Well, we Africans we did not have any words in our dialect where you could say the word slaves. We had servants and maids. Most of the time our prisoners were well treated with respect and dignity.
Still, we used to have wars sometimes between ourselves for land or kingdom.. You know. Something to explore more. How we used to live together in one Harmony before the colonists came to our land.
So you buy into the nonsense narrative of evil invaders that 'lack of resources' is reason for their criminal conquests? lol MOST HUMANS DO NOT conquer others, even when they are poor/'lack resources'! Same applies to human groups/nations! "world conquest" is based on Ignorance, Delusion, Love of Violence! 'Lack of resources' IS NOT engine to commit crimes against others! For if that were the case, so MANY poorer countries SHOULD BE seeking to conquer others, WHICH IS NOT THE CASE!
In my opinion, generally speaking, when a society’s basic need are met, they tend not be militaristic. Africa has an abundance of resources to provide food, shelter, etc. for all. Also it’s a comfortable place to live where there is sunshine and natural beauty all around. The same can said for the Americas. In contrast, many parts of Europe and Asia are inhospitable and lack most of the desirable resources found in warmer and more lush parts of the world. I believe the environment and natural resources play the biggest part in whether or not a society decides to become militaristic
Very good point, environment plays a huge role in a group's behavior. Wealthy neighborhoods tend to have less crime, while poor neighborhoods tend to have more crime.
nah it has nothing to do with that. War is a human thing, man kind has always wanted to conquer no matter how much resources they had and in the African continent there have been lots of war over land or between ethnic groups even to this day Africa is not all sunshine and rainbows
@@davidlima9461Most wars whithin the African continent have been orchestrated by Europeans (outsiders) going back thousands of years. ALL recent wars has been started through infiltration in order to destabalise the country for the UNs gain.
@Toivo58479Africans did NOT invade Europe by its own coalition. The Arabs are the ones that hired a bunch of enslaved men to help them conquer territories in exchange for freedom and better treatment. The Arabian ruler noticed that African men were much stronger than Arab men, since my nature most Africans/Black men ARE stronger genetically and have a dominant stature.
@@ivorysteele I just see it's as the same way how naive Americans did it. Europeans trade foreign goods for something greater. Natives used those good to get rid of their rival tribes neighbors. Africans also wanted domestic animals since those are not really native to central and southern Africa
We have no need to do that we know we are enough. I seen at a job Africans do their job and go home if they have side busies they will do that and leave their first instinct is not office politics.Africans have no strong desire to subdue others or even visit others
You just need their Technology and money to explore your own resources. Then complain afterwards it's being stolen, but infact you slipped up when negotiating the price for labour and taxes on export products, not complicated at all .😊
@@koosvonlandsberg5353😂Not Africa must get technology.If only it was just that...Your Western /European leaders with your plundering mindset should stop putting your self placed government Ops into the continent thats causing unrest and horrible governance. Look what Niger had to do because France and their Ops they placed there had a ball of a time sucking that country from its resources. Your kin folk has been doing it all over the world crippling once before well governed and self sustained governments to the ground. Look what happened to Gaddafi when he started talking about the African continent running itself with its own currency
@@icetrip2417 The Egyptians conquered all the way to the Euphrates. And the Egyptians ate African, aren't they? Ever heard of Hannibal the Great? He was Carthaginian. That means from North Africa. The Moors marched all the way to France. A lot of their soldiers were Berbers. That means Algerian and Lybian. So, also African. There are ruins in Zimbabwe. Not much is known but it had to have been a powerful civilization...South African. Zanzibar is in East Africa. They were powerful through commerce. Mali and Ghana, in West Africa built powerful empires. What they all lacked, except Carthage, were powerful navies. Except for the North Africans, they lacked horses. African territory is also huge. Without horses and ships, mobility is restricted.
@@icetrip2417 And then there's Shaka: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka "If a regiment had the misfortune to be defeated, whether by its own fault or not, it would on its return to headquarters find that a goodly proportion of the wives and children belonging to it had been beaten to death on Shaka's orders"
I think this is a good start. I wonder if it would help of thinking about specific kingdoms rather than large central regions. On the Asian continent, there have been many kingdoms but only one or two has tried to conquer the world. It’s also important to remember that most empires that did try to conquer the world did probably not start that way but it was an idea that slowly took form for whatever reason. I would recommend playing around with the following: 1. Identify who did try to conquer the world 2. Try to understand their why 3. Identify which African empires has the ability to conquer the world eventually 4. Compare those African empires to the world conquering empires
That sounds a very sensible suggestion. At the moment, there are too many generalisations to make a real, meaningful conclusion. For example: 1. The Mongol Empire wasn’t based on land ownership. At least, not to begin with, while Chinggis Khaan was still alive, because they were a nomadic people. It was based on exacting tribute from the conquered. 2. You could argue that some other cultures equated power with being close to the Divine. The Emperor of China was considered the Son of Heaven, for example. 3. Why did indigenous peoples of the Americas not conquer the world? So yes, direct comparisons of specific kingdoms would be more helpful.
Yo! This topic has been on my mind real tough lately! I'm always trying to analyze history to understand how TF we got to where we are now. I appreciate all of your scholarship Hometeam! I watch a ton of RU-vid, and this is one of my absolute favorite channels. I'ma put my money where my mouth is real soon! Thank you! 🙏🏿
This video is a lie and the Spanish fought a near 800 year long war because Africans had imperialistic colonizing ambitions and invaded Europe. Sauce - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista
Because Africa did not have the same fertile lands needed to mass produce food and other supplies that are needed for Militaries. Stop saying because Africans "were not Imperialistic".
