Course: History, Topic: Unit 3: Origin, rise, organisation and decline of empires in West and South Africa

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Unit 3: Origin, rise, organisation and decline of empires in West and South Africa
Topic area: History of Africa
Sub-topic area: History of ancient Africa
Key unit competence
Describe the origin, rise, organisation and decline of various empires in West and South Africa.
Origin and rise of various empires of West Africa

Ancient kingdoms in West Africa

The grassland region south of the Sahara and north of the forest zone was known to the Arabs as Bilad as-Sudan or the land of the blacks. It witnessed in medieval times the emergence of four notable empires – Ghana, Mali, Songhai and Kanem – Bornu – in the west and central parts of it.
Ghana Empire

Ghana was the first kingdom to emerge as an empire in the Western Sudan. Apart from metropolitan Ghana, the empire included several important provincial territories.

Chief among these was Awkar, a name by which Ghana was, for some time, better known in the Islamic world. At its height, the territories governed or influenced by Old Ghana covered a considerable area in the source-region of the rivers Niger and Senegal.
Origins
The Mande-speaking Soninke people founded Old Ghana. The exact date of its foundation is not known, but was probably between 500 and 700 AD. It grew out of the Trans-Saharan trade. The original name of the kingdom was Wagadu. A sacred king who was the highest authority in the state ruled Ghana. He was known as the ‘Ghana’. Later, the name Ghana also came to refer to the kingdom.
Old Ghana lay between River Senegal in the west and River Niger in the east. The Sahara Desert formed the northern boundary, while to the south were the forests in which lay the rich mining areas of Wangara.
Factors that led to the rise and growth of Old Ghana

Activity 3.1
In groups of five , visit the library and research on the factors that led to the rise of the kingdom of old Ghana and those that led to its downfall. Later hold a class discussion to debate your findings.
These were the reasons for the rise of Old Ghana:
(i) Control of trade routes: The empire occupied the savannah land between the rich gold-fields of Wangara and the most important of the trans-Sahara trade routes. In this middle-man position, the ruler of Ghana could control and tax both the trading goods taken from North Africa to the Western Sudan (e.g. salt and horses) and those taken from the Western Sudan to North Africa (e.g. gold, ivory, kola). From this trade came wealth and with this wealth the rulers of Ghana were able to establish and maintain a reasonably efficient administration and army.
(ii) The use of iron: The Soninke were apparently the first group of people in that part of the Western Sudan to discover the use of iron. The ability to make weapons of iron was important and assisted in Ghana’s military strength and growth.
(iii) Use of horses: Soninke are considered the first people to secure a sufficiently large number of horses from North Africa to build up a powerful cavalry.
(iv) Effective administration: The Soninke built up a fairly effective large-scale government, which enabled them to rule a large area and to maintain law and order.
(v) Unity in the empire: The fact that the rulers of Ghana were considered semi-divine must also have helped the rise of the empire by maintaining unity and limiting the incidence of rebellion.

Political organisation of the old Ghana

(i) At the head of the empire was the king, operating from the headquarters at Kumbi Saleh.
(ii) The king was assisted by able administrators. These men served also as secretaries.
(iii) In the capital city there was a governor, besides the emperor. He was in charge of the civic administration of metropolitan Ghana.(iv)In the conquered or vassal states, two types of provincial government seem to have operated: In some provinces the administration was entrusted to governors appointed directly by the emperor. These were places where either hostile subjects were constantly plotting to rebel or there was no centralized native provincial ruler. In other places, the local rulers were allowed a great measure of independence. All that was required of these provincial native rulers was loyalty to metropolitan Ghana, and regular payment of tax to the emperor.

(v) Vassal kings sent up their sons to the emperor’s palace. This practice was maintained for two reasons. Firstly, as long as the sons of the vassal kings were at the emperor’s palace or court, it was not wise for their fathers to rebel against the imperial authority. Secondly, these pages learnt a great deal of the arts of government from the imperial court. The experience thus gained stood them in good stead when later they returned home to assume the reins of government in their own land, in succession to their fathers.
(vi)The supreme judicial power in the empire was vested in the emperor, assisted by a hierarchy of subordinate officials.
(vii)The king did not maintain a standing army. Men were recruited or called up when the king needed them for a campaign or to defend the empire from external attack.
Economic Organisation

Old Ghana was a wealthy empire. The following were its sources of economic prosperity:
(i)The gold mines were a source of revenue. The king held a monopoly of all the gold mines in the empire. This policy helped to maintain the high value of this precious metal. It also accounted for the great wealth which the kings enjoyed.
(ii)Ghana’s middleman position helped her to benefit immensely from the trans-Saharan trade.
(iii)Taxation on trade goods gave the emperor good revenue. The import and export taxes yielded much revenue for the king’s treasury.
(iv)The people of Ghana used their skills in iron-working in good farming and adequate production of food.
(v)The people were successful fishermen. They fished from the many rivers crisscrossing the empire.(vi) Agriculture was also a major source of economic prosperity
Social Organisation

(i)The king of Ghana made use of Muslims in his government, but his people still followed the traditional religion.
(ii)The king of Old Ghana was regarded as semi-divine. As the chief priest, the king conducted special ceremonies and rituals, and was the link between the living and the gods.
(iii)The people believed in life after death. This was seen in the burial rites that were performed when the king died. After his death, the king’s body was placed in a special building on a bed decorated with fine cloths. His clothes, weapons and other personal belongings were placed near him. When all this had been done, some of the closest servants entered the tomb, which was then sealed.
(iv)The people threw earth over the tomb until a small burial mound had been created.
(v)The people of Old Ghana lived in thatched houses that were built of wood.
(vi) The king wore special robes and ornaments during official ceremonies.
(vii) People approached the king on their knees as a sign of respect.
Activity 3.2
Draw a sketch map of the Western Sudan, and indicate the position of Ghana and its expansion.

Decline of Old Ghana
By the end of the 11th Century, Old Ghana had begun to decline. A number of reasons caused this:
(i)Generally speaking, the inherent structural weaknesses common to most Sudanese states caused the decline. In this case it was particularly due to the disruptive activities of the Almoravids, who, either because of a genuine desire to purify and spread Islam, or because of the prospects of booty, descended on and sacked Ghana in AD 1076.
(ii)The Almoravid attacks had opened the way for internal revolts and incursions from hostile neighbours which Ghana could not control.
(iii)Ghana’s great wealth, which had been an asset in its heyday, was now a disadvantage as its envious neighbours began to make increasingly menacing attempts to seize it
(iv)Towards the end of the 12 Century, the Soninke dynasty, established by Kaya Magan about 770 AD, was overthrown by a soldier called Diara Kante who was succeeded in turn by Sumanguru Kante (1200-35). From the small vassal state of Kaniaga, Sumanguru Kante took advantage of his suzerain’s weakness and conquered Ghana in 1203. The resultant confusion and insecurity caused the merchants and scholars in the capital of Old Ghana to move out and settle in Walata. Sundiata, the only surviving son of the ruler of the state of Kangaba who had been sacked by Sumanguru in 1224, captured and killed Sumanguru at the Battle of Kirina in AD 1235.
(v)The rise of strong neighbouring state of Mali were a threat that caused the collapse of the Ghana empire.
(vi) Decline of trans-saharan trade in Ghana due to the exhaustion of trade goods weakened the economy of Ghana leading to its downfall.
(vii) The large size of Ghana kingdom made it difficult for administration, therefore weakening the kingdom until it declined.
Mali Empire

Activity 3.3
In pairs, discuss the possible factors that led to the rise and decline of the kingdom of Mali, considering the points we have discussed concerning the kingdom of Old Ghana.

From the ruins of the Old Ghana Empire, there arose the Mandingo Empire of Mali. Two important personalities dominated the history of this empire, Sundiata (1230-55) and Mansa Musa (1312-37). Under Sundiata, Mali became the dominant trading empire of the Western Sudan. It therefore took the place of Ghana and although there are differences, it imitated the previous empire very closely. One essential difference is that everything that Mali did was on a grander scale; there was more trade, a larger army and a larger empire.

Origins

Mali was not given the name by which it is known until after Sundiata started to build the empire. Its original name was Kangaba. The people of Kangaba were the Mandinka, or in other words, the southern Mande.

Thus, Mali developed from the coming together of a number of Mandinka chieftaincies to form the small state of Kangaba. However, the neighbouring Old Ghana ruler Sumanguru Kante viewed this up-and-coming state with grave concern; and in about 1224 he descended on Kangaba and conquered it, killing, according to some traditions, all but one of its ruler’s twelve sons. Sundiata, the survivor, went into exile.

Kangaba was left in a desperate situation, but eventually Sundiata returned from exile and became the king. He was sent help by many of Sumanguru’s enemies, such as the king of Bobo who sent 1,500 archers to help Kangaba. Thus, Sundiata was able to assemble a large army to face his foe at a place called Kirina. His greatest obstacle to victory was the fear that Sumanguru inspired in the Mandinka. They believed incredible stories about Sumanguru; for example, that he possessed eight heads. It was very important for Sundiata to lead the way in battle and to demonstrate that the Susu king was human and indeed mortal, which he did. The Susu were defeated and Sundiata went on to capture the old kingdom of Ghana.



Between 1235 and his death in 1255, Sundiata created the empire of Mali. Mali is a name that was given to the empire by Arab travellers and its meaning is the ‘place where the king lives’. The title which the Mali people gave to their king was mansa; so by 1235 the once crippled–Sundiata was Mansa Sundiata of Mali.By 1337, Mali empire controlled an area in West Africa that included most of what are now Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, Mali and parts of present-day Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Niger.

The rise and expansion of Mali Kingdom

A number of factors led to the rise and expansion of Mali:

(i)Strategic geographical position – Mali’s position, away from the southern movement of the Sahara Desert, and near the centre of the savannah lands, gave it a good geographical advantage. Thus, with good farming land, Mali could be sure of adequate food, a large population and a powerful army. There was less danger in Mali that war would cause a collapse of agriculture as it had done in Ghana. Another advantage of Mali’s geographical positioning was that empire was less vulnerable to attacks from desert tribes such as Sanhaja and the Tuaregs.

(ii) Unity in Islam – The empire was not a target of the jihads because Mali, unlike Ghana, had long been a Muslim state. Not all the people of Mali, including Sundiata, were strict Muslims, but most kings seem to have been. This fact was beneficial to Mali’s trade and the smooth running of its government.

(iii)Expansion of trade – Sundiata extended the empire’s trading activities –resulting in the expansion of the empire – in a number of ways:

• In order to attract the trans-Saharan trade to the heart of his empire, he moved the capital from Jeriba to a new town, called Niani, which later became known as Mali. He realised that northern traders had abandoned Awdaghost as the main trading centre, and were now concentrating their activities in the direction of Timbuktu and Gao. By concentrating trade in positions on the Niger, he could be sure of keeping in contact with Gao.

• When he extended his empire, he concentrated on areas that would be especially useful to Mali’s trade. He gained control of the gold-producing areas of Wangara. It meant that traders from Gao and Timbuktu would have to trade with Mali for gold and that there would be no need to offset their profits by paying agents for it.

• Another area of expansion of trade included the copper-producing area of Takedda and Taghaza from where the salt came.

(iv)Military conquests and annexations – Sundiata extended the Mali Kingdom through a series of conquests and annexations. Following the defeat of Sumanguru, Sundiata annexed the kingdom of Kaniaga and all her vassal states, including Ghana which he conquered in 1240. After the final defeat of Ghana, Sundiata stayed at his headquarters. He left to his generals the job of further expansion wars. His generals conquered the gold-producing regions of Bambuk and Wangara. The gold in these territories attracted trade, and thus the wealth of the new empire increased. Another important gain was the control of Taghaza, with its rich salt mines

(v)Good administration. Sundiata organized an effective administrative system. He united many petty states, including the newly-annexed ones under one centralised system of administration. He himself took control of the metropolitan administration. He established a standing army under able leaders. He appointed several of these war leaders as governors in the provinces. These military governors exercised effective control over potentially rebellious subjects.

(vi)The contributions of Mansa Musa. He made contributions in the expansion of Mali in a number of ways:

• Devotion to Islam: He was very concerned with spreading the education of Islam and it is under him that Timbuktu started to grow as a great cultural centre. The most famous event of his reign was the great hajj (or pilgrimage) he made to Mecca in 1324. It is clear that he was a cultured man who had great regard for Arab styles of architecture.

• Expansion of trade: He was a shrewd king who dispensed his generosity in directions that he considered most profitable. His lavish presents in Cairo were rewarded by a great expansion of trade with the sultan of Egypt.

• Expansion of boundaries: Musa made conquests and annexations and greatly expanded the boundaries of Mali. Walata was annexed, and then attention was turned toward the main trading centres of Songhai, Gao, Timbuktu and Djenne (Jenne). These centres had always been the most profitable in the Western Sudan. Musa sent his military leader, Sagaman DSir, to conquer these towns, and it was accomplished by the time Musa returned from Mecca in 1325. The wealth of Mali was therefore substantially increased in the reign of Mansa Musa.

