The History of Bantu People

Bantu is a term used in different contexts to mean different things. This document is confined to the Bantu as a major linguistic group in Africa whose existence is in record up to about 5000 years ago. The linguistic group comprises of about 300-600 different ethnic groups totaling to over 100 million individuals across the African continent. The Bantu people today live in the geographical region that stretches from central Africa eastwards and southwards.

Origin/ The Bantu Peoples History

The original homeland of the Bantu community of people is believed to have been West Africa along the boundary of what is today Nigeria and Cameroon. The history dates about 4000 years ago and it is this time when the community dispersed.

Migration

Studies by Joseph Greenberg and Malcolm Guthrie show that, from their original homeland in West Africa, the Bantu tribe underwent a series of migrations eastwards and southwards for a period of over 1000 years.

History records that between 4000 and 3500 years ago, the migrating community moved from West Africa to Central Africa Rain Forest from where different groups took different routes. One group migrated

southwards and by 500 BC (2500 years ago) they had already occupied the savannah countries; DRC, Angola and Zambia. The other stream moved eastwards to occupy the region around the Great lakes in what is today East Africa in 1000BC. Further migrations occurred from the two groups in search for settlement areas near rivers, along the coast etc.

Ancient Kingdoms

From the 14^th Century the Bantu began to group themselves into states and kingdoms. One of the famous kingdoms was the Monomatapa kings established in South Africa along Zambezi river. This kingdom is known for building the Great Zimbabwe

complex, a ruined city in the southeastern hills of modern Zimbabwe. This was the largest of 200 other similar sites in South Africa. Other Kingdoms were established in Central and East Africa. Kingdoms included Kingdom of Kongo of modern Angola, Lunda Empire of modern Republic of Congo, and Luba empire of today’s DRC. The Buganda of Uganda, Karagwe of Tanzania, Mutapa, Danamombe and Rozwi Empires of S.A, Zimbabwe’s Khami and the Naletale kindom of Mozambique.

Economic Activities

The Bantu are known to have practiced crop farming, pastoralism and trade. During stone age the Bantu migrated to river valleys due to the difficult of bringing down trees in the Central African forests. At the valleys they cultivated crops to feed the increasing population.

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Between 300-800AD Farming included many crops around the great lakes region. Farmers are known to have major in banana farming. Tradeing happened in Indian Ocean where traders used to ride the monsoon winds towards the west.

History suggest that goats were the only type of livestock kept by the Bantu People.

Today/ Bantu People tribe names

The Bantu population today consists of over 100 million people spread across Central, East and South Africa. The largest tribe is the Luba of DRC with a population of about 13.5 million people. The Bantu Peoples of South Africa are now 10 million Zulus and are second in terms of numbers. The Kikuyu of Kenya have about 6 million people. Kiswahili is accepted as the lingua franca by over 140 million Bantus but only 5 million speak Swahili as their first language. Swahili is recognized a one of the official Languages of the Africa union.

Africa Global News Publication