😂 "Because Africa did not have the same fertile lands needed to mass produce food and other supplies that are needed for militaries" who'se militaries? Yet Africa is duped as the continent with the most fertile land , the most arable lands, and the most tropical than anyone else. It is indeed the most everything, even the most coveted!! This is not romanticizing. Africa has been doing everything by themselves for themselves for thousands of years. Until right after the Berlin 1884 conference. Indeed Africa is not imperialistic. They don't even have vengeance spirit in them. They just want to be left alone, to live their African lifes.
One thing to make note of is that it wasn't just Africans that never sought to conquer the world. 99% of human populations that ever existed have never tried to conquer the world. There are really two or arguably three population groups that sought to conquer the world. Keep in mind "Greece", "Rome, and "Persia" were diverse empires.
Good First Point! Some lost, brainwashed minds delude themselves that 'world conquest' is a norm, when the opposite IS the reality! lol Humans are designed to be 'inward-looking'; and MOST humans and 'human breeds' ARE! Beasts, on the other hand, are designed 'to roam', hence the roaming of the violence-loving and beastly neanderthals.
I would argue that there were a lot of other factors, such as size, geography and technological development which all played a large part as well. To start, Africa is three times the size of Europe. Even if you exclude the territory covered by the Sahara it is still much larger than Europe. An Empire controlling all of Africa below the Sahara would end up being about twice the size of the Roman Empire. Next you have the Sahara itself. While not impassible it severely hampers travel between the North and South of Africa. This isolates Southern Africa from Northern Africa and Europe and makes the logistics of a medieval ground invasion going either way uneconomical when compared to just expanding into neighbours on the same side as you. (Edit. Thinking about it, this isolation is likely also the reason for the development of a different mindset since there would have been less outside influence) Eygpt and the Arabian peninsular have better access, as we can see with the Arabic slave trade having started much earlier compared to European enslavement of Africans. You even covered this yourself as several of the African nations that you mentioned as exceptions come from this region. As for the West Coast, if you look at the ocean currents and winds, they form cycles. These cycles are not favourable to sail powered ships looking to traverse from South to North Africa, or vice versa. You also have to consider the logistics of transporting a medieval army via boats. Given the distance you would need to travel on the open sea it is not viable for launching invasions in this manner unless you have already exhausted the potential for expansion over land. This is also the reason that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade relied on African rulers selling captured enemies rather than the slavers capturing slaves themselves. They couldn't bring enough people to actually threaten local African nations without it becoming unprofitable. And lastly technological disparity. It was only when the technological disparity between Europe and other areas of the world allowed small forces of Europeans to take on larger local forces that colonisation became viable. Prior to this Europeans were largely limited to the areas around the Mediterranean. Since Africans never achieved a similar level of technological disparity they were never able to realistically project power beyond the continent even if a nation had desired to. (Please note that America is an exception to this due diseases that European explorers unknowingly transported with them wiping out large portions of the native populations in both North and South America. Without this it is possible that American powers would have been able to resist colonisation)
I would say the technology disparity is not true for most of history, as iron technology was first invented in Africa. And for most of the middle ages you could easily compare the warriors and fighting technology of Africa to be similar if not in some case superior to Westen technology. For example the heavy armor of most European soldiers compared to the flexible armor used across the Sudan. Both sheild and sword technologies were supreior in design to their European counterparts. But that being said one of the largest empires in Africa was the Kanem bornu empire it stretched from Libya to Nigeria to central Africa and lasted for a thousand years. Even though it covered Africa from North to West no one really talks about it because it didnt expand outside of Africa but its already was a huge mass of land coverage. As we all know China, America and many more countries can fit inside of Africa all at once Africa is a huge place to try to get under one rule its like getting a small planet under one rule. And finally when we talk about colonizing it should be mentioned that Black people are the original colonizers of the earth and even though most Europeans like to down play it of course there was violence between modern black human beings out of Africa and neanderthals and other subhuman hominids. Its only natural when competing for land and resources and of course it was Africans that oversaw the speedy extinction of these native sub humans and probably through similar mechanisms as the europeans did to native americans and other indigenous people through conquest and just out right technological superiority. Most sex that occurred between modern Africans and Neanderthal was Modern African men and neanderthal women that's why there's still about 1 to 3 percent neanderthal genetics within europeans. So really if we step back into a deeper history to get perspective many of these modern empires are only 3 thousand years old we colonized the earth 60 thousand years ago. If were talking about taking resources, subjugating the native people and spreading your influence, technology and way of life. NO ONE has been more successful than the African. Art was created by the African, the bow and arrow was created by the African, counting and mathematics was created by the African. Even the first shelters are from Sudan 90 thousand years ago other hominids lived in caves and trees. For millennia we were the most superior living being on this planet equal to none and only secondary to god. There is no place on this planet I can go without the influence of the genius and invention of the Black mind. If were being very practical here no one has had a bigger empire on the earth than the African. The very foundation of humanity and every culture on this planet was laid by countless inventions of Africans.
