# Glossary | Term | Definition | |---|---| | Afro-Asiatic languages | One of Africa's four original language families, historically associated with regions of the greener Sahara, and credited with pioneering grass-seed gathering that predated early agriculture. Speakers of these languages included the Semitic peoples. | | Bantu Expansion | The dispersal of Bantu languages and Bantu-speaking people from a homeland in the Grassfields region of modern-day Nigeria and Cameroon. This migration, occurring between approximately 5,000 and 1,500 years ago, introduced new languages, pottery making, stone tool use, farming, and metallurgy across Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa. | | Cartaz system | A Portuguese system implemented in the Indian Ocean trade that required ships to purchase passes, enabling Portugal to levy taxes and engage in sanctioned plunder, thereby attempting to control maritime trade. | | Cash cropping | An agricultural system focused on cultivating a single crop, such as cotton or cocoa, for sale in domestic or international markets rather than for household consumption. This strategy often requires a developed economic infrastructure for transport, credit, and markets. | | Charter companies | European entities, such as the British Royal Niger Company or Leopold's Congo Free State, used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to expand colonial territories in Africa with minimal public investment. These companies often employed brutal tactics and proved largely ineffective in establishing stable governance. | | Direct Rule | A colonial administration strategy where European officers held all governmental positions, establishing a clear chain of command and uniform regulations across a colony. African participation was typically limited to subordinate roles. | | Djenné Mosque | A 14th-century mosque located in Sahelian Africa, built by an Andalusian architect who adapted his knowledge to West African materials. It exemplifies the architectural style found across desert-edge West Africa and serves as a symbol of both Africa's past and its connection to Islamic culture. | | Dyula merchants | Traders from the Niger region who moved goods such as gold and kola nuts toward the savannah, exchanging them for salt and copper. They were instrumental in long-distance trade networks in West Africa. | | Évolués | Culturally Europeanized Africans in French colonies who, under the policy of assimilation, could potentially be granted French citizenship and political rights. However, this status was rarely achieved by the vast majority of Africans. | | Foragers | Early human groups who obtained sustenance by exploiting diverse African ecosystems through hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. Their mobile lifestyle and broad dietary breadth are linked to relatively low rates of malnutrition and parasitic disease compared to early farmers. | | Grains (millet and sorghum) | Staple cereal crops that flourished in the savannah regions of West and West-Central Africa. While important food sources, they did not thrive as well in the wet coastal belts. | | Indirect Rule | A British colonial administration strategy that utilized existing African structures of authority and administrators to govern, aiming to minimize administrative costs and maintain colonial authority while allowing some local autonomy. | | Indigenat code | A legal framework established by French colonial authorities, particularly in 1904, which subjected Africans who did not assimilate to summary punishment without due process, in contrast to the rights granted to "évolués." | | Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) | A meteorological phenomenon that causes seasonal rain shifts in Africa by moving north and south annually, making rainfall patterns cyclical and concentrated into short rainy seasons, impacting agricultural predictability. | | Jihads | Islamic reform movements and campaigns, particularly prominent in the 18th and 19th centuries in West Africa, led by figures like Usman dan Fodio. These movements emphasized adherence to Islamic law, protection of Muslims, and the establishment of Islamic states. | | Kebra Negast | A medieval Ethiopian chronicle that claims the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopian royalty descends from King Solomon of Israel and the Queen of Sheba. It serves to justify royal authority and link Ethiopian rulers to biblical legitimacy. | | Khoisan | The collective term for the original inhabitants of southern Africa, comprising the Khoikhoi (pastoralists) and the San (mobile foragers). Their ethnic boundaries were fluid, and they were significantly impacted by European settlement. | | Lingua franca | A common language used by people whose native languages are different. Swahili became a significant lingua franca in East Africa due to its spread inland and coastal connections. | | Mahdism | A religious revival movement in Sudan led by Muhammad Ahmad, who declared himself the Mahdi in 1881. His followers fought Anglo-Egyptian troops, capturing Khartoum in 1885, and established a state that persisted until British reconquest in 1898. | | Mfecane | A phenomenon described by European writers as widespread warfare and chaos in southern Africa during the