Why African History Research is Important

6/24/2023 -

Part of why I enjoy and think African history is important is because it gives us (more) examples of African societies functioning and prospering. Apart from the feel good or redemptive ethos of this, it also provides inspiring examples of how our societies can/might evolve.

For example, inter-National trade in Africa is fraught - for many reasons including language barriers, lack of infrastructure, poor borders and trade agreements.

Thinking about West Africa specifically, I know that the mix of anglo & francophone countries with differing government and financial systems has proven challenging. The ECOWAS organization has championed open borders and trade agreements, but many have arguably been underwhelming or mis-implemented.

Considering the history of West Africa, we encounter a mishmash of states across the eastern and western fringes of the zones just south of the Sahara. These states or empires were often oriented around control of the trans Sahara trade routes. Further south, the forest and coastal zones served as sources of crucial goods like wood, game animals and salt. There were larger empires as well as smaller states and kingdoms, varying in degree of centralization. Common culture and some basline assumption of interactions, through trade and also conflict.

These early states were incentivized to both cooperate and be in rivalry over control of these resources. These states were able to grow to significant sizes and many persisted over centuries (notably the Kanem-Bornu empire which existed in the Lake Chad region from abt 800/1000AD to 1800AD — about a millennium [Ref: AI search w results from 2 models https://play.vercel.ai/r/3JA0cP3, ex 2: https://play.vercel.ai/r/gzOYi9A] — notice the difference in the attributed founders “migrating berbers” or “[native] Kanembu people”). They developed sophisticated royal & legal systems, trade routes, agricultural techniques and academic institutions (galvanized in part by the advent of Arabic writing system and Islam)

We generally have more info on northern/eastern west African states on the saharan fringe because of their contact with and adoption of Arabic writing system. Empires and city-states like Kanem, Kano and Timbuktu have extensive chronicles in Arabic dating back to the 10th century, offering a wealth of information on dynastic lineages and additional context. I believe that a combination of written time/place-marking, deep oral histories and archaeology can allow for a much more expansive archive.

What are the takeaways? What’s the value of ancient African knowledge today? How ancient African knowledge can be applied to our future? I think there are areas of agriculture, social organization in distressed periods and

I don’t have the answers. But we can start to sus out the right underlying questions to ask. The history is broad, deep and we’ve only uncovered so much actual detail (usually the findings of European historians, paleontologists, anthropologists). But we definitely do know enough to ask more informed questions such that we can get answers like: how have crops and animals been cultivated in the environment in a sustainable way, how have key resources been shared, how have opposed cultures formed symbiotic relationships or what have they been in conflict over.

African societies today are vastly different (larger for one thing) than they've been before, but there remains the persisting cultural/anthropological and geographic patterns we can learn from, in terms of how to better interact with each other and our environment. This must be done without an "essentialist" bent, of taking certain tropes and deeming them the whole story, the truth and history remains complex beyond our grasp.

We must remain deeply inquisitive about our past/present/future, experiment and learn what information/skills can helps us move forward. There is much obscuring our history but much opportunity to uncover and learn more. Can speak more about this later.

Before asking specific questions let’s try summarizing based on high level details what I do know, focusing on West Africa. The most recent millenium's wave of West African empires started w ancient Ghana in modern Mail, succeeded by the Malian empire (with a number of successor and neighboring states in between)... the Hausa kingdoms further east and then Kanem-Bornu furthest on the east of lake chad. More later... a primary source of mine is "A Thousand Years of West African History: a Handbook for Teachers and Students By J. F. Ade Ajayi and Ian Espie”

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