HIAF 201
Early African History through the Era of the Slave Trade

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SYLLABUS

"Believe those who are seeking truth. Doubt those who find it." (André Gide)

"If you wish to know who I am,
If you wish me to teach you what I know,
Cease for the while to be what you are
And forget what you know"
(Tierno Bokar, sage of Bandiagara)

Week 1 - Introduction and Geography

• Sept. 4 - General introduction to the course
  Be prepared to take: the first map quiz
  Discussion in class -- Be prepared to discuss: your assumptions about the African past

  Backgrounds --

Week 2 - The Dawn of history

• Sept. 9 - Geography
• Sept. 11 - Climate and history
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: "myth" and "history", what is "historiography?" (a matter of perspective); reading for the map quizzes -- Be prepared to take: second map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 1 (pp. 1-13). (TEXT) *Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, Africa and Africans (4th ed.) (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1995), pp. 6-45, 126-64. (RESERVE)

Week 3 - Creating Classical African Civilizations

• Sept. 16 Foraging and the origins of community (ca. 25,000-5000 BCE)
• Sept. 18 - Pastoralism and the origins of settled society (5000-1000 BCE)
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: Archaeology and history; preparation of first paper; Be prepared to take: third map quiz
  Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 2 (pp. 14-35).
  Graham Connah, African Civilizations: Precolonial Cities and States in Tropical Africa: An Archaeological Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), ch 2 (pp. 6-23).
  VIDEO - Basil Davidson, Africa: A Voyage of Discovery, Program 1 - "Different but Equal". (VHS 1741)

Week 4 - Farmers and the challenge of Agriculture

• Sept. 23- Ancient Egypt (3500-500 BCE)
• Sept. 25 - Agriculture, iron, and life in small-scale societies (2000 BCE - 500 CE)
  FIRST PAPER DRAFTS DUE
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: linguistics and history, preparing your own map quiz study lists; Be prepared to take: fourth map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, chs 3-4 (pp. 36-61). Connah, African Civilizations, ch 3 (pp. 24-66).
  Thomas T. Spear, Kenya's Past: An Introduction to Historical Method in Africa (London: Longman, 1981), ch 2 (pp. 22-45).
  *Jan Vansina, "Western Bantu Expansion," Journal of African History, 25, 2 (1984), pp. 129-45. (RESERVE)

Challenges of Classical Africa --

Week 5 - Western Africa 800-1400 CE

• Sept. 30- Commerce, cities, and statecraft in early Africa (400-1000 CE)
• Oct. 2 - Militarization: the adoption of horses and Islam in western Africa
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: Oral traditions as history; revising a paper; Be prepared to take: fifth map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, chs 5-7 (pp. 62-106).
  *Susan Keech and Roderick J. McIntosh, "Finding West Africa's Oldest City," National Geographic, 162, 3 (Sept. 1982), pp. 396-418. (RESERVE)
  Connah, African Civilizations, chs 5-6 (pp. 97-120, 121-49).
  Spear, Kenya's Past, ch 3 (pp. 46-70).
  D. T. Niane, Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (London: Longmans, 1965). Or any other scholarly edition.
• Compare: *Nehemia Levtzion, "The Early States of the Western Sudan to 1500," in J. F. A. Ajayi, and Michael Crowder, eds., History of West Africa (3rd rev. ed.) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), vol. 1, pp. 138-43 (or pp. 123-28 in the 2nd ed.); and Ralph A. Austen and Jan Jansen, "History, Oral Transmission and Structure in Ibn Khaldun's Chronology of Mali Rulers" History in Africa, 23 (1996), pp. 17-28. (RESERVE).
• Sources - Robert O. Collins, African History: Text and Readings (New York: Markus Wiener, 1990), vol. 1 (Western African History), pp. 22-56. (RESERVE)

Week 6 - Eastern and Northeastern Africa before 1500 CE

• Oct. 7- Ethiopia
  FIRST PAPER DUE
• Oct. 9 - The East African coast
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: Arab sources, Islam; Be prepared to take: sixth map quiz.
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, chs 8-9 (pp. 107-15, 122-31).
  Frederick Denny, An Introduction to Islam (2nd ed.) (New York: Macmillan, 1994), pp. 59-82.
  Connah, African Civilizations, chs 4, 7 (pp. 67-96, 150-82).
• Sources - Collins, African History, vol. 2 (Eastern African History), pp. 48-66. (RESERVE)
  VIDEO - Basil Davidson, Africa: A Voyage of Discovery, Program 2 - "Mastering a Continent".

