African historiography is a branch of historiography concerning the African continent, its peoples, nations and variety of written and non-written histories. It has differentiated itself from other continental areas of historiography due to its multidisciplinary nature, as Africa's unique and varied methods of recording history have resulted in a lack of an established set of historical works documenting events before European colonialism. As such, African historiography has lent itself to contemporary methods of historiographical study and the incorporation of anthropological and sociological analysis.
The chronology of African recorded history encompasses many movements of art, African nations and dialects, and its history has permeated through many mediums. History concerning much of the pre-colonialist African continent is depicted through art or passed down through oral tradition. As European colonization emerged, the cultural identity and socio-political structure of the continent drastically shifted, and the written documentation of Africa and its people was dominated by European academia, which was later acknowledged and criticized in post-colonialist movements of the 20th century.
African historiography became organised in the mid 20th century, and saw a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach alongside archaeology and historical linguistics, culminating in UNESCO publishing the General History of Africa from 1981, edited by specialists from across the continent. Contemporary historians are still tasked with building the institutional frameworks, incorporating African epistemologies, establishing a continental periodisation, and representing an African perspective.
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Much of the modern depiction of Africa preceding written history is through archaeology, historical linguistics, and oral tradition. Excluding Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs and the Ge’ez script, a large part of the African continent would not have a means of writing or recording history until the common era.
Most African societies used oral tradition to record their history. They generally have a reverence for the oral word, and have been termed oral civilisations, contrasted with literate civilisations which pride the written word. [a] [2] Historians generally view oral traditions as neither entirely symbolic or wholly true, but a synthesis of the two, requiring great skill and subtlety to separate them. [3] : 11 Jan Vansina pioneered the study of oral tradition in his book Oral tradition as history (1985).
Some African writing systems have been developed in ancient and recent history, and the continent holds a quantity of varied orthographies. One of the most notable ancient languages were the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were often found carved into walls, as decoration on objects of religious significance and written on wood and papyrus. [4] Hieroglyphs, like many other ancient African dialects, underwent a considerable period of time where there was no verifiable translation. The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, would allow historians to effectively decipher hieroglyphs and access a new field of Ancient Egyptian history. [5] This field was undertaken predominantly by European historians. There are also plenty of written records in Arabic and Ge'ez, as well as European written records during their exploration of Africa from the 15th century.
Prior to colonisation in the 19th century, most African societies used oral tradition to record their history, meaning there was little written history. The domination of European powers across the continent meant African history was written from an entirely European perspective under the pretence of Western superiority. [6] This predilection stemmed from the perceived technological superiority of European nations and the decentralization of the African continent with no nation being a clear power in the region, as well as a perception of Africans as racially inferior, supporting their "civilising mission". [7] Another factor was there being a multitude of different dialects, cultural groups and fluctuating nations as well as a diverse set of mediums that document history other than written word. Oral sources deprecated and dismissed by unfamiliar historians, giving them the impression Africa had no recorded history and had little desire to create it. [8]
The historical works of the time were predominantly written by scholars of the various European powers and were confined to individual nations, leading to disparities in style, quality, language and content between the many African nations. [9] These works mostly concerned the activities of the European powers and centered on events concerning economic and military endeavors of the powers in the region. [6] Examples of British works were Lilian Knowles' The Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire and Allan McPhees The Economic Revolution in British West Africa, which discuss the economic achievements of the British empire and the state of affairs in African nations controlled by Britain. [6]
Post-colonialist historiography studies the relationship between European colonialism and domination in Africa and the construction of African history and representation. It has roots in Orientalism, the construction of cultures from the Asian, Arabian and North African world in a patronizing manner stemming from a sense of Western superiority, first theorized by Edward Said. [10] A general perception of Western superiority throughout European academics and historians prominent during the height of colonialism led to the defining traits of colonial historical works, which post-colonialists have sought to analyse and criticize.
