The famous Great Enclosure in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Great Zimbabwe was just one of the major states that arose in southern Africa, starting with Mapungubwe in 1220 and including Thulamela and later the Venda Kingdom, the Pedi Kingdom and the Zulu Kingdom. (Image: Andrew Moore)

Peter Delius (University of the Witwatersrand), Linell Chewins (University of the Witwatersrand) and Tim Forssman (University of Mpumalanga)

11 February 2025

Were you told that gold mining in southern Africa started after 1852? Or that the export of iron, steel, copper and gold began in the late 19th century? Or that South Africa became integrated into a global trading system only after 1652? Or that the first powerful state in South Africa was the Zulu kingdom?

If you learned that any of these things were true, you are like most South Africans, who have missed out on at least a thousand years of the country’s history.

Both radical and conservative historians have focused heavily on colonial history, a story starting at the Cape and playing out within colonial boundaries. As a result, South Africa’s past has been compressed into a shortened timeline and a limited geography. That shorter version is what’s taught at schools and universities.

If we abandon 1652 – when the first Dutch settlers arrived in the Cape – as the key historical starting point, and go back a thousand years and cast our gaze 2,000km north of Table Mountain, a very different story unfolds.

Our research is attempting to rethink South African history. As many years of work in the interior show, along with our new focus on a central southern African trading landscape, Thulamela, the formative steps in South Africa’s history began here, along the Limpopo River.

Ostrich eggshell beads found at Thulamela tell a lot about ancient production strategies, value systems and trade. (Image: author supplied)

Early cooperative relationships

Two thousand years ago, San hunter gatherers were the primary occupants of the region around the Limpopo River valley, an area around the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers that includes Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Contrary to popular opinion, these groups weren’t living in isolated bands. They were connected through regional networks of exchange spanning hundreds, even thousands, of kilometres.

At this time, South Africa was on the brink of fundamental change. From about 350 AD, Bantu-speaking, iron-using, livestock-owning farmers began to settle the Soutpansberg, south of the Limpopo River. They initially established mainly cooperative relationships with the San, especially in hunting and trading.

These farmers introduced a key innovation into the region – the production of metal tools, weapons, currency and jewellery. These goods were for their own use and for expanding trade networks.

Map of prominent trading sites in the East African trade network, labelled from north to south.
1: Kilwa; 2: Tsodilo Hills; 3: Khami; 4: Great Zimbabwe; 5: initial gold reefs; 6: Chibuene; 7: Schroda, K2 and Mapungubwe; 8: Thulamela and Makahane; 9: Dzata/Venda Capital; 10: KwaGandaganda and Ndondwane (Image: author supplied)

At the start, iron was the most important metal but over time, copper and gold became more and more significant. The farmers were skilled in locating and extracting these ores, which, in the case of gold and copper, often involved shaft mining. Metal production also demanded pyrotechnical knowledge to smelt ores and to fashion metals into functional and decorative forms.

Local trade, global connections

Another crucial development took place in the 7th century AD. The Indian Ocean world connected to the expanding regional trade networks which had linked the coast and the interior. The transoceanic sailors and traders were initially motivated by the growing demand for ivory in Asia and the Middle East.

This external demand brought exotic glass beads and cloth deep into the interior, through African traders and rulers. A node in the system was Chibuene, a large coastal trading settlement on the Mozambican coast near modern Vilanculos. From here, beads and cloth travelled south, to the vicinity of Durban in today’s KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and across the interior, past the Okavango delta to places such as the Tsodilo hills west of the delta’s panhandle in Botswana.

Between the 10th and 15th centuries, the market for gold boomed – especially in Egypt, Persia, India and China. Southern Africa played an important role in meeting this demand because of the rich gold reserves of the Zimbabwe plateau and the adjacent region of the Limpopo valley.

So, it is clear that an economic and mineral revolution took place long before Europeans settled South Africa’s Cape. Colonial processes of globalisation and the mineral revolution in the 19th century trailed far in the wake of African involvement in the vast Indian Ocean economy through their hunting, mining, smelting and artisanal skills.

