Precolonial African Cities South of the Sahara

The following is a long, rambling email sent to a friend about precolonial African urban centers, concentrating on cities south of the Sahara. What I would love to find more research about is interconnections between cities north of the Sahara and the South beyond the stereotypical and obvious, as well as more information about how 'Black Africans' influenced North African urban cultures and aesthetics. Anyway, enjoy!

I'll skip over North Africa, although cities like Cairo were gigantic centers of trade, power, and cultural exchange that connected Africa, Europe, and Asia. Indeed, Cairo, the capital turned into a bustling city by the Fatimids, featured Jewish Egyptian communities, Greek/Byzantine traders, Italian merchants, Turks, Nubians, Berbers, West Africans, Ethiopians, Circassians, and others to create a truly global city. Indeed, Egypt's importance before the age of European hegemony was often based on its control of the Red Sea routes to the Indian Ocean, which linked western Eurasia via trade with East and Southeast Asia. Of course, Persian and Iraqi control of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean trade could also play a role, but the Fatimid, Mamluk, and Ottoman control over Egypt and the Red Sea played a large role in Egypt becoming the principal 'middleman' in exchange between the Indian Ocean World (Swahili Coast, South Arabia, Persian Gulf, India, Southeast Asia, China) and North Africa, Europe, etc..

But I digress. Here are some important precolonial African cities, including some very large ones. I'm drawing mostly from "History of African Cities South of the Sahara," which does not do justice to Africa's urban history because it omits North Africa and ignores how trade and cultural ties shaped urbanism in both parts of Africa, below and above the Sahara.

http://www.amazon.com/History-African-Cities-South-Sahara/dp/1558763023

1. Timbuktu: at its height, the city's population reached perhaps 50,000-100,000 inhabitants. When Leo Africanus visited the city in the early 1500s, he estimated 50,000. Timbuktu's architecture reflects Maghrebi, Andalusian, West African, and Islamic styles. The city was divided into quarters, which were often largely peopled based on ethnicity/culture, and the city had more than one mosque. The city was also close to the Niger river at its northernmost point, which made it a natural meeting place for trans-Saharan trade caravans and the trade along the Niger's ports. Timbuktu's Muslim elite, highly educated, included 'blacks,' Berbers, and Arabs (although none of these groups are mutually exclusive), and residences were built in brick, clay, straw, and thatch based on status. Timbuktu's architecture reflected the local 'Sudanese' style, too, since the influence of As-Sahili has been exaggerated. Timbuktu's madrassas were flourishing in the city's golden age, under the aegis of the Sonhay empire, which largely let things be as long they the Songhay received their tribute. Like many cities in the 'Western Sudan,' there is a fusion of Maghrebi/Islamic influences with local preferences, such as the public esplanade in the center of the city, which was used by kings for royal display, to 'give justice,' etc. In addition, cities in this region of West Africa (Sahel and savanna) often prioritized open enclosures and the extended family, whereas those of the more Islamized and foreign ulama and business community preferred private homes where walls and doors only opened up to courtyards.

For similar Sahelian cities, look up Agadez, Walata, Awdaghust, Kumbi-Saleh, Niani, Gao, etc.. Agadez, founded around 1000s, became the center of the Agades sultanate and a population of around 50,000 people in the 1500s. Again, Islamic and 'Sudanese' local traditions meshed well, creating a 'skyline' similar to Timbuktu's with large mosques, a large foreign merchant community, learned Muslim clerics, use of clay and brick in architecture, large cemeteries, etc.

2. Mbanza Kongo, or Sao Salvador: The capital of the ancient Kongo kingdom, which had diplomatic relations with Portugal since the late 1400s, and its Kongolese elite converted to Catholicism in the early 1500s. At its height, the population of the city would have been somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000, while Thornton, a specialist on Kongo, estimates 60,000 inhabitants in the mid-17th century. Cities in the Kongo kingdom largely resembled rural villages in architecture and use of public space, except they featured larger royal enclosures, an aristocracy, and some monumental architecture (such as Catholic churches). Residences were usually rectangular, and little was evident that distinguished homes of elites from those of commoners except size and luxury goods. Cities in the Kongo kingdom and other well-known cities in this region (such as Loango, Soyo, etc.) often had large markets, lots of open space (often used for agriculture, the phenomenon of 'garden cities'), and intimately connected to surrounding farming area outside city for subsistence. Kongolese urban centers, like villages, could be mobile, and for this reason, buildings were constructed in such a way as to facilitate quick demolition for movement.

