Warfare in pre‐colonialAfrica

Abstract

AbstractWar has been profoundly important in shaping Africa's past; it has been both outcome and driver of broader political, social, and economic change. Throughout the continent's recorded history, organized violence has been the product of the perennial struggle to maximize population—particularly critical in the context of Africa's historical underpopulation. As a relatively land‐rich continent, African political and social development has been characterized by continual fission and reformation, involving migratory movements and regional rivalries that have often been violent by their very nature. A common theme across much of the continent in the pre‐colonial era was the constant creation and recreation of unifying, and often coercive, ideologies aimed at the maximization of productive and reproductive labor. The struggle, moreover, to domesticate hostile physical and climatic environments has been a crucial driver of warfare, leading to the violent quest to control resources (water, arable land, healthy pasture). Environmental and climatic change has both caused and been caused by warfare in certain regions. In terms of external influences, finally, Islam would have an ideological, cultural, and tactical impact, while the slave trades (most dramatically in Atlantic Africa but also on the eastern side of the continent have driven forward warfare, heightening levels of violence and leading to innovation in the organization of violence—in part because of the adoption of new technologies acquired through such trade, notably firearms. Ultimately, the multitude of European invasions of Africa in the late nineteenth century led to widespread violence, as well as ushering in a new phase in the continent's military history.