African American studies combines an interdisciplinary approach with the rigors of scholarly inquiry to analyze the history, culture, and contributions of people of African descent in the U.S. and throughout the African Diaspora.
➠ African American Studies emerged from Black artistic, intellectual, and political movements and eventually grew into a formalized field of study. This course will aid in your understanding of contemporary Black freedom struggles within and beyond the academic study of this topic.
➠ African American studies examines the development of ideas about Africa’s history and the continent’s ongoing relationship to communities of the African diaspora.
➠ Perceptions of Africa have shifted over time, ranging from misleading notions of a primitive continent with no history to recognition of Africa as the homeland of powerful societies and leaders that made enduring contributions to humanity.
🔑 Key Question: How did African American Studies begin to be incorporated in United States colleges and universities in the 1960s and 1970s.
➠ Toward the end of the Civil Rights movement and during the Black Power movement in the 1960s and 1970s, Black college students entered predominantly white institutions in large numbers for the first time in American history.
➠ During the Black Campus movement (1965–1972), hundreds of thousands of Black students and Latino, Asian, and white supporters led protests at over 1,000 colleges nationwide, demanding greater opportunities to study the history and experiences of Black people and greater support for Black students, faculty, and administrators.
🔑 Key Question: How does African American studies reframe misconceptions about early Africa and its relationship to people of African descent?
➠ Africa is the birthplace of humanity and the ancestral home of African Americans. Early African societies brought about developments in fields including the arts, architecture, technology, politics, religion, and music. These innovations are central to the long history that informs African American experiences and identities
Interdisciplinary analysis in African American studies dispels notions of Africa as a place with an undocumented or unknowable history, affirming early Africa as a diverse continent with complex societies that were globally connected well before the onset of the Atlantic slave trade.
the second-largest continent in the world, Africa is geographically diverse with five primary climate zones: desert (e.g., the Sahara), semiarid (e.g., the Sahel), savanna grasslands, tropical rainforests, and the Mediterranean zone.
➠ Africa is bordered by seas and oceans (Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and Indian Ocean) with five major rivers (Niger River, Congo River, Zambezi River, Orange River, and Nile River) connecting regions throughout the interior of the continent.
🔑 Key Question: How Africa’s varied landscapes impact patterns of settlement and trade between diverse cultural regions?
➠ The proximity of the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean to the African continent supported the emergence of early societies and fostered early global connections beyond the continent
Population centers emerged in the Sahel and the savanna grasslands of Africa for three important reasons:
Major water routes facilitated the movement of people and goods through trade.
Fertile land supported the expansion of agriculture and domestication of animals.
The Sahel and savannas connected trade between communities in the Sahara to the north and in the tropical regions to the south.
➠ Variations in climate facilitated diverse opportunities for trade in Africa.
In desert and semiarid areas, herders were often nomadic, moving in search of food and water, and some traded salt.
In the Sahel, people traded livestock.
In the savannas, people cultivated grain crops.
In the tropical rainforests, people grew kola trees and yams and traded gold.
1.2 Vocabulary
geographically diverse
climate zones
Sahara
Sahel
savanna grasslands
Niger River
Congo River
Nile River
domestication
nomadic
kola trees and yams
Topic 1.3: Population Growth and Ethnolinguistic Diversity
🔑 Key Question: What were the causes of Bantu expansion across the African continent?
➠ Technological innovations (e.g., the development of tools and weapons) and agricultural innovations (e.g., cultivating bananas, yams, and cereals) contributed to the population growth of West and Central African peoples.
➠ This population growth triggered a series of migrations throughout the continent, from 1500 BCE to 500 CE, called the Bantu Expansion.
🔑 Key Question: How does the history of the Bantu expansion affect the linguistic diversity of West and Central Africa and the genetic heritage of African Americans today?
➠ Bantu-speaking peoples’ linguistic influences spread throughout the continent. Today, the Bantu linguistic family contains hundreds of languages that are spoken throughout West, Central, and Southern Africa (e.g., Xhosa, Swahili, Kikongo, Zulu).
➠ Africa is the ancestral home of thousands of ethnic groups and languages. A large portion of the genetic ancestry of African Americans derives from Western and Central African Bantu speakers.
