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Bamana Peoples History: Origins and Growth of a Bamana Kingdom

By Historian January 2, 2024

Bamana Peoples History

It was the 12th century when the Bamana peoples first lived in the middle Niger area of West Africa. By the 13th century, they were part of the Mali Empire. When Mali fell, the Bamana chiefdoms got their independence back, and they mostly kept it even when the Songhay kingdom grew to the northeast.

After Morocco invaded Songhay in the 1600s, the Bamana Peoples went on a raid on the city of Jenne in the Middle Niger Delta. According to local legend, the Bamana may have established a short-lived chiefdom in the Segu region around the middle of the seventeenth century under the leadership of KalaJan Kulubali, a descendant of Barama Ngolo. However, royalty (mansaya) didn’t start to appear at Segu until around 1712, when Mamari Kulubali built his power by reorganizing a men’s group called the ton and making it the most powerful group in society.

Mamari was made head of the ton and given the name Biton. From that position of power, he defeated rival groups and started building Bamana Segu into a major state that covered the Middle Niger Delta and controlled major trade routes and business hubs. Mali’s Segu city is on the south shore of the Niger River. It was once made up of four villages: Sekoro (Old Segu), Sebugu (Segu Hamlet), Sekura (New Segu), and Segu-Sikoro (Segu under the Si Trees).
In the area, there were nine other towns that were important to the bigger Bamana state.

Maraka traders ran the commercial hubs in these towns. The faama managed the four great boliws of Segu, which were powerful altars for sacrifices where the spiritual force needed for politics and the law lived. They were kept at the administrative center.

The Bamana kings of Segu used force to take and keep power. They were called faama, a military title, instead of mansa, a more polite word for “ruler,” “king,” “chief,” or “Lord.” After the Kulubali dynasty fell, the Jara dynasty rose to power, making the years between about 1757 and 1766 one of the most exciting in Segu history.

After Biton Kulubali (d. 1755), he had two sons: Cekoro was a leper whose cruel rule from about 1755 to 1757 led to his death by his members, who were called tonjonw. Bakari was king for a short time in 1757, but because he was a Muslim, getting along with the non-Muslim tonjonw was hard for him, and he couldn’t run the country well.

The tonjonw killed Bakari Kulubali and the rest of Biton’s family because they thought Biton’s way of running things was wrong and wanted to go back to the formerly fair system of the ton. Then Ton Mansa Dembele was chosen as the first of several former slaves to rule at Segu. However, he refused to move to Segu and instead chose to live in Ngoin, which is about 7 kilometers away.

Ton Mansa’s plans to build a waterway to bring water from the Niger to Ngoin made other Ton members worry about the rise of a new power center. One source claims that Ton Mansa died as a result of an infection, while another claims that one of his own men may have shot the arrow that struck him in the ear. The next slave chief to be chosen was Fula Kanubanyuma Bari, who lived from about 1760 to 1773.

People say that he spent a lot of time raiding his predecessor’s land for slaves. Bamana Tonjonw didn’t trust him because they thought that, as leader, he would give the Fula too much power in the ton. It’s not clear how Kanubanyuma died, but his chief foe, Kafajugu, may have helped him. Kafajugu became the third slave chief to be faama of Segu (around 1763–1766).
There is still debate about whether Kafajugu died of old age or was killed by another Ton chief. He was in power for two or three years.

After that, there was a time of doubt when no one dared to take charge. The older members were being cautious, and the younger ones weren’t sure if they had the support they needed. Biton used to own Ngolo Jara as a slave, but he was only one of many ton chiefs.

It looks like Ngolo didn’t think that if he became faama, his life would be any different from those of the faama who came before him unless he did something to stop his foes and enemies. Different sources have different stories about how Ngolo tricked his rivals and made them swear allegiance to him and his descendants.

However, the events that happened between Biton’s death and Ngolo’s rise to power made Segu famous for being a place full of betrayal and suspicion.

Bamana Peoples Bamana Peoples Bamana Peoples

Ngolo Jara set up a family line called the Ngolosi (Ngol’s descendants) that would rule Segu for almost one hundred years. During his 25-year rule, Ngolo successfully reestablished Bamanafanga, or the king’s power. He also reorganized the army and the political system by putting one of his sons in charge of each of the five central districts. He also protected important commercial towns and used force to expand the Segu state.

All of the people who spoke about Ngolo agree that he died while leading his army into Mossi territory, which must have been before 1790. Even though Ngolo wanted his son Monzon to take over as king, three of his other boys wanted to share the power.

This caused a civil war, and one of the brothers joined forces with the nearby state of Kaarta in Barnana. After a long battle against larger, stronger armies, Monzon took over Kaarta, beat his brothers, and regained control of Segu in 1794 and 1795.

In 1805, when the brave Scottish traveler Mungo Park went by Segu, it was Monzon Jara who sent him a message promising to keep him safe all the way to Timbuktu. When Monzon died in 1808, he gave his power to Faama Da, who is said to have been the “favorite son” of the locals.
According to some sources, Cefolo was the oldest son and would have been next in line.

However, Da was by far more skilled in military things, and both backed up his father’s exploits and led successful campaigns himself. The tonjonw wanted to choose the next king from the older Cefolo and a few of Monzon’s brothers, but Faama Da took over Segu and made its land holdings stronger. When Faama Da died in 1827, his brother Cefolo finally took over (1827–1839).

Back in 1839, when Nyènèmba took over as king after Cefolo, the Fula kingdom of Masina rose up against Segu rule in a big way. Bakari Jan Koné, regarded as one of Segu’s best heroes, tamed Masina. Nasir Nyènèmba was the first Ngolosi king of Segu. Following him were Kirango Ben (1841–1849), Naluma Kuma (1849–1851), Masala Demba (1851–1854), Torokoro Mari (1854–1859), and Ali Jara, who was in charge when Alhaj ‘Umar Tal’s Tukulor army occupied Segu in 1861.

Also Read: Songhay Empire: The Incredible History of the Askiya Dynasty

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Nigeria Culture: The Incredible History Between Christianity and Islam In Nigeria

By Historian December 30, 2023

Nigeria Culture and Religion

Nigeria Culture and religion: Before the British took over as a colony in Nigeria, there was Christianity and Islam. From across the Sahara, the Borno Empire brought Islam to northern Nigeria in the eleventh century. By the fourteenth century, Wangarawa traders from Mali had brought Islam to the Hausa states in the west.

