African History and Legal History

 [We have the following announcement on an online event, sponsored by the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History.  DRE]

On November 5th, the "Global Legal History on the Ground" project will host an online event on court cases in the writing of African History and Legal History.

Time: 10 am - Atlanta; 12 pm - Brasília; 4 pm - Frankfurt am Main and Luanda.  Registration per e-mail: diaspaes@rg.mpg.de

 

Mariana Dias Paes (Max Planck Institute for European Legal History) - Introdução e apresentação das integrantes do projeto

Fernanda Thomaz (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora) - Fontes judiciais e conflitos de formas normativas na história de Moçambique

Mariana Candido (Emory University) - As mulheres na documentação do Tribunal da Comarca de Benguela: novas fontes e questões para a história de Angola no século XIX

José Évora (Arquivo Nacional de Cabo Verde) - O acervo documental do ANCV e o desafio de uma história vista a partir do rés-do-chão: pistas para uma história do direito cabo-verdiano

This event will be held in Portuguese, but we will organize other talks in English and Spanish during 2021.  For more information on the project, [here].

CFP: African Penal Histories in Global Perspective

[We have the following CFP.  DRE.]

Call for Papers - Special Issue of Punishment & Society: African Penal Histories in Global Perspective

In the twenty years since the publication of Florence Bernault’s edited volume A History of Prison and Confinement in Africa, the study of Africa’s penal systems has expanded tremendously. This scholarship has not only provided a clearer picture of penal ideas and institutions on the African continent across multiple time periods and locations, it has also offered insights into wider questions about the relationship between punishment, colonialism, and decolonization as well as the global circulation of penal techniques. This special issue aims to analyze African developments on their own terms and in relation to imperial and global narratives of punishment and penological networks as well as to integrate the fields of history, sociology, and criminology more closely, highlighting how theoretical insights of sociology and criminology can inform historical research.  By presenting multiple works together in a special issue, we seek to emphasize the value of Africanist historical approaches and methods for interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary research, and to highlight the contribution that studies of African penal systems can make to advancing understanding of global trends in punishment, showing how research on punishment in Africa not only engages with theories from the Global North, but also generates theories that reshape wider approaches to the study of punishment.

Topics for consideration could include (but are not restricted to): indigenous forms of punishment; colonial and postcolonial prisons; capital and corporal punishment; political imprisonment; forced labour; and detention camps.

We are interested in articles undertaking detailed case-study analysis of key historical trends, showcasing different methodological and disciplinary approaches. We invite submissions on all regions of Africa, and its relations with broader global or international developments in punishment and penology.

We particularly welcome submissions from scholars based in Africa and early career scholars.



Author Information:

Interested applicants should send a 1 page, single-spaced outline of the proposed article to s.hynd@exeter.ac.uk. The outline should include: title; argument; temporal and geographical focus; contribution to the literature; research methodology and evidence base. The deadline for abstract submissions is September 30th, 2020. 

Submissions are received on a competitive basis and will be reviewed by the guest editors. 4-5 articles will be accepted. Accepted papers will be subject to editorial and peer review, and prior to submission authors will be invited to participate in an online writing workshop to develop their papers with peer feedback. The anticipate deadline for submission of final articles to Punishment & Society is August 2021.

Guest Editors: For more details, please contact the guest editors - Erin Braatz (Suffolk University Law School), Katherine Bruce-Lockhart (University of Waterloo), Stacey Hynd (University of Exeter).

The Shangani Patrol 1893

In an effort to capture the leader of the Matabele, King Lobengula, following the destruction of the royal kraal at Bulawayo, a force of 160 mounted BSAC police were dispatched under the command of Major Patrick Forbes.

Acting on they followed the trail of Lobengula and his Zulu-style impis to the south bank of the Shangani River, about 40km north-east of the village of Lupane (see map). Forbes decided to form a laager on open ground about two hundred yards back from the river while a small patrol went across the river to reconnoitre the further bank. He selected Major Allan Wilson, commander of the Victoria Column, to lead a patrol of twelve men. Wilson was an experienced ex-Army Sergeant who had fought in both the Zulu War and the First Boer War.

The purpose of Shangani Patrol was to carry out a reconnaissance preparatory to capturing King Lobengula; Allan Wilson had crossed the Shangani River in the late afternoon and followed the King’s wagon tracks for 9 – 10 kilometres and came upon his two wagons.

Once they were on the other side of the river, it soon became apparent to Wilson and his men that they had evidence of a large force of approximately 3,000 Matabele warriors, including Lobengula himself. This discovery was aided by the tracking and scouting abilities of the famous American scout Frederick Burnham and the Canadian scout Robert Bain.

In short order two men (Sgt. Maj.) Judge and (Cpl.) Ebbage, sent by Wilson, returned across the river and reported that they had located Lobengula in conditions which he, Wilson, judged to be ideal for his capture; he therefore intended to remain in situ near Lobengula and requested Forbes to send reinforcements for this purpose.

At daybreak Wilson and his thirty-two men approached Lobengula's enclosure. The wagon was still there, but when Wilson called on the king to surrender there was no answer.

Then came the development they had all been expecting and dreading. In the half-light they heard the clicking of rifle bolts and from behind a tree stepped a warrior wearing the induna's headring. He fired his rifle. It was the signal for a scattered volley which intensified as more warriors came running through the bush. Those in the combined columns armed with firearms were thus outnumbered almost nine to one. The Matabele riflemen fired with concentrated accuracy.