1.3 Vocabulary
Population growth W & C Africans
Bantu Expansion
Bantu linguistic family African ethnolinguistic diversity
Several of the world’s earliest complex, large-scale societies arose in Africa during the ancient era, including Egypt, Nubia (also known as Kush/Cush), and Aksum in East Africa and the Nok society in West Africa.
➠ Egypt and Nubia emerged along the Nile River around 3000 BCE. Nubia was the source of Egypt’s gold and luxury trade items, which created conflict between the two societies. Around 750 BCE, Nubia defeated Egypt and established the 25th dynasty of the Black Pharaohs, who ruled Egypt for a century.
➠ The Aksumite Empire (present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia) emerged in eastern Africa around 100 BCE. The Red Sea connected the empire to major maritime trade networks from the Mediterranean and the Roman Empire to India, and its strategic location contributed to its rise and expansion. Aksum developed its own currency and script (Ge’ez).
➠ The Nok society (present-day Nigeria), one of the earliest iron-working societies of West Africa, emerged around 500 BCE. They are best known for their terracotta sculptures, pottery, and stone instruments. These figures are the most ancient extant evidence of a complex, settled society in sub-Saharan Africa.
➠ Aksum became the first African society to adopt Christianity under the leadership of King Ezana. Ge’ez, its script, is still used as the main liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Aksumite Empire exemplifies African societies that adopted Christianity on their own terms, beyond the influence of colonialism or the later transatlantic slave trade.
🔑 Key Question: Explain why Africa’s ancient societies are culturally and historically significant to Black communities and African American studies.
Context: Despite the richness of early African civilizations, European and American historians of the 17th-20th centuries spread racist misconceptions about the truth of African history which originated in an effort to justify the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and colonization of Africa.
“Africa is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit.”
German philosopher Georg Hegel, 19th cent.
“Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at present, there is none; only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness.”
British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, 1963
From the late 18th century onward, African American writers emphasized the significance of ancient African societies in sacred and secular texts. These texts countered racist stereotypes that portrayed Africans and their descendants as societies without government or culture and formed part of the early canon of African American studies.
➠ In the mid-20th century, scholarship demonstrating the complexity and contributions of Africa’s ancient societies underpinned Africans’ political claims for self-rule and independence from European colonialism.
1.4 Vocabulary People
complex societies
Nubia
25th dynasty of Black Pharaohs
Aksumite Empire
maritime trade
Ge’ez
Nok
terracotta sculptures
most ancient complex society in sub-Saharan Africa.
African ethnolinguistic diversity
First Christian African society Ethiopian Orthodox Church
countered racist stereotypes
King Ezana
Topic 1.5: The Sudanic Empires: Ghana, Mali, Songhai
🔑 Key Question: How did the influence of gold and trade shape the political, economic, and religious development of the ancient West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai?
➠ The Sudanic empires, also known as the Sahelian empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, emerged and flourished from the 7th to the 16th century. Each reached their height at different times and expanded from the decline of the previous empire: Ghana, fl. 7th–13th century; Mali, fl. 13th–17th century; and Songhai, fl. 15th–16th century.
(the modern country of Ghana was created in 1957 (in the region of and choose the name Ghana to celebrate
➠ Ancient Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were renowned for their gold mines and strategic location at the nexus of multiple trade routes, connecting trade from the Sahara (toward Europe) to sub-Saharan Africa.
➠ Trans-Saharan commerce brought North African traders, scholars, and administrators who introduced Islam to the region and facilitated its spread throughout West Africa.
➠ Songhai was the last and the largest of the Sudanic empires. Following Portuguese exploration along the western coast of Africa, trade routes shifted from trans-Saharan to Atlantic trade, diminishing Songhai’s wealth.
🔑 Key Question: How did Mali’s wealth and power create opportunities for the empire to expand its reach to other societies within Africa and across the Mediterranean?
➠ In the 14th century, the Mali Empire was ruled by the wealthy and influential Mansa Musa, who established the empire as a center for trade, learning, and cultural exchange.
➠ Mali’s wealth and access to trans-Saharan trade routes enabled its leaders to crossbreed powerful North African horses and purchase steel weapons, which contributed to the empire’s ability to extend power over neighboring groups.