As of the end of the 18th century, most of the Hausa states and the Kanem-Borno Empire were officially Islamic. But in the first ten years of the 1800s, the Sokoto jihad began, which was a new stage in the growth of Islam in northern Nigeria and parts of Yorubaland to the south.
In northern Nigeria, most towns had joined either the Sokoto caliphate or the sultanate of Borno by the end of that century.

These were the two main Muslim governments. The rest, the so-called pagan groups, had either bad relationships with or lived together with these states. As early as the 1600s, Christianity was brought to Warri and Benin in southern Nigeria. However, it did not take hold, and it was quickly replaced.

After the English evangelical renaissance and the fight against the slave trade in the late 1700s, Christian missions became interested in spreading the gospel in Africa again. All over southern Nigeria in the 1890s, Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Roman Catholics established missions. These included Badagry, Abeokuta, Ibadan, Onitsha, and Calabar.

It spread in many parts of southern Nigeria but not in northern Nigeria, which is mostly Muslim. In 1900, Britain said that it was in charge of Nigeria. At first, the British didn’t like the defeated Fulani emirs of the Sokoto empire; some of them had fought back militarily. This changed, though, when the British saw how important the frameworks of the Islamic polities were to their rule.

Because of this, the British became protective of Islam, especially when compared to Christianity. Together with the emirs, they fought a shared enemy: Mahdism, an Islamic form of millenarianism. However, Britain’s strategy of favoring Islam was only in Northern Nigeria. It didn’t go to Yorubaland because there wasn’t anything like the Sokoto kingdom there. When it became clear that the British did not want to destroy Islam, most Muslims joined them.

Even so, there were negative responses to the new order, including hijra (a planned departure from the land of the heathen), armed conflict, and Mahdist propaganda. In 1903, Hijra and military resistance were shown in Burma. In 1906, the Mahdist threat was shown in Satiru.
Even though the Muslim resistance was put down, the threat of Mahdism stayed strong for the rest of the colonial period.

This made the British and the native ruling classes work together more to protect each other. As a result, Islam spread incredibly quickly in northern Nigeria. While Nigeria was still a colony, peace was restored, and Muslim traders and scholars moved into areas of northern Nigeria that were not Muslim to sell their goods and share their faith.

Nigeria Culture Nigeria Culture Nigeria Culture

Non-Muslim societies that didn’t know how to read or write liked them because they were educated in Arabic and Hausa and were linked to economic growth. They soon became Muslims, in part so they could join a bigger trade network and share in its wealth.

Second, British officials made it very clear that Christian missions were not allowed to build churches or stations in the emirates. They kept their promise to respect the holiness of Islam, and this made it possible for Muslims to observe and spread their faith without any problems. The colonial strategy of putting non-Muslim communities under the emirates and putting Muslims in charge of their districts was much more important.

Over time, the Native Administration (NA) system and Muslim rule of trade put pressure on the emirs’ non-Muslim subjects to become Muslims. In this way, the faith spread peacefully to places where it could not have been forced in the past. By accident, colonial power had done for Islam what the jihad had not been able to do. That is, the share of Muslims in the total population rose from 50% in 1920 to 75% in 1952 in Bauchi state, from 74% in Borno to 83.5% in Borno, and from 43.5% in Llorin to 62.6% in Llorin.

Islam didn’t do as well in southern Nigeria. This was partly because there wasn’t any colonial protectionism and partly because Christian missions were free to work in the area. Still, the government understood why Muslims didn’t want to go to Western schools because they thought that missions were using this as an excuse to convert their children. Because of this, the government helped Muslims open their own schools so their children could get a Western education without having to become Christians.

It gave small funds and pushed Muslims to make lessons that combined Western and Islamic teaching. The Ahmadiyya Movement, the Ansarud-Deen Society, and the Anwar ul-Islam all pushed for Yoruba Muslims to get more Western-style schooling. This mix of Western and Islamic schooling worked well, and it helped Islam hold its ground in western Nigeria as Christianity spread.

The Muslim community grew religiously and intellectually thanks to the spread of Mahdist, Tijani, and Wahhabi literature, the building of Muslim printing presses, and more people going on the hajj, which introduced Muslims in Western Nigeria to the wider world of Islam. By 1900, Christianity had spread a lot through southern Nigeria.

By keeping the peace through colonial power, Christian missions were able to spread to places that were previously hostile. The Ijebu were defeated in 1892, which made it possible for the kingdom to be converted to Christianity. The missions were able to convert many people in many areas by providing modern health care and education based on Western ideas. They did this while flying the British flag.

Between 1859 and 1881, they were the first people to start secondary grammar schools. Later, they built more schools wherever they had a base. This was also a very important time for the growth of Christianity because the Bible was translated into many native languages. As a result of this time, “African churches” grew, especially among the Yoruba.

People from Africa who had been turned down for church jobs or who didn’t like the denationalizing ideas of European preachers (like those about marriage and joining secret or title societies) wanted to start churches that weren’t too Westernized.

Most of the big denominations split up, which led to the creation of different “African churches” that were different from the mission churches in terms of doctrine and worship. The “Aladura” churches in Yorubaland were important because they made Christianity more native by using African music and instruments in prayer, African chieftaincy titles to run the churches, and uniform dresses for everyone.

There has been debate about the role of Christianity in setting up colonial rule. Some people said that faith helped colonialism and got something good out of that. Even though the missions agreed with the British plan to colonize places like Abeokuta and Ijebu, their agreement or prompting did not change the British “forward policy,” which had its own dynamics.

In any case, Christianity was kept out of Muslim villages in northern Nigeria because Islam worked better for the colonial government there. Because of this, the missions backed the colonial government because it was in their own best interest, but they weren’t afraid to criticize the bad behavior of colonial officials when the time called for it.

During this time, Islam and Christianity spread in different parts of the country for different reasons. Both took advantage of the British people being there, even though they were actually working for the colonial government. By the end of the colonial era, they were Nigeria’s most important organized religious groups.

Also Read: Niger Delta: The Amazing History Of The Niger Delta

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Niger Delta: The Amazing History Of The Niger Delta

By Historian December 29, 2023

History Of The Niger Delta

Language studies, archaeological digs, and oral histories all add up to a lot of information about early Niger Delta history. This information lasts until the global slave trade started in the 1600s, when written records start to show up.

