The European Appropriation of Africa and Impact on Women
In many pre-1450 African communities, men and women held parallel or complementary roles in governance and labor.
Africa’s vastness—geographically, ecologically, and culturally—has long been overshadowed by the narratives of European expansion. From the fifteenth century onward, European explorers, traders, and conquerors arrived on the continent, driven by a hunger for wealth, power, and empire. Their guns, diseases, and insatiable desire for profit reshaped African societies, setting in motion centuries of change whose effects are still felt today. Yet before the arrival of Europeans—and even during this tumultuous period—Africa featured diverse ways of life, sophisticated political structures, vibrant spiritual traditions, and formidable female leaders who navigated or resisted external pressures.
Africa’s Vast Diversity
Before delving into specific timelines, it is crucial to recognize Africa’s immense geographic and cultural diversity. Larger than the United States and Australia combined, the continent encompasses deserts, rainforests, savannas, glacier-topped peaks, mangrove coasts, and massive river systems including the Nile, Niger, and Congo. This variety of environments nurtured an equally broad array of ethnic groups, languages, and social arrangements.
Hundreds of African languages evolved over millennia, most of which were originally oral. For most of Africa’s early history, myths, genealogies, and cultural knowledge were preserved through storytelling, ceremonies, and priestly or priestess traditions. While writing systems eventually developed in some places—such as with the Kushites in Nubia—many African societies emphasized oral heritage, which was vulnerable to disruption once Europeans and other outsiders arrived. As trade routes expanded and new forms of political authority emerged, some of this ancient cultural memory was lost or reinterpreted in the face of conquest and colonization.
African Societies Before 1450
Archaeological and historical studies show that Africa has been settled by humans longer than any other continent. For millennia, many communities depended on gathering and hunting, maintaining relatively small populations that matched the available food resources. Others adopted horticulture (small-scale farming) and pastoralism (herding), especially where the land was fertile or suited to livestock. In these early modes of life, people typically organized themselves without large standing armies or formal hierarchies. They recognized priestesses or priests who conducted religious rituals, often honoring natural forces and revered ancestors.
In some regions, states gradually formed. Nubia (Kush), in northeast Africa, built cities, traded in ivory and precious metals, and raised powerful monarchies, sometimes ruled by women. The kingdom of Kush, for instance, had prominent queens—known as “candaces”—who exercised political authority. Across the continent, however, the dominant pattern was still smaller communities living by farming, herding, or hunting and guided by kinship-based consensus.
Around 500 BCE, people speaking Bantu languages began moving from their homelands in what is now Nigeria. They carried with them knowledge of iron-smelting, horticulture, and new approaches to agriculture. Over centuries, Bantu-speaking communities spread across central and southern Africa, assimilating local groups, exchanging ideas, and shaping new societies. By around 1300 CE, Bantu languages had diversified across sub-Saharan Africa into hundreds of dialects.
This expansion also fostered technological innovations, especially in ironwork. Africans were among the earliest iron-smelters on Earth. By 500 CE, Tanzania’s Haya people had a technique for producing carbon steel in forced-draft furnaces, a method not widely known in Europe until centuries later. Iron tools such as spears and hoes boosted hunting, fishing, and farming, and these technologies circulated extensively throughout the continent.
In many pre-1450 African communities, men and women held parallel or complementary roles in governance and labor. While men might hunt, fish, or forge metal, women typically farmed, prepared meals, and oversaw domestic work. Both men and women had obligations toward their kin groups, and older women often exercised considerable influence within lineages. Some African societies were matrilineal, meaning descent was traced through the mother’s line and property passed to nephews rather than sons. In these contexts, women sometimes became priestesses, chiefs, prophets, and diviners. In patrilineal societies, however, male elders increasingly monopolized political authority. Still, even in predominantly patrilineal communities, the power of older women or “queen mothers” could be substantial.
1450 to 1600: Shifting Worlds Under European Contact
By the mid-fifteenth century, the Portuguese reached coastal West Africa, establishing fortresses and trading posts. Motivated by potential profits in gold, ivory, and spices—as well as a quest to reach the fabled “Indies”—they were soon drawn into Africa’s internal politics. They brought firearms, cloth, beads, and an array of diseases like smallpox and cholera. Their arrival also led to missionary activity, which introduced Christianity in some African states. Muslim traders, meanwhile, continued their centuries-long expansion across the north and east of the continent, spreading Islam.
