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UNITS OF
ANALYSIS
Social Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
Nationality
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
Class
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
Race
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
Hardly a day passes without some mention of Africa in the newspapers, radio, and
television. But such discussion of Africa - especially about the struggle for independence,
liberation, and revolution - has not always been the case. Prior to the liberation struggles 31
of the late 1950s, the most widely presented image of Africa in the mass media and in the
textbooks was that seen in Tarzan movies - "primitive" and "savage" people who ate nice
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white missionaries (and each other) but who were so inferior that they could always be
beaten single-handedly by Tarzan. Of course this view was symbolic of the colonial
domination of Africa. Many Black people in the United States accepted this myth of
Africa's inferiority and refused to identify with the continent of their ancestors.
Today, however, this has changed considerably. The upsurge of Africans for liberation
was linked to the struggle of Black people for freedom in the United States during the
1960s and 1970s. Most Black people today accept the rich heritage of their ancestral
continent - a heritage of culture and struggle. The task today, however, is to approach the
study of Africa scientifically and not fall victim to an analysis which replaces the old set of
myths and distortions with a new set. This chapter will present some basic issues
regarding the African heritage of Afro-American people.
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1750
1850
1900
Africa
100
100
100
120
Europe
103
144
274
423
Asia
257
437
656
857
That the continent of Africa is not a single unit but is a continent of great cultural
diversity is indicated by the fact that there are approximately 1,000 separate and distinct
African languages. The fact that European languages such as English, French, and
Portuguese are spoken widely in Africa and are often "official" national languages sharply
illustrates the impact of European colonialism on the continent.
We will look at pre-colonial Africa using six categories that you will notice are the
themes of some of the following chapters: production, politics, religion, education, women
and the family, and culture.
Production
Agriculture was the basis of life in Africa and therefore had a determining influence on
all aspects of society. Agricultural work was a communal or collective undertaking in
which every adult was expected to contribute to and share the products on an equitable
basis. Production, though done collectively, was still on a lower level technologically
because there were no modern agricultural tools or machines (e.g., tractors).
Manufacturing did not develop as rapidly as in Europe and other places. Products
consisted of housing, cloth, pottery, jewelry, art, weapons, and agricultural tools.
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There was trade but it was a secondary source of material goods. Markets existed
where traders came and brought firearms, gunpowder, hats, beads, and dried fish in
exchange for perfume, salt, and slaves. Cattle sometimes was used instead of money,
which was not used widely because most of what was needed was self-produced and not
purchased.
Recently, the African past has often been glorified to the extent of making slavery and
the slave trade purely a consequence of Europeans in Africa. This substitutes myth for
fact. Africans did have slaves. For example, the pyramids of Egypt were built with slave
labor. Slavery in Africa, however, was different from slavery in the West Indies and in the
United States. In Africa, a slave was treated as a human being. It was when slavery
become a tool of capitalism in which goods are produced primarily for sale on the market,
and not just for personal use, that slavery assumed the brutal and inhumane character as
in the United States.
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35
Politics
Because the politics of a society is based on its economic development, political
organization throughout Africa took on many different forms. Large kingdoms arose only
where there was a big enough economy so that a great deal of wealth could be
accumulated. There were several large and significant centralized governments in Africa
like those of Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. The governments of these
kingdoms were used to collect taxes and mobilize armies. They were also important in
increasing the capacity to produce food, clothing, and shelter, and in stimulating
manufacture and trade.
In general, however, the real power often rested with elders or chiefs of each local
village, and not with the king. In addition, the family or kinship group was usually the
basis of government or political authority. Governments or states were not as necessary
in early Africa. In those societies, the exploitation of one group of people by another had
not developed to a significant extent, and political power was not needed to rule over the
exploited.
Religion
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African religion was a complex and all-encompassing social institution that involved
philosophical views, belief in the super- natural, and rituals' It was a pervasive aspect of
life. Religion played both a positive and a negative role in African society. On the one
hand, it was an integral part of the social life of the people and facilitated the cooperation
and discipline needed to aid the group's survival. On the other hand, it often exercised a
conservative influence on social development since it changed slowly, if at all.
