Unit 1: Origins of the African Diaspora

W. E. B. Du Bois, African American scholar, on the kingdom of Aksum (Abyssinia), 1915

In this way Arabian, Jewish, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman influences spread slowly upon the Negro foundation. . . . In the fourth century Byzantine influences began to be felt, and in 330 St. Athanasius of Alexandria consecrated Fromentius as Bishop of Ethiopia. He tutored the heir to the Abyssinian kingdom and began its gradual christianization. By the early part of the sixth century Abyssinia was trading with India and Byzantium and was so far recognized as a Christian country that the Emperor Justinian appealed to King Kaleb to protect the Christians in southwestern Arabia.

W. E. B. Du Bois, African American scholar, on the Songhai Empire under Askia Muhammad, 1915

In fine Askia, during his reign, conquered and consolidated an empire two thousand miles long by one thousand wide at its greatest diameters; a territory as large as all Europe. The territory was divided into four vice royalties, and the system of Melle, with its semi-independent native dynasties, was carried out. . . .

It was a six months' journey across the empire and, it is said, "he was obeyed with as much docility on the farthest limits of the empire as he was in his own palace, and there reigned everywhere great plenty and absolute peace." The University of Sankore became a center of learning in correspondence with Egypt and North Africa and had a swarm of black Sudanese students. Law, literature, grammar, geography and surgery were studied.

W. E. B. Du Bois, African American scholar, on the Bantu-speaking peoples, 1915

The Congo valley became, therefore, the center of the making of what we know to-day as the Bantu nations. They are not a unified people, but a congeries of tribes of considerable physical diversity, united by the compelling bond of language and other customs imposed on the conquered by invading conquerors.

The history or [of] these invasions we must to-day largely imagine. . . .

In the Congo valley the invaders settled in village and plain . . . and immediately began to develop industry and political organization. They became skilled agriculturists . . . . Everywhere they showed skill in mining and the welding of iron, copper, and other metals.

W. E. B. Du Bois, African American scholar, on the ancient kingdom south of Egypt, 1915

A separate and independent Ethiopian culture finally began to arise during the middle empire of Egypt and centered at Nepata and Meroe. Widespread trade in gold, ivory, precious stones, skins, wood, and works of handicraft arose. . . .

Egyptian culture, however, gradually conquered Ethiopia where her armies could not . . . . Gathering strength, the Ethiopian kingdom under this dynasty expanded north about 750 B.C. and for a century ruled all Egypt. . . .

While the Ethiopian kings were still crowned at Nepata, Meroe gradually became the real capital . . . . It was here that the famous Candaces reigned as queens.

W. E. B. Du Bois, African American scholar, describing the African continent, 1915

Four great rivers and many lesser streams water the continent. The greatest is the Congo in the center, with its vast curving and endless estuaries; then the Nile, draining the cluster of the Great Lakes and flowing northward "like some grave, mighty thought, threading a dream"; the Niger in the northwest, watering the Sudan below the Sahara; and, finally, the Zambesi, with its greater Niagara in the southeast. Even these waters leave room for deserts both south and north, but the greater ones are the three million square miles of sand wastes in the north.

More than any other land, Africa lies in the tropics, with a warm, dry climate, save in the central Congo region, where rain at all seasons brings tropical luxuriance.

W. E. B. Du Bois, African American scholar, on the stone ruins of southeastern Africa, quoting the Portuguese historian João de Barros, 1915

"There are other mines," writes De Barros . . . , "in a district called Toroa, which is otherwise known as the kingdom of Butua . . . . They are all in a plain, in the middle of which stands a square fortress, all of dressed stones within and without, well wrought and of marvelous size, without any lime showing the joinings, the walls of which are over twenty-five hands thick . . . . All these structures the people of this country call Symbaoe [Zymbabwe], which with them means a court, for every place where Benomotapa stays is so called." . . .

As usual there have been repeated attempts to find an external and especially an Asiatic origin for this culture. So far, however, archeological research seems to confirm its African origin. The implements, weapons, and art are characteristically African and there is no evident connection with outside sources.

Olaudah Equiano, formerly enslaved writer and abolitionist, describing government and work in his Igbo homeland, 1789

[O]ur subjection to the king of Benin was little more than nominal; for every transaction of the government, as far as my slender observation extended, was conducted by the chiefs or elders of the place. . . . My father was one of those elders or chiefs I have spoken of, and was styled Embrenche . . . . Those Embrence, or chief men, decided disputes and punished crimes; for which purpose they always assembled together. . . .

Agriculture is our chief employment; and every one, even the children and women, are engaged in it. Thus we are all habituated to labour from our earliest years. Every one contributes something to the common stock; and as we are unacquainted with idleness, we have no beggars.

Olaudah Equiano, formerly enslaved writer and abolitionist, describing religion in his Igbo homeland, 1789

As to religion, the natives believe that there is one Creator of all things, and that he lives in the sun, and is girted round with a belt that he may never eat or drink . . . . They believe he governs events, especially our deaths or captivity . . . . Those spirits, which are not transmigrated, such as our dear friends or relations, they believe always attend them, and guard them from the bad spirits or their foes. For this reason they always before eating, as I have observed, put some small portion of the meat, and pour some of their drink, on the ground for them; and they often make oblations of the blood of beasts or fowls at their graves.