Only correction;at first the European settlers didn’t know that the simple sickness they had and recovered from would decimate Native American populations but after they saw the first batch of natives die from smallpox and other diseases they intentionally used biologically warfare.They’d knowingly give natives blankets tainted with smallpox to wipe them out
@@nbokomwana9220 I'm glad you asked... 1st off, it is worth noting that his discussions on the topic with Professor Griff of Public Enemy got Nick Canon cancelled a few years back, if you recall. The author touches on how: while the rest of the world was busying itself with monolithic structures & monuments, building civilizations & so forth, that Europe, named after a rape victim, was in its Neolithic Stone Age. Basically, from the moment the ark of Noah rested, and since the Genesis 10 Table of Nations, Europe was locked in permafrost preventing agriculture or any of the early development expected for societal growth, and so, due to that very urgent point of the lacking natural resources, the impoverished mindset that spawned from said lack put the European in a naturally kill & steal mode, as the only means of guaranteeing a future for themselves.
@@evrywerigoable do you really think that Noah ark existed? 😅 Yes because of the Great Ice Age. Europeans were on survived mode bro. That is why they became so jealous when they enter into our Eden garden. The worst thing is we were always sharing with them but their greediness took over.
@@evrywerigoablethisway of thinking is rooted in this need for black Americans to prove to whites they are superior..Same thing the NOI teaches.All cultures used caves, even Aficans( look up the NoK caves) people was living in them in the 1900s..All peoples kill , still, rape, and enslave. The Natives Americans , Europeans, Africans , all did it.. If Africans like say Queen Nzinga had large ships they would have conquered land because they were already conquered and enslaving their neighbors
This is why: “The significant difference between ourselves and other men, our ‘racially’ higher level of aggression, must be explained if we are to deal with it. We differ from other men in one other respect: of all major groups, only Caucasoids crossed the sapiens threshold in a glacial environment.” (Michael Bradley, The Iceman Inheritance, pg. 59)
@@stevestarscream5182- Like drilling oil and destroying the climate? Like digging up ancestors to put in a museum? Western “innovation” has led to destruction of the environment. Historically Caucasians have no respect for the lands they colonize.
@@stevestarscream5182- It’s interesting because the villains of the Autobots have the same mindset. Gather natural resources for energon until nothing else is left. Even your screen name is a hint at your mindset.
@@belstar1128 And that happened shortly before European colonisation. I wonder how our native civilisations would have developed with this new kind of mindset. So many ifs!
It's so disappointing that they didn't sought after more that how you develop the reason we were colonised is because people where to comfortable it's a disgrace
I think also that Africans evolved intellectually beyond that primal mindset to savagely take and destroy other groups of people. Look at Egypt for example, im sure they had wars etc but looking at their accomplishments they seemed more on self development and self conquest rather than conquest on the world. Now there is not to say there is no war and conflict in Africa but as you look at history you can see how Africa is now and compare it to how it was before the the Islamic and Christian conquest of Africa!
You added more receipts to your own theory… The fact is, more than one thing can be true. We had an abundance of wealth and natural resources, but we were also diverse, to explain the region’s that didn’t have the resources…
A land with all the resources that they need, without the thirst for conquering outside of their sphere, and being family-centric has no need for world domination
Considering that they fought amongst their selves and created with large kingdoms being created in their own lands obviously the only reason they didn’t invade other areas because of the lack the technical sophistication that still evident to this very day.
@thomasb1813 were not talking about modern day were talking historical There was pretty much near nothing african would want out of europeans on the level of conquests or slavery
I love this channel so much, as a pan africanist and african historian myself its great to see more of us have a more accurate history channel dedicated to telling our story without bias.
Thank you, you made some very good points in this video. Another thing I've noticed even when I was younger studying European history in school, they spent a lot of time having Wars with one another. It appeared to me that the continent of Africa gave them a chance to focus not on one another, but on a different group of people, with a different color, a different faith a different language and on a different continent. Thank you again keep up the good work, your studies are very will put together in details and is very inspirational.
Two main reasons why Europeans waged war with each other were religion and politics. Colonialism did not, by far, distract us from going to war against each other. In the 17th century, when European colonialism and slavery was on the rise, Europe was almost constantly at war with each other- on the continent and on the seas. Even when you’re talking about active colonialism/ imperialism in the late nineteenth century, it still mostly featured European nations quarrelling over land that didn’t belong to them. A lot of medieval and early modern wars were caused by either religious disagreements, or power vacuums (basically European royal houses married their children off to other European royal houses to strengthen bonds and alliances, but this had as a consequence that if some king died, several countries would make a claim to the throne, because the king married all his children off to those countries’ kingdoms. And being unable to come to an agreement about who should be the rightful successor, the parties would go to war). Slavery and colonialism were even about race; it was moreso about the fact that the slaves weren’t Christians (the Europeans would’ve enslaved their own if they could have, but Christian law said that you can’t enslave fellow Christians). If a people was seen as ‘inferior’ the reasons were more likely because they weren’t Christian and because they had ‘primitive’ societies in the colonisers’ eyes. It’s why Europeans had a massive white savior complex towards everyone else. The ideas of white supremacy came to life in the late nineteenth century when the first evolutionary theory about humans (that we don’t have a common ancestor because we don’t look the same- the scientists themselves didn’t make any racist conclusions, they stated that due to our differences the Adam and Eve story must’ve been nonsense) was taken and twisted by people who wanted to bring back, or excuse, slavery and slave trade, by dehumanising black and brown people.