early nineteenth century, often attributed to Shaka Zulu's campaigns. Later scholarship questions the scale and causes, suggesting droughts and population pressures also contributed. | | Monsoons | Seasonal winds in the Indian Ocean that blow in opposite directions at different times of the year, enabling predictable navigation and facilitating long-distance maritime trade between East Africa, Arabia, India, and beyond. | | Neo-Europes | Regions where European settlers established communities that replicated European-style societies, including crops, livestock, towns, and governance systems, as seen in parts of North America and South Africa. | | Nilo-Saharan languages | One of Africa's four original language families, speakers of which occupied wetter regions of central and northeastern Africa. They are associated with developing an "aquatic tradition" of fishing and hunting, possibly making them the first to master boats and leave Africa. | | Niger-Congo languages | One of Africa's four original language families, later dominant in West and Southern Africa. Speakers focused on gathering wild yams and palm nuts. | | Pan-Africanism | A political and social movement advocating for the unity and solidarity of African countries and people of African descent worldwide, aiming to resist colonialism, neocolonialism, and racial oppression, and to promote economic and political development. | | Plasmodium falciparum | A specific and particularly deadly strain of malaria, widespread in Africa, posing a significant threat, especially to children. | | Proto-Bantu | The reconstructed ancestral language of the Bantu language family, studied through comparative linguistics to understand the origins and spread of Bantu speakers. | | Qur’an | Islam's sacred text, compiled from the divine revelations received by the Prophet Muhammad. | | Ramifications | The consequences or effects of an action or event. In this context, the repercussions of colonial rule and the slave trade on African societies. | | Sahel | The semi-arid transitional zone between the Sahara Desert and the Sudanian savanna in West Africa. | | Sharia | Islamic law, which became integrated into the legal and administrative systems of North African Islamic centers. | | Solomonic dynasty | A legendary lineage of Ethiopian emperors claiming descent from King Solomon of Israel and the Queen of Sheba, as chronicled in the Kebra Negast, used to legitimize royal authority. | | Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) | Economic reforms imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on African nations as conditions for loans, often involving currency devaluation, privatization, and cuts to social services. | | Swahili civilization | A maritime culture that emerged on the East African coast from a blend of local African development and Indian Ocean trade. It was characterized by Muslim merchant city-states valuing commerce and urbanism. | | Syncretism | The blending of different religious or cultural beliefs and practices. In Africa, this often involved the integration of indigenous traditions with Islam or Christianity. | | Tsetse fly | An insect that transmits trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) to both humans and livestock across wide regions of Africa, significantly limiting the use of cattle and horses and impacting transportation and resources. | | Transhumance | The seasonal movement of livestock between pastures, a practice characteristic of the Khoikhoi pastoralists in southern Africa. | | Treaties (colonial) | Agreements made between European colonial powers and African rulers, often used to legitimize territorial claims and establish administrative control. | | Trinitarian creed | The Christian doctrine that God is one God in three co-equal, co-eternal persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. African theologians played a role in defining this creed at ecumenical councils. | | Ujamaa | A socialist philosophy promoted by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, emphasizing communalism and kinship as the basis for development and social organization, drawing on traditional African communal traditions. | | Umayyad Caliphate | An early Islamic caliphate that expanded Muslim rule across the Middle East and North Africa, including the conquest of the Maghreb region in the 7th and 8th centuries. | | Union of African States | A proposed political entity advocated by Kwame Nkrumah and the Casablanca Group, aiming for rapid African unity, including economic integration, a common currency, and a unified foreign policy. | | Voortrekkers | Dutch-speaking settlers (Boers) who migrated from the Cape Colony into the interior of Southern Africa in the 1830s, seeking new lands and autonomy from British rule. | | White man's grave | A historical nickname for West Africa, reflecting the high mortality rates among Europeans due to tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever before the widespread availability of quinine. | | World War I (in Africa) | A period when European powers mobilized African soldiers and resources for combat roles within Africa and on European battlefields, leading to significant disruption and casualties for African populations and sparking new demands for political participation. |