According to oral histories, the people of the Niger Delta lived off of the resources in the area until population growth drove them to move to other areas of the region. There were a lot of chances and resources for growth and trade in the delta’s different biological zones.

Most of the western and central deltas were made up of freshwater swamps. A lot of farming could be done along the sides of rivers that would flood during certain times of the year. People in the eastern delta mangroves, sea, and swamps lived off of fishing as their main source of income.

The first people who lived in the Niger Delta made some things out of iron and metal. They also made a lot of pottery for everyday use, for industry, for rituals, and for fun. They also made terracotta figurines, masks, and smoking pipes.

These actions already point to people living in the surrounding areas, from whom at least the metal would have had to be brought in. Along the mangrove belt, people lived off of fishing, hunting, and making salt, which they traded with people in the countryside. But people in the Niger Delta grew plantains, bananas, water yams, and cocoa yams to trade with goods from the rest of the country, mostly yams and animals.

Cassava goods, which were important foods in many parts of the Niger Delta, came from Brazil after the slave trade in the Atlantic in the 1600s. They were first brought to the western delta. At this time, tobacco also came into use, but smoking pipes found in the eastern delta show that people were smoking other things before tobacco.

People in the Niger Delta and the surrounding areas used big boats to trade with each other. Oral histories and the fact that the word for “canoe” in these languages is very old both support this. However, migration from the freshwater delta to the mangrove swamp regions of the eastern delta was a contributing factor in the trade itself.

These communities used to depend on farming and fishing, but now they depend on fishing and making salt. Eventually, they started trading food and animals with other ecological areas and the hinterland. Over time, these small fishing communities turned into market communities that built up systems for long-distance trade.

As new people joined because of the slave trade and the coming of Europeans, the societies grew bigger and more complicated. Also, the fact that a few leaders had a lot of money and power played a big role in the formation of the “city-states” of Nembe, Kalabari, Bonny, and Okrika in the eastern delta.

The slave trade in the 1600s increased trade within the continent, which made it possible for the well-known war-canoe “houses,” or trading companies, to form in these city-states. It is said that the Portuguese officially got in touch with the Oba of Benin in 1486 (Ryder, 1969).
This means they probably started doing business in the western delta on the Benin, Escravos, and Forcados Rivers before 1480. Early trade took place in the eastern delta at Bonny and maybe at Elem Kalabari on the Bonny and New Calabar rivers. The Portuguese named the area where these two rivers meet as Rio Real, which means “Royal River.”

In fact, the names of the rivers that flow into the Atlantic show that the Portuguese came to the Niger Delta early on. They even started working as missionaries in Ode Itshekiri, a state in the western delta. Oral histories talk about how they affected the area early on and give all subsequent white guests a name that is linked to the Portuguese.

Because of the slave trade, the delta states were in charge of connecting people from the coast with people who lived in the interior. So, slaves from almost every ethnic group in Nigeria made their way to the New World through ports in the Niger Delta.

Oral histories talk about what happened when slaves were integrated into local communities and how some delta towns were even forced to keep slaves. But it was only recently found out that some people from the Niger Delta were also sent to the Americas.

Researchers have looked at the Berbice Dutch Creole of Guyana and found that it has words from many villages in the eastern Niger Delta, but mostly from Kalabari, Lbani (Bonny), and Nembe (Smith, Robertson, and Williamson, 1987). This backs up what people who have been to the Niger Delta and heard stories about it say about pirates and other forms of violence within the region. The trade of slaves between Nigeria and other nations is to blame for a lot of these issues.

In fact, these were some of the things that made it easier for the Delta States’ trading and fighting corporations to form. These corporations used slavery and had to keep the peace along their trade routes, in their own communities, and in the markets in the countryside. The slave trade left behind the trade of food crops between the Niger Delta and the Americas, as well as a few organizations that are still in place today.

Also Read: History of Yorubaland: The Great History of Ife, Oyo, Yoruba Kingship and Art

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History of Ndongo: The Amazing History Of the Kingdom Of Ndongo

By Historian December 23, 2023

History Of Ndongo

History of Ndongo: In the late 15th century or early 16th century, the Kingdom of Ndongo possibly formed as a unified realm in the highlands between the Kwanza and Lukala rivers. Although the archaeological evidence is not very good, it does indicate that farmers most likely began to settle the area after 500 BCE and that ironworking took place there before the Common Era.

A lot of different kinds of groups might have been forming in the early Iron Age, just like they did further north. In the late 1600s, stories said that Ndongo came from Kongo. There were Kongo royal names like “Kingdom of Angola” as early as 1535, but Kongo probably didn’t have a big part in Ndongo’s start or early growth.

According to legend, Ngola Kiluanje was the first king. He allegedly extended the kingdom westward, annexing the majority of the lowlands along the Kwanza River’s coast on both sides and approaching the Kongo-ruled island of Luanda in the early 1600s. Not long before 1520, the king sent an embassy to Portugal to make ties like the ones Kongo had.

They sent an exploring party that stayed in Kabasa, which was the capital of Ndongo, until they were forced to leave the country in 1526 for unknown reasons. King Afonso I of Kongo made plans for them to go back to Kongo and then to Portugal. A lot of Portuguese traders, mostly from the island of São Tomé but also from Kongo, set up shop in Kabasa. This was against the rules for both the Portuguese crown and the Kongo kings.

By the middle of the 1600s, Ndongo had become a major force in the area. Its troops were fighting the king of Benguela in the central highlands of Angola and the king of Songo to the east as its borders grew. There may have also been border disagreements and fights with the Kongo in the mountainous “Dembos” area between them, where it was hard for either monarch to establish control.

Along with Jesuit preachers, a new Portuguese mission to Ndongo came in 1560. Paulo Dias de Novais was in charge of it. Also, it didn’t work, and the Jesuit teacher Francisco de Gouveia was locked up when Dias de Novais left to go back to Portugal in 1563. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, Ndongo was a country with a lot of connections. Sobas, who were local leaders and descended from ancient families, were in charge of hundreds of small areas that were grouped into a few big provinces.

The king was in charge of a large royal district that was right next to the capital. Several sobas in the Kabasa area said they were descended straight from Ngola Kiluanji. Rulers also took care of areas where dependent peasants (kijikos) lived and worked to support the king, his family, royal army units, and government officials.

There were also stories about the king giving friends and favorites land and people to work for him. Later stories say that the king’s job was passed down through a single line that began with Ngola Kiluanje. However, the succession could have happened in other ways, such as by primogeniture, election by the sobas, or election by the officials (tendala and ngolambole, among others). A group of roaming officials kept an eye on the area.