Political organisation of the Mali Kingdom

Activity 3.4
In groups of five, go to the library and find out from books of history how the political structure of the kingdom of Mali appeared. Make comparisons between the Mali kingdom and the pre-colonial kingdom of Rwanda.

The Mali Empire covered a larger area for a longer period of time than any other West African state ever did. This in part can be explained by its political organisation:

(i)Decentralisation of administration: The farther the territory was from Niani, the more decentralized the mansa’s power became. Nevertheless, the mansa managed to keep tax money and nominal control over all the area without agitating his subjects into revolt. The Empire reached the limit of its expansion in the reign of Mansa Musa.

(ii)Skilful leaders: Sundiata was an able ruler. Mansa Musa even surpassed him. This great ruler of Mali, who possessed considerable administrative skill, did much to organize Mali’s machinery of government. At the close of Mansa Musa’s reign, in 1337, the empire of Mali extended far beyond the frontiers of the empire of Ghana which it had replaced. This vast empire comprised many kingdoms inhabited by many different peoples. To govern a vast empire of this kind, successive rulers established institutions designed to promote effective government.



(iii)Administration: Mali was divided up into two main administrative units; the metropolitan area which comprised the state of Mali itself and a collection of provincial states annexed through conquest. Assisted by able ministers and counsellors, all renowned Muslims, and by faithful members of the kings’ own extended family, the king exercised personal control over the administration of his own Mandingo people in the metropolitan territory. Sundiata divided the empire into a number of provinces. Mansa Musa re-organised the provinces in the south into fourteen administrative units. The government of these provinces was entrusted to able governors. The machinery of political administration then ran as follows:

• In the southern provinces where the subjects were relatively submissive, the local rulers served as governors. They were allowed a great measure of provincial autonomy, as long as they maintained their loyalty and paid tributes to the emperor regularly.

• To the north where both the vassal states and the neighbouring Tuareg were troublesome, the practice was to send military governors to be in charge of the provincial and local administration, and to keep the people under control.

• Another area which constantly resisted the emperor’s rule was Gao, in the east. To reduce these rebellious people to submission not only were strong military men sent out to govern the province, but also a specially trained battalion was stationed there.

• At stated times, the provincial governors reported at Niani, the capital, not only to submit the accounts of taxes collected for the imperial treasury, but also to give a report of their administration in general. Occasionally, too, officers of the imperial court were sent out to the provincial capitals to inspect and report to the emperor on conditions in the provinces.

• In general terms, provinces picked their own governors via their own custom (election, inheritance, etc.). Regardless of their title in the province, they were recognized as dyamani-tigui (province master) by the mansa. Dyamani-tiguishad to be approved by the mansa and were subject to his oversight. If the mansa didn’t believe the dyamani-tigui was capable or trustworthy, a farbamight be installed to oversee the province or administer it outright.

• At the local level (village, town, city), kun-tiguis elected a dougou-tigui(village-master) from a bloodline descended from that locality’s semi-mythical founder. The county level administrators called kafo-tigui (county-master) were appointed by the governor of the province from within his own circle.

(iv)Motivation of officials: To encourage faithful and effective local administration, provincial officials were all well paid, not only in gold, but often in kind with horses and leases of land. In addition, Mansa Musa instituted special honours to reward outstanding leaders.

(v)Administration of justice: The administration of justice was keenly promoted by the kings of Mali, notably Mansa Musa. The king made sure that no-one received preferential treatment in the law courts, whether the case involved a governor against an ordinary citizen, or a native against an alien. It was recorded, for example, that Mansa Musa once tried and punished severely a provincial governor who had wronged an ordinary peasant. Referring to the administration of justice as it prevailed throughout the empire of Mali in his days.

(vi)Loyalty and respect for authority: Loyalty and respect for authority were other characteristics of the people of Mali, which resulted from good administration.

Economic organisation

• The Mali Empire flourished because of trade. It contained three immense gold mines within its borders. The empire taxed gold or salt that entered its borders. By the beginning of the 14th Century, Mali was the source of almost half the Old World’s gold exported from mines in Bambuk, Boure and Galam.

• There was no standard currency throughout the realm, but several forms were prominent by region. The Sahelian and Saharan towns of the Mali Empire were organised as both staging posts in the long-distance caravan trade, and trading centers for the various West African products. At Taghaza, for example, salt was exchanged; copper was traded at Takedda. Ibn Battuta observed the employment of slave labour in both towns. During most of his journey, Ibn Battuta travelled with a retinue that included slaves, most of whom carried goods for trade but would also be traded as slaves.

• On the return journey from Takedda to Morocco, his caravan transported 600 female slaves, suggesting that slavery was a substantial part of the commercial activity of the empire.

Role of minerals

The role of minerals in Mali’s economic activity included the following:

• Gold:Gold nuggets were the exclusive property of the mansa, and were illegal to trade within his borders. All gold was immediately handed over to the imperial treasury in return for an equal value of gold dust. Gold dust had been weighed and bagged for use at least since the reign of the Ghana Empire. Mali borrowed the practice to stem inflation of the substance, since it was so prominent in the region. The most common measure for gold within the realm was the ambiguous mithqal (4.5 grams of gold). This term was used interchangeably with dinar, though it is unclear if coined currency was used in the empire. Gold dust was used all over the empire, but was not valued equally in all regions.

• Salt:The next great unit of exchange in the Mali Empire was salt. Salt was as almost if not equally valuable to gold in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was cut into pieces and spent on goods with close to equal buying power throughout the empire. While it was as good as gold in the north, it was even better in the south. The people of the south needed salt for their diet, but it was extremely rare. The northern region on the other hand had no shortage of salt. Every year merchants entered Mali via Walata (Oualata) with camel loads of salt to sell in Niani. According to Ibn Battuta who visited Mali in the mid-14th Century, one camel load of salt sold at Walata for 8-10 mithqals of gold, but in Mali proper it realised 20-30 ducats and sometimes even 40. Copper. Copper, traded in bars, was mined from Takedda in the north and traded in the south for gold. Contemporary sources claim 60 copper bars traded for 100 dinars of gold.

Social organisation

Social organisation of Mali covered a number of areas:

(i)Islamisation of state – Mansa Musa’s major achievement was that he made Mali a much more devoutly Muslim country. In Mali he instituted compulsory readings of the Koran. As a Muslim, he promoted the careers of fellow Muslims. Many mosques were built and Friday prayers were always observed at the king’s court. Yet many of his subjects continued to worship in the traditional way and Musa showed no objection. This was particularly true of people who were not related to Musa’s Mandinka clan, such as the gold-diggers of Wangara. For in spite of his own piety, he had no wish to divide his domain with religious disputes.

(ii)Education– Mansa Musa encouraged the establishment of Islamic schools. These increased the prestige of both Mali and Songhai. He attracted many learned and skilled men, like As-Sahili, from the Muslim world to these centres of learning. He encouraged the practice of sending promising scholars from his empire to Islamic seats of learning abroad to pursue advanced studies. These scholars returned to Mali, to form the nucleus of a group of learned teachers and professors in the schools and colleges in the empire.

(iii)Architecture – Returning from the pilgrimage, Mansa Musa brought with him a group of renowned Muslim architects and scholars. Chief among these men was As-Sahili the celebrated architect and poet. As-Sahili is believed to have been the first to introduce in Mali the use of burnt bricks for building houses. Among his great constructional works were the famous burnt brick mosques in Gao and Timbuktu as well as the burnt brick palace at Timbuktu. Through the influence of As-Sahili the knowledge of the use of burnt bricks for building houses spread throughout the empire.

As-Sahili also introduced to Mali flat-roof architecture. In this and other ways a new age of architecture was born in the Western Sudan. Within Mali, the imperial rulers ordered mosques constructed and palaces converted into mosques. Architects and builders increased the size of the mosques to accommodate a larger Muslim population and underscore the importance of Islam. The cities of Gao, Djenne (Jenne) and Timbuktu boasted large mosques. In Djenne stands a great mosque. Constructed of blocks made from a mixture of rice husks, earth and water that was allowed to ferment. It is an impressive structure, four stories high, with three minarets almost 60 feet high. The spires are topped with ostrich eggs symbolic of good fortune and fertility.

(iv)Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca – In the years 1324-5, Mansa Musa went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, passing through Muslim centres such as Walata, Tuat and Cairo. The splendor and generosity which attended the pilgrimage won the admiration of the people in every territory through which he passed.



The important effects of his pilgrimage to Mecca may be summarised as follows:

• Mansa Musa’s own faith and zeal increased remarkably.
• He set about purifying the religion in his empire and, as noted earlier, insisted on the strictest observance of the faith and practice of Islam.
• He promoted Islamic learning.
• Mansa Musa’s example and his devout insistence on the faithful observance of the rules of Islam must have increased his prestige greatly among the Muslims of Western Sudan.

The decline of Mali Kingdom

Activity 3.5
Work in pairs Considering the factors that led to the decline of the kingdoms of Old Ghana and the kingdom of Rwanda, brainstorm on the possible reasons for the downfall of the kingdom of Mali. Discuss your points in class.

Mali’s greatness and renown continued up to the end of Mansa Sulayman’s reign. It was then that the empire began to decline. By the end of the 15th Century it had lost much of its power to Songhai. The disintegration of the empire of Mali took place because of internal and external reasons:

1. Internal causes

Internal causes of Mali’s decline included the following:

(i)Weak and incompetent leaders: The death of Sulayman began a period of forty years of constant civil war and changes of kingship. There were immediately two men ready to rule over Mali; Sulayman’s son Kamba and the grandson of Mansa Musa, Mari Jata II. The army was split in civil war and the royal clan was divided. Temporary peace was restored when Mari Jata became king (1360-74). A greedy despot, he hardly reflected the greatness of his grandfather. The attempts made by Mansa Musa II (1374-87) to revive the strength of the army, trade and government failed. Constant internal dissension resulted in the assassination of Mansa Maghan II (1387-9), after a short reign.

(ii)Rebellion by vassal states: At the height of its glory, the Mali empire was very extensive, comprising many provinces which were inhabited by different ethnic groups. Each of these was waiting for signs that the central authority was weakening; for them to seize an opportunity to become independent of imperial control. Some of these attempts were successful. The first to do this was Gao (Songhai). On his way from pilgrimage, Mansa Musa had stopped at his vassal city of Gao and taken with him to Mali two princes of Gao, Ali Kolen and Sulayman Nar, as hostages to ensure the continued loyalty of the people to his authority. Not long afterwards, the two princes escaped from Mali and went back home to Gao. They organised a successful rebellion, and drove out the military forces stationed there by Mansa Musa. The people of Tekrur in the west followed the example of Gao.

2. External causes

The empire suffered a number of attacks by her jealous neighbours:

(i)Attack from Mossi: In the reign of the great Mansa Musa, in 1333, the Mossi in the south had attacked Timbuktu. They were Later repulsed. About 1400 they made another destructive attack on the empire.

(ii)Tuareg attack: Mali’s northern neighbours, the Tuareg, under their able leader Aki lag Malwal, took Walata and Timbuktu in 1433-4.

(iii)Songhai attack: In 1468, Sunni Ali of Songhai started raids on Mali. By the end of the 15th Century, Mali had been completely annexed by Songhai.

(iv) French colonisation: Mali as an ancient kingdom disappeared from the maps from about 1670 onwards. About a century and a half later, this former great West African territory fell into the hands of the French. Great patriots like Samori Toure made courageous attempts to recover Mali’s lost heritage. But it was not until 1960 that this French colony regained her independence. The founders of this new nation renamed their country Mali, to recall the past glory of the medieval Sudanese empire of that name, to which their ancestors belonged.

Songhai Empire

As Mali’s power waned, Songhai asserted its independence and rose to power in the area as the third and perhaps the greatest of the Sudanese states of West Africa. Songhai had been an important trade centre within Mali’s empire, just as Mali had once been ruled by Ghana.



Origin

What became the nucleus of Songhai began with the coming together of two mutually unfriendly groups of oborigines: the Sorko, who were mostly fishermen, and made their living on the river Niger; and the Gabibi, who were agriculturalists, and lived in different parts of the countryside. Depending mainly on fishing, the lives of the Sorko were dominated by the river. By the 7th Century, they had organised themselves into a fairly strong kingdom, with Kukia as their capital. With time, the Sorko dominated the Gabibi. The two people’s merged into one kingdom, which the Arabic records refer to as Al-Kawkaw.