An illuminating example is the kingdom of Kongo, ruled by the mani Kongo in present-day Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Kongo had a lineage-based society, with land owned communally through matrilineal ties. When the Portuguese arrived in the late fifteenth century, King Affonso (who converted to Christianity) tried to preserve Kongo’s autonomy while forging alliances with the newcomers. However, the Portuguese demanded slaves as part of their trade deals, pressuring the Kongo elite to raid neighboring territories. Internal upheavals and war, exacerbated by the search for captives, eventually weakened the monarchy. By the seventeenth century, the once-flourishing kingdom of Kongo was undone by incessant warfare, political rivalries, and a relentless slave trade.
On the eastern coast, African, Arab, and Indian interactions along the Indian Ocean produced the Swahili culture. Between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, the Swahili city-states—Mombasa, Kilwa, Malindi, and others—were wealthy and cosmopolitan, enriched by gold, ivory, and other goods carried from the interior by caravans of enslaved porters. Swahili people and language arose from centuries of intermarriage among Bantu-speaking inhabitants, Persian merchants, and Arab traders. Islam became the dominant faith of the wealthy merchant class. When European vessels eventually entered the Indian Ocean trade, the Swahili city-states faced new forms of competition and military aggression, notably from the Portuguese, who bombarded or occupied certain coastal towns.
1600 to 1800: The Atlantic Slave Trade and African Transformations
The Growth of the Atlantic Slave Trade
While slave-owning practices were not new to Africa—captives had been taken in wars or to redeem debts for centuries—the scale and ferocity of the Atlantic slave trade from the seventeenth to nineteenth century were unprecedented. European plantation economies in the Caribbean, Brazil, and later North America demanded a massive labor force. As a result, millions of Africans—most of them men—were shipped across the Atlantic in appalling conditions. Estimates vary, but it is widely accepted that the transatlantic trade uprooted at least twelve million Africans, with additional millions dying during capture or transport.
This upheaval transformed African warfare and governance. States eager to profit from the slave trade armed themselves with European guns, launching raids against weaker neighbors. Communities that resisted these militarized states risked annihilation. Entire regions, such as Angola in the south and parts of West Africa’s “Slave Coast,” were depopulated or destabilized by constant kidnapping and violence. Paradoxically, the very states that Europeans labeled “savage” or “despotic” (like Dahomey) often arose in part as defensive responses to unrelenting slave-hunting.
The Kingdom of Kongo’s Decline and Religious Revolts
Kongo vividly illustrates the devastation wrought by the Atlantic trade. After some initial attempts at alliances, the Portuguese pushed deeper into Kongo’s territories for captives. Wars between European-backed factions ensued, fueling the endless demand for slaves. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Kongo monarchy had collapsed into civil war. The population scattered, seeking safety from raiders. Females generally remained enslaved within Africa (as wives, concubines, or farm laborers), while most of the male captives were sold overseas.
Waves of religious revival sometimes challenged the foreign presence or corrupt local elites. One famous episode was led by Kimpa Vita (Dona Beatrice) around 1704. She preached a syncretic Christian message—proclaiming that Kongo was the true Holy Land and that Africans had founded Christianity. She amassed many followers, but the Portuguese viewed her as a threat. Local puppet rulers, under missionary pressure, had her burned at the stake.
Female Leaders and Resistance
Despite European claims of African “backwardness,” certain African societies produced remarkable female military and political leaders who creatively resisted or negotiated with European powers. One outstanding example is Nzinga of Angola, born in 1581, who rose to leadership in Ndongo and later Matamba. Nzinga commanded guerrilla campaigns against Portuguese troops, forged alliances with neighboring peoples, and offered sanctuary to escaped slaves. She famously refused to bow to Portuguese negotiators, had her servants form a seat for her when disrespected, and spent decades preventing further encroachment on her land. She combined warfare, diplomacy, and strategic alliances to keep her people out of Portuguese bondage for as long as possible.
Another case is Amina of Zazzau, from the Hausa city-state tradition in West Africa. Reputed to have lived in the sixteenth century, Amina built fortified camps and led cavalry raids that expanded her territory. Local legends claim she took a new lover in each conquered region—executing him before sunrise to avoid attachments or betrayals—though these stories may be symbolic exaggerations. Still, Amina’s armies unified several Hausa states, and her name endures in Hausa oral histories as a powerful, expansionist queen.
