Pre-colonial Africa (which really only came into being with the scramble in the late 19th century) was not just a bunch of tribes, it was full of highly complex empires, some of which were far more powerful and influential than their European counterparts at the time.
This is right up into the modern era. Europeans in the modern era showed up not as conquerors (such as the Portugese in the 15th century), but as looking to be involved in the lucrative gold trade in west Africa. It was really only in the late 19th, that they were able to “conquer” Africa, and even then, it was often tenuous control that depended on the local elites cooperation. It was the slave trade itself that made any sort of colonial control by Europeans possible in the first place.
It was extremely common for people to practice slavery, but it seems vaguely unfair to immediately focus on that about them when we tend not to for the people who went pro.
It is also much harder to see the impact that the Roman slave trade had on MODERN civilization, while there are still people alive, today, who had grand parents who were enslaved in the US, not to mention that the racial caste system that was created to enforce enslavement is STILL shaping our politics today. There are millions of Americans who lived in racial segregation, who had their wealth stolen because of it, and are living with the continuation of racist views that were created specifically to enforce enslavement.
Probably at least a handful whose parents were enslaved in the US. (Example: if a boy born into slavery in 1862 fathered a child at age 65 then that child would be 95 today.)
I didn’t mean to imply that a tribe isn’t also a complex kingdom. Africa was, and is, based on tribes, but these could be very large scale and organized, as you said. It seems like some groups, like the Bantu, really were able to create large-scale political organization, as you say, larger and more organized than some European states at the time. Tribal doesn’t mean primitive.
You’re kind of being reductive here. It depends on what part of Africa, at what time, etc. There are parts that are built on tribal affiliation, but not the whole place.
I didn’t say other wise, but it has that connotation for many people in the west.
she is such an amazing actress. can turn the emotions she’s portraying around on a dime, take up the whole screen, and carry you along for the ride, never missing a beat.
seeing her lead an army into battle is going to rock
Fuck me! Below is a posthumous painting of Louverture. He looks exactly like Rocketdyne’s long-ago, go-to tech ace for strain-gaging their engines! I gotta send this pic to him. He’s gonna plotz!!
From what I’ve read (which may not be accurate since it’s movie hype) the character of Nawi is based on the last living Dahomey amazon. The real life Nawi died in 1979 and claimed to have fought the French in the Second Franco-Dahomean War in 1892.
Also, I feel I should point out again that there are people alive today who KNEW family members who were enslaved, parents and grandparents. This is not the ancient past. And the concept of races grew directly out of the Atlantic slave trade. This shapes global politics, too. There are plenty of people in power who still believe in the validity of eugenics and racial theory, despite the end results of the holocaust, Jim Crow, apartheid, and other atrocities justified by racism.
But I’m sure that @Red_Fox can find some way to excuse all of those realities that are still in lived memory.
