An outline, era by era

Songhai falls; Kingdom of Kongo; Ashanti and Dahomey

Early Modern Era · ~1500 – ~1800

This entry covers four African states of the early modern period. The Songhai Empire, centred on Gao and Timbuktu on the Niger bend, was the largest state in West Africa in the 1500s. In 1591 a Moroccan army crossed the Sahara and broke its power at the battle of Tondibi. The Kingdom of Kongo, in west central Africa, was a centralised kingdom that took up Christianity and diplomacy with Portugal from the 1480s, and then suffered civil war and Portuguese pressure.

Ashanti and Dahomey were two forest and coastal states that rose in the 1600s and 1700s. Ashanti, in the Akan lands of what is now Ghana, was united under Osei Tutu around 1700. Dahomey, in what is now Benin, grew under the Fon kings and conquered the coast in the 1720s. Both built armies, bureaucracies and wealth in part through trade with Europeans, including the trade in enslaved people. Together these states show how varied African politics were in an age of expanding Atlantic trade.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Askia Muhammad and the Songhai Empire

    Event

    What happened

    In 1493 Muhammad Ture, a Songhai general, overthrows Sunni Baru, son of Sunni Ali, and takes the title askia. He expands Songhai power, and in 1496 to 1497 he makes the pilgrimage to Mecca. He organises provinces and officials and supports Islamic scholars at Timbuktu and Gao.

    The rest is history

    Under Askia Muhammad and his successors Songhai controlled the Niger bend, important Saharan salt and gold trade routes, and the cities of Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné. Leo Africanus visited the region in the early 1500s and described its wealth. Askia Muhammad was deposed by his own sons in 1528. Later rulers faced civil wars over the succession, which weakened the empire before the Moroccan invasion.

    Sources

    1. Primaryal-Sa'di, Abd al-Rahman. Tarikh al-Sudan. Arabic chronicle written at Timbuktu, c. 1655. Translated by Octave Houdas, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1900.
    2. BookHunwick, John O. Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa'di's Ta'rikh al-Sudan down to 1613. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

  2. Moroccan invasion and the battle of Tondibi

    Event

    What happened

    In late 1590 a Moroccan army of several thousand men under Judar Pasha, sent by Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, crosses the Sahara with firearms. On 13 March 1591 it defeats the much larger army of Askia Ishaq II at Tondibi, near Gao. The Moroccans then occupy Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné.

    The rest is history

    Songhai central authority collapsed, and the empire broke into smaller successor states. Moroccan soldiers, called the Arma, ruled the Niger bend as a local military elite, and their ties to Morocco faded within decades. Timbuktu's scholars suffered when many were deported to Morocco in 1593, including Ahmad Baba. The gold trade did not move north to Morocco as the sultan had hoped. Historians still debate how far gunpowder alone explains the result.

    Sources

    1. Primaryal-Sa'di, Abd al-Rahman. Tarikh al-Sudan. Arabic chronicle written at Timbuktu, c. 1655. Translated by Octave Houdas, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1900.
    2. BookAbitbol, Michel. Tombouctou et les Arma. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1979.

  3. Afonso I and the Christian kingdom of Kongo

    Event

    What happened

    In 1483 Portuguese ships under Diogo Cão reach the mouth of the Congo river, and soon afterwards the Kongo king Nzinga a Nkuwu receives missionaries. He is baptised in 1491 as João I. His son Mvemba a Nzinga takes power around 1509 as Afonso I and rules until about 1542. He adopts Christianity, writes letters to the kings of Portugal, and sends relatives to Europe to study.

    The rest is history

    Afonso's letters, written in Portuguese, survive in archives. In them he complains that Portuguese traders were enslaving his subjects, including nobles, and asks King João III to stop it. The trade continued and grew. Kongo's capital, Mbanza Kongo, was renamed São Salvador and had a cathedral. Afonso's reign shows an African ruler using the new religion and diplomacy on his own terms, while struggling to control the slave trade.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLetters of Afonso I of Kongo to the kings of Portugal, 1506 to 1543. In Brásio, António, ed. Monumenta Missionaria Africana, vol. 1. Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1952.
    2. BookThornton, John K. The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641-1718. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.

  4. Mbwila and the civil wars of Kongo

    Event

    What happened

    On 29 October 1665 a Portuguese force from Angola defeats the army of Kongo at Mbwila (Ambuíla), and King António I is killed. Kongo's central power breaks down. Rival noble houses, notably the Kimpanzu and Kinlaza, fight for the throne for decades, and São Salvador is abandoned by 1678.

    The rest is history

    The wars sent many captives to the Atlantic slave trade. In 1704 a young woman named Kimpa Vita, called Dona Beatriz, began a Christian movement calling for the kingdom to be reunited, and she was burned as a heretic in 1706. King Pedro IV re-established São Salvador around 1709 to 1715, and a form of unity returned. Kongo continued as a much weaker state into the 1800s, and Portugal formally annexed it in 1914.

