The Northern Factor in Ashanti History

Ivor Wilks wrote an intriguing monograph several decades ago, The Northern Factor in Ashanti History. Due to our similar interest in the "northern factor" in Yoruba history (and, to a lesser extent, Dahomey and Borgu history), we found it imperative to actually read it. Wilks presents what may be a sometimes exaggerated role of Islam in 18th century and early 19th century Asante, but it does seem quite likely that trade routes to the North through Begho and later centers was of paramount importance. Like the Oyo Yoruba state, the Asante state appears to have tapped into both Atlantic and broader Sudanic/trans-Saharan trade routes. 

Unlike Oyo, the Ashanti did not require large amounts of imported horses for cavalry units. Nonetheless, the gold and kola nuts of Ghana were highly valuable commodities that brought traders from both the Western and Central Sudan into the region. Through control of or taxation of trade routes used by these northern traders, the Asante state could derive great revenues as well as import cloth and other goods not available from the trade with Europeans on the coast. Aspects of this history is revealed by written sources from Gonja and the north. European accounts plus other sources similarly shed light on the importance of these northern ties that linked this part of Ghana with the Middle Niger, the Sahara, and Hausaland. 

West African Muslims from far afield, in addition to Muslims from areas to the north conquered by Asante, were also a valued community for their literacy, the esteem in which their religion was held, and their economic importance. Whether or not Dupuis's "sketch" of Asante history as revealed to him by manuscripts and conversations with notable Muslims in Kumasi is very reliable for how the Asante themselves saw their history, it is nonetheless important to recall that the Asante rulers sponsored a history, or chronicle,  written by Muslims. The attempt by Wilks to reproduce the accounts given to Dupuis reveals just how problematic this source material can be, though it does reveal how one could and should endeavor to utilize Arabic and European sources (plus oral traditions) to make sense of the history of the Asante. 

23andme African Matches

Our Haitian relative's African matches are quite similar to their results on Ancestry DNA. One conspicuous difference is that she now has fewer (obvious) Yoruba matches. She also had fewer Upper Guinean matches, the only example here being someone with a Fulani surname (common in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Gambia) who she shares 0.17% of her DNA. That person's results were 53.6% Senegambian & Guinean, 29.6% Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone and 7.6% Nigeria, so we cannot say with greater certainty where exactly in West Africa they hail from. The few matches from Central Africa (Congo) were also consistent with her matching patterns on the other site, too. Intriguingly, there were a few "exotic" matches, including one with a North African or Egyptian who harbored significant sub-Saharan African ancestry (including 12.5% Nigerian). The other match was with a half-white Kenyan Kikuyu, but we did not include them in the results since the match could be due to shared European ancestry. For similar reasons, a half-Yoruba British person was excluded, since the shared DNA could also be partly due to European ancestry.

What was a surprise to see here was matches with people from Calabar and other parts of southern Nigeria outside majority Igbo areas. Nonetheless, they were mainly clustered in southeastern Nigeria, which seems to match the Ancestry Composition report identifying Igbo as a "Very Close" genetic group (including various Nigerian ethnic groups, however).  As for the one obvious Yoruba match, it was with someone bearing a Muslim name. We suspect one of the unspecified Nigerian matches was also Yoruba. As for her Ghanaian match, it was with someone likely hailing from the Ga-Adangme group. The Congolese matches were with people whose exact ethnic background we could not determine based on surnames alone. 

As one might expect for a Haitian looking at distant genetic matches with modern African individuals, the amount of shared DNA is usually low. Surprisingly, the closest match was with someone at 0.54% shared DNA, with roots in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. It does seem rather likely that captives imported into Saint Domingue's southern coast (many likely smuggled by the British) included a large number from the Bight of Biafra and today's southeastern Nigeria.

Basil II's Empire

Basil II and the Governance of Empire (976-1025) by Catherine Holmes is an interesting but difficult study on the Byzantine Empire of one of the greatest emperors of Roman/Byzantine history. To really understand it, one would have to have read all or most of the chronicle of John Skylitzes (plus that of other Byzantine chroniclers and historians of the period from the late 900s into the 1200s). Holmes has a number of interesting ideas about the writing of Skylitzes's chronicle and the political/social conditions of late 11th century Byzantium that shaped his work. Supposedly, part of the reason he overstated the importance of Bardas Skleros is because one of his sources was a pro-Skleros source. He also overestimates the importance of various ancestors of prominent/aristocratic families who were not important until the reign of Alexios Komnenos or John Komnenos. 