According to Walter Rodney, religion slowed down the development of Africans' capacity
to produce food, nothing, and shelter: "Belief in prayer and in the intervention of
ancestors and various Gods could easily be a substitute for innovations designed to
control the impact of weather and environment" Rodney is referring to the religious
practice called ancestor-worship, a belief that the spirits of dead relatives are always
around to protect and provide. Food and drink were always put on the ground for these
spirits before it was consumed. As in other societies, this belief in some otherworldly or
supernatural force with power over weather, life and death, health, and everything else
reflects a pre- scientific understanding of nature and society.
Education
Education reflected the needs of African society. The process of education took place
with groups of young people under the supervision of an older person. Boys and girls
were taught separately those practices and customs important for their assuming the
sex-role responsibilities of adults. The high point of the educational process was their
initiation into adulthood, or the "rites of passages." Thus, the main aspect of this
educational process is that it was based on the accumulated practical experience of the
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people. It was passed from generation to generation by the oral tradition and
apprenticeship relationships. There were also formal, institutions of education. The
University of Sankore at Timbuktu and others were renowned intellectual centers to which
scholars from other parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe came for study. These universities
reflected the advanced development of a political state with the power to mobilize surplus
wealth for education.
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How were the slaves secured? Outright kidnapping of slaves by Europeans and African
traders occurred at the beginning of the slave trade and lasted throughout its 450 year
history. But very early after the first raids, the slave enterprise became more of a trade
than a raid. That is, Africans, especially chiefs, cooperated with Europeans in securing
other Africans to be taken away as slaves. The key to understanding this is as Walter
Rodney states: the Africans who sold other Africans were a privileged class who "joined
hands with the Europeans in exploiting the African masses." Thus, the slave trade
furthered the development of classes in Africa by enabling a small elite group of Africans
to accumulate wealth, luxury, and power (including firearms) at the expense of, the
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masses of African peoples. European countries even established trading forts on the
West Coast of Africa where slaves could be brought from the interior and stored until
slave ships arrived to make their purchases.
The prices paid for slaves reflected the different modes of production in Africa and in
Europe. This is important to keep in mind when we read that slaves were often
purchased for a few bars of iron or a few yards of brightly colored cloth. In 1695, for
example, a healthy African could be purchased for eight guns or 600 pounds of iron. This
may seem cheap but not when we consider that in Africa such large quantities of iron
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could not be produced without considerable time and expense and the guns could not be
manufactured at all. Thus, the price that was obtained for slaves was really a reflection of
how long it took Africans to produce the goods that were traded for slaves and not how
much it cost to manufacture them in Europe.
We must also note the impact of firearms on Africa. If one state obtained firearms in
exchange for slaves, it was stronger than its neighbor. A neighboring state was often
forced into slave trading in order to secure guns to protect itself. Thus, it is correct to
assess the full impact of the European penetration into Africa by including these patterns
of violence and disruption introduced by the slave trade. Economic development usually
demands peaceful conditions. The slave trade stimulated social violence and increased
fear and distrust among people, all of which had a negative impact on economic
development in Africa.
Who were the major slave trading countries? England carried 44.6% of all slaves as
compared to 29% carried by Portugal and 16% carried by France. The United States
carried 5% of the total while Holland carried 3.4% and Denmark carried 1.7%. Thus the
capitalist countries of Europe were the principal slave traders. This is an important fact
that will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. In East Africa, Arab traders
carried out a slave trade secondary in importance to the European trade.
Where were Africans taken as slaves? Phillip Curtin in The Atlantic Slave Trade: A
Census calculated that between 1701 and 1807, 42% of all the slaves exported from
Africa went to the Caribbean Islands and 49% went to South America. The most
significant finding is that less than 5% of the total exports came to the United States. The
bulk of these 430,000 slaves came between 1730 and 1770 - before most settlers from
Europe.
The slave trade was abandoned because it no longer suited the capitalists' needs.
This was why Europe's relationship to Africa shifted from slave trading to colonialism.
Kwame Nkrumah put it correctly: "Colonialism is, therefore, the policy by which the
'mother country,' the colonial power, binds her colonies to herself by political ties with the
primary object of promoting her own economic advantages." He went on to point out:
Such a system depends on the opportunities offered by the natural resources of the
colonies and the uses for them suggested by the dominant economic objectives of
the colonial power. Under the influence of national aggressive self-consciousness
and the belief that in trade and commerce one nation should gain at the expense of
the other, and the further belief that exports must exceed imports in value, each
colonial power pursues a policy of strict monopoly of colonial trade, and the building
up of national power.
