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Black Africa: past and present. Textbook on New and Recent History of Tropical and Southern Africa

THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

INSTITUTE OF GENERAL HISTORY

CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF DMITRY POZHARSKY

Edited by A. S. Balezin, S. V. Mazov, I. I. Filatova

Prepared for publication and published by decision of the Academic Council of Dmitry Pozharsky University

A. S. Balezin, A. B. Davidson, A. V. Voevodsky, A. L. Emelyanov, L. V. Ivanova, I. V. Krivushin, M. S. Kurbak, S. V. Mazov, A. D. Savateev, I. I. Filatova, G. V. Tsypkin, N. G. Shcherbakov

Scientific editors:

A. S. Balezin, S. V. Mazov, I. I. Filatova

Reviewers:

Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the School of Historical Sciences, National Research University Higher School of Economics A. L. Ryabinin, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Chief Researcher of the IVI RAS, Head of the Center for French Historical Studies of the IVI RAS Π. P. Cherkasov

Introduction

This book is about the history and present day of Black Africa. Otherwise, this region is called Sub-Saharan Africa or Tropical and South Africa.

Why not the whole continent? It so happened historically that the countries of North Africa - Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia - since the time of the Arab conquest (in the 7th-8th centuries AD) have become part of the Arab world and are included in the sphere of interests of the Arabists. Africanists are concerned with the rest of Africa. Of course, this does not mean that there are no pan-African problems, Africa is trying to solve them jointly, in particular, within the framework of the African Union, which unites all the countries of the Black Continent. Relations between the two regions of the continent have always existed, but the history of South and Tropical Africa was very different from the history of the northern part of the continent.

Why past and present? The real is disturbing. Black Africa is one of the most disadvantaged regions in the world. The huge conflict potential accumulated there is turning into an increasingly explosive mixture. Protracted civil wars, numerous interstate, ethnic, religious conflicts, the weakness of centralized statehood, blatant backwardness and poverty, a huge number of refugees, the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and black racism - this is not a complete list of the troubles that Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing. This region is a powerful generator of "waves of instability" that, thanks to globalization, have even reached Russia.

Map 1.

Armed resistance to colonial expansion in Tropical and South Africa in the 19th - early 20th centuries.

Map 2.

The results of the colonial division of Africa. 1914

Map 3.

Regional map of Africa. 2015

Map 4.

Political map of Africa. 2015

The title of the book mentions New and Modern Times. The definition of these concepts causes endless disputes among historians. We are starting a “new” stage in the history of Africa with the Great Geographical Discoveries, at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, when the Black Continent became more and more part of a single world, and the “recent” one – from the beginning of the 20th century, when Black Africa turned out to be irreversibly tied to to the world economy and politics by colonial conquests.

We see as our readers educated people who are interested in history, but are not Africanists. We believe that the book will be a useful guide for students of history and for specialists in history who deal not only with the East, but also with general historical problems.

The volume of the textbook did not allow us to cover all the problems of the history and present day of Africa, all African pre-colonial and modern states. We tried to focus on the main and most typical. We considered both social and political history, touched upon the history of African culture and literature, and paid special attention to the history of relations between Russia and Black Africa. The book has country sections, and regional, and pan-African. The roll call and the intersection of materials with this approach are inevitable. We do not consider this a disadvantage. On the contrary, the same event, presented in different chapters from different angles of view (for example, about colonization and about anti-colonialism), is shown to be more multifaceted.

The selection of documents for the documentary supplement was difficult due to their large number, and we chose the main ones. Several publications of sources on the history of Black Africa have been published in Russia, the main ones are listed in the bibliography. Almost all the authors of this book participated in such publications, as they worked a lot with sources, including archival ones. The team of authors almost exclusively belongs to the Africanist school of Academician A. B. Davidson, one of the main features of which is precisely the reliance on primary sources. Belonging to one scientific school, we believe, gives us the advantage of a holistic view of the history of the Black Continent. This is what we offer to our readers.

It was under the editorship of Davidson that back in 1989 the first textbook on the history of Tropical and South Africa was published in our country. It covered the period from 1918 to 1988 and many of us contributed to its writing. 1
History of Tropical and South Africa. 1918–1988 M., 1989.

In the current century, several textbooks on the New and Recent History of the Black Continent have already been published - from the course of lectures by A. S. Balezin 2
Balezin A.S. Tropical and South Africa in Modern and Modern Times: People, Problems, Events. Tutorial. M., 2008.

Up to the three-volume book by A. L. Emelyanov 3
Emelyanov A.L. A New History of Sub-Saharan Africa. Tutorial. M., 2009; He is. Colonial history of sub-Saharan Africa. Tutorial. M., 2011; He is. Post-colonial history of sub-Saharan Africa. Tutorial. M., 2011.

Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. In this book we have tried to multiply the former and avoid the latter as much as possible.

A. S. Balezin, S. V. Mazov, I. I. Filatova

Part I
General information

§ 1. Political map

Politically, Tropical and Southern Africa (this region is also called Black or Sub-Saharan Africa) is a collection of states located on the African continent south of the Sahara, as well as on the adjacent islands. Currently, Tropical and South Africa includes 48 independent states and 3 dependent territories. The region is divided into 4 subregions: Eastern (18 states and 2 dependent territories; 8 million 868 thousand km 2; 394 million people), Western (16 states and 1 dependent territory; 5 million 113 thousand km 2; 340 million people. ), Central (9 states; 6 million 613 thousand km 2; 133 million people) and South Africa (5 states; 2 million 676 thousand km 2; 60.6 million people).

