Chapter Overview

Not only is Africa no longer viewed as the "Dark Continent" it once was, but several decades of archeological and scientific discoveries have also discredited theories about "outside cultural influences" influencing ancient African civilizations. It is true that Africa was part of a global trade network; but in the past, historians and others had attributed such innovations as iron smelting and copper work and such political developments as early state formation to non-African peoples. Underlying these attributions was the simple assumption that African peoples were incapable of producing such innovations and developments on their own. Today, however, we understand that African development, while unique, was not the exclusive product of "outside influences." Further research into more recent African history has shed light upon the slave trade, which brought so many Africans to the New World, giving us more detail about European culpability as well as the complicity of the African elite.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter you should understand the following:

• The complexity of Africa's ecology
• The four major African linguistic groups
• The origins of African iron and copper technology as well as early pottery and sculpture
• The various trade routes that connected Africans with each other and with other parts of the world, especially the Islamic world
• The internal African slave trade and the history of slavery in ancient Africa
• The differences between European and African slavery
• The great empires of West Africa (Ghana, Mali, and Songhay)
• The development of the smaller states (Mossi, Hausa, Benin, Kongo, Ndongo-Matamba, Great Zimbabwe, the Swahili Coast) that populated Atlantic Africa
• The origins of European involvement in Africa