African Kingdoms and Civilisations Before Colonialism: The History Children Should Know

When children are introduced to African history, there is a risk that the story begins far too late. They may learn about the transatlantic slave trade. Then European colonialism. Then independence movements. All of these are important parts of history and deserve to be taught carefully.

But African history did not begin when Europeans arrived.

Long before the period of European colonial rule, communities across the African continent had built kingdoms, empires, cities and trading networks. There were centres of scholarship and learning, skilled metalworkers and craftspeople, complex political systems, monumental architecture and international trade routes connecting different parts of Africa with Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

And there wasn't one single "African civilisation". Africa is enormous. Its history stretches across thousands of years and encompasses countless peoples, languages, environments, belief systems and political structures. Ancient Egypt is part of African history but African history is certainly not only Ancient Egypt. For Black History Month, this is an important part of the story to explore with children because if children's first encounter with African history begins with enslavement or colonisation, they encounter African people for the first time at the point at which power is being taken away from them.

We can give them a much bigger picture.

First: Africa Was Never One Civilisation

Before looking at individual kingdoms, there is something children need to understand. Africa is a continent, not a country.

Today it contains 54 internationally recognised sovereign states, but modern national borders do not neatly represent the kingdoms, empires and communities that existed historically. Nor should we imagine that people living in Mali, Ethiopia, Benin or Zimbabwe shared one culture simply because we now describe all of those places as African. Consider Europe. We wouldn't teach Ancient Greece, the Vikings, Tudor England and the Roman Empire as though they were one civilisation called "European culture". African history deserves the same care.

Different societies developed in different environments and at different times. Some had kings. Others had different systems of government. Some became enormously wealthy through international trade. Some were relatively decentralised. Some left monumental stone buildings. Others left oral histories, artworks, manuscripts or archaeological remains.

1. The Kingdom of Kush

Long before many of the kingdoms children encounter in European history, powerful states existed along the Nile south of Egypt in the region now largely associated with Sudan. The Kingdom of Kush developed over a long period, with important centres including Napata and Meroë. At one point, Kushite rulers became powerful enough to rule Egypt itself. The rulers of Egypt's 25th Dynasty, sometimes called the Kushite or Nubian pharaohs, came from this region.

That alone can surprise children who have studied Ancient Egypt without ever exploring the civilisations immediately to its south. Kush also developed its own cultural traditions and became associated with trade and iron production.

And then there are the pyramids. Children may associate pyramids almost exclusively with Egypt, yet Sudan contains numerous ancient pyramids constructed by Kushite rulers.

Investigate

Give children photographs of Egyptian and Nubian pyramids. Ask:

What similarities can you see?

What differences can you see?

Then find Egypt and Sudan on a map. Immediately, Ancient Egypt stops appearing as an isolated civilisation.

2. The Kingdom of Aksum

In the Horn of Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum developed into a significant trading power during the first millennium CE. Its territory centred around parts of what are now Ethiopia and Eritrea. Aksum's location gave it access to important trading routes connecting Africa with Arabia and the wider Red Sea and Indian Ocean worlds. Goods could travel enormous distances. Ivory, agricultural products and other commodities moved through trading networks connecting different regions and societies. Aksum even produced its own coins.

That gives children a useful clue about the sophistication and reach of its economy. The kingdom is also significant in the history of Christianity. Christianity became established there in the fourth century CE, giving Ethiopia one of the world's longest continuous Christian traditions. Aksum is therefore a useful reminder that African history has always been deeply connected with wider world history.

Investigate

Find Ethiopia and Eritrea. Then locate:

• the Red Sea,

• the Arabian Peninsula,

• Egypt,

• and the Indian Ocean.

Ask your child: Why might Aksum's location have been useful for trade?

Geography begins explaining history.

3. The Ghana Empire

Here's a source of potential confusion for children. The historical Ghana Empire was not located in exactly the same place as the modern country of Ghana. It developed much further northwest, principally in areas now associated with Mauritania and Mali. The empire flourished particularly through trans-Saharan trade. Gold was one of the region's major resources. Salt was another incredibly valuable commodity traded across the Sahara.

It can be difficult for a modern child to understand why salt could be so valuable. Ask them to imagine life without refrigeration. Salt could be crucial for preserving food, as well as for human nutrition. Trade connected West African communities with North Africa and the Mediterranean world.

Try this

Give your child a map and ask them to plan a journey across the Sahara.

What problems would traders encounter? Heat? Water? Distance? Food? Navigation?

Then investigate why camels became so important to trans-Saharan trade. Now history, geography and science are interacting.

4. The Mali Empire

If there is one precolonial African empire I would particularly like more children to encounter, it is Mali. The Mali Empire emerged in West Africa during the thirteenth century and eventually controlled extensive territory and important trade routes. Gold played an enormous role in its wealth. And its most famous ruler has become almost legendary.