➠ Mali’s wealth and Mansa Musa’s hajj (religious pilgrimage to Mecca, the most important and most holy city for Muslims) in 1324 attracted the interest of merchants and cartographers (map makers) across the eastern Mediterranean to southern Europe, prompting plans to trade manufactured goods for gold Americans?
➠ The Sudanic empires in West Africa stretched from Senegambia to the Ivory Coast and included regions of Nigeria. The majority of enslaved Africans transported directly to North America descended from societies in two regions: West Africa and West Central Africa.
1.5 Vocabulary People
Sudanic empires
Ghana Empire
Mali Empire
Songhai Empire
gold mines
nexus of trade routes
Trade, learning, cultural exchange
North African Horses
Trans-Saharan commerce
Islam
Hajj in 1324
Trade route shift = diminishing wealth
Purchased steel weapons
Mansa Musa
Topic 1.6: West African Learning Traditions
🔑 Key Question: What were the institutional and community-based models of education in early West African societies?
➠ West African empires housed centers of learning in their trading cities. In Mali, a book trade, university, and learning community flourished in Timbuktu, which drew astronomers, mathematicians, architects, and jurists. Knowledge from Islamic civilization was shared through Arabic, the written language of the Qu’ran (Muslim holy book)
➠ Griots were prestigious historians, storytellers, and musicians who maintained and shared a community's history, traditions, and cultural practices.
➠ Gender played an important role in the griot tradition. Griots included African women and men who preserved knowledge of a community’s births, deaths, and marriages In their stories
6 Vocabulary
Mali’s book trade and universities
Timbuktu
Griots female Griots
Required Source to Recall
Griot Performance (video): “The Sunjata Story - Glimpse of a Mande Epic”
Topic 1.7: Indigenous Cosmologies and Religious Syncretism
🔑 Key Question: How did syncretic practices in early West African societies develop?
➠ The adoption by leaders of some African societies to Islam (e.g., in Mali and Songhai through trans-Saharan trade) or to Christianity (e.g., in Kongo brought by Portuguese sailors) often resulted in their subjects blending aspects of these introduced faiths with indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmologies (science/philosophy/beliefs about the origin of the universe).
Source Notes (right): The oshe Shango, a ceremonial wand among the Yoruba in Nigeria, is a core element of dances honoring the orisha (deity) Shango. Shango is the orisha of thunder, fire, and lightning, and a deified ancestor—a monarch of the Oyo kingdom. Oshe Shango wands include three features: a handle, two stone axes (characteristic of Shango’s lightning bolts), and a female figure, typically carrying the axes on her head.
Source Notes (left): The painting Oya’s Betrayal depicts African spiritual practices through a visual syncretism that combines Yoruba oral traditions with European Renaissance style of painting Christian Saints. It features a war among the Orishas Oya, Ogun, and Shango.
🔑 Key Question #2: Explain how these practices were carried forward in African-descended communities in the Americas.
➠ Africans who blended indigenous spiritual practices with Christianity and Islam brought their syncretic religious and cultural practices from Africa to the Americas. About one-quarter of African Americans descends from Christian societies in Africa and one-quarter descends from Muslim societies in Africa.
Spiritual practices that can be traced to West Africa, such as:
veneration of ancestors: the wisdom of past ancestors was considered to be very significant. It was customary to ask ancestors for guidance when making big decisions. Food, water, and other goods were presented at burial sites or shrine.
Ex: Though the Songhai Empire embraced Islam, leader Sonni Ali punished any Islamic scholars who attempted to stop people from praying to their ancestors. Though prayer to anyone but God went against the teachings of Islam, Sonni Ali wanted to embrace both Islam while also honoring his people’s ancient traditions.
divination: asking a priest or a spiritual leader to try to predict the future through supernatural means.
Ex: In Yoruba culture (modern-day SW Nigeria/Benin) people sought the help of the village Babalawo, who was believed to see the future by reading patterns in scattered palm nuts.
healing practices: traditional understanding of illness was often connected to a person’s relations with God, ancestors and the universe. Therefore, traditional healers often doubled as religious leaders.
collective singing and dancing
➠ All of these West African spiritual practices have survived in African diasporic religions and were blended with Islam and Christianity in Africa and then blended again with Christianity in the Americas. This also impacted mainstream Christianity in American colonies as well. Today, conservative American protestant Christians routinely include collective signing and praise music in their worship, however, before interaction with West African practices, singing and dancing in church was prohibited in European traditions.