Most of the shots went over their heads, but two horses went down. A trooper, Dillon, ran to them, cut off the saddle pockets carrying ammunition and regained his horse as Wilson gave the order to retreat to an antheap behind which they had sheltered the previous night.

Wilson and his men manage to kill nearly six hundred of the enemy, some of whom are members of Lobengula’s Royal Guard. As the number of wounded increases, the troopers load and pass their rifles to Wilson, the last man to fall.

A great many Matabele were killed in the dramatic attack, but Wilson’s force was overpowered by the Matabeles’ numerical strength. The patrol fought courageously but in vain in the battle, which became known as “the Last Stand”. The entire patrol of 33 men, including Wilson, was murdered.

It is a matter of historical record though that the White men fought until their ammunition was exhausted, the survivors then being slaughtered to the last man, Wilson, apparently, was the last man to die, when, with both arms broken and unable to aim and discharge his rifle, he strode from behind the barricade of dead and dying horses (and men’s bodies) towards the enemy and was quickly stabbed to death with an assegai by a young Ndebele warrior.
The Shangani Patrol 1893

Anglo-Zanzibar War

The Anglo-Zanzibar War was fought between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar on 27 August 1896. It is the shortest war in Britain’s long history. It began at 9 o’clock on the morning of August 27th and was all over by quarter to ten.

The cause of the war was due to when Sultan Khalid seized power following the death of pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on 25 August 1896. According to the terms of a treaty of 1886, any sultan acceding to the throne had first to seek British approval.

Sultan Palace before war

The British authorities preferred Hamud bin Muhammad, who was more favorable to British interests as sultan. The British sent an ultimatum to Khalid demanding that he order his forces to stand down and leave the palace.

In response, Khalid called up his palace guard and barricaded himself inside the palace.

At 9.02 five Royal Navy warships began bombarding the palace and disabled the defending artillery. A small naval action took place with the British sinking a Zanzibari royal yacht and two smaller vessels, and some shots were fired ineffectively at the pro-British Zanzibari troops as they approached the palace.

It lasted thirty-eight minutes and ended in a British victory. It was the shortest war in history. The sultan’s forces sustained roughly 500 casualties, while only one British sailor was injured.

At some point before 9.30 am, the sultan fled to the German Embassy, leaving his slaves and servants to fight on.
Anglo-Zanzibar War

African City-states

African City-states

The emergence of African city-states began in North Africa with ancient Egypt and then later the formation of the Carthaginian empire. These civilizations are both heavily documented by written accounts, as are the other North African kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania.

However, apart from surviving second- hand accounts from early travelers from Egypt or Carthage, knowledge of city-states in the rest of Africa relies entirely on archaeological evidence. Carthage ruled the area around its capital through direct rule, and the remainder of its areas through client kings such as those of Numidia.

The Numidians throwing their support behind the Romans at the Battle of Zama in 202 b.c.e. saw the defeat of the Carthaginians, setting the scene for the destruction of Carthage itself in 146 b.c.e. Numidia had a brief period of independence before it too fell under Roman control.


The most well-known African city-states outside North Africa are thought to have emerged in modern-day Sudan and Ethiopia, with many settlements near the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, and ancient megaliths were found in southern Ethiopia.

Gradually two city-states, those of Meroë (900 b.c.e.–400 c.e.) and Axum (100–1000 c.e.), emerged, both transformed from powerful cities to significant kingdoms controlling large tracts of land, relying heavily on the early use of iron.

The use of bronze and iron in war are also clearly shown by the location of some of these settlements. The remains of many ancient villages and small townships have been found in Sudan, which show that protection from attack was considerably more important than access to fertile arable land.

The other area that seems to have seen the emergence of city-states in the ancient period was in sub-Saharan West Africa. The finding of large numbers of objects and artifacts at Nok in modern-day Nigeria, which flourished from 500 b.c.e., has demonstrated the existence of a wealthy trading city on the Jos Plateau.

It seems likely that there would have been other settlements and small city-states in the region, with people from that area believed to have started migrating along the western coast of modern-day Gabon, Congo, and Angola, and also inland to Lake Victoria.

The major African city-state emerging toward the end of this period was Great Zimbabwe. Its stone buildings, undoubtedly replacing earlier wooden ones, provide evidence of what the society in the area had developed into by the 11th century c.e.

African Religious Traditions

African Religious Traditions

Little contemporary written material has survived about religious traditions in ancient Africa, except in inscriptions by the ancient Egyptians about their beliefs and in accounts by Herodotus when he described the religions and folklore of North Africa.

The Egyptian beliefs involved gods and the monarchs as descendants of these deities and their representatives on earth. Many of the Egyptian gods have different forms, with some like Horus and Isis being well known, and changes in weather, climate, and the well-being of the country reflecting the relative power of particular contending deities.

Briefly during the eighteenth Dynasty, the pharaoh Akhenaten (14th century b.c.e.) tried to establish monotheism with the worship of the sun god Aten. The move eroded the power of the priests devoted to the sun-god Amun-Ra, who struck back.


After establishing a new capital at Tel el Amarna, the pharaoh died under mysterious circumstances and the old religion was restored and continued until the Ptolemies took over Egypt in the fourth century b.c.e., which saw the introduction of Greek gods, and later Roman gods when Egypt became a part of the Roman Empire.

Although these concepts started in Egypt, similar ideas, almost certainly emanating from Egypt, can be found in Nubia and elsewhere. At Meroë in modern-day Sudan, there is evidence of worship of gods similar to the Egyptians’. It also seems likely that similar ideas flourished for many centuries at Kush and Axum, the latter, in modern-day Ethiopia, influenced by south Arabia and introducing into Africa some deities from there.