Holmes tries to use non-Byzantine sources that do cover Basil II's reign (Yahya Ibn Said, Stephen of Taron, some others) but it is rather remarkable how little has survived that covers, in detail, the reign of Basil II. The guy who completed the conquest of Bulgaria and extended the Empire the furthest east/northeast it had been in centuries...and we have so few detailed, internal sources on him. Skylitzes is partly unreliable as a source due to his reliance on pro-Skleros materials, his telescoped passages which often lack dates, and his willingness to modify some details to further the political agenda of his own time in the court of Alexios Komnenos.

Ultimately, a lot of what Holmes is saying seems very conjectural, but she wisely limits her analysis to what can be corroborated by narrative sources, sigillographical evidence, and non-Byzantine sources. It does seem quite likely that Skylitzes highlighted and exaggerated the role of ancestors of contemporary elites (late 11th century) of Byzantium's political system in the wars in the Balkans just to highlight the role of aristocratic cooperation with the imperial court for the success of Byzantium. Similarly, Skylitzes's method for composing his chronicle does suggest one must use it extremely carefully to truly make sense of what transpired in the Balkans or anywhere else during the reign of Basil II. 

Holmes is also worth reading for her insightful commentary on Byzantine historiography and various themes in the study of medieval Byzantium. For example, questing one's facile agreement with past scholarship on a strict genre separation of chronicles and histories. Not all Byzantine chroniclers were monks who emphasized divine providence and avoided classicizing rhetoric or style. Just as not all Byzantine "historians" wrote in fine Attic Greek and modeled themselves on Thucydides or ancient historians. Furthermore, Holmes presents a mostly persuasive case for understanding imperial administration on the eastern and western frontiers as one in which Constantinople relied more on tributary relations (in the east for sure) while devolving local matters on indigenous notables or political actors, only later in Basil's reign sending more officials from Constantinople. Likewise, one finds her reading of the legislation against the Powerful and Basil's interests in presenting the image of omnipotence while allowing much local autonomy a convincing analysis of his administration. For the conditions of Byzantium and its neighbors in the 10th and early 11th centuries, Basil II represented the apogee of that system of imperial rhetoric, control of the army and institutions, and acceptance of the reality of distant frontier governance that was sadly almost destroyed in less than a century after his reign.

Non-African Ancestry in Bainet

In terms of non-African ancestry, 23andme results were mostly consistent with the other major company's estimates. Instead of 11% European, our close relative is now closer to 10%. The distribution of ancestry between Northwestern Europe and Southern Europe is split, which is probably due to the problems of capturing French ancestry through genetic analysis. So, 23andme only assigned this relative 3.4% French & German and 3% Spanish & Portuguese. One suspects that this is a sign that the mostly France-derived European ancestry came from both northern and southern France. Although it is possible this person does have distant ancestry from Spain as well, we could not prove it yet. What was more surprising for us was to see trace ancestry derived from Askenazi Jews (0.2%). However, this is not too shocking when one recalls that Jews or people of Jewish origin were in Saint-Domingue and 19th century Haiti.

For Indigenous Americas ancestry, 23andme estimated a higher trace amount than Ancestry. Ancestry DNA assigned her a trace ancestry at 0.26% Indigenous Bolivia & Peru. 23andme, however, assigned her 0.5% (which appears at all confidence levels) without any specific region or area of Indigenous Americas. We suspect that our Haitian side does harbor trace "Amerindian" ancestry that may be a mix of South American-derived groups and/or others. While some would love to see this as proof of partial "Taino" heritage in Haitians, it is difficult to say given that our relative did not receive any score like Indigenous Dominican or any significant overlap with Dominicans or other Caribbean populations with indigenous Caribbean Ancestry.

