https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k # **Summary** The video uses an 1866 map titled “Johnson’s Africa” to explore what Africa looked like politically, culturally, and imaginatively just before the high era of European colonial partitioning, highlighting how many pre‑colonial African states and older non‑European colonialisms shaped the continent and still echo in today’s borders and conflicts.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Purpose and framing The creator contrasts this 1866 map with a 1935 colonial map previously discussed, responding to criticism that the earlier video was too focused on European powers and their borders. This older map predates the 1880s “Scramble for Africa,” capturing African kingdoms, caliphates, empires, and ethnic regions as they existed under varying degrees of Ottoman, Arab, European, and indigenous rule.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## North Africa and Ottoman influence In the northwest, the video explains “Barbary” (from the Berber peoples) as a region once infamous for piracy and slave raiding across the Mediterranean, which European powers later used to justify military interventions, especially France’s conquest of Algeria. Tunisia (as the Beylik of Tunis), Morocco, Tripoli, Fezzan, and Egypt appear as semi‑autonomous but still tributary parts of the declining Ottoman Empire, illustrating how foreign rule predated formal European colonialism while still allowing local rulers significant autonomy.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Sudan, Nubia, and lasting fault lines The map shows Egyptian expansion south into Nubia and neighboring sultanates like Darfur, Kordofan, and Sennar, partly to acquire enslaved soldiers, which the video links to later British creation of “Sudan” as a single colony. The narrator emphasizes how these historically distinct regions map onto present‑day Sudan and South Sudan and help explain ongoing internal conflicts and difficulties maintaining unity.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Sahara, nomads, and undefined borders Much of the Sahara is lightly marked, with zones labeled for peoples like the Tibu/Teda, Tuareg, and other Berber‑related groups rather than clear borders, which the video argues better reflects their nomadic lifeways than artificial lines would. The region once broadly called “Sudan” (now the Sahel) is shown as a belt between desert and forest, where more sedentary, organized states arise as farming becomes viable again.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Fulani jihads and Afro‑Islamic states Across the Sahel, the map preserves a cluster of Islamic states (e.g., Masina, Sokoto, Bornu, Adamawa) created by Fulani jihads, which unified many Fulani under Islam and reshaped West African politics. The video argues these Afro‑Islamic polities marked a key moment when Islam crossed the Sahara ethnically and culturally, prompting Christian European powers to see them as a strategic threat and intensify missionary and colonial projects in response.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Coastal West Africa and Liberia On the “Guinea” coast, the map shows regions like Senegambia, Sierra Leone, and the new country of Liberia, settled by formerly enslaved and free Black people from the United States. Liberia is highlighted as the continent’s only contemporary democracy, governed by a president born in the U.S., and the video notes the ambiguous motives behind its creation—either emancipation experiment or way to remove potentially rebellious Black Americans.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Ashanti, Dahomey, and Yoruba The video examines Ashanti as a powerful, independent empire that repeatedly fought the British in the Anglo‑Ashanti Wars and became one of the last African states to be fully colonized. It also covers Dahomey’s wealth from the slave trade and its eventual weakness after the trade’s decline, as well as the Yoruba (Oyo Empire), whose rulers and territories were eventually overtaken by British expansion despite strong internal political structures.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Imagined features: Kong Mountains and lost lakes The map includes fictitious elements like the “Kong Mountains” across West Africa and a supposed “Great Lake of Africa” in the Congo Basin, reflecting European cartographers’ attempts to explain major river systems before actual exploration. The video connects these myths to older ideas like the “Mountains of the Moon,” showing how legendary geography persisted in Western mapping well into the 19th century.