In Carthage many beliefs followed those of the Phoenicians. The deity Moloch was also said to be satisfied only by human sacrifice, with some historians suggesting that one of Hannibal’s own brothers was sacrificed, as a child, to Moloch.

Modern historians suggest that the Romans exaggerated the bloodthirsty nature of the worship of the Carthaginian deity Moloch in order to better justify their war against Carthage and that the large numbers of infant bodies found by archaeologists in a burial ground near Carthage may have been from disease rather than mass human sacrifice of small children.

The kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania to the west of Carthage would have been partially influenced by Carthaginian ideas but later came to adopt Roman religious practices, both becoming parts of the Roman Empire.

Much can be surmised about religious practices in sub-Saharan Africa during this period from the statuary found in places such as Nok, in modern-day northern Nigeria. Their carved stone statues of deities have survived, showing possible similarities with some Mediterranean concepts of Mother Earth. However, it seems more likely that ancestor worship was the most significant element of traditional African religion, as it undoubtedly was for many other early societies.

Human figurines, as the hundreds of carved peoples of soapstone from Esie in southwest Nigeria and the brass heads from Ife are thought to represent ancestors, chiefs, or other actual people. At Jenné-jeno and some other nearby sites, the bones of relatives were sometimes interred within houses or burial buildings. As Islam came into the area, this dramatically changed the religious beliefs of the area.

Islam led to the building of many mosques, with cemeteries located in the grounds of these mosques or on the outskirts of cities. The graves of holy men became revered and places of pilgrimage and veneration. In some places Islam adapted to some of the local customs, but in other areas, such as Saharan Africa, it totally changed the nature of religious tradition.

In some parts of West Africa there was a clash between the fundamental concepts of Islam and tribal customs, but in most areas ancestor worship was replaced by filial respect for ancestors.

Ancient Ethiopia

Ancient Ethiopia

Ethiopia is known to be one of the earliest places inhabited by humans. Bone fragments found in November 1994 near Aramis, in the lower Awash Valley by Yohannes Haile Selassie, an Ethiopian scientist trained in the United States, have been connected with the Australopithecus afarensis, an apelike creature that lived some 4 million years ago, who may be an ancestor of modern humans. Subsequently, other bones were found attesting to the very early hominid activity in the country.

There are also stone hand tools and drawings from a much more recent period of prehistory in limestone caves near Dire Dawa, with the initial discoveries being made by H. Breuil and P. Wernert in 1923, further work in the late 1940s site by Frenchman H. Vallois, and then in the 1970s by Americans C. Howell and Y. Coppens. Work in the Awash Valley and also at Melka-Kunture, during the 1960s and early 1970s, was conducted by Jean Chavaillon, N. Chavaillon, F. Hours, M. Piperno, and others.

Another prominent anthropologist, Richard Leakey, has worked in the Omo river region of southwest Ethiopia and participated in much research in neighboring Kenya, where his father, Louis Leakey, was involved in many excavations.


It appears that some time between the eighth and sixth millennia b.c.e. people were beginning to domesticate animals, and archaeological evidence has shown that by 5000 b.c.e. communities were being formed in the Ethiopian highlands, and it seems probable that the languages started developing at this time.

Linguists attribute an ancient tongue, based on the modern Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) languages, as developing later into the Cushitic and Semitic languages that are used today.

By 2000 b.c.e. evidence of grain cultivation of cereals and the use of the plow, probably introduced from Sudan, and animal husbandry, have been found. It is believed people during this period would have spoken Geez, a Semitic language that became common in Tigray, which is believed to be the origin of the modern Amharic and also Tigranya.

There were many early links between ancient Ethiopia and Egypt starting with Piye, a ruler of the Fifth Dynasty in Egypt (2500 b.c.e.), and there were occasions when the two countries were recorded as having the same ruler, whose capital was at Napata, north of modern-day Sudan.

Indeed, Pharaoh Sahure sent a voyage to the land of Punt during the Fifth Dynasty, and most scholars believe that this represents a part of modern-day Ethiopia, although some place Punt as being in modern-day Yemen or even as far south as Zanzibar, or even the Zambezi. This expedition sent by Sahure returned with 80,000 measures of myrrh; 6,000 weights of electrum, an alloy made from silver and gold; and 2,600 “costly logs,” probably ebony.

The most famous expedition to Punt was that led by Queen Hatsehpsut in about 1495 b.c.e., according to inscriptions detailing it that have been found on the temple of Deir el-Bahri in Thebes. The carvings show traders bringing back myrrh trees, as well as sacks of myrrh, incense, elephant tusks, gold, and also some exotic animals and exotic wood.

Da’amat

From about 800 b.c.e., several kingdoms started to emerge in Ethiopia. The first was the kingdom of Da’amat, which was established in the seventh century b.c.e. and dominated the lands of modern-day western Ethiopia, probably with its capital at Yeha.

A substantial amount about Yeha is known, owing to the excavations of Frenchman Francis Anfray in 1963 and again in 1972–73, as well as work by Rodolfo Fattovich in 1971. Much of the early work of the former was concentrated in rock-cut tombs, with the latter working extensively on pottery fragments.

From their work and the work of other archaeologists it was found that Yeha was an extensive trading community, well established in the sale of ivory, tortoiseshell, rhinoceros horn, gold, silver, and slaves to merchants from south Arabia. It also seems to have had close links with the Sabaean kingdom of modern-day Yemen, as all the surviving Da’amat inscriptions refer to the Sabaean kings.

