African
Civilizations

Egyptian hieroglyphs trace back to the First Dynasty of Egypt in the lower Nile region of northeast Africa. The First Dynasty of Egypt was established before 3000 BC and what we know as the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed c. 2550 BC. Papyrus, the writing media, was in use by 3000 BC in Egypt. 

By 3500 BC, the Kerma civilization was evident in Nubia (upper Nile) and lasted  almost 2,000 years before Egyptian assimilation. The Kermas were influential in the development of latter Egyptian dynasties. By 1500 BC, the Nok culture is prominent in west Africa (Nigeria).

With the Third Punic War, Carthage (Tunisia) is defeated by the Roman Empire in 146 BC thus ending 118 years of conflict which had included Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps to successfully attack Rome during the Second Punic War).

Further east on the African continent in the Great Rift Valley, the Bantu civilization was enhancing the forging of iron to create carbon steel by 100 BC.

AD or CE (common era)

The Kingdom of Aksum comes to prominence in northeast Africa (Ethiopia) by 100 and lasts 800 years and dominated the trade routes across Arabia and into Africa and rivaled the civilizations of its time. To the south of the Aksum, the Azania civilization prospers with industry and trade with the Europeans by 300.

By 1497, Vasco da Gama sailing for Portugal is the first European to sail around the Cape of Good Hope (southern tip of Africa) and reach India. While this route was much longer, it was deemed considerably safer than voyaging across the Mediterranean and traveling the Arabian routes.

In 1701, the Ashanti Empire (Ghana) under Osei Kofi Tutu I begins two hundred years of prominence in western sub-Saharan Africa.

From 1779-1879, the Xhosa Wars, a series of nine conflicts, pit the African native Bantu groups of south Africa against the colonialism of the British Empire in what would become the Cape of South Africa. Following early settlements fostered by the Dutch East India Company as resupply points for their Far East trade, the settlers began expanding their colonies into tribal-occupied regions. These colonists, the Boers, pushed east and over the next century conflicts continued as each side tried to expand or reclaim territories. By the Fourth War, circa 1812, the British were the colonial power over the Boer territory and pressed for dominance in the Cape. The British used various tactics against the Xhosa alliances and used the press (news) back in England and the Cape to stereotype the Xhosa Kingdom as savages and barbarians when the Bantus were actually civilized but with a different culture and economy than the colonialists. Several times treaties were followed by violations on both sides; eventually the British sought to subject the Blacks by disarming them and then forcing submission. In the later years (1870s) the natives moved to guerrilla tactics which were initially successful until the Brits redistricted into military provinces which provided a stronger position for England. The Xhosa territories were annexed under British control and this strategy became a standard of the Europeans against the tribal kingdoms of Africa.

In 1796, the British replace Dutch rule in South Africa and Ceylon. In 1799 the Dutch East India Company ceases to exist and dissolved as a single unit January 1, 1800. Cape Colony becomes part of the British Empire in 1806.

During the Napoleonic campaigns in Egypt, the Rosetta Stone is found 1799. This is a decree issued issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic Dynasty and is recorded in three versions of ancient languages: hieroglyphics, Demotic script and Ancient Greek. This provides a key for translations of early scripts.

The First Barbary War, 1801, between the United States and the Barbary States of North Africa occurs when the U.S. disputes tribute that the Ottoman Empire in Tripoli exacted for using their waters off the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. What was a tax-raising means for the Ottomans was considered piracy by others. One estimate was the over a million Europeans transiting the region were captured and sold as slaves by the Barbary pirates in the preceding three centuries. The Barbary states insisted on hundreds of thousands of dollars for transit rights. In the late 1700s, the U.S. paid various tributes to the royals for passage and release of captives but as the U.S. grew, pressure mounted to resist paying the tribute. By the time the Pasha declared war against the U.S. ordering the cutting down of the flagpole in front of the U.S. Consulate in Tripoli, the U.S. Navy with support of Italy through use of its ports, had increased its fleet in the region and began a series of battles into 1805 ending with the Battle of Derna in which U.S. Marines and a group of mercenaries seized the Tripolitan city. While a treaty conference and settlement ended the conflict, the piracy resumed when the U.S. engaged in the War of 1812 with England.

In part through the leadership of William Wilberforce, in 1807 slave trade (also known as Transatlantic slave trade) was made a criminal act in both Britain and United States. European slave ships had engaged in coastal slave trade between Africa and the Americas beginning in the 1400s and continuing into the 1800s. African slaves were captured by Portuguese or other European slave traders, bought from local Africans who enslaved other tribes or through raiding to fill the quotas. Seldom did the Europeans venture too far inland from the coast as malaria was endemic in the African interior and Europeans usually died within a year from the ravages upon their bodies. Slaves became one leg of the triangle trade: plantation cargo from the Americas to Europe, manufactured goods from Europe to African colonies and slaves to the Americas. While the earliest African slaves were treated as indentured servants with contract rights, by the mid-1600s they were property. Estimates of 12,000,000 reaching the Americas does not include the additional 15% that died in the process. Wilberforce pressed the Abolition movement in the British Parliament until the Slave Trade Act became law. His movement continued with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 which ended slavery in the Empire (he died three days after success). While trade was blocked, it took generations before slavery itself was legally ended.

The American Colonization Society founded Liberia (Africa) in 1820 for the purpose of providing homeland for free people of color from the United States. Most of the colonists were freed slaves with additions being freeborn or emancipated. During the first 23 years, the mortality rate of those returning was just over 60%. While the Society sought to have the U.S. government accept Liberia as a colony, the U.S. was not motivated in that and Liberia eventually became an independent nation in 1847.

On the northeast corner of Africa, the Suez Canal was constructed in the decade following 1859. This provided direct shipping from the Mediterranean basin into the Red Sea and then into the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean such that ships no longer had to sail around the southern tip of Africa.

In the same region, the Anglo-Egyptian War was fought in 1882. This was Britain’s recourse to uprisings within Egypt which Britain felt threatened their claims to the Suez Canal and dominance in northeast Africa. Following a series of battles against the uprising, Britain quelled the disturbance and occupied Egypt into the first quarter of the next century.