Were there any empire in medieval Africa?
How advanced were Africans compared to feudal Europe?
Did feudalism exist in Africa?
How advanced were Africans compared to feudal Europe?
Did feudalism exist in Africa?
Medieval Africa questions
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That answer the first question.
Any answer on the other one?
I know google exist but you guys have great insight.
Any answer on the other one?
I know google exist but you guys have great insight.
I don't. But I have Google 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/179609?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
If you don't want to register on this page just look through the following hits on google.
If you want a simple answer: First of all it's important to know that "Feudalism" is a term not invented in the Middle Ages to describe a form of society which never really existed in this pure form in Europe.
And yes - societies with feudal characteristics existed in Africa.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/179609?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
If you don't want to register on this page just look through the following hits on google.
If you want a simple answer: First of all it's important to know that "Feudalism" is a term not invented in the Middle Ages to describe a form of society which never really existed in this pure form in Europe.
And yes - societies with feudal characteristics existed in Africa.
I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'd rather believe that medieval african society (not talking about the islamic part) was based on some sort of freedom than on feudalism
RabbleKnight 说:
West Africa reached its height around 1400 ad. We don't have written records and the Atlantic slave trade meant there weren't enough people to maintain the infrastructure, but some pretty wealthy trade empires existed in modern Nigeria and Mali.
Then there was a chronic famine that forced states to move people into smaller areas to farm smaller portions of land more intensively. Something similar probably spurned the construction of those massive 100km wide fortresses Benin built in the early middle ages.
Some of the bigger states like Sokoto and Bornu literally grabbed people from further inland to farm the coast. And that's how the slave trade started.
In East Africa there was never enough of a food surplus for big states to arise, but Ethiopia is an exception for several reasons I need to refresh my memory on.
Central and southern Africa were quite sparsely inhabited as far as I know.
Alright, knowledge learned from a college level class on African History I half attended, go!
To build off/amend the points made by jacob, West Africa had most of what you would classically define as empires. However, some significant points need to be made in understanding how society was structured and why. In general, despite popular belief, Africa is a pretty fertile and naturally wealthy region. The issue has never been owning the land, for the continent is massive, therefore the problem is having the labor to work it. This has wide-reaching implications for societies and states, as the reason why it never crystallized into a patchwork of states like much of the rest of the Old World did, is because of the lack of capability or even necessity in intensive development of the land on the level that other regions required. Not to say that Sub-Saharan African methods of agriculture were unsophisticated: it was just really damn easy, and once set up the amount of effort required to maintain it wasn't as significant as in some of the harder fields in N. Europe, for example. And when the population grew and the capability of the surrounding land maxed out, they just moved out and established new villages. Going back to the issue of labor, this is how power would generally be defined, and thus where the tradition of slavery began in Africa. Though the size of the land meant that slavery was held in a different light than in the American colonies, because if you really mistreated your slaves chances are they'd just run off.
Now then, with that established, let's move back to empires. The issue of famine that jacob mentioned I'm not as familiar with, though if I had to hazard a guess given the dates, it might be related to the climatic changes resulting from the Little Ice Age. Before Sokoto and Bornu though, which fall more into the early modern period in terms of chronology, for the classic West African Sahel empires of Ghana (300CE to 1200CE), Mali (1235CE-1600CE), and Songhai (1464CE-1591CE) the basis of power was more based around exchange and trade. The overlapping dates account for the continuation of prior empires as rump states or as puppets for the sake of legitimacy, btw. The classic example is the trade of salt, from the Sahara desert, in exchange for gold, from mines in the rainforests in the south. However, control over exchange was hardly limited to these items, and control manifested in a few ways, from direct sponsorship of trade by the Mansa, to securing the routes politically and keeping the routes safe by hunting down bandits. I'd postulate that imperial power increased further by the time of Imperial Mali with its espousing of Islam, which in addition to linking it further to the North African states and empires, also reinforced controls over trade through precepts of Sharia law (which, again, is not merely a set of social regulation but had a significant amount of say in mercantile jurisprudence).
To answer the second part of your question, again using the examples of the West African Empires, they were quite advanced, probably on par in some respects, and likely more advanced in yet other respects, than their contemporaries in feudal Europe. The security of trade routes in Mali at its height was legendary, as was its wealth in gold, of course. They also sponsored significant architectural projects and more importantly the construction of universities, where they attracted students and staff from across the Muslim world. They maintained a significant army, though I don't remember if it was a standing army or not.
Now in regards to your last question, it's a bit difficult to say. There are some aspects that seem feudal, but then again they aren't exactly exclusive to a feudal society. Regardless, I'll say that, for the most part, Africa did not really have a structured feudal society. There were hierarchies, oftentimes with aristocrats, though ownership based on heredity varied depending on region and cultures, or even on the particular village. However, in the case of the empires, rule over provinces was given to governors, who in turn were put in place by the Mansa, and with a few exceptions were not hereditary posts. From there, however, government control was fairly loose and organization was still based around city-states and tribes.