The ngolambole was in charge of the troops, while the tendala was in charge of the government and the law. Paulo Dias de Novais went back to Ndongo in 1575 with a crown grant from Portugal to build a colony on the coast, south of the Kwanza.

He told Ndongo he could help, and he fought against rebels for Ndongo in several battles. But in 1579, some Kabasa groups joined forces with Portuguese traders because they were afraid of Dias de Novais. This, along with a possible Kongo interest, got the king to kill the Portuguese and send them away. Kongo helped Dias de Novais hold on to some fortified sites. He also took over areas around Luanda and the north bank of the Kwanza River by using naval power and convincing Sobas to fight with him against Ndongo.

The Portuguese were strong enough by the middle of the 1580s to take the war to the mountains from their base at Massangano. That being said, the Ndongo were strong enough to easily beat the Portuguese at the Lukala in late 1589. Many of Dias de Novais’s allies turned their backs on him, and he was forced to leave the mountains.

There was a standstill, and around 1599, a peace deal set the border between the Portuguese colony and Ndongo for good. Mbandi, a Ngola Kiluanji, was in charge of Ndongo during this very important time. He worked to centralize his power while also fighting the Portuguese.
Fifty years later, tradition says that he sided with his wife and her brothers against the nobles.

However, this was probably part of a bigger complaint against a policy that let them have a say in decisions and hold office. People tricked him into fighting a rebel, and when he got hurt, his friends left him, and the rebels killed him. No matter what, this didn’t really slow down the process of centralization that his son and heir, Ngola Mbandi, was working hard to achieve.

Portugal sometimes helped Ngola Mbandi fight rebellious subjects, and there was some competition between the two powers until 1617, when Luis Mendes de Vasconcellos, the ruler of Portugal, broke the deadlock. In that year, the Portuguese governor led his own army and groups of Imbangala mercenaries from south of the Kwanza in a series of devastating operations against Ndongo.

As a way to keep their numbers up, the Imbangala were armed groups that lived by raping teenage boys. They were very good at what they did. Most of the people who lived in the center of Ndongo left between 1617 and 1620. A lot of its people were sold to work on farms in Brazil and Spanish America. Ngola Mbandi ran away to islands in the Kwanza River and had to arrange a peace treaty that was not good for his people in 1622.

He killed himself out of depression in 1624, leaving behind a seven-year-old son. The country was now ready for a violent civil war that would bring Portugal deeper into Ndongo and completely change its geography and government.

Also read: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE OYO EMPIRE: THE GREAT AFRICAN KINGDOM

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San Tribe: The Amazing History Of the San People

By Historian December 14, 2023

San Tribe

The San Tribe, who are also called Bushmen, are from different Khoe, Tuu, or Kx’a-speaking native hunter-gatherer groups. They are the first people to live in Southern Africa and live in Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and South Africa. In 2017, there were about 63,500 San people living in Botswana. That’s about 2.8% of the country’s population, making it the country with the most San people.

They have lived in southern Africa for at least 20,000 years, making them the oldest people who live there. They live in the Kalahari desert, which is very big. These people, called Bushmen, are the last of Africa’s oldest cultural groups. They are genetically the most similar to the original Homo sapiens “core,” from which the Negroid people of Africa evolved. People who live in the bush are usually short and have light yellow skin that wrinkles quickly.

Language Of The San Tribe

There are many different Bushman groups; they don’t have a single name, and the words “Bushman,” “San,” “Basarwa” (in Botswana), and others are used in different ways. Most of the ones that most people know are made up by outsiders and are meant to be insulting; for example, many people now use and agree with the word “Bushmen.”

Khoi, on the other hand, are likely from the same background, but they became herders before the Bantu group and white farmers came to Southern Africa. Most of the time, the word “Khoisan” is used to refer to all Southern African bushmen.

There are many languages that bushmen speak, and all of them use “click” sounds, which are written with marks like! or /. The distinctive clicks used in Khoisan languages have a wide variety of types and applications. Here is a very brief explanation of the most popular ones. Images that are well-known all over the world serve as their display.

The Life Of The San Tribe

Bushmen used to hunt and gather food, and about 70–80% of their diet was plant-based, like the berries, nuts, roots, and vegetables that were mostly picked by women. The last 20–30% was meat, mostly antelopes, which the men hunted with poisoned arrows and spears on hunts that could last for days. They made their own makeshift homes out of wood they found.

Their economy and social system had stayed mostly the same for tens of thousands of years, until very recently. It was based on hunting and gathering, a way of life that all humans had been practicing since the beginning of time until agriculture appeared. The Bushmen didn’t grow or raise animals because they didn’t know who owned the land or the animals.

Social Structure Of The San Tribe

Their social system is not tribal because they don’t have a strong leader, and family ties are not very tight. They have a culture that is like a close-knit family where choices are made by talking about them all and agreeing on them by consensus.

People naturally give their view more or less weight depending on how skilled and experienced they are in the topic at hand. Families in the same clan would speak the same language, but clans that are next to each other would usually speak a different language, though they would understand and be able to understand each other. A “name kinship” could also happen between people who share the same name, which is one of only about 35 names for each gender.

Usually, bushmen don’t stay in one place for long. They move around based on how close other families and groups are. Family land could be a 25-mile circle, but this is just a rough idea. Obviously, these areas can grow bigger if there aren’t any other clans or people living nearby. They can go as far as they need to in order to make sure they have enough food and drink.
The jobs of men and women were very different and rarely overlapped.

This is something that hunter-gatherers all over the world did. It was based on the need to survive and encouraged people to make the best use of the skills and tools they had. People often think of this society as being very sexist, but women are very important to the group, and their views often matter the most, especially when it comes to food.

Food And Health Of The San Tribe

In the past, bushman women would gather veldkost (wild plants) three to four days a week. They would often go out in groups to look for plants that could be eaten or used as medicine. Also, before trade with the Bantu or white people, everything was made from plants or animals, like tools, building materials, weapons, and clothes.

About 400 to 500 local plants and their uses were known to the bushmen, along with the places where they grew. These plants not only provided a balanced diet but also roots that kept water in during droughts. In ways similar to modern phytomedicine, plants were used to treat wounds and illnesses. Other plants were used in healing events, where a healer would burn them to make it rain, trance them to heal an illness, or cast a spell on them to make them fertile.