The struggles for independence in the 1950s and 1960s saw a movement towards decolonising African history. Post-colonial works are characterised by their nationalist sentiments and Afrocentrism, reflecting African politics at the time. [11] The period saw a methodological revolution regarding the use of oral sources, archaeology, and historical linguistics. Periodisation has often focussed on Africa's interactions with outsiders. [12] Despite this, there were major challenges which persist, such as "academic labour migration" and reliance on Western publishers inhibiting the growth of institutions in Africa. [13]
William Miller Macmillan is a historian and post-colonialist thinker. His historical work, Africa Emergent (1938), critiqued colonial rule and sought for the democratization of African nations in seeking African representation in governments. The work not only condemns colonial rule, but also considers the perspectives of and the effect of colonialism on the African people, a considerable difference from the works’ contemporaries. [14] He was a founder of the liberal school of South African historiography and as a forerunner of the radical school of historiography that emerged in the 1970s. He was also a critic of colonial rule and an early advocate of self-government for colonial territories in Africa and of what became known as development aid.
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In the mid-20th century Kenneth Dike, among other members of the Ibadan School, pioneered a new methodology of reconstructing African history using the oral traditions, and alongside evidence from European-style histories and other historical sciences, destabilising the notion that Africa's history was essentially its interactions with Europeans. [11] [12] [15] : 212 This movement towards utilising oral sources in a multi-disciplinary approach culminated in UNESCO commissioning the General History of Africa , edited by specialists drawn from across the African continent, publishing from 1981 to 2024. [12] [15] [16]
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There is no agreed upon periodisation for Africa history, with the difference in temporal stages of state formation between parts of the continent providing disagreement. [12] [11] Oliver and Atmore proposed Medieval Africa as from 1250 to 1800. [11] Contemporary historians are still tasked with building the institutional frameworks, incorporating African epistemologies, and representing an African perspective. [17]
African historiography became organized at the academic level in the mid-20th century. [18] The School of Oriental Studies opened at the University of London in 1916. It became the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1938 and has always been at the center of scholarship on Africa. In the U.S. Northwestern University launched its Program of African Studies in 1948. The first scholarly journals were founded: Transactions of the Gold Coast & Togoland Historical Society (1952); Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria (1956); The Journal of African History (1960); Cahiers d’études africaines (1960); and African Historical Studies (1968). Specialists grouped together in the African Studies Association (1957); the African Studies Association of the UK (1963); the Canadian Association of African Studies/Association Canadienne des Etudes Africaines (1970).
Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension, the term historiography is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic by using particular sources, techniques of research, and theoretical approaches to the interpretation of documentary sources. Scholars discuss historiography by topic—such as the historiography of the United Kingdom, of WWII, of the pre-Columbian Americas, of early Islam, and of China—and different approaches to the work and the genres of history, such as political history and social history. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the development of academic history produced a great corpus of historiographic literature. The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups and loyalties—such as to their nation state—remains a debated question.
Archaic humans emerged out of Africa between 0.5 and 1.8 million years ago. This was followed by the emergence of modern humans in East Africa around 300,000–250,000 years ago. In the 4th millennium BC written history arose in Ancient Egypt, and later in Nubia's Kush, the Horn of Africa's Dʿmt, and Ifrikiya's Carthage. Between around 3000 BC and 1000 AD, the Bantu expansion swept from north-western Central Africa across much of sub-Saharan Africa, laying the foundations for states in Central, Eastern, and Southern regions. In most African societies the oral word is revered, and as such they have generally recorded their history orally. This has led anthropologists to term them oral civilisations, contrasted with literate civilisations which pride the written word. Oral tradition often remained the preferred method of recordation in cases when a writing system was adapted or developed; for example the oral recordation of the Kouroukan Fouga in the Mali Empire while having adapted the Arabic script to be used in scholarly pursuits.
The Fon people, also called Dahomeans, Fon nu or Agadja are a Gbe ethnic group. They are the largest ethnic group in Benin, found particularly in its south region; they are also found in southwest Nigeria and Togo. Their total population is estimated to be about 3,500,000 people, and they speak the Fon language, a member of the Gbe languages.
The Ibadan School of History was the first, and for many years the dominant, intellectual tradition in the study of the history of Nigeria. It originated at the University of Ibadan, in Ibadan, Nigeria, in the 1950s, and remained dominant until the 1970s. The University of Ibadan was the first university to open in Nigeria, and its scholars set up the history departments at most of Nigeria's other universities, spreading the Ibadan historiography. Its scholars also wrote the textbooks that were used at all levels of the Nigerian education system for many years. The school's output is often considered to be most clearly embodied in the "Ibadan History Series".
