Was the Bantu expansion or migration a genocide? - Quora Congo, Gabon) between 2500 BC and 1200 BC.[18]. cit. View all Google Scholar citations . [27] In other places, Bantu language expansion, like many other languages, has been documented with population genetic evidence to have occurred by means other than complete or predominant population replacement (e.g. An example of this was the Arab Revolt of the same period, which was facilitated and supported by TE Lawrence, the legendary Lawrence of Arabia. When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. The last major act of defiance of a native race in southern Africa against European domination was the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. The southward Bantu occupation of sub-Saharan Africa (south of the Sahara), started some 2,000 years ago, with the introduction of crop farming and iron age technology from Nubia which made expansion, weaponry, conquest and supremacy possible. fall into the classification of genocide. The Extinct "Ghost Modern" Race of Africa and the Bantu Expansion Genocide Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more. Some 6.5 million of those were Muslims migrating from India to Pakistan, and 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan to India. The Twa spend part of the year in the otherwise uninhabited region hunting game, trading for agricultural products with the farmers while they do so. For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. There are no noticeable differences between the two communities as they both use the same Bantu languages together with French, and mainly observe Christianity. Hostname: page-component-7fc98996b9-ttbxf Same reason we don't call the Indo European migrations a genocide. 24 Theal, G. M., Records of South-East Africa (Capetown, 18981903), vols. The Allies, as a tactic of war, exploited traditional tensions within Ottoman territories to weaken the Empire. The Germans found both of these races difficult to integrate into their colonial economy, simply because they were inimical to labor and were often nomadic in lifestyle. Roberts, A. D. [21], Khoisan-speaking hunter-gatherers also inhabited Southeast Africa before the Bantu expansion. [32][33] By the first century BC, Bantu speaking communities in the great lakes region developed iron forging techniques that enabled them to produce carbon steel. To date, Turkey remains in denial, and the word genocide is excluded from the official description of what took place. Quite as the Turkish government and people reject outright the definition of the Armenian deportation as genocide, so the British government also regard the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Starving Herero Tribesmen Source: Wikimedia. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. Muslim nationalists then began demanding a two-state solution, which neither the British nor nationalists like Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi particularly wanted. The Problem of the Bantu Expansion | The Journal of African History [29] The western branch, not necessarily linguistically distinct, according to Christopher Ehret, followed the coast and the major rivers of the Congo system southward, reaching central Angola by around 500BC. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian. Muslim nationalists then began demanding a two-state solution, which neither the British nor nationalists like Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi particularly wanted. Starving Herero Tribesmen Source: Wikimedia. This response quickly escalated to orchestrated genocide, and was extended beyond the Herero to the neighboring Namaqua people, who were of Khoisan origin, and the San, or Bushmen as well. Hitler harnessed this anger and dissatisfaction and directed it at the Jews. In total, about 11.2 million people successfully crossed the India-West Pakistan border in different directions, mostly through the Punjab region. Formed in 1075, Mapungubwe was a renowned trading city linking Africa, Asia, and Europe. In 2004, Somali Bantus from this group began arriving for permanent resettlement in the U.S. Acts of genocide are normally committed by state agents, for example by soldiers in the employ of the national military or by militias who have the support of those who hold state power. These were, and are the Bantu and the Koi-koi, or Khoisan. The last major act of defiance of a native race in southern Africa against European domination was the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. This ideological aversion soon extended to ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, Thais, Christians, Muslims and Buddhists, and indeed anyone at all perceived in any way to be an enemy of the revolution. 