Because we had everything we needed water gold iron salt fruits trees life animals Africa is so rich still till this day but the people are so poor because of the colonizers
Power conceived of as residing in the eldest, therefore most sagacious, is, of course, shared by many indigenous north American groups, also across large portions of a continent (and perhaps two). The concept of power there, though, and not uniquely, is that the creator's power, expressed mainly through culture-hero ancestors and the natural world, distributes power among all entities because turtle power and butterfly power and eagle power and river power and human power are all required for working together in harmony, which pleases the ancestors and keeps the world going. Such a model of distributed power is also inherently inimical to the ambition for world domination. Thanks for your insights and great writing, and for giving me a chance to revisit these hugely relevant ideas in an out-of-Africa context!
Non- renewable resource. That term resonates with me for some reason. How does that effect the resource and the continent? I'm feeling a rabbit hole. Exceptional content.
This is a really interesting beginning and excited to see how you continue to develop this viewpoint. One thing that stands out to me that may be helpful is considering whether or not ancient peoples viewed their surrounding geography in the same way as we do. Our modern world has divvied up these continents and regions in ways that may have been completely unrecognizable to people who only had an eye-level view of the world around them. For example, you mention Abyssinian adventurism in Yemen and Moorish/Amazigh invasions of southern Spain and the Mediterranean. Human movement across the Strait of Gibraltar and/or the Bab-el-Mandeb has been pretty continuous for tens of thousands of years, so the question becomes did these ancient African peoples see Spain or Yemen as truly "separate" lands. Yes, different kingdoms under different kings - but different lands or continents in the way that we think about it? I wonder. Anyways, hope that's something you find worth consideration. Thanks!
I think one really big factor that probably outweighs anything philosophical is geography. If you look at Europe and Asia, you'll find that most of the Empires that expanded outside of their continent of origin were also on the edges of each continent. A larger percentage of Europe was made up of countries with overseas empires, but I think that can more easily be attributed to how small Europe is than something core to European cultures. In the case of Asia, most of the multi-continental empires started in West Asia, which borders on Europe and Africa. The only real exception to that is the Mongol Empire, which was pretty exceptional in more ways than that. The Chinese Empire considered themselves the center of the world, but they didn't so much try to conquer the rest of it as think it already basically belonged to them, so they don't really count. And European powers from the West Coast eventually colonized much of the globe, but that was a really recent historical development; for the vast majority of European history, the only ones conquering outside of Europe either bordered on Asia to begin with or were against the Mediterranean, a relatively short ship ride to Asia or Africa. Africa is huge, and only a few parts of it really had the potential for local empires to expand outside of the continent; North Africa and the Horn are the only parts really close to other continents. These are also notably the regions that had empires expand outside of the continent. There was the potential for overseas colonization on either coast, but that kind of colonization really wasn't common anywhere until Europeans started doing it in the Early Modern Period, so Africa doesn't need a unique explanation for not pursuing it. The Swahili states weren't exceptional among Indian Ocean trading powers for not being expansionist. Theoretically West Africans could had expanded across the Atlantic, but unlike the European powers that ultimately ended up colonizing in the Americas, they didn't have a surefire way back; Atlantic currents push west from Africa, and east to Europe. They also have rough seas; combine those two factors, and they never dedicated much time to developing deep--water ships, because hugging the coast was a safer way to go fishing or travel without getting pulled out to sea.
That's a lot of BS. As a matter-of-fact, Narmer/Nemes and his son Hor-Aha, Senusret III/Sesostris, Ahmose I, Thutmoses III, Hatshepsut, Ramesses the Great, the XXVth Dynasty and Cleopatra did conquer at a few instances in Egypt's history. By the end of Hor-Aha's reign, the empire founded by he and his father expanded as far west as in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains and as far east as into Djeset (Canaan-Phoenicia) . Hor-Aha was said to be the (re)builder of Jericho and from having dispatched a few of his sisters as governors of Gaza and a few other city-states in Djeset. Given the similarities between the Epic of Gilgamesh, the myth of Horus, the myth of Melqart in Phoenicia and the story of Hor-Aha, it would be even likely that Hor-Aha may have even conquerred Sumer in the past and been the founder of a "second Jericho" e.g. the city-state Uruk: which would made of the ruler-gods of Uruk during the later Sumerian period the latter's descendants too. Many conquerrors throughout history from the kings of Persia and Alexander of Macedon to Napoleon even esteemed Sesostris to be the first historical world-conquerror. He expanded the Kemetian Empire as far west as the eastern bank of the Rhine river and in Italy as well as in Put/Phut (all of North Africa west to the Nile and east to the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. Not to conflate with the land of Punt) , and as far east as into Gangetic regions of the Indias, the Hindu Kush, Zabulistan and the Amu-Darya river! As far north as Scythian Crimea, the sources of its main affluvial plan, the Ripathian Mountains (Carpathes and Ural Mountains) and the Caucasus, then as far south as into the Nuba Mountains in Nubia, all of Arabia Felix, the entire Red Sea, then the coastal regions of the Land of Punt aa far south as "where