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Central, East, and Southern Africa In Central and southern regions, the map records many smaller or less‑defined political entities such as Lunda, Kazembe, and Bechuana lands, whose boundaries were fluid due to warfare, migration, and slave raiding. The video also traces Portuguese and Omani/Arab influence: Congo and Angola are boosted by Portuguese gun‑for‑slave trades, while the Swahili coast and Zanguebar (linked to Zanzibar) reflect centuries‑old Arab colonization and the East African slave trade.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Ethiopia, the Horn, and Somalia Abyssinia appears as a patchwork empire of sub‑kingdoms under Emperor Tewodros II, whose efforts to centralize power eventually collide with British intervention and his own suicide at Magdala. Neighboring Somali and Oromo (labeled “Gallas”) territories are shown as ethnic regions rather than clearly bounded states, hinting at later tensions and fragmentation in modern Ethiopia and Somalia.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Mozambique, Mutapa, and interior gold On the southeast coast, Mozambique is depicted as a long‑standing Portuguese colony reshaped by both Arab and Portuguese slave raiding. Inland, the Kingdom of Mutapa (Monomotapa) is highlighted as a gold‑based African power tied to legends like “King Solomon’s Mines,” which drew European expeditions that ultimately paved the way for colonization.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Southern Africa, Boers, and indigenous peoples The southern tip shows Boer‑founded states such as the Transvaal, Orange Free State, Natal, and British Cape Colony, established over lands originally inhabited by groups like the Tswana and San (“Bushmen”). The displacement of these communities and the lack of defined borders for them on the map foreshadow later South African racial and territorial conflicts.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Overall takeaway The video concludes that even before the formal Scramble for Africa, the continent had already experienced centuries of foreign domination and slave trading by Europeans, Ottomans, and Arabs, yet still contained a dense mosaic of sovereign African polities and cultures in 1866. The 1866 map is presented as a rare window into those indigenous and early Islamic states—and into Western misconceptions—just before colonial borders erased many of their names from the modern map.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k) # Findings on the Slave Trade The map and video show that slavery and the slave trade in 1866 Africa were widespread, multi‑century, and driven not only by Europeans but also by North African, Arab, Ottoman, and local African powers.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Mediterranean and Barbary slavery The Barbary Coast (Northwest Africa) is described as a major hub for piracy whose main business was capturing Europeans from Mediterranean coasts and selling them into slavery in North African markets, with over a million people taken from future Spain, France, and Italy over previous centuries. European states later used this Barbary slave trade as a moral and strategic justification for military conquest in North Africa, starting with France’s takeover of Algeria.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Ottoman, Egyptian, and Nubian slavery Egypt’s expansion into Nubia and neighboring sultanates like Sennar is explained as a project to capture large numbers of enslaved Nubians to build an army that could eventually fight the Ottomans, showing an African/Ottoman-linked system of slave soldier recruitment. These conquests later got bundled into the British “Sudan” colony, but on the 1866 map they appear as distinct polities tied together partly through slave raiding and forced conscription.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## West African coastal slave trade The Kingdom of Dahomey is highlighted as an extremely wealthy state whose economy relied on raiding surrounding regions and selling captives to European slave traders at coastal markets, with the video noting that many enslaved people taken to the United States came through Dahomean ports. The end of the transatlantic slave trade weakened Dahomey enough that France could eventually conquer it, so the map captures the kingdom near the end of its slave-trade-based power.