How Advance were African Civilizations before European Colonialism??

[Samori Toure]

Africa is a continent. I am always startled when people write the word Africa like it is a country, rather than a continent, with countless ethnic groups, languages, religions and customs.

Generally speaking Egypt and a few other societies in ancient times were very advanced. North Africans, like some of the Moors/Berbers were very advanced. The Mande people, who founded the Kingdoms of Ghana and Songhay and the Empire of Mali were pretty advanced too. The Kingdom of Kongo; Kanem Bornu; some of the Yoruba Kingdoms; the Swahili City States, etc., were also highly advanced.

Here are a few books by Basil Davidson that are fairly good reference sources.

 

[GrindtooFilthy]

Honestly, I think the inability to get rid of traitors and accomplices to White nations was major downfall.

You had people in kingdoms selling off their political rivals, not negotiating better trade deals, spies, and what not running around. This tells me in many places that the native kings or queens authority was weak and corruption was high.

This wasn't politics it was conquest. Its akin to how the english treated the irish and they didn't see themselves as the same

 

[GrindtooFilthy]

I didn't say that people didn't resist the colonization, I said they couldn't match the weapons/technology. Some people are well documented for resisting throughout the entire colonization period, but with 1 or 2 exceptions....Euro flags flew over the entire continent during that era.

And again the only defining factor was guns. They tried to colonize us 400 yrs earlier but failed and came back with guns and won

 

[ReturnOfJudah]

And again the only defining factor was guns. They tried to colonize us 400 yrs earlier but failed and came back with guns and won

And with the help of Afric00ns. Don’t act like CACs went all throughout Africa without assistance. They paid some c00ns to do their dirty work.

 

[Sbp]

Africans headed to the America's before colombus

Ahh I didn't even think of this breh

 

[Drip Bayless]

they couldn't have done that without cooperation

you think they washed up on foreign soil with no knowledge of the land or people with no food many of them sick as dogs & just told everyone lay down¿

african leaders let them in thinking of profit & in the process the majority got fukked over

they try and paint it like they g.checked the world when that's not the case

*

Not denying that
Doesn't change the fact that several times we was on the cusp of getting right the CIA came thru with the purpose of halting whatever progress was being made (e.g. Nkrumah, Lumumba)

 

[Secure Da Bag]

Really it was only one technology that made the most difference: gunpowder.

There were African societies with all or most of the innovations Europeans had except that.

Only thing cacs had against us was gun powder which they took from china. If it wasn't for guns we were actually neck in neck in terms of technology we knew of blacksmithing and used that in our art while cacs decided to trade the mason pick for the sword

Even with guns some ethnostates were able to take them down through guerrilla warfare

I didn't say that people didn't resist the colonization, I said they couldn't match the weapons/technology. Some people are well documented for resisting throughout the entire colonization period, but with 1 or 2 exceptions....Euro flags flew over the entire continent during that era.

And again the only defining factor was guns. They tried to colonize us 400 yrs earlier but failed and came back with guns and won

If I remember correctly, it was necessarily the fact that Europeans had guns. Because Africa also had guns. The Europeans were selling it to them. The issue was that the Africans were content with just buying the guns and not learning how to make their own. They continued to look at the Europeans as merchants until it was too late.

 

[010101]

Not denying that
Doesn't change the fact that several times we was on the cusp of getting right the CIA came thru with the purpose of halting whatever progress was being made (e.g. Nkrumah, Lumumba)

bro that's not what this thread is about though*

 

[EBK String]

op's intent reeks of

 

[Cynic]

Pretty advanced considering Egypt fed Rome and was the actual fetus of philosophy....

but empires rise and fall all the time ...you only need to look at the Indus Valley civilization

 

[Skooby]

Africans headed to the America's before colombus

Ahh I didn't even think of this breh

There is no direct evidence that any African civilization reached the Americas.

However, it's well documented that Abu Bakr II (Mansa Qu, the Mansa before Musa) had a fleet of 200 ships built and he went on a voyage across the Atlantic.

But they never returned to Mali, nor has there been evidence they arrived in the Americas. That doesn't mean they didn't get there. Maybe they got somewhere in modern day Brazil but never return or were killed by the native people's there. Or maybe the fleet was lost at sea (they wouldn't be the only ones). It's a mystery but he definitely took the voyage.

 

[GrindtooFilthy]

And with the help of Afric00ns. Don’t act like CACs went all throughout Africa without assistance. They paid some c00ns to do their dirty work.

50/50 you were either pow to other africans or you were kidnapped by sailors this isn't as black and white as you think. I actually went back to study some of this

If I remember correctly, it was necessarily the fact that Europeans had guns. Because Africa also had guns. The Europeans were selling it to them. The issue was that the Africans were content with just buying the guns and not learning how to make their own. They continued to look at the Europeans as merchants until it was too late.

That and some people were inducted as spies and performed espionage for them. Africans didn't trust them en masse

 

[get these nets]

Really it was only one technology that made the most difference: gunpowder.

There were African societies with all or most of the innovations Europeans had except that.

And again the only defining factor was guns. They tried to colonize us 400 yrs earlier but failed and came back with guns and won

From roughly early 1500s to the late 1800s...commerce generated by plantation economies and other industries in these colonies are what fueled the scientific & military advancements in Europe. First directly, and then through trade once these colonies became independent.
The relative isolation of African nation states during that time kept them from advancing in science and warfare the way the Euros did. When Euros decided to come in and carve up the continent, Africans were unable to match their weapons/technology.

The resistance/immunity that Africans in the interior had to certain diseases and the ABSENCE of that among Europeans is partially why Africa wasn't colonized earlier. This was sort of natural buffer from invasion by outsiders...the way that the cold weather was in Russia.
Portuguese had gunpowder and guns when they first began the early stages of the slave trade in the 1400s along the West Coast of Africa . So the contention that Euros came back in the 1880s with guns and were then able to colonize the continent isn't accurate. West Africans traded for and owned the same guns and gunpowder...and therefor the same technology that Portuguese had in that era.
Again.....because of the revenue generated from the transatlantic slave trade...the scientific and military advancements that Euros made improved & strengthened their standing armies.They developed higher power guns and rifles..and they developed QUININE.....from discoveries made in their colonies in the America...which enabled them to fight malaria.....and therefor neutralize the natural buffer that used to protect the interior of Africa from outside invaders.
science and arms.

 

[Drip Bayless]

bro that's not what this thread is about though*

I was talking about your post, the idea that African leaders have just been letting white people in with arms spread wide open is not 100% truthful

 

[get these nets]

If I remember correctly, it was necessarily the fact that Europeans had guns. Because Africa also had guns. The Europeans were selling it to them. The issue was that the Africans were content with just buying the guns and not learning how to make their own. They continued to look at the Europeans as merchants until it was too late.

Yes, Africans had guns and gunpowder in the 1400s. Sold to them by Euros to exploit the natural rivalries between ethnic groups.
Between the 1400s and the late 1800s, Euros made scientific and military advancements made possible partly because of slave trade profits.

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What's interesting is that...it's documented that when whites first made contact with Japan, after their isolation ,this scenario played out differently. Euros showed the "emperor" guns/rifles for the first time. The NEXT DAY, the emperor's engineers had drawn up diagrams of, and made working replicas of the firearms.