Topic 1.5 State Building in Africa

Before the period 1200 to 1450, Sub-Saharan Africa was extremely diversified. Unlike parts of Europe , Asia , and north Africa, it was never united under a universal religion or empire/state.

Some African societies were stateless, organized around kinship and family obligation with no centralized authority. Government in these societies was never a full time occupation; there were no large armies, no large-scale political organization, no large building projects, nor were there conditions to conduct long-distant trade with other people.

What similarities there were resulted from the earlier migration of the Bantu people. Their root language created common structure and vocabularies across African languages and dialects; this allowed some mutual understanding among various tribes.

Most African tribes also had similarities in their belief systems. They were animistic, believing in a world controlled by spiritual forces and gods. These forces had to be dealt with through a specialist who would proscribe rituals, sacrifices, or some other form of religious practice to affect events. These beliefs created a view of how the universe worked and how one should ethically relate oneself to it. Their dead ancestors, the first settlers of the land, were the true owners of the land, and had a role in harvests and fertility. Thus land was more than just a source of agriculture; it took on religious significance.

As far as the economies of Africa are concerned, the north was fully integrated with the Mediterranean and Arab worlds of trade. The Sub-Saharan was a completely different. Its economies were primarily local and regional and varied so much that it is impossible to generalize about them.

The Christian Kingdoms: Nubia and Ethiopia

As Islam spread across north Africa, there remained “islands” of Christianity in the midst of its civilizations. Christianity came to Africa before Islam. Nubia and Ethiopia (originally known as Axum or Aksum ) had had Christian communities for several centuries before the Muslims came. Originally tied to Byzantine Christianity, they eventually split from them and developed their own unique Christian practices (known as Coptic). When the Muslims came, they tolerated the Coptic communities and gave them some limited rights.

The most important Christian community in Africa was Ethiopia. Surrounded by Muslims and others, they took to the highland areas and became self-sufficient. They famously carved churches out of the mountain rock (see picture to the right). In the 16th century, the Ethiopian Christians were threatened by a neighboring Muslim state. The Portuguese arrived and drove the Muslims back and in return attempted to convert the Ethiopians to Roman Catholicism. This failed and Ethiopia remained an isolated, Christian, and fiercely independent civilization.