The European Footprint in Africa

The European Footprint in Atlantic Africa

In Warfare in Atlantic Africa: 1500-1800, John K. Thornton systematically discusses pre-colonial warfare in five distinct regions of Atlantic Africa. These five regions were most affected by the slave trade between 1500 and 1800 and that is precisely why Thornton decides to investigate the connection between slavery and warfare as well as the connection between warfare and society. As stated in the beginning of his work, Thornton feels that this segment of world history has been distorted and even ignored in popular culture and scholarly works. Thornton aims to enlighten the public on the many misconceptions about pre-colonial Atlantic Africa as well as spearhead renewed discovery and research within the subject.

The most important element of Thornton's work is its emphasis on the fact that pre-colonial Atlantic Africa was not one contiguous region. Truthfully, Thornton's own implication that Atlantic Africa was comprised of five distinct regions is far to general. As Thornton expresses, there were over 100 different people, polities, states, and city-states in pre-colonial Atlantic Africa. Instead, Thornton concedes that it is the regional military cultures that link many of theses political cultures and consequently form the five distinct regions. For example, the Gold Coast region alone contains numerous kingdoms, languages, and cultures. To lump all the distinct cultures of the Gold Coast region into one sum would seem brash if not for Thornton's expertise in examining the military realities of this entire region.

European influence in pre-colonial Atlantic Africa is one of the broader themes discussed alluded to throughout Thornton's work. The misconception that there was a Prometheus-like connection between Europeans and Africans is one that Thornton exhaustively examines and ultimately eliminates. Of course, popular culture and even the academic world have emphasized that during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries the Europeans greatly influenced if not altogether changed many sectors of African life. Thornton takes issue with this very point on through several themes such as technology, military organization, and political organization. On the contrary, he argues that European influence was minimal in most regions and only truly substantial in west central Africa. The popular notion that Africans in these areas were largely uncivilized before the intervention of Europeans is entirely unsubstantiated and absolutely unsupported by Thornton's research.

The most naÐ"Їve misconception about Africa and particularly pre-colonial Atlantic Africa is its innate absence of sophisticated political states and organized political structure. Though this is largely a popular culture phenomenon, imagine TV images of tribal get-togethers, academics tend to exaggerate the influence of European culture upon African political culture during the slave trade era. In fact, as Thornton discovers, those Europeans living and trading in Atlantic Africa had little say in African politics. Except for west central Africa, which the Portuguese invaded, the Europeans were somewhat at the mercy of the indigenous population. Thornton points out the fact that in the Gold Coast region the Europeans were only afforded the privilege of fortifying their established trading posts after demanding it in 1482. Also, the numerous city states and polities were well established decades before the arrival of the Europeans. These largely decentralized cultures constituted a plethora of independent states that welcomed trade with the Dutch, English, Portuguese, and other European nations. However, as illustrated by Thornton, the European traders constantly sought involvement in local politics often attempting to pit rival states against each other and gain exclusive trading rights. Meanwhile, the northern interior empires warred with each other resulting in Asante's centralization of power in the mid eighteenth century with only the coastal kingdom of Fante remaining as a rival power. The formation of these two centralized states coincided with but did not result from the establishing of numerous European trading posts. Farther to the west, interstate warfare ruled the region as numerous empires, including the waning Mali Empire, fought for control of the Senegambia and Sierra Leone. Remarkably, these numerous competing states were well connected through commercial trade and water routes. Again, these sophisticated river states were competing for control and were commercially integrated long before the first Portuguese landing. In the eighteenth century, it was the Muslim reformation and not European intervention and meddling that destabilized the area around Futa Jallon consequently feeding slaves into the booming slave trade. As was true with all five sections of Atlantic Africa, sophisticated polities and states had continuously centralized power and consequently implemented structured political changes completely independent of European influence.

Military organization evolved throughout Atlantic Africa according to the distinct landscapes and subsequent logistical problems faced by each of the regions. As Thornton implies, the gunpowder revolution was very gradual throughout Atlantic Africa. This implication tends to downplay the immediate affect that European guns exerted throughout many regions of Atlantic Africa. Indeed, the true gunpowder revolution in Africa did not occur until after the flintlock musket replaced the matchlock musket. Even then,