Black African civilizations prior to european contact and racist stereotypes

i just recently started using this forum and was worried about the tales people chat of no black civilizations or nations prior to european contact. and i wanted to correct that. i also wanted to say something about the belief that savage blacks captured savage blacks and sold them to whites. i recently asked my great grand dad, who showed me some writings by an african ruler in the oyo empire in western nigeria. apparantly he was worried that the british where selling guns to another black nation the dahomey and that because the oyo blacksmith attempts to replicate the rifles where unsuccessful they needed to trade more with the english. unfortunately gold was not what the english wanted but slaves. in most african society prior to european colonialism. slavery was only used on people who commited grievious criminal acts and prisoners of war. and the slaves could work their way out to freedom, they could also have children who where free and their relatives could buy their freedom. some black nations like the nri kingdom even outlawed slavery and any slave that set foot on their land wes free. u see slavery in west africa was seen as being more humane than executing someone for murder as spilling blood was often seen as taboo. and they where many laws concerning the treatment of slaves. but when white people arrived the game changed because of guns. u see guns gave a nation advantages and when whites sold it to a particular black kingdom other kingdoms where afraid they would be dis advantaged and also sought after guns. at first gold and spices and cloth was enough for europeans, but with the discovery of gold and spices in north and south america, slaves where needed to covert these resources. and the only thing blacks had to trade where slaves for guns. so as a result blacks started selling their criminals into slavery thinking the same rules of slavery applied to whites, but we all know now that was different. so the slave raids only started when the kingdoms ran out of criminals and then started raiding other kingdoms and sometimes going to all out war just for slaves to get more guns. why more guns u say what did they need them for. well many people have forgotten that for centuries black africans have been resisting arab muslim invaders who wanted to forcefully enslave and convert them and needed every edge they could get get guns was to sell slaves and thus a vicious circle began. of course they where blacks who sold their own people out simply fo profit, but in what culture or race has such people not existed. i apologise to west african descendants of the slavery diaspora. and now i will list west african civilizations, which black people in america can take pride in.

from what i can tell the nok civilization is west africas oldest as it started in 1000bc and from what i can tell it started up isolated as they where no advanced cultural influences nearby. i still dont understand why when ancient africa is potrayed on tv is always mud huts. i mean the where walled cites roads, written languages , science, universities like in ancient timbuktu. some had flags and constitutions. an some where even democratic. so why are they not mentioned. mind u these links are only from west africa they are many more in central east and southern africa. i also wonder why this stuff is not taught in america, american friend says in america they mostly learn about ancient britain and europe and most blacks seem to know only about the zulus. is this true.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nri_kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songhay_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanem-Bornu_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulani_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyo_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Dahomey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolof_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nok
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausa_Kingdoms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandinka_Empire

...near present-day Timbuktu? I remember reading an article about the discovery of a major city, dating from pre-Roman times, that wasn't equaled in Europe for another thousand years.

we don't really teach much of any geography in this country, but yeah - non-Western European history? we are pretty clueless other than a tiny bit of victorious chest thumping.