Colonial period

Main article: Colonial Africa

Further information: History of West Africa § Slave trade, History of Central
Africa § Slave trade, History of East Africa § Slave trade, History of Southern
Africa § Slave trade, History of North Africa § European colonial period, History
of West Africa § Colonial period, History of Central Africa § Colonial period,
History of East Africa § Colonial period, and History of Southern Africa § Colonial
period
Between 1878 and 1898, European states partitioned and conquered most of Africa.
For 400 years, European nations had mainly limited their involvement to trading
stations on the African coast. Few dared venture inland from the coast; those that
did, like the Portuguese, often met defeats and had to retreat to the coast.
Several technological innovations helped to overcome this 400-year pattern. One was
the development of repeating rifles, which were easier and quicker to load than
muskets. Artillery was being used increasingly. In 1885, Hiram S. Maxim developed
the maxim gun, the model of the modern-day machine gun. European states kept these
weapons largely among themselves by refusing to sell these weapons to African
leaders.[69]

African germs took numerous European lives and deterred permanent settlements.
Diseases such as yellow fever, sleeping sickness, yaws, and leprosy made Africa a
very inhospitable place for Europeans. The deadliest disease was malaria, endemic
throughout Tropical Africa. In 1854, the discovery of quinine and other medical
innovations helped to make conquest and colonization in Africa possible.[70]

Strong motives for conquest of Africa were at play. Raw materials were needed for
European factories. Europe in the early part of the 19th century was undergoing its
Industrial Revolution. Nationalist rivalries and prestige were at play. Acquiring
African colonies would show rivals that a nation was powerful and significant.
These factors culminated in the Scramble for Africa.[71]

In the 1880s the European powers had divided up almost all of Africa (only Ethiopia
and Liberia were independent). They ruled until after World War II when forces of
nationalism grew much stronger. In the 1950s and 1960s the colonial holdings became
independent states. The process was usually peaceful but there were several long
bitter bloody civil wars, as in Algeria,[72] Kenya[73] and elsewhere. Across Africa
the powerful new force of nationalism drew upon the organizational skills that
natives learned in the British and French and other armies in the world wars. It
led to organizations that were not controlled by or endorsed by either the colonial
powers not the traditional local power structures that were collaborating with the
colonial powers. Nationalistic organizations began to challenge both the
traditional and the new colonial structures and finally displaced them. Leaders of
nationalist movements took control when the European authorities exited; many ruled
for decades or until they died off. These structures included political,
educational, religious, and other social organizations. In recent decades, many
African countries have undergone the triumph and defeat of nationalistic fervor,
changing in the process the loci of the centralizing state power and patrimonial
state.[74][75][76]

Areas controlled by European powers in 1939. British (red) and Belgian (marroon)
colonies fought with the Allies. Italian (light green) with the Axis. French
colonies (dark blue) fought alongside the Allies until the Fall of France in June
1940. Vichy was in control until the Free French prevailed in late 1942. Portuguese
(dark green) and Spanish (yellow) colonies remained neutral.
Postcolonial period
Main article: Postcolonial Africa
Further information: History of North Africa § Post-colonial period, History of
West Africa § Post-colonial period, History of Central Africa § Post-colonial
period, History of East Africa § Post-colonial period, and History of Southern
Africa § Post-colonial period
See also: Decolonisation of Africa, Neocolonialism, CFA franc, Status of forces
agreement, and Historical African place names

Dates of independence of African countries

The decolonization of Africa started with Libya in 1951, although Liberia, South
Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia were already independent. Many countries followed in the
1950s and 1960s, with a peak in 1960 with the Year of Africa, which saw 17 African
nations declare independence, including a large part of French West Africa. Most of
the remaining countries gained independence throughout the 1960s, although some
colonizers (Portugal in particular) were reluctant to relinquish sovereignty,
resulting in bitter wars of independence which lasted for a decade or more. The
last African countries to gain formal independence were Guinea-Bissau (1974),
Mozambique (1975) and Angola (1975) from Portugal; Djibouti from France in 1977;
Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom in 1980; and Namibia from South Africa in 1990.
Eritrea later split off from Ethiopia in 1993.[77]