Ibn Battuta, Moroccan scholar and traveler, crossing the Sahara to the Mali Empire, 1352

After twenty-five days we reached Taghāzā, an unattractive village, with the curious feature that its houses and mosques are built of blocks of salt, roofed with camel skins. There are no trees there, nothing but sand. In the sand is a salt mine; they dig for the salt, and find it in thick slabs . . . . A camel will carry two of these slabs. . . .

At Iwālātan a load of salt brings eight to ten mithqāls [gold coins]; in the town of Mālli it sells for twenty to thirty, and sometimes as much as forty. The negroes use salt as a medium of exchange, just as gold and silver is used [elsewhere]; they cut it up into pieces and buy and sell with it.

Leo Africanus, North African diplomat and traveler, describing Gao, capital of the Songhai Empire, c. 1526 (English translation 1600)

The great towne of Gago being vnwalled also, is distant southward of Tombuto almost fower hundred miles, and enclineth somewhat to the southeast. . . . Here are exceeding rich merchants: and hither continually resort great store of Negros which buy cloth here brought out of Barbarie and Europe. . . . Betweene the first gate of the palace and the inner part thereof, there is a place walled round about wherein the king himselfe decideth all his subiects controuersies: and albeit the king be in this function most diligent, and performeth all things thereto appertayning, yet hath he about him his counsellors & other officers, as namely his secretaries, treasurers, factors, and auditors. It is a woonder to see what plentie of Merchandize is dayly brought hither, and how costly and sumptuous all things be.

Leo Africanus, North African diplomat and traveler, describing the regions of Africa, c. 1526 (English translation 1600)

The second part of Africa is called of the Latines Numidia, but of the Arabians Biledulgerid: this region bringeth foorth dates in great abundance. . . . The third part called of the Latines Libya, and of the Arabians Sarra (which word signifieth a desert) beginneth eastward at that part of Nilus which is next vnto the citie of Eloacat, and from thence runneth westward as far as the Ocean sea. Northwarde it is bounded with Numidia, southward it abutteth vpon the land of Negros . . . . This lande of Negros hath a mightie riuer, which taking his name of the region, is called Niger . . . . neither hath the said land of Negros any kingdomes comparable, for beautifull and pleasant soile, vnto those which adioine vnto the banks of Niger.

Mungo Park, Scottish explorer, describing music and poetry among the Mandinka and their neighbors, 1799

With the love of music is naturally connected a taste for poetry; and, fortunately for the poets of Africa, they are in a great measure exempted from that neglect and indigence, which in more polished countries commonly attend the votaries of the Muses. They consist of two classes; the most numerous are the singing men, called Jilli kea, mentioned in a former part of my narrative. One or more of these may be found in every town. They sing extempore songs, in honour of their chief men, or any other persons who are willing to give “solid pudding for empty praise.” But a nobler part of their office is to recite the historical events of their country: hence, in war, they accompany the soldiers to the field; in order, by reciting the great actions of their ancestors, to awaken in them a spirit of glorious emulation.

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek guide for merchants, describing the Red Sea coast of Africa, first century CE (English translation 1912)

Opposite Mountain Island, on the mainland twenty stadia from shore, lies Adulis, a fair-sized village, from which there is a three-days’ journey to Coloe, an inland town and the first market for ivory. From that place to the city of the people called Auxumites there is a five days’ journey more . . . . These places . . . are governed by Zoscales; who is miserly in his ways and always striving for more, but otherwise upright, and acquainted with Greek literature.

There are imported into these places, undressed cloth made in Egypt for the Berbers . . . wine of Laodicea and Italy, not much . . . . Likewise from the district of Ariaca across this sea, there are imported Indian iron, and steel, and Indian cotton cloth . . . . There are exported from these places ivory, and tortoise-shell and rhinoceros-horn.

Arthur A. Schomburg, Afro-Puerto Rican historian and book collector, essay, 1925

The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future. Though it is orthodox to think of America as the one country where it is unnecessary to have a past, what is a luxury for the nation as a whole becomes a prime social necessity for the Negro. For him, a group tradition must supply compensation for persecution, and pride of race the antidote for prejudice. History must restore what slavery took away, for it is the social damage of slavery that the present generations must repair and offset. . . .

Gradually as the study of the Negro’s past has come out of the vagaries of rhetoric and propaganda and become systematic and scientific, three outstanding conclusions have been established: . . . Third, that the remote racial origins of the Negro, far from being what the race and the world have been given to understand, offer a record of credible group achievement when scientifically viewed . . . .

David Walker, free Black abolitionist in Boston, pamphlet addressed to Black Americans, 1829

When we take a retrospective view of the arts and sciences--the wise legislators--the Pyramids, and other magnificent buildings--the turning of the channel of the river Nile, by the sons of Africa or of Ham, among whom learning originated, and was carried thence into Greece, where it was improved upon and refined. Thence among the Romans, and all over the then enlightened parts of the world, and it has been enlightening the dark and benighted minds of men from then, down to this day. I say, when I view retrospectively, the renown of that once mighty people, the children of our great progenitor I am indeed cheered.