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African history


  • Excerpt: The Akan Forest Kingdom of Asante

    by John Parker

    This excerpt from a new collection of essays on the precolonial kingdoms of Africa examines the sophisticated way that the Asante integrated the political power of their ruling elite with the spiritual and ceremonial to rule. 



  • How True is the History in "The Woman King"?

    "'The Woman King' chooses to make resistance to slavery its moral compass, then misrepresents a kingdom that trafficked tens of thousands as a vanguard in the struggle against it."



  • "The Woman King" Softens Truths of the Slave Trade

    by Ana Lucia Araujo

    The film has a delicate task: showing the involvement of the Kingdom of Dahomey in selling other Africans to European slave traders without feeding narratives that blame Africans for the slave trade. It largely sidesteps this history instead. 



  • The Belated Return of Lumumba's Tooth Shows the Tenacity of Colonialism

    "The only reason that can be offered for keeping a man’s tooth for 61 years knowing that it was obtained through torture and murder is that the cruelty is the point. Colonisation was, after all, a projection of power through cruelty, rationalised by pseudo-intellectual arguments about racial superiority and difference."



  • Palm Oil is Colonialism's Continuing Nightmare

    by Max Haiven

    The extraction and trade in palm oil in west Africa has been at the center of two centuries of exploitation and violence, which stands to get worse as the Ukraine war threatens the world supply of competing sunflower oil. 



  • Smithsonian to Return All Benin Bronzes

    The Smithsonian will return works that it has legal title to own but that are linked to an infamous British raid on Benin City in 1897.



  • Mapping Black Antiquity

    by Sarah Derbew

    Ancient Greek literature is full of depictions of African people that affirm their participation in classical antiquity. Why have these been submerged? 



  • Black Veterans of the First World War are Often Overlooked

    by Michelle Moyd

    Nearly 638,000 African men fought in Africa and Europe. Some were conscripted by colonial powers and forced to fight or labor, and others hoped through service to stake claims to political rights. More global attention to their service and its relationship to colonialism is needed.



  • France to Return Looted Artifacts to Benin

    At least 90,000 artifacts from sub-Saharan Africa are held by institutions in France, according to a 2018 report commissioned by the French government.



  • Jack Johnson and Africa: Boxing and Race in Colonial Africa

    by Abraham Tapiwa Seda

    Jack Johnson's achievement as the world heavyweight champion had cultural significance far beyond the United States, as European colonial regimes that had used sports like boxing as instruments of social control found that they could also be instruments of rebellion and rejection of white supremacy.