The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed and Endeavour

by Martin Meredith

  Across Africa, the gap between wealthy elites enjoying a platinum lifestyle and the mass populations they ruled became increasingly evident as the towns and cities of the continent burgeoned into huge urban conglomerations encompassing miles of slums and shanty towns. The urban population of Africa expanded at a faster rate than on any other continent. In 1945, there were only forty-nine towns with a population exceeding 100,000. More than half were in north Africa: ten in Egypt; nine in Morocco; four in Algeria; one in Tunisia; one in Libya. Eleven others were in South Africa. Between the Sahara and the Limpopo, only thirteen towns had reached a population of 100,000, four of them in Nigeria. In 1955, the population of Lagos numbered 312,000; of Leopoldville (Kinshasa), 300,000; of Addis Ababa, 510,000; of Abidjan, 128,000; of Accra, 165,000. In the sixty-year period between 1950 and 2010, as the overall population of Africa increased more than fourfold, from 225 million to 1 billion, the numbers crammed into urban areas reached 40 per cent of the total. By 2010, the population of Cairo had reached 11 million; of Lagos, 10.5 million; of Kinshasa, 8.5 million; of Abidjan, 4.1 million; of Nairobi, 3.5 million; of Dar es Salaam, 3.3 million; of Addis Ababa, 3 million; of Accra, 2.3 million. Most urban inhabitants lacked basic amenities such as clean water, sanitation systems, paved roads and electricity. Many millions lived in shacks made from sheets of plastic, packing crates, cardboard boxes and pieces of tin, a vast underclass seething with discontent.

  The overall population of Africa continued to expand at the fastest rate in the world. Whereas it took twenty-seven years for the continent’s population to double from 500 million, a UN-Habitat report in 2010 forecast that it would take only seventeen years for the next 500 million to be added. The UN report calculated that between 2010 and 2050 Africa’s total population would increase by 60 per cent, with the urban population tripling to 1.2 billion.

  Yet, according to the UN report, most African governments appeared to lack both the will and the means to tackle this urban crisis. ‘The unfolding pattern is one of disjointed, dysfunctional and unsustainable urban geographies of inequality and human suffering, with oceans of poverty containing islands of wealth.’ The urban crisis, it concluded, posed a threat not only to the stability of Africa’s cities but to entire nations.

  CHAPTER NOTES

  The broad nature of this book has meant that I have relied on the work of many other authors. Included in these chapter notes are references to some of the books that I found to be of particular interest and value. A more complete list can be found in the Select Bibliography.

  Introduction

  The Gilf Kebir plateau is the size of Switzerland. Its name means ‘Great Barrier’. Several expeditions ventured there in the 1920s and 1930s in the hope of finding the ‘lost oasis’ of Zerzura, a legend mentioned in a fifteenth-century manuscript known as the ‘Book of Hidden Pearls’. The Book describes Zerzura as a whitewashed city of the desert on whose gate is carved a bird and it offers a guide to treasure hunters seeking its riches. ‘Take with your hand the key in the beak of the bird, then open the door of the city. Enter, and there you will find great riches . . .’ The word zerzura is also the Arabic name for a bird – the white-crowned wheatear – that is common in the eastern Sahara.

  During an expedition to Gilf Kebir in 1933, a Hungarian aristocrat, Count László Almásy, discovered the Cave of Swimmers containing rock art dating back 10,000 years. In his 1934 book The Unknown Sahara, Almásy devotes a chapter to the cave. His exploits as an explorer and spy form the basis of Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient (1993) and the 1996 Oscar-winning film made of it. Saul Kelly (2002) provides a vivid account of the Zerzura Club and its members.

  Modern researchers suggest that as the desert spread between 3000 BCE and 1500 CE, drying up water-bearing depressions and turning them into oases, many Zerzuras emerged in the eastern Sahara, known only to tribal elders for a while before being lost to human memory and becoming legend.

  Part I

  The word ‘pharaoh’ is related etymologically to the ancient Egyptian term per ao, which means ‘Great House’ and refers to the palace where the ruler resided. Ancient Egyptians called their territory kemet, which means ‘black land’ and refers to the fertile black soils of the Nile flood plains, distinguishing it from the ‘red land’ of the desert – deshret – that stretched to the east and west of the Nile. They called the Nile itself simply ‘Iteru’ – ‘the River’.

