What is African and African diaspora studies?
African studies looks at the history, cultures and ideas of Africa and of the African diaspora: people of African descent living around the world. It uses many kinds of sources: archaeology, oral traditions, written chronicles, art, music and language.
Africans travelled widely long before 1500: scholars in Cairo and Mecca, sailors in the Indian Ocean, soldiers and rulers in India (such as Malik Ambar in the Deccan) and in Europe. Later, the Atlantic slave trade forcibly moved millions, creating new communities in the Americas.
A varied continent: land, people and languages
Africa covers about 30 million km², more than India, China, the USA and Europe together. Its main belts are the Sahara desert, the dry Sahel, grassy savannas and the central rainforest. Great rivers (Nile, Niger, Congo, Zambezi) made farming and trade possible.
Africa has the greatest genetic and language diversity of any continent: four big language families and over 2000 languages. Around 3000 years ago farming peoples speaking Bantu languages began spreading south and east, carrying iron working and farming.
Ancient societies: Kemet, Kush, Aksum and Nok
- Kemet (Ancient Egypt, from c. 3100 BCE): pharaohs, pyramids, hieroglyphic writing, Nile flood farming.
- Kush (Nubia, c. 1070 BCE–350 CE): once ruled Egypt; Meroë was a big iron-working city with its own script.
- Aksum (Ethiopia/Eritrea, c. 100–940 CE): a trading power on the Red Sea, minted coins, adopted Christianity in the 4th century, built tall stone stelae.
- Nok (West Africa, c. 1000 BCE–300 CE): early iron smelting and famous terracotta heads.
The Sudanic empires: Ghana, Mali and Songhai
In the Sahel, three empires grew rich by controlling trans-Saharan trade: gold from the south was exchanged for salt from the desert.
- Ghana (c. 300–1100): taxed gold and salt passing through.
- Mali (c. 1235–1600): founded by Sundiata Keita; Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 spent so much gold it changed prices in Cairo.
- Songhai (c. 1460–1591): the largest; Askia Muhammad organised government and learning.
Learning traditions: Timbuktu and Djenné had mosques, universities and thousands of manuscripts on law, astronomy and medicine. Griots kept history alive through oral storytelling and music, such as the epic of Sundiata.
East and southern Africa: Swahili coast and Great Zimbabwe
Swahili city-states such as Kilwa, Mombasa and Zanzibar (c. 1000–1500) traded ivory, gold and iron for cloth, beads and porcelain from India, Arabia and China, sailing with the monsoon winds. Swahili culture mixed African, Arab and Persian ideas.
Great Zimbabwe (c. 1100–1450) was a stone city whose huge curved walls were built without mortar. It controlled gold trade to the coast.
Kongo, kinship and beliefs
The Kingdom of Kongo (from c. 1390) was ruled by the ManiKongo from Mbanza Kongo, with provinces paying tribute in cloth and shells. King Afonso I adopted Christianity in the early 1500s and wrote letters to Portugal protesting the slave trade.
Kinship: many societies were organised by lineages and clans; some traced descent through the mother (matrilineal). Leaders ruled with councils of elders, and queen mothers often held real power.
Beliefs: many African cosmologies taught a creator god, spirits and respect for ancestors. When Islam and Christianity arrived, people often blended them with older beliefs: this is religious syncretism.
Try it: build a timeline
Draw a line from 3000 BCE to 1600 CE (1 cm = 200 years). Mark each society with its start and end. Which ones overlapped? Check with the year slider in the 3D.
Key formulas and definitions
- Trans-Saharan trade: gold north ↔ salt south
- Monsoon winds: to India in summer, back to Africa in winter
- Sudanic empires in order: Ghana → Mali → Songhai
- Diaspora = people of a homeland living around the world
- Syncretism = blending different beliefs
- Matrilineal = family line traced through the mother
Worked examples
1. Why was salt so valuable in the Sahel?
People in hot lands lose salt through sweat and need it to preserve food. The south had gold but little salt, while the desert had salt mines, so salt could be worth its weight in gold.
2. Put in order: Songhai, Kemet, Mali, Aksum.
Kemet (from 3100 BCE) → Aksum (from 100 CE) → Mali (from 1235) → Songhai (from 1460).
3. How do historians know about Mali if many people did not write?
From Arabic travellers' writings (such as Ibn Battuta), Timbuktu manuscripts, archaeology and griots' oral histories like the Sundiata epic.
Common mistakes
- Thinking Africa has no history before Europeans arrived. It had great kingdoms, cities and libraries for thousands of years.
- Treating Africa as one country with one language. It has over 50 nations and over 2000 languages.
- Thinking oral history is not real history. Griots carefully passed down events over many generations.
- Mixing up the old Ghana Empire with modern Ghana. The empire was further north-west, in today's Mauritania and Mali area.