How Advance were African Civilizations before European Colonialism??

[LurkMoar]

There was no lack of large scale trade with the East. There was actually a large scale trade network in Africa that people never seem to talk about. Kanem-Bornu was a large empire in the east, which controlled trade between Central Africa up to Libya and Egypt. So that kingdom traded goods between the people of Egypt and the Bantu people to the South and Southeast. The Hausa people were long distance traders that took goods from Kanem-Bornu to places like the Empire of Mali and back from the Empire of Mali to Kanem-Bornu.

Are we gonna compare that trade to what the Europeans and Muslims had? I mean Chinese plates and gunpowder were taken from the east and worked on in the west. The advent of gunpowder combined with the near constant warfare in Europe is what created the technological advances that sparked the west to conquer much of the world.

Or am I off base here?

 

[get these nets]

Maybe not the best comparison but, similar to how the Aztecs had always dominated their enemies.

When the Spanish came along it didn't take much to recruit them to go into battle to defeat the Aztecs. Little did they know, that the Spanish never considered them 'allies' and that they were planning to wipe them out along with the Aztecs.

Not too familiar with how Spanish conquistadors and colonists acted, but it sounds about right.
Again, not absolving any chief for any conscious decision that he made, they WERE leaders after all.
But Euros studied EVERY aspect of the societies they encountered..whos is warring with who, which group holds the territory where the resources are .

All the encounters and trade they made with Africans was just laying the groundwork for (eventual) colonization centuries later.
Those borders that were drawn up when they split up the continent weren't random.Euros had been "exploring" the continent for centuries by then.....for "scientific purposes"

Spoiler

You've been planning this all year?

Planning this for centuries......

are there not aspects of greed & corruption present in governing yourself in a way that slavery of any form is cosigned¿

the disputes between tribes where motivated largely by greed & corruption or whatever other character flaw

all the ills are related

*

Slavery existed in parts of Africa pre Euro or Arab contact. It wasn't chattel "cradle to grave" slavery like what the Euros engaged in in the the Americas. It was along the lines of dominated or conquered groups being under the dominion of another group but with freedoms and rights. Was it bullshyt by 2018 standards? Absolutely, but that form of "slavery" was more closely related to indentured servitude or enemy combatants being prisoners of war.

Your point about "Euros didn't Deebo the spot"...is a good one that I agree with , but you never answered my scenario question from before. You decide you're not selling ANY people. Your rivals have no problem doing so....you know what happens once they get a certain amount of power.....and weapons .

 

[010101]

Slavery existed in parts of Africa pre Euro or Arab contact. It wasn't chattel "cradle to grave" slavery like what the Euros engaged in in the the Americas. It was along the lines of dominated or conquered groups being under the dominion of another group but with freedoms and rights. Was it bullshyt by 2018 standards? Absolutely, but that form of "slavery" was more closely related to indentured servitude or enemy combatants being prisoners of war.

Your point about "Euros didn't Deebo the spot"...is a good one that I agree with , but you never answered my scenario question from before. You decide you're not selling ANY people. Your rivals have no problem doing so....you know what happens once they get a certain amount of power.....and weapons .

the wages of sin is death*

 

[get these nets]

And you know that Euro was a scout trying to judge whether they should send an army to oppress/pillage etc. By the time they made it back, Japan was like "what's good?"

J-UNIT, they get it poppin in the hood
J-UNIT, MFer what's good?

Meanwhile we were being sold guns for years, trading our people for those guns, yet somehow we didn't have any when they came to colonize. I don't get it.

Japanese were/are warlike people. That warlord/ seeing the future use for advanced weaponry makes sense and fits the warlike culture and climate of that area. I don't think the people in the other Asian countries did what they did upon encountering that Euro weapon.
In many ways,..Japanese were the whites of Asia if you read their history of aggression on that continent.

When I first read the story, I tried to see if a historically warlike ethnic group in Africa reacted similarly to the Japanese when they encountered Euro weapons. I've not yet seen that.

*also.....read further into the thread....I posted an article about the actual details of the Japanese and Euro weapons.....My memory isn't what it once was, so it wasn't exactly like what I wrote in the post you quoted.

 

[Cobalt Sire]

Not too familiar with how Spanish conquistadors and colonists acted, but it sounds about right.
Again, not absolving any chief for any conscious decision that he made, they WERE leaders after all.
But Euros studied EVERY aspect of the societies they encountered..whos is warring with who, which group holds the territory where the resources are .

All the encounters and trade they made with Africans was just laying the groundwork for (eventual) colonization centuries later.
Those borders that were drawn up when they split up the continent weren't random.Euros had been "exploring" the continent for centuries by then.....for "scientific purposes"

Spoiler

You've been planning this all year?

Planning this for centuries......