the [Erythrean] sea end in a shoal" (Sofala, in Northern Mozambique!!!) in what are today the Coast of Barbary and the Azanian/Swahili Coast! Sesostris himself stated that much of the regions he conquerred were already under the rule of his ancestors during the legendary "Age of the Gods". It was said that in prehistoric times, the god Osiris walked the earth with his procession of Anous, spreaded the Word among heathen early humans and conquerred them not by military strength nor by brutal force but by diplomacy and the power of persuasion: spreading his empire as far as into the exact same Asiatic regions conquerred myriads of years later by his mortal descendant, as as far west as into the Pillars of Hercules. Taharqa was stated by Herodotus from having once led a military campaign in southeast Iberia (southeast Spain) as a prince, conquerred the region and founded a city in his name. Modern-day Spanish city of Tarraco is said to this day from bearing his name. Cleopatra was ruling for a time all of Egypt, Cyrenaica and portions of the Hellenistic Orient before losing it to the Romans. Kemetians weren't the only ones. It was heavily suggested that the land of Punt in the heart of Africa used to be the spiritual capital of the entire world for untold eons, with the successive dynastic generations of first Gods, then Anous; later on Puntite rulers then Ethiopian Macrobians of Azania, Nubia and of the Horn, as overlords or shepards of Mankind. By medieval times, Oriental texts from the Arab world, Persia, India, China and of the Malay world spoke about the tremendously vast thalassocratic and mercantile imperialistic influence that "Zanguestan" or "Zanjistan" or "Bilad al-Zanj" or "Bilad al-kahin Yahn/Land of Priester Johann _south_ of Habshi/Abyssinia"-- or "Shenzi Empire" as named by some in East Africa and Central Africa, Swahili-speaking empire ruled by the Chwezi Dynasty of the Kitara Empire (from 630s CE - 1303 CE) in the heart of Africa had all over vast regions of the Old World: so much so that Malay royal kinglists spoke that the Indian conquerror of their civilization, Chola emperor Rajendra I The Great (circa 971 - 1044 CE; reigned 1014 - 1044 CE) , had for mother a princess native from that so-called _bilad al-kahin Yahn_ . Imagine my surprise when I learned that Chola Royal Spouse Vanavan Mahadevi/Tribhuvana Mahadevi was an Azanian princess-- potentially even a _Bachwezi/Bahima_ princess from the Kitaran heartland and that one of the greatest conquerrors in the history of medieval Asia was half-African... Even a few Jewish accounts from tbe Near East and from Moorish Spain, as well as of Templar crypted legends and Arthurian lore spoke about the obscure mighty mystical influence of the Priester John and of the "Fisher King" in lands far south away from Abyssinia, Tukre and of Western Sudan: of how even the rulers of the Senegal river, of the Mali Empire, of the negus of Ethiopia and of the kings of Nubia both revered and _feared_ them. At last, when the Dutch and the Portuguese reached the East Indias by 16th century, they stated that Anzicana in the heary of Africa with their ferocious _Imbangalas/Gwanas/Gallas_ (e.g. Bangalas) overlords already held much of Malaysia as a _protectorate._ Be careful to claim too quickly that we did not conquer the world. There has a nuance between "invading" and "conquerring".
@@ptolemeeselenion1542 ...The Greek idea of "Sesostris" was completely mythical lol, but in any case, Egyptians conquering outside of the continent doesn't contradict what I said even remotely, I literally directly mentioned North Africa being close to other continents, and Egypt is in North Africa. Similarly, Punt is in the Horn, which I also mentioned, though unlike with other Empires in the Horn we have no evidence of Punt being a large Empire or extending outside of Africa. Prester John is a European myth created during the Crusades, initially said to be from India, and only later relocated to Africa because Europeans blended all distant lands together. "al-kahin" is not the Arabic equivalent to "Prester," and "Yahn" is not the Arabic equivalent to John, Yahya is. The Kitara Empire is not known for certain to have existed, but the legends do not say anything of it extending outside of the African continent, or even to the coast; it was placed in the Great Lakes region. The small West Central African Kingdom of Anzicana/Teke absolutely didn't have a protectorate on the opposite side of the African continent and across the Indian Ocean, nor did they control it with the land-bound Mbangala. Your comment is completely packed with pseudohistory.
@@SomasAcademy I don't think the Greeks were around when these 3,800 years old papyri and stelas that were contemporaneous to Senusret III and corroborating everything Herodotus parroted in his books thirteen centuries after, were made. There has multiple accounts and archaelogical evidence of Egyptians and Kushites conquerring otside the continent, moreso West Asia and the Aegan Sea at several instances. Ahmose I literally ascended to the throne with "Lord of Henebaut" ("Lord of the Aegean Sea lands") amid his many titles and the XVIIIth Dynasty hardly started. There has multiple oral traditions in Central Africa and East Africa, of written accounts from Ethiopia, the Arab world, by medieval Jewish scholars, in Iran, India, East Asia and the Malay world that reports about the political and economical prominence of an African state rivalling all of those regions and nations whose was militarily powerful enough to unify all Swahili city states and to pose a threat to the likes of Abyssinia and of Asian states since their heartland in Intralacustrine Africa. And don't let me start with what the Portuguese, Dutch and Arabs reported about Anzicana from 16th to 18th centuries. They were terrified of them.
@@ptolemeeselenion1542 There are no Papyri backing up the nonsense the Greeks made up about Senwosret lmao. Egypt conquering outside of Africa isn't in dispute, don't motte and bailey by bringing that up as if it supports the sweeping fictionalized Greek narrative of "Sesostris." By all means, start sending me some primary Portuguese, Dutch, and Arab sources demonstrating how terrified they were of this small kingdom you claim had an overseas empire.