Rise of states

Indian Ocean trade contributed to major transformations in the interior. The wealth it generated led to social stratification and the emergence of a distinct ruling class. Leaders’ economic, political and spiritual power intensified. These processes found expression in the establishment in 1220 of Mapungubwe, in the middle Limpopo Valley, and the first state in southern Africa.

Over the centuries that followed, linked but shifting patterns of demand gave rise to major states like Great Zimbabwe, Thulamela, and later the Venda Kingdom, the Pedi Kingdom and the Zulu Kingdom.

The little-known trading state, Thulamela, was located in the north of what’s now the Kruger Park. From 1250 to 1650 it was a key node of production and exchange. But for many decades the site was ignored. When intensive research finally started in the 1990s it made very limited progress in revealing the form and nature of the state. But renewed and interdisciplinary research at the site and surrounding areas has already produced new insights into the history of Thulamela and promises to generate many more in the near future.

An aerial view of an ancient residential enclosure in Thulamela, a trading state in the north of what’s now the Kruger Park. From 1250 to 1650 it was a key node of production and exchange. (Image: author supplied)

New windows to a past

Given this deep history of powerful kingdoms connected by an underlying but dynamic economic system, we have to let go of the idea that the Zulu Kingdom, which formed in the early 19th century, was the first powerful state in what was to become South Africa. In fact, it was a relatively recent example of much deeper and wider transformations.

It was only in the 19th century that expanding colonial capitalism and settlement fuelled by the “second” mineral revolution penetrated the interior and encountered its kingdoms and trading opportunities.

Pottery is common at Iron Age sites and their decorations are specific to groups and periods. (Image: author supplied)

The interaction between the two worlds culminated in a hard-fought struggle over trade, land and labour. While the African kingdoms were ultimately defeated and traders and craftsmen were displaced, their impact on the shape and nature of South African society is still felt today.

A challenge to historians now is to deepen our understanding of this missing millennium, and of pre-colonial transformations.

Researchers need to pay greater attention to a wider range of documentary sources (beyond those in English) and to oral traditions. Collaboration with scholars working on archaeology, historical linguistics and genetics will also tell us more about the forces that have shaped our present.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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MARY ALEXANDER • 2 APRIL 2024

After a controversial month-long delay, the West African country of Senegal held its presidential election on 24 March 2024.

Two of the 19 candidates – the highest number in the country’s history – led the pack.

One was the ruling Benno Bokk Yaakaar alliance’s Amadou Ba, a former prime minister who outgoing president Macky Sall chose as his successor.

The other was Bassirou Diomaye Faye of the opposition Pastef party. Faye was released from prison just 10 days before the vote. Also released was popular Pastef leader Ousmane Sonko.

The party itself had been dissolved by Senegal’s government in 2023 and Sonko was barred from running. So Faye stepped in.

On 25 March, less than 24 hours after voting stations closed, Ba conceded to Faye. Senegal’s electoral commission had announced that Faye had won 53.68% of the 90% of ballots counted.

The next day, a short video of a man giving a speech in English appeared on social media with the claim he was Faye, saying “it’s time for France to leave Senegal alone”.*

Senegal is a French-speaking country and was France’s oldest African colony until independence in 1960. The two countries maintain strong political and economic ties, and France has an air force base in Dakar, Senegal’s capital.

The video is overlaid with the text: “The next African President is speaking. Even His English is clean than alot of current Presidents in our Continent.” Its captions identify the man as Faye.

The clip begins with the man appearing to say:

It is high time for France to lift its knee off our neck and put an end to this unjust oppression. Centuries of misery, human trafficking, colonialism and neocolonialism have caused immeasurable suffering. It is time to put an end to this cycle of oppression. It’s high time for France to leave us alone.

The video can also be seen here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Faye and his allies have pledged to fight France’s “economic stranglehold” on Senegal. But is the man in the video really Faye, speaking English?

