LibGuides: Black History Month: Early African History

Religion

Indigenous Religion
From Encyclopedia of African History
By the end of the colonial period, half of Africans remained practitioners of their indigenous religions.
Islam: Topic
Major world religion founded by Muhammad in Arabia in the early 7th century AD.
Christianity: Topic
Religion founded in Palestine by the followers of Jesus.
Precolonial Christian Missionaries
From Encyclopedia of African History
Christianity flourished in Africa before it made its way to western and northern Europe.
Vodou: Topic
Native W African religious beliefs and practices that also has adherents in the New World.

Trade and Technology

Saharan and Trans-Saharan Trade
From Encyclopedia of World Trade From Ancient Times to the Present
Trade both within and across the Sahara has existed since prehistoric times, when the Sahara was considerably less dry, to the present.
Gold Production and Trade in West Africa

In Encyclopedia of African History
Gold was an important staple in the trans-Saharan trade. The lure of gold spurred the Portuguese exploration down the African coast.

People

Sundiata
In An African Biographical Dictionary
Mansa Sundiata Keita, son of a family that had ruled Kangaba for about two centuries, became king when that small state was tributary to Susu, the regional power. His name means “the lion king.”
Mansa Musa
From An African Biographical Dictionary
King of the Mali empire during a united and prosperous period, is known primarily (and perhaps unfairly) for his lavish and ostentatious pilgrimage to Mecca.
Osei Tutu
From An African Biographical Dictionary
Osei Tutu, asantehene (king) of Asante from 1680, established the traditions of the Asante nation and founded the Asante Union.
Uthman dan Fodio (1754-1817)
From Encyclopedia of African History
Uthman dan Fodio (also known as Shehu Usman/Usumanu Dan Fodiyo, Shehu Usman, or Shehu) was a preacher, scholar, and statesman of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, known among the Fulbe as Usman bii Foduye. He established the Sokoto empire and become the first sarkin musulmi (amiral-mu'minin, “commander of the faithful”) in Hausaland.
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
From Encyclopedia of African History
One of the outstanding figures of medieval Muslim culture, ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Muhammad Ibn Khaldun was an incisive witness to the political fragmentation and warfare that followed the late-thirteenth-century collapse of the Almohad Empire in North Africa.
Chief Shaka
From An African Biographical Dictionary
Chief Shaka forged a new nation out of an assortment of Nguni clans and made this Zulu people one of the greatest powers of Africa in his time.
Muhammad Ali
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
1769?–1849, pasha of Egypt after 1805. Credited for his many domestic reforms, which hastened the foundations for an independent Egypt.
Lalibela and Ethiopian Christianity
In Encyclopedia of African History
King Lalibela (ruled c. 1200-1250) was the most famous king of the short-lived Zagwe dynasty (dynasty of the Agaw) that came after the demise of the Aksum kingdom.
Prester John
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide
Legendary Christian prince. From the 14th to the 16th century, he was generally believed to be the king of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in northeast Africa.

Empires and Kingdoms

African Kingdoms and Empires
In Encyclopedia of Empire
While Western scholars have often dismissed African political history as inconsequential, the range of scale and complexity of African state formations is actually quite varied.
Asante Kingdom
From Encyclopedia of African History
Osei Tutu, ruler of Asante from 1701 to 1717, stands out as one of the most important figures in Asante history. He finalized the long task of nation building initiated by Twum and Antwi, the first two Asante rulers.
Dahomey
From Encyclopedia of African History
The kingdom was an absolute monarchy, quite unlike the surrounding traditional kingdoms.
Empire of Ghana
From Encyclopedia of African History
The ancient kingdom of Ghana was founded in the western part of the savanna region of West Africa.
Empire of Mali
From Encyclopedia of African History
One of the great empires of the Middle Ages.
Empire of Songhay
From Encyclopedia of African History
The largest of the three great West African empires of the later Iron Age, [the Songhay Empire] flourished between the mid-fifteenth and late sixteenth centuries, but the foundations were laid some hundreds of years earlier. Today, the Songhay are the dominant ethnic group in the vicinity of Gao and their fortunes are intimately associated with the River Niger, especially in the area known as the Niger Bend, encompassing eastern Mali and northwestern Niger.
Fulbe (Fulani) Empire
From Encyclopedia of African History
The Fulbe are one of the most widespread ethnic groups in West Africa and have played a prominent role in West African history.
Great Zimbabwe
In Encyclopedia of African History
Great Zimbabwe is the name given to the largest site of ruins in Africa, covering a span of approximately 1800 acres.
The Mossi Empire
From Encyclopedia of Empire
The Mossi became a West African power that sought to control the economically rich Niger bend when seven states emerged as Malian power declined in the 15th century.
Oyo Empire
From Encyclopedia of African History
By 1400, Oyo, which was farther to the north at the margins of the forest and savanna, became the dominant commercial and political city of the Yoruba.
Timbuktu
The origins of Timbuktu are obscure. According to local tradition and an indigenous chronicle written in the seventeenth century, the Tarikh es Soudan, the city was founded in approximately 1100 as a seasonal nomad camp.
Tukolor Empire
From Encyclopedia of African History
The Tukulor empire of Al Hajj Umar (c. 1796-1864) was formed in western Africa in the middle of the nineteenth century, against the background of major jihads (holy wars) and the beginning of colonial penetration.

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