The most surprising find of our relative's trace ancestry as a 0.1% Malayali Subgroup estimate. This also appeared in every confidence level, although we are not sure how reliable such a low estimate can be. While there were small numbers of Asian Indians trafficked to Saint Domingue by the French (something that can occasionally still be seen in Dominicans from the Southwest and Haitians in the South on some consumer DNA tests, see here), the amount is so small and difficult to find. Furthermore, South Asian DNA estimates do not appear at all in this relative's estimates from Ancestry DNA. We suspect it is one of the following scenarios: statistical noise, possible ancestry from an Asian Indian brought to Saint Domingue in the 1700s, or perhaps something inherited through a European ancestor that did harbor small amounts of South Asian ancestry. 

African Ancestry in Bainet and 23andme

A very close Haitian relative born in Bainet recently received their 23andme DNA results. In some ways, it's a confirmation of our likely Igbo ancestry. Indeed, the Igbo people were the only specific African ethnic group detected as a very close match in our relative's results. This was not a surprise since our closest African DNA match on Ancestry DNA was with an Igbo Nigerian. Furthermore, the "Ibo" were a consistent and major part of the enslaved African population in Bainet and other areas of Haiti during the colonial period. 

An attempt to show how our relative's African ancestry is broken down in Ancestry's 2024 Update.

Thus, the genetic evidence as well as the historical records (notarial records mentioning slaves by nation, the patterns of the French slave trade, and the smuggling of captives from Jamaica to Haiti's southern coast) point to ancestry among Igbo and/or closely related peoples in southeastern Nigeria. However, just as on Ancestry DNA, our relative also had Yoruba Nigerian DNA matches with various customers. We likely descend from a plethora of individuals from various ethnolinguistic backgrounds across what is Benin, Togo, and Nigeria.

Sadly, the lack of a Benin/Togo category on 23andme leads to a more inflated Ghanaian score for our close relative. The 2024 Update for Ancestry DNA pointed to very strong "Benin & Togo" as well as "Nigeria" scores. Indeed, Ancestry DNA's problematic update even suggested or pointed to ancestry in the East-Central and northern Nigeria for our relative. But 23andme, however, only detected a close match with the Igbo. 23andme's algorithm also gave our relative a higher Senegambian/Upper Guinea score, which we suspect may be due to possible "Bambara" or "Mandingue" ancestry that may be registering as Sierra Leone and Liberia. Lastly, the overall 23andme scores suggest ancestry in West Central Africa is a rather small part of our African origins. And this is in spite of the ubiquitous presence of captives from West Central Africa in Saint Domingue. I guess people with roots in the South really do, on average, harbor less Central African ancestry.

An attempt at showing the regional breakdown of sub-Saharan African ancestry. The general patterns are similar to those observed via Ancestry's results.

One of the benefits of 23andme for understanding African ancestry is seeing assigned mtDNA haplogroups. Our relative's haplogroup, L1b1a, is common in sub-Saharan Africa. This is no surprise and seems consistent with the African ancestry of Haitians. The maternal ancestry of our people, after all, is undoubtedly an African affair. One only wishes 23andme could have indicated some possible distant matches for West and Central Africa to shed more light on our African ancestry. Perhaps a better idea of the distribution of L1b1a would have also helped here. Ultimately, we find some broad commonalities between Ancestry DNA and 23andme here, and both companies estimated our close relative at about 89-90% sub-Saharan African ancestry, overwhelmingly West African. 

Arabic Medieval Inscriptions and Songhay History

Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali: Epigraphy, Chronicles and Songhay-Tuareg History by P.F. de Moraes Farias has long been on our reading list. One of the essential studies that endeavors to incorporate medieval epigraphic sources into our understanding of the history of the Songhay and the eastern arc of the Niger, this important work, despite its (necessarily) occasional speculative nature, raises a number of questions about the received wisdom on the history of Mali. First, by exploring the problematic way in which Heinrich Barth, Delafosse, and others have problematically assumed the 17th century Timbuktu chronicles can be treated as a reservoir of basic facts and data without any deeper ideological or textual analysis, this study illustrates how and why the funerary and non-funerary epigraphic evidence has been ignored, sidelined, or treated as peripheral. 

However, the funerary sources, as early sources covering dates from the early 11th century until the end of the 15th, are actual textual sources from the period before the rise of Sonni Ali and Askia Muhammad I. They shed (some) light on earlier rulers at Gao and Saney with more than just the kingslists that appear in the 17th century chronicles. Moreover, by ignoring the innovative nature of the tarikh genre in the 17th century Western Sudan, and the specific political and socioeconomic conditions which shaped its development after the fall of the Songhay imperial state and the establishment of the Arma, modern scholars have underappreciated the creativity of the chroniclers and their own motives. Furthermore, the chroniclers themselves lamented the lack of sufficient or detailed records from the early history of the Western Sudan, so epitaphs and other inscriptions from the 11th-15th century become exceptionally important sources to supplement our meager knowledge of that era.