➠ Examples of West African spiritual practices in African diasporic religions:
Voodoo; Vodun, in Haiti; Regla de Ocha-Ifa (once known as santería), in Cuba; and Candomblé, in Brazil. Africans and their descendants who were later enslaved in the Americas often performed spiritual ceremonies of these syncretic faiths to strengthen themselves before leading revolts.
1.7 Vocabulary
syncretic religious practice (blended)
Islam in Mali and Songhai
Christianity in Kongo
indigenous spiritual beliefs
cosmologies
African America ancestors: 25% Christian, 25% Muslim
veneration of the ancestors
divination
West African spirituality in modern Louisiana
Voodoo in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil
Vodun - Regla de Ocha-Ifa - Candomblé
Required Source to Recall
Video: “Osain del Monte - Abbilona” - Osain del Monte is an Afro-Cuban performance group whose performances illustrate the syncretism of Afro-Cuban religions.
Topic 1.8: Culture and Trade in Southern and Eastern Africa
🔑 Key Question: What was the function and importance of Great Zimbabwe’s stone architecture?
➠ The Kingdom of Zimbabwe and its capital city, Great Zimbabwe, flourished in Southern Africa from the 12th to the 15th century. The kingdom was linked to trade on the Swahili Coast, and its inhabitants, the Shona people, became wealthy from its gold, ivory, and cattle resources.
➠ Great Zimbabwe is best known for its large stone architecture, which offered military defense and served as a hub for long-distance trade. The Great Enclosure was a site for religious and administrative activities and the conical tower likely served as a granary (place to store grain)
Europeans, still in the stagnation of the Middle Ages, had been hearing stories of West African riches for decades following Mansa Musa’s famous Hajj in 1324. The Portuguese, using Arab and Chinese technology, emerged as the first great sea voyagers from Western Europe. As they traveled down the coast of West Africa during the late 15th century (1400s) they found immense sources of wealth.
The Portuguese incorrectly assumed that sub-Saharan African people lived in primitive unorganized societies.They assumed they would be able to raid villages and easily take resources and people. The Portuguese realized early on that their assumptions were false. Their early attempts at invasion failed as they were defeated by organized and skilled societies (ex. The Wolof Empire had an army of 100,000 and an advanced cavalry)
It was during these early (vastly unsuccessful raids) that woman snatched in 1441 (present-day Mauritania) is believed to be the start of what would become the giant human-trafficking scheme that would fuel Europe’s rise to wealth in the modern era.
The Portuguese soon realized that in order to gain wealth in Africa, they needed another strategy. They would need to try diplomacy and find African kingdoms to be trading partners. African Kingdoms in turn realized an opportunity to increase wealth by bypassing centuries-old trade with Arabs along trans-Saharan routes and get better deals from the Portuguese.
The Wolof Empire in modern Senegal (a longtime vassal of Mali which gained independence as Mali fragmented) was the first Kingdom to sustain a complex relationship with Portugal. The Wolof had little gold, but they did have spice and textiles that the Portuguese valued. The two empires exchanged goods. The Wolof were attracted to Portuguese brass/copper and textiles. The Portuguese and Wolof started formal trade relations by 1455. By 1480, the Wolof shifted their capital from the eastern end of the empire to the Atlantic coast in the West. This move is significant. It shows a major economic and political shift in West African history: power and wealth of the old Sudanic Empires was weakening and had been replaced by the new coastal trade with European ships. Wolof sent ambassadors to Portugal, who were well received and sometimes knighted.
The Wolof also started to trade enemies that they had captured in battle. This led to the first auctions of enslaved people in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in 1444. Wolof sent an embassy to Portugal and some leaders accepted Christianity to further improve trading (similar to Mali’s conversion to Islam to increase trade).
🔑 Key Question: Why was Elmina so important to Portugal? How did Elmina begin to shift Portuguese fortunes in the region?
➠ Portugal's most significant moment came when they first met the Akan people of modern Ghana. This was one of the sources of gold for Mansa Musa’s empire. The Portuguese called the place they called El Mina (the mine) (today called Elmina). It was Portugal's first major entrance into the African gold trade.