Hell they should have and could have if they wanted. Shouldve fought Rome more often and the Macedonians. But the size of Africa meant that most empires expanded in Africa, just like most Asian Empires expanded in Asia. Plus the size of the Sahara made it harder for some African empires.
there were ones who did fight the Romans.... and lost the wars. in each case it was early victories and some very embarrassing defeats of roman forces. then the actual legions would arrive and sacked major cities and forts. while doing this the romans would hit the end of their effective supply lines retreat to one of said taken fords and sue for peace because kicking the the crap out of kush was not worth the cost. even so the peoples of that area were able to put up an effective fight for a short time but lacked the numbers and gear to win, as at the time Rome ruled the whole of the Mediterranean region and lands beyond it was never a winnable fight by that time. centuries earlier against just the holdings of Egypt such invasions were doable and a couple times they even succeeded in beating Egypt, even ruling it for a time. against Rome at its height not a sliver of a chance and history backs that conclusion
Others things to consider why it was difficult to adopt a conquer the world mentality: 1) Logistics - the difficulty of moving people and equipment below the Sahara to access points above the Sahara. 2) Command and Control: the difficulty of commanding vast armies with village council construct. It would fail due to paralysis of analysis…too many deliberations. 3) Money- the difficulty of marshaling vast sums of money (gold) required to a global expedition…outside of traditional barter based economics of west/ central Africa.
4:38 this is still practiced in Somalia and the Masai and other East African communitiesand even in Botswana, the king doesn't have any rights to take decisions that has not been approved by the council of the Elders of the Society who are representing each Tribe or Clan's interest in the kingdom and i believe that's the real Original democracy
i hate when people speak about Africans as if they were all the same, as if the African CONTINENT has only one tribe, one culture, one history, one way of looking at things...
I was thinking about this very question 3 days ago and here it is. The conclusion I came to is very similar to your points on the African concept of power and the abundance of resources.
I love these videos that breakdown the difference of thought in africa, its a perfect starting point for people like me to conceptualize how life worked back then
Africans had imperial ambitions aplenty. Ghana, Mali, Songhay, Benin, Nubia, Lunda, Zulu to name a few were examples of powerful African polities waging aggressive war against weaker foes. Why Africans rarely campaigned beyond the continent could be the same reason why Russia, a major imperialist European power, was no maritime power on the level of the British or Spanish. For that matter, it could be the reason why the Mongols, the most aggressive pre-modern empire in history, was not a seapower, in spite of the naval acumen they demonstrated during their conquest of Song China. Russia and Mongolia were land powers. As were the Mughals, the Persians, Turks, (not Ottomans) the Seljuk Turks, and the Gokturks. Advances in naval technology conferred operational advantages upon Europeans enabling them to expand beyond their continent. This willingness to take to the sea was facilitated by European leadership. Such willingness greenlighted Columbus' expedition to the Western Hemisphere, which upon making landfall he erringly thought was India. 15th century China dabbled in using its navy to pursue aggressive warfare until its leadership curtailed all maritime adventures. The African states that were imperialistic and militaristic were overwhelmingly land powers. In the tropical zone, African armies tended to be infantry. Formidable infantry based armies such as Benin and Ashanti relied on that arm of their militaries to expand their territories. Sahelian empires like Songhay and Kanem-Bornu relied on cavalry to impose their power. African states demonstrated success in the use of infantry and cavalry and would not have been motivated to become seaborne when their imperial objectives were in relatively easier reach. Of course that probably would have changed had Europeans not colonized Africa.
@@teecee8262 Actually, Britain was the leading naval power during 19th century. Russia developed a formidable navy, but its imperial emphasis was on land with its expansion into Siberia and the Caucasus regions.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your inquiry. One thing I would encourage you to do is remember that boarders, especially as we think of them today, are imaginary lines on a map and would mean nothing to the people of even 100 years ago vs 1000. So when Egyptians went out they weren’t going crossing some boarder into the “middle east”. More over, the rise of capitalism and industrialism can’t be overstated. The idea that the world and its resources are a thing to be exploited to build wealth is probably the most significant shift in world ideology in that last 2000 years.
@@shorrodmcclain8777Lmao..so the African had one of the strongest and powerful empires with advances on mathematics, astrology, agriculture and construction but didn't have the knowledge to build a boat and sail or travel to other countries?
@ashlouw5350 I think it's because Africa lacks a lot of rivers flowing into the ocean and just navigable rivers in general. Compared to Europe for example that has a ton. Also many of the Arabic empires hugged the Mediterranean which was very navigable. Also along with very few rival powers across the seas (West especially) Africans had very little incentive to project power in the waters. The Europeans, Arabs and North Africans on the other hand had the Mediterranean. In the North of Europe you had the North Sea with powers like the Vikings, the English, The Lowlanders, and the French competing in the waters. To the far North you had the Baltics. The Hanseatic States, The Polish, The Rus/Slavs all competed in that area. Europeans have been navigating waters for a very very long time and the had to. The best ones to do so would've been the Mutapa or those of Mozambique asking the East Coast but idk about their history as much. Even then it would've been hard to reach South America and much of Asia was already developed and settled in.
