Prehistory Archeological finds in Central Africa have been made which date back over 100,000 years. According to Zagato and Holl, there is evidence of iron smelting in the Central African Republic that may date back to 3000 to 2500 BCE. Extensive walled settlements have recently been found in Northeast Nigeria, approximately southwest of Lake Chad dating to the first millennium BCE. Trade and improved agricultural techniques supported more sophisticated societies, leading to the early civilizations of West Africa:
Sao,
Kanem,
Bornu,
Shilluk,
Baguirmi, and
Wadai. Around 2500 BCE,
Bantu migrants had reached the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa. Halfway through the first millennium BCE, the Bantu had also settled as far south as what is now
Angola.
Ancient history Sao civilization The West African
Sao civilization flourished from ca. the 6th century BCE to as late as the 16th century CE in northern Central Africa. The Sao lived by the Chari River south of Lake Chad in territory that later became part of Cameroon and Chad. They are the earliest people to have left clear traces of their presence in the territory of modern
Cameroon. Today, several ethnic groups of northern Cameroon and southern Chad but particularly the
Sara people claim descent from the civilization of the Sao. Sao artifacts show that they were skilled workers in
bronze, copper, and iron. Finds include bronze sculptures and terra cotta statues of human and animal figures, coins, funerary urns, household utensils, jewelry, highly decorated pottery, and spears. The largest Sao archaeological finds have been made south of Lake Chad.
Kanem Empire The West-Central African kingdom of
Kanem–Bornu Empire was centered in the Lake
Chad Basin. It was known as the
Kanem Empire from the 9th century CE onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of
Bornu until 1900. At its height it encompassed an area covering not only much of
Chad, but also parts of modern eastern
Niger, northeastern
Nigeria, northern
Cameroon and parts of
South Sudan. The history of the Empire is mainly known from the Royal Chronicle or
Girgam discovered in 1851 by the German traveler
Heinrich Barth. Kanem rose in the 8th century in the region to the north and east of Lake Chad. The Kanem empire went into decline, shrank, and in the 14th century was defeated by
Bilala invaders from the
Lake Fitri region.
Bornu Empire of Bornu receiving French officer
Parfait-Louis Monteil, 1891 The
Kanuri people of West Africa led by the Sayfuwa migrated to the west and south of the lake, where they established the
Bornu Empire. By the late 16th century the Bornu empire had expanded and recaptured the parts of Kanem that had been conquered by the Bulala. Satellite states of Bornu included the
Damagaram in the west and
Baguirmi to the southeast of Lake Chad.
Shilluk Kingdom The
Shilluk Kingdom was centered in
South Sudan from the 15th century from along a strip of land along the western bank of White Nile, from
Lake No to about 12° north
latitude. The capital and royal residence were in the town of
Fashoda. The kingdom was founded during the mid-15th century CE by its first ruler,
Nyikang. During the 19th century, the Shilluk Kingdom faced decline following military assaults from the
Ottoman Empire and later British and Sudanese colonization in
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
Baguirmi Kingdom The Kingdom of Baguirmi existed as an independent state during the 16th and 17th centuries southeast of West-Central Africa
Lake Chad region in what is now the country of Chad. Baguirmi emerged to the southeast of the
Kanem–Bornu Empire. The kingdom's first ruler was
Mbang Birni Besse. Later in his reign, the
Bornu Empire conquered and made the state a tributary.
Wadai Empire , capital of Wadai, in 1918 after the French had taken over The
Wadai Empire was centered in Chad from the 17th century. The
Tunjur people founded the
Wadai Kingdom to the east of Bornu in the 16th century. In the 17th century, there was a revolt of the
Maba people who established a Muslim dynasty. At first, Wadai paid tribute to Bornu and Durfur, but by the 18th century, Wadai was fully independent and had become an aggressor against its neighbors.
Lunda Empire Following the
Bantu Migration from Western Africa, Bantu kingdoms and empires began to develop in southern Central Africa. In the 1450s, a
Luba from the royal family
Ilunga Tshibinda married
Lunda queen Rweej and united all Lunda peoples. Their son Mulopwe Luseeng expanded the kingdom. His son Naweej expanded the empire further and is known as the first Lunda emperor, with the title
Mwata Yamvo (
mwaant yaav,
mwant yav), the "Lord of Vipers". The Luba political system was retained, and conquered peoples were integrated into the system. The
mwata yamvo assigned a
cilool or
kilolo (royal adviser) and tax collector to each state conquered. Numerous states claimed descent from the Lunda. The
Imbangala of inland Angola claimed descent from a founder, Kinguri, brother of Queen Rweej, who could not tolerate the rule of
mulopwe Tshibunda.