East Africa It is divided into 5 zones: the South Nile, the Horn of Africa, the Great African Lakes, Southeast Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean.

The South Nile zone includes the Republic of Sudan (1 million 886 thousand km 2; 40.2 million people in 2015) with the capital Khartoum and the Republic of South Sudan (620 thousand km 2; 12.3 million people in 2015). ) with Juba as its capital.

The Horn of Africa zone includes the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1 million 104 thousand km 2; 99.5 million people in 2015) with the capital Addis Ababa, the State of Eritrea (118 thousand km 2; 6.4 million people in 2014) with the capital Asmara, the Republic of Djibouti (23 thousand km 2; 810 thousand people in 2014) with the capital Djibouti and the Federal Republic of Somalia (638 thousand km 2; 10.8 million people in 2014 .) with the capital Mogadishu, most of the territory of which is occupied by the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland with the capital Hargeisa (former British Somalia), as well as the autonomous entities of Puntland (in the northeast of Somalia), the State of the Central Regions (in the central part of the country), Jubaland and South- Western state (in the south).

The zone of the African Great Lakes includes the Republic of Kenya (581 thousand km 2; 45 million people in 2014) with the capital Nairobi, the United Republic of Tanzania (945 thousand km 2; 51.8 million people in 2014) with the capital of Dodoma, the Republic of Uganda (241 thousand km 2; 36.8 million people in 2013) with the capital Kampala, the Republic of Rwanda (26 thousand km 2; 11.3 million people in 2015) with the capital Kigali and the Republic of Burundi (28 thousand km 2; 11.2 million people in 2015) with the capital Bujumbura.

Southeast Africa includes the Republic of Mozambique (802 thousand km 2; 24.7 million people in 2014) with the capital Maputo, the Republic of Malawi (118 thousand km 2; 16.6 million people in 2014) with the capital of Lilongwe, the Republic of Zambia (753 thousand km 2; 16.2 million people in 2015) with the capital Lusaka and the Republic of Zimbabwe (391 thousand km 2; 13 million people in 2012) with the capital Harare.

The Indian Ocean island zone includes the Republic of Madagascar (587 thousand km 2; 22.4 million people in 2014) with the capital Antananarivo, the Republic of Mauritius (2 thousand km 2; 1.3 million people in 2014) with the capital Port Louis, Republic of the Seychelles (459 km 2; 92 thousand people in 2012) with the capital Victoria, Union of the Comoros (2.2 thousand km 2; 744 thousand people in 2013) with the capital Moroni and overseas departments of France Mayotte (374 km 2; 227 thousand people in 2015); the administrative center of Mamoudzu) and Reunion (2.5 thousand km 2; 845 thousand people in 2013) with the administrative center of Saint-Denis.

West Africa divided into 3 zones: Guinean, Western Sahel and islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Guinea zone includes the Republic of Senegal (197 thousand km 2; 13.6 million people in 2013) with the capital Dakar, the Republic of the Gambia (10.7 thousand km 2; 1.9 million people in 2013) with the capital Banjul, the Republic of Guinea-Bissau (36 thousand km 2; 1.7 million people in 2014) with the capital Bissau, the Republic of Guinea (246 thousand km 2; 11.6 million people in 2014) with the capital Conakry, the Republic of Sierra Leone (72 thousand km 2; 6.2 million people in 2013) with the capital Freetown, the Republic of Liberia (111 thousand km 2; 4.5 million people in 2015) with the capital Monrovia, the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire (322.5 thousand km 2; 23.9 million people in 2014) with the capital Yamoussoukro, the Republic of Ghana (238.5 thousand km 2; 27 million people in 2014) with the capital Accra, Togolese Republic (57 thousand km 2; 7.6 million people in 2015) with the capital Lome, Republic of Benin (115 thousand km 2; 10.9 million people (2015) .) with the capital Porto-Novo and the Federal Republic of Nigeria (924 thousand km 2; 182 million people in 2015) with the capital Abuja.

West Sahel(the zone between the Sahara desert and the Sudanese savannah) includes the Republic of Mali (1 million 240 thousand km 2; 15.8 million people in 2014) with the capital Bamako, Burkina Faso (274 thousand km 2; 17.3 million people in 2014) with the capital Ouagadougou, the Republic of Niger (1 million 267 thousand km 2; 17.1 million people in 2012) with the capital Niamey, as well as the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (1 million 31 thousand km 2 ; 4.1 million people in 2015) with the capital Nouakchott, which is sometimes considered part of North Africa.

The zone of the islands of the Atlantic Ocean includes the Republic of Cape Verde (4 thousand km 2; 525 thousand people in 2015) with the capital Praia and the British overseas territory of St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (394 km 2; 7.7 thousand people in 2014) with the administrative center of Jamestown.

