Lecture 25 is called America and Africa in the world.
I guess a common theme here is a sort of ever-expanding human web.
In the Western Hemisphere, we have of course, the Aztecs in what today we would call Mexico.
They emerge in the 14th century, and of course, the Aztecs had Mayan predecessors before them.
Further south, in the Andes of South America, you have the Inca emerge, and of course, the
Inca had a Toltec past as their predecessors.
Some key developments here in these American societies – we see improvements in agriculture;
we see the domestication of potatoes in South America, and corn further north.
These, of course, are highly or high caloric foods that can sustain a population.
They’re easily stored.
Potatoes grow underground, for goodness sakes, so they’re quite safe.
So this lends itself to an increasing population.
Population centers, impressive cities, certainly the city upon which Cortez and the Spaniards,
where they encountered Montezuma and the Aztecs – was a marvel to them, and they described
it as easily superior to European cities that they had seen.
We have long-distance trade in the Americas.
Polytheism is quite common in North and South America.
The Mayans had introduced the concept of zero during the peak of their empire.
They had advanced to a calendar that was quite sophisticated.
They Mayans knew, obviously, that the world was round; you can see that from their calculations.
The latter civilizations of Aztecs and Inca both depended in part on slavery and on tribute.
The indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere would experience a calamitous pandemic as
a result of European diseases.
This starts with Columbus, of course, in 1492.
This is a demographic disaster, similar in scale to that of the Black Death of the 14th
century in Eurasia, which we have already talked about in this class.
Let’s try to place the Americas in a wider world context.
First of all, they’re isolated from the rest of the world.
Isolation creates vulnerabilities.
Obviously we just mentioned it, the lack of immunity to foreign pathogens.
So when the Europeans arrive they bring measles and mumps and chicken pox, the plague, and
smallpox experience, and this has a devastating effect, wiping out the indigenous people of
the western world in a couple of generations.
The people in the Americas lacked metallurgy; they did not make things with metal as they
did in Eurasia.
The gold and silver that they had, they used it for personal adornment, for ritualistic
purposes as well.
The people in the Americas did not use a wheel, for the obvious reason – they have no large
domesticated animals to pull a cart.
So, who needs a wheel?
Once Columbus arrives with horses and mules and donkeys and so on and so forth, suddenly
beasts of burden are available and the wheel will be used to carry things, and for travel,
etcetera, etcetera.
There is a vague similarity between the Inca and the Egyptians with regard to the divinity
of their ruler.
Of course, the pharaoh was considered a divine figure.
The 15th century Inca Empire – and you can see this on the map here – this empire stretched
from what today we would call probably the southern part of Columbia all the way down
the Andes mountain chain to what today we would call northern Chile or northern Argentina.
The rapid expansion of the Inca resembles the contemporary Ottoman Empire in what today
we would call Turkey, the Middle East, southeastern Europe – so little parallels here.
The American, the indigenous Americans left – and of course they weren’t called Americans
obviously – but the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere left a limited legacy.
This is in part due to the sort of mass die off that occurs.
I guess you could say that the Americans – the people of the Americas – are similar to
those in the Pacific islands, the Polynesians, or the Poly-Oceanias, with their isolation
from the rest of the world.
We turn to Africa here for a moment, and of course, Africa is a huge continent with many,
many different geographic areas and many different societies.
You can kind of look at the north African rim there on the southern shore of the Mediterranean,
and you find distinct cultures – and then of course, Sub-Saharan Africa, a much larger,
many more people, and a great variety of cultures.
Until recently, Sub-Saharan Africa – its’ history – has been viewed as obscure as
American history before the arrival of the Europeans, a sort of black hole in history
as scholars only begin to take notice of Africa once the Europeans arrive.
I remember reading a book some years ago, and I forget the author off the top of my
head, but the subtitle was, A People Without History, making the argument that there’s
a tendency to ignore the history of peoples prior to their contact with western Christians,
or with Europeans.
African history fits into the larger patterns of the post-classical era that we’ve been
discussing.
Agriculture, iron working – these are long developed in Africa.
Sub-Saharan Africa dominated by Bantu-speaking language groups; African civilizations on
the Upper Nile – you think here of Egypt; the Kush civilization; Ethiopia on the horn
of Africa – these are similar in patterns to the Middle East and to the Mediterranean.
Two other centers of activity – the Swahili are located on the Indian Ocean coast of East
Africa, what today we might think of as Tanzania and Kenya; the Swahili areas had written language;
they had commercial context via the Indian Ocean with Arabs and with Chinese and with
Indians; and then of course, in West Africa, on the Atlantic side, you have the emergence
of these empires along the Niger River – Ghana and the Songhai and Mali.
These kingdoms all had large territorial holdings.
They had powerful kings; they had rituals, both religious and state rituals; increasing
trade activity, both in the interior of Africa, and finally north across the Sahara, with
caravans to the Mediterranean.