Mansa Musa

Mansa Musa ruled Mali during the fourteenth century. He is frequently described as one of the wealthiest people in history. The story that made him famous far beyond West Africa concerns his pilgrimage to Mecca. In 1324, Mansa Musa travelled on the Hajj accompanied by a large entourage and enormous quantities of gold. Accounts of his wealth helped make Mali known far beyond West Africa. He even appears on the famous Catalan Atlas, a fourteenth-century European map.

Think about what that tells us. A West African ruler was sufficiently important to international understandings of wealth and geography that he appeared on a medieval European map.

Investigate

Find an image of the Catalan Atlas depiction of Mansa Musa. Ask: Why do you think the mapmaker chose to show him holding gold?

Maps don't merely show geography. They can reveal what people believed was important.

5. Timbuktu — A Centre of Trade and Learning

The Mali Empire also gives us an opportunity to talk about Timbuktu. Today, the word sometimes appears in English expressions meaning somewhere impossibly far away. But Timbuktu was a real and important city. It became associated with trade, scholarship and Islamic learning. Scholars studied subjects including religion, law, mathematics and astronomy, and manuscripts were produced, copied, bought, sold and preserved. Institutions associated with the Sankore area contributed to Timbuktu's reputation as a centre of scholarship. This is important because another damaging historical stereotype presents precolonial Africa as a place without scholarship or written intellectual traditions. The surviving manuscript collections of Timbuktu tell a very different story.

Investigate

Ask your child: What makes somewhere a centre of learning? A university? Teachers? Libraries? Books? People travelling there to study?

Then compare Timbuktu with another historical centre of scholarship your child has encountered.

6. The Songhai Empire

Eventually, Mali's power declined and another major West African empire rose. The Songhai Empire became particularly powerful during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its territory included important cities such as Gao and Timbuktu. Trade remained essential, but Songhai also developed systems of government and administration capable of controlling a large territory. One of its best-known rulers, Askia Muhammad, reorganised aspects of the empire's administration and supported Islamic scholarship. This provides a useful opportunity to teach children that empires rarely exist neatly one after another. Political power shifts. Kingdoms expand. Rulers compete. Trade routes change. Internal conflict develops. New powers emerge. History is movement.

Investigate

Create a simple timeline: Ghana → Mali → Songhai But then explain that the reality is more complicated than three boxes. Ask:

Why might control of valuable trade routes make a kingdom powerful?

7. The Kingdom of Benin

The Kingdom of Benin developed in what is now southern Nigeria. And first, an important clarification: The historical Kingdom of Benin is not the same thing as the modern Republic of Benin. Its historic capital was Benin City, in modern Nigeria. The kingdom became known for sophisticated political organisation, trade and extraordinary artistic production. Its rulers were known as the Oba. And its artists created some of the most remarkable surviving works from precolonial West Africa.

The Benin Bronzes

The objects collectively known as the Benin Bronzes include plaques, sculptures and other works produced in materials including brass and bronze. Many depict rulers, court officials, warriors and aspects of palace life. They aren't simply beautiful objects. They are historical evidence. Children can study clothing, symbols of authority, weapons, animals and court scenes and ask what those details might reveal. Many of these objects were removed from Benin during the British punitive expedition of 1897 and subsequently entered museums and collections around the world. That means the Benin Bronzes can also lead older children into a very modern question: Who should own historical objects?

Investigate

Choose one Benin plaque. Don't tell your child anything about it initially. Ask:

What can you see?

Who seems important?

How can you tell?

What questions does the object make you ask?

That's historical enquiry.

8. Great Zimbabwe

In southern Africa lie the remarkable stone remains of Great Zimbabwe. The settlement developed particularly between roughly the eleventh and fifteenth centuries and became associated with a powerful trading society. Its enormous stone structures were constructed without mortar. The most famous areas include the Great Enclosure and hilltop ruins. The scale and skill of the architecture alone make Great Zimbabwe a fascinating topic for children. But its story also reveals something uncomfortable about the way history has sometimes been interpreted. European colonisers struggled to accept that African people had constructed such impressive architecture. Various alternative explanations were proposed despite archaeological evidence connecting the site with African societies. Modern archaeology has firmly established Great Zimbabwe as an African achievement. That makes the site useful for discussing not only ancient history but how bias can affect interpretations of history.

Investigate

Look closely at photographs of the stone walls. There is no mortar holding many of those stones together. Try building a small dry-stone structure using blocks or stones. What makes it stable? History becomes engineering.

9. The Swahili City-States

Travel east to Africa's Indian Ocean coast and we encounter another completely different historical world. Along the coast of what are now countries including Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili-speaking trading cities developed over many centuries. Places such as Kilwa Kisiwani, Mombasa and Zanzibar became connected to Indian Ocean trading networks. Merchants traded with communities across: Arabia, Persia, India, and eventually even farther east.

