People

Federation of Kwararafa (13th – 18th Century)

Africa is full of surprises. Most people visit Africa for safari parks and taking pictures of lovely animals from Range Rovers. But what if you could take a trip into the mind like inception – a journey through time and space. What if you could journey into your imagination and visit a sophisticated African state with no king, no concerns of external threats, a self-sufficient domestic economy, no economy dependent on slavery? Such a state existed.

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Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517 CE): Never let a Megalomaniac get in the way of beautiful architecture

Some civilisations sacrificed a work-life balance, art and architectural brilliance to focus on winning wars. One African dynasty found time to fight the Mongol empire and build insane works of beautiful architecture at the same time. “Mamluk” comes from the Arabic “owned” or slave. The Mamluk sultanate was created by slave soldiers and administrators that took over Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty.

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5m Africans, Carribeans and Asians who fought in WW1 and WW2: Spotlight on the German West Africa Askari (Schutztruppe)

Should Afro-Europeans wear the poppy? This question used to challenge me. Learning GCSE History (a UK secondary school grade), I heard about what sparked World War 1 and the lessons the government wanted the next generation to learn. “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it” George Santayana (16 December 1863 in Madrid, Spain – 26 September 1952 in Rome, Italy). And there! my interest in the past was sparked. I read. Interested in movies, along the way, I watched various films like Sergeant York, Dam Busters, Where Eagles Dare and sat through Lawrence of Arabia twice. In all this I grew to respect the past generation of Brits for their grit and sacrifice but I was never made to feel that “people who look like me” contributed anything to Britain’s survival or prosperity. Now, I know otherwise. Now, I know that it was a World War in the first place because Africa didn’t have self-rule on both sides of the war.

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5m Africans, Carribeans and Asians who fought in WW1 and WW2: Spotlight on the Senegalese Riflemen (Tirailleurs Sénégalais)

All through the First and Second World Wars, multitudes of African fighters battled with regards to European interests, while being consigned to frontier status and gaining almost no ground toward picking up freedom of their own. The Senegalese Tirailleurs are among the numerous indigenous people groups who served in the French armed forces amid the World Wars. By 1918, France had enrolled somewhere in the range of 192,000 Tirailleurs Sénégalais all through French West Africa and 134,000 of them got involved in combat roles – some in the European theatre.

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The Rashidun Caliphate: international spread of Islam

Over the span of thirty years, an empire emerged and grew supporting the rising religion at the time, Islam. This period witnessed a spectacular expansion of territory and religion during the Rashidun Caliphate which translates to “The Rightly-Guided Successors” under the leadership of four caliphs covering an area of 6,400,000 km2 and including a population of 21,400,000.

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5m Africans, Carribeans and Asians who fought in WW1 and WW2: Spotlight on King’s African Rifles

The King’s African Rifles, abbreviated as KAR, was a Colonial Regiment of Britain which served from 1902 to 1960s. It was a multi-battalion regiment which worked in East Africa for a more extended period. Britain had without any doubt many possessions in East Africa, and till the independence of British East African colonies, the King’s African Rifles worked up to the mark.

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Njinga Mbandi (1581–1663): Queen, Intelligent, Tactician, Negotiator, Warrior, Thorn to Portugal

  The start of the Transatlantic slave trade was during the 15th century when the Portuguese began kidnapping people from Africa’s west coast and transported them to America and Europe. For almost a century, Portugal was rising and growing as an empire, an empire that was built on the use of slaves captured from Africa

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Kingdom of Medri Bahri: 400 years of David v. Goliaths victories against Ottomans

The Kingdom of Medri Bahri was a semi unified state situated in the Horn of Africa (modern day Eritrea). It was established in the early 12th century and rose to prominence in the 13th century, through trade and its impressive defensive army. It survived multiple serious invasion attempts by formidable enemies, including the powerful Ottomans,

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Kingdom of Songhai

West African history The Songhai Kingdom: Facts, History, Trade and Power The Songhai Kingdom existed from 1375 to 1591 and became one of the largest and most powerful states in West African history. At its peak, the Songhai Kingdom stretched along the Niger, ruled vast territory, expanded trade, reformed government, and helped make cities such

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