horses from Morocco and Egypt and kola nuts, and slaves from the southern West Africa passed the area. The kingdom of Ghana, like most of the early medieval empires, was founded almost exclusively on the rule of the king and his immediate companions. An administrative system and state institutions as they were to appear in the later empires of Mali and Songhai did not yet exist here. None of the Ghana kings converted to Islam , but instead retained the traditional faith, which was based on a community of ancestors, the living and the not yet born descendants.

The modern state of Ghana has nothing to do with the medieval empire, neither historically nor territorially. The alleged origin of the Akan from ancient Ghana is a political myth that was created by politicians like Kwame Nkrumah in the run-up to the independence of the Gold Coast in order to give the new African state Ghana a historical depth and at the same time that of European historians The claim that sub-Saharan Africa has no history of its own must be refuted.

Empire Kanem

Kanem is a former empire that originated east of Lake Chad but also had an impact on history west of Lake Chad. From the 13th century onwards, the empire was called Kanem-Bornu due to its documented expansion west of Lake Chad. The pre-Islamic state of Kanem was characterized by its sacred kingship, the most important feature of which was the king's exclusion. In addition, the Queen Mother, the Magira , also played an important role in the administration and constitutional limitation of the king's power.

Islam in Africa

In the 7th century a development began that was to have a lasting determining influence on the entire African continent. Starting with Egypt, the Arabs , the followers of the new religion of Islam , conquered all of North Africa from the Red Sea to the Atlantic and on to Spain . In North Africa Christianity disappeared almost completely, only in Egypt was it allowed to continue in the form of the Copts . Upper Nubia and Ethiopia were not subjugated by the Muslims.

From the 8th to 10th centuries the number of Arabs in Africa was few; they held down the conquered lands solely through military superiority. There was great Arab immigration in the 11th century, with the Berber culture largely absorbed. Before that, the Berbers had generally adopted the language and religion of their respective conquerors. The Arab influence and the religion of Islam were thus imposed on North Africa and destroyed the traditional culture of the Berbers. Here the southern expansion of Islam across the Sahara began. The Muslims settled along the east coast where Arabs, Persians and Indians established thriving colonies such as Mombasa , Malindi and Sofala . Here they took over the role in trade and shipping that the Carthaginians played in earlier centuries. Until the 14th century, Europeans and North African Arabs lived in ignorance of these eastern countries and cities.

The first Arab invaders had the authority of the Caliphate of Baghdad acknowledged. The Aghlabite dynasty - founded by Aghlab , one of Harun ar-Raschid's generals - ruled as a vassal of the caliphate at the end of the 8th century. At the beginning of the 10th century, however, the Fatimids (968) came to power in Cairo and ruled from there far west to the Atlantic. Later other dynasties emerged, such as the Almoravids and Almohads .

Under the early Arab or Moorish dynasties, culture had reached a high level of development, and the entrepreneurship and missionary zeal of the Muslims had led to a considerable increase in knowledge of the continent. The introduction of the camel by the Romans at the beginning of the Christian age made it possible for Berbers and Arabs to cross the Sahara in its entirety with commercial caravans. In this way, Senegambia , central areas of the Niger and the Lake Chad area were opened up for regular trade. In East Africa, Arabs were already involved in regular coastal trade in pre-Christian times. In the interior of the continent, the expansion of Arab trade was halted by the extensive dense forest zone that stretched from central Africa to latitude 10 ° north.

Big trading cities emerge

In the area of ​​today's states of Mali , Niger and Senegal , important trading centers formed on the periphery of the Islamic world in the Middle Ages. Some of its trading cities - especially Djenné , Timbuktu and Gao - achieved great wealth and cultural splendor, of which some buildings still testify to this day. Others, such as Kumbi and Audagost , which were no less famous at the time, are now only in ruins on the edge of the Sahara.

The rise of these cities went hand in hand with the Islamization of the local population, as the Arab world was their most important (sometimes the only) trading partner. With trade, Islam also spread, as there were many advantages associated with this scriptural religion. Their traditional religion is still widespread among marginalized peoples.

The wealth of the trading cities was based primarily on the taxes levied on the gold shipments from West Africa to North Africa and the Middle East and on the shipments of salt from the Sahara oases to West Africa. The gold from West Africa was so important at that time that the use of this metal as a means of payment in the Middle Ages would have been inconceivable without this source. Even the monarchs in distant England had their coins made from West African gold.