  It was the Greeks who coined the word aigyptos (Egyptian) to represent the name of the inhabitants of the Nile River basin as well as the territory in which they lived. This Greek word had ancient Egyptian origins. It was a Greek corruption of the ancient Egyptian name for the pharaonic city of Memphis: Hi-kaptah, the castle of the god Ptah, who was said to be the creator of the universe. The Arab conquerors of Egypt later called their new capital located near Memphis Misr and the inhabitants Misriyyin.

  The Greek historian Herodotus, often described as ‘the father of history’, visited Egypt in the fifth century BCE when it was under Persian rule and wrote a comprehensive account of the country in Book II of The Histories, much of it based on conversations he held with Egyptian priests in Memphis, Heliopolis and Thebes. ‘The Egypt to which the Greeks go in their ships is an acquired country, the gift of the Nile,’ he wrote.

  The literature on ancient Egypt is voluminous. But several modern accounts stand out. Toby Wilkinson’s The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt (2010) elegantly covers the whole period from 3000 BCE to Cleopatra; Joyce Tyldesley (2010) writes intimately about the Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt; John Romer (2012) focuses upon the importance of archaeological discoveries; George Hart (2010) provides a compendium on the thirty dynasties of Egyptian pharaohs; Joyce Tyldesley (2008) and Stacy Schiff (2010) delve into the career of Cleopatra VII; the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000), edited by Ian Shaw, includes a wealth of information. Justin Marozzi (2008) follows in the footsteps of Herodotus. Robert Collins (2002) writes eruditely about the Nile. Martin Meredith (2001) deals with elephant history.

  The name Nubia is derived from the ancient Egyptian word ‘nuba’ meaning ‘gold’. Standard works on Nubia, Kush and Meroe include those by William Adams (1977); David Edwards (2004); Robert Morkot (2000); and Derek Welsby (1998, 2002).

  The people living in the desert region to the west of the Nile Valley were known to Egyptians as Libu, from which the name Libya is derived. The Greeks used the name Libyans to describe the inhabitants of Cyrenaica where they set up a colony based on Cyrene. The Libyans were part of an indigenous population living across north Africa that came to be known commonly as Berber. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans used the term Berber. It came into use only in the eighth century after the Arab invasion. The Berbers refer to themselves as Imazighen and to their language as Tamazight. Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress (1996) explore Berber history.

  The history of Carthage and its rivalry with Rome is vividly portrayed by Richard Miles (2010). The Phoenicians called the city Qart-Hadasht, meaning ‘New City’. Roman usage turned it into Carthago. Hanno’s journey down the west coast of Africa is known primarily from a brief Greek account – Periplus or Circumnavigation – preserved in a single Byzantine manuscript. The text claims to be a version of an account posted in the temple of Kronos in Carthage which was destroyed by the Romans.

  Rome’s occupation of north Africa is covered in detail by Susan Raven (1993). It was only under Roman rule that the names of Numidia and Mauretania, derived from local tribes, acquired territorial meaning. The term ‘Moor’ is derived from the Mauri.

  Researchers in the twentieth century identified four main language-families:

  •The Afro-Asiatic family, which includes Ancient Egyptian, Berber, Hausa, Omotic, Amharic, Arabic and Hebrew. Afro-Asiatic speakers expanded southwards into and around the Ethiopian highlands, through the Horn of Africa and on to the east African plateau where they became the ancestors of Cushitic-speaking peoples.

  •The Nilo-Saharan family,
which is based in the central Sahara and Sudan and includes the Nilotic languages spoken in parts of north-eastern Africa.

  •The Niger-Congo family, which is spread across the southern half of west Africa and includes as a sub-family all the Bantu languages spoken in Africa south of the equator.

  •The Khoisan family, which is an amalgam of two closely related languages spoken by San and Khoikhoi. San is the name of southern African aboriginal hunter-gatherers given to them by Khoikhoi, originally used in a pejorative sense. European settlers later referred to San as ‘Bushmen’, a name that some San still prefer.