    Sources

    1. BookThornton, John K. The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641-1718. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.
    2. BookThornton, John K. The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

  5. Osei Tutu and the founding of Ashanti

    Event

    What happened

    Around 1700 Osei Tutu, ruler of Kumasi, unites several Akan chiefdoms in a war against the powerful state of Denkyira, with the help of the priest Okomfo Anokye. Denkyira is defeated at the battle of Feyiase around 1701. Osei Tutu becomes the first Asantehene, king of the Ashanti union, and the Golden Stool becomes its symbol.

    The rest is history

    Ashanti grew over the 1700s into the dominant power of the Gold Coast hinterland, trading gold, kola and enslaved people with the coastal forts. Osei Tutu was killed in battle with Akyem around 1717. His successor Opoku Ware (reigned about 1720 to 1750) conquered much of the north, including Gonja and Dagomba as tributaries. The Ashanti state combined a council of chiefs with a strong central bureaucracy. It resisted British expansion until the 1890s.

    Sources

    1. BookWilks, Ivor. Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
    2. BookMcCaskie, T. C. State and Society in Pre-Colonial Asante. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

  6. Agaja conquers Allada and Whydah

    Event

    What happened

    King Agaja of Dahomey (reigned about 1718 to 1740) conquers the coastal kingdom of Allada in 1724 and the port kingdom of Whydah in 1727. This gives Dahomey direct access to European traders on the coast. In the 1730s Oyo, a larger state to the northeast, invades Dahomey several times.

    The rest is history

    Agaja's conquest of Whydah put the coastal slave trade under royal control. Dahomey was forced to pay tribute to Oyo from about 1730, and it remained a tributary until the 1820s. The kings kept a standing army, a census and a tightly controlled court, and the state is known for its female royal soldiers, called Mino or Amazons by Europeans, in the 1800s. Dahomey lasted until French conquest in 1892 to 1894. Scholars debate whether Agaja tried to end the slave trade; the evidence is limited.

    Sources

    1. BookLaw, Robin. The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550-1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
    2. BookAkinjogbin, I. A. Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708-1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

  7. The Golden Stool descends from the sky

    Origin story

    The legend

    At a great gathering of Akan chiefs around 1700, the priest Okomfo Anokye calls down a golden stool from the sky. In a cloud of dust it settles on the knees of Osei Tutu. Anokye declares that it holds the soul of the Ashanti nation, and that the nation will fall if the stool is lost.

    The rest is history

    The story is told in Ashanti oral tradition and was written down in the 1800s and 1900s. The stool is a real object, and it is still kept as the sacred symbol of the Asantehene's office. Its story fits the real political project of Osei Tutu, which was to bind formerly separate chiefdoms with a shared symbol. Okomfo Anokye is also remembered in tradition as a lawgiver, though the details are hard to date. In 1900 the British governor Frederick Hodgson demanded to sit on the stool, which led to the War of the Golden Stool, and the British never captured it.

    Sources

    1. BookRattray, R. S. Ashanti Law and Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929.
    2. BookWilks, Ivor. Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

  8. Songhai as a golden empire lost in a day

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A common popular account says Songhai was a vast kingdom of fabulous gold, whose power vanished in a single battle when Moroccan guns met spears and arrows. Timbuktu, in this telling, was a city with a golden age that ended with the invasion.

    The rest is history

    Songhai was indeed large and rich, and Timbuktu had a famous scholarly community. But the empire was already weakened by succession wars before 1591, and Songhai troops had some firearms and cavalry. After Tondibi, Songhai successor states continued in Dendi, and the Arma ruled the cities, so life and learning did not end at once. Timbuktu's manuscript tradition continued, and tens of thousands of manuscripts survive in libraries and family collections in Mali today. Local chronicles such as the Tarikh al-Sudan are the main sources.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAnonymous. Tarikh al-Fattash. Arabic chronicle from the Niger bend, 17th century. Translated by Octave Houdas and Maurice Delafosse, Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1913.
    2. BookHunwick, John O. Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa'di's Ta'rikh al-Sudan down to 1613. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

  9. The Dahomey Amazons

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Popular accounts describe an army of fierce women warriors in Dahomey, called Amazons by Europeans, who fought without fear and were said to be sworn to the king.

    The rest is history

    The women's regiments were real. European visitors in the 1800s, such as Frederick Forbes in the 1850s, described them, and the French fought them in the wars of 1890 to 1894. They were royal wives or servants of the king, called ahosi, organised in units. Their origins are debated; some accounts trace them to the 1700s, perhaps as palace guards, but good evidence is mostly from the 1800s. The popular image, drawn from colourful European reports, often exaggerates their numbers and ferocity. The last known survivors died in the late twentieth century.

    Sources

    1. BookAlpern, Stanley B. Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors of Dahomey. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
    2. PrimaryForbes, Frederick E. Dahomey and the Dahomans. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1851.

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