About the beginning of the 8th Century, the Berber Lemta tribe from the north of Gao, under their leader Za Alieamen, conquered the kingdom. Thus began a long line of Za rulers in Al-Kawkaw. Al-Kawkaw grew into a prosperous and powerful kingdom through fishing, cattle-rearing and trade. The growing prosperity attracted Muslim merchants from the north. In about 1010 the ruler, Za Kossoi, was converted to Islam. We have seen that Sundiata moved the capital of Kaniaga from Jeriba to Niani (Mali) to be nearer the centre of trade. The leaders of Al-Kawkaw transferred their capital from Kukia to Gao for the same reasons. Al-Kawkaw grew in importance alongside both the Ghana and Mali empires. But as the two empires developed, more and more of the Sudanese trade shifted westwards, and Al-Kawkaw declined gradually in importance. Indeed, she lost her independence for a time to Mali.

Factors that led to the growth of Songhai

Activity 3.6

Work in pairs.Considering the factors that led to the growth of the kingdoms of Mali and the Old Ghana, brainstorm on the factors that boosted the growth of the Songhai kingdom.

A number of factors led to the growth of Songhai:

(i) Trade

Songhai’s rich and fertile land and other resources attracted traders. Three principal trade routes converged at the capital, Gao.

(ii) Influences of Islam

Trans-Saharan trade brought into the kingdom Muslim influences which helped the development of the kingdom. These influences became more pronounced from the beginning of the 11th Century, following the conversion of the king, Za Kossoi, to Islam. Furthermore, as happened elsewhere, the Muslims became advisers in the royal court, and influenced not only the administration, but also the social, economic, and political life of the kingdom.

(iii) Gao’s resistance to Mali domination

In the 14th Century, the kingdom of Gao came under the control of Mali in the reign of Mansa Musa. In due course, Gao threw off Mali’s domination, in a rebellion initiated by the two Gaoan princes, Ali Kolen and Sulayman Nar, whom Mansa Musa had taken away to Mali as hostages. These princes escaped and Sulayman Nar drove out the army of Mali stationed at Gao. However, some time elapsed before Gao, now developing into an empire, was able to gain its independence from Mali completely.

(iv) The work of Sunni Ali (1464-1492)

Just as Sundiata was the founder of the Mali Empire, so was Sunni Ali’s role in the history of the Songhai empire.

Sunni Ali’s contribution to the growth of the empire

A number of factors enabled Sunni Ali to contribute in the growth and expansion of the empire.

(a)Weakness of neighbouring countries: Weakness in the neighbouring countries helped Sunni Ali’s work of expanding and consolidating his empire. However, much of his success was due to his own personal courage and ruthlessness.

(b)Enough military strength: In order to quell internal opposition and to launch wars of expansion, Sunni Ali established a very well-organised army. He also started a navy and organized a strong fleet, headed by a navy officer, the Hi-koy. With the help of the fleet, he was able to command control of the Niger River. With these formidable armed forces he was able to clear his kingdom of all opponents to his rule. His military might enabled him to conquer neighbouring countries such as: Timbuktu, Jenne, Yetanga and Hausaland.The wealth derived from these newly-annexed vassal states contributed greatly to the prosperity of Songhai empire.

(c)Efficient administration: Sunni Ali established a very efficient administration. He had so expanded the frontiers of Songhai that the empire contained many different peoples and territories. To keep this large empire together, Sunni Ali set up very efficient administrative machinery. He divided his empire into provinces. He made able war leaders governors of strategic regions. For example, in the province of Hombori in the south, a mountainous territory which gave him much trouble, he placed a veteran leader, called Tondifari to keep the rebellious people in submission and to maintain an effective check on any incursions from outside the frontiers of the empire. In the relatively peaceful provinces, Sunni Ali allowed the native rulers a good deal of local autonomy, as long as they were answerable to him, and showed their loyalty to the imperial authority through the regular payment of tributes. His policy towards conquered peoples therefore varied according to conditions prevailing in each individual territory. In localities where the Muslims did not oppose him, he treated them fairly.

(v) The work of Askia Muhammad (1493-1528)

When Sunni Ali died in 1492, he was succeeded by his son, Abu Bakr (also known as Sunni Baru). He reigned for only a little over a year. A succession dispute then arose, which resulted in fierce rivalry between Ali’s son and one of Sunni Ali’s war generals, who had served as Ali’s chief minister. The general’s name was Muhammad Ture, also known as Muhammad Ture Ibn Abi Bakr. Muhammad Ture emerged victorious from a war against Abu Bakr, defeating his rival at a place called Angoo. Entering Gao in triumph, Muhammad Ture was proclaimed king of Songhai. He assumed the title Askia, meaning ‘he can’t be (king)’, an expression with which the sisters of his rival, in utter disgust at learning of the victory of Muhammad Ture, had greeted his triumphant entry into Gao. That started the new ‘Askia’ dynasty which replaced the Sunni line. Askia reigned from 1493 to 1528, when he was deposed by his eldest son, Musa. Askia Muhammad took measures to improve the social and economic life of the empire.

Askia Muhammad’s achievements for his Empire

Political organisation

Askia Muhammad’s political astuteness and administrative genius helped to make him one of the great rulers of Songhai. Under him the empire reached its greatest extent stretching from Walata in the west to Kano in the east. It included a number of important trading centres in the Sahara.

(a)Territorial expansion: Askia followed the example of Sunni Ali and made further territorial gains through conquests and treaties. He renewed Songhai’s attack on the Mossi but, like his predecessor, Sunni Ali, he failed to conquer these strong southern neighbours. After a long campaign, he then conquered what was left of the Mali kingdom. His next move was against the Hausa states of Gobir, Kano, Katsina and Zamfara, all of which he annexed. At the height of Askia’s reign the Songhai empire stretched from the Atlantic to Lake Chad.

(b) Administration: Askia set about consolidating the territorial gains made by his predecessor, Sunni Ali, by an elaborate administrative system. He extended this administrative system to the new lands he added to the empire. He re-divided the empire into four regions, and at the head of each he placed a vice-roy or governor. The regions were Kurmina Masina, Bambara; Dendi Bala, to and Bangu

Each region was headed by a governor, called fari, farma or koy. Local rulers still had authority but they were responsible to the regional governors. In metropolitan Songhai itself, the king held direct control of the machinery of government. He appointed a council of ministers who assisted him in ruling not only the metropolitan area but the entire empire. Among the most important ministerial officers were:

• Katisi-farma, responsible for finance
• Asari-mundia, responsible for justice
• Balama, responsible for defence
• Hi-koy, responsible for the navy
• Korey-farma, responsible for foreign affairs
• Sao-farma, the minister in charge of forestry
• Hari-farma, in charge of rivers, lakes and fisheries
• Kari-farma, the chief priest of the indigenous religion of Songhai
• Barey-koy, who was in charge of the imperial court arrangements.

(c)Military organisation: Askia Muhammad also organised the army effectively. The soldiers kept Tuareg bandits out of the empire and maintained a peaceful atmosphere in which commerce could flourish.

Social organisation

In the realm of social development, he encouraged learning, built up Timbuktu as a hub of civilisation, and patronised Islam.

(a) Religion – Like Mansa Musa, Askia Muhammad was a devout Muslim. He used Islam as a unifying force and adopted Islamic principles as guidelines for the conduct of his people. Askia appointed judges in each important town of the empire. These judges followed the Koranic law and the Sharia. As a devout Muslim, Askia Muhammad made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1497. Though not as fabulous as Mansa Musa’s, Askia’s pilgrimage had important effects on the development of his empire. He bought a hostel at Cairo for Sudanese pilgrims going to and returning from Mecca. In recognition of his strict adherence to and promotion of Islam, Askia was awarded the title of ‘Caliph of the Blacks’.Like Mansa Musa, Askia returned from the pilgrimage with a number of celebrated Islamic scholars. These served the empire as educators administrators, advisers and judges. As more Muslims were attracted to Songhai, relations with the Muslim world improved. This meant an increase in trade. These Muslim immigrants also had a far-reaching influence on the political, social and cultural life of the empire.Also, inspired by North African Islamic theologians like Al-Maghili, he abolished the practice of sand-divining and the belief in talisman. He also made laws against the ill-use of pregnant slave women; and further, he legislated against nudity among adults.

(b) Education – Askia Muhammad encouraged the spread of education. It was recorded, for example, that during Askia’s reign, there were as many as 150 Koranic schools in Timbuktu alone. The standard of learning at centres such as the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu, in Jenne and in Gao reached a very advanced level. Scholars from all over the Islamic world came to these centres for further studies. These institutions of higher learning produced many celebrated scholars. The growth of literacy had a great influence on the social, cultural and political life of the empire; it also helped to promote the trade in books.

Economic organisation

Askia Muhammad reformed and put the economy of Songhai on a firm basis. He encouraged regional specialisation according to the natural distribution of the Empire’s economic resources. Thus some areas specialised in the cultivation of food crops, some in fishing, others in the production of building materials, in smith work and in the mining of gold, salt and copper.

He regularised the system of weights and measures and made salt, in addition to cowries, the imperial currency. His reforms increased the yield of state revenue from slave-worked in royal estates, regular contributions from the provinces, tributes from vassal states and proceeds from state-controlled commerce, particularly the trans-Saharan trade. The prosperity helped, among other things, in the establishment of a standing professional army vital for the strength and stability of Songhai.

Following are his contributions to Songhai economy.

(a) Weights and measures – Askia established a unified system of weights and measures throughout the empire, allowing, where necessary, a degree of local variation. . He legislated against cheating in trade, and appointed inspectors to control weights and measures and prices.

(b) Sources of imperial revenue – The imperial treasury derived its revenue from farming and industry, court fines and from a variety of taxes. The income from these sources and the huge sums of money gained from commerce helped the kings to maintain an effective administration, to build up a strong army and navy, and to develop flourishing cities like Gao, Timbuctu and Jenne.• Farming: Much wealth was derived from farming and fishing. Throughout the empire, the government established vast estates which were worked by slaves. Each estate was under a fanfa, or estate manager. The revenue from these state farms went into the imperial treasury.

• Crafts: Teams of slaves were also organised for the production of boats, spears and arrows. Some of these products went to equip the imperial army and navy. Some were sold to replenish the imperial treasury.

• Tributes: Other sources of imperial revenue were tributes collected from vassal states.

• Taxes: Taxes were collected from farmers by the regional governors and were sent regularly to the capital.

• Tolls and duties: In addition, much revenue was collected in form of tolls and customs duties.

• Court fines: These were another source of imperial revenue.

Decline of Songhai Empire

Activity 3.7

In groups of five, visit the library and use resources such as history books and the Internet to find out both the internal and external causes for the decline of the Songhai Kingdom.

When Askia Muhammad was 85 years old, and had become blind and infirm with age, one of his sons, Musa, is said to have taken advantage of this to dethroned him. Thereafter, the history of Songhai was one of decline, for, with the exception of Askia Daud who ruled Songhai from 1549 to 1582, the successors of Askia the Great could not cope with the problems which contributed to the decline and final collapse of the empire at the close of the 16th Century. The fall of the empire was brought about by factors which were both internal and external.

(a) Internal factors

(i) Incompetent rulers: The strength of Songhai was weakened by ineffective and often incompetent rulers. In addition, the empire suffered from a series of dynastic intrigues and short and unsuccessful reigns. For example, when Askia the Great was aged 85, he was deposed by his eldest son, Musa. He was later sent away from the capital by his nephew, Askia Bankuri (also known as Askia Muhammad II or Bengan Korei), to exile in kankaka island in the Niger. The ill treatment of Askia the Great caused dissention and rivalry which weakened the unity of the empire.

(ii) Short reigns: Short reigns failed to create stability in the empire. Between 1528 and 1549, a relatively short period of 21 years, as many as four rulers occupied the Songhai throne, each one deposing his predecessor: Askia Musa (1528-33), Askia Bankuri (1533-37), Askia Ismail (1537-39), and Askia Ishak 1(1539-49). These short reigns were in contrast to the long reigns of Sunni Ali and Askia Muhammad the Great, and by 1549 when Daud’s long reign began, the stability of the empire had been seriously impaired.

(iii) Frequent succession disputes:Although Songhai’s prestige was restored somewhat under the next ruler Askia Daud, who had a very long reign from 1549 to 1582, he could not heal all the wounds which had been inflicted on the empire during the previous 21 years. Moreover, after his death, succession disputes hampered much of his work. The three Askias who followed, like those who came before him, were weak rulers and were, in addition, immoral. They had naturally short reigns: Askia Muhammad III (1582-6), Askia Muhammad Bani(1586-8), and Askia Ishak II (1588-91). In Ishak II’s reign Songhai fell under Morocco. These weak kings contributed to the final fall of the empire.

(iv) Rebellions in the empire’s border territories: Songhai was united and strong enough to withstand external pressures. Many vassal states had become independent and hostile. They were only ready to help the invading Morocco forces. The Mossi to the south-west, the Hausa to the east, and the Tuareg to the north were a constant threat to the security of the empire. Besides, the heterogeneous nature of the vast empire, meant that the empire could be kept together only by the most able ruler. When the rulers were incompetent, and their claims to the throne were disputed, the empire was liable to disintegrate. This was the internal state of affairs when Moroccan forces marched down on Songhai.