Archaeologists have found imported ceramics and other goods demonstrating these long-distance connections. The Swahili language itself reflects centuries of interaction, being fundamentally a Bantu language while containing vocabulary influenced by Arabic and other languages. This is another important correction to simplistic versions of history. Long before European colonialism, African communities were already participating in extensive international trade networks.

Investigate

Trace a route across the Indian Ocean. How could a merchant travel from East Africa towards India?

Then investigate monsoon winds. Now a history lesson becomes meteorology and geography.

10. The Ethiopian Empire

Ethiopia has an extraordinarily long and distinctive history. Following earlier states including Aksum, different Ethiopian dynasties developed over subsequent centuries. One of the most visually striking historical sites children can explore is Lalibela, famous for its medieval rock-hewn churches. Rather than constructing the churches upward from separate blocks, builders carved them into and out of solid rock. The site remains an important place of Christian pilgrimage.

Investigate

Look at photographs of the churches at Lalibela. Ask:

How would you build a structure downwards?

How would workers plan it?

How would they remove the rock?

What could go wrong?

Architecture creates wonderful opportunities for children to think about mathematics, engineering and problem-solving.

But Where Are All the Written Records?

If these societies were so significant, why don't we know as much about some of them as we do about Ancient Rome?

There are several answers. Different societies recorded and preserved knowledge differently. Some used written records extensively. Some relied much more heavily on oral traditions. Materials decay. Cities are destroyed. Political change affects what survives. Colonisation disrupted societies and shaped which histories European scholars chose to study and preserve. And historians themselves have historically carried biases about which sources they considered legitimate.

Today, historians and archaeologists can use many different kinds of evidence: manuscripts, oral traditions, archaeology, architecture, art, coins, inscriptions, DNA, linguistics, accounts written by travellers and objects found through excavation.

Children should understand that history isn't simply "what somebody wrote in a book". It is a process of reconstructing the past from surviving evidence.

Oral History Is Still History

This is particularly important when studying societies with strong oral traditions. Information can be passed between generations through: stories, songs, genealogies, poetry, performance, and specialist storytellers. In parts of West Africa, griots have historically played important roles in preserving genealogies, histories and cultural knowledge. That doesn't mean historians should accept every oral account uncritically. But we don't accept every written source uncritically either. Every source creates questions.

Who created it?

When?

Why?

For whom?

How might it have changed?

What other evidence supports it?

Those questions are at the heart of good history.

Africa Was Connected to the World

One of the biggest themes children can take from these civilisations is connection. Look at the trade routes. West African gold travelled north across the Sahara. North African salt travelled south. East African merchants traded across the Indian Ocean. Aksum interacted with Arabia and the Mediterranean world. Mansa Musa travelled from Mali to Mecca. Swahili merchants encountered goods from Asia. African history wasn't happening separately from "world history". It was world history.

A Simple Activity: Build an African Civilisations Map

For home-educating families, this is one activity I'd strongly recommend. Print or draw a large outline map of Africa. As your child discovers a civilisation, add it approximately where it existed. Use different dates or timeline cards too.

Add: Kush, Aksum, Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Benin, Great Zimbabwe, Swahili city-states

Then add arrows showing important trading connections. Gold. Salt. Ivory. Textiles. Books and manuscripts. Ceramics. Now the continent stops looking like an empty space waiting for European explorers to arrive. It becomes what it always was: a continent full of people, societies, ideas and movement.

Compare Civilisations

Older children can go further. Choose two societies and compare them.

This is much more useful than simply memorising ten rulers and dates. Children begin identifying patterns and differences between societies.

Don't Teach African History as a Prelude to European History

There is one final trap worth avoiding. We can teach all of this and still accidentally frame the story incorrectly.

If every section ends with: "And then Europeans arrived…" we are still making Europe the destination of African history. These societies deserve to be studied on their own terms. We can ask what mattered to the people living within them.

How did they organise communities?

What did they believe?

What did they create?

Who did they trade with?

How did they respond to environmental challenges?

What conflicts occurred?

How did political power change?

What evidence did they leave?

Colonialism eventually becomes part of the story. But it doesn't have to be the reason we tell the earlier story.

Why This Matters During Black History Month

Black History Month rightly includes difficult histories. Children should eventually understand the transatlantic slave trade. They should learn about European colonialism. They should understand racism and the struggles people have faced against it. But if that is all the Black history they encounter, something important is missing.

Black people first appear in the curriculum as enslaved people. Africa first appears as a continent being colonised. Black resistance first appears as a response to oppression. There is centuries, indeed millennia, of history before those moments. Children deserve to encounter African people as: rulers, scholars, architects, merchants, artists, farmers, engineers, craftspeople, travellers, religious thinkers, soldiers and simply people living their lives.

That doesn't erase the difficult history that came later. It gives children the context needed to understand it properly.