Part Central Africa includes the Republic of Angola (1 million 247 thousand km 2; 24.4 million people in 2014) with the capital Luanda, the Republic of Cameroon (475 thousand km 2; 22.5 million people in 2013) with the capital Yaoundé , Central African Republic (CAR) (623 thousand km 2; 4.7 million people in 2014) with the capital Bangui, Republic of Chad (1 million 284 thousand km 2; 13.7 million people in 2015) with the capital N'Djamena, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (2 million 345 thousand km 2; 81.7 million people in 2015) with the capital Kinshasa, Republic of the Congo (342 thousand km 2; 4.7 million people in 2014) with the capital Brazzaville, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea (28 thousand km 2; 1.2 million people (2015) with the capital Malabo, the Gabonese Republic (268 thousand km 2; 1.7 million people in 2014 ) with the capital Libreville, Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe (964 km 2; 190 thousand people in 2014) with the capital Sao Tome.

South Africa includes the Republic of Namibia (826 thousand km 2; 2.1 million people in 2011) with the capital Windhoek, the Republic of Botswana (582 thousand km 2; 2.2 million people in 2014) with the capital Gaborone, South Africa republic (South Africa) (1 million 221 thousand km 2; 55 million people in 2015) with the capital Pretoria, the Kingdom of Lesotho (30 thousand km 2; 2.1 million people in 2014) with the capital Maseru and The Kingdom of Swaziland (17 thousand km 2; 1.1 million people in 2015) with the capitals Lobamba and Mbabane.

All now sovereign countries of Black Africa, with the exception of Liberia, were in the past dependent territories of Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Earlier than others (1931), South Africa gained sovereignty (until 1961 - the Union of South Africa). In 1942–1944 Ethiopia, captured by Italy in 1936, restored its statehood. The main wave of decolonization occurred in the second half of the 1950s - the second half of the 1970s; Zimbabwe (1980) and Namibia (1990) were the last to gain independence. 4
Although formally the UN abolished South Africa's mandate to govern Namibia back in 1966.

The states of Tropical and South Africa inherited their borders from the colonial period. These boundaries remained inviolable throughout the entire period of the Cold War. However, after its completion, two new states appeared on the map of East Africa - Eritrea (1993) and South Sudan (2011), which separated from Ethiopia and Sudan, respectively, although the first one established itself within the borders of the former Italian Eritrea.

The African countries, with the exception of Somalia and Ethiopia, have also inherited state languages ​​from their former European metropolises or mandate holders; in addition, Rwanda added English to its official languages ​​in addition to French, Equatorial Guinea added French and Portuguese in addition to Spanish, Seychelles added French and a local Creole dialect in addition to English. At the same time, some states gave official status to Arabic (Mauritania, Chad, Sudan, Djibouti and Comoros) or local African languages ​​(Uganda - Swahili, Madagascar - Malgash, Burundi - Kirundi, Rwanda - Kinyarwanda, Swaziland - Swati, Comoros islands - Shima Siwa, South Africa - Zulu and eight other languages 5
Including Afrikaans, created on the basis of the Dutch language.

And Zimbabwe - Nyanja and fourteen more).

Most of the states of Black Africa are secular. The state religion exists only in four countries: Djibouti (Islam), Mauritania, Somalia and the Comoros (Sunni Islam).

During the period of independence, the countries of Black Africa were characterized by authoritarian tendencies. That is why the vast majority of them still have a unitary state structure and a presidential or semi-presidential form of government. Six countries are federations: Sudan (1956), Nigeria (1963), Comoros (1975), Ethiopia (1995), South Sudan (2011) and Somalia (2012); there are five parliamentary republics: South Africa (1961), Botswana (1966), Ethiopia (1991), Mauritius (1992), Somalia (2012), and in South Africa and Botswana the president heads the government, unlike traditional parliamentary republics. In addition, a constitutional parliamentary monarchy, under which the king retains purely ceremonial functions, has established itself in Lesotho (1966–1986 and since 1993). At the same time, absolute monarchy was preserved in Swaziland (2005) 6
According to tradition, there is a diarchy in Swaziland: the king (“lion”) and the queen mother (“elephant”) share power, but in reality the latter does not have any real political powers.

In the political conditions of Tropical and South Africa, the role of formal institutions established by the constitution often does not correspond to their real significance. Although the one-party state model that prevailed in the region during the Cold War era has survived only in Eritrea (the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice has been the sole and ruling party since 1993), half of the modern countries in the region are characterized by a political system with one dominant party: most states of Central (Angola, Gabon, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Chad, Equatorial Guinea), Eastern (Djibouti, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan) and South Africa (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa) and for two Western countries (Gambia, Togo). The Gabonese Democratic Party (since 1958), the Democratic Union of the Cameroonian People (since 1960), the Tanzanian Chama Cha Mapinduzi (since 1961), the Congolese Party of Labor (in 1963–1992 and since 1997 ), the Botswana Democratic Party (since 1965) and the United Togolese People (since 1969).