Infections like malaria, tuberculosis, and syphilis were also treated, as were cuts like snake bites, colds, stomachaches, headaches, toothaches, and diarrhea. One bushman plant, Hoodia gordonii, gained international attention when a pharmaceutical company patented it as a diet aid because bushmen had traditionally used it to control their hunger and appetite. This led to a lawsuit against “bio piracy,” which was eventually settled by paying royalties to bushmen groups.

The food and laid-back lifestyle of bushmen have prevented stress-related diseases in the western world. The health of bushmen isn’t good in general, though: half of children die before they turn 15 years old, and 20% die in their first year, mostly from stomach illnesses. The average length of life for people is 45 to 50 years, and the main causes of death are respiratory infections and malaria. Only 10% of people live to be over 60 years old.

Birth, Death, Marriage And Initiation Of The San Tribe

For the Bushman or San Tribe, birth is not usually a big deal. They don’t get ready or go to the hospital like people do today. People say that when a Bushman woman is about to give birth, she will just hide behind a bush and “squeeze out” the baby. Some say that they make a drug from the devil’s claw (Harpagophytum spp.), have the baby, and within an hour are back to their normal lives. In fact, she’s most likely going to bring her mom or an older aunt with her to help and comfort her.

The author Willemien le Roux’s book “Shadow Bird” tells the story of a difficult birth in the Bush and the old woman who was called to help. Things don’t always go as planned.
When a Bushman baby is born, his parents, other people, and even older children will love and care for him a lot. One thing that stands out about Bushmen is how much they love children, both their own and other people’s.

People in the Bush aren’t very fertile, so if a child is born during a very bad drought, this might be done to stop it from happening. The mother will quietly end the life of the newborn baby to save it from terrible pain in the future. This is most likely to happen during hard times, like when she is still breastfeeding another child and can’t feed both of them. This is normal behavior that comes from having to do something, not out of spite or any other reason.

People do this because they live in difficult environments and know that the life of the child, in which a lot of care has already been given, could be put at risk by their feelings for a newborn who is already expected to die soon. This is not likely to end well.

The Bushmen don’t think much about death. If someone dies at a certain camp, the group will leave that area and never camp there again. When bushmen know that someone is buried there, they will never cross that area. If they have to go near a graveyard, they will whisper to the ghosts under their breath and throw a pebble on the grave to bring them luck. People never step on a grave because they think the spirit still lives there, and they don’t want to bother it.

For most Bushmen, the bridegroom and the bride are the only ones who are invited to the wedding. A guest is only asked very rarely, and there is no party or other ritual in the sense that we know it. Instead, there is a private “ceremony” or agreement between the two people involved.

The Bushmen don’t have rituals to welcome new members. Right after a maiden bleeds for the first time, there is a celebration with dancing and cleansing. Before a boy is called a man, he has to kill his first big, dangerous animal. After that, they are treated like full members of the group or clan.

Religion And Folklore Of The San Tribe

A lot of Kalahari Bushmen think that there is a “greater” and a “lesser” God or Supreme Being. They are not the only mysterious beings out there. The dead’s spirits are another type.
First, the “God” or great being made himself. Then he made the land and its food, the air, and the water.

He is a good power that keeps people healthy and teaches them how to get along with others. He can send bad luck, though, when he is angry. Different groups of people give the greater god different names based on how he shows up. The same people call him different names at different times.

People think of the smaller god as bad or evil, a black magician, someone who destroys instead of builds, and someone who brings sickness and bad luck. He is called many things, just like the “supreme being.” Because they want to bring the living to the same place as the dead, they think that the dead cause sickness and bad luck. Like black people in South Africa, the Bushman are sure that ancient spirits have a big part in the lives of living people. However, they don’t do the same ceremonies to make the spirits happy.

The Bushmen called their god Cagn. The first scholars translated it as “Mantis,” which may not have been the best choice. This god was nothing more than the presence of nature and everything around them that they couldn’t see. They prayed to the moon and the stars as well, but they never said why they did this. Cagn was thought to look like a person and had special abilities and charms.

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Napata and Meroe: The Incredible History Of the Kushite Empire

By Historian December 11, 2023

Napata and Meroe

The Kushite Empire grew from the eighth century BCE to the fourth century CE. Napata and Meroe were its most important cities. It’s not clear what the word “Napata” meant exactly, but it probably meant a place rather than a single spot.

There is some evidence of human habitation there during the Kerma Period, but the earliest building remnants are those of a small temple that Ramesses II (1279–1213 BCE) completed after Horemheb (1323–1295 BCE) or Seti I (1294–1279 BCE) had begun construction. Epigraphic evidence, on the other hand, shows that Thutmose III (1479–1425 BCE) built a castle with a shrine to Amun inside it.

According to records, Amenhotep II (1427–1400 BCE) killed seven prisoners as a sacrifice when he got back from a successful war in southwest Asia. One of the bodies was hung on the walls of Napata. For the Egyptians, Napata became a very important holy site. On the right bank of the Nile, there is a mountain called Jebel Barkal that jumps out. It is a steep cliff that is over 100 meters high and has an 80-meter-high peak that sticks out.

For the Egyptians, this mountain was the home of their state god, Amun, in the south. They called it “Pure Mountain.” When the Kushites made Jebel Barkal their state god, they worshiped it just as much. In the eighth century BCE, they started building at the base of the mountain, and it grew into the biggest holy complex in their huge lands.

Alara (around 785–760 BCE) or Kashta (around 760–747 BCE) may have built the first Kushite temple. Piye, who lived from about 747 to 716 BCE, fixed up and added on to the New Kingdom temple of Amun. When it was finished, it was the biggest building in the realm. Taharqo (69–664 BCE), who constructed or rebuilt the Temple of Mut, is one of the most interesting structures.

The sanctuary room was carved out of the rock face of the cliff and decorated with reliefs. One of the reliefs shows Taharqo giving gifts to Amun, who is shown sitting on a throne inside the “Pure Mountain.” Across the river and a few kilometers downriver, at Sanam Abu Dom, there was another big temple to Amun. It was connected to a palace and had a huge complex of stores.

Twelve kilometers downstream at el-Kurru, the first Kushite kings were buried. Most rulers from that time until the late fourth century BCE were buried at Nuri, which is a little upstream of Barkal but on the opposite bank. That’s where Taharqo decided to be buried.