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The French Premier Jules Ferry, in a speech to the Chamber of Deputies in 1885,
clearly articulated the main reasons Europe acquired its colonies: "The nations of Europe
desire colonies for the following three purposes: (i) in order that they may have access to
the raw materials of the colonies; (ii) in order to have markets for sale of the
manufactured goods of the home country; and (iii) as a field for the investment of surplus
capital." Many years later, Nkrumah, whose country underwent colonialism, spelled out
the colonial policies the Europeans used to ensure their success in achieving these
goals: "(i) to make the colonies non-manufacturing dependencies; (ii) to prevent the
colonial subjects from acquiring the knowledge of modern means and- techniques for
developing their own industries; (iii) to make colonial 'subjects' simple producers of raw
materials through cheap labor; (iv) to prohibit the colonies from trading with other nations
except through the 'mother country."'
Colonialism was but a form of imperialism. "Imperialism," as Ralph Bunche succinctly 44
puts it, "is an international expression of capitalism:' Briefly, imperialism. is a stage of
capitalism in which a few capitalists own or monopolize the wealth (factories, banks,
land, and the like) in a country, and because they have exhausted all of the most
profitable investments at home, these monopolists can only expand their profits by
turning to, the rich raw materials, land, and people of other parts of the world. The main
reason for this is that advanced capitalist countries, because of the constant struggle for
profits, cannot continue to develop based on their own resources. Hence, these countries
are forced into a new kind of struggle with each other in which they annex overseas
territory as part of their "empire."
The impact of imperialism and colonialism on colonized people was very destructive.
Economically, the people were forced, often at gunpoint, to work in imperialist-owned
mines, plantations, and factories for starvation wages. Politically, imperialist nations
arbitrarily drew political boundaries and instituted a system of political rule using their own
administrators or indigenous puppets to guarantee that power remained in the hands of
the "mother country." Socially, the cultural and social life of the indigenous people was
suppressed. Missionaries and educators played key roles in consolidating imperialist
colonial domination. As Nkrumah has written:
The
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One of the most significant tools of colonialism was racism. Colonialism usually
involved Europeans as the colonizers and people of color as the colonized. As a
rationalization for exploitation and oppression, the ideology of racism was developed
which branded the colonized people as racially inferior and subhuman, having no rights
that the colonizers had to respect. Their only right, in the eyes of the imperialists, was the
right to be exploited.
It is against this long history of exploitation and oppression by colonialism,
imperialism, and racism that we must understand the daily discussion in the U.S. mass
media regarding Africa. While it is not often presented to us as it really is, Amilcar Cabral,
an assassinated leader of the African revolution, points to the real story behind the
headlines we read about and hear: "The destruction of colonialism and the struggle
against imperialism constitutes one of the outstanding characteristics of our times." It is.
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this struggle against an international system of imperialism and such evils as colonialism
and racism that are caused by it that, says Cabral, links the struggle of African peoples to
the struggle of freedom-loving and justice-loving people all over the world. It is partly
because of their rich heritage of culture and struggle that Afro-American people are
profoundly -interested in, influenced by, and indeed, form an integral part of this same
struggle now being valiantly fought in Africa.
KEY CONCEPTS
African Heritage
Colonialism
Cultures
Geography
Imperialism
Liberation struggles
Population/Depopulation
Slave Trade
Slavery
Wealth
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Compare the various features of the African continent to Europe, to the U.S.A., and to
the Soviet Union.
a. land
b. population and peoples
c. natural resources
d. industrial production e. cultural diversity
2. Discuss life in pre-colonial Africa using six key aspects of social life in all societies:
production (food, clothing, shelter), politics, religion, education, women and family
relations, and culture.
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SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS
1. Abdul Rahman M. Babu, African Socialism or a Socialist Africa? London: Zed Press,
1981.
2. George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and
South African History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
3. Henry F. Jackson, From the Congo to Soweto: US. Foreign . Policy toward Africa
since 1960. New York: Quill, 1984.
4. Bernard M. Magubane, The Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa. New
York:- Monthly Review Press, 1979.
5. A. Temu and B. Swai, Historians and Africanist History. A Critique. London: Zed Press,
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1981.
Contents
Next Chapter
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