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History of Africa: African History
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Most of Africa did not have a written tradition of recorded history... there are regions where a literate tradition a great antiquity exists. One of the earliest forms of writing was developed by the Egyptians- the hieroglyphic style -- around 3000 B.C. The ancient accounts give a vivid picture of what the Egyptian (African) civilization was like over its nearly 3000 years. The Kushite civilization -- focused in the city of Meroe -- had its own system of writing five centuries (or more) before the birth of Christ. In Ethiopia, the classic language of the ancient Axum was expressed in written form by the fourth century A.D. Outsiders brought other literate traditions to Africa -- Greek, Latin, and Arabic were introduced in Mediterranean Africa. Literacy in Arabic penetrated into the Western Sudan region through learning centers in Djenne and Timbuktu in Mali during the fifteenth century -- and likewise in the Swahili city-states of the East African coast. Upon the arrival of the Europeans in the fifteenth century, came written historical accounts in Portuguese, Dutch, English, French and others.
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The history of East Africa is explored in Bethwell A. Ogot (ed.), Zamani: A Survey of East African History, new ed. (1974), is still the best single-volume survey. Roland A. Oliver et al. (eds.), History of East Africa, 3 vol. (1963–76), constitutes the most ambitious account so far. P.L. Shinnie (ed.), The African Iron Age (1971), contains authoritative articles on archaeology by H.N. Chittick, “The Coast of East Africa,” ch. 5, and by J.E.G. Sutton, "The Interior of East Africa,” ch. 6.
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The history of South Africa is marked by migration, ethnic conflict, and the anti-Apartheid struggle. The Khoisan peoples are the aboriginal people of the region who have lived there for millennia. Black South Africans are believed to originate from the Great Lakes region of Africa in prehistoric times. White South Africans, descendants of later European migrations, regard themselves equally as products of South Africa, as do South Africa's Coloureds, Indians, Asians, and Jews.
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The second obstacle to writing a history of the poor in Africa is related to the inadequacy of the sources. People who write such a history complain about the quality of the written sources. They are small in number, when compared to Europe; and the poor leave a sporadic trace in them. Those accounts are ... misleading. The opinions of travellers and of anthropologists are subject to using a categorisation of poverty foreign to the African people. The other major indigenous information sources, oral traditions form a problem as well.
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When the early Europeans first met Africans, at the crossroads of history, it was a respectful meeting and the Africans were not slaves. Their nations were old before Europe was born. In this period of history, what was to be later known as "Africa" was an unknown place to the people who would someday be called, "Europeans." Only the people of some of the Mediterranean Islands and a few states of what would become the Greek and Roman states knew of parts of North Africa, and that was a land of mystery. After the rise and decline of Greek civilization and the Roman destruction of the City of Carthage, they made the conquered territories into a province which they called Africa, a word derived from "afri," and the name of a group of people about whom little is known. At first the word applied only to the Roman colonies in North Africa. There was a time when all dark-skinned people were called Ethiopians, for the Greeks referred to Africa as, "The Land of the Burnt-Face People."
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Contrary to the belief of many people Africa has a history going back to a long time before the arrival of white people. But this early history is difficult to tell because few traces are left. First of all, the African societies maintained their culture and traditions verbally. Almost nothing was written down as most African cultures simply didn't have a written language. The African cultures were based on story telling from old to young. The stories gradually faded and changed through time.
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