Precolonial History of East & Central Africa, 1400-1890

Undergraduate

This course explores the history of East and Central Africa before modern European colonialism. It covers four centuries of social, cultural, political, and ecological transformation as African societies navigated the consequences of an expanding world. From the rise of the Monomotapa Empire in the Zimbabwe plateau in the 15th century, the arrival of Portuguese traders and missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries, to the rise and fall of the ivory and slave trade in the Swahili coast in the 18th and 19th centuries, this course is one of change and continuity in social processes. Although modern European colonialism did not start in the region before the “scramble for Africa” in the late 19th century, the vast region of East and Central Africa was deeply connected to global transformations sparked by European commercial expansion. Far from economically isolated, political and technologically backward, and culturally superstitious, African societies in East and Central Africa were as dynamic, industrious, and inventive as any other societies. They built powerful states and cities, mined gold and other precious minerals, participated in the global economy, and shaped their destiny in a rapidly changing world. Until fortunes changed in the late 19th century, the various societies of East and central Africa were agents of their history. WR , HU T 1:30pm-3:25pm