3. Kano: Kano had high walls, an ancient past predating the Islamization of Hausa elites, a complementary relationship with Fulbe/Fulani herders outside city walls, division of city into quarters for foreign communities and social division of labor, textile industry, 'gardens' for urban agriculture, palaces for Hausa city-state king and later, emir, mosques, use of clay bricks for elite homes, as well as the use of columns and arches for domed buildings, etc. Hausa architecture was part of the broad 'Sudanese' style, especially in the use of clay, but also had some multi-leveled elite homes and some buildings constructed with mud, thatch, etc. (round huts, etc.). Kano, at its height in the 19th century, reached a population of 100,000 people within the city walls, but much of the city's space was geared toward using open space for farming. Kano was, without a doubt, cosmopolitan (Fulani, Hausa, Arab, Berber, Muslim, non-Muslim, slave, free, dying/textile industry, social division of labor reflected in urban layout, monumental architecture, 'garden city' phenomenon, etc. Other Hausa cities were similar to Kano, such as Katsina and Zaria, which all took advantage of trade to connect with other parts of West Africa and North Africa. Hausa merchants and Muslim learned communities were present elsewhere, such as in the Asante Empire, and some Hausa cities fell under the orbit of the Kanem-Bornu empire to the east, closer to Lake Chad. Nonetheless, all Hausa city-states fell under Usman dan Fodio's Islamic reformist movement, culminating in political unification under the Sokoto caliphate, which quickly became a combined Hausa-Fulani literate elite where books and paper were imported, long-distance trade respected, and cosmpolitan urban centers vitals.

4. The capital of the Kanem-Bornu empire, which may have reached as many as 200,000 people at the empire's zenith. Kanem-Bornu, an empire with a very long history in the Central Sudan (not to be confused wiht the modern nation of Sudan), had long dominated the trans-Saharan trade through the Fezzan and into Libya and Egypt. Kanem-Bornu had brick architecture, walled cities, lots of open space, the central esplanade for the mai (king), and ties with the Ottomans and North Africa for firearms, trade, cultural exchange, the slave trade, etc. I believe the capital was Garumele or Birni N'Gazargamu, and if the population was 200,000, it was undoubtedly a vast city! Again, there would be a mixture of architectural styles based on class, origin, status, and neighborhood. Unlike the empires and kingdoms that arose to the West, which were closer to sources of gold and other valuable exports in West Africa, Kanem-Bornu had the Lake Chad area for slave raiding, which in turn led to an 'industry' of slave raiding as the horsewarrior aristocracy of Kanem-Bornu preyed on societies to the south and west. In the 1500s and 1600s, there were some innovative mais, such as Idriss Alaoma, who pursued the use of firearms, and at its height, Bornu controlled some of the northern ends of the trans-Saharan trade routes in what is now Libya (Fezzan), meaning this 'black' African state began to dominate parts of the northern and southern termini for the trans-Saharan trade. Use of brick architecture in Kanem-Bornu area has possible link to similar styles in the east, in today's Sudan, or perhaps Turkish influences through Ottoman empire and trans-Saharan trade. Urban architecture included brick, adobe, and straw, and the city had a high wall (25 feet), 660 roads, and was clearly a vast city.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/36113263/Architecture-of-Africa


5. Great Zimbabwe, the best known urban center in precolonial Southern African history, only had a population of 11,000-18,000 at its height, which would've made in somewhat comparable to contemporary European medieval towns. Great Zimbabwe's elite likely based its wealth in cattle and control of trade and gold that was traded to Swahili coast (which is why Kilwa rose to prominence in 1300s). Great Zimbabwe obviously has monumental architecture, social differentiation/complexity, vast walls of stone and the famous stone conical tower, but littrle is known of social relations or much else about the culture. Some claim the city and state declined as a result of environmental degradation as Great Zimbabwe elites' cattle ate up too much grassland. Either way, the Monomotapa empire that succeeded Great Zimbabwe in that region of southern Africa continued the use of vast stone walls, terraced hills, stairways and roads in Khami, Dhlo-Dhlo, and other sites scattered in the Zimbabwe/Mozambique area. However, due to a lack of sufficient archaeological excavations, it's hard to say much about the other stone cities of what one might call the 'Great Zimbabwe' complex. We know that elites had access to textiles, beads, Chinese porcelain, and other goods, which msut have came through the Swahili traders at Sofala (on the coast of Mozambique), and it seems likely that either Great Zimbabwe or some of its client states or neighbors organized trade caravans that went from the interior to the coast to trade with the Swahili and Indian Ocean market. Again, open space seems to be the pattern for much of the Great Zimbabwe/Monomotapa culture, especially if agriculture and pastoralism remained key to the urban sites. Residential architecture would reflect use of stone walls and some of the more stereotypical structures of the Shona today, as well as perhaps a resemblance to the Ndebele, Tswana, and other South African ethnic groups, whose urban centers and villages sometimes featured large stone walls, large cattle herds as basis of social wealth, and little monumental architecture except the walls. Ndebele architecture, however, seems to consist of round homes with the use of a vast array of colors. Look up Kurrichane, a Hurutse-Tsawan town visited by a European int he early 19th century. The white visitor estimated the city had 16,000 people and used stone walls, but agriculture remained the predominant economic/labor activity of the town (so was it proto-urban, or rural?).