21128. Two major events in the recent paleoenvironmental history of Central Africa might have influenced the route of the Bantu expansion (10-18).The first was a contraction at 4,000 B.P. As the genocide progressed, survival was determined simply by an individuals ability to do work on the collective farms. The result of this was an extraordinarily cohesive and violent nation, glorifying in bloodshed, and celebrating with utter fanaticism the personality cult of their leader. The Bantu Expansion: Some facts and fiction | Language Dispersal It remains a livid international issue, however, and one upon which Turkeys entry into the European Union has traditionally been hinged. Our Bantu speaking ancestors also . Cities were emptied out, and anyone conforming to this broad definition of the enemy was consigned to labor camps in the countryside. Between 1.5 and 3 million Cambodians died, or were killed by the regime. It is described as one of the most momentous events in African history. Vaguely the idea was to purify the races under German control, and create thus a race-worthy of European domination. If one was to point the finger at the former Soviet Union for acts of genocide, then one would be able to point in many different directions. The Bantu people brought iron-smelting technology and subsistence farming to areas previously dominated by hunter-gatherers or early pastoralists. The tell-tale sign is the lack of non-bantu Y-DNA left in the area and the MtDNA still surviving, which means they killed the men and "took" the women. Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways: Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. Ethnic Groups Of Rwanda - WorldAtlas Press J to jump to the feed. The Shum Laka people survived for at least 1,000 years in the heart of Bantu country. Their descendants have largely mixed with other peoples and adopted other languages. [19] Many Batwa groups speak Bantu languages; however, a considerable portion of their vocabulary is not Bantu in origin. Other unreliable ethnic groups, such as Greeks and Assyrians, were also sucked into the maelstrom, and are now subject to separate genocide classifications. India was, as the saying goes, the Jewel in the British Crown. Yeah, Bantu expanded around 1500 years or so and did a little genociding of the Khoisans and pygmies in the area. At the time, the attention of the world tended to be focused on the events of WWI. Between 1904 and 1907, up to 100,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were killed, many in concentration camps, dying of disease and starvation. Cameroon, Gabon, Central African Republic), as a result of desertification of the Green Sahara in 7000 BC. You do realise hunter-gatherers (like the San and Pygmies and not the Khoi as they were/are pastoralists) tend to have smaller populations than agriculturalists. PEOPLE OF AFRICA - The Diversity of African People | African Race Here, conditions of physical abuse, disease, exhaustion, and starvation began to claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Other academic opinion tends to point to a typically dogmatic refusal on the part of the British government to acknowledge a failed policy. Before the Bantu expansion, Khoisan-speaking peoples inhabited Southern Africa. A boundary commission, sponsored by the British government, attempted to divide India along Hindu and Muslim lines. This implied that all colonization was by invitation, which was, of course, hardly the case. followed by the recent Bantu expansion separating the two regions.One . Linguists, classifying the languages and creating a genealogical table of relationships, believed they could reconstruct material culture elements. The Bantu Expansion: How Bantu People Changed Sub-Saharan Africa Reading time: 4 minutes About 3500 years ago, an event began that changed the demographic, linguistic, and cultural makeup of the African continent forever. During that bitter period of modern Irish history between 1845 and 1849 approximately 1 million people died, and a million more emigrated. The result was a mass slaughter as Muslims trapped in India sought to flee to Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs caught in Pakistan tried to make it across the border into India. The dynamics of genocide are rooted in the complex colonial policies of the time. The Extinct "Ghost Modern" Race of Africa and the Bantu Expansion Genocide Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. This is simply because it was about ideological killing on a major scale, and because it was accompanied by such cruelty and such wanton human suffering. Answer (1 of 3): Here we go again with the Bantu Expansion and supposed "genocide" of the Khoi-Khoi and the San of Southern Africa. It was caused by the failure of the potato crop, thanks to a mold-related blight, which affected a rural population heavily dependent on potatoes as a staple food source. It remains a livid international issue, however, and one upon which Turkeys entry into the European Union has traditionally been hinged. Professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, Francis A. Boyle, argues that these actions, according to sections (a), (b), and (c) of Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, constitute genocide. A boundary commission, sponsored by the British government, attempted to divide India along Hindu and Muslim lines. The departure of the British would naturally bring about democratic rule, and in a society where Hindus vastly outnumbered Muslims, universal suffrage meant Muslim marginalization. Historical Maps, Prints, Photographs and Books, Off Green Island, Bass Strait, 1893 Framed Print, Port Jackson from Vaucluse, c1800 Framed Print, Taking back the Homeland Ethiopian Guerrillas in World War II, Doggerland: The