Placing the Military in African History: A Reflection

Abstract

While discussions of the military are notably absent in academic African History, it doesn’t mean that the subject is absent from the history left by the Africans. Sources that have been used for generations contain extensive discussions of the organization, arming, training, and utilization of military forces in Africa by Africans, but these aspects of the sources are largely ignored or interpreted within the frame of other violent activity, such as slave raiding. However, simply by their existence, these sources offer future generations the opportunity to expand and finally tell the story of formal military activity in Africa. This in turn will allow for the creation of a more complete record of African political, social, and even state-building activity before the advent of European colonization.