Brief History Of Africa Before Colonialism -- How did we get there? 

In my opinion, I do think the downfall of Africa could have been avoided. The Wagadu empire( Also called the Ghana empire) had much contact with the islam world, but never converted themselves which history foretold. So what if, in an alternate timeline, the Ghana empire sent diplomats to the swahili coast which had direct contact and trade with Asia! The swahili were excellent ship makers, which would benefit the Ghana empire immensely. Soon enough, the Ghana empire would create their own ships to travel to Asia, have more connections with the rest of southern and eastern Africa, and that way they wouldn't have to depend on the saharan trade routes! Now with an easier way to get to Asia, west Africa would develop way more faster before the Europeans would even arrive in the 15th century!

I alway was interested in learning early African history before European colonialism. Very helpful and entertaining video on the subject

Africa will rise again believe that

I love your analysis. Great focus on the importance of that trans-saharan/“silk road” nexus in rise/fall of empires. Also fantastic analysis of the formation of the slave trade. This lesson you give here should be far more widely known

That was the GREATEST 14mins 12seconds of RU-vid that I've had in a while! Thanks for sharing!

I’m a history nerd myself and learned some stuff. Excellent work here!

Excellent lecture, I love how he interweaves the history of different parts of the world, something I missed in my history lessons. It’s all connected, we are all connected.

I love how you are able to give information on how everything in human history is interwoven. You gave an understanding of how what happens in one part of the world affects another. Wonderful and understanding teaching, thanks.

My man did it again! I find your works incredibly informative. Thanks!

An amazing lecture! Very truly, history is far from being a straight line of parallel but distinct swimming lanes. Rather, it's a web of interconnected and interdependent socio-economic and cultural ecosystems. With highly recursive patterns, as Giambattista Vico said. Such a powerful tool for interpreting the disruptive events that are taking place around us in these strange but exciting days. Knowing history can also allow us to peer over the fog that blurs our immediate future...

Had to watch again immediately after the first watch. This video and the information in it is golden. Thank you

Man I thought I knew some history but you just blew my mind. Thank you. Subscribed.

Thank you Darius for your time and knowledge. Wish I had more teachers like you. Learned more than the article before coming here. You gave full context as to what was going on around the world. Sad there is a decimal behind the 2 in number of views. Thanks again.

Thank You for this video. My son and I are (re-reading) Dr Chinua Achibe: Things fall apart. Your video really helps with putting the books environment the context

Wow, It would take me a long time to come up with questions that you answered by this great lesson!

I love that you explained why slavery was prevalent during conquest. There is no emotional tie to labels people did not self identify with. I am not sure if the collapse of the Saharan slave trade was avoidable bc it’s business. Leaders are always finding ways to be on top or “survive”.

Terrific video! You did an exceptional job of describing the cause-and-effect relationships. We, humans, tend to look at history as singular events without considering the circumstances that led up to and contributed to future connected actions and responses to such actions.

I’m currently reading Trevor Noah’s book Born A Crime and wanted to review African history for better context. I’ve learned so much with your video! The Texas public education system left out a lot in world history, and it can be hard to find real history content on RU-vid. I appreciate your dedication to putting the information out there on this open platform. Thank you! Immediately subscribed! I’m looking forward to learning more from your channel overall!

There is an excellent video of Thomas Sowell who explain how Africa have so few access to the sea. Your video make an excellent job of describing the shift from land power to sea power, and Africa loose his advantage. In Europe easy sea access was a plague during Viking raids, but later become a net advantage. Good job.

Absolutely nailed it! The synthesis of major world events and how they culminated within one another was seamlessly woven. Loved this analysis

History Teacher:Ok Class,What Led To Colonialism? Me:Greed and Envy

This was phenomenal. Thanks so much for sharing this valuable information.

Great video. But not mentioned is the impact of technology on cultures and their continuing advancements.. The Europeans had refined ancient war & exploration technologies and that gave them a competitive advantage. Africa's stagnation in the technological arena was a MAJOR contribution to its decline imo.

Exellent video. No political agenda…just plain history. Very nice job

13:10 Thank you. Some people don't understand this part for some reason.

Great video :) I was looking for just this kind of video for my inquiries and I came out learning a lot more

This is one of the best videos on slavery I've ever seen

An outstanding and well-paced survey. Have a subscription. Looking forward to learning more.

I really enjoy listening to you I .afrockan American and I've always loved researching history I general but especially African history it's the begenimg off humanity keep up the good work brother

This is very great work of history which people who look like me are included in world history which never mention it in history class.

I wonder how things would be different if West Africans started building ships for trade back then.

Thankyou so much for this informative and stimulating lecture. Has certainly given some window of light into Africa before European colonisation. Also the underlying principles you apply offers such a wide sweep of understanding to the rise and fall of cultures, empires and nation states.

