1975/01/01 by Graham W. Irwin · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #African history and culture studies #Diplomacy #History #Political science #Ancient history #Ethnology #Law #Politics
paper · doi:10.2307/217487
openalex publication_date 1975/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/22
In Africa during precolonial period several groups of states maintained relationships with one another in time of peace at an official level and on a more or less regular basis. Sometimes member states of these groups had once belonged to same empire, as was case in parts of Upper Niger, in Senegambia, and in interlacustrine region of East Africa. Sometimes their relationship was based on rivalry at a distance, as with Dahomey and Asante; sometimes on conquest, as with Dahomey and Oyo; and sometimes on common ancestry and traditions, as with Yoruba and Fante states, or kingdoms of Mossi-Dagomba complex, or Luba-Lunda states. But however their mutual relationships originated, official contact between these states seems to have been maintained by methods and procedures which historians of non-African world describe as diplomatic. According to one well-known definition, diplomacy is the conduct of business between states by peaceful means.1 If so, then precolonial Africa was no stranger to diplomacy or diplomatic arts. In Africa before imperial period, moreover, subject matter of international relations-what was discussed and decided-seems to have been much same as in other areas of world. Treaties were negotiated, frontiers (of trade and authority more often than of territory) were delimited, past disputes were settled, and potential crises argued away. The means employed to achieve these results included sending of embassies, both ad hoc and semipermanent,2 present giving and receiving, and use of regular courier services. The principle was widely accepted that representatives of one state or