Slavery existed in parts of Africa pre Euro or Arab contact. It wasn't chattel "cradle to grave" slavery like what the Euros engaged in in the the Americas. It was along the lines of dominated or conquered groups being under the dominion of another group but with freedoms and rights. Was it bullshyt by 2018 standards? Absolutely, but that form of "slavery" was more closely related to indentured servitude or enemy combatants being prisoners of war.

Your point about "Euros didn't Deebo the spot"...is a good one that I agree with , but you never answered my scenario question from before. You decide you're not selling ANY people. Your rivals have no problem doing so....you know what happens once they get a certain amount of power.....and weapons .

Why trade with people that have your people captive? I understand tribes saw themselves as different, and I understand slavery already existed in Africa before white people came, but answer me this. Has a tribe/chieftain ever done regular business with an enemy tribe that took one of their people as a slave? Why did African leaders do business with white people who regularly bought THEIR people from an enemy tribe and then enslaved them?

Let's think about this in street terms. Say you were a gang leader and a muhfukka came along and said they will help kill some rival gang members and steal corners, but they're also telling the other gang leader the same thing. This middleman is killing the other side and your side, and giving you a small percentage of the corners. And neither side ever touches him? shyt sound crazy to me. You don't even have to be a genius to see that's a stupid play. You would tell that muhfukka to step off and if he continued to do business with the other gang, you comin' for him. Hell, it wouldn't even get that far, you would send shooters his way immediately.

 

[get these nets]

Why trade with people that have your people captive? I understand tribes saw themselves as different, and I understand slavery already existed in Africa before white people came, but answer me this. Has a tribe/chieftain ever done regular business with an enemy tribe that took one of their people as a slave? Why did African leaders do business with white people who regularly bought and enslaved THEIR people from an enemy tribe?

Let's think about this in street terms. Say you were a gang leader and a muhfukka came along and said they will help kill some rival gang members and steal corners, but they're also telling the other gang leader the same thing. This middleman is killing the other side and your side, and giving you a small percentage of the corners. And neither side ever touches him? shyt sound crazy to me. You don't even have to be a genius to see that's a stupid play. You would tell that muhfukka to step off and if he continued to do business with the other gang, you comin' for him. Hell, it wouldn't even get that far, you would send shooters his way immediately.

I believe the Portuguese had a monopoly on the slave trade at first.....and we use the word chief....but we're talking leaders of huge populations of people....so maybe king gives it the proper context.
Once Spain,Dutch,France, and England get involved decades later....they are competing against each other.....the same way the African kings are competing....
There are several competing middlemen. As long as one gang continues to fukk with any of the plugs....the rest of the gangs have to as well.

 

[MischievousMonkey]

Why trade with people that have your people captive? I understand tribes saw themselves as different, and I understand slavery already existed in Africa before white people came, but answer me this. Has a tribe/chieftain ever done regular business with an enemy tribe that took one of their people as a slave? Why did African leaders do business with white people who regularly bought and enslaved THEIR people from an enemy tribe?

Let's think about this in street terms. Say you were a gang leader and a muhfukka came along and said they will help kill some rival gang members and steal corners, but they're also telling the other gang leader the same thing. This middleman is killing the other side and your side, and giving you a small percentage of the corners. And neither side ever touches him? shyt sound crazy to me. You don't even have to be a genius to see that's a stupid play. You would tell that muhfukka to step off and if he continued to do business with the other gang, you comin' for him. Hell, it wouldn't even get that far, you would send shooters his way immediately.

That's a good ass question.

 

[GrindtooFilthy]

I believe the Portuguese had a monopoly on the slave trade at first.....and we use the word chief....but we're talking leaders of huge populations of people....so maybe king gives it the proper context.
Once Spain,Dutch,France, and England get involved decades later....they are competing against each other.....the same way the African kings are competing....
There are several competing middlemen. As long as one gang continues to fukk with any of the plugs....the rest of the gangs have to as well.

This is what they don't understand a chief is akin to the president back then. This is why i hate the word tribe it paints a small group of people as insignificant. You don't delegate the word tribe to a group of 20+ million people who share the same language, culture, and history. At the point it becomes a nation not a fukkin tribe

 

[Cobalt Sire]

I believe the Portuguese had a monopoly on the slave trade at first.....and we use the word chief....but we're talking leaders of huge populations of people....so maybe king gives it the proper context.
Once Spain,Dutch,France, and England get involved decades later....they are competing against each other.....the same way the African kings are competing....
There are several competing middlemen. As long as one gang continues to fukk with any of the plugs....the rest of the gangs have to as well.

Alright, I hear you. So maybe an Englishman would buy slaves from one nation and a Frenchman would buy slaves from the opposing nation. Something tells me they were buying from whoever was selling, but it's possible they avoided that specifically to keep "good" relations with the people they were buying from. These African leaders still could have attacked one of the slave merchants taking their people, and the enemy/opposing African nation could have attacked their enemies' slave merchants. But they didn't, because they wanted these slave merchants to continue doing what they were doing, even at the expense of their own. It would be hypocritical to oppose slavery on your people but allow it on others.