A direct path across the desert from Napata led to Meroe, which is on the left bank of the Nile. A number of circular timber huts from the tenth century BCE are the earliest signs of people living there. The Kushite invasion of Egypt two hundred years later was the first time that Meroe’s status was written down.

There was a big cemetery on a plateau spur that stuck out four kilometers east of the settlement. Many of the graves were clearly those of rich and important people. The ways these people were buried and the things that were buried with them show that they were slaves of the kings of Kush.

At this point in time, Meroe was a significant and wealthy hub of Kushite society, even though it had some regional traits. As early as the late seventh century BCE, Kushite kings were seen in the city, but for many more centuries after that, they were buried at Napata.

In the middle of the third and second centuries BCE, a thick stone wall with towers that stuck out was built around the city’s center. The person who dug it up called it the Royal City. There were temples, palaces, and what are called “Roman baths” inside. These were locations where people could go to escape the water, and they were most likely used for festivals the king held at the start of the yearly flood.

On the east side of the Royal City, a new Temple of Amun was built. The temple of Amun here was the second biggest in the kingdom, after the one at Napata. It was likely built to replace the temple of the god at Meroe, which had been built on the site of the Royal City.

At this time, Meroe might have been on an island, but if it was, the eastern channel stopped flowing by the start of the Christian era. After that, a path with churches on either side was built up to the Amun temple. In other parts of the city, most of the homes were made of mud bricks. Over the ages, one building on top of the other was added until they formed a mound about ten meters high.

On the eastern side of the city, big piles of slag are a clear sign of ironworking history. From the late fourth century BCE on, most Kushite kings were buried at Meroe. This made Meroe the most important city in the Kushites. No one knows why the royal burial place was moved from Napata.

It does not mean that the cult of Amun at Napata was given up, because it continued to grow. A large palace made by King Natakamani (c. 1–20 CE), who also worked in the Meroe region, shows that people have been building at Napata for hundreds of years.

At Napata, right next to Jebel Barkal, there are two small pyramid graves. The first group dates back to about 315–270 BCE, and the second group dates back to about 90–50 BCE. Some of them are Kushite kings who really did rule the whole country.

In 593 BCE, the Egyptian king Psammetik II’s forces may have destroyed Napata. The same thing might have happened in 24 BCE with a Petronius-led Roman army. The last people to leave the site probably did so when the Kushite state fell apart in the fourth century.

At that time, the Aksumites from Ethiopia may have lived in Meroe for a short time. Like Napata, Meroe doesn’t seem to have lived through the fall of the Kushite state, even though there are many bodies in the area that happen to be from a little later.

Also Read: The Kerma Kingdom: Kerma Culture Origins

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Congo War 2023: Eastern DR Congo Dangerous clashes displace 450,000 in six weeks

By Historian December 6, 2023

The Congo War 2023 No One Is talking About

The Congo War 2023: There have been roughly 450,000 people displaced in the Rutshuru and Masisi areas of the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of deadly fighting between non-state armed groups and government forces over the course of the past six weeks.

Those who arrived in Sake, which is located close to the provincial capital of Goma, described having to make difficult choices. Men were putting their lives in danger to provide food for children who were starving, and women were putting themselves in danger to collect firewood.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of documented violations of human rights in the region increased by nearly double from the previous month to October.

“Rape and arbitrary killings feature prominently in these results, along with kidnappings, extortion, and the destruction of property, illustrating a deeply concerning pattern of abuse inflicted upon civilian populations,” the agency stated. “These results also illustrate a pattern of abuse that has been inflicted upon civilian populations.”

Protection partners have reported a considerable increase in the number of total breaches committed against children as a result of the escalation of violence, which is also having a catastrophic effect on the lives to which children are exposed.

This is mostly due to the obstruction of major highways, which has resulted in around 200,000 displaced people being shut off from receiving aid. The limited access that humanitarian organizations have to people who are in dire need, according to United Nations agencies, makes the situation’s severity worse.

In addition, the interruption further increases the vulnerability of populations that have been displaced, leaving them without access to crucial supplies and protection. Even though the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has built shelters for more than 40,000 people close to Goma over the past few months and delivered more than 30,000 kits with tarps, cooking pots, and blankets, the partners must take additional steps to ensure that the nearly seven million victims of the violence receive immediate assistance.

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Algeria Arabism and Islamism: How Algeria Became An Arabic State

By Historian December 1, 2023

Algeria Arabism

Algeria Arabism: What is the most famous Algerian national slogan? Abd al-Hamid Ben Badis said it in 1936: “Arabic is our language, Islam is our religion, and Algeria is our fatherland.” This quote was used as a rallying cry for the revolution that won Algeria’s freedom in 1962.

However, it is a problematic idea in some ways. It wasn’t until the Ottoman Empire got involved in the 1520s that Algeria became a separate government unit. Before that, eastern and western Algeria had different ways of running the government.

There were still two main resistance movements against French rule in the 1830s and 1840s: one in the west under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir, and one in the east under the leadership of Hajj Ahmad Bey. These two groups had their own unique traditions. French colonial forces drew the borders of the current Algerian state as they advanced far into the Sahara. This process didn’t end until the early 1900s.

There are different groups of people who speak different languages in Algeria. Some speak Tamazigh or Berber dialects in the Kabylia mountains near Algiers, the Aurès mountains south of Constantine, and among the Tuareg in the far south. Other people speak Arabic dialects.

A lot of Tamazigh people can also speak Arabic. French, Algeria’s colonial language, was and is still only used for formal speech or writing. As a cultural trend, Arabism has led to the growth of modern schools and print publications that use the modern written form of Arabic.

In the late 1800s, these things first started happening in the eastern Arab countries. They didn’t start to grow in Algeria until ten years before World War I. The clear anticolonial link to cultural Arabism didn’t appear until after World War I.

In Egypt and Tunisia, there were now fully formed national groups, and most of what they said in public was written in Arabic. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Algerians who had been living in exile and experiencing the modern cultural changes in the Middle East came back to Algeria to teach and write for newspapers.

While this was going on, Algerians were learning French through French schools, military training, and moving to France to work. People who lived and worked in France became friends with French people, and some of them even married French women.

People who were Algerian nationalists knew that the breaking down of culture and social barriers meant that steps needed to be taken to restore Algerian religious and linguistic identity. To start, they got together in their communities to fund Arabic and Islamic schools.

