Nice, I enjoyed the video. As an African myself I'd like to add as to how the partitioning of Africa really harmed the continent. The borders that were drawn in the Berlin conference did not take any input from Africans and as such, a lot of African communities (e.g the Kenyan and Tanzanian Maasai) were split up when the Europeans established their colonies. During the administration of the colonies, the Europeans established a divide and conquer strategy to prevent the African people from unifying against their oppressive rule, tribal tension was encouraged and even civil wars that followed after independence like the Rwandan genocide can be traced back to this practice. This disunity & mistrust has taken a lot of time to overcome. Right now my generation is less affected by it but my parent's & grandparent's generations(who were alive during colonization) were strongly steeped in it. As you've stated in your video, colonization was based around the extraction of resources from the continent, most of the infrastructure Europeans built in the continent was meant to serve this purpose and not the development of African nations, this is illustrated well by the fact the British built one university in my country(which mostly served the British settlers anyway) by 1963 when we got independence, right now there are at least 36.
It's worth noting that in most countries in Africa, whilst independence was an improvement, imperial relations never truly ended, and much of Africa remains neo-colonies. I know people there that will tell me point--blank, a fascist dictatorship cropping up in their country is less likely to engender an invasion from America or France, than a government trying to do too many social programmes or otherwise serve their people.
@@EuriEuropa I don't know if you understand how loaded a question that is. But suffice it to say, you will get _very_ different answers depending on whom you ask. . The simple answer is yes, but the more important question is to what end. In my opinion there are strong arguments in favour of the position that it is imperialism, but there are also strong arguments in favour of the position that what China are doing in Africa is either good for the countries they invest in, or at least mutually beneficial. . For what it's worth, I don't know any Africans that are happy about it. But on the other hand, the alternative is more imperialism from the West, so it's not a simple thing.
@@Gaff. I understand. You're right though. I've talked to a couple of other people and some are pro west and some are pro China or neither.. I'm just wondering if all this investment will actually be beneficial for the people.. It'll be nice to see more African nations build more developed nations
@@EuriEuropa There's no denying that is happening. The real test will be how much that actually benefits the average person. Sometimes imperialism does come with development but benefits people unevenly. It does appear that more modern tactics go for 'soft power', which makes it harder still to be sure how much China are looking out for Africans and how much they're just building spheres of influence. Who knows, maybe it's both.
No dipshit, Europeans didn't destroy anything in Africa, to the contrary they built, The Greeks and the Romans built cities, roads and brought their culture and philosophy, later Colonial Europeans built Schools, Cities, Roads, Universities, Hospitals etc. Much of the civilization that exist in Africa is thanks to Europeans
This video is fantastic. It should stand on its own merits....but this is the real world and this is a capitalist platform. The Eyeball Zone bump is real....
I really hate the savage continent myth because it’s not only historically inaccurate but it’s founded in the destruction of history and culture. Pre colonial Africa was varied, complicated, and home to many self sufficient groups of people who were smart and good at living in rough climates. Some of them lived in empires, some of them lived in small groups, some built huge cities, and most made beautiful artwork and good food. Those things were only lost because people actively destroyed them in order to hurt African people
It's not a myth. Pre-Colonial Sub Saharan culture was mostly Paleolithic, some of it was Neolithic, but none of it was culturally or technologically advanced. Because of the behavioral patterns of black people, their lack of ingenuity, and mostly because they practiced cannibalism in a far more widespread way than any other people groups in history, that's where these ideas come from. Black people lived naked and barefoot for thousands of years longer than Caucasians did. Caucasians went tribe by tribe working with black Africans, we are the ones who stamped out nakedness and man-eating among the black tribes. We know best of all the meaning of The Dark Continent. Since black people were preliterate, all of the history of your people was written by Caucasian men like Ibn Battuta, if you read his writings about what the Mali empire was genuinely like, "savage" doesn't even really begin to describe the sheer barbarity of the Pre-Colonial black lifestyle and culture. They were killing and eating other black people and they would smear the blood of the human sacrifice all over their faces and naked bodies. The local black women were offered up sexually to Ibn Battuta and his men as party favors. The Pre-Colonial Sub Saharan women had no sexual inhibitions whatsoever. All of this is recorded in legitimate history books.
All of the original cities built in black Africa were actually founded by Berbers from Libya and Mauritania who came down to black Africa using the domesticated camel. They notably founded Timbuktu, for example. They built it up from scratch. All of the original black cities were built by Caucasians and were built along a trade route, so they could trade salt mostly, at the time. Black people had been taught by Caucasians how to mine salt. Mining is another trade/technology that trickled down to black Africans from Caucasians. Well after we taught you how to do it, we had a trade partnership, you provided salt and enslaved people, Caucasians provided you with manufactured goods, like iron kettles and services like we built you the first genuine housing in black Africa. But first the Muslim Caucasians of north Africa had dominion over you, then the Anglo-Saxons took over from where the Muslims left off.
When I was in university I took pre-colonial African history courses and Latin courses during the same semester, and found it easier to understand the slavery laws/systems of some African empires by contrasting with Rome. Still super confusing, but there were important distinctions that kind of explain how the "western" concept of slavery seems so much more hardcore than what was in Africa
Chattel slavery did exist in Africa for thousands of years along all the other forms of slavery and servitude, while the absolute most hardcore version of slavery, the one where you ritualistically sacrificed hundreds of your slaves, didn't exist in the Western colonies. Moreover, there are lots of myths and narratives surrounding the daily lives of slaves in Western colonies, their lives were not that much different from the lives of the working poor, (Fogel and Engerman, "Time on the Cross,", 1974) It's not my goal to defend Western slavery, but I felt this had to be addressed since this claim that slavery in Africa was fundamentally "better" than slavery in the West keeps popping up.
@@EuriEuropa Show me where it says slavery is *acceptable* when it's not a caste I don't even think most "paid" employment is acceptable if u really wanna get into it lol fuck off This is about debunking the slavery apologia of white Americans who deflect by saying "the Africans started it so the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade wasn't our fault"
i gotta disagree with your phrasing about Precolumbian America, there WERE large empires in contact with each other who could send troops over to help each other. The problem is that a lot of the records of this are gone. It seems that, at the time of European arrival, the P'urépecha, Mixtecs, and Tlaxcalans were attempting to form some kind of alliance against the Mexica, but were having trouble with the calpulli in border regions (think a combination of a ranch, a stereotypical native american tribe, and a feudal fiefdom) who didn't always get along with each other. Of course, the Inca, Mexica, and Mississippi lacked direct contact, but this was for the same reasons Rome and China didn't have direct contact; it would've hurt the merchants who acted as middle men. This trade is evident through the presence of maize in the Amazon and cacao in Mexico. I know that wasn't the point of this but my whole thing is knitpicking representations of Precolumbian Mexico so yeah. Great video tho!
Phew, my knowledge of Native American history is actually not so good and I should definitely do more research. I hadn't known about the empires within the Aztecs' sphere of influence. I spent so much of my time researching Pre-Colonial Africa for this video that I neglected that area since it was such a small part of the essay. Next time I'll try to do better ::)
@@satenmadpun This is such a great attitude to have! Acknowledging your mistakes and working to do better is the best any human can hope for. As long as we make sure the acknowledgment doesn't turn into appeasement so that we can neglect our faults, it is truly the best method of bettering ourselves
Oh also if you want a good intro read in this, I highly recommend "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus", by Charles Mann. Fantastic book, crazy informative, and genuinely fun to read.