Going back to Jacob's points, in East Africa empires were more sparse, but for reasons more complex than the presence of absence of food surpluses. They did, however, exist, but they manifested more as shifting hegemonies between the big mercantile city states of the Swahili coast, whether it is Pate, Zanzibar, Somalia, or eventually Oman.
Central and South Africa had states as well, some of them quite considerable. Central Africa had the Kingdom of Kongo, which acted as an equal in dealings with the Portuguese for centuries, and is a fascinating subject in its own right, as well as the Kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, in particular led by the indefatigable Queen Nzinga Mbande. South Africa would for the most part remain stateless, for reasons discussed above, but with the very notable exception of Great Zimbabwe, though it remains quite mysterious as we lack written records for it, as despite its wealth and size its contact with the outside world was handled largely through intermediaries.
I'll end with this, as this was probably one of the main points of the course as it was imparted to me. Africa was not a marginal continent but was an integral part of the world trade system, whether it is that of the Old World or the emergent and truly global network including the New World, and its history is tied up with the greater history of the world, not separate from it.
Oh, and this deals largely with West Africa, though I touched on the other regions, I didn't quite give them justice. The basic principle I started with largely applies to all of them, but they are all extremely interesting on their own, so if you'd like I can write on the other macro regions of Africa and share what I know.
To build off/amend the points made by jacob, West Africa had most of what you would classically define as empires. However, some significant points need to be made in understanding how society was structured and why. In general, despite popular belief, Africa is a pretty fertile and naturally wealthy region. The issue has never been owning the land, for the continent is massive, therefore the problem is having the labor to work it. This has wide-reaching implications for societies and states, as the reason why it never crystallized into a patchwork of states like much of the rest of the Old World did, is because of the lack of capability or even necessity in intensive development of the land on the level that other regions required. Not to say that Sub-Saharan African methods of agriculture were unsophisticated: it was just really damn easy, and once set up the amount of effort required to maintain it wasn't as significant as in some of the harder fields in N. Europe, for example. And when the population grew and the capability of the surrounding land maxed out, they just moved out and established new villages. Going back to the issue of labor, this is how power would generally be defined, and thus where the tradition of slavery began in Africa. Though the size of the land meant that slavery was held in a different light than in the American colonies, because if you really mistreated your slaves chances are they'd just run off.
Now then, with that established, let's move back to empires. The issue of famine that jacob mentioned I'm not as familiar with, though if I had to hazard a guess given the dates, it might be related to the climatic changes resulting from the Little Ice Age. Before Sokoto and Bornu though, which fall more into the early modern period in terms of chronology, for the classic West African Sahel empires of Ghana (300CE to 1200CE), Mali (1235CE-1600CE), and Songhai (1464CE-1591CE) the basis of power was more based around exchange and trade. The overlapping dates account for the continuation of prior empires as rump states or as puppets for the sake of legitimacy, btw. The classic example is the trade of salt, from the Sahara desert, in exchange for gold, from mines in the rainforests in the south. However, control over exchange was hardly limited to these items, and control manifested in a few ways, from direct sponsorship of trade by the Mansa, to securing the routes politically and keeping the routes safe by hunting down bandits. I'd postulate that imperial power increased further by the time of Imperial Mali with its espousing of Islam, which in addition to linking it further to the North African states and empires, also reinforced controls over trade through precepts of Sharia law (which, again, is not merely a set of social regulation but had a significant amount of say in mercantile jurisprudence).
To answer the second part of your question, again using the examples of the West African Empires, they were quite advanced, probably on par in some respects, and likely more advanced in yet other respects, than their contemporaries in feudal Europe. The security of trade routes in Mali at its height was legendary, as was its wealth in gold, of course. They also sponsored significant architectural projects and more importantly the construction of universities, where they attracted students and staff from across the Muslim world. They maintained a significant army, though I don't remember if it was a standing army or not.
Now in regards to your last question, it's a bit difficult to say. There are some aspects that seem feudal, but then again they aren't exactly exclusive to a feudal society. Regardless, I'll say that, for the most part, Africa did not really have a structured feudal society. There were hierarchies, oftentimes with aristocrats, though ownership based on heredity varied depending on region and cultures, or even on the particular village. However, in the case of the empires, rule over provinces was given to governors, who in turn were put in place by the Mansa, and with a few exceptions were not hereditary posts. From there, however, government control was fairly loose and organization was still based around city-states and tribes.
Going back to Jacob's points, in East Africa empires were more sparse, but for reasons more complex than the presence of absence of food surpluses. They did, however, exist, but they manifested more as shifting hegemonies between the big mercantile city states of the Swahili coast, whether it is Pate, Zanzibar, Somalia, or eventually Oman.
Central and South Africa had states as well, some of them quite considerable. Central Africa had the Kingdom of Kongo, which acted as an equal in dealings with the Portuguese for centuries, and is a fascinating subject in its own right, as well as the Kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, in particular led by the indefatigable Queen Nzinga Mbande. South Africa would for the most part remain stateless, for reasons discussed above, but with the very notable exception of Great Zimbabwe, though it remains quite mysterious as we lack written records for it, as despite its wealth and size its contact with the outside world was handled largely through intermediaries.
