Across the previous installments of this series, we examined the transatlantic slave trade not as an isolated historical tragedy, but as a complex system shaped by power, coercion, economics, identity, and historical narrative.
We challenged the oversimplified claim that Europeans merely remained on the African coast while Africans alone captured and sold enslaved people, showing instead that European powers repeatedly demonstrated the military capacity and political will to penetrate deep into African territories through organized violence, imperial expansion, and colonial conquest.
We explored how enslavement was a state-supported economic machine that enriched European nations and laid foundations for modern capitalism, while also examining the dehumanizing intellectual frameworks—such as scientific racism and colonial anthropology—that justified exploitation even beyond death through the appropriation of African human remains.
The series further argued that the phrase “Africans sold Africans” imposes a modern continental identity onto historical origins of distinct peoples who were enslaved and ignores the role of European coercion, imperial fragmentation, and the later imposition of artificial borders during colonialism.
We also examined how colonialism and neocolonialism extended many of the same patterns of domination established during slavery, while warning against reducing African and African Diaspora identity solely to victimhood and enslavement. Instead, we emphasized that Africa possessed advanced civilizations, systems of governance, scholarship, religion (including Christianity), trade, and intellectual traditions long before European intervention.
This final reflection therefore turns even further back in history—not to romanticize the past, but to challenge the persistent Eurocentric framing that presents Africa as entering history only through slavery, colonization, or European contact.
Going further back in African history
The tendency to frame Africa as a passive recipient of civilization often ignores deeper and more complex historical realities about the continent’s contributions to human knowledge, governance, and education. For instance, discussions about the origins of writing and alphabets frequently overlook the foundational role of ancient African civilizations, particularly Ancient Egypt (or Mizraim, one of the sons of Ham, the progenitor of what we know today as Africa).
While scholars debate the precise evolution of alphabetic systems, many agree that early writing systems in Egypt—such as hieroglyphics—were among the world’s earliest structured forms of written communication and influenced later scripts.
The British Museum notes that Egyptian hieroglyphs, dating back over 5,000 years, represent “one of the earliest writing systems used in the ancient world.” These systems contributed to the broader development of writing traditions across the Mediterranean and Near East. Thus, the idea that literacy and intellectual systems originated solely outside Africa is historically inaccurate.
Similarly, references to early biblical figures such as Nimrod, a grandson of Ham through his son Cush, are often interpreted within broader discussions of ancient civilization-building in regions historically connected to Africa and the Near East.
While interpretations vary, what is clear from historical and archaeological scholarship is that some of the earliest complex societies—characterized by urbanization, governance, and monumental architecture—emerged in regions that include parts of North Africa and its neighboring civilizations.
These early societies laid the groundwork for governance systems, trade networks, and legal traditions that influenced later civilizations. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that ancient civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia developed sophisticated political and administrative systems that shaped human history in profound ways.
The account of the Ethiopian official in the Book of Acts mentioned earlier is one of the most overlooked pieces of historical and intellectual evidence about Africa in biblical times. The text explicitly states that in the first century CE, the Ethiopian official was reading from the scroll of Isaiah while traveling, which immediately implies literacy, access to written texts, and a culture in which reading and scholarship existed.
If an Ethiopian official was reading a Hebrew prophetic text in the first century, then there must already have been systems of education, literacy, and manuscript circulation in Africa long before European enslavement and colonialism. It proves unequivocally that Africa was not a dark continent waiting for European civilization, but a continent with its own scholars, officials, religious communities, and intellectual traditions.
Historians and biblical scholars have noted that ancient Ethiopia was a literate and highly organized civilization. The Ge’ez script, developed in the Horn of Africa, is one of the oldest written scripts still in use in liturgical contexts today.
The National Museum of African-American History and Culture
This broader issue of Eurocentric history connects to how African history is presented in modern museums and public institutions. For example, the National Museum of African American History and Culture presents the African-American experience primarily through the lens of slavery, segregation, and civil rights. While these are undeniably central parts of African-American history, focusing predominantly on slavery risks defining African-American identity primarily through oppression rather than through civilization, innovation, scholarship, and global contributions.
The museum building itself, while its designers Sir David Adjaye and the architectural team (Adjaye Associates, The Freelon Group, Davis Brody Bond, and SmithGroup) hold that they intentionally designed it with symbolic architecture referencing African art and ironwork, some observers like myself interpret its form differently, associating it with the imagery of slave ships or containment structures, which contributes to the emotional weight of the experience.
Scholars of African history and identity have long warned about the psychological effects of historical narratives that begin African history with slavery. The historian and scholar John Henrik Clarke famously stated, “If you start the history of a people with slavery, everything else looks like progress.” His point was that historical framing matters: If, by extension, African-American history is presented as beginning with enslavement, then emancipation appears to be the starting point of African-American progress, rather than recognizing that these gallant people were free people, many of them of royalty that hail from great African civilizations, kingdoms and empires that existed long before they were stolen and enslaved.
Thus from this perspective, that museum only perpetuates the narrative that African-Americans should be grateful to the imperial system for enslavement because by that means they were “rescued” from the “jungles” of Africa, “given” “freedom” and were “provided” with an environment that helped them excel in the sciences, arts, music, industry and culture.
The reflection on the Continent
Similarly, Walter Rodney argued that European colonialism and the slave trade did not civilize Africa but instead disrupted existing civilizations, economies, and educational systems and thus interrupted Africa’s independent development.
Ultimately, the debate is not about denying the suffering of enslavement or colonialism, nor about ignoring the African diaspora experience. Neither is it about whose experience was worse; the one trafficked from the motherland or the ones that remained. Rather, it is about historical balance and intellectual honesty.
African history did not begin with slavery, colonization, or European contact. Africa had civilizations, universities, scholars, trade networks, written languages, and religious traditions long before those events. When history is told without that earlier context, it can create the impression that Africa only entered history through European interaction, which is historically inaccurate and psychologically damaging.
And yet, perhaps the deepest question still remains unanswered: If African civilizations contributed to writing systems, governance, religion, trade, and intellectual life long before colonialism, why has so much of global history continued to portray Africa primarily through the lens of enslavement and suffering?
In the epilogue, we confront that question directly by examining how historical memory itself is shaped, who controls the narrative of civilization, and why reclaiming historical balance may be one of the most important forms of liberation in the modern world.
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The author is a dynamic entrepreneur and the Founder and Group CEO of Groupe Soleil Vision, made up of Soleil Consults (US), LLC, NubianBiz.com and Soleil Publications. He has an extensive background In Strategy, Management, Entrepreneurship, Premium Audit Advisory, And Web Consulting. With professional experiences spanning both Ghana and the United States, Jules has developed a reputation as a thought leader in fields such as corporate governance, leadership, e-commerce, and customer service. His publications explore a variety of topics, including economics, information technology, marketing and branding, making him a prominent voice in discussions on development and business innovation across Africa. Through NubianBiz.com, he actively champions intra-African trade and technology-driven growth to empower SMEs across the continent.
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