The kingdom of Da’amat used iron tools and grew millet. It flourished for about 400 years but declined with the growing importance of other trade routes and possibly due to the kingdom not being able to sustain itself, having killed many of the animals in its region and possibly exhausted the mines.

Substantial archaeological work has been carried out on this period of Ethiopian history with one search by Jean Leclant in 1955–56, finding two sites at Haoulti-Melazo with a statue of a bull, incense altars, and some fragmentary descriptions.

Axum

The next kingdom, which gradually took over from Da’amat, was the kingdom of Axum (Aksum), from which modern Ethiopia traces its origins. The large temple at Yeha dates to 500 b.c.e., and scholars question whether it was built by the kingdom of Da’amat or that of Axum.

Axum may have emerged from 1000 b.c.e., but it was not until 600 b.c.e. that it become important. Like Da’amat, it also relied heavily on trade with Arabia, forming a power base in Tigray, and controlling the trade routes from Sudan and also those going to the port of Adulis on the Gulf of Zula. The kingdom of Axum used Geez as its language, with a modified south Arabian alphabet as their script.

Indeed, so much of Axum’s architecture and sculpture are similar to earlier designs that have been found in South Arabia as to suggest to some historians that the kingdom might have been largely established by people from Arabia. This is reinforced by the fact that Axum also used similar deities to those in the Middle East.

During the eighth century b.c.e. it is thought that Judaism reached Ethiopia—the modern-day Falashas are the descendents of the Ethiopian Jews. It seems likely that Jewish settlers from Egypt, Sudan, and Arabia settled in Ethiopia, but attempts to link them chronologically with a specific biblical event such as Moses leading the Jews from Egypt or the Babylonian Captivity have not been successful.

In this debate exists the legend of the queen of Sheba. She was known locally as Queen Makeda and is believed to have ruled over an area of modern-day southern Eritrea and was involved in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

There she met the Israelite king Solomon, and they may have had an affair that led to the birth of a son who became Menelik I, the ancestor of the Ethiopian royal house that ruled the country until 1974, although this rule was interrupted by the Zagwe dynasty.

Certainly the dynasty tracing their ancestry from Menelik calls itself the Solomonic dynasty. One version of the legend includes Menelik I returning to Jerusalem where he takes the Ark of the Covenant, which some believe is still in Ethiopia.

By the fifth century b.c.e. Axum had emerged as the major trading power in the Red Sea, with coins minted bearing the faces of the kings of Axum being widely distributed in the region.

Mani (216-c. 274 c.e.), the Persian religious figure, listed the four great powers during his life as being Rome, Persia, China, and Axum. During the third century b.c.e. Ptolemy II and then Ptolemy III of Egypt both sent expeditions to open up trade with Africa and, it has been suggested, also to obtain a source of war elephants for the battles against their rival, the Seleucid Empire.

The latter tended to gain a military advantage by using Indian elephants, with the Ptolemies using either Indian elephants or North African elephants, which are smaller than Indian elephants. Although the Ptolemies soon stopped sending missions to the Red Sea and beyond, trade relations continued.

The Roman writer Pliny, writing before 77 c.e., mentioned the port of Adulis, and the first-century c.e. Greek travel book Periplus Maris Erythraei describes King Zoskales living in Adulis—then an important trading destination and the port for the kingdom of Axum—as being the source for ivory taken from the hinterland to the capital of Axum, eight days inland from Adulis. Zoskales in Adulis was described as “a covetous and grasping man but otherwise a nobleman and imbued with Greek education.”

The writer of Periplus Maris Erythraei also notes that there was a large number of Greco-Roman merchants living at Adulis, and it seems likely that it was through them that the ideas of Judaism and then Christianity started to flourish.

The arrival of Christianity in Ethiopia is ascribed to Frumentius, who was consecrated the first bishop of Ethiopia by Athanasius of Alexandria in about 330 c.e. He came to Axum during the reign of the emperor Ezana (c. 303–c. 350), converting the king as is evident in the design of his coins, changed from an earlier design of a disc and a crescent.

This meant that the Monophysite Christianity of the eastern Mediterranean region was established firmly in Axum during the fourth century, and two centuries later monks were converting many people to Christianity in the hinterland to the south and the east of Axum.

The Christianity in Axum became the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, heavily influenced by the Egyptian Coptic Church. The last stela at Axum, late in the fourth century, mentions King Ouszebas.

At its height Axum not only dominated the Red Sea in areas of commerce but even held land controlling the South Arabian kingdom of the Himyarites in modern-day Yemen, with King Ezana described on his coins not only as “king of Saba and Salhen, Himyar and Dhu-Raydan” but also “King of the Habshat”—all these places being in South Arabia. He had also, by this period, adopted the title negusa nagast (“king of kings”).

On the African continent their lands stretched north to the Roman province of Egypt and west to the Cushite kingdom of Meroë in modern-day Sudan. Indeed, it seems that the forces of Axum had captured Meroë in about 300 c.e.

However, during the reign of Ezana it experienced a decline in fortune but regained its former strength over the next century. This is borne out by the few inscriptions that survive, which were either in Geez or in Greek.

Axum’s Decline

When Christians were attacked in Yemen in the early sixth century, Emperor Caleb (r. c. 500–534) sent soldiers to prevent them from being persecuted by a Jewish prince, Yusuf Dhu Nuwas, who attacked the Axum garrison at Zafar and burned all the nearby Christian churches. This represented a time when Axum was probably at its height in terms of its power and diplomatic connections.

