Africa Was Great Before: Kingdoms They Don't Teach You About

Africa Was Great Before: Kingdoms They Don't Teach You About

In 1324, a West African emperor passed through Cairo on his way to Mecca. He gave away so much gold that he crashed Egypt's economy for a decade. Historians still struggle to calculate his wealth in modern terms — some estimates put it at $400 billion, others say it's impossible to measure because he controlled the gold supply itself.

His name was Mansa Musa. And yet most people outside Africa have never heard of him.

The story of Africa as a "dark continent" — primitive, uncivilized, waiting for enlightenment from abroad — is a story that was deliberately constructed. It had to be. You can't justify slavery and colonialism if you admit you're stealing from equals. So the history had to disappear.

Let's bring some of it back.

The Mali Empire (1235–1600)

When Europe was deep in the Middle Ages, Mali was running one of the largest empires on Earth. We're talking 500,000 square miles at its peak. A sophisticated bureaucracy. A professional army. Control over the trans-Saharan gold and salt trade that funded half of the Mediterranean world.

Mansa Musa, who ruled from 1312 to 1337, wasn't just rich — he was administratively competent. He expanded the empire, maintained peace across a vast territory, and turned Timbuktu into a global center of learning. The Sankore University had a collection of manuscripts that rivaled anything in Europe. Scholars came from across the Islamic world to study there.

When Musa made his famous hajj to Mecca in 1324, his caravan included 60,000 men and 12,000 slaves, each carrying four pounds of gold. He gave away so much gold in Cairo that he devalued the metal across the entire region. Then, realizing what he'd done, he borrowed gold on his way back to restabilize the market.

This is not the behavior of a primitive society.

The Songhai Empire (1464–1591)

Mali eventually declined, and Songhai rose in its place — even larger, even more organized. Under Sunni Ali and later Askia Muhammad, Songhai became the largest empire in African history. We're talking an area larger than Western Europe.

Askia Muhammad was a particular kind of ruler. He reorganized the entire government into ministries. He standardized weights and measures across the empire. He appointed judges and established a system of Islamic courts. He created a professional army with specialized units — cavalry, infantry, a fleet of war canoes on the Niger River.

Timbuktu continued to thrive. Gao became a major commercial hub. Djenné's Great Mosque — still standing today — was the center of Islamic learning in West Africa.

But here's where we have to be honest with ourselves: the empire fell in 1591 when Morocco — another African nation — sent an army across the Sahara to seize control of the gold trade. Africans fighting Africans for resources. This wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last.

Internal divisions, ethnic rivalries, and competition between kingdoms created the fractures that outsiders would later exploit. When European slavers arrived, they didn't capture most of their victims themselves — they bought them from African rulers and merchants who were willing to sell rival groups for guns, cloth, and alcohol. That's an uncomfortable truth, but it's the truth.

The point isn't to spread blame evenly and let colonizers off the hook. What Europeans did was industrial-scale extraction and dehumanization. But we can't build a sovereign future if we pretend all our problems came from outside. Some of the wounds were self-inflicted. Unity has never been our strong suit — and that's something we still haven't solved.

Great Zimbabwe (1100–1450)

In Southern Africa, while Europeans were still figuring out Gothic architecture, the people of Great Zimbabwe were building a stone city without mortar — walls fitted so precisely they've stood for nearly a thousand years.

Great Zimbabwe was the capital of a kingdom that controlled the gold trade between the interior and the Swahili coast. At its peak, maybe 18,000 people lived there. The ruins include a massive stone enclosure with walls 36 feet high and 20 feet thick at the base.

When European colonizers first encountered these ruins in the 19th century, they refused to believe Africans built them. They invented theories about Phoenicians, Arabs, even a lost white civilization. Anything but admit that Africans had built something this sophisticated.

It took until the 20th century for archaeologists to finally confirm what should have been obvious: Great Zimbabwe was built by the ancestors of the Shona people. Full stop.

The Kingdom of Benin (1180–1897)

When Portuguese traders first arrived at Benin City in the 15th century, they found a city that made their own capitals look provincial. Wide streets, organized in neat patterns. Houses with verandas and balconies. A system of oil lamps for street lighting. Walls and moats extending for miles.

One Dutch visitor in the 17th century compared Benin City favorably to Amsterdam.

The Benin Bronzes — thousands of metal plaques and sculptures — show a level of artistic and metallurgical sophistication that stunned Europeans. These weren't crude artifacts. They were detailed historical records cast in brass, depicting court life, military victories, and religious ceremonies.

In 1897, the British launched a "punitive expedition" against Benin. But the real wound came from within.

Agho Ogbeide — later known as Chief Obaseki — was Oba Ovonramwen's closest friend and business partner since before Ovonramwen took the throne. When Ovonramwen became Oba, he created a chieftaincy title specifically for his friend, married his own daughter to him, and gifted him 100 slaves. This was a man who owed everything to the Oba.

When the British invaded and Ovonramwen was forced into exile in Calabar, Obaseki turned his back on his friend. He collaborated with the invaders and ruled Benin as paramount chief from 1897 to 1914 — the entire duration of Ovonramwen's exile. The Oba died in Calabar in 1914, never returning home, while the man he had elevated sat in his place serving the British.

Meanwhile, Ologbosere — the Oba's son-in-law and army commander who had fought the British — was captured in 1899. At his trial, the very chiefs who had supported the resistance testified against him to save themselves. He was hanged the day after.

The British looted the bronzes and burned the city. Today those artifacts sit in the British Museum, the Met, and private collections across Europe. Nigeria has been asking for them back for decades. Some institutions have started returning pieces, but most remain stolen property displayed as "art."

This is the pattern that keeps repeating: external powers exploit internal divisions. The British didn't conquer Benin alone — they had help from a trusted insider who chose personal advancement over loyalty to his people.

Why This Matters Now

This isn't about living in the past. I'm not suggesting we rebuild the Mali Empire or pretend pre-colonial Africa was perfect. Every society had its problems. Slavery existed in Africa before Europeans arrived. Kingdoms rose and fell. Wars happened.

But the narrative matters. When you're taught — explicitly or implicitly — that your ancestors contributed nothing to civilization, it shapes how you see yourself. It shapes how others see you. It shapes what you believe is possible.

The lie that Africa has always been poor, always been chaotic, always needed outside help — that lie is the foundation of every exploitative relationship the continent has today. It's why the IMF can impose conditions that would never be accepted in Europe. It's why foreign companies can extract resources on terms that would cause riots in any Western democracy. It's why African leaders themselves sometimes act like they need permission from Paris or Washington to make decisions.

The history is there. It's documented. It's in the ruins and the manuscripts and the oral traditions that survived despite everything. The question is whether we're going to keep letting other people tell us who we are.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about how all of this was systematically dismantled. How colonialism didn't just draw arbitrary borders — it deliberately destroyed the systems that made African societies function.

But today, just sit with this: Africa was great before. The evidence is overwhelming. The only reason you might not know it is because someone decided you shouldn't.