  Africa’s rock art provides a vital guide to its prehistory. There may be as many as 200,000 rock-art sites on the continent. A useful introduction to San art and culture is provided in Origins (2006), a collection of essays edited by Geoffrey Blundell. Some of the best preserved rock-art sites are found in Niger’s Ahir mountains, in the Tibesti mountains of northern Chad and southern Libya, and in the Tassili n’Ajjer range in south-east Algeria. Other early art forms include terracotta sculptures and bronze-casting. The ‘Nok Culture’, named after a site near Taruga, in central Nigeria, was well established by 500 BCE; sculptors there produced a large number of beautifully constructed terracotta pottery heads. An archaeological site at Igbo-Ukwu in the forests of south-eastern Nigeria yielded cast bronzes of great skill and artistic beauty dated to the tenth century CE (see Thurstan Shaw, 1977). In the thirteenth century, Ife metalworkers were skilled enough to cast sculptures in zinc brass, using the sophisticated ‘lost wax’ process. An encyclopaedic work on African art was produced for the occasion of a London exhibition in 1996 by the Royal Academy of Arts, edited by Tom Phillips.

  A number of single volumes deal with Africa’s early history and general history. They include Robert Collins and James Burns (2007); Christopher Ehret (2002); John Iliffe (2nd edn, 2007); John Reader (1998); and Kevin Shillington (3rd edn, 2012).

  Part II

  Although many traditional beliefs survive, Christianity and Islam have become the dominant religions of Africa. Diarmaid MacCulloch (2009) provides an erudite history of Christianity. Nehemia Levtzion and Randall Pouwels (2000) have brought together a useful collection of essays on The History of Islam in Africa. Joyce Salisbury (1997) examines the life of Vibia Perpetua. Athanasius’s Life of St. Antony was republished in 2003.

  The main source for the life of Frumentius is an account made by the fourth-century Roman church historian Rufinus. During a visit to Tyre, Rufinus met Edesius, the brother of Frumentius, who relayed the story of what had happened to them. Details of the story are included in Stuart Munro-Hay’s Aksum (1991). In Ethiopian church tradition, Frumentius is given the name Abuna Selama Kesate Berhan: Father of Peace, Revealer of Light. Frumentius is credited with the first translation of the Bible into Ge’ez. David Phillipson (1998) also deals with Aksum and early Abyssinian history.

  Islam, like Christianity, was beset at an early stage by rancorous divisions between a number of competing sects, all of which made their appearance in Africa. Sunni Muslims accepted the legitimacy of the caliphs who succeeded to the authority of Muhammad and followed four main schools of legal interpretation. The major dissenting sect, the Shia, pledged loyalty to an alternate line of caliphs or imams, descended from Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet through marriage to Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima; and it produced a different set of sharia interpretations and ritual practices. Another dissenting version of Islam with strong appeal in north Africa was Kharaj – secession. The Kharijites refused submission to any line of hereditary caliphs. Jamil Abun-Nasr (1987) covers the history of the Maghreb in the Islamic period.

  For several centuries before the introduction of the camel, horses, oxen and donkeys were employed in the Sahara to transport goods. Rock engravings and paintings at hundreds of sites in the desert also depict the use of horse-drawn chariots and wagons. But these were never used for the purposes of commerce, only for fighting, hunting, racing and ceremonial parades. Edward Bovill (1958, 1995) produced a pioneering work on The Golden Trade of the Moors; Ralph Austen (2010) provides a wealth of scholarly detail.

  The long-distance traffic in slaves across the Sahara is tackled by Paul Lovejoy (3rd edn, 2012) as part of his wider history of slavery in Africa which includes much statistical evidence. John Wright (2007) also covers the trans-Saharan slave trade.

  In The African Past (1964), Basil Davidson has compiled a wide range of chronicles and records of chiefs and kings, travellers and merchant adventurers, poets, pirates, priests, soldiers and scholars. His anthology includes an account written by Ibn Fadl Allah al-Omari about the visit made by Mansa Musa to Cairo in 1324. Al-Omari travelled to Cairo twelve years after the event and spoke to officials who were still dealing with the aftermath. In 2012, a list of the richest people in the history of humankind compiled by researchers for the US website celebritynetworth.com placed Mansa Musa at the top. Davidson also includes an extract from Ibn Battuta’s account of his travels in Mali. A fuller version of Ibn Battuta’s travels in Africa is provided in a 2002 edition edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

  When The Thousand and One Nights was translated into European languages in the eighteenth century, Sindbad the Sailor and his adventures became a permanent part of Western folklore. According to Sindbad, on his seventh and last voyage to the Zanj coast, he came across an elephant’s graveyard. It happened, he said, after he had been captured by pirates and sold to a rich merchant. The merchant gave him a bow and arrows and ordered him to shoot elephants for their tusks from hiding places in trees. For two months, he managed to kill an elephant every day. Then one morning he found himself surrounded by a herd of angry elephants. They tore down his tree and carried him off on a long march, leaving him on a hillside covered with elephant bones and tusks. He realised, he said, it was an elephant’s graveyard and that he had been brought there to be shown there was no need to kill elephants when their tusks could be obtained merely for the trouble of picking them up.