Empire Mali

After more than 500 years of existence, Ghana was finally destroyed in 1076 by the Muslim Berber armies of the Almoravids , who came from the plains of Mauritania - they were also the ones who took possession of Moorish Spain. The Almoravids, constantly on a raid, were unable to hold the empire for long.

This was followed by a phase of decline until in 1230 the capital Kumbi was conquered by a tribe from the Tekrur region in the far north of Senegal. Shortly afterwards, under the rule of Mansa (= king) Sundiata Keïta, a new kingdom of the Malinke came into being . Sundiata Keita converted to Islam. On the one hand, this represented a gesture of friendship towards the trading partners in the north, on the other hand, he also used the advantages of efficiency and organization that an alliance with this religion brought with it.

The Mali Empire , with the capital Niani, reached its greatest area under Mansa Musa in the 14th century , when it stretched from the Atlantic to the border of today's Nigeria . Around this time, the Trans-Saharan trade reached its peak and brought immense prosperity to the empire. During this time, Timbuktu and Djenné began to rise to become centers of education and cultural prosperity. Musa brought architects from Arabia to build new mosques in these cities , and he improved the administration by building them more methodically. The actual beginning of a state administration, however, only came with the rise of the Songhai . What was remarkable was the strong influence that slaves, as royal administrators, exerted on the government at times in the Mali Empire.

Empire Songhai

The Songhai , although originally vassals of Mansa Musa, had built up a strong city-state with a center in Gao by 1375 and were able to shake off Malian supremacy and become aspirants of the empire themselves. In 1400 they were strong enough to plunder the Malian capital Niani, and in 1464, under the leadership of Sonni Ali, they finally set out to systematically conquer the Sahel region , which heralded the decline of the Mali Empire. This finally occurred under Ali's successor, Askia Mohammed Ture , who returned from Mecca, endowed with the right to act as the caliph of Islam in western Sudan . Ture drove his armies in the west to the Atlantic coast and in the east to Kano , where he overran the Hausa states. The Songhai Army then conquered the Tuareg oases of Aïr .

Like the Mali rulers, the Songhai rulers converted to Islam , but at the same time took careful measures to preserve the traditional religion of the farmers in the countryside. What the Songhai Empire surpassed the Mali Empire was the creation of a state administration with the help of provincial governors who were appointed for a longer period of time, the establishment of a professional army and the formation of a professional navy on the Niger. The power of the Songhai rulers was initially based on the peasants , but the Muslim trading cities gradually took their place. With the crisis of the Trans-Saharan trade in the 16th century, the Moroccan invasion and the ensuing internal unrest, the Songhai Empire collapsed.

The history of the great empires of West Africa ended with the Moroccan invasion in 1591. Around this time, the Muslim monopoly over trade in Africa and the Indian Ocean also ended. Instead, following the Portuguese discoveries, new trade connections arose across the Atlantic with Europe and America and across the Indian Ocean with India.

European colonization

Isolated early colonies

In the 15th century, Henry the Navigator planned to acquire African territories for Portugal . A series of voyages of discovery took place under his leadership, which also inspired other seafarers to undertake further expeditions. Portuguese ships reached Cape Bojador in 1432 and Cape Verde in 1445 , Diogo Cão reached the mouth of the Congo in 1482 , six years later Bartolomeu Diaz reached the Cape of Good Hope , and in 1498 Vasco da Gama reached the Indian subcontinent by sea, including the African one Discovered east coast. With these discoveries the cornerstone was laid for the first colonization of Africa by the Portuguese.

The Guinea coast , which was fully known to the Portuguese from 1480, was at the center of European interests in the early phase of colonialism. In 1482, São Jorge da Mina ( Elmina ), the first European base, was built, followed by numerous other forts. The main trade goods were slaves , gold , ivory and spices . With the discovery and colonization of America, the slave trade, which had previously been mainly operated by Arab states, experienced a boom. The high economic potential of this area soon attracted other nations to the Guinea coast. English traders entered the business from 1553 , followed by the Spanish , Dutch , French and Danes . Over the centuries, colonial supremacy shifted from the Portuguese to the Dutch, and later to the French and British. But until the late 19th century, the colonial powers limited themselves to the occupation of small trading posts along the coast, the hinterland remained unexplored and (at least politically) independent for a long time. A role that should not be underestimated in the development of contacts between Africans and Europeans was played by whaling ships in the second half of the 18th century and in the 19th century , as their crews did not stop at whaling but - when the opportunity arose - earned something from trading along the African coasts.