All states of Black Africa are members of the UN and the African Union. The former colonies of France and Belgium, as well as Ghana, the Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe are members of the International Organization of the Francophonie; former British colonies (except Gambia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia), as well as Namibia, Mozambique and Rwanda - into the Commonwealth of Nations; former Portuguese colonies - to the Commonwealth of Portuguese-speaking countries; West African states (except Ghana, Liberia and Cape Verde), as well as Chad, Cameroon, Gabon, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Uganda, Mozambique and the Comoros - to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. There is no specific regional organization that brings together all sub-Saharan African countries. Integration is carried out to a greater extent at the subregional, mainly at the economic level: the states of Central Africa and Burundi form the Economic Community of Central African Countries (1983), the countries of the Great African Lakes zone - the East African Community (1967–1977 and since 2000), the states of South and South East Africa, as well as Angola, DRC, Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles - Southern African Development Community (1992), West African States other than Mauritania - Economic Community of West African Nations (1975).

The post-colonial era has become a period of acute internal political conflicts for Tropical and South Africa. Most of those that broke out in the late 1980s-1990s. civil wars have now ceased, but the Lord's Resistance Army guerrillas in Uganda (since 1987), the armed conflict in Somalia (since 1991), which in 2009 evolved into a guerrilla war of Islamist groups against the central government, continue to this day , and ethnic clashes in Darfur in western Sudan (since 2003). Since July 2009, the Boko Haram jihadist movement launched a fight against the central government of Nigeria, in December 2012 a civil war began in the Central African Republic between the regime of President F. Bozize and the Seleka coalition of Muslim rebels, which escalated into an inter-confessional conflict between Muslims ( "Seleka"), on the one hand, and Christians and animists (militia "antibalaka"), on the other; in December 2013, a civil war broke out in South Sudan between the regime of the President of S. Cyprus and rebel groups from the Nuer people.

The political situation in the region is also complicated by interstate territorial conflicts. The most acute of these is the border dispute between Sudan and South Sudan over the oil-bearing regions of Abyei and Kafia-Kingi and the cities of Heglig, Jau and Kaka; he is of recent origin. However, the vast majority of modern territorial conflicts are the result of the arbitrary delimitation of borders during the colonial period. First of all, the dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia - over the Ogaden region, between Ethiopia and Eritrea - over the city of Badme, the Bure district and the village of Zalambessa, between Eritrea and Djibouti - over the area of ​​Ras Doumeira on the Red Sea coast, between DRC and Uganda - because of the island of Rukwanzi on Lake Alberta, between Malawi and Tanzania - because of the islands in Mbambo Bay on Lake Nyasa, between Swaziland and South Africa - because of part of the South African province of Mpumalanga. Another category of territorial conflicts are those caused by the claims of independent African states to certain strategically important zones over which the former mother countries continue to control. Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles lay claim to the uninhabited islands of Eparce (scattered around Madagascar) remaining under French rule, the Comoros to the French overseas department of Mayotte, Mauritius to the British-held Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.

§ 2. Population

Formation of an ethnolinguistic map. Despite the ongoing disagreement among scientists and the emergence of more and more new data, the vast majority of paleoanthropologists agree that both the ancestors of modern man and Homo sapiens, And Homo Sapiens Sapiens appeared in Africa. The oldest remains Homo Sapiens Sapiens were found in what is now Ethiopia. Their age is 195–200 thousand years.

From here, from Africa, Homo Sapiens Sapiens spread throughout the world. The date of the "exodus" has not yet been established: the results of various genetic studies give a very wide time range - from 50 to 120 thousand years ago, and some archaeological data contradict the genetic ones. However, genetics leaves no doubt that the original group that left the continent was small and homogeneous. This explains the much greater genetic, physical and linguistic diversity of the population of the African continent compared to the population of other regions of the world.

Here are unusually tall Nilotic people with blue-black skin, and very short san (formerly they were called Bushmen) with yellowish-brown skin and Mongoloid features, and light-skinned Fulani with Caucasoid features. But physical similarity or difference is the most inaccurate and politically compromised way of defining any population group. Therefore, African peoples are determined mainly on a linguistic basis.

Judging by the oldest Egyptian written and pictorial evidence of the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa, several thousand years ago, this region, as now, was inhabited by dark-skinned peoples. But what exactly and what relation they have to the peoples inhabiting the continent now, it is difficult to judge. The exception here is all the same San, still living in the desert regions of South Africa and Namibia. Their ancestors migrated here from the central and eastern regions of the African continent about 140 thousand years ago. This means that the ancestors of the San and peoples close to them, who inhabited the southern tip of the African continent, up to the latitude of the Great Lakes, were the most ancient autochthonous population of this part of the continent. The San were hunter-gatherers, lived in small communities and had no chiefs. In caves throughout southern Africa, they left rock paintings and petroglyphs depicting animals, ritual scenes, hunting, war, etc. These drawings are similar in type to the rock paintings in the oases of the Sahara and the caves of France, but in Tropical and South Africa this is the only similar source. The earliest of these images is 27 thousand years old.

About 2000 years ago, in the south of the continent, in the region of modern Botswana, the first pastoralists appeared - the ancestors of the Koikoi (Koi, Koikoins or Hottentots). Their DNA also contains elements characteristic of the original population of the continent, but also DNA elements of Eurasian origin and even some elements of Neanderthal DNA. These elements are inherited from people who returned to Africa from Europe about 3,000 years ago.

The Koikoi spoke languages ​​related to the San, and as they moved south, they mingled with them. By the 1st century And. e. bed reached the Cape of Good Hope. The physical appearance of Koikoi and San is similar, but cultural and linguistic differences still persist. The Koikoy lived in large groups and were the first people in this region to develop social hierarchy and inequality.

