HISTORY OF ZAMBIA

Barotse and Kololo: 19th century AD

The African tribes living in the region between the Zambezi and Lake Tanganyika are first reached by outsiders in 1798. In that year a Portuguese trading party, pushing north from Tete on the Zambezi, reaches the capital of a chief near Lake Mweru. Half a century later this is the region which Livingstone explores,…

HISTORY OF TOGO

German colony: AD 1884-1914

The first German connection with Togo is the arrival of missionaries in 1847 to work among the largest tribal group in the region, the Ewe. German traders soon follow, establishing a base at Anécho on the coast.

When Bismarck decides to put together an off-the-peg German empire in Africa, Togo is one of the three places which…

HISTORY OF PORTUGAL

Western Iberia: to AD 1179

The early history of Portugal is shared with the rest of the Iberian peninsula. The region is visited by Phoenicians and Carthaginians, settled by Celts, incorporated in the Roman empire (as Lusitania in 138 BC), settled again by Visigoths and conquered by Muslims.

During the centuries of the Reconquest, the region has the status of a…

HISTORY OF OMAN

Well placed for trade: from the 6th century BC

Like Yemen to the southwest, the territory of Oman has always benefited from its fine trading position at the southern extremity of the Arabian peninsula. From here merchants, without needing to sail far from land, can make easy contact with Persia to the north, India to the east and Africa to…

HISTORY OF MALAWI

The Maravi Confederacy: 16th – 18th century AD

The earliest known settled kingdom in the region of Lake Nyasa is that of the Maravi Confederacy. Established by Bantu-speaking peoples in about 1480, and continuing into the 18th century, the confederacy controls territory west from the great lake to the Luangwa River, south to the Zambezi and east to the coast.

This…

HISTORY OF LIBERIA

Land of Freedom: from AD 1821

From the start the republic of Liberia is associated, as its name suggests, with the idea of freedom. The American Colonization Society, founded in 1817, has as its aim the settlement of freed slaves in colonies where they can become self-sufficient. With that purpose in mind agents from the society visit the west African…

HISTORY OF LESOTHO

Basutoland: AD 1868-1966

After being annexed by Britain in 1868 as Basutoland, Moshoeshoe’s kingdom is transferred in 1871 to the administrative control of the Cape Colony. The Sotho tribes profoundly resent this development, about which they have not been consulted, and the 1870s are a time of increasing unrest in the region. This culminates in the Gun War of 1880,…

HISTORY OF KENYA

Masai and Kikuyu: to the 19th century AD

In the time before the arrival of outsiders and the beginning of recorded history, the Masai are the dominant tribe in the region now known as Kenya. They arrive as nomadic pastoralists from the north, probably in the mid-18th century. They are not Kenya’s largest tribe (a distinction going to the Kikuyu,…