@@weignerleigner3037 If your example of a colonized country that's better off is the US, then I am completely disregarding your comment. Colonialism was a one way relationship, born from the desire to acquire more resources, and it established economies of exploitation and environmentally harmful resource extraction in an entire content (Africa). It was a humanitarian disaster and one which will have lasting economic and environmental effects.
Hey I learned a lot from this video! I did find the audio balance made it a little difficult to understand what you were saying at times (that's an issue I have generally), but just thought I'd mention it in case you have any ways of cleaning up the voice recording or even just quieting the background music some. Thanks, and I look forward to watching more vids like this from your channel!
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better (comment copied from another comment lool).
This video is brilliant. I've studied this stuff for decades and always get frustrated when the perspective of the author/historian seems to be biased towards an idea of "primitive" vs "modern" and it breaks my heart that much of the western world has a f*ck'd up view of what progress means. I sense this changing. Thanks.
I mean It was primitive vs modern, although west Africa had great empires, they were still economically and technologically inferior compared to european's, middle eastern, and chinese empire of that era.
@@kenny4957yeah but it's not a big deal because it wasn't linked to any biological factors, it's more about systemic economical, geographical and societal factors, I don't understand why African get upset with this truth (I'm black myself).
Someone in Breadtube should do a video on the implicit politics of Paradox Interactive as well as how they're pretty Eurocentric. For instance, how overly simplified and inaccurate they're willing to be with the representation of West Africa in CK2 vs. a lot of Europe, everything about Europa Universalis IV (look at mechanics and missions for countries in the "Western" cultural groups vs. everything else, also Plutocratic ideas being opposed to Aristocratic ideas, and neither having conflicts with anything else). You can chalk a lot of it up to something just not being their focus in development, but I think there's some aspects of their games that just don't get that excuse.
That's true, but to be fair to Paradox, a lot of the non-European cultures are explored in the expansions. I assume they chose to focus on Europe first for the market interest and also the ease of acquiring information on and thus creating game systems around European developmental trends.
@@satenmadpun I think the most egregiouos thing in EUIV for me was the way that north african powers raiding Europe for galley slaves is so much more detailed in the game than the trans atlantic slave trade.
You should've seen what the game was like upon release, your brain would've imploded when looking at anywhere outside Europe. But it *is* called _Europa_ Universalis, so their priorities were clear. They've gotten SIGNIFICANTLY better about representing the other parts of the world since then, with all the expansions everyone constantly complains about. However, accurately portraying how every part of the world worked like from a nation-states perspective for 400 years is a gargantuan task, so, IMO, the simplifications and use of the same mechanics for vastly different cultures is excusable.
Interesting. I got in this big debate with someone I know when he mentioned how Africans owned slaves. As if that negated anything else that's happened in the history of my country. I felt like he was using the "actually many slaves were treated pretty nice" type of defense. I'm glad I got a look at this hostorical context.
You can mention that Ghana has apologised for it's participation in the transatlantic slave trade, if he ever argues that "Africans aren't held accountable". Always found it funny how people justify the slave trade by the argument that they purchased the slaves rather than stole them.
@@lavrentivs9891- I feel like those type of people have a superiority complex. Which is ultimately a justification for their insecurities. Everything is ridiculously gaslighted toward Africans.
@@lavrentivs9891- I feel like those type of people have a superiority complex. Which is ultimately a justification for their insecurities. Everything is ridiculously gaslighted toward Africans.
@@lavrentivs9891 I don’t think any sane person justifies the sale of slaves. They use that to point out evil human nature. The buyers and sellers were on equal moral grounds.
Any recommendations for resources I can go to to learn about African history? I'm not a history buff but there's such a huge blind spot in African history in contemporary culture that I feel like I've been cheated out of being at least generally educated on the subject.
This is an excellent video. I got here through the eyeball zone. There seems to be some white fragility going on in the comments but glad you've got it handled. My only nitpick is you're sometimes hard to hear over the music or because of the audio. Looking forward to more historical knowledge :)
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better.
white fragility is just strictly racist though. anyone can misinterpret africa's past. and i'm sure most do. because most of africa has always been on the backfoot when compared to the progression of northern africa and civilizations on other continents.
@@aztekenen1 RUBBISH! "can misinterpret africa's past"............ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! THERE WAS NO "SAHARA" BEFORE 3000 BCE, NORTH EAST AFRICA WAS POPULATED BY NUBIANS AND KUSHITES!
You counted a lot of German citys which hold stolen artifacts from Africa, which is 'impressive' considering how shortly we comparably held colonies. They were probably stolen in WWII from the respective colonizer state Germany invaded. It's outrageous that those artifacts weren't given back to the respective African country they're from in face of the reparations we had to pay. Anyways, thank you for this video. I learned a lot.
@@passionofthecrust9173 Who are their owners? African tribes? We know their legal owners, we don't know their former owners, we don't know how they acquired them in the first place, probably in the same manner Europeans did. Countless landmarks in Africa deteriorated because the locals just didn't give a shit, like the Great Zimbabwe or the Benin Walls.
@@gallanonim3328 What kind of backwards logic is this? If they didn't care about their historical preservation why would they be asking for them? Do you think the idea of a museum comes from some secret greek manuscript. i also love the subtle racism there, that the degradation of landmarks (which we westerners have totally never been involved in) implies that the inhabitants of the continent of Africa are collectively too stupid to take care of the artefacts they themselves created. Stop trying to justify theft
There's a channel called Home Team History that is entirely about African history and they dispell a lot of the bullshit myths this same video does, just in case anybody wants to check 'em out. Now if you excuse me I'm gonna browse the rest of this magnificent host's content.
Your historical analysis is unparalleled, my man. I used to have a friend who had that Rodney book and swore by it. I'm going to need to check it out now. The insights you provide are an excellent starting point for the subject. Thank you!
For some reason the last point you made about all the artwork from Benin being displayed in museums outside of Africa made me really angry. I think because it would be such an easy things to do, just give back the stuff that our ancestors stole from them. And also I think because I really like museums and libraries, I like the concept of knowledge and art being open to the public and I don't want them to be so shitty in this aspect.
8:05-8:20 I found it so interesting that you used that wording to describe Europe. I can only speak for myself; I've never heard it described that way. But I've heard South America, North America (pre-Columbus), Africa, parts of Asia, etc., described that way. It's not that you're wrong, it's more of when you use that wording I can see myself not being curious with finding out more information, and almost writing off hundreds of years of civilization. And even that slight change in terminology can have lasting side effects in terms of perceptions of people. Keep up the good work!
@@satenmadpun Well I'm sure plenty of people in the Piazza Quindici Martiri had the opportunity but I'm afraid I wasn't quoting anyone. Feel free to quote me if you want though.
"South Africa kinda sucks, they have droughts to this day", as a South African I can confirm this is true😅. Cape Town / the Western Cape gets destroyed like every other year
I cant take the premise of this video seriously, if in the first 30 seconds we already have a speculative, inaccurate map of the African "civilizations" as an argument. I wonder why... maybe because it's because they didn't even had writing? Sub-Saharan Africa, with a few exceptions, wasn't even in the Bronze Age, so yes, it was a "savage continent" and the easy scramble of it should've made it painfully obvious.
Does writing determine how savage a culture is? if there are better means to communicate for different non european cultures they would have no need for writing. not to mention europe was only able to invade africa due to industrialization.
