Sarah Baartman was born in 1780, her names were Saartjie or Sawtche or Ssehura which means diminutive form. Was from the Khoikhoi nomadic ethnic group that lived in the eastern  region of the Cape Colony in present day South Africa. Sarah was 4 ft 7in tall. Sarah’s life was lined with difficulties. Her mother passed away when she was only …

As King Akhenaten’s wife, Nefertiti was the queen of the 18th dynasty of Egypt, and played a significant role in Egyptian worship of the sun god Aton or Aten. Her name means “the beautiful one has come” and Egyptian reliefs and statuary still show her iconic beauty. Although much of the early life of Nefertiti is a myth, it is …

King Ramses II one of the greatest pharaohs who ruled Egypt, also Known as Ramesses II or Sese also called Ramesses The Great, he was the third king of the 19th dynasty (1292-1186 BCE), he was born in 1303 BC to his father the Pharaoh Sethi I and his mother Queen Tuya. He was second-in-command during his father’s military campaigns …

Jesus of Lübeck, the first British slave ship to arrive in Africa. The ship was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I to a group of merchants in 1563. Jesus of Lübeck was an early 16th-century carrack built in the Free City of Lübeck. Around 1540 Henry VIII, King of England, bought the ship, which had previously been used for ceremonial purposes, …

The name Africa is a phenomenon. Home to 1.216 billion people, the world’s second-largest population and 2nd largest continent after Asia. Africa is a renowned name that has traveled way beyond the shores of the Nile to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The name is one, over time that is connected to historical heritages and tied to historical revolutions. However, …

Sunni Ali established the West African Songhai Empire. He was best regarded as a great military leader, nicknamed Ali Ber, or “Ali the Great.” His views toward Islam are highly controversial. Nearly little is known about Ali’s early life (who received the title of sunni, or si, when he became king of Gao) except that he grown up with the …

The Songhai Empire during the 15th and 16th centuries was a kingdom that controlled the Western Sahel. At its height, it was one of the greatest in African history. The state is known for its historiographic name, derived from the Songhai, its leading ethnic group and ruling elite. The Songhai Empire was located in south of the Sahara Desert in …

The Dinka people are a Nilotic tribe from South Sudan, but they do have a significant community in the diaspora. They live mostly along the Nile, from Mangalla to Renk, in Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (formerly two out of three Sudanese Southern Provinces) and Dinka Ngok of Abyei Area in South Sudan. The Dinka originated from the Gezira, in …

Hair has played an important role in the history of ancient African lifeforms. Their family, social class, beliefs, tribe, and marital status symbolized their context. Various tribes used hair as early as the 15th century to show one’s social hierarchy. Royal members wore elaborate hairstyles symbolizing their prestige. Hair was also a prosperity symbol. If a person’s hair was thick, …

El-Molo are Kenya’s smallest ethnic group with around 560 people. Although their numbers have recovered slightly in recent years, the people who live on the Komote Island of Lake Turkana fear their language could become extinct. The El Molo are believed to have originally migrated down into the Turkana Basin around 1000 BC from Ethiopia in the more northerly Horn …