The Rise of Centralized African States
Some African polities consolidated power partly in response to the ongoing threat of slave raids. The Washambala in northeast Tanzania, for instance, lived in separate lineages but were eventually united under the Kilindi clan. Although the older lineage systems had once been relatively decentralized, competition and migration pressure spurred fierce conflicts. The Kilindi conquest introduced a model in which the king or chief claimed all land. Women were still farmers, raising staples for household consumption, but now they owed tribute to a single authority. This shift eroded earlier traditions where families collectively owned land and exercised consensus-based governance.
Arguably the most striking example of a state that balanced internal security with involvement in the slave trade was Dahomey (in present-day Benin). Founded in the seventeenth century, Dahomey grew powerful by organizing a disciplined military and dominating the Atlantic slave market in Whydah. The king claimed ownership of all property, including people; yet Dahomey also had sophisticated bureaucratic structures and parallel male-female hierarchies. Elite “palace women,” some from within Dahomey and others enslaved abroad, served as officials, tax collectors, or even soldiers. Dahomey’s female army astonished Europeans with its discipline and ferocity.
Paradoxically, this system granted certain women great influence while effectively enslaving them to the monarchy. Many lived in the royal compound under strict rules around marriage and childbirth. Outside the palace, female market traders continued to exercise independent economic power, selling crops and goods. Within the palace, however, the king’s “wives” (a term signifying status, not just marital relation) had to follow strict protocols. It was a hallmark of Dahomey’s political genius—and cruelty—that it managed to conscript and control large numbers of women while profiting immensely from the sale of enslaved captives from neighboring lands.
Women’s Experiences Under Increasing Patriarchy
Throughout these shifting eras, women’s experiences ranged from relative autonomy in small horticultural communities to severe oppression in large states shaped by warfare and slave-raiding. In many African societies, the introduction of Islam and Christianity reinforced male authority. Islamic law limited women’s mobility, while Christian missionaries often viewed African customs—particularly matrilineal descent and female political leadership—as evidence of “backwardness” that needed reform.
In patrilineal groups, bride-wealth marriage became common, with a woman essentially transferred from her lineage to her husband’s lineage in exchange for goods. This arrangement further curtailed her autonomy, although many African women retained independent incomes from farming or small-scale trade. Polygynous marriage, in which men could accumulate many wives, sometimes signaled wealth and status, especially if husbands held large swaths of land or were able to purchase enslaved women. Where matriliny persisted (as among some Akan peoples), women could still wield authority as queen mothers or lineage heads, but the broader context of slave-hunting and expanding states often undermined these traditions.
Conclusion
By 1800, sub-Saharan Africa was a mosaic of polities—some governed by powerful kings or queens, some still operating as relatively egalitarian communities, and many scarred by the massive export of enslaved men and women across oceans or forced labor at home. The onslaught of European expansion had begun to fuse local African hierarchies with global capitalist demands for human chattel. In the process, older myths, rituals, and relationships were often reworked to justify new forms of rule or, sometimes, to spark grassroots revolts that reaffirmed African identities.
The women of Africa in this period showed astonishing resilience. They worked in fields, managed households, raised children, and sometimes wielded power in local markets or governed as queens. Female rulers like Nzinga or Amina harnessed what resources they had to confront—and, in moments, outwit—better-armed foreign powers. Yet the encroachment of Europe, coupled with the spread of patriarchal religious doctrines, set in motion larger forces of colonization. By the nineteenth century, European states were dividing the continent under direct colonial rule. Many of the social, economic, and political challenges that plague modern Africa have roots in these upheavals. New boundaries carved by external powers, the intensification of patriarchy, and mass displacement through slave trading left deep scars that require ongoing efforts to heal.
Nevertheless, understanding this history on its own terms—acknowledging the creativity and complexity of African institutions, the role of powerful queens and priestesses, and the dynamic interplay of resistance and accommodation—helps us perceive Africa not as a passive victim of European aggression, but as a continent of peoples who sought, in myriad ways, to shape their destinies amid the whirlwind of global change.
Sophie
Sophie
Sophie
