Early Imperial Formations in Africa and the Power Segmentation Problem

• Authors: Michał Tymowski

Title variants

PL

Organizacje typu imperialnego w Afryce przedkolonialnej a problem segmentacji władzy

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Early Imperial Formations in Africa and the Power Segmentation Problem In my article I would like to discuss the forms of empires functioning in pre-colonial Africa, analyze the features of those organizations and confront them with the definitions of empires appearing in historical science and political anthropology. The overview of the features of pre-colonial African empires allows us to draw the following conclusions: 1. The term “empire” is used in African science due to the need of giving a name to the states which were large territorially and multi-ethnical, and to distinguish them from small states. 2. The area of an African empire included the center and peripheries of an early state and chiefdoms character. The tribes survived both in the center and in the peripheries as lower levels of the organization – its segments. 3. The segmentation resulting from the continued existence of tribal and early state organizations counterbalanced the centralization of power. 4. African empires (except Ethiopia) did not manage to establish separate religious, legal and cultural systems which would have been developed in the center but would influence the whole area of the empire. As to the traditional culture, the worship of rulers and the imperial dynasty was counterbalanced by the cult of local ruling dynasties. In case of Muslim empires, the centers of Islam lay outside them, and in general outside Black Africa. 5. As a result of segmentation of power and of the legitimization principle, together with existence of a political and legitimization-wise counterpoise to the rules developed in the centre, African empires were prone to decomposition and fall not only due to invasions, but also as a result of internal processes. 6. A factor which played a large role in creation of African empires and their expansion were the stimuli created by long-distance trade. However, African empires did not cover with their reach whole, separate economy-worlds, and their economies played a peripheral role in the economy-worlds whose centers lay outside Black Africa. 7. Hence in African political organizations termed empires the imperial features following from the definitions adopted in science either occurred in an incompletely developed form, or only part of those features had developed, and the others were absent. 8. This type of political organization can be termed – the early empire. In the light of the collected material, among the features of African early empires, the most important ones seem to be the incomplete centralization of power and the rather small durability of its legitimization, together with a counterbalance to the phenomena of political centralization and legitimization of power provided by the continued existence of local centers of tribal and early state authorities and their separate legitimizations. This type of organizations emerged not only in Africa, but also on other continents. We can find analogies to early African empires both in the history of India and in the history of Europe ( for ex. Great Moravian Empire). Such comparisons can be multiplied. They allow us to draw the conclusion that organizations of the early empire types, built over early state and tribal segments, are a common historical phenomenon, which occurs regardless of the chronology, the natural and ethnical environment, or the dominant religious system.

Keywords

EN

imperial formations; Black Africa; empires; state formating process

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Kwartalnik Historyczny
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 114
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 37-48

Dates

published

2007

Contributors

author

Michał Tymowski

• Instytut Historyczny Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego

Identifiers

ISSN

0023-5903