6. Zanizbar and the Swahili Coast: Zanizbar had a population of 200,000 in 1870, making it a gigantic urban area where about 80% of the population were enslaved. Zanzibar and the Swahili coast have a clearly cosmopolitan architectural style reflecting East Africa, Islam, Indian, and other influences. Early Swahili towns in the 700s-1000s seem to have been constructed mostly in mud and wattle, thatch, small mosques of wood and thatch, etc., but with increasing wealth, Swahili towns adopted stone (often coral stone), and used it in ingenious ways reflecting Islamic and local aesthetics. Swahili monumental architecture included pillar tombs in ancient cities such as Gedi, as well as modern amenities like indoor plumbing, intricate stone and wooden mosques, multi-storied homes in places like Lamu, and beautiful wooden doors. The use of imported Chinese porcelain in niches of homes and tombs reflects local aesthetics, too, although for the most part it was only the Swahili merchant bourgeoisie and foreign merchants (from as far as Oman, Yemen, Persia, India) who could afford lavish, multi-storied homes with fancy, imported Chinese porcelain and silks. Swahili towns and urban centers also produced some textiles, imported paper for writing, exported iron to India a thousand years ago (other exports include ivory, tortoise shell, slaves, spices, mangroves, tropical products, etc.). Although parts of Swahili Coast came under Portuguese and later Omani domination, Swahili cities probably reached their zenith in the 1100s-1400s era, when Kilwa and other prosperous city-states developed vast trade networks, high walls, close ties with hinterland populations, vast palaces with swimming pools, and other architectural wonders. Swahili cities, therefore, had narrow streets, use of stone and thatch/mud and wattle, elite burial customs, and important ports and international ties in the Indian Ocean. Zanzibar epitomizes this role of the Swahili coast in the 19th century, when the island and its principal city dominated the entire Swahili coast and likely reached a population of nearly 200,000. Lamu, a smaller Swahili town, reached a population of 15,000-20,000 at its height, which shows that most Swahili towns never had very high populations, although some, such as Mombasa and Pate, could host higher populations based on more fertile farmland or better relations with neighboring agrarian societies.

7. Benin City, Kumasi, and Abomey are good examples of inland West African cities in the tropical forest region of West Africa. Benin City was described as being larger than Lisbon by Portuguese traders in the early 1500s, and Benin City's vast walls enveloped the city for 8 miles at a height of 60 feet, which meant the oba (king) of Benin had access to the labor of thousands of men to build the vast wall. The wall, like most walls in West African cities, was earthen and not stone, but nonetheless, very impressive. The oba's palace was a city within a city, reflecting a pattern of Yoruba urbanism as well, which may date as far back as to Ife, an ancient Yoruba city which trhived between 900 and 1200 CE. The oba's palace complex was described by Dutch traders in the 1600s as being larger than the Dutch town of Haarlem, and Benin City included lots of open space, wide, organized streets, and vast markets. Yoruba towns likely influenced Benin City, or were part of the same regional influences in architecture: vast mud walls, veranda-styled houses, high degree or urbanism, and the division of the city into royal sacred space and secular space. Kumasi, on the other hand, grew with the power of the Asante empire in the late 1600s-1800s. Kumasi probably had a population of at least 12,000-15,000 inhabitants, as well as gardens, organized streets, courtyards, gardens, tons of open space, a vast royal palace complex, and a Hausa zongo, or Muslim merchant quarter with wide streets and impeccable cleanliness. Thus, Kumasi was cosmopolitan and diverse: Muslims, Christians, 'traditional religions,' Hausa merchants, Hausa and other literatre bureaucrats who were largely Muslim, use of mud, wattle, thatch, clay, and other building materials, and elite homes with columns that were mostly rectangular. Going by Bowdich's writings and drawings of Kumasi and the Asante area she passed through, the open space was used for 'gardens' and plots to grow food, as well as utilized for public celebrations, displays of the asantehene (king)'s entourage, etc. Abomey, capital of Dahomey, also serves as an interesting example of a vast capital city by a kingdom in the tropical rainforest area of West Africa. Abomey, at its height, had 24,000-50,000 inhabitants, a large moat, a vast palace complex for the king, mostly rectangular homes, a large market, and the center of a large bureaucracy. Dahomey dominated the 'Slave Coast' of what is now Benin, including the important coastal cities of Porto Novo and Whydah, which reflected more creole and European architectural styles.