The appearance of agriculture and tools of the Iron Age in this part of the continent is associated with the spread of peoples who spoke Bantu languages ​​here. About one and a half thousand years before. e. they began to spread from what is now Cameroon, possibly due to the desiccation and expansion of the Sahara. It was not exactly a migration, but rather a gradual spread of the Bantu-speaking population across the southern part of the mainland, which lasted for centuries. It went in two streams. One moved along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and reached modern Namibia. The movement of this group to the south was stopped by the Namib desert. Other groups, having settled in the valley of the Congo River, by 1000 BC. e. reached the Great Lakes. From the area of ​​modern Tanzania, they moved south in three ways: to the territory of modern Zambia, to the territory of modern Zimbabwe through Malawi, and to the territory of the modern South African province of KwaZulu-Natal through Mozambique. By 300 and. e. the Bantu-speaking population reached the east coast of modern South Africa, then spreading throughout the eastern and central parts of the country. The descendants of the first wave of this migration were the Spit.

The Bantu were highly organized peoples with a developed social hierarchy and leaders, and it was they who gave rise to the first state formations in this part of the continent. Their relations with the San and Koiko were complex: the ancestors of the Xhosa were much better armed than the Koiko and San, and pushed them to the west, fought with them, but at the same time coexisted, exchanged various goods and products, mixed and adopted each other's languages. Among the San rock paintings there are many images of undersized San, armed with bows and arrows, running from giants armed with spears - the Bantu.

The question of exactly when the Bantu crossed the Zambezi and especially the Limpopo has been a political one until recently. In 1652, the Cape Colony was founded at the Cape of Good Hope. Since the beginning of the XX century. (i.e., at the beginning of ethnographic research), the descendants of the Dutch colonists - the Afrikaners - began to assert that they appeared on the territory of South Africa before the Bantu, or at least simultaneously with them. So they proved their right to the territory of the country (the rank and koi, obviously, were not taken into account). Research that contradicted this interpretation of history was suppressed. With the end of the regime apartheid the date of the arrival of the Bantu in the territory of modern South Africa began to move further and further back into the centuries.

The ethnic picture north of the latitude of the Great Lakes and into the Sahara desert in a region called Sudan is complex and intricate. The DNA of the peoples living there also contains some elements characteristic of the original population of the continent, but different from the DNA of the San. Historians believe that peoples who spoke Bantu languages, similar to the Bantu languages, once dominated the entire western part of Sudan, but now these languages ​​are few and survived only in the central part of Western Sudan. To the north of them, Nilo-Saharan languages ​​\u200b\u200bare common (for example, Songhai in the middle reaches of the Niger River), which were spoken by the population of the medieval states of Western Sudan, Niger-Congo languages ​​\u200b\u200b(for example, Bamana in Mali and Senegal, Ashanti and Fanti in southern Ghana, Yoruba and Igbo in the west and east of the southern part of modern Nigeria), as well as Afroasian languages, the largest of which is the Hausa language in the north of modern Nigeria. These languages ​​are closely related to those of the Berbers of North Africa and ancient Egypt, evidence that their speakers migrated south as the Sahara dried up.

There was no single stream of large migrations. The population increased in years of good weather and decreased in years of drought or other natural disasters. Separate groups moved chaotically, settling in places that could be protected and where there was water. In places, the diversity of languages ​​is so great here that the inhabitants of the villages located very close by do not understand each other's language. Along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea live peoples who speak Guinean languages, related to the Bantu, but very different from them.

The ethnolinguistic situation in Eastern Sudan is even more complex. For centuries, the area suffered from raids by Arab slave traders and internecine wars. The patchwork of languages ​​and their multiplicity make us think that more or less large groups of the population were fragmented here as a result of chaotic migration from the west and north. One of the largest language groups in this region is Nilotekaya. Among the peoples who speak the languages ​​of this group are Turkana, Masai, Kalenjin, Luo.

Now the Nilotic people inhabit the upper reaches of the Nile and differ sharply from their neighbors in both language and physical appearance. They migrated here from the north: Egyptian monuments have preserved images similar to their appearance. Moving south, some of them reached the Great Lakes region and conquered the Bantu peoples living there. Gradually, this group mixed with the local population and adopted its language, but retained its physical appearance. This mixed population became the ethnic base of the Mezhozero states.

Chagga girls. German East Africa, 1906/1918

Many peoples of Northeast Africa - modern Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia - speak the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the Cushitic group belonging to the Afroasian language family, but the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the Amhara, Tigre and some other peoples of Ethiopia are Semitic. This group appeared here as a result of the resettlement of South Arab tribes to the territory of present-day Eritrea. They mixed with the local population, but retained the language, although it was subjected to a strong "Kushitization".

One of the languages ​​of East Africa, Swahili, has experienced a strong influence of Arabic. Structurally, it belongs to the group of Bantu languages, but it has a lot of Arabic words in its vocabulary. Swahili was originally the language of the mixed African-Arabic population of the city-states of the East African coast. But gradually, partly due to the slave trade, it became the language of intertribal communication throughout the eastern part of the continent.

