just stumbled on this interesting and very insightful article, written by a religious icon, John Wesley. he expresses his own view and that of other close associates of Africa before slavery, and the highly structured society the Europeans met on the continent. this article totaly breaks the stereotype of pre-slavery Africans as brutish savages and war thirsty tribes. funny enuff its written by a white man (albeit an unbiased one ), CNN should learn from him, lol.
check it out and post your thots here. . . 1 luv!

http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/thoughtsuponslavery.stm

Shocking,  eye opening,

Africa countries should put this together in 'text book' to be read by all secondary school students.

In 20yrs, you will see a revolution and developement.

Rather, Africa children are reading about Netwon' ,'Shakespear'.

sad, very sad

i concur brother, instead of teaching us about shakespeare, oliver twist, king arthur and the like. . . our students should be made to read articles like this. its funny how we all were taught about British history and stuff, instead of our own history.
im sure if u took a poll, u'd find that most Africans know more about foreign history than their own (im afraid im guilty too). dammit its the bloody deficient and myopic education system!! its now i begin to appreciate the efforts of seasoned intellectuals such as Soyinka, Achebe, Ekwensi, and other african authors, in preserving for future generations, details about their rich cultural backgrounds and ensuring that their history dont die and wither away.
its a pity we never had an effective documention and preservation culture, else most of our historical facts (events, articles, dates, names, real people, real communities, etc) should be readily available even now. i heard that in the british public library, books that date back centuries are still available for perusal, and have been carefully preserved for years!
maybe we should start having archeologists of African origin to dig up more evidences from our soil, wetin u think?

maybe we should start having archeologists of African origin to dig up more evidences from our soil, wetin u think?

fully agreed. for instance in ijebu-ode; there is high possiblity that Queen Sheba is from there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/356850.stm

there is so much hidden away from us; knowledge is light; sadly we dont practice this, we think money is light.

we need to have a 'real african education'

The title should have been Africa before Trans Atlantic Slavery.

There was Trans Sahara Slavery and Trans Indian Ocean Slavery as well as "Intra-Africa"  slavery which still persists till today in Mauritania, Sudan amongst others.

I've been reading about pre-European state of the African Continent for a long time now, but I have really accelerated my studies in the last 3 months. Did you know that it was an African Tribe (the Moors) led by Tariq Gibril that first went to Europe and colonise Spain and Portugal for more than 600 years?

It's just amazing. The Moors built 17 universities on the Iberian Peninsula when there were only 2 universities in the rest of Europe at the time.

I was bewildered when I read about it. I had to go to various sources to confirm. The place known as the Rock of Gibraltar is actually named after Gibril himself. That was the point where he commenced his conquest of Spain and Portugal.

It's really amazing.

@denex
interesting stuff man! These Moors, were they North Africans or rain forest Africans? any links pls?


@babasin
simply amazing bro! please put up more links to such stories here, so we can all learn and appreciate our history more.

I became interested in the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by Africans when I read Adolf Hitler's book and I noticed he alway referred to the French as lovers of Negroes but he referred to the Spanish and Portuguese as Subjects of Negroes who were not qualified to speak where other European countries were speaking.


He called them Andalusians (the name given to the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal by the African colonisers).


Adolf Hitler also specifically mentioned that the Spanish were the slaves of the Moors and Berbers.


All this led me to google to find the truth about these issues. What did I find?


http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/portugal.html

www.nbufront.org/html/MastersMuseums/JHClarke/WorldHistoryOverview/Chapter18.html


http://ri.essortment.com/whoweremoorsi_ogk.htm




you can also search on your own because their are thousands of sites about the African conquests in Europe. Africans also conquered parts of France and conquered Sicily too, teaching them philosophy which the Sicilian Mafia uses today to out-smart law enforcement all over the world today.
Though we taught them for good, but they chose to use it for evil.



When Tarik Gibril landed on the rock on the shore of the Iberian Peninsula, his African troops were bewildered to find out that though they were better armed, they were outnumbered by the Spanish Army 1:6 but General Tarik reminded them:

"My brethren, the enemy is before you, the sea is behind; wither would ye fly? Follow your General; I am resolved either to lose my life or to trample on the prostrate king of the Romans".


In a week, they defeated the Spanish army and their king. In a month, they'd conquered 90% of the entire Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain)



It took more than 600 years for the whole of Europe to rally together under the guidance of the Catholic Church to fight the Moors out of Spain and Portugal using the Crusaders gathered from all countries of Europe.


It's amazing that the major weapon used against the Moors were muskets, guns and gun powder, which the Moors taught the Iberians to manufacture in their Universities.

boy o boy! no wonder them spaniards hate black folks so much!!!

Many thanks magneto for the link - very illuminating. I have bookmarked the same.
As an aside, pray why do we viciously attack one another when we disagree on various issues on Nairaland? Not in our nature of yore, going by what I've just read & my experiences. Sure wish we can hold on to the values of old on respect, decorum, mannerism, etc
God bless

@magneto

that's why K keep begging Nigerians to stop going to European countries especially Spain.

The Spanish don't just treat Africans badly just because they hate them, they are afraid that history could repeat itself and thus they try to avoid such a situation at all cost.

The same water that African cross over to get across from Morrocco to Spain today was the exact route that that Africans took to Conquer Spain in 711.

Even after the conquest, hundreds of thousands of Africans swam over to Spain on logs of trees to Colonise and Dominate Spain. For more than 600, the Spanish and Portuguese were the subjects of Africans.

HISTORY EXPLAINS EVERYTHING.

The more you read your history, the more you understand your present and future.

@denex,

logical thinking. agreed