  Randall Pouwels (1987) covers the impact of Islam on the east African coast. Peter Garlake, an authority on early Islamic architecture on the east African coast and on the ancient city of Zimbabwe, provides a useful illustrated account of The Kingdoms of Africa (1978). David Beach (1980, 1994) writes about the Shona and Zimbabwe. Paul Henze (2000), Harold Marcus (2002) and Richard Pankhurst (2001) cover the peoples and history of Abyssinia/Ethiopia.

  Part III

  Prince Henry (1394–1460), often known as ‘Henry the Navigator’, supervised Portugal’s early expeditions to the west coast of Africa but did not join them. His role was recorded by Gomes Eanes da Zurara (Azurara), chronicler, royal librarian and keeper of archives, in Discovery of Guinea, completed in 1453 and translated by C.R. Beazley and Edgar Prestage (1896–9). Peter Russell (2000) provides a modern biography of Henry. Alvise da Ca’ da Mosto is usually known as Cadamosto. The original account of his travels was published in 1507 and translated by G.R. Crone (1937). Eric Axelson writes about the voyages of Diogo Cão in Congo to Cape (1973). The kingdom of Kongo is explored by Georges Balandier (1968); Anne Hilton (1985); and John Thornton (1983). The texts of Afonso’s letters to the kings of Portugal are included in Correspondence de Dom Afonso, roi du Congo, 1506–1543, edited by Louis Jadin and Mireille Decorato, published by the Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, Brussels (1974). Extracts can also be found in Basil Davidson’s anthology. Peter Forbath (1977) writes vividly about the history of the Congo River.

  Vasco da Gama’s epic voyage around Africa to India and back to Portugal lasted in all 732 days during which he covered 24,000 miles. Alvaro Velho’s roteiro was published in 1898 as A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, translated and edited by E.G. Ravenstein. Nigel Cliff (2013) provides a modern account. Richard Hall (1996) writes about the exploits of Ahmad Ibn Majid. Portuguese activities in south-east Africa are covered by Eric Axelson (1973) and Malyn Newitt (1973). Francisco Alvares’s account of the land of Prester John runs to 151 c
hapters. It was published in Lisbon in 1540 in a book entitled ‘A true relation of the Lands of Prester John’. It was translated by C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford and published in an English edition in 1961. Tadesse Tamrat (1972) provides an outstanding modern account of the period.

  Modern research on the trans-Atlantic slave trade starts with Elizabeth Donnan’s Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, published in five volumes (1930–5). Philip Curtin’s pioneering census was published in 1969. Curtin’s other work on slavery includes Africa Remembered: Narratives of West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade (1967). Curtin’s census was taken further by David Eltis and colleagues in 1999 with a statistical analysis of 27,233 slaving voyages. In 2010 David Eltis and David Richardson published an Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which included the 1999 analysis. Paul Lovejoy’s Transformations in Slavery (3rd edn, 2012) provides a wealth of material on the slave trade across Africa. Hugh Thomas (1997) covers four hundred years of the Atlantic trade in a grand narrative. John Thornton (1998) adds further perspectives. Olaudah Equiano’s autobiographical account was first published in 1789.

  Studies of specific locations add much detail: James Searing on Senegal; Patrick Manning on Dahomey; Robin Law on Ouidah and on the Slave Coast; Alan Ryder on Benin; Robert Harms on the Congo Basin; Joseph Millar on Angola. Bruce Chatwin’s historical novel dealing with the slave trade The Viceroy of Ouidah (1980) is based on the career of the Brazilian slave-trader Francisco Félix de Souza, who settled permanently in the town in the 1820s.

  Southern Africa’s history has been examined more thoroughly than any other region. Leonard Thompson (2001) provides a magisterial overview. Another outstanding work is the volume of essays The Shaping of South African Society, edited by Richard Elphick and Hermann Giliomee (2nd edn, 1989). The Cape’s slave society is dealt with by Elizabeth Eldredge and Fred Morton (eds., 1994); Robert Ross (1983); Robert Shell (1994); Nigel Worden (1985); and a collection of essays edited by Nigel Worden and Clifton Crais (1994). Hermann Giliomee (2003) provides a detailed biography of the Afrikaner people.