@@shangis929 Yes, writing is a prerequisite for (almost) absolutely everything. No medicine, no roads, no mathematics, no calendars, terrible architecture, no metallurgy and ofc no chance of industrialization. Don't talk as if the Europeans were just lucky and that the Africans could had industrialized if they got 100 extra years for example. There is a progression in story. We didn't go from Da Vinci's proto-plane to F-35's in a few decades, and Sub-Saharan Africa was lagging too far behind. And what you mean by "non-european" cultures? Writing wasn't exclusively an European thing; it was invented by the Egyptians while Europeans were still cavemen. And latter and simultaneously by the Indians. The aztecs (the most advanced American civilization by far) had books as well, with a very primitive form of writing.
than explain to me your reasoning for europe and other regions being more technologically advanced than africa during the medieval period, are europeans just inherently superior?@@asasas9146
@@FREEDOM80085 No reason for it just are. Lol, everyone who posits these arguments has hardly looked into the vast scope of history or anything else. If you really want to do that then explain why the europeans took about 900 more years to develop civilization than the middle east. Guess it MUST be because west asians are superior.
Hey dude, just wanted to give a few sound tips in case you're looking to improve your audio: your mic sounds a tad muddy, and the music is often a smidge too loud. This makes it hard to hear what you're saying, especially on long sentences, and it makes one prone to zoning out. I also heard a few bumps against the mic or other sub-bass rumble. You can safely use a low-cut filter on your mic audio around like 125 - 250 Hz. That should help tighten up the sound, make it clearer and remove the rumble. For even more professional sounding audio, you can look into compression -- a little goes a long way. In regards to the background music: when in doubt, err on the side of 'too low' than 'too loud'. Keep up the good work though! :)
That surgery detail was fascinating. Also, shoutout to Great Zimbabwe. I love those towers. On a more dour note, what happened to Benin was... nauseating.
@@TheGogeta2222 most educational systems won't either, the chinese have every right to be china-centric. tbh it's a niche subject in some respects which is why it gets glossed over to such an extent
I only now realize how little I know about all of this. The colonization and it's absolute horrific effect on the african continent (and more importantly - people) I knew about, but the scale and depth of such old cultures are new to me. Good job on the video!
Great job. I'm an amateur historian and a musician from New Hampshire USA. Spent a lot of time in drum classes with west Africans wich pushed me to do some reading up on African culture. They invented one of the most complicated forms of music in polyrhythms. All Latin rhythms derive from West African music. It's majic to me. Amazing culture.
Yupp. I play African drums too and yeah it can get really complex. Traditional African music is the king of rhythmic complexity and is the source of our more rhythm focused music of today, which started from jazz and blues.
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better (comment copied from another comment lool).
Love the video, super informative, but I think you're a bit mumbly at times. I would recommend taking a second look at the subtitles (I'm assuming you did an auto-caption thingy, but it got a lot of words wrong because it was unclear to hear). Also, the idea of using EU IV to demonstrate your point visually was really helpful, but I think having a script for it would have helped, because I think you ended up rambling a little bit. Otherwise keep it up!
Just leaving a comment this was really informative. I keep forgetting on how big the content of Africa is and I feel like there's a lot of unexplored area's. The eyeballs didn't send me hear this was just recommend.
Great vid! I spent a semester learning about pre-colonial Africa and it was one of the few times I felt like I was actually getting something worth anything out of College it was learning about all of those amazing peoples, their cultures, history, and environments. It's a subject I wished I had learned about eariler, and now hopefully with vids like this more people will understand why.
Yo, loved the video, thought it was impossible to make the subject funny, but you did it. Just 1 thing, "berber" comes from barberian, they prefer "Amazighs" whitch means "Free people".
Appreciate the history lesson. That point at the end about how no Benin(sp?) wax art is displayed in a African museum hit really hard. Thanks for the effort you put into this.
Such an interesting video! This is the exact type of video that I play while doing homework. I can concentrate on it and lean something else at the same time, thank you.
For anyone who wants to learn about Sudanese Ancient and Medieval Kingdoms :- Ancient Periods: Upper Paleolithic - 30,000 BCE (A group) Pre-Kerma - 3900 BCE Kerma - 2500 BCE Kush - 1070 BCE Medieval Periods: Kingdom of Alwa - 357 AD Kingdom. of Nobatia - 400 AD Kingdom of Makuria - 501 AD Kingdom of Fur: 571 AD All the medieval kingdoms mentioned above existed all at the same time and were aware of each other.
That was an awesome video. I learned a lot and now have a means to learn even more. Thank you for the hard work, it paid off. And yeah I was recommended here by that slimy guy in the Super Metroid shirt.
Also, you should really check out Bad Empanada's recent video re: Spanish conquest in the Americas. To be a little more clear, it's this one ua-cam.com/video/kq6EuZj4axA/v-deo.html
Incredibly important education. Thank you so much, for sharing your research. I personally had little grasp on pre colonial Africa. Love the music in the background too! amazing work!
First video of yours I ever watched, It was during a period of time in which I was finding myself, and figuring who I was as a biracial person in the U.S., this video was definitely an important thing for me during that time and allowed me to view my heritage in a different context. So thank you 👍
commenting for the go rhythm, also sent it to my gf, i hope that helps this video get to more people. seriously more people need to know how brainwashed they are, even i didnt know most things in this video
great vid. you definitely gained a sub. If I could give a small piece of advice though. I like to avoid using background music with vocals whenever someone is speaking because the voices blend together a little and make it a little more difficult to understand what the narrator is saying
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better. There's a song with vocals in there too so you'll be able to decide on that too :)
A welcome coincidence that the other day i was just wondering about historical african societies (because my brother plays games that tend to be set in various historical civilisations like ancient greece and feudal japan, and i wondered if there were video games set in ancient/pre-colonial africa ASIDE FROM egypt. I figured if a society like egypt existed there definitely were others - we just were never told about them) + today i saw this video linked in a yt comment haha
I think it would have been important to say that the version of Eu4 here is modded using Extended Timeline and presumably some other mod causing errors such as Ming in Namibia. Normally it looks a lot different and is only 1444-1820 thereabouts. The map at 1:18 is a lie.
Btw trade went across the Sahara mostly along the tuat/kanem bornu/fezzan routes and a couple other minor ones. The Salt & Gold trade most famously. The only places in Africa completely remote from global trade and outside empires were perhaps the khoisan in southwest africa and comparably smaller areas in the congo rainforrests distanced from the Kong and other states. With precolonial americas one important factor was that with the organised nations & empires there, and especially with Aztecs and Incas for example, Europeans arrived during times of political instability, used rivalries and often catched places off guard in their own civil wars.
Thanks!! I was wondering why that was happening. I'd noticed it with Ming Kalahari in Southern Africa during the video, but I had no idea it was because of the extended timeline mod. Your points about the Sahara trade routes and the political instability of the Aztecs are 100% correct and I'm happy you highlighted those things I forgot to mention/left out for time 😊 Why do you say the map at 1:18 is a lie though? I saw it cited other places. I know those nations didn't exist at the same time at each other and I did point that out in the video, pretty much as one of the first things I said about it. Is there anything else misleading about it?
@@satenmadpun The thing that is wrong about this map in particular is mentioned later in the video as well as hinted at in Eu4: Even with it covering a timeline of empires and the most influential nations, it leaves out a huge amount of political entities (the majority quantity wise) which weren't empires or the most influential (albeit some influential things are missed out as well). It's a map of those things solely, the biggest players. All of the Horn & Suaheli city states and countries, lesser states in upper Nubia, places around the great lakes in east Africa, Arguin, etc are missing. Displaying these places as white and empty is less accurate on another level than when people show plain white maps of precolonial america outside of Incas, Mayas and Aztecs. With some of the places on this map borders are a bit weird too because some of them had no clearly defined borders and /or extended their influence further by means of tributaries etc. Also square Akan is funny.