From 1491, Portugal expanded its sphere of influence to the region south of the Congo estuary and began proselytizing its residents. A great success for the missionaries was the conversion of the mighty Kingdom of the Congo to Christianity . But after tribes from the interior who followed traditional religions had brought down the Christian king of the Congo, the Portuguese concentrated on the area of ​​what is now Angola , where they founded Luanda in 1575 .

Portugal was also interested in the thriving cities along the East African coast. This area had previously belonged to the area of ​​influence of the Arabs , but by 1520 the Portuguese conquered all the Muslim sultanates between Sofala and Cape Guardafui and made Mozambique the center of their possessions. Unlike in West Africa, they tried early to penetrate inland, where it was hoped to find large amounts of gold. However, they did not succeed in keeping these areas under permanent control.

South Africa was not given great importance until the 17th century, and the Cape of Good Hope was only used as a resting place on the way to India. In 1620 two British officers of the British East India Company declared the Cape a British colony on their own initiative, but this was not recognized by the government in London. The Dutch profited from the British government's lack of interest and founded the first permanent white settlement in South Africa in 1652 . Huguenots who had fled France and found asylum in the Netherlands were among the first to settle . At first the Cape Colony was only seen as the westernmost outpost of East India, but gradually the Dutch extended their sphere of influence and settlement to the north.

Although the Napoleonic Wars diverted European attention away from Africa, they had a significant impact on the future of the continent. The occupation of Egypt by France and later by Great Britain ended with the efforts of the Turks to regain control of the country. In 1811 Muhammad Ali Pasha succeeded in making Egypt a largely independent state and in bringing Sudan under Egyptian rule. The fight against Napoleon caused the British to occupy the Dutch Cape Colony. After long fighting, the settlements in South Africa were finally in British hands in 1814. In 1830 the French occupied Algiers and thereby ended the - admittedly only nominal - rule of the Ottoman Empire . The Berbers came under French rule through campaigns in the Atlas Mountains . Until 1855, large parts of the northern Sahara were also subject. The leader of the Muslim peoples of this region, Abd el-Kader , had to submit to the French commander-in-chief General Bugeaud and go into exile in Lebanon as early as 1837 .

Imperialism, the race for Africa

At this time Protestant missionaries went on expedition and missionary trips on the Guinea coast, in South Africa and in Zanzibar . These trips brought important knowledge about the topographical and geological nature of the interior and its inhabitants. One of the most important discoverers is David Livingstone , who reached Lake Victoria in 1855 . Between 1860 and 1875 the Germans Gerhard Rohlfs , Georg Schweinfurth and Gustav Nachtigal crossed the Sahara . Further exploratory expeditions were made by Friedrich Konrad Hornemann , Eduard Robert Flegel , Gustav Adolf von Götzen , Heinrich Barth , Oskar Lenz , Johann Ludwig Burckhardt , Karl Klaus von der Betten , Karl Mauch , Paul Pogge and Hermann von Wissmann , Wilhelm Junker , Eduard Schnitzer and Kurt von Morgen (see also the list of Africa explorers ).

In the last decades of the 19th century there was a race for Africa . The map of Africa was fundamentally redesigned. Arbitrary borders divided the continent into territories of different European states without taking into account existing geographical or ethnic borders.

The reasons for this division can be seen in the economic and political constitution of Europe. Germany , united under Prussian rule, was looking for new sales markets and resources for its growing industry . The Germans had not previously been interested in colonies, but in Berlin it was recognized that the geopolitical claim to great power that the German Reich made could only be asserted with an expansive colonial policy. Since large parts of the world were already divided among Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal, the German Empire focused on Africa. For the French, the lost war of 1870/71 was an impetus to push ahead with the expansion of the colonies. This, in turn, called on the British, who were concerned about their position in the world. As a result, a race for colonies broke out, motivated more ideologically than economically . The interests of the colonial powers were a mixture of Christian missionary spirit, thirst for research, thirst for adventure, greed for profit and geopolitical strategy.

