Excerpt: Crucible of the Continent: Central Africa before 1700
Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrongShow Notes
Excerpt of a lecture for patrons only for 1 year: We explore the tumultuous history of Central Africa, embracing the enormous Congo rainforest, the great rift valleys, the Indian Ocean coast, and the gold fields of the Zambezi basin, as formidable kingdoms—Kongo, the Swahili cities, and the mysterious Great Zimbabwe—emerged in the tropical landscape, adapted to the traumatic incursion of the Portuguese, and eventually struck back against European power, through diplomatic schemes, military struggles, and religious awakenings. This same region of the world produced some of the most remarkable and towering figures in African or world history, such as King Afonso I and Queen Nzingha, as well as many of the first captives to be taken to the New World, including the “twenty-and-odd negroes” that were famously landed at Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619.
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Image: Bronze crucifix, Kongo, 1650-1750, High Museum of Art
Suggested further reading: Van Reybrouck, “Congo: The Epic History of a People”; Edgerton, “The Troubled Heart of Africa: a History of the Congo”; Wills, “An Introduction to the History of Central Africa”; Heywood, “Njinga of Angola : Africa's Warrior Queen” Samuel, “The kingdom of Ndongo and the Portuguese,” ; Thornton, “The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706”
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