Very nice video. You presented a lot of history but in a interesting way, thanks.

Many thanks Professor. Certain things you mentioned were taught at some stage but so much has been glossed over or completely removed from our history books. it makes me question my country's education system even more than before. To this day, the country I was born in (South Africa), is suffering the after effects of colonialism. Some colonial countries have paid reparations or issued apologies to their respective colonies albeit very few, yet here we are, at the southern tip of Africa, living side by side with the descendants of those European thieves. Granted, they can not be blamed for the atrocities of way back when, but at least an apology would suffice. For all the suffering they have inflicted on my ancestors and many others, it would perhaps change the mindset of the poverty stricken, mentally abused masses. Nevertheless, thank you so much for information regarding this vast continent, Professor. 👍

Thank you for this. It would be nice if I learned this at my high school 5 years ago.

1850 BC Pharaoh Senusret III attempted to build the equivalent of the Suez canal unfortunately he gave up on it which was a great pity would have made Egypt very difficult to attack. I was born in Europe the narrator is being rather understated about the level of violence that was in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. With the Black death 1300 ending Feudalism and a new system coming in maybe we are going through the same thing now with Covid19 who knows.

All kingdoms rise and fall. As in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Britain (no longer GREAT Britain) and America itself is now "going through the change". Voluminous thanks to you for your information 👍🏿

This was a really well presented lesson in African culture, and I learned a good bit. I am subscribing. You deserve a larger audience.

Good presentation! Very interesting & makes sense! Thank you!

You put it in a way I can understand. Good video, bro

The bigger picture of interconnected dependencies such as the effect of the fall of Rome or Constantinople on both Europe and Africa are taught far too little in history classes I think. The natural ebb and flow of empires and civilisations obviously happened the same in Africa as everywhere else and all of us here in the old world have been linked by trade and travel all throughout Asia, Africa and Europe since the neolithic. What made the last 500 years different was the perfect storm of rising empires combined with technological development at a pace that never occurred before. This made the world a lot smaller all of a sudden. The modern reading of our shared history quite often seems to suggest there was malice and a great plan involved, when in reality it was millions of big or small decisions by individuals as well as patterns way beyond the control of individuals or even nations.

Why didn’t the Europeans travel to other nations inside Europe and colonized those countries instead of Africa???

Great video!! I was just think that like about how Eurocentric world history is often presented and showing how everything is interconnected is really interesting!

Great vid👊🏻

This was so packed dense with history I had to stop it at each verse and meditate on the meaning of each sentence.

I used to be a little unhealthily obsessed with European culture and its ‘preservation’ in my teen years, especially in regards to our African immigrant population, this is largely my own fault and I regret it immensely, but I feel my lack of knowledge of Africa played an enormous part in this. I am so happy to have found a good history channel that focuses on dispelling the exact kind of misinformation that turned me from a young history lover to a narrow minded nationalist. I wish you the best of luck in this channel and will be sure to recommend it!

Keep up the good work !

You're very good. I'm writing a musical based off your video. It's clear, concise & accurate. Where are you based...? Julius

Thank you. This is an amazing explanation and I will share your videos with others. I hope you will explain the exploitation of Africa by Western countries and what you think it would take for Africa to come out of this situation. Why can't African countries demand equal treatment and pay for their resources? Billions of dollars are being depleted each year and colonization cannot continue. I do not understand why Africa cannot set up armies and establish policies that protect the continent and its people. Yes, we are all different and from different countries but I hear some say it is difficult to do business with African countries within their borders because it is difficult to get things traded within Africa from country to country. I believe Africa has everything it needs to be a great empire once again.

Excellent video! Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Kind regards from Montevideo, Uruguay!

Great video highlighting the importance of trade routes and money. Always money. Take it away and any empire or land will fall into disarray and cut itself from inside out.

Honestly you can start the timeline where you please it just matter who is telling the story to choose what period they wanna focus on. But history can't be changed but it can be twisted to fit someone's person narrative.

Thank you for doing this research, so insightful!

Great job keep it coming.

Todays topic was well versed , bless for sharing this content 🙏🏿😎

Excellent lecture. Very insightful.

Thanks a lot for this, Prof!

Answer to the question of the day : In my opinion, I think that the West Africa’s Decline was inevitable. If the slavery wasn’t common in West Africa’s and that the Fall of Constantinople wasn’t happening or in an another case, during that Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbia was circumnavigate around the Africa’s continent or than the West-African Kings have would better protect their kingdoms and who has been more implicated in the politic and leading of those one, nothing of that would happened.