That said, the inscriptions obviously cannot tell us everything. They do, however, provide a vista onto how the deceased and those who erected stelae or inscribed tombstones for the dead conceived of time, the calendar, their connection to the larger world of Islam, and hints of kingship, ethnicity, language, or cultural change. Part of this can be seen in Bentyia, where inscriptions record Songhay, Berber, and what appear to be Mande names. The intense interplay between Songhay and Tuareg cultures also challenges us to rethink casual or simplistic assumptions about "race" and culture, too. For instance, the askia title, which appeared in inscriptions centuries before the rise of Askia Muhammad at the end of the 15th century, may have a connection to a word of Berber derivation referring to a male slave (though this is a complex question that requires deeper familiarity with Songhay linguistics and oral tradition). It's quite clear, too, from reading de Moraes Farias, that the Ali Kulun character of Tuareg oral literature was likely the source for how the Timbuktu chroniclers sought to make sense of the period of Mali imperial domination of Gao and the eastern Niger. This suggests that some of the narratives about that period reported in the chronicles are unhistorical and the chronology of Malian rule and the different dynasties that ruled Gao will remain up for debate. 

Whether or not the epigraphic evidence can be used to postulate how kingship might have operated at Gao before the period of Mali's domination is uncertain, but de Moraes Farias's theory of rotating succession in the 11th-13th centuries is an intriguing one., After all, based on the funerary inscriptions from the early 1100s and 1200s at Gao and Saney (another site near Gao), he speculates that there may have been two lines or royal clans who alternated kingship. The first one was definitely Muslim by the second half of the 1000s, and the second one, the so-called Zuwa 'dynasty' may have either been officeholders who shared power with the earlier 'dynasty'. 

Besides raising questions about the Timbuktu chronicles and how medieval inscriptions in Arabic force us to rethink or reconceptualize space, belief, and culture in the medieval Sahel, one is also left with tantalizing references to what may have been early Sufist influence in the Sahel at Junhan. One is also left wondering why it funerary inscriptions were in vogue at Gao, Saney, Bentyia, and Essuk (Tadmakka) but no evidence for the practice has been found yet in Kanem. One would expect that similar connections with Tripoli, Qayrawan and other parts of the Maghrib (as well as similar Saharan and Sahelian Berber populations) did not lead to the development of funerary inscriptions at sites like Njimi (or perhaps at Manan, the earlier capital of Kanem which remains unknown). If the early prominence of Ibadis in Kanem's trans-Saharan trade is a factor, something similar was also an inhibiting factor at Gao.

The Condition of Workers in Saint Domingue

La condition des travailleurs à Saint-Domingue by Hénock Trouillot is yet another study of Haitian history exploring a specific topic or theme, that of labor and workers. While brief and often relying on the works of Debien as well as the usual primary source materials from the 18th century (Labat, d'Auberteuil, Moreau de Saint-Mery, etc.), Trouillot actually raised a few interesting questions about the future leadership of Haiti and its origins among the artisans and skilled workers of the affranchis and black slave populations of Saint Domingue. It is a topic Trouillot also explored in another work we have not yet found, but is raised occasionally in La condition des travailleurs à Saint-Domingue. Most of the text is really an overview of white, free people of color, and enslaved workers of various types, including the white petit blancs, free people of color who worked in a variety of trades and occupations, and enslaved people who were "skilled" or domestics who were often able to flout the colonial/slave system. In some ways, it was rather paradoxical since rich free people of color and some "privileged" slaves sought to emulate whites. However, their very position and the contempt of the petit blancs for such people (particularly as blacks were favored for labor, even in skilled positions, while free people of color who became wealthy could become objects of scorn for less successful whites) display how unstable the system was. The degree to which a nègre à talent and other enslaved people working as domestics of various sorts or in all the trades could similarly live as "free" people in towns and cities through a number of means represented another blow to the colonial system's strict racial hierarchy.