Pre-colonial west african diplomacy: it’s nature and impact

The neglect, for a long time, of African diplomatic history particularly, by scholars of African history, and the failure to forcefully project the history and image of Africa, exposed the continent to uncharitable, disparaging and judgemental comments by Eurocentric historians who denied African history.1 The fact is that in the 19th Century when Europe occupied Africa, her scholars did not attempt to study and understand or to build on the historical traditions in existence there; they sought instead to challenge and to supplant them. The history of European traders, missionaries, explorers, conquerors and rulers constituted, in their own view, the sum total of African history. This view has long been deconstructed by several research works centred on African history. What has received scanty academic attention perhaps, is African diplomatic history. This paper therefore, challenges based on available sources, the notion in certain quarters that pre-colonial West Africans were not capable of engaging in any systematic and sophisticated art of diplomacy. This challenge is sustained by examining the nature and impact of pre-colonial diplomacy in West Africa. The paper argues that not only was diplomacy practised elaborately in pre-colonial West Africa, it was conducted according to civilized standards. The paper draws examples of systematic and elaborate diplomatic practices from various West African States and discusses copiously, some of the outstanding diplomatic feats achieved by the pre-colonial West African diplomats. The paper concludes by recommending some of these feats to contemporary diplomatic functionaries.

Pre-colonial ,

West Africa ,

Diplomats ,

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