Abd al-Hamid Ben Badis (1889–1940), who led these organizations, brought them together in 1931 to form the Association of Algerian Ulama. The Association of Ulama supported the ideas of the Salafiyya, a reform movement that wanted to bring back the pure, unified Islam of the religion’s early days. They didn’t like the Sufis’ unconventional practices and thought it was wrong for them to work with colonial officials.

In the 1800s, however, the Sufi orders were a key part of organized opposition to the French takeover. In the 1930s and 1940s, some orders, like the Rahmaniyya, had ties to nationalist groups. They also set up their own network of modern Arabic Islamic schools. At times in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the nationalist movement had trouble coming together on a number of different topics.

The rivalry between Sufis and Salafis made it harder to come to an agreement. After Algeria became an independent country in 1962, Arabism and Islamism became even more important parts of the country’s character.

During the war, Algeria relied on the political and financial backing of other Arab countries, especially Egypt, where Arabism was a big part of the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was the goal of Algeria’s new government to strengthen its ideas and institutions. While the war was going on, the French took all of the Association of Ulama’s land and shut down its schools.

So, they had two benefits: they had a single theory, and they didn’t have their own resources. People were wary of the Sufi orders because they were independent and had ties to colonial officials and traditional power holders in the past. From 1965 to 1977, when Houari Boumédienne was president, Ben Badis became a national hero, and the Salafi doctrine got strong government support.

But not a lot of money or time went into building churches or religious schools. Starting in the early 1970s, intermediate and higher education became more and more Arabized, making Arabism more useful to state policy.

This caused a lot of teachers from the Arab East to come to Algeria. Many of them came because they were having trouble with their own education departments because they were connected to the Society of Muslim Brothers. They helped get a new group of kids to believe in Islamist ideas.

At the start of the 1980s, President Chadeli Benjedid’s government tried to join this new wave of Islamism with help from the government. But by the middle of the 1980s, the government was no longer able to control the Islamist movement because it was growing faster than the regime could handle. At the same time, Arabism was losing its political attraction.

The defeat of Iraq in 1991 seemed to prove that Arabism was hopeless, while the victory of the rebels in Afghanistan supported the idea that Islamism was strong. But Algerian Islamism had a lot of different ideas about how to run the country’s government and how much other Algerians should follow their beliefs.

When the military government put down the Islamic Salvation Front in early 1992, it didn’t have many ideas to fight it with. Most Algerians were afraid that the more radical part of the front would win.

The violent actions of the Armed Islamic Groups (GIA) made these fears stronger and also made people less sure that the military government could protect Algerians. Most Algerians quit voting for Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the army’s presidential choice, in May 1999. This seemed to show that most Algerians were tired of the fighting between different parts of society.

Algerians may be ready to accept their differences now that they are fed up with religious and unitary patriots.

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Igbo Tribe: The Amazing Igbo belief concept of reincarnation

By Historian November 24, 2023

Igbo Belief In Reincarnation

People from all over the world believe in reincarnation. This includes Hindus, Buddhists, Mayas, Zulus, and even my Catholic family. It’s an idea that shows up in many faiths and mystical studies because it helps us understand some things about our lives.

When an Igbo baby is born, the parents often talk to Afa (a type of astrology) to find out about the child’s life. Kids sometimes say the wrong name of the person they think they are reincarnated from when strange things happen in their lives. This happened to my younger sister when she got really sick. Even though different medicines weren’t helping her illness, she brought up our great-grandmother’s name, which even my mother didn’t know.

We started calling her by our great-grandmother’s name. and magically got better, becoming happy and healthy. This is something that a lot of people do, usually before the eighth day after giving birth, to find out which of their relatives have come back to live in their family. For Igbo people, children are given their names on the eighth day. For some, it may take longer to find the exact parent they were reborn from.

Igbo society has a history of clear rebirth. This was especially true after the Civil War, when many families didn’t know what happened to their loved ones who had died in battle. Folklore among the Igbo people says that if someone is thought to be dead, their family must wait seven years before burying them.

A lot of people were reborn with different levels of injuries. Some were even born with open bullet wounds that healed on their own. Some people were born with the same injuries that killed the person they were reborn as. These events are proof beyond a doubt of rebirth.

People whose families were searching for answers were often told that their loved ones who had died in the war had been reincarnated so that proper funerals could be held. After that, the family would hold ceremonies to welcome the reborn spirit.

There are also stories of old people telling their kids or grandkids that they will come back to life as one of them after they die. Some children have shown they have memories of past lives by telling stories from the lives of people they think they were. For example, my younger sister told me the name of my great-grandmother, whose name I didn’t know.

Unfortunately, many Igbo communities now don’t believe in reincarnation because of the impact of other religions. These faiths have made reincarnation seem bad, and now 85% of Igbo people don’t know who has reincarnated inside them. My father calls me Nna ya, and my mother calls me Nna di ya because I am the spirit of my father’s father.

The brother of my dad and his wife also see me as the same person, and my late grandpa even thought of me as his daughter-in-law. When people know my grandfather, they don’t question who I am. I got not only his physical traits but also everything that was important to him.

Because the church has a lot of power in Igbo society, it is frowned upon to talk about rebirth and other similar beliefs. The effects of this on society as a whole are bad. People stopped practicing many other outdated customs that modern society viewed as being bad in addition to believing in reincarnation.

The church fought against the resurrection because they thought it would weaken the Igbo people’s faith. To many people’s surprise, the Bible talks about rebirth. For instance, a lot of people thought that John the Baptist was really Elijah coming back to life.

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W. E. B Du Bois And the Pan Africanism Movement You Should Know

By Historian November 16, 2023

Du Bois And Pan Africanism

The great African American thinker William Edward Burghardt DuBois’s life (1868–1963) is similar to the story of Pan-Africanism in some ways. In 1868, Du Bois was born in Massachusetts. Du Bois died in 1963 as a citizen of Ghana, an independent West African state.
Du Bois had spent time studying in both the US and Germany by 1900.

Du Bois had also written books about the history of the US slave trade and a social study called The Philadelphia Negro (1899). Du Bois taught at a number of black schools, but he lost interest in scholarship over time.

In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of significant writings, DuBois wrote about the “double consciousness” of African Americans who live in a society where white people predominate. Using his craft skills, Du Bois also fought against Booker T. Washington’s racist and segregationist ideas about black schooling.