The eastern and central part of Africa's largest island, Madagascar, is inhabited by a people who speak a language closely related to the languages ​​of Southeast Asia and have similar physical features to the Indonesians. The legends of the Malagasy mention a migration from the East, but it has not yet been possible to establish any details of this migration. The east of the island is dominated by groups speaking Bantu languages ​​similar to the Bantu languages ​​of Mozambique.

In modern times, such events as the slave trade, the formation of pre-state political entities and the emergence of Europeans had a great impact on the process of ethnogenesis on the continent.

One of the results of the transatlantic slave trade was the destabilization and fragmentation of ethnic groups in areas that served as sources for the supply of slaves. In West Africa, these are areas of the upper reaches of the river. Volta and the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers, and in the Central - the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe middle and lower reaches of the river. Kasai, a tributary of the Congo. The Arab slave trade in Northeast Africa had the same effect on the southern regions of the modern state of Sudan, and in East Africa on the eastern part of the modern Democratic Republic of the Congo, between Lake. Tanganyika and the river. Lualaba, another tributary of the Congo. At the same time, the need to rally to protect against the slave trade or the desire to participate in it as intermediaries contributed to the consolidation of some previously disparate clans into organized burial groups, as happened with the Nyamwezi in what is now Tanzania and the Yao in what is now Mozambique.

Black Africa meets ancient Mexico

Supporters of the long-standing pre-Columbian contacts of the black inhabitants of the African continent with America in their hypothetical constructions especially often turn to Mexico. True, the number of scientists who defend the idea of ​​such contacts remains insignificant to this day. This can be explained as follows. First, as already mentioned, the study of the pre-colonial past of African peoples is only just beginning in earnest; many, even cardinal, problems remain very far from a final solution. Secondly, it is widely believed in scientific circles that the inhabitants of the Black Continent, who lived south of the Sahara, have always been land people, unable to make distant ocean voyages. And finally, thirdly, one should not discount the Eurocentric views that are still popular in the historical science of Western countries, according to which Negro tribes and peoples by nature are not given to be skillful sailors and builders of prosperous states.

Scientists provide various evidence for the existence of long-standing transatlantic ties between the two continents.

These are the data of botanical science - plants characteristic of one region and found on the territory of another (cotton, gourd, tobacco, maize, etc.), and materials of physical anthropology, from which it follows that the skeletons of American Indians of the pre-Hispanic era were found negroid traits. It also speaks of works of ancient Mexican art depicting people with a clearly Negroid type of face. Finally, the last thing that justifies the emergence of hypotheses about the penetration of Africans into the New World in pre-Columbian times is the evidence of written sources about the distant campaigns of Negro fleets in the blue expanses of the Atlantic. Moreover, it is believed that intensive Mexican-African contacts began in the era of the Olmec culture (1500-1000 BC) and continued until the XIV century.

Not being able to analyze in detail all the hypotheses of this kind that exist in science, I will focus only on some of them, the most significant and original.

L. Wiener, a professor of philology at Harvard University (USA), was the first who fully opened the African theme when considering the problem of pre-Columbian relations between the Old and New Worlds. In 1920-1923, he published a solid three-volume book "Africa and the Discovery of America", where he tried, on the basis of evidence from ancient written sources, to prove the existence of a continuous and long-term influence of the Black Continent on the origin and development of the pre-Columbian cultures of the American Indians.

Later, in 1930, the Frenchman J. Cuvier argued in his book "Berbers in America" ​​that the inhabitants of this North African region crossed the Atlantic more than once and had a noticeable influence on the natives of the New World. The proof of this was the "coincidence" in the names of peoples and localities: for example, the Lipi tribes from Bolivia and the ancient Libyans; brain from the Sahara and American muskogee, moki, mosquito, moho, midge, etc.

For his part, the American R. Harris (1936) argued that the geographical names in the region of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the Antilles completely coincide with the North African ones. However, these linguistic manipulations lack scientific character. The languages ​​of the ancient Indians in terms of grammar and vocabulary are absolutely not similar to either Indo-European or African. These are completely different language groups, and, snatching out random sound equivalents, would-be theorists make a gross methodological error, which, of course, entails false conclusions.

At present, the most active preacher of L. Wiener's somewhat corrected views is a certain L. Clegg. Citing impeccable, in his words, facts from anthropology, archeology, folklore and art history, he argues that Negroid groups of settlers came to the New World in ancient times: not only before Europeans, but also long before the Mongoloids - the recognized forefathers of the Indian population of America . For Clegg, even Australoids - dark-skinned people with thick hair - are just a variant of African Negroids. He further states that the Olmec civilization - the first vibrant and highly developed culture of pre-Columbian Mexico - was created solely by newcomers from Black Africa.

Particularly often used to prove transoceanic contacts between America and Africa are some ancient Mexican sculptures depicting people with clearly African features (giant stone heads belonging to the Olmec culture on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico; clay figurines and stone sculptures of the Nahua Indians, Zapotecs, Totonacs, Maya, etc. in Central and Southern Mexico).