Kinguri became the title of kings of states founded by Queen Rweej's brother. The
Luena (Lwena) and
Lozi (Luyani) in Zambia also claim descent from Kinguri. During the 17th century, a Lunda chief and warrior called
Mwata Kazembe set up an
Eastern Lunda kingdom in the valley of the
Luapula River. The Lunda's western expansion also saw claims of descent by the
Yaka and the
Pende. The Lunda linked Central Africa with the western coast trade. The kingdom of Lunda came to an end in the 19th century when it was invaded by the
Chokwe, who were armed with guns.
Kongo Kingdom By the 15th century CE, the farming
Bakongo people (
ba being the plural prefix) were unified as the
Kingdom of Kongo under a ruler called the
manikongo, residing in the fertile
Pool Malebo area on the lower
Congo River. The capital was
M'banza-Kongo. With superior organization, they were able to conquer their neighbors and extract tribute. They were experts in metalwork, pottery, and weaving raffia cloth. They stimulated interregional trade via a tribute system controlled by the
manikongo. Later, maize (corn) and
cassava (manioc) would be introduced to the region via trade with the Portuguese at their ports at
Luanda and
Benguela. The maize and cassava would result in population growth in the region and other parts of Africa, replacing
millet as the main staple. By the 16th century, the
manikongo held authority from the Atlantic in the west to the
Kwango River in the east. Each territory was assigned a
mani-mpembe (provincial governor) by the
manikongo. In 1506,
Afonso I (1506–1542), a Christian, took over the throne. Slave trading increased with Afonso's wars of conquest. About 1568 to 1569, the
Jaga invaded Kongo, laying waste to the kingdom and forcing the
manikongo into exile. In 1574, Manikongo
Álvaro I was reinstated with the help of Portuguese mercenaries. During the latter part of the 1660s, the Portuguese tried to gain control of Kongo. Manikongo
António I (1661–1665), with a Kongolese army of 5,000, was destroyed by an army of Afro-Portuguese at the
Battle of Mbwila. The empire dissolved into petty polities, fighting among each other for war captives to sell into slavery. Kongo gained captives from the
Kingdom of Ndongo in wars of conquest. Ndongo was ruled by the
ngola. Ndongo would also engage in slave trading with the Portuguese, with
São Tomé being a transit point to Brazil. The kingdom was not as welcoming as Kongo; it viewed the Portuguese with great suspicion and as an enemy. The Portuguese in the latter part of the 16th century tried to gain control of Ndongo but were defeated by the
Mbundu. Ndongo experienced depopulation from slave raiding. The leaders established another state at
Matamba, affiliated with
Queen Nzinga, who put up a strong resistance to the Portuguese until coming to terms with them. The Portuguese settled along the coast as trade dealers, not venturing on conquest of the interior. Slavery wreaked havoc in the interior, with states initiating wars of conquest for captives. The
Imbangala formed the slave-raiding state of
Kasanje, a major source of slaves during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Modern history confirmed the existence of
Pygmy peoples of central Africa. During the
Conference of Berlin in 1884–85 Africa was divided up between the European colonial powers, defining boundaries that are largely intact with today's post-colonial states. On 5 August 1890 the British and French concluded an agreement to clarify the boundary between
French West Africa and what would become
Nigeria. A boundary was agreed along a line from
Say on the
Niger to Barruwa on
Lake Chad, but leaving the
Sokoto Caliphate in the British sphere.
Parfait-Louis Monteil was given charge of an expedition to discover where this line actually ran. On 9 April 1892 he reached
Kukawa on the shore of the lake. Over the next twenty years a large part of the Chad Basin was incorporated by treaty or by force into
French West Africa. On 2 June 1909, the Wadai capital of
Abéché was occupied by the French. The remainder of the basin was divided by the British in Nigeria, who took
Kano in 1903, and the Germans in Cameroon. The countries of the basin regained their independence between 1956 and 1962, retaining the colonial administrative boundaries.
Chad,
Gabon, the
Republic of the Congo, and the
Central African Republic became autonomous states with the dissolution of
French Equatorial Africa in 1958, gaining full independence in 1960. The
Democratic Republic of the Congo also gained independence from
Belgium in 1960, but quickly devolved into a period of political upheaval and conflict known as the
Congo Crisis (19601965) which ended with the installment of
Joseph Mobutu as president and renamed the country
Zaire in 1971.
Equatorial Guinea gained independence from
Spain in 1968, leading to the election of
Francisco Macías Nguema, now widely regarded as one of the most brutal dictators in history. In 1961,
Angola became involved in the
Portuguese Colonial War, a 13-year-long struggle for independence in
Lusophone Africa. It gained independence only in 1975, following the 1974
Carnation Revolution in
Lisbon.
São Tomé and Príncipe also gained independence in 1975 in the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution. In 2011,
South Sudan gained its independence from the
Republic of Sudan after
over 50 years of war. In the 21st century, many jihadist and Islamist groups began to operate in the Central African region, including the
Seleka and the
Ansaru. Over the course of the 2010s, the internationally unrecognized secessionist state called
Ambazonia gained increasing momentum in its home regions, resulting in the ongoing
Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon. ==Economy==