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4,000 Years of African American History

INCLUDED IN TODAY’S DOWNLOAD

Introduction 

  • The dark continent?
  • Hollywood and the classroom
  • The surprising number of existing sources

Ancient Africa

  • Cities and City-States in West African Antiquity
  • The Great Sahara Desert as a sea and its southern coast

Western African Origins

  • What we will cover

PART 1: The Empires of Gold

(present-day countries of Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Guinea, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau). 

Tichitt and Walata (2000 BC-500 BC) 

  • What we know and what we don’t know

The Big Dry

Mema (500 BC – 800 AD)

  • Mande society, the first Niger Valley cities, and iron technology
  • Mande traditional religion 
Blacksmiths

Djenne-Jeno (250 BC – 1100 AD)

  • City of Iron and blacksmiths 

Mande Society Development During the Big Dry

  • Foundations of an Empire 
  • Mande Government Structure
  • Mande Traditional Religion
  • Mande Society: Structure and Social Classes
  • Land Nobles: Farmers with land rights
  • Craftsman Guilds: Hereditary trades of faith
  • Servant Class
  • North Africa during the Big Dry

Ghana Empire (300 AD – 1200 AD)

  • The Mande build an empire. 
  • Gold for salt and riches
  • Islam as a balance
  • Takrur: Fulani’s first Islamic West African kingdom
  • An Arabs’ detailed description of Ghana
  • The griots and the power of the orator

Mali Empire (1200 AD -1670 AD)

  • Collapse of Ghana
  • Susu conquest
  • Rise of Sundiata Keita (A Lion King)
  • Battle of Kirina in 1235 AD. 
  • The Manden Charter (a constitution)
  • Mali expansion and security

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  • Food and industry
  • Imports and Exports
  • Rise of an international West African economy
  • Mansa Musa
  • Written first hand accounts of Mali

CITIES OF THE NIGER RIVER

-City of Timbuktu 

  • Books, Universities, and the intellectual class (like Boston)
  • First hand accounts

-City of Djenne

  • Manufacturing and trade center (like Detroit)

-City of Gao 

  • The Songhai people
  • Military and Administrative center (like Wash DC)
  • First hand accounts

Songhai Empire (1375 – 1591 AD)

  • Decline of Mali
  • Sonni Ali the Great and Terrible
  • Military and naval conquests  
  • Askia the Great
  • Infrastructure, taxes, and trade
  • The Mossi
  • Battle of Tondibi and the end of Songhai 

SENEGAMBIA

  • Jolof Independence

Slavery in Western Africa

  • Slavery, or servitude, or both
  • International Arab Slave Trade

The fall of Constantinople

  • The scramble to get to India and China 
  • Pope gives power to conquer and enslave 
  • Portugal lands in Senegal
  • Battle of Tondibi and the end of Songhai 
  • What changed when European needs shifted

West African trade with Europeans

  • European kingdoms fight each other for access to Africa 
  • African kingdoms fight each other for access to Europe
  • Enter the Portuguese
  • Afro-Portugese
  • White Gold – Sugar
  • Rise of the Great Fulo and Demise of the Jolof Empire 1513-1549
  • Early Transatlantic Slaves
  • Anti-slavery Revolution Abolitionist Uprising
  • Lat Sukaabe Fall and the Return of the Kings

The Gum Wars

  • A Muslim Exodus
  • From a Prince to a Slave

Bambara Empire (1712 AD)

  • Mande traditional religion prevails
  • Invasion of the Niger Valley
  • First hand account
  • Bambarans on slave ships

Sierra Leone and the Windward Coast

  • Futo Jollon to the coast
  • West Atlantic and Mande in Sierra Leone

THE AKAN KINGDOMS OF THE IVORY AND GOLD COASTS

Asante Empire (1701 AD)

Bono Kingdom (1000 AD)

  • Consolation of the Akan
  • End of the gold trade
  • Guns for captives
  • War with Everyone
  • An economy connected to Ghana, Mali and Songhai 
  • Akan societal structure
  • Matrilineal patriarchy
  • Akan royal structure
  • Akan religion
  • Other Akan kingdoms

Birth of Asante (1650-1701 AD)

  • Legend of Osei Kofi Tutu I
  • Diverse Empire at war
  • Slavery in Asante and Fente

The Kong Empire (1710 AD)

PART 2: Ancient Nigeria and Lake Chad Kingdoms

(present day countries of Nigeria, Benin, Chad, northern Cameroon and eastern Niger)

ANCIENT NORTHERN NIGERIA 

-What about Egypt and Nubia (The Afro-Asiatic)

  • Legends, linguistics, and DNA; what we know and what we don’t

Gajiganna – Zilum (1800 BC to 400 BC)

  • What we know

Sao Civilization (500 BC-1500 AD)

  • Afro-Asiatic City-states

Kanem-Bornu Empire (700 AD)

  • Old nomadic religion
  • New Islamic kingdom
  • Conquerors of Fezzan
  • Trade with Ghana and Egypt
  • From enslavers to enslaved
  • Invaders of Sao and influencer of Hausa 

Hausa Kingdoms – Kano (700 AD)

  • Afro-Asiatic city-states evolve
  • Part of the Mali West african trade network 
  • Between Songhai and Bornu 
  • Specialized city state economies
  • Migrations in and out
  • Enter the Fulani
  • Southward to Yorubaland

CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN NIGERIA

Nok sculpture (500 BC)