@@Argacyan That's fair and something I noticed as well but just wasn't as bothered by it. I prob should have made clear that this was the best picture of the type I needed for the video I could find. There was another one I had, but that one had many of the same mistakes and ultimately I decided this one was better, though I knew it was inaccurate in several areas and tried to express that. Unfortunately I didn't have many options though, and for the purposes of the video, I didn't need it to be 100% accurate, just because the point I was trying to make with the map, which was true, was ultimately more important than having a completely accurate map just because my goal was never to describe every single pre-colonial African state in the first place. Thanks for posting the info though. I appreciate it :)
The Eyeball Zone commanded I watch this video, and I am so glad! Excellent video, and I am eager to watch your other ones! Thank you for the work you put into this.
So I have a minor in anthropology and in my Development of World Civilization class and my Race and Racism class we only learned about Egypt (of course), The Kush Empire (in relation to Egypt), Great Zimbabwe (brief mention), and Roman-ruled North Africa, as far as African civilization is concerned. Thank you for this.
love the content of this video. unfortunately the audio balance is preventing me from recommending it to people, which is sad because more people need to know about this stuff
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better (comment copied from another comment lool).
Unfortunately one of the greatest libraries in the world which was in Africa was burned to the ground. Also history is written by the winners. Most Europeans didn't even look at Africans as real people then, too many still don't today
Great stuff man. Got a sub from me for sure. I found your channel via the path of Michael Brooks - Contrapoints - Thought Slime - then here. Who knows? Maybe you will lead me on to another great channel. Keep up the great work and have a wonderful day.
You need to script this. After 5 minutes of mumbling over the game I couldn't wait for you to get to the point anymore. Its great subject matter, you just need to work on your delivery.
As a south african I'm hurt lol. But people should read up on the khoe hunter-gatherers. They didn't have the same level of development, but they apparently had fairly high standards of living and social equality.
@@satenmadpun Realized it when you said there were alot of droughts, but the frazing was funny. But I really liked the video. Here via eyeball zone, and instantly subscribed
Good vid but using a game to describe territorial struggle makes me laugh only cause it reminds me of when isis used Victoria 2 to plan out what the Islamic state should look like
a technical criticism of your video, which i otherwise really enjoy: the music levels are a bit high, sometimes it's difficult to understand what you're saying due to the music. other times it gets a bit distracting. either lower the music levels, or increase the voice levels. saying this from the perspective of a brain damaged human with auditory difficulties. it was easier to watch the video without the sound on, but i lost hearing your voice by doing that.
finished the video now! very interesting, i've read a little about the mali empire and benini, but the rest was new to me. also the extent of eradication of african civilisations was completely new to me. going to check out your sources so i can learn more! :D
Hey I really enjoyed the video. I know you can’t cover everything in one video essay, but I do have a critique. Most modern scholarship on initial conquest in the new world does not place emphasis on technology. In point of fact not many guns or much steel was present early on. Instead the greatest tool at the disposal of Cortés was indigenous allies he had made in the region.
I really want to watch this video, but between the music being as loud as the vocals, and the speaker's tendency to mumble makes it impossible. I'm hearing maybe 40% of what's being said. I'd nix the music next time... or learn to annunciate. Not trying to be a jerk... I'm sure the CONTENT of this video is great (which is why I'm frustrated I can't watch it!)
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better (comment copied from another comment lool).
I never thought I would watch someone ELSE play EU4 while listening to Trane and describing the false savage characterization of precolonial Africa. But here I am, amazed. Thank you for making me feel less alone :)
Nice, I enjoyed the video. As an African myself I'd like to add as to how the partitioning of Africa really harmed the continent. The borders that were drawn in the Berlin conference did not take any input from Africans and as such, a lot of African communities (e.g the Kenyan and Tanzanian Maasai) were split up when the Europeans established their colonies. During the administration of the colonies, the Europeans established a divide and conquer strategy to prevent the African people from unifying against their oppressive rule, tribal tension was encouraged and even civil wars that followed after independence like the Rwandan genocide can be traced back to this practice. This disunity & mistrust has taken a lot of time to overcome. Right now my generation is less affected by it but my parent's & grandparent's generations(who were alive during colonization) were strongly steeped in it. As you've stated in your video, colonization was based around the extraction of resources from the continent, most of the infrastructure Europeans built in the continent was meant to serve this purpose and not the development of African nations, this is illustrated well by the fact the British built one university in my country(which mostly served the British settlers anyway) by 1963 when we got independence, right now there are at least 36.
It's worth noting that in most countries in Africa, whilst independence was an improvement, imperial relations never truly ended, and much of Africa remains neo-colonies. I know people there that will tell me point--blank, a fascist dictatorship cropping up in their country is less likely to engender an invasion from America or France, than a government trying to do too many social programmes or otherwise serve their people.
Isnt china investing in Africa now?
@@EuriEuropa I don't know if you understand how loaded a question that is. But suffice it to say, you will get _very_ different answers depending on whom you ask.
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The simple answer is yes, but the more important question is to what end. In my opinion there are strong arguments in favour of the position that it is imperialism, but there are also strong arguments in favour of the position that what China are doing in Africa is either good for the countries they invest in, or at least mutually beneficial.
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For what it's worth, I don't know any Africans that are happy about it. But on the other hand, the alternative is more imperialism from the West, so it's not a simple thing.
@@Gaff. I understand. You're right though. I've talked to a couple of other people and some are pro west and some are pro China or neither.. I'm just wondering if all this investment will actually be beneficial for the people.. It'll be nice to see more African nations build more developed nations
@@EuriEuropa There's no denying that is happening. The real test will be how much that actually benefits the average person. Sometimes imperialism does come with development but benefits people unevenly. It does appear that more modern tactics go for 'soft power', which makes it harder still to be sure how much China are looking out for Africans and how much they're just building spheres of influence. Who knows, maybe it's both.
Europe: Burns down everything they can find in Africa
Also Europe: Look there was nothing there they didn't build anything how stupid
Pretty much.
No dipshit, Europeans didn't destroy anything in Africa, to the contrary they built,
The Greeks and the Romans built cities, roads and brought their culture and philosophy, later Colonial Europeans built Schools, Cities, Roads, Universities, Hospitals etc.
Much of the civilization that exist in Africa is thanks to Europeans
Geronimo Banda did you not watch the fucking video? And of course he was being hyperbolic.
Geronimo Banda Lol where did the Greeks and Roman learn everything from? 😂
@@memeroculero1643 Romans were influenced by Greeks and Greeks were influenced by Egyptians. You massive dolt.
Got recommended here via the Eyeball Zone
Same!
Me too
Me too
Same.
ayy I guess I picked the wrong comment for the future top comment loool.
I leave a comment so that the horrid algorithm might bless this virtuous video with it's gaze and bring fortune to you
Amen :prayemoji:
Who else is here from thought slime
inb4 top comment
I THINK YOU MEAN LORD OCULON
This video is fantastic. It should stand on its own merits....but this is the real world and this is a capitalist platform. The Eyeball Zone bump is real....
@@leevaughngraves1069 that's why we're gonna end capitalism
@@hiruyabebaw5215 truu
I really hate the savage continent myth because it’s not only historically inaccurate but it’s founded in the destruction of history and culture. Pre colonial Africa was varied, complicated, and home to many self sufficient groups of people who were smart and good at living in rough climates. Some of them lived in empires, some of them lived in small groups, some built huge cities, and most made beautiful artwork and good food. Those things were only lost because people actively destroyed them in order to hurt African people
Very true and unfortunate
@@Tarteh no one wants to punish white people...geez. learning and understanding history and not twisting it to demonize people is just fine.