In 1876, the Belgian King Leopold II invited representatives of England, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia to a conference to discuss the procedure for exploring Central Africa. The result of this summit was the establishment of the International Society for Africa ( French Association Internationale Africaine ) with headquarters in Brussels. It was originally intended to be an international organization, but it soon turned out to be a purely Belgian company. Finally, the Association of the Congo Free State emerged , initially privately owned by the Belgian royal family.

The British, meanwhile, were focused on the conflict with the Boers in South Africa, where a peace treaty was reached in 1881 in which the Boers were granted an independent government under British supervision.

Berlin Conference of 1884/85

Around this time, the ruling elites of the major European powers began to believe that one had to agree on the rules of the game according to which the colonial invasion should take place. A big conference was needed.

It was Otto von Bismarck who organized this meeting. As a host, he hoped to be able to influence the outcome of such a meeting and thus get more out of Germany. The delegates agreed on the so-called "Congo Act", which had serious consequences for the African continent. The Congo Act regulated the following points in 38 articles:

  • The Congo Free State was confirmed as the private property of the Congo Society.
  • The whole of Central Africa was declared a free trade area.
  • The Niger and Congo rivers have been opened for navigation .
  • The ban on the slave trade was set internationally.
  • The principle was established that only that power should have the right to acquire a colony, which actually took possession of it.

Even before the conference, the colonial powers had ideas about the areas to which they could lay a claim. The British wanted to own all areas between Cairo and the Cape Colony in order to be able to implement the plan of the Cap-Cairo-Railway. The French claimed all areas from Dakar to Djibouti . Of course, none of these plans could be realized. In the years that followed, the colonial powers were busy conquering their territories. By the turn of the century, almost all of Africa was under European colonial rule.

Early 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, the entire continent was subject to European rule, with the exception of Ethiopia (then the Empire of Abyssinia ) and Liberia .

At that time the colonial powers were busy building an administration. Different administrative systems were used because the ambitions of the colonial powers were different. In some countries, for example in British West Africa , there was only a narrow administrative apparatus aimed at simple economic exploitation. Elsewhere, the administration was designed to take in European settlers and build settler states in which a strong white minority would exercise power over the long term. Algeria was supposed to become an equal part of the French state, albeit under the leadership of white settlers. In most countries the colonial administration did not have the strength to control the whole country and therefore had to make use of the existing local power structures. This sometimes led to a struggle among the local population as to who actually had a traditional claim to power in the region and who did not. In order to legitimize one's claim to power in the eyes of the colonial government and one's own community, it was often derived from invented traditions. Ultimately, the colonial rulers preferred those communities that cooperated better with them and did not always pay attention to whether they were the rightful rulers based on tribal tradition.

In German South West Africa , the Herero and Nama saw their livelihoods threatened by the presence of the Germans. In January 1904, the Herero attacked German facilities and farms under Captain Samuel Maharero . (→ Uprising of the Herero and Nama ) The colony's low-staffed protection force was initially unable to cope with the rebels and was completely taken by surprise. The German government immediately dispatched around 15,000 men under Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha , who managed to put down the uprising by August. The warfare Trotha was not adapted to the conditions in South West Africa and also characterized by large ruthlessness. The German side's actions are often viewed as genocide against the Herero, but this interpretation is controversial.

During the First World War there were some battles between the British and the Germans . The most important of these was the Battle of Tanga in what is now Tanzania , in which the Germans succeeded in crushing the British.

After the First World War, the former German colonies were taken over by the League of Nations and administered by mandate from France and Great Britain.

In 1935, Benito Mussolini let Italian troops occupy the last free country in Africa, Ethiopia . Addis Ababa fell within a very short time , but at no point did the Italians manage to control the whole country. Emperor Haile Selassie was temporarily evicted but returned in 1941 with British help.

Africa in World War II

Theater of war East Africa

When Italy under Mussolini entered the war on the side of the Axis Powers in 1940, this meant an acute threat to the British for the trade routes they controlled through the Red Sea . British forces in Egypt and Sudan outnumbered Italian forces in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Libya. The first clash between the two powers took place in Somalia in the summer of 1940 . The north-west of the country was British, the east Italian. From Ethiopia (then: Abyssinia), the Italian army, in which many Africans fought, began an offensive into the British part of Somalia. In a few days, the Italians forced the British to withdraw from Somalia.