(b) External factors Morocco and other northern African countries had for centuries been envious of the wealth of the empire of Songhai. They always wanted to take it. Gold was one reason. Another was that the Moroccans did not want the Sudanese advancing into the desert as they had steadily been doing. Morocco especially resented the control of the Taghaza salt mines by the Songhai and long before the invasion of 1591 the two countries had been fighting over this region.

Reasons for the defeat of Songhai

The reasons for the defeat of Songhai included the following:

(i)A major cause was the internal weakness of Songhai combined with the willing assistance given to Morocco by several vassal states who wanted to assert their freedom from the authority of Songhai.

(ii)The Moroccans commanded an army of well-drilled and determined men, intent on gaining the rich possessions of Songhai.

(iii)The Moroccans had the advantage of using superior weapons which included arquebuses (obsolete matchlock firearms) and muskets. The Askia’s forces included, somewhat unusually, 1,000 cows, which were placed between the two armies, and it was hoped that they would block the Moroccan bullets. But, like the Songhai soldiers, the cattle were terrified by the sound of the guns and turned to trample to death many of the Songhai soldiers. The weapons of Songhai were primitive, being bows and arrows, spears, swords and clubs.

The capture of Gao and Timbuktu did not end the war completely. Having deposed Ishak II, the Songhai installed Askia Kagho as their ruler; he directed his men to resort to guerrilla warfare. They put up a considerable fight until, unfortunately for Songhai, Kagho was treacherously killed by the Moroccans who had invited him for peace talks. Kagho was succeeded by his brother, Askia Nuh, who continued the resistance until 1595, when Songhai was finally it defeated, and became a province of Morocco.

Results of the defeat of Songhai

The Moroccan conquest of the empire of Songhai had several consequences on the history which included the following:

(i) Loss of independence

(a) Songhai lost her independence and became a province of Morocco. Songhai as a great empire lost her identity and her well-organised central administration. The results of this situation were as follows:

(b) The different states which had been united as members of the great empire of Songhai asserted their independence. But they did not have adequate resources to exist as separate units; instead they started fighting each other.

(c) The Sultan of Morocco sent out governors called pashas to take charge of the Sudanese provinces that were under the control of Morocco.

(d) The pashas sent out to the Western Sudan were mostly greedy and corrupt and unfit for the task assigned to them. Indeed, the administration of these provincial pashas was characterized by constant intrigues and struggles for power. This explains why, for example, within a short period of five years, from 1616 to 1621, the Western Sudanese administration passed through the hands of as many as twenty-one pashas.

(e) While the superstructure of the imperial system collapsed, the diverse groups which made up the Songhai empire regained their independence and survived as small but virile states until the 19th Century – before the jihads and Partition. These groups included Tekrur, Kaarta, Segu, Masina, Dendi, Kebbi, Gobir, Kano Zaria and Katsina.

(ii) Economic consequences

The trans-Saharan trade and the internal economy decline for the following reasons:

(a) By a coincidence, Europeans had started trading on the Guinea coast about a century before the fall of Songhai. This, combined with the disturbed situation in the Western Sudan, meant that the centre of the West African trade shifted from the north to the western and southern coasts of West Africa. The gold and ivory which now ceased to go north went southwards instead to boost the prosperity and importance of some of the forest and coastal states, particularly Asante and Fante, turning Songhai’s economic loss into these states’ gain.

(b) The condition of the Western Sudan was made worse by the crippling taxation and levies imposed by the pashas.

(c) The Moroccans had been very disappointed by what they had gained from conquering the Songhai empire. Although Al-Mansur obtained a great deal of gold, and earned the title El-Dhahabi, meaning the ‘Golden Ruler’, what Morocco actually gained as a result of the conquest was far less than they had expected.

(iii) Loss of glory

The capture of the Sudanese cities, accompanied by the destruction of men and property had other consequences:

(a) Cities like Gao, Timbuktu and Jenne declined as centres of trade and as seats of learning.

(b) With the death and capture of many scholars, the influence of Islam in the Western Sudan declined rapidly. In its place, pagan religions were revived. It was not until the beginning of the 19th Century that Islamic revivalist movements were launched by the Fulani in the Western Sudan

(c) On the other hand, the eastward shift of the trans-Saharan trade and the movement of scholars from the Western Sudan in the same direction, as a consequence of the Moroccan invasion, increased the prosperity and renown of some of the Hausa states and that of Kanem-Bornu

Kanem-Bornu Empire



The Kanem-Bornu Empire existed in modern Chad and Nigeria. It was known to the Arabian geographers as the Kanem Empire from the 9th Century AD onward. It lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu until 1900. To the east of Lake Chad there emerged a kingdom comprising several states. This developed over a period of time, into the great Kanuri Empire. The beginnings of the empire coincided with the rise of Mali and Al-Kawkaw or Songhai, and the period of Ghana’s greatness.

For many years, what came to be officially known as the Kanuri Empire was made up of two parts, separated by the lake. Kanem was in the east, and Bornu in the west of the empire. Kanem served as the centre of the empire for many years, but in the 15th Century, the seat of government shifted to Bornu in the west.

Origins

The origins of the Kanuri Empire are very unclear. Much of what we know about it is purely legendary. According to the so-called Kisra legend, Kanem was founded by a prince called Kisra and his followers who migrated to the east of Lake Chad from eastern Africa. It is believed that the westward movement of Kisra and his people took place as a consequence of the destruction of the city of Meroe (in the present-day republic of the Sudan) by the people of Axum (in Ethiopia) in about AD 350. Archaeologists have unearthed several historical remains in Kanem, which seem to point to the influence of Meroe.

Some of the early peoples of the Kanem area were the So, who were the original inhabitants of the area; the Zaghawa – a nomadic people who were believed to have immigrated from eastern Africa in early times, and to have settled to the east of the lake in about 8th Century AD; the Kanuri or Kanembi; and the Bulala.

The major factor that influenced the later history of the state of Kanem was the early penetration of Islam. North African traders; Berbers and Arabs, brought the new religion. Towards 1068, Hummay, a member of the Sefawa establishment, who was already a Muslim, discarded the last Duguwa King, Selma, from power and thus established the new dynasty of the Sefawa. Islam offered the Sefawa rulers the advantage of new ideas from Arabia and the Mediterranean world, as well as literacy in administration. But many people resisted the new religion favouring traditional beliefs and practices. When Hummay had assumed power on the basis of his strong Islamic following, for example, it is believed that the Kanembu began some kind of internal opposition.

When the ruling dynasty changed, the royal establishment abandoned its capital of Manan and settled in the new capital Njimi further south of Kanem. By the 13th Century, Kanem’s rule expanded. At the same time, the Kanembu people drew closer to the new rulers and increased the growing population in the new capital of Njimi. Even though the Kanembu became the main power-base of the Sefawa, Kanem’s rulers continued to travel frequently throughout the kingdom and especially towards Bornu, west of Lake Chad. Herders and farmers alike recognized the government’s power and acknowledged their allegiance by paying tribute.

The power and growth of Kanem-Bornu, unlike that of most other Sudanese states, fluctuated over the years, but the state never really completely broke down. One reason for this was the remarkable extent of the Sefawa dynasty whose rulers were able to sustain the state through crises of disintegration. Their profiles below show how this happened:

Achievements of some Mai to the expansion of Kanem-Bornu

(a) Mai Dugu

The first known Mai (or ruler) who ruled these early settlers as a united people was Dugu. He founded the Sefawa dynasty in about AD 774. His capital was Njimi, situated to the north-east of Lake Chad.

(b) Mai Umme Jilmi (1085-97)

It was in the reign of Mai Jilmi that Islam was introduced to Kanem-Bornu. He is said to have died while on pilgrimage. Between 1085 and 1240 Islam gained ground in Kanem Bornu, especially among the ruling class. Islam tended to make a positive contribution to scholarship and administration.

(c) Mai Dunama 1 (1097-1150)

Dunama had a long reign. He was powerful and pious. He strengthened the hold of the Kanembu on their subjects and went on pilgrimages several times.

(d) Mai Selma (1194-1221)

Mai Selma is notable as the first Kanembu king of Kanem-Bornu, his predecessors in office having been the Zagha, who founded the state. He continued to strengthen the state by maintaining a firm control over his more troublesome peoples, particularly the nomadic tribes, and by controlling the trans-Saharan trade as far as Fezzan. Njimi became well-established as the capital of the growing empire in Selma’s time.

(e) Mai Dunama Dabalemi ibn Selma (1221-59)

He was also known as Dunama II. His reign was full of wars, and with an army 30,000-40,000 strong men, he made extensive conquests. Dunama II maintained good relations with the powerful Hafsid rulers of North Africa. He is said to have exchanged rich presents with them, including a giraffe which he sent to Al-Mustan-sir. The first phase of the empire (ie from its foundation to the time when it moved westwards to Bornu) reached its height under Mai Dunama II.

(f) Mai Ali Ghaji (Ghazi)

(1472-15-4He came to the throne after a period of civil wars which threatened the continued existence of Kanem-Bornu. On his accession, he began to shift the headquarters from Njimi to Ngazargamu, completing this in 1484. He thus laid the foundation for the second phase of the Kanem-Bornu Empire. He ended the disruptive civil wars, and reformed the administration and the army. But he is best remembered for his remarkable career of conquest which earned him the title ‘El Ghazi’ or the Warrior. Ali Ghaji patronized Islam, and is said to have enforced Islamic practices with the help of his Chief Imam.

(g) Mai Idris Katakarmabi and Mohammed (1504-45)

This was Ali Ghaji’s son and successor, who completed his father’s conquests. He checked the Bulala threat, and strengthened the link with North Africa by sending an embassy to Tripoli about 1512. Idris Katakarmabi was followed by Mai Mohammed (1526-45). Mohammed more or less ended the continued Bulala menace by a ruthless military action in which the Bornu ‘rebels’ were beaten and their king killed. After Mohammed, succession disputes flared up again and there followed a brief interregnum when the Magira Aicha ruled, preparing the way for the most famous Mai of Kanem-Bornu.

Mai Idris Aluma (1571-1603)

Kanem-Bornu peaked during the reign of the outstanding statesman Mai Idris Aluma (1571-1603). Idris Aluma’s reign was well-documented by his chief Imam, Ahmed Ibn Fartua Aluma (also spelled Alooma). He is remembered for his military skills, administrative reforms, and Islamic piety. His main adversaries were the Hausa to the west, the Tuareg and Toubou to the north, and the Bulala to the east. Mai Aluma’s reign can be remembered for a number of innovations and achievements:

Factors for the rise and growth of Karnem-Bornu

(i)Military innovations – His innovations included the employment of fixed military camps (with walls); permanent sieges and ‘scorched earth’ tactics, where soldiers burned everything in their path; armoured horses and riders; and the use of Berber camelry, Kotoko boatmen, and iron-helmeted musketeers trained by Turkish military advisers.

(ii)Good diplomatic relations– His active diplomacy featured relations with Tripoli, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire, which sent a 200-member ambassadorial party across the desert to Aluma’s court at Ngazargamu. Aluma also signed what was probably the first written treaty or cease-fire in Chadian history.

(iii)Legal and administrative reforms – Aluma introduced a number of legal and administrative reforms based on his religious beliefs and Islamic law (sharia). (iv)Islamisation – Idris Aluma was a great patron of Islam and used his great power to boost the process of Islamisation within his sphere of influence.

Previously only the clerical families and the ruling class had adopted Islam; but in Idris Aluma’s time all the notables, and many others, according to Ibn Fartua, became Muslims. He began the process of substituting the Sharia for customary law in certain spheres. He sponsored the construction of numerous mosques and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he arranged for the establishment of a hostel to be used by pilgrims from his empire.

(v)Political alliances – As with other dynamic politicians, Aluma’s reformist goals led him to seek loyal and competent advisers and allies. He frequently relied on slaves who had been educated in noble homes. Aluma regularly sought advice from a council composed of heads of the most important clans. He commanded the loyalty and support of the Kanuri who came to identify themselves with the Bornu empire, and he went a long way towards the political unification of the various groups within it. He used a combination of Islam, dynastic marriages and a careful definition of Bornu’s sphere of influence, to achieve this. He required major political figures to live at the court. He reinforced political alliances through marriages.

(vi)Economic organisation– Kanem-Bornu under Aluma was strong and wealthy. Government revenue came from tributes, sale of slaves, and duties on participation in trans-Saharan trade. The Chadian region did not have gold. Still, it was central to one of the most convenient trans-Saharan trade routes. Between Lake Chad and Fezzan lay a sequence of well-spaced wells and oases. From Fezzan there were easy connections to North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. Many products were sent north, including natron (sodium carbonate), cotton, kola nuts, ivory, ostrich feathers, perfume, wax and hides. But the most important of all were slaves. Imports included salt, horses, silks, glass, muskets, and copper.