Ancient Nok of Central Nigeria (1000 BC)

  • Civilization of iron and terracotta

YORUBA KINGDOMS

Preserved Ife pavement

Ile-Ife (City of the Gods) (800 AD)

  • Legends and God’s
  • Yoruba urban development systems 
  • Paved streets and courtyards 
  • Surplus agriculture economy 
  • Food production 
  • Glass manufacturing
  • Trade within the West African economy 
  • Government and Royal structure 

Benin Kingdom (1180 AD)

  • Sons of Ile-Ife 
  • Edo urban development
  • First hand account 

Oyo Empire (1400 AD)

  • Hausa, Europe, and the economy  
  • Oyo Government structure
  • Oyo Military
  • Expansion
  • Sin against Ile-Ife
Oyo king (Alafin) palace

DEMOCRACIES OF THE IGBO

Igbo-Ukwu (850 AD)

  • Archeological ties to Ife or nok

Nri Kingdom (948 AD)

  • Kingdom without an army 
  • Theocratic but Kingless
  • Igbo Religion
  • Government structure and the power of the orator
  • Economic, social, and gender mobility
  • Freedom to choose 
  • Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
  • Igbo’s place in the West African economy

Dahomey (1600 AD)

Dohomey
  • War with Oyo and others
  • Male king, female soldiers
  • Slaves for guns

Aro Confederacy

  • Democracy falls, fear prevails
  • Slaves for guns, guns for slaves

Part 3: Congo-Angola Kingdoms

(present day Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Congo, and Gabon)

King of Kongo recieves Europeans

Ancient Congo Basin

  • The Bantu Migration 

The Kongo Kingdom (1400 AD)

  • Kongo goes Christian 
  • King Alfonso I
  • Angola a threat 
  • Divide and conquer 
  • Vita Kempa Joan of Arc

Kingdoms NDongo and Matamba (1600 AD)

  • Queen Zinga
  • Portuguese need more slaves

PART 5: The Middle Passage (1500 to 1820 AD)

FROM AFRICA TO NORTH AMERICA

  • Senegambian Coast
  • Windward Coast
  • Gold Coast
  • Bight of Benin
  • Bight of Biafra
  • Congo/ Angola

ARRIVAL IN NORTH AMERICA

Georgia/ South Carolina

  • Mande, Wolof, Fulani 
  • Why they hate the Igbo 
  • The Gullah

Virginia/ Maryland

  • Why they love the Igbo

Southern Louisiana

  • Bambara, Yoruba, and Congo

PART 6: U.S. Domestic Slavery

1776 Slave Economy under the US Constitution

The making of an American slave

  • Africa and Africans surviving in America
  • Africans in the American slave economy
  • Work songs, shout songs, call and response, and the orator
  • The planter-class elites and the “American Dream”

Slavery Expands 

  • New slave states
  • Cotton becomes king
  • Planter-class elites create a slave confederacy 
  • Texas causes of secession
  • BLACK CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS. Fighting for their own independence

PART 7: Emancipation and the Great Migration 

Reconstruction Era 1865 until 1877

  • Freedman’s Bureau
  • Radical Black Republicans 
  • Gospel music, and the blues. The new Groits
  • The new African Kingdoms: The Church 1865-1895
  • Sharecropping and economic options
  • Jazz: African-Americans fuse African and European classical music 1912

Black Settlements

  • Mound Bayou, Mississippi 1887
  • Oklahoma Black towns from 1865 to 1920
  • Harlem, New York 1867-1917) and the Afro-American Realty Company
Mound Bayou, Mississippi

First Great Migration 

  • The Klansman as the new American Hero
  • WWI – jobs and Black soldiers 
  • RED SUMMER
  • Chicago
  • Atlanta 

New Black immigrants

  • Caribbean 

PART 8: The Second Great Migration 1941 to 1970

Migrating North

  • After the Great Depression, 
  • WWII creates job opportunities and housing shortage 
  • Government subsidized suburban White patriarchy
  • Redlined out of wealth 

Moving West: Los Angeles

  • Hollywood and self-identity 

The Civil Rights Era

  • MLK the Griot and orator 
  • War on Poverty
  • Vietnam War and the other Opium crisis (Heroine)
  • White Flight. 
  • Economic integration and the death of a Black owned economy. 
  • Government subsidized urban Black matriarchy  

PART 9: The NEW Great Migration 1970 to 2000

Black Poverty

  • HIP HOP: the new griots
  • Crack-cocaine epidemic and war on drugs 
  • Welfare state, Incarceration, and the reduction of the Black Patriarch 
  • The “Inner-city”: get out, or get lost in it!

Growing Black Middle-Class

  • Black Flight and suburban integration 
  • Growth of majority Black suburbs 
  • Back to the South and Sunbelt
  • Black women outpace all others in education

After 2000

The Great Recession

  • Near collapse of the Black middle class
  • Gentrification comes for the “Inner-city”
  • Black political power fades with population shifts. 

Rise in Activism

  • Black Lives Matter
  • Buy Black owned 

Conclusion

African America – A Powerful Nation


Donate $16 to this project and immediately download the first three chapters

You will also get a free digital copy when it is complete

(projected for completion summer 2023)

free digital copy when it is complete (projected for summer 2023)

All credit card transactions are also handled by PayPal. Blackdemographics.com has no access to your credit card details. We only use your name and PayPal email to send you the book when it’s ready.

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