I'll end with this, as this was probably one of the main points of the course as it was imparted to me. Africa was not a marginal continent but was an integral part of the world trade system, whether it is that of the Old World or the emergent and truly global network including the New World, and its history is tied up with the greater history of the world, not separate from it.
Oh, and this deals largely with West Africa, though I touched on the other regions, I didn't quite give them justice. The basic principle I started with largely applies to all of them, but they are all extremely interesting on their own, so if you'd like I can write on the other macro regions of Africa and share what I know.
Tiberius Decimus Maximus 说:
Not exactly. Most of subsaharan, subtropical Africa is home to a type of soil that's extremely hard to work, but can yield large crops if it's heavily irrigated and regularly tilled. I had to work with this type of soil in Kenya and it's tough as balls. you literally have to take an axe to it before you can plant anything.
The delta systems in West Africa are very fertile (approaching Nile levels), but during periods of war these would be the first places to be invaded or raided. Since large cities were more of a liability in West Africa, you get a similar thing to Offa's Dyke in england where country-wide fortifications protect farms rather than people. The type of feudalism that thus emerged was far more serf-based than Europe ever was, because freemen are unreliable jerks you can't tax as easily.
Swissky
I think this fits in here.
jacobhinds 说:
Took me a while to get back to this, sorry about that. And in that regard you are correct. For field crops like grains, they do require regular tilling and irrigation, so it'd be concentrated on the big fertile rivers like the Niger. However, this was only one component, especially in regards to West Africa (I do need to keep specifying, generalizing in regards to a continent of this size is dangerous >_<). There are a number of "forest islands" that regularly dot the region: back in the day it was thought these were relict remnants of a much larger rainforest that covered the region, before being deforested and turned to savannah by local peoples. In fact, the opposite is true. The forest islands were actually created by West Africans as a form of arborculture, which would yield fruit and fare from rainforest environments in artificial, easily accessed groves. They would in turn help prevent the spread of deserts, as well as the planting of tuber crops. This system would require quite minimal management, which is what I was getting at with my prior post. Guess I overlooked the difficulty of planting grains, which was a mistake on my part.
Thank you for the correction though. I'm not as knowledgeable on the Niger Delta region, but it being a feudal region conflicts with my understanding of what is now modern Nigeria. It was my understanding that it was well known that the Igbo people, in their own words, have no kings, and while it would help explain the development of the great earthworks of the Benin Kingdom, I wasn't aware it had crystallized into such a strongly hierarchical polity that it exceeded Europe in its implementation of feudalism. I'd like to talk about this more if you have the time and interest!
I didn't know that thing about the planted rainforests. It certainly makes sense because relying on agriculturalised savannah for food is stupid.
I dunno if that's a contextual or metaphorical phrase because west African societies were highly monarchial at their height. The common model was like, King, small warrior/administrative/bureaucratic caste, a crapton of serfs. And in my opinion that's the most effective type of government where agriculture really does have to be organised on a large scale.
I dunno if "feudalism" is the right word, more like "x-treme serfdom with added centralisation". Medieval Europe didn't usually have that many serfs on average, unless there was a famine or something. Same in the middle east -- experiments with hard serfdom like the Zanj failed miserably because people could farm on their own without need for state-sponsored infrastructure.
In west Africa however, getting land worked properly and intensively was the most effective way of turning a surplus. States in the area were thus highly centralised, far more so than anything in europe or the middle east where it wasn't necessary. All this centralisation made their social structure something like the Roman Empire (not republic), with professional armies and bureaucracies supported by a population of slaves. I'm still surprised by the fact that they fielded armies of heavily armoured cavalry in a part of the world that's 20 degrees in the winter.
I dunno if that's a contextual or metaphorical phrase because west African societies were highly monarchial at their height. The common model was like, King, small warrior/administrative/bureaucratic caste, a crapton of serfs. And in my opinion that's the most effective type of government where agriculture really does have to be organised on a large scale.
I dunno if "feudalism" is the right word, more like "x-treme serfdom with added centralisation". Medieval Europe didn't usually have that many serfs on average, unless there was a famine or something. Same in the middle east -- experiments with hard serfdom like the Zanj failed miserably because people could farm on their own without need for state-sponsored infrastructure.
In west Africa however, getting land worked properly and intensively was the most effective way of turning a surplus. States in the area were thus highly centralised, far more so than anything in europe or the middle east where it wasn't necessary. All this centralisation made their social structure something like the Roman Empire (not republic), with professional armies and bureaucracies supported by a population of slaves. I'm still surprised by the fact that they fielded armies of heavily armoured cavalry in a part of the world that's 20 degrees in the winter.
There is no difference. I use "serf" only because they weren't as capitalistic as slaves in the sense most modern people understand. It's true that they were often prisoners of war, and that they worked the land for free, but they comprised such a large proportion of some societies that calling them "slaves" doesn't seem to do it justice.
The main problem is that it can't fully be equated to either slavery or serfdom, so the terms are meaningless. Maybe there was something similar in India or Indonesia or something, I dunno.
The main problem is that it can't fully be equated to either slavery or serfdom, so the terms are meaningless. Maybe there was something similar in India or Indonesia or something, I dunno.