The Portuguese were thrilled to finally hit the jackpot in West African gold, but were frustrated that they did not have enough desirable goods to trade with Elmina. That is when they discovered the region's most powerful empire: The Kingdom of Benin, Ubini is the correct term, “Benin’ is a Portuguese language mispronunciation.
Benin had a centralized government, a complex series of massive defensive walls (10,000 miles of walls overall!), a military over 100,000, and some of the best artisans of the region. At first, the Portuguese were attracted to the ivory trade in the region, but they soon discovered that Benin was willing to trade captives from their wars. The Portuguese began buying humans from Benin and trading them to the Akan people at Elmina, who were always short on labor in their own kingdom. This was the key to unlocking access to Elmina’s gold for Portugal
The Portuguese built a fort there in 1482. They traded European textiles (cloth) and brass, for gold. (it would not be until the 1640s when Elmina Fort (Castle) became a center for the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.) In little over a decade, Portugal was taking 25,000 ounces of gold from Elmina every year. This money funded the rest of their famous sea voyages.
The powerful Obas (Kings) of Benin were open to Portuguese trade, but they probably always considered the Portuguese to be their vassals. Benin never showed an interest in Christianity, and in 1514, they decided to shut down Portuese access to the slave trade. There was nothing Portugal could do about it. Benin was too powerful and Portuguese traders had high death rates from the climate of mainland Africa in that region. The Portuguese shifted their focus and in doing so, shifted world history.
🔑 Key Question: How did the Portuguese colony of São Tomé change the course of world history?
➠ Supplied with gold from Elmina, and growing experience in the intra-African slave trade, it was at this point, the Portuguese found a new money making scheme. This would end up far surpassing the wealth they made from the gold trade, and it would change the history of the world forever.
In 1485, Portugal made the uninhabited African island of São Tomé an official colony. It was at this place that the Portuguese developed a new system for sugar production. The wealth of this new idea would go on to make the modern world.
Sugar was a great rarity before this time. It was from SE Asia, needed a very hot climate to produce, and it took an enormous amount of backbreaking human labor to become viable. It was more of a rare medicine, extremely expensive and only available to royalty.
Think of the world you live in today. Can you imagine a day without sugar? All over the world, billions of people consume sugar every day, if not in every meal. Think of the power and wealth involved in creating a new “must have” product. Portugal’s colonization of São Tomé was a massive turning point in world history. Not only did it change human diets, it changed the political and economic balance of power in the world.
At their new colony, Portugal developed a system of sugar production on a massive scale for this first time in history. The system of production was based solely on human-trafficking of West Africans organized in massive plantations. In São Tomé, for the first time, there existed violent labor camps based on “racialized” slavery for the purpose of producing agricultural cash crops for export to foreign markets.
Within a decade, this model would spread to the New World which was about to be “discovered” just a couple of years later. Columbus, sailing for Spain, Portugal’s rival, never found India, or the gold and spices he was after, but the Europeans found something more valuable which would have horrifying impacts on history. The Europeans continued to colonize the New World for one purpose, they found more land to model the São Tomé sugar experiment. The consequences of this shift would lead Europe to become the wealthiest region on earth, based on the trafficking of 12.5 million West Africans.
This violent model of inhumane exploitation could not work if Portugal did not find a new source of human beings from West Africa. Portugal desperately needed new West African allies. They were about to find one.
➠ It is in this context, that the Portuguese would make their most significant alliance in West Africa, with the Kingdom of Kongo.
Context for 1.9 & Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Context Vocabulary
Portuguese sea voyagers
Trading partners
increase wealth by bypassing trans-Saharan trade
Wolof Empire
Knighted
Lison
Akan people
Elmina
Gold Trade
Kingdom of Benin
São Tomé
sugar production
“Racialize” slavery
West Central Africa: The Kingdom of Kongo
🔑 Key Question: How did the adoption of Christianity affect economic and religious aspects of the Kingdom of Kongo?
➠The people and empires of the Wolof, the Akan, and Benin, were not so shocked when Portuguese traders arrived on their shores, bearing fancy textiles, copper, and brass ingots. All of these places were in contact with the great Sudanic Empires of the past. These empires had been based on lucrative trade from distant foreigners (Arab Muslim traders). For the Wolof, the Akan, and Benin, the concept of a much larger world, different religious beliefs, and possibilities for lucrative trade were not so out of the realm of the ordinary.