In the winter of 1941 the Allied counteroffensive, supported by Abyssinian partisans in Ethiopia, came from two main directions: in the south from Kenya, then British East Africa, and from Sudan in the west. In April of that year, British, South African and Ethiopian associations brought Addis Ababa under control. The victory over the Italian armed forces in the north of the country under the command of the Duke of Aosta took place on May 18, 1941. The hostilities in other parts of the country as well as in the Italian colony Eritrea continued until 1943 Italy switched to the side of the Allies.

In Libya , too, there were reciprocal attacks and counter-attacks between Italy and Great Britain, with the result that the Italians were almost forced to leave Libya in February 1941. Due to the danger posed by the collapsing Italian lines in Libya, and the resulting loss of the entire country and its colonial territory to Great Britain, Benito Mussolini asked for military support in Berlin.

Rommel's campaign in Africa

Adolf Hitler felt compelled to involve German troops in this conflict (see Africa Corps ) in order to prevent the weakening of the Berlin-Rome axis due to Italy's defeat by Great Britain. The first commander of the German troops was Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel , who was later nicknamed "Desert Fox". In contrast to the planned, defensive stance of the Africa Corps, Rommel considered an offensive action against the British troops to be absolutely necessary. He launched rapid attacks using mechanized armed forces ( tanks ) that were ideally suited for the desert. Rommel's successful tactics of mobile desert war threw the superior British troops back over 800 kilometers.

The rapid successes resulted in a deep shock on the British side. The German advance stopped in mid-April near the Egyptian border town of Sollum east of Tobruk . Here the Africa Corps was already struggling with supply bottlenecks.

In November, British troops began counterattacks and threw the German Africa Corps back to its starting position on the western edge of Cyrenaica by the end of 1941 .

In January 1942, Rommel took the initiative again. With the help of Albert Kesselring's air fleet, he led an offensive that brought the German troops to El-Alamein . After that he tried successfully to take Tobruk. But the attack on Alexandria failed because of the numerically superior resistance of the British, who began a counter-attack under Bernard Montgomery . In the course of this advance, the Africa Corps was again pushed back to Libya.

In November 1942, American and British troops landed in Casablanca and Algiers . From then on, the Germans had to fight on two fronts. Due to the critical situation on the Eastern Front, the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) was unable to send sufficient reinforcements, and Rommel's Africa Corps was overwhelmed.

Supply problems and the inferiority of the Germans and Italians were the decisive factors in the spring of 1943, among other things, for the complete victory of the Western Allies in Africa.

The African campaign cost the lives of around 84,000 soldiers, 35,500 of whom were British and 18,600 Germans.

West Africa theater of war

After the ceasefire between France and Germany, it was unclear whether the French colonies would join the Resistance or the Vichy regime . French Cameroon and French Equatorial Africa known to de Gaulle , French West Africa and Algeria on the other hand to Vichy.

Dakar was the most important strategic point in this theater of war because large gold reserves of the Banque de France were stored there. In addition, by controlling the port of Dakar, the Allies could have better protected (military) shipping.

In September 1940 a small Allied fleet attempted to capture the port and failed. However, the attack was carried out only half-heartedly, as de Gaulle did not want to shed French blood.

Africa from 1945 to today

In 1963, the Organization for African Unity (OAU) was founded in Addis Ababa with 30 member states, whose successor was the African Union (AU) in 2002 .

Decolonization

After the Second World War, the remaining colonial empires slowly began to fall apart. In some cases, the process of decolonization was violent. The reasons for this were mainly of an economic nature: the colonies made no or insufficient profits. The decolonization of Africa began in 1951 with Libya . Many countries followed in the 1950s. The greatest wave of decolonization occurred in 1960 when almost all of French West Africa became independent. Portugal held its colonies the longest.

The borders drawn by the European colonial powers were mostly retained during decolonization. However, they were drawn arbitrarily during the conquest, regardless of existing tribal or peoples boundaries. This resulted in multiethnic states that were politically extremely unstable. The only overarching institution was often the military . Due to the colonial administration, which mostly precluded self-administration of the black majority of the population, a democratic tradition was lacking in many countries. That prepared the ground for corrupt governments, military dictatorships or one-party systems .

Developments after the end of the East-West conflict

After the end of the Cold War , numerous authoritarian regimes lost their support from northern industrialized countries, which led to political changes. Issues such as democracy , freedom , human rights and social equality regained importance. In numerous countries such as Ethiopia , Benin , Cape Verde , Mali or Zambia , old dictatorships were overthrown and replaced by multi-party systems, in other so-called facade democracies such as the Ivory Coast , Gabon , Cameroon , Kenya and Senegal , reforms in electoral law and in the economy were initiated, however, the authoritarian regimes remained in power there. In the countries of Angola , Burundi , Liberia , Mozambique , Somalia , Sudan and Chad , democratic, separatist and tribalist movements led to civil wars and political destabilization.