Technology is born out of necessity. Leaving the continent was completely unnecessary, so no one was thinking of building ships to travel the Atlantic and carry goods. Only boats to fish.
@@codewithnd5761 Exactly what I was thinking..They were more worried about what laid further in the continent than away from it since it was so fruitful
Because their Masculine and Feminine energy was balanced and they were more interested in community building, not war, and empire building. The energy of imagination are Masculine and Feminine energy, our god power.
The Atlantic slave trade existed because of endless inter-tribal wars. It was the prisoners of war which were sold to Europeans. African chiefs were only interested in more weapons with which to defeat their enemies and acquire more prisoners of war to sell. Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, the Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda; these are places of recent and ongoing conflict. People who are too busy fighting each other and struggling to survive are not going to look outward. We are mistaken to view Africa as a continent of one people. That's not the case anymore than the countries of Europe
I don't particularly agree with this thesis. I subscribe more to that thought that for West & Central Africa, the strongest imperial states of those regions, i.e., Mali & Songhai, were too geographically distanced from Eurasia to effectively expand outside of Africa. But, where African states were logistically close enough to Eurasia, they did embark on imperial expansions into those regions. For example, the 25th Dynasty of Kush didn't just stop at Egypt, but expanded into the Levant to curb Assyrian expansion, which isn't well known. Also, for your example of the Aksumite expansion into Yemen, you failed to mention that there was a previous invasion into Arabia under the pagan King Gadarat in 200-270 AD. King Kaleb used this previous invasion to lay claim to Yemen for his religiously modivated invasion. This shows that when African Empires were logistically close enough to Eurasia to embark on imperial expansions, they did.
Good summary, However when it comes to imperial expansion or Globalization, there is no such thing as geographically distant, as the British Empire covered 90% percent of the world 🌎 in far away places like the Americas,Polynesia and Down Under(Australia)
There's a couple of factors that should be noted when talking about how Europeans were able to colonize the new world. They had brought diseases that decimated 90% of the population. This allowed them to conquer vast swaths of land that would have otherwise been more densely inhabited and been defended with much more native manpower. It was this decimation of the native population through disease that made such colonization possible, otherwise it wouldn't have been successful. This along with the advent of industrialization changed the rulebook on what was logistically possible in previous centuries. The Roman Empire for example wouldn't have been able to conquer West Africa for the same reason West African states wouldn't have been able to conquer the Mediterranean, the logistics capabilities available to them during their time period would have made it infeasible.@@215770678
I think it’s mainly how big it is. There were very expansive empires through African history that held extensive bounds. And being rich in resources of course helps. Good vid on more of the philosophical biases!
Great Video! Personally, Africa is a continent and naturally the outside world for each polities could've generally meant their neighbours beyond their borders. I believe given the size of the continent and the strategic resources and locations within the continent, the polities within the continent, be it Kingdoms or Empires, are more focused on subjecting their neighbors, rather than invading beyond the continent which, frankly speaking, wouldve been a waste of manpower and have been expensive as well, despite having the means to do so. Take the case of the Sahelian Empires, despite being formidable, they had rather little interest to expand into North Africa, hell, even parts of Western Africa because of their strategic territories and geography.
Great podcast. That had a uniquely Afrikan worldview that was necessary in understanding who we are. Please continue to express "Ourstory." We need these lifelines in this sea of Euro-propaganda
As you mention trade and resources was available locally. Also you have keep in mind the size of the continent. It's was a task to travel through Africa.
Firstly, Africans need to know that there is an outside world before having an ambition to conquer it. Only coastal living people in Africa will know that there is somewhere outside beyond. Secondly, only major settlements remotely care about expansion through conquest. Everyone else is barely surviving. Something many people fail to understand is that everyone on the continent was doing exactly what those out were doing; migration.
Hey, I love the content only tweaks (Aksumite's) not Abyssinians. I would say Kingdom of Askum, Nubia/Kush and pre-dynastic Egypt. Ka-Sekhen before Narmer, Menes, aha (if they are the same Pharoah) they were far more aggressive than say China, or the Inca's in making different countries/areas pay taxes.
Logistics, the African continent is vast and you'll need to cross vast dangerous routes, supplying and feeding man power would be hard. You could say by sea but unless you were in coastal west, north or east Africa you logistics will be your downfall. Also most of Africa does not have natural harbours for large ships, so you can't really do much supply wise. Compare to eursia where most well know empires occurred. Army logistics were and are still an issue in Africa its why African nations struggle to defend their borders against coups or rebels. Unless you have absolute air power war in Africa will drain you. So empire building is not the lick. Those who managed it were good diplomatically and building alliances but full on war mongering aint going to work
I would say its to do with the size of africa, the location of countries and the balance of power. The Malian Empire in the 1400s was 1/2 the size that the Roman empire was in 25BC. Likewise China is 2X the size of the Roman Empire when it was at its biggest. Why go somewhere else when you can have an empire that size on your doorstep. Like how the most powerful Euro nations kept each other in check (excluding the Romans), no one country was powerful enough to defeat all the others. So they had to go elsewhere to expand. It wasn't until they gained a military advantage (UK-Navy, Romans-Formation, Mongols-strategy) they they had the possibility to expand. That balance has been relatively even in Africa with none having massive military advantages over all others on or off continent. The African countries that did try to conquer off continent, did so because Europe was closer to Egypt than Nigeria, for example, Yeman was closer to Ethiopia than Ghana for example.