This was not the case for Kongo, which was much further South. Kongo had no contact with the Sudanic Empires. They had never heard of Islam or Christianity, the trans-Saharan Trade or Mediterranean empires. To Kongo, the arrival of the foreign Portuguese ships was as shocking as it was for the Inca and Aztecs in the Americas. Indeed, in Europe, Kongo was referred to as the “New World” before the discovery of the Americas.
➠ The Portuguese first met leaders of the vast Kongo empire in 1482 and negotiated treaties to gain access to ivory, salt, copper, textiles, and human captives. The Kingdom of the Kongo soon became their most significant trading partners.
➠ In a similar fashion to the conversion of Mali to Islam through trade a few centuries before, in 1491, King Nzinga a Nkuwu (João I) and his son Nzinga Mbemba (Afonso I) voluntarily converted the powerful West Central African Kingdom of Kongo to Roman Catholicism.
➠ Like Mali and Islam, the Kingdom of Kongo’s conversion to Christianity strengthened its trade relationship with Portugal, leading to Kongo’s increased wealth. Ivory, salt, copper, and textiles were the primary goods of trade. ***Note, this voluntary conversion happened before Columbus accidentally bumped into the Americas. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade system did not exist yet.
➠ The nobility’s voluntary conversion allowed the faith to gain mass acceptance, as the presence of the Church was not tied to foreign colonial occupation. A distinct form of African Catholicism emerged that incorporated elements of Christianity and local aesthetic and cultural traditions.
🔑 Key Question: How did the Kingdom of Kongo’s political relations with Portugal affect the kingdom’s participation in the slave trade?
➠ The trade of human captives from war, criminals, and political rivals was common throughout West Africa and the entire ancient world. Along with ivory, salt, copper, and textiles, the Portuguese sometimes purchased a few human captives.
➠ As a result of the Kingdom of Kongo’s conversion to Christianity and subsequent political ties with Portugal, the king of Portugal demanded access to the trade of enslaved people in exchange for military Assistance. This was fairly standard at first But, the world was about to change in an awful and dramatic way.
➠ The leaders of Kongo had no way of knowing that all of world history was about to change. They had no way of knowing that the world sugar trade was about to explode and that their new Portuguese friends were just now experimenting with growing a sweet Asian crop (sugar) on the small little island of São Tomé. Soon, Portuguese traders realized that sugar was far more valuable than ivory, salt, copper, or textiles. They began to increasingly prioritize trading for humans to send to the labor camps on São Tomé and soon to the massive sugar plantations in the “new world” Portuguese colony of Brazil. The volume of human trafficking grew at an unprecedented rate.
➠ Kongo’s nobles participated in the slave trade, but they were unable to limit the number of captives sold to European powers when the volume of human trade quickly grew out of control.
➠ Kongo, along with the greater region of West Central Africa, became the largest source of enslaved people in the history of the Atlantic slave trade to the Americas.
🔑 Key Question: How did the Kingdom of Kongo’s Christian culture influence early generations of African Americans?
➠ About a quarter of enslaved Africans directly transported to what became the United States hailed from West Central Africa. Many West Central Africans were Christians before they arrived in the Americas.
➠ In Kongo, the practice of naming children after saints or according to the day of the week on which they were born (“day names”) was common before the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. As a result, Christian names among early African Americans (in Iberian and English versions, such as Juan, João, and John) also have African origins and exemplify ways that ideas and practices endured across the Atlantic.
1.9 Vocabulary People
Kingdom of the Kongo
Roman Catholicism
Kongo’s converts to Christianity
Kongo’s increased wealth
African Catholicism
Portugal demands enslaved
Kongo unable to limit slave trade
Kongo/Cent. W. Afr: largest source of enslaved people
West African Christians before America
African origins of naming children after saints
Nzinga Mbemba (Afonso I)
Required Source to Recall
Letter: “Excerpt of letter from Nzinga Mbemba to Portuguese King João III,”1526
Topic 1.10: Kinship and Political Leadership
🔑 Key Question: What was the function of kinship and what varied roles did women play in early West and Central African societies?