Cheikh Anta Diop was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. Diop's work is considered foundational to the theory of Afrocentricity, though he himself never described himself as an Afrocentrist. The questions he posed about cultural bias in scientific research contributed greatly to the postcolonial turn in the study of African civilizations.
The culture of Burundi is based on local tradition and common influence with its neighbors.
Jan M. J. Vansina was a Belgian historian and anthropologist regarded as an authority on the history of Central Africa, especially of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. He was a major innovator in the historical methodology of oral tradition. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he taught several generations of students and, according to a biographer, "set the pace in African historical studies from the 1950s into the 1990s."
Kenneth Onwuka Dike was a Nigerian educationist, historian and the first Nigerian Vice-Chancellor of the nation's premier college, the University of Ibadan.
Antony Gerald Hopkins, is a British historian specialising in the economic history of Africa, European colonialism, and globalisation. He is Emeritus Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at the University of Cambridge, an Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge and a fellow of the British Academy.
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. The field started to emerge in the 1960s, as scholars from previously colonized countries began publishing on the lingering effects of colonialism, developing a critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of imperial power.
Adiele Eberechukwu Afigbo was a Nigerian historian known for the history and historiography of Africa, more particularly Igbo history and the history of Southeastern Nigeria. Themes emphasised include pre-colonial and colonial history, inter-group relations, the Aro and the slave trade, the art and science of history in Africa, and nation-building.
Toyin Omoyeni Falola is a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies. Falola is a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria and of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and has served as the president of the African Studies Association. He is currently the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.
David Starr Newbury is the Gwendolen Carter professor of African studies at Smith College, Massachusetts. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1979 for thesis titled Kings and clans on Ijwi Island (Zaire), c. 1780-1840 under the supervision of Jan Vansina. His academic work has three major foci within East and Central Africa. The first was pre-colonial societal transformation in the Kivu Rift Valley. The second was how a Rwandan famine in the late 1920s reinforced colonial rule. The final major focus was the transformation of a hunter-gatherer society in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo into an agricultural economy. His recent work has included studies of the historical roots of Central African violence in the late 1990s to present. René Lemarchand states, "No attempt to grasp the historical context of genocide [in Rwanda] can ignore Catherine [sic] and David Newbury’s seminal contributions."
The culture, evolution, and history of women who were born in, live in, and are from the continent of Africa reflect the evolution and history of the African continent itself.
Apollos Okwuchi Nwauwa is a Nigerian-born historian and professor of Africana Studies. He is currently the Director of Africana Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. Nwauwa earned his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from the then Bendel State University Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in History at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada, in 1989 and 1993 respectively. Nwauwa is a members of many learned societies and served as President of the Igbo Studies Association from 2010-2014. He is the current editor of OFO: Journal of Transatlantic Studies. Nwauwa is author and editor of many book and scholarly journal articles.
Bolanle Awe is a Nigerian and Yoruba history professor. She became the Pro-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. She has been called a Nigerian "intellectual hero".
Yusufu Bala Usman was a Nigerian historian and politician, who was one of the scholars who shaped Nigerian historiography. He was the founder of the Centre for Democratic Development, Research and Training at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Moses Ebe Ochonu is a Nigerian academic, historian, author and professor of African History at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. He has been the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in History since 2017.
Akanmu Gafari Adebayo is a Nigerian professor of history at Kennesaw State University. He specializes in African economic history with emphasis on production and distribution of wealth. Adebayo has published widely on various topics on African economy.
A Short History of Benin is a non-fiction book by Jacob Egharevba, first published in 1934 by the Church Mission Society Press in Lagos. The book offers a historical perspective on the Benin Empire, a pre-colonial African state now part of Nigeria. The book is an English version of the author's earlier work in Edo, Ekhere Vb' Itan Edo, which was published in 1933. The book explores the beginnings, culture, and political structure of the Benin Empire, as well as the events leading to its British invasion and Ovonramwen's exile in 1897. It also includes a chronology of the Obas (kings) of Benin from the 13th to the 20th century.
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