Mai Idris Aluma’s contribution to the rise of the second Kanem-Bornu empire is comparable to that of Mansa Musa of Mali and Askia Muhammad Ture for Songhai. He died in 1603 when returning from an expedition. When expanded the empire to its widest extent; Islamised all aspects of life in the empire; he had made his empire widely known and respected throughout the Muslim world in Africa, Asia and Turkey; he left the empire at the peak of its power and prosperity. His reign coincided with the decline of the Songhai empire. His fame did not end with his death, but persisted down to the 19th Century.

Organisation of the empire

The empire lasted for over a thousand years. During this long period, institutions of government underwent changes. However, the following may be regarded as an outline of how the vast empire was organized, when at the peak of its power.

Social and political organisation

• At the head of the central government was the king (Mai). He was regarded as sacred and was more or less worshipped. For this reason, he did not show himself in public, except on two annual festivals. Otherwise he remained always hidden behind a curtain, even when receiving guests. Next in importance was the queen mother, Magira. Some of these Magira became so powerful that they had great influence over and sometimes vetoed the decisions of the Mai. Another influential person was the first or ‘eldest’ wife of the king Gumsu. The Mai in effect ruled indirectly through a hierarchy of officials, including the Supreme Council of State. Each of the twelve councillors exercised authority over a feudal-like territory, sometimes in addition to other administrative assignments in the capital. The most important Councillors were the Yerima, First War Lord and Warden of the South, the Warden of the North, the Warden of the East and keeper of the Mai’s household and the (Galadima) Warden of the West. In time these titles became honorific, as circumstances changed and their holders settled down to a life of cultured leisure in the capital. They appointed officers called Chimagana to administer their fiefs.

• The change of dynasty, from Seifawa to Shehu, in the 19th Century also saw the shifting of effective political power from these old dignitaries to a new class of administrators called ‘Kokenawa’.

• Other important officials of Kanem-Bornu included the Mainin Kanendi (Chie Judge), who was the second most important citizen after the Mai. He and twelve other judges formed the High Court which dispensed justice; a Registrar (Talba) kept records of its proceedings. There were also courts in the main towns from which appeals could be put before the High Court. Eventually, as Islamic practices took root in Kanem-Bornu, Muslim Qadis and local judges (Malamai) joined the judiciary.

• Royal personages like the Queen Mother the Mai’s official elder sister (Magara), and his consort or official wife (Gumsu), enjoyed certain privileges and took part in the administration. In particular, the Queen Mother wielded considerable political influence, if not direct power. For instance, one Mai, Biri Ibn Dunama (1151-74), was said to have been imprisoned by the Magira of his time. Another Queen Mother, Aicha, successfully fought and won the throne for her son, Idris Aluma, who was to become the greatest Mai of Kanem-Bornu.

Economic organisation

Kanem-Bornu got its revenue from poll tax (binemram) which was levied through each fief-holder and the sadaa, a special harvest tithe. The proceeds went direct to the royal coffers. Tribute was collected from vassal states, and officials of royal origin were generally entrusted with this.

Trade was the greatest source of income, despite the absence of large and important commercial centres as in the Western Sudan. Grain from the empire was exchanged for salt at Bilma, and natron or potash from the Lake Chad region was sent to Kano from where it was distributed over wide areas of the Sudan.

Kanuri middlemen handled the copper trade between Darfur and Nupe. Kola from the forest belt came through Kano and was exported, along with slaves from the southern part of the empire, to Tunis, Tripoli and Cairo. Cowries and rolls of cloth were the standard currency.

Decline of Kanem-Bornu Empire

The administrative reforms and military brilliance of Aluma sustained the empire until the mid-1600s, when its power began to fade. By the late 1700s, Bornu rule extended only westward, into the land of the Hausa. Around that time, Fulani people, invading from the west were able to make major inroads into Bornu. By the early 19th Century, Kanem-Bornu was clearly an empire in decline. In 1808, Fulani warriors conquered Ngazargamu.

• Usman dan Fodio led the Fulani thrust and proclaimed a jihad (holy war) on the irreligious Muslims of the area. His campaign eventually affected Kanem-Bornu and inspired a trend toward Islamic doctrines. But Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi contested the Fulani advance. Kanem was a Muslim scholar and non-Sefawa warlord who had put together an alliance of Shuwa Arabs, Kanembu, and other semi-nomadic peoples. He eventually built a capital at Kukawa (in present-day Nigeria). Sefawa mais remained titular monarchs until 1846. In that year, the last mai, in league with Wadai (Ouadai) tribesmen, precipitated a civil war. It was at that point that Kanem’s son, Umar, became king, thus ending one of the longest dynastic reigns in the regional history.

• Although the dynasty ended, the kingdom of Kanem-Bornu survived. Umar, who eschewed the title mai for the simpler designation, shehu, (from the Arabic “shaykh”) could not match his father’s energy. He gradually allowed the kingdom to be ruled by advisers (wazirs). Bornu began to decline, as a result of administrative disorganisation and attacks by the militant Wadai Empire to the east. The decline continued under Umar’s sons. In 1893 Rabih Fadlallah, leading an invading army from eastern Sudan, conquered Bornu. He was defeated by French soldiers in 1900.

Activity 3.8

Form groups of five each. Trace where the early West African kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, Songhai and Kanem-Bornu were located on the historical map. Study the modern map of West Africa to see the modern areas where those kingdoms were found. Note the differences between the old and the modern places in terms of economic and political transformation.

Mwenemutapa Kingdom

The Mwenemutapa Kingdom, also spelled Monomotapa, was a Shona-speaking kingdom of the Karanga people (1450-1629). The kingdom stretched between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers of Southern Africa in the modern states of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

• The name Mutapa means ‘the conquered lands’. The mwene (Bantu term for “lord,” specifically a conquering king) was the title giving rise to the state being referred to as Mwene mutapa. This phrase has been preserved in documents as Munhu mu tapa,Manhumutapa, and the Portuguese, Monomotapa.



Origin

The Karanga are a subgroup of the Shona The other subgroups include the Rozwi, Zezuru, Korekore and Manyika. They migrated in AD 1000 and settled in an area north of River Limpopo and south of the Zambezi River. They founded the Great Zimbabwe.

Chief Chuka was the founding ruler of the Great Zimbambwe kKngdom. Between 1420 and 1450. it was by Nyatsimba Mutota who expanded the chiefdom. He expanded it to the north to control to the long-distance trade. The kingdom was later abandoned in 1450 because it had exhausted its salt and trade.

The Mutapa state is often linked to the impressive stone ruins that dot Zimbabwe. Two ruins are situated at the centre of the present-day Zimbabwe. One group crowns a rocky outcrop, and could be reffered to as a hill-fort. The other, in the valley beneath, consists of a vast elliptical enclosure, massively walled in stone, with other stone walls inside and in particular a solid conical tower. The time of building is uncertain; it was probably as early as the 11th Century or as late as the 14th Century.

After abandoning the original kingdom, the Shona then established Mwenemutapa Kingdom, as Mutota conquered other lands in the north. The Mwenemutapa Kingdom got its name from the Barwe and Manyika communities who were describing the king’s action of extreme force to expand his territory. It was located in Mazoe valley.

Mwenemutapa became the royal title and eventually the name of the kingdom which was ruled by Mutapa. It was known for its gold. Mwenemutapa kingdom later collapsed in 1480. The Shona then established yet another kingdom called Rozwi in the 18th Century. It was established on the Zambezi plateau. It was established by Dombo and it was also known for its gold. The ruins of Great Zimbabwe, near Masvingo in modern Zimbabwe, were built by Shona-speaking people between the 11th and 14th centuries. The Great Enclosure, shown here, contains a series of walled areas and, seen on the left among the trees, a solid conical structure, the function of which is not known. The main walls of the enclosure are as high as 10m (32 ft) and as thick as 5m (17 ft).



Factors that led to the rise and expansion of Mwenemutapa Kingdom

Mutota’s successor, Mwenemutapa Matope, extended this new kingdom into an empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara and the Indian Ocean. The Mwenemutapa became very wealthy by exploiting copper from Chidzurgwe and ivory from the middle Zambezi. This expansion weakened the Torwa kingdom, the southern Shona state from which Mutota and his dynasty originated.

Matope’s armies overran the kingdom of the Manyika as well as the coastal kingdoms of Kiteve and Madanda. By the time the Portuguese arrived on the coast of Mozambique, the Mutapa Kingdom was the premier Shona state in the region. He raised a strong army which conquered the Dande area that included Tonga and Tavara. A number of factors led to the expansion of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom:


(i) Able rulers – The rulers of the kingdom had good leadership skills and were held in great awe by their subjects. They enjoyed immense powers and prestige in the kingdom. They also exerted firm control over the commercial activities of the kingdom.

(ii) Strategic position for commercial activities – The kingdom had a rich hinterland for resources which were in great demand at the East African Coast. It attracted large numbers of Swahili and Arab traders, and was thus a key player in the long-distance trade.

(iii) Strong economic base – The kingdom had rich cultivable land, grazing areas and large timber resources. Besides, it had huge deposits of gold, iron ore and copper.

(iv) A vibrant craft industry – A good craft industry was developed, which specialized in making items from gold, copper, iron ore, weaving of cloth from local cotton and pottery. Thus it was possible to trade with the kingdom’s neighbours.

(v) A common religion – The Shona people were bound by a common religion called the Mwari cult or Mlimo. The religion involved ritual consultation of spirits of royal ancestors. Shrines were maintained within the capital by spirit mediums. The spirits also served as oral historians recording the names and deeds of past kings. The ancestral spirits relayed the people’s requests to God. The Shona religion was a major unifying factor for the society.

(vi) Rise in population – The rise in population and the ever-increasing demands of the people, led to the expansion of the kingdom. The rulers decided that a military conquest to create room for expansion was the solution.

Political organisation of the Shona

The king’s power over his subjects was absolute. He could determine whether they should live or die.

(i) The hierarchy – The highest political unit was the kingship as the head of state and government. The high-priestly notion of kingship went with a well-defined and most elaborate arrangement of the court and chiefly hierarchy. At the court there was:

• Chancellor of the kingdom
• Court chamberlain- manager of the king’s house.
• Head drummer
• Military commander
• Keeper of fetishes
• Head door keeper
• Chief cook
• Nine provincial wives of the king.
• Concubines and waiting-women

Outside the court, there were the vassal kings and governors of the provinces, as well as a large noble class. There were expected to send their children to be educated as pages and warriors at the Mwenemutapa’s court.

(ii) Council of chiefs – There was a council made up of selected chiefs who advised the ruler. The council brought together the chiefs of Guruuswa, Kiteve, Mbire, Barue and Manyika. The chiefs maintained law and order, collected taxes and supplied warriors to the king. They were also responsible for the fertility of land, were custodians of tribal property, and prisoners of war. They also organised communal labour.

(iii) Unity of political and religious life – The political and religious life was inseparable in the Shona society. Kings were semi-divine and were the highest representatives of god on earth. Priests played a vital role in maintaining peace and stability. They travelled widely and kept the monarch informed of what took place in the kingdom.

(v) The royal fire – The royal fire was a key institution and burnt so long as the king lived. All the great chiefs and other vassals had fires lit from the royal fire. Once a year, after the great new moon ceremonies in May, these fires had to be rekindled from the central one. Messengers were sent all over the country with brands from the king’s fire. To accept rekindling symbolised a renewal of allegiance to the king.

(vi)Sacred animal – The king’s spirit was supposed to take up residence in a lion. For this reason, a lion was regarded as a sacred animal which might not be killed except at a hunt where the king was present. The king was therefore regarded as the lion.

(vii) A standing army – The rulers also had a standing army. Its main function was to defend and expand the kingdom. Each provincial ruler was expected to recruit soldiers. High standards of discipline were observed. Before participation in any duties, the recruits went through rigorous training.

Economic organisation of the Shona

The main features of the Shona economic system were:

(i) Crop farming – The climate in Mashonaland was good. It encouraged cultivation of a variety of crops. Labour was organized along gender lines. Men cleared the land while women planted and took care of the crops. The main crops were millet, sorghum, maize, cassava, bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, beans and pumpkins. Granaries were built across the kingdom to store the farm produce.

(ii) Livestock keeping – The Shona kept cattle, goats, sheep and poultry. Grazing was intermittently done in the uplands and lowlands.

(iii) Trade – Took place at the local, regional and international levels. The Shona participated in the long distance trade with the Swahili and Arabs from the East African Coast. Pockets of Portuguese merchants from the coast also engaged in commercial activities. Thus the Empire engaged in importing goods as well as in exporting them. Imports included such luxury goods as silk, cloth, guns and ammunition, daggers, knives, ceramics and glassware.A cloth known as machira woven from local cotton was draped over the ruler’s throne as a symbol of his kingship. The main exports were slaves, gold and ivory. The mode of exchange was barter. The rulers exerted a lot of influence on commercial activities.

(iv) Hunting and gathering –The men hunted elephants for ivory and other animals for food to supplement their diet. Women gathered fruits, vegetables and berries.

