6 - Colonising society in eastern and southern Africa

Summary

this chapter considers the regions east and south of the equatorial forest during the thousand years between the end of the early iron age and the outside world's first extensive penetration in the eighteenth century. The central themes were the same as in western Africa: colonisation of land, control over nature, expansion of populations, and consolidation of societies. But the circumstances were different. Because neither Muslims nor Europeans commonly penetrated beyond the coast, few written sources for this region exist to compare with Islamic and early European accounts of West Africa, while oral traditions seldom extend back reliably beyond three centuries. Much therefore remains uncertain, although archaeological research indicates the wealth of knowledge awaiting recovery. Moreover, whereas West Africa's lateral climatic belts tended to separate pastoralists from cultivators, the two were interspersed in eastern and southern Africa, where faulting and volcanic action had left dramatic local variations of height, rainfall, and environment. The grasslands in which mankind had evolved now supported cattle as the chief form of human wealth. Settlements were dispersed and often mobile, with few urban centres to rival Jenne or Ife. Interaction between pastoralists and cultivators created many of the region's first states, although others grew up in the few areas with extensive trade. Pastoral values shaped social organisation, culture, and ideology. Not only men but their herds were engaged in a long and painful colonisation of the land.