Sonko’s 2021 press conference – in French

The man in the video is clearly Ousmane Sonko, not Bassirou Faye.

Africa Check googled videos using the French keywords “discours d’Ousmane Sonko” – “speech by Ousmane Sonko”.

This led us to a press conference Sonko held in Dakar on 2 July 2021. It was streamed live on YouTube by Senegal7, a local TV news channel.

Sonko’s posture and gestures, his suit, the white background and the Senegalese flag to his right all indicate that the viral video was taken from the live stream.

In the stream, Sonko gives an hour-and-a-half speech on a range of topics – in French. He posted a transcript of the speech, also in French, on his X/Twitter account on the same day.

Not only does the viral video show Sonko, but it has been altered, with English audio replacing Sonko’s original French.

But Sonko did say something similar in his 2021 speech. A machine translation of a part of its transcript reads:

But it is time for France to lift its knee from our necks and do like its European peers (Germany, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, etc.) who are prospering without sucking the blood of the former colonies.

Mais il est temps que la France lève son genou de notre cou et fasse comme ses pairs européens (Allemagne, Italie, Espagne, Grande Bretagne, Suède, Pays-Bas,…) qui prospèrent sans sucer le sang des anciennes colonies.

— Ousmane Sonko (@SonkoOfficiel) July 2, 2021

A six-minute excerpt of the speech was also posted on the Satanal Media YouTube channel, headlined (in French) “It’s time for France to let go of us.”

Faye was inaugurated on 2 April 2024. At 44, he is Senegal’s youngest president yet.

* Some claims posted on Facebook and Instagram may have been deleted by users after being rated via Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program.

Published by Africa Check on 12 April 2024

The post Senegal’s new president Faye telling France to leave his country alone? No, old video of allied politician Sonko with English audio added appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 1 APRIL 2024
Published by Africa Check on 12 April 2024

Warning: The video fact-checked here shows violence against children.

Distressing footage of armed men forcing terrified children to strip naked has been circulating on social media since late March 2024 with the claim it was shot in Nigeria.*

The clip seems to have been filmed by one of the gunmen.

It shows a group of teen and pre-teen girls and boys huddled in front of a grey building. Shoes, clothes and school bags are scattered on the ground. The gunman repeatedly yells “Remove your clothes!”, “I shoot you!” and “I kill you!” as he fires his weapon in warning and the children strip.

Another armed man in a black uniform moves in and out of frame, shouting similar threats.

The video’s captions include:

• See a country that has police and army! Kidnapped school children in the hands of kidnappers and forced to go naked – boys and girls. This is insanity! Do we have a Government in Nigeria ?
• Kidnapped school children in the hands of kidnappers. This is insanity. Do we have a Government in Nigeria or a band of insanely irresponsible fraudsters and looters that have seized power?
• Nigerian Boko Haram soldiers kidnapping school children. This is insanity …

School kidnappings in northern Nigeria

The claim started to circulate on 23 March, the day before the Nigerian army announced it had rescued 287 schoolkids abducted from the town of Kuriga in Nigeria’s northeastern Kaduna state two weeks earlier.

That kidnapping was followed by another on 9 March, when 15 children were taken from a school in Sokoto state, also in the northeast.

The Kaduna abduction, of children aged eight to 15, is said to be the largest mass kidnapping in Nigeria in three years.

The country has been plagued by school kidnappings for years, mainly in the north. It’s estimated that since the infamous Chibok abduction of 276 schoolgirls from the northeastern state of Borno in 2014, some 1,400 to 1,600 Nigerian kids have been kidnapped from their schools.

In the northeast school kidnappings are largely attributed to Islamist Boko Haram militants. But kidnappers in the northern region are also armed criminal gangs known as “bandits”.

The claim can also be seen here, here and here. But does the video really show children abducted in Nigeria?

Cameroon’s Anglophone separatist crisis

Several social media users have called out the claim, saying the video was actually shot in Nigeria’s eastern neighbour of Cameroon.