(v) Fishing – The Shona supplemented their food supply with fish. The activity was carried out in rivers and lakes found in the empire.

(vi) Craft industry – The industry concentrated on iron working, gold smithing, cloth making from wild cotton and fibres, and carving. They also engaged in leather working and weaving. A variety of items were made from the industry. They also made grinding-stones which they used to pound grain into flour.

Social organisation of the Shona

The Shona had an elaborate social organisation:

(i) Divine kingship – The king was not a monarch in the Western sense. He was a divine king or priest-king. His subjects approached him crawling on their stomachs. At formal audiences, he sat concealed behind a curtain. The common people could only hear the king’s voice but never see him. Among the courtiers, the king’s slightest action was imitated by all. If he had a cough, they all coughed. If he sprained his ankle, they all limped. It was considered necessary for the well-being of the whole state that the king should be fit and without any physical problem.

At the onset of old age, or if he developed any serious infirmity, he was supposed to take poison and make way for a successor. The religious observance of the Mwenemutapa was a kind of spiritualism, practice especially at new moon. On such occasions, the reigning monarch communed with his ancestors, who were supposed to take possession of the bodies of ecstatic mediums.

(ii) Belief in one supreme being – The Shona-speaking peoples believed in one god, Mwari, who was believed to have been the creator of the Earth. Priests generally came from the Rozwi clan, which had the additional practice of ancestor worship. The ancestors were consulted at the appearance of a new moon. The priests led in sacrifices and enjoyed powers to protect people from, diseases, made rain and gave victory in war. The rulers were considered semi-divine hence represented god on earth. The priests claimed that they could only get in touch with Mwari through the spirits of ancestors.

There were two kinds of spirit: Family spirits, called vadzimu vemisha, and clan spirits, called mhondoro. Both vadzimu and mhondoro expressed themselves through a medium, svikiro, who was a departed member of the family or clan. The mediums were elders who were believed to possess the spirits of the dead emperors and chiefs. Shona elders were therefore treated with respect, so that they would be friendly when they became spirits. The mhondoro had various uses. The royal mhondoro was used to keep the royal house in power, and to decide the rights of inheritance and the ownership of cattle. Mhondoroprotected the clan against bad government by the chief. During the period of Mwenemutapa, there were senior mediums that emerged in different regions. These were Dzivaguru (Eastern), Nehanda (Central) and Chaminuka (Western) Mashonaland. There was also a kind of national spirit called Chaminuka, who settled disputes between clans and protected them against bad government by the king. The senior mediums had an overbearing influence on the society.

(iii) System of priesthood – Priests led worship in the shrines dotting Mashonaland. They acted as several organs of the creator. For instance, some acted as the ‘eye’ and welcomed members seeking advice and offerings. Others were the ‘ears’ who delivered the requests of the people to god. Others were the ‘mouth’ who kept and interpreted god’s commands to the people.

(iv) Clan organisation – The Shona were organized along clan lines which followed strict totenism. These clans were named after animals such as monkey, leopard, hyena and lion. It was a taboo to eat the meat of an animal by members bearing the name of the particular animal. Each clan had its own traditions and lived in the same area. Several families constituted a clan. A family was headed by the father who often was a polygamist. The homesteads were surrounded by reeds or grass and palisades.

(vi) Age-groups and age-sets – Age groups were formed by those born at the same period. The members therefore underwent initiation at the same time. They regarded each other as brothers and were patrilineal.

(vii) Specialists – The Shona had specialists in various fields like medicinemen (nganga who were useful in supplying herbal medicines used to cure various ailments. There were also diviners, seers, witch doctors and sorcerers. The last two were feared because they could harm members of the society.(viii) Dwellings – The houses were built of stones.

(vi) Division of labour – Social responsibilities were shared along gender lines. Forexample, construction of houses was done by both men and women. Men built the wooden framework, while women thatched the roofs.

(ix) Family life – Polygamy was practised and children were highly valued. Bride price was paid in form of cattle.

The decline of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom

The following factors led to the decline of Mwenemutapa Kingdom:

(i) Exhaustion of natural resources– The natural resources like salt and timber that had sustained the kingdom’s economic life got exhausted. There was also over-cultivation of land which reduced its fertility.

(ii) Vastness of the empire – A succession of weak rulers contributed to the kingdom’s decline. Matope was succeeded by his son Nyahuma (1480-90) but the empire was already too big for one man to govern properly. There was a big problem of communication. Nyahuma was younger and less experienced than Changa and Togwa, the great chiefs of the south. To make matters worse, he depended on them for revenue, as they controlled the gold-producing areas. The Swahili may have influenced Changa to set up a separate kingdom, in which they would be able to control the long-distance trade.

(iii) Secession by southern chiefs – In 1490 Changa and Togwa rebelled. They declared themselves independent, and then attacked Nyahuma. Nyahuma and most of his family were killed. Changa became king, taking the title Changamire. His reign, however was brief. In 1494 he was killed by Nyahuma’s son Chikuyo. Chikuyo ruled from 1494 to 1530, but by now the empire was split in two. Chikuyo controlled a thousand kilometers of the south bank of the Zambezi To the south, however, Changa’s son Changamire II, built a strong empire known as Urozwi.

(iv) Portuguese Control –In 1629 the Mwenemutapa attempted to throw out the Portuguese. He failed and was overthrown, leading to the Portuguese installation of Mavura Mhande Felipe on the throne. The kingdom signed treaties making it a Portuguese vassal and ceding gold mines. The kingdom remained independent only by name Portugal increased control over much of southeast Africa with the beginnings of a colonial system.

(v) Rebellions by tributaries – The kingdom faced rebellions by the tributaries such as Kiteve, Madanda and Manyika, which ceased paying tribute. At the same time, a new kingdom under a Rozwi dynasty near Barwe was on the rise. All of this was hastened by Portugal retaining a presence on the coast and in the capital. In 1663, the praezeros deposed Mwenemutapa Siti Kazurukamusapa and put their own nominee, Kamharapasu Mukombwe on the throne.

(vi) Rise of Butwa Kingdom as a new regional power – The rise of the Butwa Kingdom under a Rozwi dynasty contributed to the decline of Mwenemutapa Kingdom. The origin of the Rozwi is obscure. There is some evidence that they were an offshoot of the Karanga people – perhaps led by a dissident member of the Mwenemutapa family.

By the 17th Century, a dynasty of Rozwi pastoralists under the leadership of a Changamire called Dombo began transforming the Butwa kingdom into a new regional power.

In 1684 his forces encountered and decisively defeated those of Mwenemutapa Kamharapasu Mukombwe In 1695, Changamire Dombo overran Manyika and took his army east and destroyed the Portuguese fair-town of Masikwesi. This allowed him complete control of all gold-producing territory from Butwa to Manyika, replacing Mwenemutapa as the premier Shona Kingdom in the region.

(vii) Rivalry and return of the Rozwi – In 1712, another coveter of the Mwenemutapa throne invited the Rozwi back to put him on the throne and kick out the Portuguese. This they did and the kingdom again came under the control of the Rozwi Empire. The new Mwenemutapa Samatambira Nyamhandu I became a Rozwi vassal, while the outgoing king was forced to retreat to Chidama in what is now Mozambique.

The Rozwi quickly lost interest in Mwenemutapa, as they sought to consolidate their position in the south. The kingdom regained its independence around 1720. By this time however, the kingdom had lost nearly the entire Zimbabwe plateau to the Rozwi Empire. In 1723, Nyamhandi moved his capital into the valley near Tete, under Mwenemutapa Nyatsusu.

(viii) Civil war and final collapse – The Mwenemutapa died in 1759, sparking yet another civil war for the throne. This one was more destructive than its predecessors. Mwenemutapa never recovered. The ‘winners’ ended up governing an even more reduced land from Chidima. They used the title Mambo a Chidima and ruled independently of Portugal until 1917 when Mambo Chioko, the last king of the dynasty, was killed in battle against the Portuguese.

The Zulu Empire

The Zulu were originally a major Nguni clan (isibonga in Nguni) in what is today Northern KwaZulu-Natal. In the Nguni language iZulu or iliZulu means heaven or sky. The iZulu clan was founded about 1709 by Zulu kaNtombela. At that time, the area was occupied by many large Nguni communities. Among them were the Mthethwa, under whose chief Dingiswayo the founder of the Zulu state Shaka, began his career.

Dingiswayo and the origins

The Mthethwa were a Nguni community, located very near the coast in what is now Zululand. On the death of his father Dingiswayo, deposed his brother who had succeeded his father and came to the chieftaincy of the Mthethwa community during the 1790s. Dingiswayo rapidly embarked on the steps towards achieving his ambition of territorial expansion by employing new techniques.

Abolishing the traditional initiation ceremonies – the circumcision rituals of the Mthethwa – he enrolled the young men of the community into age-regiments instead of age-grades. The regiments provided Dingiswayo with a standing army. This innovation gave him advantage over his neighbours. His authority expanded over them. The system, encouraged greater community coherence and military efficiency. The standing army was instrumental in enabling easy defeat and subjugation of his neighbours, and recruitment of their men into his army.

Shaka’s rise to power

Shaka was the son of Senzangakona, chief of the Zulu clan, and Nandi. Nandi’s quarrelsome and violent character caused her to be sent back to live with her people. She took with her the young Shaka, who thus became an illegitimate boy, not recognised by Zulu clan elders. Shaka spent an unhappy childhood as he grew up unwanted and humiliated by his playmates, who teased, mocked and harassed him. This unhappy background was responsible for Shaka developing arrogance and indifference to human suffering. He was determined to be recognised and displayed extraordinary qualities for achieving early recognition – intelligence, courage, physical strength and ruthless ambition. He was conscious of his chiefly descent and set firm targets to assume the leadership of his father’s people at some stage.

In about 1809, Shaka joined Dingiswayo’s regiments. Dingiswayo’s army represented Shaka’s only hope of personal success. He threw his mind and body into the new life. Very rapidly, he distinguished himself by courage and tactical skill, and became commander of one of the regiments. In 1816, his father Senzangakona died and was succeeded by his son Sigujana. However, with Dingiswayo’s support, Shaka deposed Sigujana and took over as chief of the Zulu.

Dingiswayo was killed by Zwide of the Ndwandwe. This event created opportunity for the emergence of Shaka on a wider arena. He quickly incorporated the Mthethwa into the Zulu chiefdom, making it more powerful and a challenge to the Ndwandwe. Soon the Ndwandwe too fell victim to Shaka’s expansionist ambitions and were expelled together with their leader Zwide. Other generals such as Zwangendaba and Soshangane followed suit and fled from Zululand.

Shaka’s establishment of the Zulu Empire

Shaka’s military genius enabled him to ascend to power. It also came in handy in his creation of a powerful Zulu nation. Once he achieved political power in his community, he began a further revolution in military, political and administrative organisation to build and expand the the Zulu nation as follows:

(i) Military organisation and control

Shaka improved on the military reforms of Dingiswayo by introducing further changes in the regiment. The standing army was divided into age-regiments in each district. Each age-regiment had to live in special camps under their commanders appointed by Shaka himself, usually from commoner families or clans with no royal ambitions.

The regiments were now armed with short stabbing spears, which made them immensely dangerous at close quarters, especially against men armed with traditional throwing spear (assegai in Zulu parlance) which could only be used once. Military training became much more rigorous. The traditional heavy wooden sandals were discarded, since they impeded quick movement even though they made travel more comfortable.

The regiments were trained to use the new enveloping tactics, the cow-hornformation, whereby wings (or horns) of the Zulu army surrounded the enemy while the main body of the army attacked them from the front. The rearguard of ‘the horns of the cow’ formation was a large reserve regiment always ready to come to its aid when the going became too difficult. The regiments also became the units of social life as well as military service. Men lived in the regimental headquarters until when Shaka permitted them to marry and retire from active service.
They were obliged to marry women from the equivalent female regiment. Since military service was drawn out for many years and men retired only in their forties, the regiments were a focus of social and political life in the way the old lineage-groups had been before the military revolution.