At least science and history has caught up with the myths. The issue now is that the rest of society needs to catch up with the history and science.
It's not a myth. Pre-Colonial Sub Saharan culture was mostly Paleolithic, some of it was Neolithic, but none of it was culturally or technologically advanced. Because of the behavioral patterns of black people, their lack of ingenuity, and mostly because they practiced cannibalism in a far more widespread way than any other people groups in history, that's where these ideas come from. Black people lived naked and barefoot for thousands of years longer than Caucasians did. Caucasians went tribe by tribe working with black Africans, we are the ones who stamped out nakedness and man-eating among the black tribes. We know best of all the meaning of The Dark Continent. Since black people were preliterate, all of the history of your people was written by Caucasian men like Ibn Battuta, if you read his writings about what the Mali empire was genuinely like, "savage" doesn't even really begin to describe the sheer barbarity of the Pre-Colonial black lifestyle and culture. They were killing and eating other black people and they would smear the blood of the human sacrifice all over their faces and naked bodies. The local black women were offered up sexually to Ibn Battuta and his men as party favors. The Pre-Colonial Sub Saharan women had no sexual inhibitions whatsoever. All of this is recorded in legitimate history books.
All of the original cities built in black Africa were actually founded by Berbers from Libya and Mauritania who came down to black Africa using the domesticated camel. They notably founded Timbuktu, for example. They built it up from scratch. All of the original black cities were built by Caucasians and were built along a trade route, so they could trade salt mostly, at the time. Black people had been taught by Caucasians how to mine salt. Mining is another trade/technology that trickled down to black Africans from Caucasians. Well after we taught you how to do it, we had a trade partnership, you provided salt and enslaved people, Caucasians provided you with manufactured goods, like iron kettles and services like we built you the first genuine housing in black Africa. But first the Muslim Caucasians of north Africa had dominion over you, then the Anglo-Saxons took over from where the Muslims left off.
Sire, the messenger has arrived from the front. He brings news of the Eyeball Wars!
What about the Colonizer attack on the Africans?
@@kjj26k OBEY THE EYEBALL
When I was in university I took pre-colonial African history courses and Latin courses during the same semester, and found it easier to understand the slavery laws/systems of some African empires by contrasting with Rome. Still super confusing, but there were important distinctions that kind of explain how the "western" concept of slavery seems so much more hardcore than what was in Africa
That is a way of understanding it better :p
Chattel slavery did exist in Africa for thousands of years along all the other forms of slavery and servitude, while the absolute most hardcore version of slavery, the one where you ritualistically sacrificed hundreds of your slaves, didn't exist in the Western colonies.
Moreover, there are lots of myths and narratives surrounding the daily lives of slaves in Western colonies, their lives were not that much different from the lives of the working poor, (Fogel and Engerman, "Time on the Cross,", 1974)
It's not my goal to defend Western slavery, but I felt this had to be addressed since this claim that slavery in Africa was fundamentally "better" than slavery in the West keeps popping up.
@@gallanonim3328 Then it should be noted that book itself is not without its own criticisms.
Any type of slavery is bad.. Are we now going to excuse freaking slavery because it's not as bad as the west ffs
@@EuriEuropa Show me where it says slavery is *acceptable* when it's not a caste
I don't even think most "paid" employment is acceptable if u really wanna get into it lol fuck off
This is about debunking the slavery apologia of white Americans who deflect by saying "the Africans started it so the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade wasn't our fault"
The entire Arab world: We have a strong currency and great trade networks
Some African king: Im about to end this mans whole career
The eyeballs demand, the eyeballs receive
i gotta disagree with your phrasing about Precolumbian America, there WERE large empires in contact with each other who could send troops over to help each other. The problem is that a lot of the records of this are gone. It seems that, at the time of European arrival, the P'urépecha, Mixtecs, and Tlaxcalans were attempting to form some kind of alliance against the Mexica, but were having trouble with the calpulli in border regions (think a combination of a ranch, a stereotypical native american tribe, and a feudal fiefdom) who didn't always get along with each other. Of course, the Inca, Mexica, and Mississippi lacked direct contact, but this was for the same reasons Rome and China didn't have direct contact; it would've hurt the merchants who acted as middle men. This trade is evident through the presence of maize in the Amazon and cacao in Mexico. I know that wasn't the point of this but my whole thing is knitpicking representations of Precolumbian Mexico so yeah. Great video tho!
Phew, my knowledge of Native American history is actually not so good and I should definitely do more research. I hadn't known about the empires within the Aztecs' sphere of influence. I spent so much of my time researching Pre-Colonial Africa for this video that I neglected that area since it was such a small part of the essay. Next time I'll try to do better ::)
@@satenmadpun This is such a great attitude to have! Acknowledging your mistakes and working to do better is the best any human can hope for. As long as we make sure the acknowledgment doesn't turn into appeasement so that we can neglect our faults, it is truly the best method of bettering ourselves
Oh also if you want a good intro read in this, I highly recommend "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus", by Charles Mann. Fantastic book, crazy informative, and genuinely fun to read.
This video is really good. It really pisses me off when people seem to defend colonialism as if it did Africa a favor by "civilizing" them.
Niall Ferguson, Bruce Gilley, Nigel Biggar, Tirthankar Roy
Should read their articles and books
@@memeroculero1643 nah we good
@@memeroculero1643 Is this smth i wanna use incognito mode or smth?
Yeah it’s cus it did. It’s observable in modern times the colonial places are much better off than non colonized places.
@@weignerleigner3037 If your example of a colonized country that's better off is the US, then I am completely disregarding your comment.
Colonialism was a one way relationship, born from the desire to acquire more resources, and it established economies of exploitation and environmentally harmful resource extraction in an entire content (Africa). It was a humanitarian disaster and one which will have lasting economic and environmental effects.
Hey I learned a lot from this video! I did find the audio balance made it a little difficult to understand what you were saying at times (that's an issue I have generally), but just thought I'd mention it in case you have any ways of cleaning up the voice recording or even just quieting the background music some. Thanks, and I look forward to watching more vids like this from your channel!
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better (comment copied from another comment lool).
Same here, glad it's been addressed in later videos. We need more content like this, excellent info! 💪❤
This video is brilliant.
I've studied this stuff for decades and always get frustrated when the perspective of the author/historian seems to be biased towards an idea of "primitive" vs "modern" and it breaks my heart that much of the western world has a f*ck'd up view of what progress means. I sense this changing.
Thanks.
I mean It was primitive vs modern, although west Africa had great empires, they were still economically and technologically inferior compared to european's, middle eastern, and chinese empire of that era.
@@kenny4957yeah but it's not a big deal because it wasn't linked to any biological factors, it's more about systemic economical, geographical and societal factors, I don't understand why African get upset with this truth (I'm black myself).
Someone in Breadtube should do a video on the implicit politics of Paradox Interactive as well as how they're pretty Eurocentric. For instance, how overly simplified and inaccurate they're willing to be with the representation of West Africa in CK2 vs. a lot of Europe, everything about Europa Universalis IV (look at mechanics and missions for countries in the "Western" cultural groups vs. everything else, also Plutocratic ideas being opposed to Aristocratic ideas, and neither having conflicts with anything else). You can chalk a lot of it up to something just not being their focus in development, but I think there's some aspects of their games that just don't get that excuse.
That's true, but to be fair to Paradox, a lot of the non-European cultures are explored in the expansions. I assume they chose to focus on Europe first for the market interest and also the ease of acquiring information on and thus creating game systems around European developmental trends.
