Chapter 19: How Africa Became Black- MLK IP Group
Africa has a high diversity of people and language because of their diversity in geography and a long prehistory. The North African people resemble whites in the Middle East and Europe. They speak mostly Afro-Asiatic languages. Now part of Central Africa, Pygmies were once widespread. However, they were engulfed by Bantu farmers and languages were lost. Like the Pygmies, the Khoisan was also widespread along with their languages. Now, however, they have been confined to desert areas in which the Bantu couldn’t farm. Blacks speaking Austronesian languages are blended with Indonesians in Madagascar.
Blacks occupy most of the South Sahara and sub-Saharan Africa. Their language revolves mainly around non-Bantu and Bantu versions of the Niger-Congo languages. During 3000 BC to 500 AD, Bantu farmers dominated as they spread because of superior plant and animal domestication. They extended their range to Natal on the East coast and to the Fish River. In 1652, white colonists faced poorly defended Khoisan in South Africa because the Bantu were farther away. They colonists continued expanding and colonization succeeded due to better food production and weapons.
Population Engulfing: conquest, expulsion [slavery], interbreeding, killing, and epidemics = History of Africa.
-Food Production = ingredient of power
-Indigenous populations north of equator displaced peoples south of the sub-Saharan Sahel--think Darfur Symposium
-Survival of modern Africa’s 4 native languages = accident of location => acquisition of domesticables = multiply, replace, or impose language on other peoples via population engulfing.
-Apples or Indians =>plant paradigm
-Zebras or Africans => animal paradigm
-This Chapter => the paradigm shift from Eurocentric notions of history to Africa = Cradle of Civilization
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