History of African Architecture

Main article: Architecture of Africa
History of science and technology in Africa
Main article: History of science and technology in Africa
Economic history of Africa
Main article: Economic history of Africa
Military history of Africa
Main article: Military history of Africa
Genetic history of Africa
Main article: Genetic history of Africa
Historiography
Main article: African historiography
Historiography of British Africa
The first historical studies in English appeared in the 1890s, and followed one of
four approaches. 1) The territorial narrative was typically written by a veteran
soldier or civil servant who gave heavy emphasis to what he had seen. 2) The
"apologia" were essays designed to justify British policies. 3) Popularizers tried
to reach a large audience. 4) Compendia appeared designed to combine academic and
official credentials. Professional scholarship appeared around 1900, and began with
the study of business operations, typically using government documents and
unpublished archives.[78]

The economic approach was widely practiced in the 1930s, primarily to provide
descriptions of the changes underway in the previous half-century. In 1935,
American historian William L. Langer published The Diplomacy of Imperialism: 1890–
1902, a book that is still widely cited. In 1939, Oxford professor Reginald
Coupland published The Exploitation of East Africa, 1856–1890: The Slave Trade and
the Scramble, another popular treatment.[citation needed]

World War II diverted most scholars to wartime projects and accounted for a pause
in scholarship during the 1940s.[79]

By the 1950s many African students were studying in British universities, and they
produced a demand for new scholarship, and started themselves to supply it as well.
Oxford University became the main center for African studies, with activity as well
at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. The perspective of
British government policymakers or international business operations slowly gave
way to a new interest in the activities of the natives, especially nationalistic
movements and the growing demand for independence.[79] The major breakthrough came
from Ronald Robinson and John Andrew Gallagher, especially with their studies of
the impact of free trade on Africa.[80] In 1985 The Oxford History of South Africa
(2 vols.) was published,[81] attempting to synthesize the available materials. In
2013, The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History was published,[82] bringing the
scholarship up to date.[citation needed]

Historiographic and Conceptual Problems

The current major problem in African studies that Mohamed (2010/2012)[83][84]
identified is the inherited religious, Orientalist, colonial paradigm that European
Africanists have preserved in present-day secularist, post-colonial, Anglophone
African historiography.[83] African and African-American scholars also bear some
responsibility in perpetuating this European Africanist preserved paradigm.[83]

Following conceptualizations of Africa developed by Leo Africanus and Hegel,

European Africanists conceptually separated continental Africa into two racialized
regions – Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa.[83] Sub-Saharan Africa, as a racist
geographic construction, serves as an objectified, compartmentalized region of
"Africa proper", "Africa noire," or "Black Africa."[83] The African diaspora is
also considered to be a part of the same racialized construction as Sub-Saharan
Africa.[83] North Africa serves as a racialized region of "European Africa", which
is conceptually disconnected from Sub-Saharan Africa, and conceptually connected to
the Middle East, Asia, and the Islamic world.[83]

As a result of these racialized constructions and the conceptual separation of

Africa, darker skinned North Africans, such as the so-called Haratin, who have long
resided in the Maghreb, and do not reside south of Saharan Africa, have become
analogically alienated from their indigeneity and historic reality in North Africa.
[83] While the origin of the term "Haratin" remains speculative, the term may not
date much earlier than the 18th century CE and has been involuntarily assigned to
darker skinned Maghrebians.[83] Prior to the modern use of the term Haratin as an
identifier, and used in contrast to bidan or bayd (white), sumr/asmar, suud/aswad,
or Sudan/sudani (black/brown) were Arabic terms used as identifiers for darker
skinned Maghrebians before the modern period.[83] "Haratin" is considered to be an
offensive term by the darker skinned Maghrebians it is intended to identify; for
example, people in the southern region (e.g., Wad Noun, Draa) of Morocco consider
it to be an offensive term.[83] Despite its historicity and etymology being
questionable, European colonialists and European Africanists have used the term
Haratin as identifiers for groups of "black" and apparently "mixed" people found in
Algeria, Mauritania, and Morocco.[83]

The Saadian invasion of the Songhai Empire serves as the precursor to later
narratives that grouped darker skinned Maghrebians together and identified their
origins as being Sub-Saharan West Africa.[84] With gold serving as a motivation
behind the Saadian invasion of the Songhai Empire, this made way for changes in
latter behaviors toward dark-skinned Africans.[84] As a result of changing
behaviors toward dark-skinned Africans, darker skinned Maghrebians were forcibly
recruited into the army of Ismail Ibn Sharif as the Black Guard, based on the claim
of them having descended from enslaved peoples from the times of the Saadian
invasion.[84] Shurafa historians of the modern period would later use these events
in narratives about the manumission of enslaved "Hartani" (a vague term, which, by
merit of it needing further definition, is implicit evidence for its historicity
being questionable).[84] The narratives derived from Shurafa historians would later
become analogically incorporated into the Americanized narratives (e.g., the trans-
Saharan slave trade, imported enslaved Sub-Saharan West Africans, darker skinned
Magrebian freedmen) of the present-day European Africanist paradigm.[84]