The Book of the Himyarites revealed previously unpublished information about Caleb’s attack on Yemen. King Caleb spent his last years in a monastery, but by this time Axum was in control of land on both sides of the Red Sea and was in regular communications with the Byzantine Empire at Constantinople.

Axum’s power waned when the Sassanid Empire invaded the region in 572. Although it is not thought that the Sassanids conquered the kingdom of Axum, they probably did defeat its armies in battle and certainly cut off its trade routes not only to Arabia but also into Egypt, thus ensuring its gradual decline.

The political influence of Axum had ended, and the city would have declined. Some 30–40 years later the whole of South Arabia and also Egypt were controlled by the Arabs, cutting off the connections between Axum and the Mediterranean.

Ezana (Abreha)

Ezana (Abreha)

Abreha, also known as King Ezana, was a fourth-century c.e. king who converted to Christianity and subsequently established this faith as the state religion in Axum (Aksum), part of modern-day Ethiopia.

Scholars do not agree on the details of Ezana’s life, but several have documented information about his reign through trilingual inscriptions on stone tablets of the period. Most Ethiopians believe that Abreha, along with his twin brother Atsbeha, inherited the throne of Axum when their father died.

Since the boys were too young to take over the reigns of government, their mother, Sawya (Sophia), served as queen regent from around 325 to 328 c.e. Upon ascending to the throne, Abreha took Ezana as his throne name, and Atsbeha opted for Sayzana.


Ezana and Sayzana were tutored by two Hellenic Syrians who had been rescued as young boys after other occupants of their ship had been either murdered or killed in a shipwreck.

The king subsequently accepted responsibility for the brothers, who were classified as slaves. However, recognizing their unique abilities, he named Aedesius as the royal cupbearer and placed Frumentius in the position of royal treasurer and secretary.

After the king’s death the Syrians continued to tutor the royal twins and served as advisers to the queen. Although the exact date is not known, it is believed that Ezana and Sayzana ascended the throne sometime between 320 and 325.

As monarch, Ezana claimed many titles and is credited with being the first to call himself the "king of kings". He identified himself as the king of Axum, Saba, Salhen, Himyar, Raydan, Habashat, Tiamo, Kasu, and of the Beja tribes.

The kingdom over which King Ezana ruled stretched out on both sides of the Red Sea and extended into what is modern-day Sudan and Somalia. Between 330 and 360 the outside world was made aware of his kingdom. At the time, outsiders referred to Nubia and all of tropical Africa as Ethiopia.

However, residents of Axum generally referred to themselves as Habashats. The term Ethiopian, which means "burned faces", originated with Greek traders and was first used by Ezana in inscriptions that appeared on stone tablets between 333 and 340.

Ezana is considered to have been the ablest and most politically astute of the brothers, and some scholars doubt that he even had a twin. At any rate, Ezana reigned over Axum at a time when it was flourishing as a viable political, economic, and agricultural African state. His tenure was marked by territorial expansion and significant economic growth, and Ezana opened up a major trade route with Egypt.

Consequently, a large number of Greek traders immigrated to Ethiopia in order to take advantage of its rich resources of gold, ivory, spices, and tortoiseshell. By some accounts it was these Greek merchants who first introduced Christianity to Ethiopia.

However, some scholars believe that Frumentius and his brother were entirely responsible for converting the royal family to Christianity. Most sources agree that Frumentius, either by his own initiative or on orders from Ezana, traveled to Alexandria to ask Patriarch Athanasius (c. 293–373) to send a bishop to start a church in Axum. Instead, the patriarch appointed Frumentius as the bishop.

From the date of his return, somewhere around 305, Frumentius devoted his life to evangelizing. Within a few months tens of thousands of Ethiopians from all social classes had become Christians. Evidence shows that early in their tenure as monarchs of Axum, Ezana and Sayzana paid allegiance to pagan gods.

Ezana often called himself the "Son of Mahrem", which was equivalent to identifying himself with Ares, the Greek god of war. After the brothers’ conversion to Christianity, Axumite coins most often depicted the cross, or sometimes multiple crosses.

After his death on the battlefield at around 25 years of age, Ezana was buried in a rock-hewn church that still stands in present-day Ethiopia. Sayzana became the sole monarch, governing for the next 14 years.

Upon Sayzana’s death, he was buried beside his brother. The church of Ethiopia subsequently canonized both Abreha and Atsbeha, and Ethiopians honor these saints each year on October 14.

There is some evidence that the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Axum from Jerusalem in the 10th century where it was placed in the sanctuary of St. Maryam Tseyon. As a result of this belief, Axum is considered Ethiopia’s holiest city. Archaeologists are in the process of uncovering relics that have traced the history of the area back to the first century c.e.

Kushite Kingdom

The Kushite kingdom flourished in the northern part of present-day Sudan (called Nubia by the Romans) and southern Egypt. From their capital at Napata, the Kushites controlled the trade between Egypt and East Africa and developed into a major military power.

Under the leadership of Piy, Kush forces moved into Upper Egypt, conquering Thebes and, in spite of strong resistance, Memphis. Under King Shabako (r. 721–706 b.c.e.) the Kushites established their own dynastic rule over Egypt but retained many of the old Egyptian customs, particularly regarding burials, and adopted the Egyptian pantheon of gods.

The Kushites developed their own written language based on Egyptian hieroglyphics, but as this language has yet to be deciphered, much remains to be learned about Kushite history and customs.