One says the incident occurred in “the English speaking part” of Cameroon. Another writes: “These are ambazonia terrorists targeting school children in Cameroon, 12 Jan 2022.”

Africa Check googled the phrase “kidnappers in Cameroon force school children to strip naked”. This led us to a January 2022 Voice of America report that the video was shot near Government High School Buea. Buea is the capital of Cameroon’s English-speaking South West region.

A BBC Pidgin fact-check adds that the gunmen in the video are speaking a “Pidgin native to di anglophone region of Cameroon”. Anglophone means English-speaking.

Today’s Cameroon was formed in the early 1960s by the union of a British colony to the west and a larger French colony to the east. Since 2017 the country has been wracked by a separatist conflict, with Anglophone secessionists demanding that the English-speaking North West and South West regions be given independence to form the country of Ambazonia.

In January 2022 Ambazonia separatists launched a series of attacks in an attempt to disrupt the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament, which Cameroon hosted that year.

The assault on the Buea schoolchildren was part of that campaign.

Here’s how it’s described by Voice of America:

In a video shared by Cameroon separatist fighters on social media platforms, armed men are seen shooting indiscriminately in the air while ordering about 15 children dressed in school uniforms to strip naked.
In the video, two armed men brandish weapons and threaten to kill any student who attempts to disobey the fighters’ orders. Other voices are heard ordering the students to lie down or be killed. The students plead for their lives to be spared.

The incident was also reported by the Cameroon-based Human Rights and Legal Resource Centre.

The video was shot in Cameroon, not Nigeria.

* Some claims posted on Facebook and Instagram may have been deleted by users after being rated via Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program.

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MARY ALEXANDER • 22 March 2024

The huge and controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd) on the Blue Nile, more than half a century in the making and a source of tension between Ethiopia and Egypt, is 95% complete.

This was announced by the dam’s construction office on 6 March 2024. It said 98% of Gerd’s civil engineering work and 78% of its electromechanical work was done.

At full capacity, the dam could be the largest hydropower project in Africa, supplying electricity to Ethiopia’s 123 million people and to neighbouring countries.

Soon after the announcement, a photo started circulating on social media with the caption “#Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Dam“.

In the photo we see water flowing through the sluices of a dam from a huge reservoir that stretches into the distance. In the foreground is a power station set in parkland.

The claim can also be seen here, here, here, here and here.

Who owns the Nile?

The Nile River flows northward from Sudan, Ethiopia’s western neighbour, through Egypt into the Mediterranean Sea.

Its major tributaries are the Blue Nile, which rises from Lake Tana in the eastern Ethiopian highlands, and the White Nile, which begins at Lake Victoria to the south. The two rivers meet to form the Nile itself in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital.

The Blue Nile is the larger of the Nile’s two tributaries and supplies about 90% of Egypt’s fresh water. Gerd’s massive reservoir has a capacity of about 1.6 years’ worth of the Blue Nile’s average flow.

In September 2023 Ethiopia announced that the fourth and final filling of Gerd’s reservoir was complete.

A feasibility study on Gerd was first conducted in the 1950s. Ethiopia began actual construction in 2011, the year Egypt was in turmoil during the Arab Spring.

Since then, the two countries have repeatedly been at loggerheads over the dam. Egypt sees it as a threat to its water supply, especially during drought. But for Ethiopia Gerd holds obvious benefits.

Ethiopia has recently gone so far as to deploy its army around Gerd and install air defence systems to protect the dam from possible attacks by Egypt.

But does the photo really show the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam?

Tungabhadra Dam in India’s Karnataka state

A reverse image search reveals that the photo is actually of the Tungabhadra Dam in India.

The photo has been posted on news websites, blogs, travel sites and social media as far back as 2019. All identify it as the Tungabhadra Dam.

Did you know?

Tungabhadra Dam,
also known as Pampa Sagar is one of the only two non-cement dams in India, the other being the Mullaperiyar Dam in Kerala.