As opposed to having been developed through field research, the analogy in the
present-day European Africanist paradigm, which conceptually alienates,
dehistoricizes, and denaturalizes darker skinned North Africans in North Africa and
darker skinned Africans throughout the Islamic world at-large, is primarily rooted
in an Americanized textual tradition inherited from 19th century European Christian
abolitionists.[83] Consequently, reliable history, as opposed to an antiquated
analogy-based history, for darker skinned North Africans and darker skinned
Africans in the Islamic world are limited.[83] Part of the textual tradition
generally associates an inherited status of servant with dark skin (e.g., Negro
labor, Negro cultivators, Negroid slaves, freedman).[83] The European Africanist
paradigm uses this as the primary reference point for its construction of origins
narratives for darker skinned North Africans (e.g., imported slaves from Sub-
Saharan West Africa).[83] With darker skinned North Africans or darker skinned
Africans in the Islamic world treated as an allegory of alterity, another part of
the textual tradition is the trans-Saharan slave trade and their presence in these
regions are treated as that of an African diaspora in North Africa and the Islamic
world.[83] Altogether, darker skinned North Africans (e.g., "black" and apparently
"mixed" Maghrebians), darker skinned Africans in the Islamic world, the inherited
status of servant associated with dark skin, and the trans-Saharan slave trade are
conflated and modeled in analogy with African-Americans and the trans-Atlantic
slave trade.[83]

The trans-Saharan slave trade has been used as a literary device in narratives that
analogically explain the origins of darker skinned North Africans in North Africa
and the Islamic world.[83] Caravans have been equated with slave ships, and the
amount of forcibly enslaved Africans transported across the Sahara are alleged to
be numerically comparable to the considerably large amount of forcibly enslaved
Africans transported across the Atlantic Ocean.[83] The simulated narrative of
comparable numbers is contradicted by the limited presence of darker skinned North
Africans in the present-day Maghreb.[83] As part of this simulated narrative, post-
classical Egypt has also been characterized as having plantations.[83] Another part
of this simulated narrative is an Orientalist construction of hypersexualized
Moors, concubines, and eunuchs.[83] Concubines in harems have been used as an
explanatory bridge between the allegation of comparable numbers of forcibly
enslaved Africans and the limited amount of present-day darker skinned Maghrebians
who have been characterized as their diasporic descendants.[83] Eunuchs were
characterized as sentinels who guarded these harems.[84] The simulated narrative is
also based on the major assumption that the indigenous peoples of the Maghreb were
once purely white Berbers, who then became biracialized through miscegenation with
black concubines[83] (existing within a geographic racial binary of pale-skinned
Moors residing further north, closer to the Mediterranean region, and dark-skinned
Moors residing further south, closer to the Sahara).[84] The religious polemical
narrative involving the suffering of enslaved European Christians of the Barbary
slave trade has also been adapted to fit the simulated narrative of a comparable
number of enslaved Africans being transported by Muslim slaver caravans, from the
south of Saharan Africa, into North Africa and the Islamic world.[83]

Despite being an inherited part of the 19th century religious polemical narratives,
the use of race in the secularist narrative of the present-day European Africanist
paradigm has given the paradigm an appearance of possessing scientific quality.[84]
The religious polemical narrative (e.g., holy cause, hostile neologisms) of 19th
century European abolitionists about Africa and Africans are silenced, but still
preserved, in the secularist narratives of the present-day European Africanist
paradigm.[83] The Orientalist stereotyped hypersexuality of the Moors were viewed
by 19th century European abolitionists as deriving from the Quran.[84] The
reference to times prior, often used in concert with biblical references, by 19th
century European abolitionists, may indicate that realities described of Moors may
have been literary fabrications.[84] The purpose of these apparent literary
fabrications may have been to affirm their view of the Bible as being greater than
the Quran and to affirm the viewpoints held by the readers of their composed works.
[84] The adoption of 19th century European abolitionists' religious polemical
narrative into the present-day European Africanist paradigm may have been due to
its correspondence with the established textual tradition.[84] The use of
stereotyped hypersexuality for Moors are what 19th century European abolitionists
and the present-day European Africanist paradigm have in common.[84]

