Paragraph on “History of Africa” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

History of Africa

One of the earliest civilisations, the Egyptians, was founded in Africa. Most of the people in Southern and Central Africa are the descendants of the ‘Bantu’ tribes. Amongst the first kingdoms in Africa was the Kingdom of Ghana, in West Africa, which flourished between 700 and 1200 A.D. The inhabitants of this kingdom were largely traders. Another great kingdom which existed in this period was the kingdom of Kanem-Bornu. In this period most of the trading flourished on the East coast. The Kingdom of Benin came into being in the 14th century and lasted till the year 1600. The people of this kingdom traded in palm oil, ivory, pepper etc which they sold to the Portuguese traders. In this period the great kingdom of Zimbabwe came into power. Over the year the city of Zimbabwe became a major religious and political, centre. The people of this kingdom mined ores like iron, gold and Copper which they exported. Other kingdoms also grew in Africa over the next centuries.

In the 15th century the Europeans ventured south and explored Africa. These explorations resulted in the capturing of Africans as slaves and their subsequent trading in Europe. This opened up Africa and its rich resources to the people of Europe and different European nations began colonising Africa. Till the last quarter of the 19th century this colonisation was limited to the coastal areas but within the next twenty five years almost the entire continent of Africa came under European control. Independence of the African nations really began in the middle of the twentieth century and by 1964 thirty seven different states gained their independence. Despite this South Africa continued to reel under racial and colour discrimination between the blacks and the whites and it was only in 1990 that blacks were allowed equal status. It was in the same year that another nation, called Namibia, attained it’s independence.