black african civilizations prior to european contact and racist stereotypes

[benedictinator]

i just recently started using this forum and was worried about the tales people chat of no black civilizations or nations prior to european contact. and i wanted to correct that. i also wanted to say something about the belief that savage blacks captured savage blacks and sold them to whites. i recently asked my great grand dad, who showed me some writigs by an african ruler in the oyo empire in western nigeria. apparantly he was worried that the british where selling guns to another black nation the dahomey and that because of the oyo blacksmiths attempts to replicate the rifles where unsuccessful they needed to trade more with the english. unfortunately gold was not what the english wanted but slaves. in most african society prior to european colonialism. slavery was only used on people who commited grievious criminal acts and prisoners of war. and the slaves could work their way out to freedom, they could also have children who where free and their relatives could buy their freedom. some black nations like the nri kingdom even outlawed slavery and any slave that set foot on their land wes free. u see slavery in west africa was seen as being more humane than executing someone for murder as spilling blood was often seen as taboo. and they where many laws concerning the treatment of slaves. but when white people arrived the game changed because of guns. u see guns gave a nation advantages and when whites sold it to a particular black kingdom other kingdoms where afraid they would be dis advantaged and also sought after guns. at first gold and spices and cloth was enough for europeans, but with the discovery of gold and spices in north and south america, slaves where needed to covert these resources. and the only thing blacks had to trade where slaves for guns. so as a result blacks started selling their criminals into slavery thinking the same rules of slavery applied to whites, but we all know now that was different. so the slave raids only started when the kingdoms ran out of criminals and then started raiding other kingdoms and sometimes going to all out war just for slaves to get more guns. why more guns u say what did they need them for. well many people have forgotten that for centuries black africans have been resisting arab muslim invaders who wanted to forcefully enslave and convert them and needed every edge they could get get guns was to sell slaves and thus a vicious circle began. of course they where blacks who sold their own people out simply fo profit, but in what culture or race has such people not existed. i apologise to west african descendants of the slavery diaspora. and now i will list west african civilizations, which black people in america can take pride in.

from what i can tell the nok civilization is west africas oldest as it started in 1000bc and from what i can tell it started up isolated as they where no advanced cultural influences nearby. i still dont understand why when ancient africa is potrayed on tv is always mud huts. i mean the where walled cites roads, written languages , science, universities like in ancient timbuktu. some had flags and constitutions. an some where even democratic. so why are they not mentioned. mind u these links are only from west africa they are many more in central east and southern africa



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nri_kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songhay_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanem-Bornu_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulani_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyo_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Dahomey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolof_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nok
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausa_Kingdoms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandinka_Empire

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Welcome to DU.

Bookmarking as it looks like a good and long read.

[dalaigh lllama]

2. Wecome to DU

lots of good info here. Thanks.

[sui generis]

3. your point though, "prisoners of war" is not a noble concept

It's not a core cultural idea that africans of any tribal affiliation sold fellow africans into a willing buyers market, so much as a fact of commerce in central west africa.

Of course when one raids a tribe it would be considered war, and any "prisoners" taken would fit that definition. That's not just african history, but virtually all history up until the last 200 years.

Certainly east africa up to through the mediterranean has a very well documented history of slavery - there are no "noble" innocents.

I'm curious what prompted your wiki jaunt? What is your central hypothesis? It wasn't clear.

Welcome to DU, BTW.

[enlightenment]

4. Hi and welcome to DU!

An interesting post . . . but may I make a couple of suggestions?

When you make a statement like I "was worried about the tales people chat of no black civilizations or nations prior to european contact. and i wanted to correct that", you might want to offer an example of those conversations. Are people on DU saying that? I'm not saying they aren't, but I haven't seen anything like it and would be interested in what you have found.

You might also want to consider formatting your posts a bit - while I am aware that many people believe that capitalization is passe, it does help with reading clarity, as does breaking a post into smaller 'chunks'. I won't say paragraphs, but adding a blank line every few sentences really does make it easier to read a longer post.

If it is easier to read, it is more likely that people will actually read it, right?

If you are interested, there are a few more scholarly resources than Wikipedia (reader edited sources are suspect). The Google books are not complete (they leave out sections) but still interesting and you could always check out copies from the library if interested in reading them completely:

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/history/hisking.html (a link of links - very useful)

http://books.google.com/books?id=TV-0AaV_4EsC&lpg=PR9&ots=zlyajfH9vY&dq=early%20african%20civilizations&lr&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q=early%20african%20civilizations&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=ga7QqZw6VPYC&lpg=PR9&ots=rXspZYfbIJ&lr&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ap2rW2pddEcC&lpg=PA23&ots=R1JtFRPNAe&dq=early%20african%20civilizations&lr&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q=early%20african%20civilizations&f=false

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAFRCA/IRONAGE.HTM (also check some of the links at the bottom of the page - some work, some don't)