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Congo, Angola, and Portuguese trade The map shows Congo and Angola as two of several competing kingdoms, with the Portuguese empowering the king of Kongo (the Manikongo) by trading guns for slaves, helping him dominate neighbors. Angola is depicted as a Portuguese colony whose expansion southwards came from launching slave raids into interior and southern territories to feed Brazilian plantations, erasing smaller neighboring states from later maps.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## East African and Zanzibari slave trade On the Swahili coast, Zanzibar/Zanguebar is shown as the center of a long‑running East African slave trade, where Arab and Omani rulers organized large‑scale raids into the interior to capture Africans bound for Arabia and other Indian Ocean markets. European explorers later targeted this trade as a stated moral reason to intervene, but the video stresses that efforts to “end” the Zanzibari trade also paved the way for new European colonial exploitation.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ ## Overall interpretation from the map Taken together, the map illustrates that by 1866 Africa was already deeply shaped by multiple overlapping slave systems: Barbary piracy, Ottoman/Egyptian military slavery, Dahomey and other West African coastal trades, Portuguese‑backed slaving in Congo and Angola, and the Omani‑run East African trade. The video’s main finding is that these older slave networks and foreign dominations pre‑dated the formal Scramble for Africa and were later used as moral and strategic pretexts for European colonial conquest, even as Europeans had long been major beneficiaries of the trade.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k)​ 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJmFZ0zHY9k) # **Description** 255,706 views Sep 20, 2025 Today I've got my hands on an even older map of Africa for us to explore! Check out my second channel ARCHIVE DIVE here:    [ / @archivediveyoutube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDW13ycIiHcl4QVN-YwVy0w)   Find my EXTINCT BUTTERFLY POSTER here: [https://store.nebula.tv/products/atla...](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbTdneHZ1OEF2bmtTa0R5bnhVTW5Tc3QteHdnQXxBQ3Jtc0tuVHBkZXVEZTZYakptcE4yNWZLam1reWNFRmxRRkZqN2V5bWJWNXk1Sk01ZWt3NnU4RkxtWVFwUWhlaVNxYVhIaVVoRXNXOFNJblBvOGtZN0VYT2VXSHhyd3hmaDQxTzkxUUZGUmVkM1BCNkxKUnhiRQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fstore.nebula.tv%2Fproducts%2Fatlas-pro-extinct-butterfly-art-print&v=XJmFZ0zHY9k) Buy the MARS MAP here: 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[https://www.jstor.org/stable/180172](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbXBXLWI2WWc2T2J4ZWJZMXYybDk3LUxHc3R3d3xBQ3Jtc0tuZ2pzRGlvdndFU2E1aTJpdTBNNkZRUWIwNzFwbGNRVm1zZzhkQjdGZUd3cF9IcnkyeHJ1eVM4c0NjaHBBenc3S2huVUhDZGY0ZTdEbEhMaEtNMy02cjJmR3gxTTVpZGdvcTBvdEgySm1ESXAyNk8yVQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fstable%2F180172&v=XJmFZ0zHY9k) [https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Do...](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbG0yVVE2T2hKZTVYNFRpRGtKSXAwdmRCQU1PZ3xBQ3Jtc0tubE1Ea29zUk1kSDdkR1lCRUJLWkpDdGdrcmVFRmJNazQ0Z1hqSDRIb1ctSXhKa2ExaFo2S3ppVmlNaU9TRVFxWWpiYnU5ZWtlZGVsTktvZG1aeFZ6SmcyTlFQWmd2Q2RyN20ySXV6U3BFWTFoazZ1SQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esd.whs.mil%2FPortals%2F54%2FDocuments%2FFOID%2FReading%2520Room%2FLitigation_Release%2FLitigation%2520Release%2520-%2520Final%2520Report-West%2520African%2520Jihadist%2520Movements%2520%2520201407.pdf&v=XJmFZ0zHY9k) [https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqblpQaUFGc3RSNmJSNXBqTlUtSVR3SXdPWElPQXxBQ3Jtc0trMUV0LUtybVVHRnBBX1VGemEyekZURFBNbzUxYVVUX1lkd2JadUFhcnlxUmx4d0tiRW9Lc3ZZTjYtYXVtUVRrMTZVR09qSC1HR2ZkQkJLZVQ2c3BwSkxJWHN2c3lZQVNvRDU5cU8yMFotcmE1NUgtcw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F335259979_Causes_of_the_Jihad_of_Usman_Dan_Fodio_A_Historiographical_Review&v=XJmFZ0zHY9k) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/716705](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3A5RXk5OFkzS2FzZW5RVjgxSEJlN18tRGMyZ3xBQ3Jtc0tsZ0tGODdDYWdLM2NTdGFiQXd0dEZqSXpuMW10eUNHOXB3clJiWlMybDJ2dk4zdTVUUDRYRWlsNUxLdHJTeEpjU0FtMlVHRmoyTndrdlQyUmYySXEtSXNfWkx1V1l0V1F6SE9EUXc3TTRKaEtUNkxUSQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fstable%2F716705&v=XJmFZ0zHY9k) 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