East Africa

Between 1952 and 1956, Kenya was shaken by the Mau Mau uprising . The British troops succeeded in defeating the rebels, but the country finally had to be granted independence in 1963. The leader of the insurgents, Jomo Kenyatta , became the first President of the Republic of Kenya.

As in other regions of Africa, the young, independent states in East Africa were characterized by ethnic struggles and political and economic instability from the time they were founded. In the Ogaden War from 1977 to 1978, Somalia, under the leadership of Siad Barres, tried to conquer the eastern part of Ethiopia, which is predominantly Somali . The communist Derg regime in Ethiopia was supported by the Soviet Union , whereupon Barre gave up his socialist course and sought the support of the USA . Somalia lost the war and Barre was overthrown in 1991.

In the early 90s, the conflict between pursed Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda to. In 1994 there was genocide : Members of the Hutu majority killed 75 percent of the Tutsi minority within a few months.

North africa

The recent history of Egypt was mainly shaped by the conflict with Israel, which was mainly about the Sinai peninsula and the Suez Canal . In 1954, Gamal Abdel Nasser had overthrown the Egyptian King Faruk I and established close ties with the Soviet Union . Under him it came in 1967 to the Six Day War with Israel , which brought a heavy defeat for Egypt. Nasser's successor Anwar al-Sadat waged a second war against Israel ( Yom Kippur War ) in 1973 , the defeat of which this time resulted in a peace process. Sadat signed the Camp David Agreement in 1979 and received the Nobel Peace Prize together with Menachem Begin . In doing so, he turned the growing Islamist groups against him. In 1981 Sadat was assassinated. Under Hosni Mubarak , the rapprochement with the Arab League succeeded despite the maintenance of a pragmatic Israel policy.

In Libya , Muammar al-Gaddafi came to power in 1969 as a result of a coup d'état. He installed a military regime with socialist elements and led his country into extensive isolation. In 1988 there was an attack on an American passenger plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie , for which the Libyan secret service was held responsible. Eleven years later, Gaddafi confessed to being responsible for this attack and extradited those responsible. Since then, Libya's relations with the West have improved.

At the end of 2011 there were protests in Tunisia against the government , which led to the resignation of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali . Then the Arab Spring began , which resulted in the overthrow of the governments in Egypt and Libya .

War of Independence in Algeria

Since France continued to reject Algeria's independence after World War II, partly because of the strong French minority, the Algerian Liberation Front ( FLN ) began armed struggle in 1954. The conflict widened when the FLN was supported by the now independent Morocco and Tunisia since 1956 . The French troops were subsequently reinforced to around 500,000 men and were partially successful. In 1957 the FLN was defeated under the battle of Algiers . Even if France was able to partially cut off military supplies for the FLN in the following years, a complete pacification of the country against the guerrilla units of the FLN was not possible. France subsequently developed a strategy to combat the insurgents, notorious for its ruthlessness, which came to be known as the French Doctrine . The Algerian war is considered to be one of the most cruel wars of independence on both sides.

The fighting also led to intense tensions among the French themselves. After 78% of the French population voted in a referendum in 1961 to withdraw from Algeria, acts of terrorism by the French settlers increased. These were answered by the FLN with counter terror. On October 17, 1961, the police violently triggered a peaceful FLN protest rally in Paris. This was followed by an escalation of violence that killed up to 200 people. After prolonged negotiations, recognized Charles de Gaulle in Evian agreement on 18 March 1962 the right to self-determination Algeria. Even if the French settlers were guaranteed their property, there was a mass exodus to France.

For the history of Algeria, the war is, in addition to the achievement of independence, of great importance insofar as the military gained a strong influence on politics and has been able to prevent real democratization of the country so far.

Southern Africa

In South Africa in 1948 the Boer National Party won the elections and introduced a system of strict racial segregation called apartheid . The racial separation not only determined everyday life (for example separate compartments in public transport), but was also implemented spatially through the homeland policy.

