Kabaka is a title for the king of the Buganda kingdom in Uganda. Uganda has about 6 famous kingdoms and the Buganda kingdom is one of them that have dominated with powerful kings from pre-colonialism periods to date yet preserving their traditions and practices as...

Access to commodities such as fabrics, spices, and gold motivated a European quest for a faster means to reach South Asia. It was this search that led the Portuguese down the coast of West Africa to Sierra Leone in 1460. Due to several technological and cultural...

The adoption of Christianity in Ethiopia dates to the fourth-century reign of the Aksumite emperor Ezana. Aksum's geographic location, at the southernmost edge of the Hellenized Near East, was critical to its conversion and development. The kingdom was located along...

In Africa, sculptural depictions of rulers and ancestral heroes have served a variety of political, spiritual, and commemorative functions. Passed down along dynastic lines or commissioned by current rulers, such images were often displayed as evidence of pedigree to...

The kingdom of Kongo, the wealthiest and most powerful state in the Atlantic region of Central Africa during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, began to dissolve in the seventeenth century under internal and external pressures. Portuguese military aggression...

Trade among European and African precolonial nations developed relatively recently in the economic history of the African continent. Prior to the European voyages of exploration in the fifteenth century, African rulers and merchants had established with the...

A principle reason why African and European merchants were attracted to Madagascar were the high-quality cotton, raffia, and silk textiles produced by indigenous artisans. Far from mere trade commodities, however, textiles were an essential aspect of Malagasy social...

The kingdom of Benin  (in present-day Nigeria) was plunged into a state of turmoil at the end of the fifteenth century when the oba (king) Ozolua died and left two powerful sons to dispute succession. His son Esigie controlled Benin City, while another son, Arhuaran,...

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Central African interior witnessed the florescence of three large-scale, multiethnic states: Luba, Lunda (both discussed below), and Kuba. Imported crops and technologies as well as new models of leadership...