These kingdoms taxed their merchants to raise revenue, a common practice throughout Eurasia.
Metal and woodworking and sculpture are quite common in these West African kingdoms.
Now if you go further south into Africa, sort of the southeast portion of Africa, you have
the kingdom of great Zimbabwe; 14th-century ruins attest to the power of the kingdom based
upon livestock grazing, agriculture, and gold exports – and of course, we know today that
South Africa is a treasure trove of precious minerals.
Zimbabwe’s rulers imported luxury goods from Persia, India, China – across the Indian
Ocean.
Some interesting historical questions about Africa – well, it’s a huge continent,
like I said.
If you look at some maps, the old Mercator projection, north of the equator the land
masses are accentuated in size; south of the equator land masses are diminished in size
– and on some of these old projections you can see that Greenland is portrayed as much
larger than Africa, which is of course absurd.
You could pack a bunch of Greenlands into Africa.
We’ll give you an illustration of this so you can see what I’m talking about.
So there’s just a huge variety of cultures and different peoples in Africa.
Traditional polytheism tends to prevail there.
There’s an emphasis on the connection between human activities and the forces of nature.
This link lends a framework for natural medicine, for divine spirits – major rulers sometimes
regarded as divine – we mentioned this earlier.
There’s an emphasis on extended families and on the links between the living and the
dead.
A word or two about Africa and the great traditions – by great traditions I mean Islam and Christianity.
Islam and Christianity, when they penetrate Africa, they’re adopted by the Africans
and given distinct local twists to make them suitable for the Africans.
You should forget about the stereotypes about Africa.
The view of Africa from the age of imperialism is both simplistic and wrongheaded.
This is not a vast mysterious region, but it’s one linked to the Europeans and to
the Asiatic worlds – and then of course, after Columbus Africa will be intimately linked
to the New World via slavery.
A couple more words here about Africa and Islam – African rulers quite often welcomed
Islamic traders.
African rulers welcomed Muslims as scholars and officials and educated bureaucrats.
They tended to be literate, and quite helpful in ruling a kingdom.
Islam takes root in the empire of Ghana, along the Niger.
These West African kingdoms – like I said – are linked by the great Niger River in
West Africa.
Later, Timbuktu – you’ve probably heard of this city – became a great Muslim commercial
center, an Islam center of learning and literacy, a great trading post in West Africa.
So remember that Africans create their own sort of Islam by mixing it with local traditions.
A comparison of Africa and Europe in 1250 of the Common Era, just in broad outline and
then we’ll look at it again in 1450.
In 1250, both Europe and Africa had significant kingdoms.
The king’s power rested upon negotiations with his noblemen.
The merchant classes are on the rise – both in Africa and in Europe.
Commercial centers are developing.
So there are these broad similarities between Africa and Europe in 1250.
Now – let’s look at a comparison between Africa and Europe in 1450 of the Common Era
– 200 years later.
Now Europeans are exploring the coast of Africa.
Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal established a trading post in what today is Ghana in 1482.
Portuguese explorers reached the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa, in 1488.
That’s only what, four years before Columbus sails.
I mentioned Zheng He earlier, the great Chinese Muslim admiral who led the Ming treasure fleets.
He skirted the Indian Ocean coast of Africa in the early 15th century.
So you’ve got Chinese on the east coast of Africa and you’ve got Portuguese on the
west coast of Africa.
Europe’s undergoing rapid changes in political and cultural systems now – not the sort
of same outreach in Africa as you see in Europe.
Why?
Well Europe has a very advantageous geography.
European rivers are navigable.
They will link you from the interior of Europe to the coastlines, and you can sail freely
up and down these rivers.
This is not so in Africa where cataracts – or rivers narrow – and there are rapids to
the extent that you can’t sail through them.
Europeans, of course, have a problem with Islam as Christianity is firmly entrenched
in Europe.
In Africa, of course, Islam is quite often welcomed as preceding Christianity.
Africans still have more valuable products to trade than west Europeans in 1450, but
this will soon change.
And then, of course, unlike Eurasians – Africans have had no contact with the Mongols.
The Mongols, of course, had a significant and fundamental impact – as we talked about
– on China; and Persia; and Mesopotamia; Europe; Russia; and of course, the Mongols
never reach Africa.
So in conclusion, there’s a great divergence emerging here.
Europe and Africa will grow, or will go, two separate ways as the Europeans venture out
across the globe establishing Little Europes in Australia; New Zealand; North and South
America; Iceland; Greenland.
And of course, Africa will be increasingly exploited by European imperialists; first
in the centuries just after Columbus, and then later in the 19th century, where Africa
will be carved up like a big pizza with every European power getting a slice.
So a brief look, a brief survey of both Americans – or at least those indigenous people of
the Western Hemisphere – and Africans in the context of world history.
Thank you.