In the 1970s and 80s, the resistance of the black population increased. Nelson Mandela , who spent 27 years in prison, was considered a symbol . Under Frederik Willem de Klerk , the apartheid policy was ended, and in 1994 the first elections took place, to which all population groups were allowed. Mandela became the first black president of South Africa and, together with de Klerk, received the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1980 Robert Mugabe emerged victorious in the first free elections in Zimbabwe . Until his resignation in November 2017, he ruled the country increasingly by dictatorial means, driving it into political isolation and economic ruin.

West Africa

After the Second World War, nationalist movements sprang up all over West Africa, especially in Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah . In 1957, Ghana became the first West African colony to gain independence. The entire region was independent until 1974. However, the independent states were marked by corruption and internal conflicts from the start. There were bloody and protracted civil wars in Nigeria , Sierra Leone , Liberia and the Ivory Coast , as well as a series of coups in Ghana and Burkina Faso . The political instability and the mostly undemocratic regimes largely hindered positive economic development. There were also famine due to recurrent droughts in the Sahel region, and a rampant AIDS - a pandemic .

History of Africa by region

History of North Africa

History of East Africa

History of Sudan Africa

History of West Africa

History of Central Africa

History of Southern Africa

Africa explorers and travelers to Africa

Well-known Africa researchers were Mungo Park , David Livingstone , Henry Morton Stanley , Heinrich Barth , Theodor Heuglin , Gustav Nachtigal , Gerhard Rohlfs , Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke .

literature

  • Thomas Bierschenk , Eva Spies (ed.): Africa since 1960. Continuities, breaks, perspectives. (Mainz contributions to Africa research 29) Köppe, Cologne 2012
  • Michael Brett: Approaching African History. Woodbridge 2013.
  • Basil Davidson : Modern Africa: A Social and Political History. Revised new edition London 1994.
  • Lutz van Dijk : Africa. History of a continent. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 2016 (also as a licensed edition from the Federal Agency for Civic Education ).
  • John Fage : A History of Africa , 4th edition, London 2001.
  • François-Xavier Fauvelle: The golden rhinoceros. Africa in the Middle Ages. CH Beck, Munich 2017.
  • Leonhard Harding : History of Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-486-71702-0 .
  • John Iliffe : Africans. The History of a Continent. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995; German as: History of Africa. Munich: CH Beck 2003 (2nd edition), ISBN 3-406-46309-6 .
  • Joseph Ki-Zerbo : The History of Black Africa. Wuppertal 1979.
  • Christoph Marx : “Peoples without writing and history”: On the historical recording of pre-colonial black Africa in German research of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Contributions to colonial and overseas history; 43. Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-515-05173-2
  • Christoph Marx: History of Africa. From 1800 to the present. Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 978-3-8252-2566-7 . ( Review )
  • Elikia M'Bokolo: Afrique Noire: Histoire et Civilizations. Paris: Hatier, Vol. I, 1995, Vol. II, 2004
  • Roland Oliver, JD Fage: A Short History of Africa. 6th edition, London 1988; German as a Brief History of Africa. Wuppertal 2002.
  • Winfried Speitkamp: Small history of Africa. Reclam, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 3-15-010643-5 .
  • Richard Reid: History of Modern Africa. 1800 to the present . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford 2008, ISBN 978-1-4051-3265-7 (Blackwell Concise History of the Modern World).
  • Werena Rosenke, Thomas Siepelmeyer (Hrsg.): Africa - the forgotten continent? Between selective world market integration and ecological catastrophes. Münster (Westphalia) 1992, ISBN 3-928300-09-1 .
  • UNESCO (editor): Histoire générale de l'Afrique. 8 volumes. New York et al. 1982–1989 ( digitized version ), also published in English as General History of Africa and in other languages

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dierk Lange, "Africa south of the Sahara - from the sacred states to the great empires" , WBG Weltgeschichte , Vol. III, Darmstadt 2010, 103-116.
  2. ↑ Felix Schürmann: The gray undercurrent. Whalers and coastal societies on the deep beaches of Africa (1770–1920) . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2017, ISBN 978-3-593-50675-3 .
  3. ↑ See Winfried Speitkamp: Review of: Reid, Richard: History of Modern Africa. 1800 to the present. Oxford 2008 . In: H-Soz-u-Kult , March 25, 2010.
  4. ↑ based on archival studies. Essentially a summary of his diss. Phil. Lyon, which is also available as a book in French and German. has appeared