(ii) Administrative and political organisation and control

In 1818, the Mthethwa lost their king Dingiswayo at the hands of Zwide. Just as Dingiswayo had imposed Shaka on the Zulu, Shaka now imposed one of his followers on the Mthethwa, and consolidated his authority throughout Dingiswayo’s sphere of influence. The following year, he led Dingiswayo’s old armies in a successful and devastating war against Zwide, and so extended his power over all the Nguni in what is now Zululand, and his influence over a vast area from Swaziland in the north to the Transkei in the south, and from the Drakensberg Mountains to the sea. Many of the changes Shaka introduced had already been attempted on a small scale in the pure Zulu community. They had a different effect when applied on a large scale in the whole Zulu state. For instance:

a) The regiments had been organised before but now they served a nation-building purpose as well as a military one. Recruits from all over the new state were mixed together in each regiment, where they built up a loyalty to the regiment and to Shaka as king and tended to forget their separate individual origins. By living and fighting together, they grew to understand and trust each other. Promotion could only be achieved through the military organisation. Ambitious young men devoted their efforts to serving Shaka as commander-in-chief.

b) Shaka adopted more of the military form of government as an absolute ruler. He assumed executive, legislative and judicial powers and functions and therefore made all decisions. He was the commander-in-chief, high priest, and the supreme justice. All appeals from the lower courts were heard by him and his ruling was final. He ignored the old traditional councils of chiefs and leading elders and relied more on his indunas for advice, which he was not obliged to accept.

c) Since most of the able-bodied men at any given time were to be found in these regiments, local chiefs were unable to build up any dangerous organisation against the state. The success of the regiments made members to develop pride in the regiment and the state which it served, prior political identity. Mthethwa and Ndwandwe young men took common pride in belonging to the most powerful state. Therefore, a political and social unity replaced the political fragments of the earlier era. The Zulu dialect of Nguni became standard throughout the country The traditions of the Zulu dynasty became the traditions of all the citizens. People thought of themselves as Ama-Zulu instead of the remnants of the earlier political units.

d) Chiefs of conquered and incorporated people lost their powers, and their authority was restricted to routine issues. Normally, he replaced them with his own subjects. The conquered people were absorbed into the Zulu nation. They had to adopt the Zulu language as the nation’s official language as well as the Zulu traditions and culture. The Zulu culture was centred on Shaka’s family and this became the basis for unity in the nation.

e) Shaka was careful that his local chiefs (some of whom had ruled before the conquest) remained absolutely loyal, by bringing them frequently to his own court. He dismissed and executed potential and real enemies of the new state system. Loyal subjects won prestige and wealth through service to the king; those suspected of disloyalty ran the risk of being executed. Chiefs were further controlled by the fact of having to spend much of their time at the royal court and in any case Shaka’s female relatives were often posted to provincial centres.

(iii) Economic organisation and control

a) Each barracks of a regiment was also the location of one of the royal herds. Cattle and captives from the raids were distributed by the king himself.

b) External trade was strictly controlled by the king.

c) The problem of feeding so large a standing army made it necessary to establish state control over food production. Though each soldier had a home to go to on retirement, he spent most of his active life entirely dependent economically upon the ability of the state for food supplies. The homesteads were no longer the focus of economic activity and interest.

d) Religious beliefs were also transformed into instruments of nation-building. Shaka, making himself ritual as well as political and military head of the system, devoted his attention to rooting out sectional religious beliefs and exterminating sectional religious officials. The famous ‘smelling-out of witches’ exercise emphasized the fact that the king was supreme even over the religious institutions. That supremacy was symbolized when the annual first-fruits ceremony became a national event; which also symbolized the new economic centralisation.

(iv) Wars of expansion

Shaka also established the Zulu nation through wars of expansion. He started by defeating several powerful neighbours. After the Ndwandwe had defeated the Mthethwa and killed Dingiswayo in about 1817, the Zulu remained as the Ndwandwe’s only rivalling power. But Shaka rapidly attacked and defeated the Ndwandwe, forcing the community to scatter and flee to the north.

Shaka invaded Natal five times, after which he completely destroyed and occupied the area. Shaka expanded his empire to the east near the coast, to the west bordering Basutoland and to the north against the Swazi. This period of expansion was known as the Mfecane. It occurred between 1820 and 1834. It was characterised by prolonged destructive warfare. The Pondo, Xhosa and Thembu were subdued. In 1824, Shaka established friendly relations with the English traders in Durban and Natal. In surrendering part of Natal to a trader called Farewell and receiving guns in return, Shaka was enabled to fight and break up the Ndwandwe in 1826.

The fall of Shaka

Activity 3.9

1. In groups, debate and explain Shaka’s reforms and their contribution to the foundation of the Zulu Empire.
2. In groups discuss what you understand by the “cow’s horn” military formation.

Activity 3.10

In groups of five debate about the lessons Rwandan leaders can learn from Shaka’s reforms. Thereafter note down the key points.

On 10th October, 1827, Shaka’s mother Nandi died. Shaka wept publicly and his behaviour was taken as a general signal for universal mourning. Chiefs led their people in competitive wailing. Shaka ordered immediate butchering of a number of men and cattle. The massacres then became general throughout the country. Nandi was buried three days later accompanied by ten beautiful girls, their limbs having been broken while they were still alive. A hundred and twenty men were posted as guards over Nandi’s tomb for twelve months.

• The conditions for mourning were then laid down by Shaka. There was to be no crop cultivation for one year. No milk was to be drunk; instead it had to be poured out onto the ground. Sexual intercourse was not permitted, and all women found pregnant in that period were to be killed with their husbands. All those communities which had failed to attend Nandi’s funeral were to be destroyed. The killings went on for two months, and then Shaka summoned the Zulu nation to his capital to help him in proper official mourning. Cows-in-milk were slaughtered ‘so that even calves might know what it was to lose a mother’. Shaka had gone insane.

• Famine. The year 1828 opened with widespread famine as a result of Shaka’s ban on cultivation. Then Shaka made a fatal decision: that even the remotest communities had to know about his sorrow. He set his army on the longest expedition of his career. His object was to crush the Pondo of the north-eastern Cape. After crossing the Umzimvubu, Shaka had second thoughts about the consequences of this campaign.

• Invasion of neighbouring communities. He stopped for a while at HF Fynn’s trading station. Fynn warned Shaka not to invade Pondoland which the British government considered to be under its protection. Shaka agreed, but to convince his men that the expedition was not in vain he divided them into two groups. One group was sent to punish the Bacha, a Nguni community who lived at the foot of the Drakensberg; the other advanced against the Cape Nguni but under strict instructions to avoid any war against the white men or the communities on the white man’s border.

• Shameful defeat. Shaka’s army returned to Zululand and was immediately dispatched on yet another long campaign to seek and destroy Soshangane around Delagoa Bay in Mozambique. Shaka did not live to see his army return in shameful defeat. His brothers Dingane and Mhlangana, in conspiracy with his chief induna MBhopa murdered him on 24th September, 1828. Yet their claims were not untrue, their motives not wholly selfish. He had ignored the traditional chiefs; his military campaigns led to depopulation of Zululand and Natal. Lives had been wantonly lost in the insanity he had regarded as mourning. Their own turn in being killed might not be a far-fetched idea; his preoccupation with war led to neglect and decline in agriculture and starvation in Zululand.

Dingane’s nation-building, 1828-40

The concentration of political, military and economic power round the central monarch instead of the local territorial rulers reduced the possibility of territorial rulers breaking away from the kingdom. It did not remove altogether the danger of disunity. Dissatisfaction could be expressed by the transfer of loyalty from the king to another of the royal family. This happened in 1828, when Shaka was assassinated, partly because the army wanted a rest from constant campaigning and partly the nation was tired of Shaka’s despotism. It happened again in 1839-40 when most of the army deserted Shaka’s successor, his younger brother Dingane, for another brother, Mpande.

Dingane won the loyalty and support of the army and the Zulu people by promising them peace. He relaxed the severe military discipline left by Shaka. He freed warriors from regiments and allowed them to marry earlier than had been the case before. He also ended military expeditions which left the army idle without adventure. Many Zulu then escaped to work in Natal farms and some attempted to break away. This prompted Dingane to re-impose severe military discipline and to keep the army busy. He therefore sent regiments to raid the Pondo, Ndebele and Ngwane in which the Zulu regiments captured cattle. But the campaigns were unsuccessful and the army was demoralized. The Qwabe rebelled and escaped to the south and the army could not stop them. Many fled as refugees to Natal.

In foreign relations, Dingane tried to establish friendly relations with the whites in Natal. He acquired firearms from traders at Port Natal. However, their welcome of the Zulu refugees made Dingane cautious in the way he related to the Natal whites. In contrast to fairly neutral relations with the British, Dingane’s relation with the Boer trekkers was hostile. Dingane had been tricked into signing a charter surrendering Natal land to the Boers and felt bitter. The Boers under their new leader defeated Dingane’s army at the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1836. An agreement with Boers ended the war, and Dingane agreed to evacuate Natal for Boer occupation.

Dingane was generally disliked for his arbitrary rule, his dislike of war, his preference for feasting and dancing and the company of women, and for his failure to cope with the invasion of the Trekboers into Natal. Mpande became king when, at the climax of the first Zulu civil war that pitted him against his brother. He defeated Dingane at the Battle of Magongo on 29 January 1840. Dingane managed to escape from his former subjects, but was killed by the Swazi with whom he sought refuge to.

Mpande’s nation-building, 1840-72

Mpande ruled the surviving Zulu nation with Boer support from 1840-72. The reign of Mpande showed that the strength of the Zulu nation relied no less on the person and personality of the king than on the nature of the nation’s institutions.Mponde was a peaceful man who hated war. He led a bloodless cattle raid against the Swazi. Mpande gave the Zulu a breathing space from war, and as a result, the population steadily increased. He never supported fighting the whites arguing that it would only result in certain destruction of the Zulu state.

In 1843, the British annexed Natal from the Boers, but Mpande’s policy of peaceful co-existence never changed. The young men in the Zulu state were greatly disillusioned by the humiliating policy adopted by their leader. In consequence, they formed two factions around Mpande’s two sons, Mbulazi and Cetchwayo. A war of succession started when the king was alive. Cetchwayo representing the more militant faction annihilated Mbulazi’s army of 7,000 and his followers, 23,000 defenceless women and children, were slain. Cetchwayo became heir apparent.

Cetchwayo’s nation-building, 1872-9

Cetchwayo re-organised the army of Ndondakusuka effectively. At his accession the Zulu regiments were at a peak of efficiency. They were able to inflict on Britain a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Isandhlwana a few years later.Cetchwayo did not favour war for its own sake. He wanted to carry out the traditional practice ‘washing of the spear’ of the army under a new king on the blood of an enemy. This was not for the sake of tradition but out of practical necessity. Whilst he was heir apparent, the expectations of the regiments had been aroused. These expectations had to be fulfilled. Cetchwayo tried to do this with campaigns against the Swazi and the Thonga. He studiously ignored the movement of Boers into the northern areas of his country in order to avoid a conflict that might bring the destruction of his state. At the same time he prepared for the possibility of war by tightening up conscription into the army, and obtaining firearms through Lourenco Marques.

Cetchwayo also tried to maintain peace with the British. He had two coronations: a ‘traditional’ Zulu one followed by an extraordinary British ceremony where he was crowned by the Natal Secretary for Native Affairs, Theophilus Shepstone. wHe had invited Shepstone for the purpose. Cetchwayo merely wanted to cement Zulu-British friendship, but Shepstone took advantage of the occasion laws. The laws were designed to reduce the number of judicial and political executions in Zululand. Cetchwayo maintained his friendship with the British until 1877, and the British supported him in his boundary disputes with the Transvaal.Britain’s annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 destroyed the basis of Cetchwayo’s foreign policy. It was no longer possible to maintain an anti-Boer alliance with the British as the Boer republic no longer existed. The Boers who had taken so much pain running away from British control and they resented this annexation. Sir Bartle Frere, the British High Commissioner at the Cape was concerned that Boer resentment must not be allowed to spill overboard.

The Zulu wanted back the Blood River Territory, which Mpande had allegedly ceded to the Transvaal in 1861. Cetchwayo decided this had not been genuine cession, and now sent his men to settle the disputed territory. By 1877, there had been further loss of Zululand to the Transvaal by the expansion of the Blood River boundaries into Zululand. Theophilus Shepstone supported the Transvaal claim.At first a Zulu-Boer War seemed more likely than an Anglo-Zulu War. Sekhukhune’s successful resistance in the Transvaal encouraged Cetchwayo, the Zulu king, to mobilize his army on the Transvaal border. The custom of ‘washing the spears in the blood of the enemy had not been carried out for Cetchwayo who had become king in 1873. The Zulu wanted war with the Transvaal in order to ‘wash their spears’, resolve the land dispute, obtain revenge for the Zulu defeat at the Battle of Blood River in 1838, and replace the Zulu cattle lost in the drought of 1877. Yet Cetchwayo was not prepared to fight the Boers unless they started the war. He did not want war with Britain with whom he was so keen to maintain peaceful relations.



However, on 22nd January, 1897, Sir Bartle Frere ordered the invasion of Zululand. At the battle of Isandhlwana the Zulu ‘impis’ under their commander-in-chief Tshingwayo wiped out 905 of 960 British soldiers, and nearly 500 of those assisting the invaders, among them colonists and African recruits. The Zulu completed their humiliation of the British at Isandhlwana by capturing all the stores and ammunition. The Zulu army inflicted the most severe defeat a European army was to suffer in Africa until the Ethiopian victory over the Italians at Adowa in 1896.In spite of, Isandhlwana the Zulu lost the war. The tables were soon turned against them.