That concept of conquering the world has happened in my opinion only four times for very very specific circumstances and all of them short living considering the full length of human history: By Alexandro Magno, by Gengis Khan, by the Europeans in the XVI-XIX period, and by the Soviet ideology. All this to say that the idea of conquering the world is not really that much a normal human concept but rather an exception or anomaly!
@@teecee8262 I don't know, the Soviet Union was expansionist, it annexed the baltic states just because it could and even other socalist states like Yugoslavia and China were rather hostile to it if they weren't under it's direct sphere of influence or dependan on it. Not to mention it didn't have to balkanize once it change economic models if it wa truely a libatory force.
@teecee8262 What're you talking about? The Soviets backed any and all powers that pushed for Communism, generally with arms and supplies to support their revolutions/war efforts. While no different to US expansion, the issue comes with the fact that whenever communist revolutions occur, atrocities soon follow. You also ignore that to ensure the Communist party's control, Tens of millions of eastern Europeans were killed either through direct use of force or through practices of forced famines on provinces for not towing the line/following the party's wishes.
@@sackofpeas2470 no different from the atrocities committed by US backed dictators. both sides hands were dripping blood of innocents. the list of US invasions and backed coups is pages long and spans decades
If the question is specifically why the Africans didn’t conquer abroad then the easiest approach is to consider why they wouldn’t have thought to do it. Sub Saharan Africa is isolated by ocean on three sides and the Sahara on top. Land based expansion off the continent wasn’t a great option. West, Central and Southern Africa, I am unaware of any strong blue water naval traditions in these regions. East Africa is connected to the Indian Ocean trade network but may have had trouble forming a blue water navy. If I remember correctly the region is regularly ravaged by droughts which can make forming large kingdoms difficult. Aside from lacking any reason to engage in naval dominance, and having no viable land routes for expansion, The SubSahara was just isolated from everything going on in Eurasia. I’d be curious to know what technologies different polities picked up from outside along with their diplomatic and military relations. Why didn’t the Ottomans try to absorb East Africa? Seems like a better move than cracking your teeth on a Balkan Jawbreaker. Then again they were probably just doing what Egypt did in the Levant. Defensively expanding their borders. TLDR: African kingdoms had no viable routes to expand off continent, and most were probably uninterested compared to the much more immediate prospect of fighting their neighbors.
DMT, axum, Punt, ajuuran, adal, the Somali city States... Theres loads of history of naval warfare and transcontinental conflict in the horn of africa. Droughts arent a problem for a nomadic pastoralist people but you're right nomadic people be they steppe or Arab cannot form large sedentary societies instead they aggressive disposition allows them when they put tribal in fighting to the side to subsume local settled civilisation... Think mongol steppe vs han Chinese, turkic steppe vs Persian, Arab bedouin vs mesopatian... That's what Somalis were to habesha who unlike the cushitic speaking Somalis the habesha are semetic people thanks to millenia worth of back and forth annexations and wars with south Arabian kingdoms From the Maldives to socotra to Aden horn Africans have waded beyond african shores for the sake of conquest. Main reason being is horn Africans can't survive in subsaharan africa due to be acutely vulnerable to tropical diseases found in the interior of africa all the way to the west coast.
Honestly i respct that you made it clear that this is a theory and not set in stone and that your open to discussion and critique alot of videos dont and just state these are the facts and this is how it is hoping to sway your opinion. Also these are very interesting concepts and id say worth more research
When you're already a king, the blueprint, the first human being you have a deeper understanding of life but when you feel inferior then the need to feel superior arises if you know you know
You're getting closer to the truth here. What is very apparent is the misunderstanding of just how far we had already developed at the time. Iron forging is NOT a simple, low tech endeavour for any society - how was it done? Where was it done? Why did it stop given the prowess that once was? You're getting closer to uncovering a lot more here. The timelines also aren't so well documented in the his-story books either. It won't be easy but you're doing great work! 🤝
If "African" iron making was so advanced why couldn't most Africans copy European /Arab (Turkish) firearms like the Japanese did? Guns are not magic; they can be engineered and copied. The Japanese did this in the mid-16th century. It seemed many Africans were dependent on getting guns from Europeans in trade (often in slaves, gold, etc). I'm speaking specifically about West Africa (from Senegal down to Angola) - same story.
But they did?? Specifically in west Africa (mainly talking about sahel and forest regions of west Africa which goes down to nigeria not angola). In particularly the kingdom of benin were actually known for making their own fire arms and even cannons they initially got this technology from the Portuguese but eventually learned how to make it themselves and the ashantis did the exact samething even going as far as manufacturing their own gunpowder though European gunpowder was preferred due to it being of better quality due to its materials. Furthermore the kanuris literally got gifted European slave soldiers by the ottomans which aided in making kanem bornu a gunpowder empire so much so that kanuri firearms were being exported all over the central sudan and this made guns and independent gun manufacturing and exportation relatively common in places like the hausalands. To research this further go on JSTOR articles or Cambridge's history of africa
This is all very very interesting. However, the reason Alkebulan people did not 'invade' the world is because we were the original people of every nation. You might want to review the Books "When The World Was Black", by Supreme Understanding and "The African Origin Of Civilization", by Cheikh Anta Diop. These books tell how the original people of every nation were ALL originally from Alkebulan...but thousands and thousands of years after this, what you are talking about comes into play.