Thank you very much for your hard work sir! Greetings from Sweden:)

I just have a hard time believing that we were as great and powerful as it's always stated. Reason being it wasn't some of Africa but all of Africa that was concured. That is a whole continent. How does a whole continent fall if the people are so intelligent and powerful?

'What led to colonialism' have you asked There is little need for a series of epithets to understand what led to colonialism. The legacies of colonialism are a practical manifestation of this. The intoxication of oneself in terms of limitless self-deployment which perceives and conceives the other as prey. A necessary prey for self-edification. It is this human madness which determined the colonial enterprise, which in turn will lead to these imbalances which affect the harmony of the earth. We must go back to the Discourse on Method. In this introduction to these pamphlets, he declared that through knowledge, men can become masters and possessors of nature. The practical consequence will be the fact that certain men have become possessors and masters of other men, hence colonization.

Beautiful video

Thanks man I really learned a lot. I’m gonna check out more of your videos. I was gonna call my friend and ask him questions and you save him a lot of trouble

Thanks for the information! I hope you can work on the voice quality, otherwise everything is perfect! Thanks again mate!

This is a great video. Thank you for making it!

Thank you, this video was dope. Please keep them coming. I like the way you narrate too. You remind me of Neil DeGrasse Tyson a little bit. I’m diggin your style fam. peace

The Arc of Civilization stretched roughly from about Rome through the fertile crescent and India and out to China. Everywhere else, including most of Europe, was outside in the stone age and vulnerable.

Helpful stuff 👏🏻👏🏻 I don’t know what to say but just helpful. Would you like to recommend some books on African history to me?

This was hugely helpful and insightful video! Huge appreciation!

Brother this documentary was excellent

I have seen this video a couple of times and I like everything bit of it.

Mansa Musa bankrupted Mali after that pilgrimage. He would of been better off going to North Africa and hiring Arab shipwrights in exchange for some slaves and gold. Everyone knew of the wealth of inner Africa as they knew the cities in the Sahara/Sahel were just middle men. And no point to put West Africa on the map yet. He failed to bring back shipwrights to teach them to put ships at sea themselves. This would of also made it easier to spread Islam to the rest of West and Central Africa along the coast as spreading it through the interior they would encountered stronger people with denser populations, however they'd spread Islam faster with the weaker people along the coast. Inner West African and coastal states such as Dahomey, Ashanti, Great Benin all failed to capture European vessels and reverse engineer them, practicing to steer them by themselves along the coast line, and then establish port cities further down the coast of West/Central Africa to trade for goods, and slaves. They could of establish themselves along the coast, later on making trips to by waterway to North Africa for maps, cartographers. Selling too many people. Some needed to be sold for gun and maritime technology. But at some point use common sense. The people you are selling are being used to develop new land, which benefit the people you're selling it too, and you're at technological disadvantage already. They should of stopped selling slaves after the first 50-100 years when the servant population to do so. Africa wasn't in decline until colonization up until colonization they were still thriving in West, Central, and North Africa. South African states were thriving too. They were colonized due to lack of population, lack of machine guns, and slightly due to the effects of the slave trade. Africa was pre-industrial in some parts, and here is what Africa lacked for industrialization: 1. population-500 million people minimum are needed to industrialized, and at the beginning of the 19 century Africa had just 119 million people. All spread out on the second largest continent, varying geographies, cultures, and the most ethnic groups on the planet, with only some dense pockets of populations all spread out, leaving large gaps of Africa with lots of hunter gather peoples/slightly pastoral. 2. No world religion to dominate. Europe had Christianity, large parts of Asia had the main eastern religions. Same geographies in Europe/Asia and world religions meant more cohesion. To combat Africa's low population, varied difficult to traverse geographies, multiple religions, cultures, ethnic groups, infighting, Africa too needed a world religion and it was supposed to be Islam. Islam swept North, parts of East, and West Africa. This were I said earlier Mansa Musa failed, As it would of difficult to spread Islam thought the more difficult and vast interior starting from the coast (which would of required maritime technology he failed to get), spreading Islam from the coast then the interior as trade increased would of then spread it to the various Bantu people of the interior, and as Islam expanded more Bantus would of adopted the religion. West Africa attempted to spread Islam to the rest of West Africa (Futa Jallon invasions of the late 19th century). But by then it was too late as the European invasions halted them. Had they had maritime technology, ended the slave trade in the first 50-100 years, Europe wouldn't of had the machine guns, to invade thus Islam would of swept the rest of the continent as the Bantus were ethnically similar. If Islam had swept Africa in the late 19th, and 20th century (assuming all the above mentioned conditions were met from the previous paragraph to halt Europe industrializing) For the first time in Africa: - All of Africa would have the same language, reading/writing script, and culture for the fist in it's history. This would improved infighting, trade, currency, technology, roads, maritime travel, illiteracy, construction, production, etc. Africa need an over arching social unification and Islam would of served that purpose. In short the political short-sightedness of Africa people put them in position to be colonized though, had Europe showed up a 100 years later, the coaster and near coastal states of the inner West Africa would of had enough time to sort out their differences. Those states were formed due the growing indigenous populations along the coast, and the break down of the more organized states in the interior such as Ghana, Mali, Songay, Yoruba. These new comers with their new technologies, and state building idea merging with the coastal people who now had enough time to organize themselves led to the creations of the coastal states. Now we see the rise of inner West Africa. Most people lived further north in Africa, so Africans in the Sahara, and Sahel operated as middlemen. Trade came from the interior specifically inner west Africa (the source of the gold for Mali), and trade then got dispersed through the Mediterranean world, Red sea, Indian Ocean world trade system, the Saharan world trade system. This is why Empires like Egypt and Carthage in antiquity were wealthy. Carthage's gold came from inner West Africa. They even tried to sail to West Africa in 500 BCE to find the source of the gold trade. As we entered Middle earth, the power shifted to the Sahara/Sahel. With the drying up of the Sahara people moved in the Sahel and Southern Sahara urbanizing. With the arrival of a world religion, and camels, trade explodes. Now during the Atlantic period the power shifted in Africa for the first time in history to the people who actually controlled the resources and were the source of Africa's wealth all along. Africa was not in decline. With their larger more dense populations, trading cities and routes, populous towns, and the arrival of the Saharan/Sahel people with the new technology and state building idea the coastal and near coastal people formed their own empires. They ended the trans Saharan world system because they could ship the good directly with Europe and cut the middle man out all together. Europe is smaller, more ethnically the same, maritime technology absorbed from Rome as they were used in the military, and absorbed Rome's administration. They had 700 years to fight, push each other, and the coastal states were doing the same thing Europe had the change to work for the most part after 700 years which is established territory. Cousins fight cousins, pressuring each other and Europe exploited that. Another 100 years to figure out territory we'd have a different history, they would of been settled and more cohesive. These states were new.