The British hastily sent reinforcements to their battered comrades in the field. Three hundred and fifty Zulu were killed while 17 were lost on the British side at Rorke’s Drift. When the British renewed their invasion with Gatling guns and artillery, they stopped a Zulu frontal attack at Kambula, a battle which left 18 Britons and 2,000 Zulu dead. Finally, at Ulundi on July 4, the British troops destroyed the last Zulu frontal assault, after Cetchwayo soldiers had disobeyed his orders to retreat into the forest and adopt guerrilla warfare. The soldiers retired to their kraals in defeat.

Destruction of the Zulu nation

The Battle of Ulundi marked the beginning of the end of the Zulu empire. The British were out to destroy the Zulu kingdom. Cetchwayo was deposed, exiled and imprisoned in Cape Town, and was not allowed to return until 1883. Zululand was broken up into thirteen small chiefdoms, each under a British nominee. A British Resident loosely supervised the affairs of the dismembered Zululand. Anarchy and civil war spread through the length and breadth of Zululand. Two factions emerged, one of pro-Cetchwayo royalists, and another of the new petty kings appointed by the British. The British found themselves unable to cope with the mess, and Cetchwayo was restored in 1883 in the hope he would use his old magic over his people and restore order. It was also hoped that he might be used as a bridge by the British administration in Zululand, a hope for some form of indirect rule as it was feared direct involvement might be too expensive.

However, the emergence of a strong anti-Cetchwayo faction between 1879 and 1883 made sure the King’s authority was circumscribed within the centre of his old kingdom. The south of the kingdom was reserved for the clans and the chiefs highly opposed to Cetchwayo’s restoration. In the north, the existence of an independent kingdom, Mandhlakazi, was recognized by the confirmation of Sibobu, Cetchwayo’s rival, as its ruler. Supporters of the two went to war against each other, and Cetchwayo’s forces were routed and the ex-king forced to flee to the southern reserve where he died in 1884.



Dinizulu, 1884-1913

Dinizulu was only 15 years old when his father Cetchwayo, went into exile. He became the king of the Zulu nation from 20 May 1884 until his death in 1913. Zululand had been broken up into 13 smaller territories after the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Dinizulu, administered one of them.

However, they left one of Cetchwayo’s sons, Usibepu (Zibhebhu), alone with his lands intact. On July 22 1883, Usibepu attacked Cetchwayo’s new kraal in Ulundi, wounding the king and causing him to flee. This caused anarchy and civil war to spread throughout Zululand.

To contest the succession, Dinizulu first appealed to the British, but had no response. He then offered rewards of land to Boer mercenaries to lure them to join his army. In 1884, a group of Boer farmers from the districts of Utrecht and Vryheid undertook to restore order, in return. Led by General Louis Botha, they formed Dinizulu’s Volunteers and after several clashes with Usibepu. They defeated him at the Battle of Ghost Mountain (also known as the Battle of Tshaneni) on 5 June 1884.

Usibepu and his forces were killed to the last man.The mercenaries then claimed payment and Dinizulu found himself confronted with demands he could not meet. Eight hundred mercenaries claimed to have fought for him and all claimed large farms. They claimed about half of Zululand, including St Lucia Bay, an outlet to the sea. Britain intervened and the mercenaries were given a grant of land in the northern part of Zululand. Five hundred mercenaries each received a farm of 16 km². Another 300 men who had arrived late received smaller grants, known as ‘half farms’. On 5 August 1884, these mercenaries declared a republic, with the town of Vryheid as its capital, which lasted for only four years.

After considerable dispute a Natal arbitration court recognised the New Republic, reduced in size, however, and deprived of its claims to St Lucia. The following year it was absorbed into the Transvaal. Six years from these events, in a strange version of belated ‘justice’, Dinizulu was exiled to the island of St. Helena - the same as Napoleon - for seven years for leading a Zulu army against the British from 1883 to 1884.

The Bambatha uprising, 1906

In 1906, the so-called Bambatha rebellion broke out. It was an uprising by a section of the Zulu of Natal led by their chief called Bambatha of the Zondi people. The uprising occurred for six main reasons:

(i) Loss of land – The Zulu were frustrated by the loss of their land to white settlers. After the small Zulu states were annexed to Natal in 1884, they lost more land to the Boers between 1902 and 1904. Two thirds of their land was made open to white settlement. The Zulu were pushed into reserves where they were overcrowded. Furthermore, there was an increase in rent for Zulu tenant farmers on white-owned land. Land available for rent eventually shrank in size.

(ii) Colonisation and loss of independence – The Zulu were aggrieved by the loss of their independence since their colonization by the British in 1879 after the Battle of Isandhlwana. The Zulu kingdom had ceased to exist in 1879 and had been broken up into 13 smaller kingdoms, which had also been incorporated into the Cape Colony. In particular, they could no longer bear the harshness and unfairness of British laws as applied in Natal.

(ii) Introduction of poll tax – Bambatha and his Zulu followers were against the introduction in 1905 of the very unpopular and unfair poll tax of £1 per head. They did not want to pay taxes meant to sustain an unpopular foreign authority. Besides, all the races had to pay the same amount of tax per head yet the Europeans were earning at least twenty times more than the Africans.

(iii) Loss of traditional authority – Traditional Zulu chiefs had lost their authority. They became even more hostile due to growing power of British-appointed district magistrates while the chiefs’ authority diminished. Those who tried to protest were arrested. For instance, the then Zulu king Dinizulu, returned from detention in exile demoted to a headman after his attempted rising had been crushed. Bambatha himself had been dismissed and deported by the British government after he became troublesome to the British.

(iv) Overreaction to pre-Bambatha – There were smaller, local risings in 1906 as a protest to poll tax. The whites felt alarmed and insecure, and the Natal government overreacted by declaring martial law and having twelve Zulu leaders of the risings executed. The government also confiscated large numbers of cattle from the Zulu, burnt many Zulu homes and carried out mass flogging of villagers. This worsened African attitudes and increased discontent against white rule.

(v) Ethiopian movement – There developed among the Zulu a religious movement called Ethiopianism. It preached the departure of the white man and advocated the slaughter of pigs and chickens as a sign that the white man should leave immediately.

(vi) Harsh labour laws – Many young men had to work in urban areas and on white farms on extremely poor pay. They lived a life of poverty, insecurity and fear and developed hatred and defiance for their white employers.

Bambatha, a former Zulu chief whom the British had deposed reappeared and started a rebellion. When the government ordered him to appear with his men and pay poll tax, he defiantly refused to co-operate, and instead mobilized his people across the Tugela River where he clashed with the police. He had a strong appeal to the Zulu national feeling. Some chiefs supported him in a well-coordinated uprising. However, the police eventually trapped and killed him and his followers, together with other Zulu leaders in the Mome Gorge on 10 June 1906

After the rebellion had been put down, Dinizulu was accused of giving orders to Bambatha to start the rebellion and was put on trial for treason. Although he steadfastly protested his innocence, he was found guilty and sentenced to four years imprisonment in March, 1908. Two years later an old friend of his, General Louis Botha, became Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa.



Botha ordered that Dinizulu be released and transported to the farm Uitkyk in the Transvaal, where he died in 1913. He was succeeded by his son Solomon. But the fact of the matter was that with the defeat of the Bambatha uprising, the Zulu empire had completely collapsed.

Activity 3.11

Form groups of five each to debate about the origin, rise and career of leaders of ancient kingdoms in West and South Africa such as:

1. Mansa Musa of Mali
2. Diara Kante of old Ghana
4. Suni Ali of Songhai Kingdom5. Shaka Zulu of the Zulu Kingdom
3. Nyatsimba Mutota of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom

Look into the political, social and economic organisations of these kingdoms and explain how these factors have contributed to the strengths of these kingdoms.

Unit summary
This unit deals with the origin, organisation and decline of the empires in West and South Africa.

The kingdom of ancient Ghana was founded by the Mande-speaking Soninke people between 500 and 700 AD. The growth of the kingdom of old Ghana was majorly supported by the Trans-Saharan trade. The kingdom was led by a king whose palace was at Kumbi-Saleh. The kingdom had gold mines, which earned it great wealth. This kingdom declined due to many attacks from its neighbours who wanted to take over the gold mines.

The original name of the Mali Empire was Kangaba. The kingdom of Mali arose, led by Sundiata, after the collapse of the kingdom of old Ghana. The strategic position of Mali kingdom enabled it to grow strong as it had good farming land and it was less vulnerable to attacks from the desert tribes such as the Sanhaja and the Tuaregs. The Mali Empire flourished more because of trade. It also had minerals such as gold and salt, which supported it economically. Mansa Musa made the Mali Empire a Muslim state. He encouraged the establishment of Islamic schools. The Mali Kingdom collapsed due to internal causes such as rebellion by vassal states and external causes such as attacks by its neighbouring kingdoms.

The Songhai Kingdom arose due to factors such as trade, influence of Islam and strong leadership. This kingdom also had able leaders such as Askia Mohammed. The Songhai Empire derived much of its wealth from farming and fishing. When Morocco conquered the kingdom of Songhai, it turned it into one of its provinces therefore, weakening the empire.

The ruler in the Kanem-Bornu Empire was known as Mai. He was considered sacred. Kanem-Bornu rose during the reign of Mai Idris Aluma (1571 – 1603). This ruler was known for his military skills, administrative reforms, and devotion to Islam. Trade was the greatest source of income in Kan-Bornu Empire. Goods such as grain, copper, kola and slaves were exchanged for products such as potash, cowries and cloth. The Kanem-Bornu Empire started to decline in the1700s, when the Fulani people invaded it and made major advances inside. The Fulani, led by Usman dan Fodio, proclaimed a jihad (holy war) on the irreligious Muslims of the areas they conquered.

The Mwenemutapa Kingdom was able to expand due to able leadership, a strong army and a strong economic base. The Shona people believed in a supreme being called Mwari. The coming of the Portuguese led to the decline of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom.

Unit assessment

At the end of this unit, a learner is able to describe the origin, rise, organisation and decline of empires in West and South Africa.

Revision questions

1. List and explain the factors that helped in the growth of the kingdom of Ghana.

2. Give an account of the factors that led to the decline of the empire of old Ghana. List at least five factors.

3. (a) Why did Mansa Musa generously reward his officers?
     (b) How did Mansa Musa contribute to the social and economic development of the Mali Empire?

4. (a) Explain the ways in which Askia Mohammed contributed to the growth of Islam in the Kingdom of Songhai.
      (b) What were the results of the conquest of the Songhai Kingdom?

5. Discuss the religious and educational developments Songhai Empire under the leadership of Askia the Great.

6. Why was the reign of Idriss Aluma important in the history of Kanemi-Bornu?

7. Discuss the origin and the rise of Mwenemutapa Kingdom.

8. (a) Discuss the factors for the rise of the Zulu Kingdom in the first half of the 19th Century.
     (b) What were the effects of political and military changes introduced by Shaka?
     (c) Why did the kingdom decline after the death of Shaka?

9. Discuss the social, political and economic organisation of the following:

(a) Mali Kingdom
(c) Songhai Kingdom
(b) Mwenemutapa Kingdom

History

General

Unit 3: Origin, rise, organisation and decline of empires in West and South Africa

Unit 3: Origin, rise, organisation and decline of empires in West and South Africa

Key unit competence

Origin and rise of various empires of West Africa

Ancient kingdoms in West Africa

Ghana Empire

Origins

Factors that led to the rise and growth of Old Ghana

Activity 3.1

Political organisation of the old Ghana

Economic Organisation

Social Organisation

Activity 3.2

Decline of Old Ghana

Mali Empire

Activity 3.3

Origins

The rise and expansion of Mali Kingdom

Political organisation of the Mali Kingdom

Activity 3.4

Economic organisation

Role of minerals

Social organisation

The decline of Mali Kingdom

Activity 3.5

1. Internal causes

2. External causes

Songhai Empire

Origin

Factors that led to the growth of Songhai

Activity 3.6

Askia Muhammad’s achievements for his Empire

Political organisation

Social organisation

Economic organisation

Decline of Songhai Empire

Activity 3.7

(a) Internal factors

Reasons for the defeat of Songhai

Results of the defeat of Songhai

Kanem-Bornu Empire

Origins

Achievements of some Mai to the expansion of Kanem-Bornu

Factors for the rise and growth of Karnem-Bornu

Organisation of the empire

Social and political organisation

Economic organisation

Decline of Kanem-Bornu Empire

Activity 3.8

Mwenemutapa Kingdom

Origin

Factors that led to the rise and expansion of Mwenemutapa Kingdom

Political organisation of the Shona

Economic organisation of the Shona

The decline of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom

The Zulu Empire

Dingiswayo and the origins

Shaka’s establishment of the Zulu Empire

The fall of Shaka

Activity 3.9

Activity 3.10

Dingane’s nation-building, 1828-40

Mpande’s nation-building, 1840-72

Cetchwayo’s nation-building, 1872-9

Destruction of the Zulu nation

Dinizulu, 1884-1913

The Bambatha uprising, 1906

Activity 3.11

Unit summary

Unit assessment

Revision questions

Table of contents