Week 7 - East and Central Africa before 1500 CE

• Oct. 14 - Reading Holiday
• Oct. 16 - East African interior and Central Africa
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to review: first mid-term examination; What does the Garden of Eden have to do with African History?; Be prepared to take: seventh map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 8 (pp. 115-21), ch 10 (pp. 138-46).
  *Dora Jane Hamblin, "Has the Garden of Eden Been Located at Last?" Smithsonian, 18, 2 (1987), pp. 127-35. (RESERVE)
  *Jan Vansina, "The Peoples of the Forest," in David Birmingham and Phyllis Martin, eds., History of Central Africa (London: Longman, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 75-100. (RESERVE)

Week 8 - Southern Africa before 1500 CE

• Oct. 21 - Southern Africa
• Oct. 23 - FIRST MID-TERM EXAMINATION
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: Great Zimbabwe; Be prepared to take: eighth map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 10 (pp. 146-56).
  Garlake, Kingdoms of Africa, pp. 69-92.
  Connah, African Civilizations, ch 8 (pp. 183-213).
  VIDEO - Basil Davidson, Africa: A Voyage of Discovery - Program 3, "Caravans of Gold".

Week 9 - Northern Africa to c. 1800

• Oct. 28 - Islam and society
• Oct. 30 - Northern Africa
  Discussion sections -- Exams returned; Be prepared to discuss: Islam: religion and history; preparing the second paper; Be prepared to take: ninth map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 11 (pp. 157-69).
  Denny, Introduction to Islam, pp. 107-266.
• Sources - Collins, African History, vol. 1 (Western African History), pp. 56-61. (RESERVE)

Week 10 - Africa and the World Economy

• Nov. 4 - The Atlantic slave trade - an overview
• Nov. 6 - Imports in African economies and polities
• SECOND PAPER DUE
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: What was the importance of the African slave trade?; Be prepared to take: tenth map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 12 (pp. 170-80).
  *Walter Rodney, "African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave Trade," Journal of African History, 7, 3 (1966), pp. 431-44. [Reprinted in Martin A. Klein and G. Wesley Johnson, eds., Perspectives on the African Past (Boston: Little-Brown, 1972), pp. 152-66; also in Joseph E. Inikori, ed., Forced Migration: The Impact of the Export Slave Trade on African Societies (London: Hutchinson, 1981), pp. 61-73.]
  *John D. Fage, "Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Context of West African History," Journal of African History, 10, 3 (1969), pp. 393-404. [Reprinted in Klein and Johnson, eds., Perspectives , pp. 140-52; also in Inikori, ed., Forced Migration, pp. 154-66.] (both RESERVE)
• Sources - Collins, African History, vol. 1 (Western African History), pp. 171-90. (RESERVE)
  VIDEO - Basil Davidson, Africa: A Voyage of Discovery - Program 4, "Kings and Cities".

Week 11 - Western Africa in the Era of the Atlantic Trade

• Nov. 11 - Militarists - Slaving states in Western Africa
• [Nov. 13 - Merchants - Non-centralized slaving networks] -- to be rescheduled
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: Sudanic empires revisited; Be prepared to take: eleventh map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 13 (pp. 181-96).
  *Claude Meillassoux, "The Role of Slavery in the Economic and Social History of Sahelo-Sudanic Africa," in Inikori, ed., Forced Migration, pp. 74-99. (RESERVE)
  Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 1-37.
• Sources - Collins, African History, vol. 1 (Western African History), pp. 191-207. (RESERVE)

Week 12 - Central and Southeastern Africa, 16th-18th centuries

• Nov. 18 - Central African slaving frontiers
• Nov. 20 - Southeastern Africa and Madagascar
• SECOND PAPER DUE
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: European written sources; Be prepared to review: second paper, and second mid-term examination; Be prepared to take: twelfth map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 14 (pp. 197-211).
  *Joseph C. Miller, "The Paradoxes of Impoverishment in the Atlantic Zone," in Birmingham and Martin, eds., History of Central Africa, vol. 1, pp. 118-51. (RESERVE)
  *Thomas Q. Reefe, "The Societies of the Eastern Savanna," pp. 160-94; and Allan K. Smith, "The Indian Ocean Zone," pp. 205-34; both in Birmingham and Martin, eds., History of Central Africa, vol. 1. (RESERVE)
  Manning, Slavery and African Life, pp. 38-85.
• Sources - Collins, African History, vol. 2 (Eastern African History), pp. 66-92; vol. 3 (Central/Southern African History), pp. 33-59, 60-86. (RESERVE)

Week 13 -Second Mid-Term/Review

• Nov. 25- SECOND MID-TERM EXAMINATION
• Reading - Manning, Slavery and African Life, pp. 86-148.
  NO Discussion sections
  THANKSGIVING BREAK

Week 14 - The European factor

• Dec. 2 - Coastal Societies: "Europeans" in tropical Africa
• Dec. 4 - Foreign settlement in southern Africa
• SOURCE PAPER DUE
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: Second mid-term examination; preparing the source paper; Be prepared to take: thirteenth map quiz
• Reading - Shillington, History of Africa, ch 15 (pp. 212-96).
• Sources - Collins, African History, vol. 3 (Central/Southern African History), pp. 152-69. (RESERVE)

Week 15 -Review

• Dec. 9 - Myths, History and Historiography in Africa
• Dec. 11 - Final review; source papers returned, with discussion
  Discussion sections -- Be prepared to discuss: the hard questions of African history; preparing for the final examination; Be prepared to take: fourteenth map quiz Reading - (complete assigned materials for the entire semester)