@@satenmadpun I think the most egregiouos thing in EUIV for me was the way that north african powers raiding Europe for galley slaves is so much more detailed in the game than the trans atlantic slave trade.
There’s a video I watched very similar to what you’re describing. ua-cam.com/video/pX-0pn_Xyyk/v-deo.html
@transylvanian Next Paradox game idea. Africana Universalis?
You should've seen what the game was like upon release, your brain would've imploded when looking at anywhere outside Europe. But it *is* called _Europa_ Universalis, so their priorities were clear. They've gotten SIGNIFICANTLY better about representing the other parts of the world since then, with all the expansions everyone constantly complains about. However, accurately portraying how every part of the world worked like from a nation-states perspective for 400 years is a gargantuan task, so, IMO, the simplifications and use of the same mechanics for vastly different cultures is excusable.
Interesting. I got in this big debate with someone I know when he mentioned how Africans owned slaves. As if that negated anything else that's happened in the history of my country. I felt like he was using the "actually many slaves were treated pretty nice" type of defense. I'm glad I got a look at this hostorical context.
You can mention that Ghana has apologised for it's participation in the transatlantic slave trade, if he ever argues that "Africans aren't held accountable".
Always found it funny how people justify the slave trade by the argument that they purchased the slaves rather than stole them.
@@lavrentivs9891king Badu Bonsu's pickled head, was recently returned the Ghanaian GOVT and to his descendants by the Dutch govt.
@@lavrentivs9891- I feel like those type of people have a superiority complex. Which is ultimately a justification for their insecurities. Everything is ridiculously gaslighted toward Africans.
@@lavrentivs9891- I feel like those type of people have a superiority complex. Which is ultimately a justification for their insecurities. Everything is ridiculously gaslighted toward Africans.
@@lavrentivs9891 I don’t think any sane person justifies the sale of slaves. They use that to point out evil human nature. The buyers and sellers were on equal moral grounds.
Any recommendations for resources I can go to to learn about African history? I'm not a history buff but there's such a huge blind spot in African history in contemporary culture that I feel like I've been cheated out of being at least generally educated on the subject.
You could start with the resources in the description, or by reading Walter Rodney's work.
Abu Boahen's book Africans Perspectives on Colonialism is a good start.
@@satenmadpun Do you watch the channel From Nothing?
I recommend HomeTeam History.
HomeTeam History and From Nothing are great African history channels to check out.
This is an excellent video. I got here through the eyeball zone. There seems to be some white fragility going on in the comments but glad you've got it handled. My only nitpick is you're sometimes hard to hear over the music or because of the audio. Looking forward to more historical knowledge :)
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better.
white fragility is just strictly racist though. anyone can misinterpret africa's past. and i'm sure most do. because most of africa has always been on the backfoot when compared to the progression of northern africa and civilizations on other continents.
@ThisIsMyRealName and what have you done other than reiterating what i've said?
@@aztekenen1 RUBBISH! "can misinterpret africa's past"............ABSOLUTE NONSENSE!
THERE WAS NO "SAHARA" BEFORE 3000 BCE, NORTH EAST AFRICA WAS POPULATED BY NUBIANS AND KUSHITES!
You counted a lot of German citys which hold stolen artifacts from Africa, which is 'impressive' considering how shortly we comparably held colonies. They were probably stolen in WWII from the respective colonizer state Germany invaded. It's outrageous that those artifacts weren't given back to the respective African country they're from in face of the reparations we had to pay.
Anyways, thank you for this video. I learned a lot.
It's a great idea if you want them to disappear or deteriorate.
@@gallanonim3328 What if you just want them to return to their owners?
@@passionofthecrust9173 Who are their owners? African tribes? We know their legal owners, we don't know their former owners, we don't know how they acquired them in the first place, probably in the same manner Europeans did. Countless landmarks in Africa deteriorated because the locals just didn't give a shit, like the Great Zimbabwe or the Benin Walls.
@@gallanonim3328 What kind of backwards logic is this? If they didn't care about their historical preservation why would they be asking for them? Do you think the idea of a museum comes from some secret greek manuscript.
i also love the subtle racism there, that the degradation of landmarks (which we westerners have totally never been involved in) implies that the inhabitants of the continent of Africa are collectively too stupid to take care of the artefacts they themselves created. Stop trying to justify theft
@@passionofthecrust9173
Human warfare was universal.
There is no reason why all spoils of war should be retroactively declared illegitimate.
There's a channel called Home Team History that is entirely about African history and they dispell a lot of the bullshit myths this same video does, just in case anybody wants to check 'em out. Now if you excuse me I'm gonna browse the rest of this magnificent host's content.
Your historical analysis is unparalleled, my man. I used to have a friend who had that Rodney book and swore by it. I'm going to need to check it out now. The insights you provide are an excellent starting point for the subject. Thank you!
Thank you!!
For some reason the last point you made about all the artwork from Benin being displayed in museums outside of Africa made me really angry. I think because it would be such an easy things to do, just give back the stuff that our ancestors stole from them. And also I think because I really like museums and libraries, I like the concept of knowledge and art being open to the public and I don't want them to be so shitty in this aspect.
8:05-8:20
I found it so interesting that you used that wording to describe Europe. I can only speak for myself; I've never heard it described that way. But I've heard South America, North America (pre-Columbus), Africa, parts of Asia, etc., described that way. It's not that you're wrong, it's more of when you use that wording I can see myself not being curious with finding out more information, and almost writing off hundreds of years of civilization. And even that slight change in terminology can have lasting side effects in terms of perceptions of people.
Keep up the good work!
Yeah, that was the point :')
Thought Balls brought me here. Have some Eye Slime
Eye slime? Are you trying to give them an std?
I actually didn't get here through Thought Slime, but through my recommended.
Welcome to the algorithm!
Wasn't expecting this video to bring out Mussolini's first compliment since someone told him he looked better upside down.
whosaidthatineedtoknowforresearch(notmemes)
@@satenmadpun Well I'm sure plenty of people in the Piazza Quindici Martiri had the opportunity but I'm afraid I wasn't quoting anyone. Feel free to quote me if you want though.
"South Africa kinda sucks, they have droughts to this day", as a South African I can confirm this is true😅. Cape Town / the Western Cape gets destroyed like every other year
I cant take the premise of this video seriously, if in the first 30 seconds we already have a speculative, inaccurate map of the African "civilizations" as an argument.
I wonder why... maybe because it's because they didn't even had writing?
Sub-Saharan Africa, with a few exceptions, wasn't even in the Bronze Age, so yes, it was a "savage continent" and the easy scramble of it should've made it painfully obvious.
Does writing determine how savage a culture is? if there are better means to communicate for different non european cultures they would have no need for writing. not to mention europe was only able to invade africa due to industrialization.
@@shangis929 Yes, writing is a prerequisite for (almost) absolutely everything. No medicine, no roads, no mathematics, no calendars, terrible architecture, no metallurgy and ofc no chance of industrialization.
Don't talk as if the Europeans were just lucky and that the Africans could had industrialized if they got 100 extra years for example. There is a progression in story. We didn't go from Da Vinci's proto-plane to F-35's in a few decades, and Sub-Saharan Africa was lagging too far behind.
And what you mean by "non-european" cultures? Writing wasn't exclusively an European thing; it was invented by the Egyptians while Europeans were still cavemen. And latter and simultaneously by the Indians.