In 1869, a small note appeared in the Bulletin of the Mexican Society for Geography and Statistics, signed by X. M. Melgar. Its author, an engineer by profession, claimed that in 1862 he was lucky to discover an amazing stone sculpture, unlike any known until now, on a sugar cane plantation near the village of Tres Zapotes (Veracruz state) - the head of an African. The note was accompanied by a fairly accurate drawing of the statue itself. And already in 1871, Melgar announced, referring to the "obviously Ethiopian" appearance of the sculpture he discovered: "I am absolutely convinced that Negroes have been in these parts more than once and this happened in the first era from the creation of the world." It must be said that such a statement was absolutely groundless, but it fully corresponded to the general spirit of the theories then dominant in science, which explained any achievement of the American Indians by cultural influences from the Old World.

Giant stone heads in helmets, carved from blocks of basalt, were repeatedly found after that in various parts of the southern Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco (Gulf Coast). As it turned out, all of them (11 pieces are now known) belong to the ancient Olmec culture, which flourished, according to some scientists, in the 1st millennium BC. e. (800-400 BC), according to others - in the XIII-X centuries BC. e. After a careful study of them, it was found that these stone sculptures depict the heads of people of the Mongoloid race. Africans are generally a long-headed people with a strongly protruding lower face, and Olmec sculptures are round heads of the Mongoloid type.

In the swampy jungles of southern Mexico, you can still meet purebred Indians, like two drops of water similar to the ancient sculptural images of the Olmecs.

Another frequently encountered argument in favor of the existence of pre-Columbian voyages of Africans to Central America is the figurines of dark-skinned people painted on clay vessels of the ancient Maya. But the drawings clearly show that people are depicted during the performance of some religious rituals and only their faces and some parts of the body are painted.

The black color was considered by the Maya to be a sacred and ominous color. Priests used to paint themselves to participate in human sacrifices. Mayan artists depicted the gods of thunder, war and death with the same paint.

In 1961, two speleologists from the United States discovered a strange stone sculpture of a Negroid man in the depths of the Loltun cave on the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico). Some idle minds immediately declared this to be reliable evidence of the presence of blacks in the country of the ancient Maya. Long-forgotten lines from the Mayan manuscripts about the arrival from the east, from the side of the sea, ferocious black people - eaters of human meat were also pulled into the light. However, experts immediately rejected these ridiculous speculations, convincingly proving that the Mayan annals dealt with one of the raids on the Yucatan by cannibals-Caribs - the warlike inhabitants of the Antilles.

Sometimes, guided by the desire to prove the existence of significant cultural achievements among the ancient population of Tropical Africa, modern authors make obvious exaggerations in their conclusions. So, G. Lawrence in the article "African discoverers of the New World" claims that Negroid tribes discovered and colonized America long before the voyages of Columbus and Vespucci. In support of his views, he refers to ancient Mexican images of anthropomorphic creatures with Negroid features, as well as to burials in the New World of people of a clearly Negroid appearance (in the Pecos River Valley, in Texas and in the Virgin Islands). Alas, recent research in this area has completely refuted his hypotheses. Studying the blood types of American Indians, anthropologist E. Matson (USA) and his colleagues convincingly proved that the Amerindians (native Americans) were not descendants of ancient African aliens, since their blood does not contain any elements characteristic of Negroid groups.

Some Soviet authors also contributed to this "pan-African boom". So, E. Lvova, known for her works on the history and ethnography of Africa, also tried to find the "Negroid roots" of ancient American civilizations. At the same time, she used the arguments of many of the authors mentioned above, including G. Lawrence.

“The Spaniards,” says E. Lvova, “met animals unfamiliar to them in America - non-barking dogs. According to later reports, Europeans met such animals only in one place in the world - West Africa ... American art.These are sculptural images in Chichen Itza of "tall figures with narrow heads, thick lips and curly short hair that gives the impression of wool ...""

However, the evidence presented here for the existence of ancient African-American links across the Atlantic does not stand up to scrutiny. First, about the barking dog. Such animals were distributed all over the world and in America too (they are both in the north and in the south of this part of the world). It is unlikely that they come from the same and necessarily Mexican source. Most likely in different regions of our planet they were taken out completely independently.

The mention of E. Lvova about the sculptures of people with Negroid features should rather be considered as a curiosity, and not as serious evidence in a scientific dispute. The fact is that the people who are depicted on the reliefs and copper-gold disks from Chichen Itza do not have any "African" hair or Negroid features at all. Oki are depicted in round shaggy (possibly fur) hats or helmets - a common detail of the Toltec warrior's clothing. Legions of conquering Toltecs invaded the Mayan lands from Central Mexico in the 10th century and settled there in the north of the Yucatan Peninsula, turning the Mayan city of Chichen Itza into their capital.

How some evidence of African-American connections comes to light can be seen in the discovery of an "ancient African object" in El Salvador, "more than two meters below the surface of the earth."

Local professional archaeologist S. Boggs decided to check the reliability of this fact and went to the town of Colon (El Salvador). It turned out that the object was found in an undisturbed layer of the earth at a depth of more than 2 meters, which clearly indicated its antiquity. It is made from a curved tusk of a hippopotamus about 19 centimeters long and is a stylized depiction of a monster (crocodile or snake) swallowing a naked female figurine. According to the conclusion of authoritative experts, this thing is really of African origin and most likely made in the Eastern Congo, but ... not earlier than the end of the 19th century. The object was discovered near the road in a layer of volcanic ash thrown out during earthworks from a nearby ditch, which gave such a depth - 2 meters. Not far from the moat in the 19th century was the house of a colonel - a collector of ancient weapons and other rare items, and there is no doubt that the thing belonged to him. This is the end of this story. But the deed was done. Rumors about the find spread widely enough, penetrated into local newspapers, and the "Salvadorian masterpiece" for the most zealous diffusionists became another argument in favor of African influences on pre-Columbian America.