Lost World Beneath the North Sea, Interesting Stories of the Mound-Building Native American Civilizations of the Midwest, Map of New Holland and Asiatic Isles, 1814 Framed Print, reproduce it please get in touch via this form, The Conquerors Perspective: Why Europe Has so Many Different Languages, A Continents Currency: 20 years of the Euro, The Roman dead: new techniques are revealing just how diverse Roman Britainwas, Secondary school textbooks teach our kids the myth that Aboriginal Australians were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The tell-tale sign is the lack of non-bantu Y-DNA left in the area and the MtDNA still surviving, which means they killed the men and "took" the women. In other words, most sub-Saharan Africans today are descended from Bantus, who are, historically, a genocidal conqueror race rather like the Yamnayas-Aryans of Eurasia. WWII, however, reconfigured the imperial landscape, and by then, India was demanding independence, and the British were more than willing to give it to them. Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. There was, of course, a great deal of mercantile resistance, but the British government held firm. The regime was toppled in January 1979, and Pol Pot died in April 1998, on the eve of his being handed over to international justice. The military government solicited the aid of the United States, and a heavy-handed US response included a massive bombing during 1973, killing some 300,000 people. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The early stages of migration were slow. No, it's not. No it is a white supremacist talking point that doesn't make a lot of sense. In Eastern and Southern Africa, Bantu speakers may have adopted livestock husbandry from other unrelated Cushitic-and Nilotic-speaking peoples they encountered. 1 This article is based on a paper read at the Royal Society of Arts on 5 May 1966 and printed in that Society's Journal, CXIV (1966), 85269. Early critics argued this phenomenon was a result of language spread rather than the migration of Bantu-speaking people, but genetic evidence has proved otherwise. In its simplest terms, the Herero, a Bantu people, in one of many internecine conflicts, required German protection and did not get it. https://investigativegenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2041-2223-1-6https://investigativegenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2041-2223-1-6/tables/3. The scope of the Armenian genocide is usually defined as the physical extermination of Armenian Christians living within the geographic boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, between 1915 and 1916. However, mtDNA genetic research from Cabinda suggests that only haplogroups that originated in West Africa are found there today, and the distinctive L0 of the pre-Bantu population is missing, suggesting that there was a complete population replacement. Between 1782-1783, a similar crop failure occurred in Ireland, but on that occasion, the British government responded by closing all Irish ports. He was thus able to interweave his own warped ideology with the mood of a nation. The evidence for the first stage is largely linguistic and is likely to remain so. They suffered a genocide, at the hands of europeans and bantu peoples. Accompanying charcoal carbon-dated to 266 s.c. 120. The Israeli historian and scholar Yehuda Bauer, in probably the most frequent declaration on why it happened, proclaimed that the Holocaust was rooted in an illusionary world of Nazi imagination, where an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world was opposed to a parallel Aryan quest. In 1884, it was agreed among European powers that all expansion into Africa would be by treaty with local, indigenous authority. A minor tribe or clan was attacked and utterly obliterated, with only those able to fight or breed spared, to then be assimilated into the Zulu race. It is connected with complex population movements starting north of Central Africa and led to the progressive colonisation of a vast area further south. Doctors, teachers, monks, journalists, the wealthy, artists, anyone with an education and ethnic or religious minorities were all singled out for arbitrary execution. With death and destruction occurring on such a vast scale, the relatively minor plight of a fringe minority of Turkish Christians attracted very little attention. The dynamics of genocide are rooted in the complex colonial policies of the time. But the Zulu race itself was not innocent of genocide. Factors that support claims of genocide include the confiscation not just of grain crops, that were needed to feed a growing industrial army, but also the confiscation of all foodstuffs, including livestock and domestic animals. Recognition is not universal, however, and a number of important countries support Turkey in this issue. The first waves consisted of Southern Cushitic speakers, who settled around Lake Turkana and parts of Tanzania beginning around 5,000 years ago. For example, in a number of languages the infinitival is the auxiliary designating the future. The indigenous population of the territory comprised dispersed agricultural and pastoral communities belonging to the two major indigenous population groups in southern