desire to protect territory where natural resources were too
scarce to be shared, to protect trade routes, or to protect a
nation’s wealth and population from raiders.
AFRICA
BY JUSTIN CORFIELD
Th e borders and frontiers of many of the civilizations in Af-
rica were ill defi ned until the colonial period, and even then
discrepancies between treaties oft en occurred. In terms of
North Africa, the Egyptians, the Numidians, the Carthag-
inians, and subsequently the Romans were able to establish
frontiers to their lands largely with small garrisons in isolated
oases astride trade routes. Tariff s were generally collected on
entry into a particular city rather than across any given fron-
tier. Some writers of the ancient world speak of a borderless
world—“one world”—especially in relation to the period of
Alexander the Great (336–323 b.c.e.) and again for the Ro-
man Empire.
Until the emergence of larger kingdoms, most of society
was organized into states centered on cities or towns, with
their surrounding hinterland supplying produce to them.
Most of these larger settlements were located in rich, arable
areas. A few others appear to be located on land trade routes.
Certainly two of the routes across the Sahara appear to ter-
minate in the ports of Lixus (modern-day Larache, Morocco)
and Oea (modern-day Tripoli, Libya). Th e former is set in
good agricultural land, but the latter had little arable hinter-
land, though even this might have been enough for Carthag-
inian farmers, using slave labor, to construct aqueducts.
During the ancient period the dual system of land ten-
ure arose, which existed in much of North Africa until the
establishment of the European colonial empires in the 19th
century. Essentially the boundaries of cities were clearly de-
fi ned, oft en by walls or fortifi cations, and land within them
was available for purchase or rent with a system of land ten-
ure not too diff erent from that operating in many of those
countries today. However, in the countryside, even though
the land occupied by an individual farm might be defi ned,
with no accurate cadastral service, that is, a register of own-
ership of land, the fullest extent of any kingdom or empire
tended to be defi ned in terms of the presence of army gar-
risons placed in par ticu lar far-fl ung small settlements to en-
sure the easy collection of taxes and the maintenance of law
and order. As a result, the areas that paid taxes to a particu-
lar ruler were within his borders, oft en leaving the southern
boundaries of Carthage, Numidia, and Roman North Af-
rica ill defi ned.
Gradually, the Egyptian Empire and the empires of
Carthage and subsequently Rome tended to fi x boundaries
of provinces and install provincial governors who were in
charge of dispensing justice as well as collecting taxes within
their area of authority. To achieve this objective, provinces,
and hence borders, had to be more clearly defi ned than they
had hitherto been. Most literature exists for the Romans, who
certainly built forts in the desert in Tripolitania (modern-
day western Libya). In addition, there also seem to have been
large numbers of fortifi ed farmhouses, probably occupied by
limitanei (sold ier-fa rmers).
Although the Romans originally took over and absorbed
the lands of the Carthaginians, maintaining Mauretania as a
client state, in 42 c.e. they annexed Mauretania, and within
two years it was divided into the two provinces Mauretania
Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis. During the fi rst cen-
tury there was signifi cant Italian migration to Mauretania,
leading to more lands being opened to agriculture and the
borders of the existing chieft ains being more closely delin-
eated. In the 210s, during the reign of Septimus Severus, the
only African-born emperor of Rome, there was a reduction in
trade throughout the whole Roman Empire and consequently
an economic slump in North Africa, which saw the reduction
of Roman infl uence over the more distant Saharan outposts.
However, during the later periods of the Roman Empire maps
tended to show more details connected with the East African
coast, including coverage as far south as Cape Delgado, south
of Zanzibar, possibly on account of traders returning with
new information.
Th e descriptions of the diff erent tribes in North Africa
noted by the fi ft h century b.c.e. Greek historian Herodotus
show that society was organized by clan groups following dif-
ferent customs but that there was clearly no physical barrier
from one community to another. Indeed, rather than groups
being divided by rivers, many tribes were located astride
them. Th e problem was further exacerbated by the nomadic
tribes that operated in the Sahara and in parts of central and
southern Africa. Because the area was very sparsely populat-
ed, for the most part the borders of one area were to remain
undefi ned until recent times, when primarily European car-
tographers took an interest in Africa.
However, in some areas the frontiers of particular groups
can be clearly ascertained. Work by the anthropologist Pat-
rick Munson in Sudan has shown that farmers in the Tich-
it-Walata part of the Sudan from 1000 b.c.e. had tended to
congregate in fortifi ed cliff -top villages, clearly showing that
protection from attack was more important than access to
fertile arable land. Th e settlement of Tin Hinan in the Hog-
gar, nearly 1,000 miles south of Algiers, excavated in 1926
and again seven years later, showed the importance of for-
tifi cations there to protect the local people from marauders
during the fi rst century b.c.e.
On the east coast of Africa, at Port Durnford (in mod-
ern-day South Africa), in 1912 a fortress was discovered that
enclosed fi ve acres, obviously showing the need of the peo-
ple there to be able to withstand a substantial siege. Inland,
even before the massive stone buildings of Great Zimba-
bwe were constructed in the ninth century c.e., there were
smaller eff orts to centralize power. Th ese kingdoms were
probably defi ned by the areas from where tax revenue, oft en
the form of cattle, was raised and where men were available
for conscription.140 borders and frontiers: Africa