The dam is built of surki mortar, a combination of mud and limestone, commonly used at the time of its construction. pic.twitter.com/AIbFF873AY

— Vibhu Vashisth (@Indic_Vibhu) December 16, 2023

The dam, also known as Pampa Sagar, lies on the Tungabhadra River outside the city of Hosapete in the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka. It’s the state’s largest dam, providing irrigation, electricity and flood control.

The photo does not show the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 28 March 2024

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MARY ALEXANDER • 29 FEBRUARY 2024

“After I finish Palestine, tell African gullible leaders that I’m coming for them to recolonize them.”

That’s a quote attributed to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, overlaid on a TikTok video circulating widely across social media in February 2024.*

The clip shows Netanyahu giving a speech. It begins with him saying: “After I liberate the Jewish people, I will go to Africa to liberate the black people.”

The audio then switches to a voiceover. “Video footage of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, talking about Israel’s goals for Africa in a press conference in Uganda, has many on the continent speculating what those plans and goals are,” it says.

“Will Africa be Israel’s next target after they completely dominate Palestine?”

The clip then returns to Netanyahu’s speech. He discusses Israel’s “tremendous opportunities” and how the country has used technology to solve problems in water supply and agriculture.

He then says: “We are eager to share this technology in so many fields with our African friends. We think that Israel is the best partner that the countries of Africa could have.”

The video ends with the voiceover saying: “Do you think Israel is genuinely seeking to help Africa, as stated by the prime minister? Or is there something sinister behind these amazing promises?”

The video can also be seen here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

There’s no indication of when Netanyahu made the speech, but the video was first posted on TikTok on 16 February 2024. This was a few days after Israel indicated it would launch a full-scale ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Israel’s war on Gaza

Israel is a country in the Middle East and the world’s only Jewish state. The Gaza Strip is a small Palestinian territory wedged between Israel and the eastern Mediterranean sea.

Israel has been at war with Gaza since Hamas, which controls the territory, launched a deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. By 28 February 2024 the war had killed 29,954 Palestinians in Gaza and internally displaced 1.7 million more – roughly 75% of its population. About 1,440 Israelis have been killed in both territories.

On 13 February South Africa asked the UN’s International Court of Justice to consider whether Israel’s planned invasion of Rafah, “the last refuge for surviving people in Gaza”, would breach the court’s provisional orders in its genocide case against Israel.

But is the TikTok clip evidence that Netanyahu said “gullible” African leaders should be told Israel would be “coming for them to recolonise them” after he “finished Palestine”? And where and when did he give the speech?

Netanyahu quoting 19th-century Zionist

The footage is more than seven years old and has been edited to deceive.

Africa Check googled phrases from the clip where Netanyahu discusses water and agriculture. This led us to a full transcript of the speech on the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office website, dated 4 July 2016.

It’s headlined: “PM Netanyahu’s Statement at the African Summit”.

Netanyahu toured four East African nations in July 2016. In Uganda, he held a meeting with the leaders of seven countries in the region. The speech was given at that meeting.

The original video of the speech can be seen on the verified Prime Minister of Israel Facebook page, as well as on the Times of Israel YouTube channel.

The original and its transcript reveals that Netanyahu’s opening statement in the TikTok clip – “After I liberate the Jewish people, I will go to Africa to liberate the black people” – has been edited out of context.

The words were not his. Instead, he was quoting the 19th-century Austrian journalist Theodore Herzl, who proposed the idea of a Jewish state in 1896.

What Netanyahu actually said was:

The founder of modern Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people, was Theodore Herzl, and he said, “After I liberate the Jewish people, I will go to Africa to help liberate the black people.”

And nowhere in the original video does the Israeli prime minister say: “After I finish Palestine, tell African gullible leaders that I’m coming for them to recolonise them.”

Netanyahu’s speech was in July 2016, not February 2024. The TikTok video is deliberately misleading and its claim is false.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 5 March 2024

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