Ancient Africa & African empires timeline

New Crisis, The, Jan/Feb 2000 by Agatucci, Cora

1260

Ife-Ife, Yoruban culture of non-Bantu Kwa-speakers, flourished in western Africa, producing remarkable terracotta and bronze portrait heads, continuing the Nok tradition.

1324- 1325

Mansa Musa's sensational pilgrimage to Mecca, spreads the fame of the Mali Empire across Sudan to Egypt, the Islamic and European worlds. ("Mansa" means "emperor.") The Mali emperor brought with him hundreds of camels laden with gold. Under Mansa Musa, diplomatic relations with Tunis and Egypt were opened, Muslim scholars and artisans were brought into the empire; and Mali appeared on the maps of Europe. Islam penetrated Mali's elaborate court life and thrived in commercial sahel centers such as Jenne and Timbuktu (or Tombouctou), on the great bend of the Niger River. Mali's legacy is the enduring cultural affiliation shared by the Mande peoples (Malinke, Bambara, and Soninke speakers) who today occupy large parts of West Africa. Early written literature of Sub-Saharan West Africa was influenced by Islamic writings, in both form and content, as transmitted by North Africans.

After 1400

Court intrigue and succession disputes sapped the strength of the extended Mali empire, and northern towns and provinces revolted, making way for the empire of Songhai tc emerge from the vassal state of Gao. One of the first peoples to become independent, the Songhai, began to spread along the Niger River. Much of Mali fell to the Songhai Empire in the western Sudan during the 15th century.

14th c.

Complex, advanced lake states, located between Lakes Victoria and Edward, were established, including kingdoms ruled by the Bachwezi, Luo, Bunyoro, Ankole, Buganda, and Karagwe-but little is known of their early history. Engaruka, a town of 6,000 stone houses in Tanzania, played a key role in the emergence of Central African empires. Bunyoro was the most powerful state until the second half of the 18th century, with an elaborate centralized bureaucracy: most district and subdistrict chiefs were appointed by the kabaka ("king"). Farther to the south, in Rwanda, a cattle-raising pastoral aristocracy founded by the Bachwezi (called Bututsi, or Bahima, in this area) ruled over settled Bantu peoples from the 16th century onward.

ca. 1400

Swahili cities flourish on east African coast of Indian Ocean; trading in ivory, gold, iron, and slaves. (Swahili refers to Arabinfluenced Bantu language and culture.) Indonesian immigrants reached Madagascar during C.E. 1st millennium bringing new foodstuffs, notably bananas, which soon spread throughout the continent, and Arab settlers colonized the coast and established trading towns. By the 13th century, a number of significant Zenj city-states had been established, including Mogadishu, Malindi, Lamu, Mombasa, Kilwa, Pate, and Sofala. An urban Swahili culture developed through mutual assimilation of Bantu and Arabic speakers. The ruling classes were of mixed Arab-African ancestry; the populace was Bantu, some of them slaves. These mercantile city-states were oriented toward the sea, and their political impact on inland peoples was virtually nonexistent until the 19th century.