Africa. For a year, the Ndwandwe licked their wounds. } Factors that support claims of genocide include the confiscation not just of grain crops, that were needed to feed a growing industrial army, but also the confiscation of all foodstuffs, including livestock and domestic animals. Mai Mai militia groups aided in the formation of military bases within the Hutu Refugee camps. In March 1970, the military in Cambodia ended the traditional rule of Prince Sihanouk. From Australia, we move to Africa, and a slightly different take on genocide. Back on more familiar territory, the Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, has long been the subject of furious denial by the Turkish government. Some 6.5 million of those were Muslims migrating from India to Pakistan, and 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan to India. In this way, a chain reaction of violence and predation began that lasted from about 1815 to 1840. The scope of the Armenian genocide is usually defined as the physical extermination of Armenian Christians living within the geographic boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, between 1915 and 1916. Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in. The Bantu Expansion is unique among ancient dispersals of peoples and languages due to its combination of high amplitude, rapid pace, and adaptation to multiple ecozones ().The spread of Bantu-speaking people from a homeland region on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon toward eastern and southern Africa starting ~4000 years ago had a momentous impact on the continent's linguistic . [35] Such processes of state-formation occurred with increasing frequency from the 16th century onward. The Khmer Rouge, or the Red Khmer, was a movement born out of the struggle against French colonization. Replies claiming this is white supremacist to somehow study history are just ad hominem attacks mostly. The primary evidence for the Bantu Expansion is linguistic: the diffusion of Bantu languages throughout the continent. The result was the decimation of the interior population of South Africa, and the ruination of the social and productive landscape. A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions. [15] The 60,000-km2 Mambilla region straddling the borderlands here has been identified as containing remnants of "the Bantu who stayed home" as the bulk of Bantu-speakers moved away from the region. It is described as one of the most momentous events in African history. Also when the Portuguese started buying slaves from Africa the Bantu Expansion was given a new boost. . As we approach the top of the list, the Cambodian Genocide, the infamous Killing Fields of the 1790s, ranks very highly. Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. The ideological underpinning of all of this was simply the Maoist principle of transforming Cambodia into rural and classless society, with a population consigned to labor on collectivized farms. The text of this article was commissioned by History Guild as part of our work to improve historical literacy. In Killing Fields set up all over the country, confessions were solicited by torture, and execution immediately. [35] Other pioneering groups had reached modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa by AD 300 along the coast, and the modern Limpopo Province (formerly Northern Transvaal) by AD 500. As usual, the argument is one of semantics. The economic suffering of the German people that followed, and the rise of nationalism that this set in motion, created ideal circumstances for a merchant and banking class to attract the attention of a disposed population. On Tuesday, August 14, 1947, Pakistan was proclaimed independent from Britain, and a day later, India followed suit. In terms of sheer numbers, it is probably the Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Genocide of 1932-33, that racked up the greatest score. However, attempts to trace the exact route of the expansion, to correlate it with archaeological evidence and genetic evidence, have not been conclusive; thus although the expansion is widely accepted as having taken place, many aspects of it remain in doubt or are highly contested. Oliver and Mathew, op. The genetic legacy of western Bantu migrations - PubMed Herding practices reached the far south several centuries before Bantu-speaking migrants did. The name of the country was changed in 1976 to Democratic Kampuchea, and Pol Pot, or Brother Number One, declared the day of victory Year Zero as he set about building his Utopian republic. Archaeological evidence from the separate works of Jean Hurault (1979, 1986 & 1988) and Rigobert Tuech (2000) in the region reveals that this region has been inhabited by the same culture for 5 millennia, from 3000 B.C to date. cit. Two such factoids are that (1) the Bantu Expansion would have been a single migratory macro-event and (2) it would have been driven by agriculture. Their spread was occasioned by a phenomenon known as the Bantu Migration, or Bantu Expansion, which began in the first millennium and concluded towards the end of the 18th century. The Ottoman Empire allied with the Central Powers during WWI, and, of course, the German defeat in that war brought the Ottoman Empire down with it.