These African leaders rationalized what they were doing because of tribal warfare. They were selling slaves from other tribes to their slave merchants, and they didn't bother opposing slave merchants, because that would drive their own slave merchants away. In essence, you have to allow your own people to become slaves. They might as well have been selling their own. They didn't care if their own people became enslaved by the same system they were supporting. Either way you look at this, it's despicable.

At some point, their own people were being captured by the merchants they did business with. I know i've read that somewhere. And the kings allowed it.

 

[GrindtooFilthy]

Alright, I hear you. So maybe an Englishman would buy slaves from one nation and a Frenchman would buy slaves from the opposing nation. Something tells me they were buying from whoever was selling, but it's possible they avoided that specifically to keep "good" relations with the people they were buying from. These African leaders still could have attacked one of the slave merchants taking their people, and the enemy/opposing African nation could have attacked their enemies' slave merchants. But they didn't, because they wanted these slave merchants to continue doing what they were doing, even at the expense of their own. It would be hypocritical to oppose slavery on your people but allow it on others.

These African leaders rationalized what they were doing because of tribal warfare. They were selling slaves from other tribes to their slave merchants, and they didn't bother opposing slave merchants, because that would drive their own slave merchants away. In essence, you have to allow your own people to become slaves. They might as well have been selling their own. They didn't care if their own people became enslaved by the same system they were supporting. Either way you look at this, it's despicable.

Whose said they didn't. Jesus christ some of you should actually head back to the continent and read up thoroughly on certain countries history

You nikkas almost as bad as the Africans back home that have no understanding of the transatlantic slave trade

 

[thekingsmen]

They were highly advanced hundreds of years ahead....

Ancient Egyptian Technology And Inventions

Great achievements in science and technology in ancient Africa

right @Tyrantus ?

 

[get these nets]

This is what they don't understand a chief is akin to the president back then. This is why i hate the word tribe it paints a small group of people as insignificant. You don't delegate the word tribe to a group of 20+ million people who share the same language, culture, and history. At the point it becomes a nation not a fukkin tribe

I'm guilty as charged of using the word chief. I clarified in the last post only to illustrate the scope of power the African leaders had and the amount of territory they controlled. That the rival leaders were in relative close proximity, but not on top of each other.

With all due respect to everybody from the continent.....the word chief has been b*stardized now.. Which is why people equate it with "local leader". No lie, out of any 20 Africans I meet.....12 will say that their father/uncle is a chief. In my mind I used to think "how is that possible? Youre all from the same small country " THAT'S why people equate chief with alderman/councilman today....and not with "president". hehehehe

 

[Dzali OG]

Not as advanced as we'd like to make them out to be...

As black people we're very dishonest with ourselves.

There's something that goes hand in hand with the advancement of civilization, and that's the advancement of your weaponry.

There's a stinking lie we've had in our community a long time!

Africans built Kemet, still arguably the most advanced construction on this planet.



























Where is the advanced weaponry that would have accompanied this achievement?

 

[GrindtooFilthy]

I'm guilty as charged of using the word chief. I clarified in the last post only to illustrate the scope of power the African leaders had and the amount of territory they controlled. That the rival leaders were in relative close proximity, but not on top of each other.

With all due respect to everybody from the continent.....the word chief has been b*stardized now.. Which is why people equate it with "local leader". No lie, out of any 20 Africans I meet.....12 will say that their father/uncle is a chief. In my mind I used to think "how is that possible? Youre all from the same small country " THAT'S why people equate chief with alderman/councilman today....and not with "president". hehehehe

Levels. There were local chiefs you could consider as governors or mayors or various elected state officials. And they were high chiefs that would be equal to that of king, pm, or president dependings on that ethnostates governing principles.

The thing is that the language title becomes localized as chief in english but holds different ranks in society like how sama or dono in Japanese honorifics can mean a high ranking official. A fuedal lord could be sama or dono. Same with a king

 

[Apollo Creed]

I'm guilty as charged of using the word chief. I clarified in the last post only to illustrate the scope of power the African leaders had and the amount of territory they controlled. That the rival leaders were in relative close proximity, but not on top of each other.

With all due respect to everybody from the continent.....the word chief has been b*stardized now.. Which is why people equate it with "local leader". No lie, out of any 20 Africans I meet.....12 will say that their father/uncle is a chief. In my mind I used to think "how is that possible? Youre all from the same small country " THAT'S why people equate chief with alderman/councilman today....and not with "president". hehehehe

from what I seen Kings were called Kings, and Chiefs were more like Mayors/Statesmen/Governers or something. There were tiers to chiefdom also. In many Kingdoms you still had different chiefs who served as the representatives of their tribes/clans in the presence of the overall governments.