While a part of the Niagara Movement in 1905, DuBois pushed against racial discrimination and believed that the “talented tenth,” an educated class, could best serve African American interests. Du Bois got involved in the fight for human rights for African Americans.

Du Bois joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910 and became editor of its critical magazine, The Crisis. This gave Du Bois a way to express his radical and literary ideas and gave him the title of “spokesman of the race.”

Du Bois was also very interested in the African diaspora and pan-Africanism. His work, The Negro (1915), shows this. He had been to the Pan-African Conference in London in 1900. DuBois helped set up four Pan-African Congresses after World War I. The first one took place in Paris in 1919; then there were ones in London, Brussels, and Paris in 1921; London and Lisbon from 1922 to 1923; and New York in 1927.

These small groups, mostly African Americans from the US and the Caribbean but also some white supporters, passed resolutions calling for an end to racial discrimination and the spread of democracy to the colonial powers. DuBois’s first trip to Africa was in late 1923.

Pan-Africanism began in the late 1700s as a response to slavery and the movement of black people across the world. It led to calls to go back to Africa and the cultural idea of a “black world” and “one united African people.”

Ethiopia was often used as a symbol for Africa. “Ethiopianism” has a long history that includes African American Christian groups, Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement, and Rastafarianism, which saw the ruler of Ethiopia as a god.

Black people outside of Africa have tended to hold pan-Africanism in high regard. Because of this, it has a lot of race romanticism in it.

Du Bois talked about “PanNegroism” in the late 1890s, and Henry Sylvester Williams, who was from Trinidad, planned the Pan-African Conference of 1900 to bring together “Africans from all over the world.” In the 1800s, there were small “Back to Africa” groups in the Americas. However, Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican populist who moved to the United States, gave the idea new life.

Garvey founded the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914, which is a black nationalist organization. From 1918 to 1921, the UNIA grew quickly in North America. It was appealing as an international group that promoted racial pride and self-improvement, as well as having a radical program that opposed slavery in Africa and pushed for black people to return to the continent.

Garvey spoke out strongly against DuBois and the NAACP. A few people in Africa supported the UNIA, but most of the countries did not allow its newspaper, The Negro World, to be printed because it was seen as anti-government.

Three factors primarily influenced Pan-Africanism in the years leading up to World War II: first, Garveyism, which had an impact on the Harlem Renaissance, an African American literary and artistic movement that took place in New York in the 1920s; second, Négritude, a set of cultural ideas from the Caribbean in the 1920s and 1930s that said black people should return to their African roots; and third, the failure of the international community to stop the

Africa and the black diaspora became more politically aware after World War I. The effects of World War II were much worse, especially in Africa. This was the fifth Pan-African Congress. It was held in Manchester, England, in 1945, and DuBois was very involved in planning and running it.

However, this conference featured a majority of African Americans, in contrast to earlier ones. There were nationalists like Jomo Kenyatta, Obafemi Awolowo, Hastings Banda, and Kwame Nkrumah, who all went on to become political leaders in their own countries.

Resolutions were made at the Manchester Congress that called for an end to racial discrimination and for the colonies to be free. One of the statements ended with a rallying cry that was similar to the Communist Manifesto: “Colonial and Subject Peoples of the World—Unite.”

Pan-Africanism became more popular again after the fifth Congress. But what may have been even more important was that it started a new and important phase in the fight against colonial rule that led to a large-scale transfer of power in Africa over the next twenty years. DuBois made a big difference in the development of pan-Africanist ideas.

African and Caribbean nationalists who were younger than him looked up to him as a founding father at Manchester. But after 1945, younger, more radical forces started to take over and make him less important. Du Bois wasn’t always simple to work with.

During his time in the NAACP, he got into a lot of heated political arguments with other African Americans. Du Bois’ growing interest in communism and his criticism of his peers’ racism-based conservatism made this situation worse. He quit the NAACP in 1934, but ten years later he joined again.

As Du Bois went further to the left, tensions kept rising, and in 1948, he was fired from the NAACP. Then, DuBois, Paul Robeson, and other people got together to form the Council of African Affairs, a socialist anti-colonial group. In the early 1950s, anti-communist feelings were building in the United States. DuBois, who was now a known communist, got into a fight with the courts and had his passport taken away.

In 1959, he moved to Ghana at the request of President Kwame Nkrumah. There, Du Bois became a citizen and began working on a failed project to edit the Encyclopedia Africana. Some of the separatist leaders in Africa during the colonial era really liked pan-African ideas.

Most people spoke out in support of Nkrumah, who led Ghana to freedom in 1957. George Padmore, who was born in Trinidad and used to be a Stalinist, had an impact on his ideas. In Pan-Africanism or Communism (1956), he wrote that the coming fight for Africa would rely on nationalist leaders putting aside their racial and communal differences and accepting Pan-Africanism.

Padmore and Nkrumah both believed in pan-Africanism, and socialism was a big part of it. The 1963 book Africa Must Unite by Nkrumah was written in honor of Padmore and “to the African Nation that must be.”

This kind of optimism was based more on words than on real-world politics. African unity would be good for many reasons: political unity would lead to economic strength and free the continent from colonial rule; the continent would no longer have to deal with artificial borders created by colonial rule; and a united Africa would have power in a world split between East and West, along with other noncommitted powers. But efforts to make even two-nation federations failed because African leaders had different ideas about how to run the economy and politics.

At the time of their freedom, many new African states were in a state of instability because of racial, political, and religious rivalries within their own borders as well as problems with neighboring states. The Organization of African Unity was set up in Addis Ababa in 1963.

The people who started the country decided to work toward unity “by establishing and strengthening common institutions.” They also promised to protect the independence of each state and the integrity of the colonial borders that they had inherited.

People kept saying nice things about the idea of African unity, but more and more, this idea was seen in terms of history and culture, not as a practical, short-term political goal. Many of these differences were shown at the sixth Pan-African Congress, which took place in Dar es Salaam in 1974. There are a few pan-African groups, but they mostly look out for the interests of specific groups (like trade unions) or regions on the continent.

The goal is to work together more on the economy. At the Abuja meeting in 1991, it was said that the goal was to make a pan-African economic community by 2025. Pan-Africanism wasn’t very important in Africa by the end of the 20th century; it was mostly used as a language.

People from the black diaspora, primarily in the United States, supported pan-Africanism to a large extent. The Black Power movement in the 1960s and 1970s pushed these kinds of ideas even further by focusing on identity through culture and art in Africa and having a strong political goal.

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