As the Assyrians conquered the eastern Mediterranean and moved into Egypt, the Kushites were forced to retreat southward into the Sudan where they built a new capital at Meroë, north of modern Khartoum.

Controlling the valuable gold mines in the Sudan and acting as middlemen in trade between East Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, as well as Greece, the Kushites grew wealthy. The numerous ruins of temples, tombs, pyramids, and palaces at Meroë and environs are evidence of the prosperity and artistic complexity of the Kushite kingdom.

The Kushites also produced high-grade iron for the manufacture of weapons. They may have transmitted their skills in iron smelting and the lost-wax process for bronze casting to West Africa, or that knowledge may have emerged independently in that area.

By 300 c.e. the Kushite kingdom had begun to decline as its trade in iron and other products with Egypt diminished. Attacks from the newly emerging kingdom at Axum in present-day Ethiopia further weakened it, and it finally fell to Axum rule in the fourth century c.e.

Libya

Leptis Magna, Libya

The first Phoenician colonies were established on North African shores around 1000 b.c.e. The original people of North Africa, surviving to this day in the form of various Berber tribes, strongly defended their territory and freedoms from outside domination.

The geography of North Africa made it easy to mount attacks on settled territory. Vast tribal armies could be hidden in the Sahara to the south. Despite geographic challenges to settlement, there were also irresistible agricultural riches that could be gathered from the coastal plains and valleys of North Africa.

The history of the Roman Empire and the Roman army would have been very different were it not for the breadbasket of Rome that was ancient Libya and North Africa. It provided the "bread and circuses", grain and olives, and wild beasts to the population of imperial Rome and other imperial cities.


The Romans defined ancient Libya as all the lands of North Africa to the west of Egypt. Two thousand years ago the climate of the region was very different. The Sahara did not extend as far north, and there were more regular rains.

Barbary elephants, lions, and apes roamed the forests. The tribes of Libya were not random, disorganized bands of warriors. Most settlement, however, occurred on the coasts where grain and other goods could be easily transported throughout the Mediterranean.

The Romans defeated Carthage in the Battle of Zama in 202 b.c.e., ushering in a new era of Roman colonization of the region. Augustus Caesar for example, granted rich farming territory in North Africa to retired army soldiers and officers. Granting land to veterans also gave them an incentive to defend the empire.

A vast system of mud walls and forts were erected throughout North Africa on the edge of the desert to defend settlers, and hundreds of new Roman cities and villages were established in the coastal plains of Tunisia and Libya.

In cases where it was too difficult to defend Roman territory, regions were given over to local client kings, and pacts of peace were signed. Soon many Africans would become integrated into the Roman system.

Several Roman emperors, including the formidable Septimius Severus were from North Africa. Other famous Roman North Africans included Apuleius, writer of the first classical novel, The Golden Ass, and Augustine of Hippo, the intellectual father of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Byzantines revived Roman North Africa in 533 c.e. after the invasion of the Vandals in 429. Sparked by the revolutionary message of Islam, the Arabs began their rapid invasion of North Africa around 641. Yet the Arabs, like the Romans before them, faced fierce resistance from the native Berbers.

According to legend, the famed Berber queen al-Kahina only surrendered after burning the forests and laying waste to the land. Indeed, centuries after the Arab invasion, cycles of conflict between the Berbers and Arabs, especially in modern Algeria, continue to this day.

Meroë

Meroë

Evidence of civilization in Meroë, now part of Sudan and then called Nubia, has existed from about the eighth millennium b.c.e. The culture was fated to live in the shadow of Egypt of the pharaohs to the north on the Nile.

Over the centuries the pharaohs raided Nubia for gold, slaves, and other booty. However, the decline of the Egyptian dynasties around the 11th century b.c.e. gave the Nubian kingdoms a chance to flourish.

As John Reader wrote in Africa: A Biography of the Continent, the rulers of Kush actually were able to subdue Egypt, "where they ruled for more than sixty years—a period of Egyptian history known as the twenty-fifth or Ethiopian dynasty". However, a final burst of Egyptian power forced the rulers of Nubian Kush to retreat up the Nile to safety at Meroë in 590 b.c.e.


Meroë was ideally placed for a defensive position, according to Reader, since "the tract of land, 250 [kilometers] broad, lying between the points at which the Atbara and the Blue Nile join with the main stream of the White Nile is known as 'the island of Meroë' ".

According to the article "Kush, Meroë, and Nubia” in the Library of Congress’ Sudan: A Country Study (1991), "During the height of its power in the second and third centuries B.C., Meroë extended over a region from the third cataract in the north to Sawba, near present-day Khartoum, in the south". The very distance south gave Meroë some protection from invasion from Egypt in the north.

After Cambyses II, son of Cyrus II of Persia, invaded Egypt in 525 b.c.e., an army he sent into the desert simply disappeared—one of the great mysteries of history. With the city of Napata as capital, the rulers at Meroë kept memories of pharoanic Egypt alive, and in early days patterned their court after the Egyptian court.

After the suicide of Cleopatra in 30 b.c.e., Egypt was ruled by the Rome of Octavian, who was strong enough to reassert power in Upper Egypt, which had become a raiding ground for Meroitic armies.

A Roman punitive expedition in 23 b.c.e. razed Napata. Meroë never recovered from the Roman incursion, and by the second century c.e. the Nobatae, nomads from the west were able to establish themselves as rulers of Meroë.

The Roman Empire, however, faced with Germanic invasion and the continuing fight against Parthia in the east, was happy to subsidize the Nobatae as allies and use them to defend Roman Egypt’s southern frontier.