The aztecs (the most advanced American civilization by far) had books as well, with a very primitive form of writing.
than explain to me your reasoning for europe and other regions being more technologically advanced than africa during the medieval period, are europeans just inherently superior?@@asasas9146
@@shangis929yes, Europeans are superior
@@FREEDOM80085 No reason for it just are. Lol, everyone who posits these arguments has hardly looked into the vast scope of history or anything else. If you really want to do that then explain why the europeans took about 900 more years to develop civilization than the middle east. Guess it MUST be because west asians are superior.
The more I learn, the more I realized that literally every history class I ever had had a curriculum chock-full of lies
Hey dude, just wanted to give a few sound tips in case you're looking to improve your audio: your mic sounds a tad muddy, and the music is often a smidge too loud. This makes it hard to hear what you're saying, especially on long sentences, and it makes one prone to zoning out. I also heard a few bumps against the mic or other sub-bass rumble. You can safely use a low-cut filter on your mic audio around like 125 - 250 Hz. That should help tighten up the sound, make it clearer and remove the rumble. For even more professional sounding audio, you can look into compression -- a little goes a long way. In regards to the background music: when in doubt, err on the side of 'too low' than 'too loud'. Keep up the good work though! :)
That surgery detail was fascinating. Also, shoutout to Great Zimbabwe. I love those towers. On a more dour note, what happened to Benin was... nauseating.
i learned more about africa from this video than from my entire american education experience... not a high bar considering america but thank you
Lol that Eurocentric education ain’t gonna tell you the truth
@@TheGogeta2222 most educational systems won't either, the chinese have every right to be china-centric. tbh it's a niche subject in some respects which is why it gets glossed over to such an extent
I only now realize how little I know about all of this. The colonization and it's absolute horrific effect on the african continent (and more importantly - people) I knew about, but the scale and depth of such old cultures are new to me. Good job on the video!
Great job. I'm an amateur historian and a musician from New Hampshire USA. Spent a lot of time in drum classes with west Africans wich pushed me to do some reading up on African culture. They invented one of the most complicated forms of music in polyrhythms. All Latin rhythms derive from West African music. It's majic to me. Amazing culture.
Yupp. I play African drums too and yeah it can get really complex. Traditional African music is the king of rhythmic complexity and is the source of our more rhythm focused music of today, which started from jazz and blues.
This was on my explore. I hope this channel gets bigger.
Thanks so much :D
it's hard to focus on your voice with the music so loud :(
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better (comment copied from another comment lool).
Had to turn on captions to watch this video. Having sensory sensitivity i didn't know if it was just me.
Love the video, super informative, but I think you're a bit mumbly at times. I would recommend taking a second look at the subtitles (I'm assuming you did an auto-caption thingy, but it got a lot of words wrong because it was unclear to hear). Also, the idea of using EU IV to demonstrate your point visually was really helpful, but I think having a script for it would have helped, because I think you ended up rambling a little bit.
Otherwise keep it up!
This was amazing! Thought Slime sent me here and I'm glad he did.
Thanks for watching!!!
Just leaving a comment this was really informative. I keep forgetting on how big the content of Africa is and I feel like there's a lot of unexplored area's. The eyeballs didn't send me hear this was just recommend.
Thanks for watching :D
Thank you for this intellectual and creative labor!!
I came from the eyeball zone. Slimey Wimey was right, this is a hell of a video. Incredible work. I can't wait to dig into the rest of your channel
Great vid! I spent a semester learning about pre-colonial Africa and it was one of the few times I felt like I was actually getting something worth anything out of College it was learning about all of those amazing peoples, their cultures, history, and environments. It's a subject I wished I had learned about eariler, and now hopefully with vids like this more people will understand why.
The eyeball zone has brought me here. I come by command of lord Occulon
Yo, loved the video, thought it was impossible to make the subject funny, but you did it. Just 1 thing, "berber" comes from barberian, they prefer "Amazighs" whitch means "Free people".
I had no idea this was the case! Thank you, though I'll have to learn how to pronounce that.
Listening to Coltrane while watching important revisionist content that challenges damaging widely held beliefs makes me feel like I'm in the womb
MOOD!
Appreciate the history lesson. That point at the end about how no Benin(sp?) wax art is displayed in a African museum hit really hard. Thanks for the effort you put into this.
Thanks for watching! And yeah, that was the right spelling :)
Such an interesting video! This is the exact type of video that I play while doing homework. I can concentrate on it and lean something else at the same time, thank you.
"South Africa...kinda sucks." YUP. The droughts can get pretty bad. Not so much at the moment but whoooooooo boy!
a "Border with the sea" is called a coast.
It's over. I have been exposed.
Why are you erasing Poseidon’s Kingdom!?
Eyeball zone squad represent! This video is amazing. Subbed.
The eyeballs have graced you with their gaze. There is no escape.
For anyone who wants to learn about Sudanese Ancient and Medieval Kingdoms :-
Ancient Periods:
Upper Paleolithic - 30,000 BCE (A group)
Pre-Kerma - 3900 BCE
Kerma - 2500 BCE
Kush - 1070 BCE
Medieval Periods:
Kingdom of Alwa - 357 AD
Kingdom. of Nobatia - 400 AD
Kingdom of Makuria - 501 AD
Kingdom of Fur: 571 AD
All the medieval kingdoms mentioned above existed all at the same time and were aware of each other.
That was an awesome video. I learned a lot and now have a means to learn even more. Thank you for the hard work, it paid off.
And yeah I was recommended here by that slimy guy in the Super Metroid shirt.
Dove into this a bit way back in undergrad. Very glad you made this video (and very glad thought slime eyeballed you)
Also, you should really check out Bad Empanada's recent video re: Spanish conquest in the Americas.
To be a little more clear, it's this one ua-cam.com/video/kq6EuZj4axA/v-deo.html
Moussa is such a fascinating character. Same for the history of Mali in general.
Another Eyeballer here. Great video. Subscribed and sharing.
Greetings from the eyeball zone.
Incredibly important education. Thank you so much, for sharing your research. I personally had little grasp on pre colonial Africa. Love the music in the background too! amazing work!
"Fuck, this one was long", made me laugh. Definitely was, but good stuff bro, keep it going
Thanks :)
First video of yours I ever watched, It was during a period of time in which I was finding myself, and figuring who I was as a biracial person in the U.S., this video was definitely an important thing for me during that time and allowed me to view my heritage in a different context. So thank you 👍
commenting for the go rhythm, also sent it to my gf, i hope that helps this video get to more people. seriously more people need to know how brainwashed they are, even i didnt know most things in this video
Thanks :D
great vid. you definitely gained a sub. If I could give a small piece of advice though. I like to avoid using background music with vocals whenever someone is speaking because the voices blend together a little and make it a little more difficult to understand what the narrator is saying
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better. There's a song with vocals in there too so you'll be able to decide on that too :)
Great video, but the music in the middle got too loud to hear the words. Subtitles, please!
This was really interesting! Looking forward to any more you do in the future.
I cannot escape the eyeballs. I am imprisoned forever.
As a person who had been studying West African history for 4 years now.
This is a very good essay.
Well done and now you have a new subscriber.
Thank you :D
Excellent video, may Lord Oculon bless your eyes.
Thanks!!
Very informative video, thanks!
A welcome coincidence that the other day i was just wondering about historical african societies (because my brother plays games that tend to be set in various historical civilisations like ancient greece and feudal japan, and i wondered if there were video games set in ancient/pre-colonial africa ASIDE FROM egypt. I figured if a society like egypt existed there definitely were others - we just were never told about them) + today i saw this video linked in a yt comment haha
They didn’t exist
You can’t find them because they’re not real
Also hearing A Love Supreme in the background made me smile
I think it would have been important to say that the version of Eu4 here is modded using Extended Timeline and presumably some other mod causing errors such as Ming in Namibia. Normally it looks a lot different and is only 1444-1820 thereabouts. The map at 1:18 is a lie.