Due to a lack of considerable development in field research regarding enslavement

in Islamic societies, this has resulted in the present-day European Africanist
paradigm relying on unreliable estimates for the trans-Saharan slave trade.[84]
However, insufficient data has also used as a justification for continued use of
the faulty present-day European Africanist paradigm.[84] Darker skinned
Maghrebians, particularly in Morocco, have grown weary of the lack of discretion
foreign academics have shown toward them, bear resentment toward the way they have
been depicted by foreign academics, and consequently, find the intended activities
of foreign academics to be predictable.[84] Rather than continuing to rely on the
faulty present-day European Africanist paradigm, Mohamed (2012) recommends revising
and improving the current Africanist paradigm (e.g., critical inspection of the
origins and introduction of the present characterization of the Saharan caravan;
reconsideration of what makes the trans-Saharan slave trade, within its own context
in Africa, distinct from the trans-Atlantic slave trade; realistic consideration of
the experiences of darker-skinned Maghrebians within their own regional context).
[84]

Conceptual Problems
Merolla (2017)[85] has indicated that the academic study of Sub-Saharan Africa and
North Africa by Europeans developed with North Africa being conceptually subsumed
within the Middle East and Arab world, whereas, the study of Sub-Saharan Africa was
viewed as conceptually distinct from North Africa, and as its own region, viewed as
inherently the same.[85] The common pattern of conceptual separation of continental
Africa into two regions and the view of conceptual sameness within the region of
Sub-Saharan Africa has continued until present-day.[85] Yet, with increasing
exposure of this problem, discussion about the conceptual separation of Africa has
begun to develop.[85]

The Sahara has served as a trans-regional zone for peoples in Africa.[85] Authors
from various countries (e.g., Algeria, Cameroon, Sudan) in Africa have critiqued
the conceptualization of the Sahara as a regional barrier, and provided counter-
arguments supporting the interconnectedness of continental Africa; there are
historic and cultural connections as well as trade between West Africa, North
Africa, and East Africa (e.g., North Africa with Niger and Mali, North Africa with
Tanzania and Sudan, major hubs of Islamic learning in Niger and Mali).[85] Africa
has been conceptually compartmentalized into meaning "Black Africa", "Africa South
of the Sahara", and "Sub-Saharan Africa."[85] North Africa has been conceptually
"Orientalized" and separated from Sub-Saharan Africa.[85] While its historic
development has occurred within a longer time frame, the epistemic development
(e.g., form, content) of the present-day racialized conceptual separation of Africa
came as a result of the Berlin Conference and the Scramble for Africa.[85]

In African and Berber literary studies, scholarship has remained largely separate
from one another.[85] The conceptual separation of Africa in these studies may be
due to how editing policies of studies in the Anglophone and Francophone world are
affected by the international politics of the Anglophone and Francophone world.[85]
While studies in the Anglophone world have more clearly followed the trend of the
conceptual separation of Africa, the Francophone world has been more nuanced, which
may stem from imperial policies relating to French colonialism in North Africa and
Sub-Saharan Africa.[85] As the study of North Africa has largely been initiated by
the Arabophone and Francophone world, denial of the Arabic language having become
Africanized throughout the centuries it has been present in Africa has shown that
the conceptual separation of Africa remains pervasive in the Francophone world;
this denial may stem from historic development of the characterization of an
Islamic Arabia existing as a diametric binary to Europe.[85] Among studies in the
Francophone world, ties between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa have been
denied or downplayed, while the ties (e.g., religious, cultural) between the
regions and peoples (e.g., Arab language and literature with Berber language and
literature) of the Middle East and North Africa have been established by
diminishing the differences between the two and selectively focusing on the
similarities between the two.[85] In the Francophone world, construction of
racialized regions, such as Black Africa (Sub-Saharan Africans) and White Africa
(North Africans, e.g., Berbers and Arabs), has also developed.[85]

Despite having invoked and used identities in reference to the racialized

conceptualizations of Africa (e.g., North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa) to oppose
imposed identities, Berbers have invoked North African identity to oppose Arabized
and Islamicized identities, and Sub-Saharan Africans (e.g., Negritude, Black
Consciousness) and the African diaspora (e.g., Black is Beautiful) have invoked and
used black identity to oppose colonialism and racism.[85] While Berber studies has
largely sought to establish ties between Berbers and North Africa with Arabs and
the Middle East, Merolla (2017) indicated that efforts to establish ties between
Berbers and North Africa with Sub-Saharan Africans and Sub-Saharan Africa have
recently started to being undertaken.[85]