By this time, however, Ethiopia had become a regional power, in the kingdom of Axum. Axum first appeared around 500 b.c.e. and thrived in its position on the trade routes from the Middle East, through Arabia from Yemen to the south, and with Egypt.

Axum was one of the most diverse of the early kingdoms, becoming a commercial and administrative center. By this time Rome faced severe pressure throughout its empire and could devote less energy to the Nobatae, Meroë, or the frontiers of Egypt. Constantine the Great died in 337 c.e., and a struggle for succession ensued.

Seizing the moment, Axum invaded Meroë in about 350 and conquered it, destroying Meroë as an independent state. However, as Karl W. Butzer noted in 1981, Axum too would suffer eclipse largely due to "environmental degradation and precipitous demographic decline". By about 800 Axum had virtually ceased to exist.

Nubia

Nubia

Egypt provides the earliest historical record of northern Sudan, the land of Kush at the First Cataract. The Egyptian name for Nubia was Kush, meaning "wretched". Kush encompassed modern-day northern Sudan and southern Egypt. Nubia was the place where African and Mediterranean civilizations met.

Nubia was sometimes under Egypt, sometimes independent, and has been inhabited for 60,000 years. By the eighth millennium b.c.e. Neolithic people lived a sedentary life in fortified mud-brick villages. They hunted, fished, gathered grain, and herded cattle.

They had contact with Egypt by means of the Nile. The Nubian city of Kerma produced ceramics as early as 8000 b.c.e., earlier than in Egypt. Nubia was rich in minerals and gold needed for building temples and tombs.


In the mid-fifth millennium b.c.e. central Sudan’s abundant savanna and lakes made a settled life with agriculture and domestication of animals possible for the Nubians who inhabited the region. The early Nubians engaged in a cattle cult similar to those found in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa today.

Around 2400 b.c.e. the Neolithic culture evolved into the Kerma culture, and Kush prospered due to trade in ebony, ivory, gold, incense, and animals to Egypt. By 1650 b.c.e. Kerma was a city-state with territory, stretching from the First Cataract to the Fourth. The power of Kerma rivaled that of Egypt.

Over time trade developed between Kush and Egypt, with Egyptian grain trading for Kushite ivory, incense, hides, and carnelian. Periodic Egyptian military forays into Kush produced no permanent presence until the Middle Kingdom (2100–1720 b.c.e.). At that time the Egyptians built forts to protect shipments of gold mined at Wawat.

Map of ancient Nubia

From the Old Kingdom (2700–2180 b.c.e.) for 2,000 years Egypt dominated the central Nile region economically and politically. Even during times of diminished Egyptian power, the Egyptian religious and cultural influence remained strong in Kush.

The nomadic Asian Hyksos conquered Egypt around 1720 b.c.e., ending the Middle Kingdom, destroying the Nile forts, and cutting ties with Kush. An indigenous kingdom developed at Karmah. In 1500 b.c.e. Nubia fell to Egypt, which established an empire ranging from the Euphrates in Syria to the Fifth Cataract. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom ruled for more than 500 years.

Egyptian power renewed with the New Kingdom (c. 1570–1100 b.c.e.), and Kush became an Egyptian province that provided gold and slaves, with the children of local chiefs taken as pages in the Egyptian court to ensure the chiefs’ loyalty. As a province of Egypt, Kush became attractive to Egyptian settlers, including merchants, military personnel, government officials, and priests.

The Kushite elite converted to the Egyptian language, culture, and religion, preserving Egyptian culture and religion even during Egyptian decline and with temples to the Egyptian gods remaining in use until the coming of Christianity.

Life in Nubia

Egypt was weak and divided in the 11th century b.c.e., and Kush became autonomous for the next 300 years. Little is known about that period, but Kush reappeared as an independent kingdom in the eighth century b.c.e.

The Kushites conquered Upper Egypt in 750 b.c.e. and all of Egypt later in the century, ruling Kush and Thebes for about 100 years. Egypt occupied Nubia for about 500 years. Then in 856 b.c.e. Nubia under the Twenty-fifth Dynasty ruled Egypt.

The dynasty at Napata was known as the Ethiopian dynasty, making it a great African power despite its holding to Egyptian culture and religion. Conflict with Assyria in the seventh century b.c.e. led to the withdrawal of the Kushite rulers from Egypt to their capital of Napata. In 713 b.c.e.


King Shabaka of Kush came to power. He controlled the Nile Valley to the Delta. His dynasty fell to Assyria. In 590 b.c.e. an Egyptian incursion led to the relocation of the capital to Meroë, and Egypt came under Persian, Greek, and Roman domination during subsequent centuries.

Isolated from Egypt, Kush developed its own culture, peaking in the third and second centuries b.c.e. The proximity to black Africa showed in the increased influence in Kushite civilization.

They modeled their jewelry on African styles. Meroë had an elected kingship with the succession strongly influenced by the queen mother. The rulers at Meroë continued the Egyptian practices of raising stelas as records of their exploits and using pyramids as their tombs.

The kingdom at Meroë enjoyed a centralized political system capable of bringing together the large numbers of artisans and laborers needed for building projects. The still-undeciphered Meroitic script that replaced Egyptian hieroglyphics in the first century b.c.e. was an adaptation of the Egyptian writing system.

Meroë prospered due to trade and commerce, especially after the introduction of the camel to Africa in the second century b.c.e. and the concurrent flourishing of the African caravan trade. Meroë benefited from its access to the Red Sea. It was noted for its pottery, woven cloth, and jewelry.