Man! Eye-opening video! Congrats! Amazing! Thanks!

Great pieces of work.

Wow,really changed the way I think about colonization. It's a spirit,a force prompted by dominance and control. It's also business and a tool to rise to the top

Good job!

Very well composed and some very interesting points here, thank you for your hard work.

Thank u so much

Nice video, learned a lot from it.

Thank you for the very insightful presentation!

He can’t spread this work himself. WE MUST HELP HIM DO IT. That’s our problem as black peoples across this whole world.

Thanks for your video. Would love to see some article so I can read more around this topic

Nice informative content very accessable. Subbed.

Redesign the way people learn about African History by creating a panel within the Dept of Education.

Interesting point made about Europeans seeing themselves as separate entities. The one thing that they did see themselves as tho was white. They were able to negotiate & work together based off of that. Africans didn’t realize it until it was too late

Thank you for making this video!

Good Stuff! Thank you for this!

I don't even think it was the timeline. That man was just shamelessly lying.

Prior to Middle Easterners And Europeans among other Non Africans many African Native groups had plenty of issues with each other and some friendships and alliances and partnerships and business deals and trade relations and frenemy moments

Thank you so much bro

Thank you for this video, it was very informative!

That was great ...very informative

Love this video and your channel, your not bias and not trying to have an agenda.

Interesting video, with nice delivery (spell check “collapse” though!). I think you only briefly touched on the most critical piece of this particular puzzle: the reality that you can carry more goods farther over water than you can over land. Adam Smith identified the immense benefits that arise from the division of labor and exchange of goods for all members of a free society. The reality of our globe is that the Mediterranean Sea is a relatively calm body of water which allowed the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans to trade, and thereby advance their civilizations far beyond those who were deprived of such a network. As such, the trans-Saharan trade network could not compete with the sea trade of Europe. Separately, the immense wealth of a king makes me wonder about the freedom and widespread prosperity of that particular society. The Germans, French, and the English all benefited from being exposed to, or conquered by, the Romans.

Well researched and informative perspective

Good video Please, next time put some african music on the background to really feel the vibe as you explain things. Good job

Change is inevitable in any society. Could they have prevented the fall of West Africa? Perhaps if they had developed other trade routes, so losing Constantinople didn't completely cut them off from the east, but that is a lot of conjecture on my part.

The continent was named Ethiopia

learnt a lot from this thank you

This is quite an interesting video, but I do have one question. What was the role of gold in the decline you describe? Was it simply that the gold mines became less productive, or did mining stop, or something else? When you say that slaves were the only valuable commodity, I wondered what had happened to all that gold that was so prominent earlier.