In disputes about pre-Columbian ties between Africa and America, such an argument as the presence of Negroid features in ancient Mexican sculptures depicting anthropomorphic creatures (for example, terracotta figurines from the graves of the Olmecs, Nahuas, Totonacs, Zapotecs, Mixtecs and Mayans) is very often used. The West German art historian and diplomat Alexander von Wuthenau collected an extensive collection of such rarities and presented his views on the problem of interest to us in two colorfully designed books: Terracotta Art in Pre-Columbian Central and South America and Unexpected Faces in Ancient America, 1500 BC. - 1500 AD. ". The main postulate of a diplomat-archaeologist is simple: Indian masters could not depict typically African faces and details of African jewelry and costume without seeing the Africans themselves.

But do not the native populations of the New World show a great variety of physical type, hairline, skin color and other characteristics throughout this part of the world - from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego? And who, if not the anthropologists themselves, after a long debate and careful study of the facts, unanimously decided that many of the genetic traits of the American natives were brought to America through the Bering Strait and Alaska by the first settlers from Northeast Asia. Among these primitive hunters and gatherers were people with Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid features. "Therefore, Negroid skeletons (as well as images of people with Negroid features. - V. G.) are not evidence that any flotilla or individual ships crossed the South Atlantic in pre-Columbian times."

The most serious arguments in favor of ancient African-American ties are biological, or rather, botanical data - finds of plants characteristic of one region and found on the territory of another. Of course, maize (corn) plays the main role among them - the culture, as you know, is primordially American and cultivated by the Indians of Mexico and Peru almost from the 5th millennium BC. e. Wild maize pollen was found in the soil, which experts got from a deep well dug in the territory of the city of Mexico City. Scientists have determined that pollen entered the soil about 80 thousand years ago, that is, long before the appearance of man in the New World.

Until now, it was believed that the Portuguese brought maize to Africa after their discoveries in South America (Brazil), not earlier than the first half of the 16th century. But archaeologist A. Goodwin, during the excavations of the city of Ife (Nigeria) - the capital of the ancient state of the Yoruba - discovered several fragments of ceramic vessels decorated with imprints of corn cobs. Another enthusiastic archaeologist, M. D. Jeffries, hastened to determine the age of these ornamented shards - 1000-1100 years. Thus, it turned out that the Yoruba tribes from West Africa knew corn 400-500 years before the voyages of Columbus. How could she get to the Black Continent? Who brought her there? Finally, is the age of such an important find accurately determined?

The last question is by no means a tribute to modern archaeological fashion. The final answer depends on his decision: whether the inhabitants of Black Africa maintained transoceanic contacts with the Indians. Moreover, the problems of chronology and periodization in the history of pre-colonial Africa are still far from their final solution. The finds in the city of Ife were no exception in this regard. Sherds with imprints of maize, along with other thousands of fragments of ceramics, formed a pavement in one of the city blocks. Under what king did ceramic pavement appear? It is not yet possible to answer this question precisely. How then did the date 1000-1100 come about?

M. D. Jeffreys deduced it purely speculatively, on the basis of the following reasoning. Some old Yoruba legends say that the first capital of this African state was in Ile-Ife (i.e., in Ife). But during the reign of the fourth king of the local dynasty, the capital was moved to the city of Oyo. According to other sources, it is known that between 600 and 1000 years, some newcomers from the east flooded the country, who founded Ile-Ife. This is followed by a simple trick: both semi-mystical legends are combined, and the time of functioning of Ile-Ife as the capital is limited to 1000 years. There is also evidence that the city of Oyo was founded around 1100. Maize was found in Ife, and, therefore, the archaeological layer with shards dates back no later than 1000-1100 years.

Meanwhile, even without taking into account the above dubious chronological calculations by M.D. of facts is a clear Portuguese participation in the spread of this valuable agricultural crop in the west of the Black Continent. Other authors suggested that it was not an ear of maize that was "rolled" over the wet clay, but some other similar cereal - for example, sorghum. But, despite the objections of experts, the sensational news that corn cobs came to Africa from across the ocean 400-500 years before Columbus instantly spread around the world and still successfully continues to pass from book to book.

Another plant commonly used to prove African-American connections in antiquity is the gourd. It has always been considered only African culture. But already the first Europeans, who arrived in the New World in the 16th century, were amazed to see the same plant among the Indians. So, there were transoceanic connections after all? Do not rush to conclusions. The fact is that the remains of gourd seeds have now been found in the mountain caves of Mexico in layers dating back to 7000-5000 BC. e .. But not even the most fanatical supporter of pre-Columbian contacts has yet claimed that at that time the primitive inhabitants of Africa could cross the ocean. Moreover, the long-term experiments of scientists T. Whitaker and J. Carter with gourd seeds proved that these seeds can be in salty sea water without changing their properties for more than 225 days, that is, the time that is quite sufficient for their natural drift from Africa to America. shores.