Nubian royal family

The kingdom also used Nile water and acacia trees (charcoal) to smelt iron for spears, arrows, axes, and hoes. It developed agriculture and irrigation in a tropical region. In religion Kush worshipped the Egyptian state gods but also its own regional gods, including Apedernek, the lion god.

Over time northern Kush, home of the religious center of Napata, fell to predatory nomads, the Blemmyes. Nevertheless, Meroë maintained contact with the Mediterranean world through the Nile, dealt with Arab and Indian traders on the Red Sea coast, and began to include Hindu and Hellenistic cultural influences. Meroë had occasional friction with Egypt.

In 23 b.c.e. Meroë raided Upper Egypt, leading to Roman retaliation, the razing of Napata. The Romans regarded the area as too poor for colonization, so the army left. Meroë began to decline in the first or second century c.e. due to war with Roman Egypt and the decline of its traditional industries.

The manufacture of iron had exhausted the acacia forests, and deforestation caused the loss of fertility in the land. The Nobatae were horse- and camel-riding warriors who occupied the west bank of the Nile in northern Kush in the second century c.e.

Initially they sold protection to the Meroitic population. Then they intermarried and became the military aristocracy. Until around the fifth century, they received subsidies from Roman Egypt, which used Meroë as a barrier between itself and the Blemmyes.

During this period Meroë shrank as the Abyssinian state of Axum took over. In 350 Ezana, king of Axum, invaded Meroë. By then the Meroites had already given way to the Noba.

In the sixth century Meroë was home to three successor states: Nobatia, or Ballanah, in the north, with a capital at Faras in modern Egypt; Muqurra in the center, with a capital at Dunqulah; and Alwa in the south, with its capital at Sawba.

Warrior aristocrats ruled all three cities, but the court officials styled themselves after the Byzantine model. The Nubian kingdoms converted to Christianity in the sixth century.

The form of Christianity taken by the Nubian rulers was Monophysite Christianity, the Coptic version, and the spiritual head of the Nubian church was the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria, who held strong influence over the church and confirmed each ruler’s legitimacy. The monarch in return protected the church’s interests.

The queen mother preserved the Meroitic right to determine the succession, making possible the accession of nonroyal warriors through marriage. With the change to Christianity, Nubia reestablished cultural and religious ties to Egypt and renewed contacts with Mediterranean civilization.

The Nubian language replaced the Greek liturgy, but Coptic remained common in both religious and secular activities. Arabic grew in infl uence from the seventh century particularly in the world of commerce.

The Christian Nubian kingdoms attained their highest prosperity and military power in the ninth and tenth centuries. Arab domination of Egypt hampered Nubian access to the Coptic patriarch and ended the supply of Egyptian-trained clergy, causing the Nubian Christians to become isolated from the rest of Christianity.

Islam changed Sudan and split the south from the north. It also promoted political, economic, and educational development among its adherents, mostly in the urban commercial centers. Islam began spreading shortly after the death of Muhammad in 632.

Islam had converted the Arab tribes and cities, and Arab armies began spreading Islam into North Africa during the first generation after Muhammad’s death. Within 75 years North Africa was Muslim.

The conquest of Nubia began with invasions in 642 and again in 652, at which time the Arabs besieged Dunqulah (Dongala) and destroyed its cathedral. The Nubians refused to surrender, so the Arabs accepted an armistice and withdrew.

Nubians and Arabs had contacts long before the rise of Islam, and the process of Arabization took about 1,000 years. Intermarriage and exchange of cultural values were common.

With the failure of the early efforts at military conquest, the Arab commander in Egypt, Abd Allah ibn Saad, established the first of a series of treaties that lasted for almost 600 years. Arab rule of Egypt meant peace with Nubia. Periodically, non-Arabs ruled Egypt, and that generated conflict.

The Arabs wanted commerce and peace, and treaties facilitated travel and trade between the two. Trade flourished, with Arabs exchanging horses and manufactured goods for ivory, gum arabic, gems, gold, and cattle.

Arabs had treaty rights to buy Nubian land, and Arabs moved into Nubia as merchants, engineers in the gold and emerald mines, and pilgrims who used Nubian Red Sea ports, which also served as entrepôts for cargoes from India to Egypt.

Arab tribes who immigrated to Nubia during this time provide the ancestors of most of the region’s mixed population. The two most important are the Jaali and the Juhayna. The Jaali were sedentary farmers, herders, or townspeople.

The Juhayna families are nomadic descendants of 13th-century migrants into the savanna and semidesert regions. The Arabs and indigenous peoples intermarried. Arabization occurred without forced conversion or prosyletization.

The Christian kingdoms remained politically independent until the 13th century. Nubian armies invaded Egypt in the eighth and 10th centuries to free the imprisoned Coptic patriarch and reduce persecution of Copts under Muslim rule.

Then in the mid-14th century the kingdom of Makuria fell in a combination of conquest and intermarriage to the joint forces of the Juhayna Arabs and Mamluk. In 1276 the Mamluk (Arabic for "owned") soldier-administrator elites overthrew the monarch of Dunqulah and gave the crown to a rival.

Dunqulah was Egypt’s province. Nubia converted to Islam and Arabic. Intermarriage brought Arabs into the royal succession as the two elites merged. The king in 1315 was a Muslim prince of the royal Nubian line.

Islam expanded, and Christianity declined. In the 15th century Nubia became politically fragmented, and slave raiding became a major problem. Towns fearful for their safety asked for Arabic protectors. By the 15th or 16th century Arabs formed the majority in the region.