Robert July says that Africa is shaped like a ham bone. It is wide at the top but narrows at the waist. This great bulge is West Africa. This body of water was called by the Europeans, the Gulf of Guinea, or the Guinea coast. The people from there were called Guineas. Today, below the savanna are countries such as Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria. In the region now called Ghana the Akan people lived. There were many clans or lineage groups of the Akan, but they all speak various dialects of a language called Twi. In the fullness of time the Ashanti (Asante) group emerged as the dominant group among the Akan. Since the 1000s A.D. the trade routes at Jenne on the Bani River had in turn linked up with the trading town of Begho on the Volta River, in the Akan region. Begho was a link between the gold of the interior and the Atlantic coast. Moroccan goods and the ubiguitous Chinese porcelain pottery turn up at Begho as well (1600s) [Time-Life, p. 96].

By 1650 we get the rise of the chiefs of the town of Kumasi. The ruler of Kumasi comes to be recognized as the hereditary chief of a number of other village-states. The traditional lesser chiefs become commanders in the army of the king of Kumasi. This commander-in-chief and head of the federation comes to be called the asantehene. Osei Tutu (r. 1670-1717) was one of these centralizing Ashanti monarchs. The symbol of the unity of the Ashanti becomes a seat or stool made of gold. The Ashanti did have writing. Their sacred writing is called Adinkra. Opaku Ware (1717-1750) continued the process of consolidation, and in 1744 he won the coastal city of Accra. Today it is the capital of Ghana. But as savanna states such as Songhai expired, states closer to the Atlantic, and tied commercially to Europe, rose. Ashanti became a powerful state in West Africa, and held off the British colonizers in a series of ferocious wars. First Ashanti War (1873-74). in 1896 the British occupied Kumasi and deposed the asantehene. In 1900 the Ashanti revolted against British rule. In 1901 the British fought the Second Ashanti War.

NOK

Today we know that one of the very first African people south of the Sahara to develop the use of iron were the Nok culture, of northern Nigeria. They developed terra cotta sculpture. This word terra cotta means hard clay. The clay is placed in an oven or kiln and heated, and becomes quite durable. But the people of Nok smelted iron. Slag and iron nozzles have been found, dating from 600 B.C. Furthermore, necklaces of quartz beads have been found. The holes in the beads were drilled with iron bits or drill heads. The artistic style of Nok is believed to be ancestral to the Yoruba and Benin, and bears similarity to the Igbo or Ibo as well.

THE YORUBA

Another ethnic group in West Africa, in Nigeria, are the Yoruba. From 1000 A.D. they developed a number of city-states. They are famous for their religion, and their artwork. The great spiritual center of the Yoruba people was the city of Ile-Ife. Later, in the 1300s, Oyo emerged as an important center.
 
 

THE BINI OR EDO (LANGUAGE): KINGDOM OF BENIN

Another ethnic group in southwestern Nigeria were the Edo people. They are also called the Bini. Their kingdom, dating from the 1300s, is called Benin. According to legend, the first ruler of the Kingdom of Benin was Eweka, the son of a prince of Ife. He introduced primogeniture. The Bini are culturally close to the Yoruba. The traditional king of Benin was a sacred ruler, called the oba. Thus there were the obas of Benin. Benin is famous for its artwork, especially its bronze work.
 
 

Visuals

Treasures of Ancient Nigeria

p. 66 and 68: this roped water pot is made from leaded bronze. It is from the town of Igbi-Isaiah,

and dated at the 9th or 10th century.

p. 94-95 two sculptured heads; Ife; zinc-bronze on

left and copper on right; 12-15th century

p. 129 one of the single most famous sculptures from

West African art; it is the Queen Mother

head, depicting the head of the Queen Mother;

It is from Benin. This is thought to be Queen

Idia, mother of Oba or King Esigie, who reigned until 1550. The status dates from the early 1500s.

p. 136-138 some of the famous Benin bronzes. All are of bronze. They date from the 1500 and 1600s. They are now in the National Museum of Nigeria, at Lagos.

Contrary to Breasted and Seligman and Kilpatrick and the ideology of white supremacy for 400 years, the black sub-Saharan people and the black people of Nubia and Ethiopia did have a history. They did have trade and civilization. They did have towns and cities and agriculture and the knowledge and use of iron. And they produced a glorious art. Today the rich history of Africa is becoming better known. But sadly the old myths of African barbarism and inferiority still persist. As students at Rutgers you have now bveen exposed to information about pre-colonial Africa. But the challenge is to get this information out of the classroom and out of the university into K-12. Only one-fourth of Americans go to college. What are the other 3/4ths learning? And only 1 in 8 African Americans go to college. What are the other 7/8ths learning about their ancestral cultural heritage? Knowledge is power. Information is power. And armed with information, each one of you now becomes one of a thousand points of light.