8. Kuba and the Kingdoms of Central Africa's Interior and the Great Lakes: Although the Kuba kingdom was a small polity deep in the heart of Africa, by 1892, its capital was home to 120,000-160,000 people, and was a 'garden city' that could be mobile, and walled. This pattern in Central African cities has been called a 'Bantu city' pattern by some for its prevalence in Central, Southern and Eastern Africa. Little is known about Kuba's capital city, but similar cities abound. Musumba, capital of the vast Lunda empire which dominated Katanga and the trade in copper and other metals, still had 20,000 inhabitants by its long decline in 1842 (so who knows how populous the city was at the empire's zenith?). Musumba and other Central African cities benefitted from the imported use of corn and cassava, which increased population densities and were easily incorporated into Central African diets. This increase in population density in the region as a result of trade and contact with the Americas and Europe since the late 1400s, culminated with an increase in the population of some urban centers in the region, Musumba being a good example. Again, like other Central African cities, Musumba was a 'mobile city' and it looked like the small rural villages in many ways. A similar pattern can be seen in Nyanza, Kazimbe and other royal capitals in precolonial Rwanda and Burundi, which were mobile cities built on hills. The elites of Rwanda and Burundi controlled vast amounts of cattle, the source of their wealth and prestige, but were dependent on commoners whose farming produced necessary food and supplies for these cities on the hills. Again, these cities would have seemed like the small villages in architecture and design for the most part. Part of the reason so many cities in Central and Eastern Africa were founded on hills or cliffs was for easy defense from attacks, hence the walls and exploitation of elevation and topography for natural defenses.

9. Buganda, a centralized kingdom in what is now Uganda, had a similar capital city, which was part of that trend in 'mobile capitals,' but the explosion of banana cultivation for subsistence in Buganda led to increased population densities because of its suitability to the soil. Thus, with an increase in banana cultivation and subistence, more of the population could live in the towns and pursue other occupations. Buganda became very important in the 19th century, when its capital city housed traders from the Swahili Coast, Indian merchants, Sudanese traders, Europeans, Muslims, Christians, and slaves from all over East Africa. Kibuga, the capital of Buganda, would have housed the vast palaces of the kabaka, Buganda kings, and the city had roads, but there was also an abundance of open space and use of land for agriculture within the city ('garden city'). By the end of the 1800s, a period when Buganda was a British Protectorate, the population of Kibuga was 70,000, an enormous number for a city in a part of Africa where urban centers were rarely that large. Architecture seemed to resemble the more stereotypical round 'huts' and dwellings in this very rural-urban center.
https://web.up.ac.za/sitefiles/file/44/1068/3229/9086/African%20Perspectives/PDF/Papers/NWANGWE.pdf

10. Gondar: the capital of the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, which dominated the highlands, north, and Eritrea, was a vast urban complex. Prior to Gondar, for several centuries the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia lacked a fixed capital, but moved across the kingdom as a mobile capital and military camp. Gondar, however, had European, Indian, Islamic, local, and other influences in style and art. It reached a population of 50,000 to 60,000 at its peak, and clearly is the result of a long history of urbanism in the northern Horn of Africa that dates back at least to the pre-Akumsite period. Aksumite architecture and aesthetics, including the use of stone, arches, stellae, monumental features, and rectangular buildings and tombs, survived and influenced the Lalibela rock-hewn churches of medieval Ethiopia. Ethiopian architecture would have included elite stone homes and palaces, as well as circular, mud, straw, and thatch dwellings in Gondar, just as in ancient Aksum, Yeha, or Adulis. Addis, a modern city based on Western models and ideals, did not come into being until the late 19th century, but would quickly surpass Gondar and previous historical examples as the most important urban center in Ethiopian history. Gondar, however, had castles, churches, and other monumental architecture that likely made it an impressive urban site.

11. Other examples:
-Ancient and Medieval examples: Alexandria, Carthage, Garama, Meroe, Napata, Kerma, Memphis, Hierakonpolis, Suakin, Aswan, Luxor, Thebes, Tichitt-Walata escarpment, Rhapta, Tunis, Marrakesh, Sijilmasa, Dongola, Sennar, Mogadishu, Zeila, Ife, Oyo, etc. Nubian architecture seems interesting, especially since the ancient period. A combination of structures and styles (Egyptian, 'Nubian', Sudanese, Christian, Islamic) appear, which included vast temples, pyramids, palaces, streets, use of whitewashed mudbrick, churches, cathedrals mosques, and other monumental architecture appear to have been the trend. Supposedly elites in the Christian kingdoms of Nubia lived in stone houses with up to 2 or 3 levels and had running water, plumbing. I suspect life in Nubia remained largely rural and concentrated in villages made of mudbrick, but Nubian cities like Dongola appear fascinating. These Nubian cities would have housed Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Africans, Copts, centers for trade caravans, a diversity of slaves, and even ties with Ethiopian Christians as well as monasteries. Other interesting Nubian cities: Faras, Qasr Ibrim, Meroe, Napata, Soba, etc. Some Nubian towns and villages kinda resemble North African ones in style.