Btw trade went across the Sahara mostly along the tuat/kanem bornu/fezzan routes and a couple other minor ones. The Salt & Gold trade most famously. The only places in Africa completely remote from global trade and outside empires were perhaps the khoisan in southwest africa and comparably smaller areas in the congo rainforrests distanced from the Kong and other states. With precolonial americas one important factor was that with the organised nations & empires there, and especially with Aztecs and Incas for example, Europeans arrived during times of political instability, used rivalries and often catched places off guard in their own civil wars.
Thanks!! I was wondering why that was happening. I'd noticed it with Ming Kalahari in Southern Africa during the video, but I had no idea it was because of the extended timeline mod. Your points about the Sahara trade routes and the political instability of the Aztecs are 100% correct and I'm happy you highlighted those things I forgot to mention/left out for time 😊 Why do you say the map at 1:18 is a lie though? I saw it cited other places. I know those nations didn't exist at the same time at each other and I did point that out in the video, pretty much as one of the first things I said about it. Is there anything else misleading about it?
@@satenmadpun The thing that is wrong about this map in particular is mentioned later in the video as well as hinted at in Eu4: Even with it covering a timeline of empires and the most influential nations, it leaves out a huge amount of political entities (the majority quantity wise) which weren't empires or the most influential (albeit some influential things are missed out as well). It's a map of those things solely, the biggest players. All of the Horn & Suaheli city states and countries, lesser states in upper Nubia, places around the great lakes in east Africa, Arguin, etc are missing. Displaying these places as white and empty is less accurate on another level than when people show plain white maps of precolonial america outside of Incas, Mayas and Aztecs. With some of the places on this map borders are a bit weird too because some of them had no clearly defined borders and /or extended their influence further by means of tributaries etc. Also square Akan is funny.
@@Argacyan That's fair and something I noticed as well but just wasn't as bothered by it. I prob should have made clear that this was the best picture of the type I needed for the video I could find. There was another one I had, but that one had many of the same mistakes and ultimately I decided this one was better, though I knew it was inaccurate in several areas and tried to express that. Unfortunately I didn't have many options though, and for the purposes of the video, I didn't need it to be 100% accurate, just because the point I was trying to make with the map, which was true, was ultimately more important than having a completely accurate map just because my goal was never to describe every single pre-colonial African state in the first place. Thanks for posting the info though. I appreciate it :)
The Eyeball Zone commanded I watch this video, and I am so glad! Excellent video, and I am eager to watch your other ones! Thank you for the work you put into this.
Thank you for watching :)
Also an eyeball agent, really good vid. What's the background music at 25:25?
anark10n 3500 by Travis Scott
@@lif3andthings763 much appreciated, my dude
So good and informative! Keep on keeping on my dude
Thanks :)
amazing video ! thank you for shedding light on the lies of our colonial legacy ♡
This is the kind of stuff I live for! Thank you for sharing 🥳
Thanks for watching :D
So I have a minor in anthropology and in my Development of World Civilization class and my Race and Racism class we only learned about Egypt (of course), The Kush Empire (in relation to Egypt), Great Zimbabwe (brief mention), and Roman-ruled North Africa, as far as African civilization is concerned. Thank you for this.
You gotta be kidding me -.- Still though, my university (giant research university) didn't have any profs I could talk to about this soooo.
@@satenmadpun My university was also a major university and it's ranked as "highly diverse" by college factual. HIGHLY DIVERSE.
love the content of this video. unfortunately the audio balance is preventing me from recommending it to people, which is sad because more people need to know about this stuff
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better (comment copied from another comment lool).
Decided to like the moment you mentioned Thorfinn. Great video and content obvs tho
I LOVE the Vikings!! AC Valhalla is the first time I've been hyped for AC in years.
I actually didn't come here from the eyeball zone.
I feel special.
Great job, enjoyed immensely, and subbed.
Well, I for one came here via Lonerbox.
great video man, its a depressing story but you do a great job at presenting in an entertaining and easy to follow way.
there should be more education on the history of africa since that's where literally every single person originated
Unfortunately one of the greatest libraries in the world which was in Africa was burned to the ground. Also history is written by the winners. Most Europeans didn't even look at Africans as real people then, too many still don't today
@@matsujonen what bullshit hahahah
Found you via Thought Slime's Eyeball Zone!
Haha "Sunni Ali" I got that one.
came for the eyeball zone, stayed for the excellent content
I know why Sunni Ali's name is funny. I understand that reference.
Great stuff man. Got a sub from me for sure. I found your channel via the path of Michael Brooks - Contrapoints - Thought Slime - then here. Who knows? Maybe you will lead me on to another great channel. Keep up the great work and have a wonderful day.
You need to script this.
After 5 minutes of mumbling over the game I couldn't wait for you to get to the point anymore.
Its great subject matter, you just need to work on your delivery.
That was just one part. Most of it is scripted.
@@satenmadpun it went on way too long. But I'll give it another try.
Thanks for the video. I did have a hard time understanding you in some parts though. I think taking a slower speed would have helped. Take care!
As a south african I'm hurt lol. But people should read up on the khoe hunter-gatherers. They didn't have the same level of development, but they apparently had fairly high standards of living and social equality.
Lool, sorry, I just meant geographically :P
@@satenmadpun
Realized it when you said there were alot of droughts, but the frazing was funny. But I really liked the video. Here via eyeball zone, and instantly subscribed
@@maximusstirnimus5210 Thank youu ::)
Thank you for making this video🙏🏽
Thank you for watching :)
Love the use of EU IV btw
Thanks!!
Great video!! this comment to help with algorithm mostly
Good vid but using a game to describe territorial struggle makes me laugh only cause it reminds me of when isis used Victoria 2 to plan out what the Islamic state should look like
WAIT WHAT THEY DID THAT??
@@satenmadpun no word of a lie google it it’s hilarious
All hail the Eyeballs!
Nice video dude.
a technical criticism of your video, which i otherwise really enjoy: the music levels are a bit high, sometimes it's difficult to understand what you're saying due to the music. other times it gets a bit distracting. either lower the music levels, or increase the voice levels.
saying this from the perspective of a brain damaged human with auditory difficulties. it was easier to watch the video without the sound on, but i lost hearing your voice by doing that.
finished the video now! very interesting, i've read a little about the mali empire and benini, but the rest was new to me. also the extent of eradication of african civilisations was completely new to me. going to check out your sources so i can learn more! :D
Hey I really enjoyed the video. I know you can’t cover everything in one video essay, but I do have a critique. Most modern scholarship on initial conquest in the new world does not place emphasis on technology. In point of fact not many guns or much steel was present early on. Instead the greatest tool at the disposal of Cortés was indigenous allies he had made in the region.
Same goes for other initial conquests of larger empires in South America
I really want to watch this video, but between the music being as loud as the vocals, and the speaker's tendency to mumble makes it impossible. I'm hearing maybe 40% of what's being said.
I'd nix the music next time... or learn to annunciate. Not trying to be a jerk... I'm sure the CONTENT of this video is great (which is why I'm frustrated I can't watch it!)
Check out my newer videos and tell me what you think of the audio in those!! I started using a trick to make it sound clearer by equing some of the mids out of the music. I think it sounds better (comment copied from another comment lool).
I never thought I would watch someone ELSE play EU4 while listening to Trane and describing the false savage characterization of precolonial Africa. But here I am, amazed. Thank you for making me feel less alone :)