➠ Many early West and Central African societies were comprised of family groups held together by extended kinship ties (social norms relating to relatives. The rights and obligations you have with and towards your blood relatives), and kinship often formed the basis for political alliances.
➠ Women played many roles in West and Central African societies, including spiritual leaders, political advisors, market traders, educators, and agriculturalists.
🔑 Key Question: Compare the political and military leadership of Queen Idia of Benin and Queen Njinga of Ndongo-Matamba.
➠ In the late 15th century, Queen Mother Idia became the first iyoba (queen mother) in the Kingdom of Benin (present-day Nigeria). She served as a political advisor to her son, the king
➠ In the early 17th century, when people from Ndongo became the first large group of enslaved Africans to arrive in the American colonies, Queen Njinga became queen of Ndongo-Matamba (present-day Angola).
➠ Both Queen Idia and Queen Njinga led armies into battle. Queen Idia relied on spiritual power and medicinal knowledge to bring victories to Benin.
➠ Queen Njinga engaged in 30 years of guerilla warfare against the Portuguese to maintain sovereignty and control of her kingdom. She participated in the slave trade to amass wealth and political influence and also expanded Matamba’s military by offering sanctuary for those who escaped Portuguese enslavement and joined her forces.
🔑 Key Question: What is the legacy of Queen Idia of Benin and Queen Njinga of Ndongo-Matamba’s leadership?
➠ Queen Idia became an iconic symbol of Black women’s leadership throughout the diaspora in 1977 when an ivory mask of her face was adopted as the symbol for FESTAC (Second Festival of Black Arts and Culture).
➠ Queen Njinga’s reign solidified her legacy as a skilled political and military leader throughout the African diaspora. The strength of her example led to nearly 100 more years of women rulers in Matamba.
1.10 Vocabulary People
extended kinship ties
kinship and political alliances
women's roles in West Africa
Kingdom of Benin
Ndongo-Matamba
led armies into battle
ivory mask of Queen Idia
FESTAC
female rulers of Matamba
Queen Mother Idia
Queen Njinga
Topic 1.11: Global Africans
🔑 Key Question: Before the onset of the transatlantic slave trade Why did Africans go to Europe? Why did Europeans go to Africa?
➠ In the late 15th century, trade between West African kingdoms and Portugal for gold, goods, and enslaved people grew steadily, bypassing the trans-Saharan trade routes. African kingdoms increased their wealth and power through slave trading, which was a common feature of hierarchical West African societies.
➠ Portuguese and West African trade increased the presence of Europeans in West Africa an the population of sub-Saharan Africans in Iberian port cities like Lisbon and Seville.
➠ African elites, including ambassadors and the children of rulers, traveled to Mediterranean port cities for diplomatic, educational, and religious reasons. In these cities, free and enslaved Africans also served in roles ranging from domestic labor to boatmen, guards, entertainers, vendors, and honored knights.
🔑 Key Question: Explain how early forms of enslaved labor by the Portuguese shaped slave-based economies in the Americas.
➠ In the mid-15th century, the Portuguese colonized the Atlantic islands of Cabo Verde and São Tomé, where they established cotton, indigo, and sugar plantations using the labor of enslaved Africans.
➠By 1500, about 50,000 enslaved Africans had been removed from the continent to work on Portuguese-colonized Atlantic islands (ie: São Tomé) and in Europe. These plantations became a model for slave-based economies in the Americas.
Chafariz d'El-Rey (The King’s Fountain): 16th century oil painting showing the great diversity of Portugal's capital of Lisbon. On the left, an African man is being carried away against his own will, on the right an African knight rides with prestige
Context:The Civil War had been fought and won. Nearly 620,000 were dead, 180,000 Black men served in the U.S. Army. Thousands of Black women served the Union cause as laundry washerwomen or nurses aides. 4 million newly liberated African Americans wondered what was next. Frederick Douglass said that the abolition of slavery wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning.
➠ Reconstruction: the rebuilding of Southern society after the war, centered around replacing a society built completely on slavery, with the attempt to introduce 4 million Black “new citizens” into Southern society.
The work actually began during the war as Northern armies took control of Southern land
At Davis Bend in Mississippi, General Grant secured the area, divided up white land and granted it to freedmen (liberated former slaves). Freedman elected their own judges and sheriffs