​“Not to know is bad, not to wish to know is worse.” – African Proverb

 

About 93% of the present-day African Americans came from the Western Sudan in West Africa, which was the whole Songhai Empire during the 15th and 16th centuries in medieval times before the Transatlantic slave trade era.

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“Songhay’s (Songhai’s) greatness was due to something more than the remarkable expansion of its empire over a territory larger than the continent of Europe. That was great, but greater by far was the grand scale on which the revival of learning spread among the Blacks of West Africa─The Western Sudan, or 'Land of the Blacks.' Three of the principal centers of learning were Jenne, Gao, and Timbuktu.”

 

- Dr. Chancellor Williams 

 

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The kingdom of Timbuktu during the 16th century (West Africa)

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According to Songhai writers, the kingdom of Timbuktu under Songhai rule was equivalent to the present-day United States of America cities of Chicago and New York, and Paris, France all combined and blended into an African setting. 

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“You must tell the story of our ancestors, the Songhai people." - Dr. Luther P. Jackson

 

 

​The Songhai Empire was known as the "Land of Gold," that was ruled by the "Lords of Gold." The Songhai people supplied 80% of the world's gold for several centuries, and they ruled West Africa for 129 years. 

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The Songhai Empire consisted of parts of seven present-day countries in West Africa, and they are The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Northern Nigeria, and Senegal. 

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“That the strength and greatness of the African people can be measured by how, in the face of what at times seemed to be all the forces of hell, they fought through to survive it all and, rebuilt kingdoms and empires some of which endured a thousand years. That within the framework of even the smallest surviving states they adhered to and kept alive the basic principles of traditional African constitution and held on through all the passing centuries to the fundamental elements of its ancient democratic, social, political and economic systems all over the continent; that Africa was the cradle of a religious civilization based on the conception of one Supreme God, Creator of the Universe.”

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- Dr. Chancellor Williams 

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​To find out more about the Great Songhai Empire, the last great nation of medieval West Africa before the Transatlantic slave trade era, and the birth and creation of African Americans, click here: The Birth & Creation of African Americans 

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​“Narration describes the lives of lost tribes in the ghetto tryin’ to survive.”

 

– Nas​​​

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As direct descendants of the Songhai Empire, African Americans (i.e., about 93%) carry in their genes the creativity, resourcefulness and genius of their ancestors from this great medieval West African nation. 

 

The ancestors of African Americans were held captive and forced to work from sunup to sundown for 10 generations without a payday for 300 years. On top of that, harsh laws were created and imposed on African Americans, which restricted them the opportunity to read and write, because if they were caught doing either, it was a death sentence. African Americans, most of whom are the children of the Songhai Empire have been subjected to the greatest trauma in the history of mankind. Only the strong survived during the unrelenting European Transatlantic slave trade era, and most African Americans living in Western civilization during the modern era are the children of the mighty Songhai Empire. 

 

By the European colonial era in the early 1800s, European powers had stripped the Songhai Empire of its human population. This West African nation that most of the ancestors of African Americans once called home (i.e., the land of gold) looked like a barren wasteland. Not just the human population of the Songhai Empire was stripped by Europeans, because they also plundered resources, like the Songhai's gold, because between the 15th and 17th centuries, Europeans discovered an even greater source of gold in Central and South America. 

 

This set off the beginning of the foundation of the "New World," (i.e., the Americas) that was "so-called" discovered by European explorers (i.e., invaders, exploiters, and colonizers) like Christopher Columbus, because the "Old World" (i.e., Africa) had been forgotten, except for "The Destruction of Black Civilization," and the "human trafficking" of Black people who were made to be slaves in the American and European continents. 

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The Great Songhai Empire was invaded by the Moroccans (Morocco: present-day Northwest Africa) with their hired European (i.e., English and Spanish) mercenaries in 1591. From the fall of the Songhai Empire in 1591 to 1858, various authorities of history agree that upwards of 100 million Black people were taken out of Africa as prisoners-of-war. This means that the citizens of the Songhai Empire (about 93% of the ancestors of the present-day African Americans came from the Songhai Empire, and their country was also the same size as all of Europe combined during the 16th century before the Transatlantic slave trade era) were never slaves. They were prisoners-of-war and were made to be slaves by their European captors and slave masters.  

 

​​​14 nations of Western (European) civilization, including England, the United States of America, etc. got together at the infamous Berlin Conference (1884-1885) in Germany and decided to invade and “Scramble for Africa” during the late 19th century for economic and political power. The only people not invited to the Berlin Conference were the Africans; whose lives would be altered by decisions agreed upon by the European nations in attendance. ​​​​​​

 

​According to Dr. Anthony T. Browder, author of Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization: Exploding the Myths Vol. 1, although the total number of African people stolen from Africa varies from source to source, but it has been estimated that a minimum of 50 million African people were displaced from the Transatlantic slave trade era, and the estimated deaths are more than 80 million African people. These figures do not consider the millions of Africans who died before boarding the European slave ships, or the number of men, women and children who were raped, beaten to death, or lynched once they arrived in the so-called “New World.”

 

The enslavement of Africans by non-Africans was based solely on race and greed. 

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“Certainly, I knew from reading all about the ‘Rape of Africa,’ but to know the scale on which this was done one must see at least some of it in Europe with his own eyes—and be amazed. The museums in various cities of the European colonial powers are repositories of much African history.”

 

– Dr. Chancellor Williams

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These actions have had a demoralizing domino effect on the African continent and Black people, because Africa’s human and natural resources had been stripped by the European invaders. While destroying ancient and medieval African civilizations, the European invaders, backed with their specific European governments were able to simultaneously develop their motherland of Europe and their colonies in the Americas.  

 

Apart from the Indian Native Americans (the Americas) and the Aboriginal Australians (Oceana), there is no other people on Earth, besides African people, who had their continent stolen from them by foreigners and have been enslaved and exported to other continents (i.e., Europe and the Americas) by the millions. The European Transatlantic slave trade was an inhumane (i.e., crime against the African branch of humanity) commercial revolution that gave birth to Western (European) civilization and the modern world as we know it today.  

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The phenomenal success of Western civilization in war for hundreds of years has elevated the elites of this civilization to an unquestionable “position of strength.”

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"The invaders raiding into the continent (Africa) from Asia and Europe formed the second centuries-long battlefronts against which the Blacks had to fight for survival. These wars spanned several thousand years, and in an earlier chapter (The Destruction of Black Civilization) I ‘wondered out loud’ ─how any people, weakened by perpetual hunger and disease, could possibly carry on wars of resistance to the white invaders for over 5,000 years. This they did─and this their descendants must know and remember with pride: That Black resistance to white domination covered over 5,000 years.”

 

– Dr. Chancellor Williams

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Black people, both Continental and Diaspora Africans are still experiencing the repercussions from the events of the European Transatlantic slave trade and European colonization. Before the European Transatlantic slave trade era, Black people, which includes some of the ancestors of the present-day African Americans, Afro Caribbeans, Afro Latinos, etc. experienced a “Golden Age” during medieval West Africa (i.e., the Songhai Empire). From the events of the European Transatlantic slave trade era, starting from the 15th century to the present-day 21st century, Black people, both Continental and Diaspora Africans have been forced to experience a brutal “Dark Age.”  

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African independence finally swept throughout the African continent starting with the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana, West Africa, formally the Asante Empire) in 1957, and the last African country to free itself from the yoke of European colonization was the nation of South Africa in 1994.

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