essay about the life during pre colonial period

Precolonial Period in the Philippines: 18 Facts You Need To Know

While Filipinos nowadays are pretty knowledgeable about the Spanish, American, and Japanese eras, the same cannot be said regarding the precolonial period in the Philippines. This is a shame because even before the three foreign races came, our ancestors lived in a veritable paradise.

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Although it wasn’t perfect, that era was the closest thing we ever had to a Golden Age, a sentiment shared by national hero Jose Rizal, members of the Katipunan, noted historian Teodoro Agoncillo, and even some church historians.

Let’s look at some of the most interesting facts about the precolonial period in the Philippines and compelling reasons why we think life was better during this period in our nation’s history.

Table of Contents

1. women enjoyed equal status with men.

During pre-colonial times, women shared equal footing with men in society. They were allowed to divorce, own and inherit property, and even lead their respective barangays or territories.

In matters of family, the women were the working heads, possessing the power of the purse and the sole right to name their children. They could dictate the terms of their marriage and even retain their maiden names if they chose to do so.

During this time, people traced their heritage to their fathers and mothers. It could be said that the precolonial period in the Philippines was largely matriarchal, with the opinions of women holding a significant weight in matters of politics and religion (they also headed the rituals as the babaylans ).

As a show of respect, men were even required to walk behind their wives. This largely progressive society that elevated women to such a high pedestal took a serious blow when the Spanish came. Eager to impose their patriarchal system, the Spanish relegated women to the homes, demonized the babaylans as satanic, and ingrained into our forefathers’ heads that women should be like Maria Clara —demure, self-effacing, and powerless.

2. Society Was More Tolerant in Pre-Colonial Philippines

While it could be said that our modern society is one of the most tolerant in the world, we owe our open-mindedness not to the Americans and certainly not to the Spanish but to the pre-colonial Filipinos.

Sexuality was not as suppressed, and no premium was given to virginity before the marriage. Although polygamy was practiced, men were expected to do so only if they could support and love each of their wives equally.

Homosexuals were also largely tolerated, as some babaylans were men in drag.

Back then, there were no doctors or priests our ancestors could turn to when things went awry. Their only hope was a spirit medium or shaman who could directly communicate with the spirits or gods . They were known in the Visayas as  babaylan,  while the Tagalogs called them catalonan ( katulunan ).

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More often than not, these babaylans or catalonans  were women who came from prominent families. However, early Spanish missionaries reported men who assumed the role of a babaylan.  That also suggests that these male versions may have existed long before the Spaniards arrived.

What’s more surprising is that some of these male  babaylans  dressed and acted like women . Visayans called them  asog  while the Tagalogs named them  bayugin. In the 1668 book  Historia de los Islas y Indios de Bisayas,  Father Francisco Alcina further described an asog as:

“…impotent men and deficient for the practice of matrimony, considered themselves more like women than men in their manner of living or going about, even in their occupations….” The 16th-century manuscript  Boxer Codex  added even more intriguing details:

“The bayog or bayoguin are priest dressed in female garb……Almost all are impotent for the reproductive act, and thus they marry other males and sleep with them as man and wife and have carnal knowledge .”

As time passed, the term asog has taken on completely different meanings. In Aklan, for example,  asog is now   used to refer to a  tomboy  or a woman acting like a man.

Surprisingly, with the amount of sexual freedom, no prostitution existed during the pre-colonial days. Some literature suggests that the American period—which heavily emphasized capitalism and profiteering—introduced prostitution into the country on a massive scale.

3. The People Enjoyed a Higher Form of Government

The relationship between the ruler and his subjects was straightforward back then: In return for his protection, the people paid tribute and served him in times of war and peace.

Going by the evidence, we could say that our ancestors already practiced an early version of the Social Contract , a theory by prominent thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which espoused the view that rulers owe their right to rule based on the people’s consent.

Conversely, if the ruler became corrupt or incompetent, the people had a right to remove him. And that’s precisely the kind of government our ancestors had. Although the datus technically came from the upper classes, he could be removed from his position by the lower classes if they found him wanting of his duties. Also, anyone (including women) could become the datu based on their merits, such as bravery, wisdom, and leadership ability.

4. We Were Self-Sufficient

In terms of food, our forefathers did not suffer from any lack thereof. Blessed with such a resource-rich country, they had enough for themselves and their families.

Forests, rivers, and seas yielded plentiful meat, fish, and other foodstuffs. Later on, their diet became more varied, especially when they learned to till the land using farming techniques that were quite advanced for their time. The Banaue Rice Terraces are one such proof of our ancestors’ ingenuity.

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What’s more, they already had an advanced concept of agrarian equity. Men and women equally worked in the fields, and anyone could till public lands free of charge. Also, since they had a little-to-no concept of exploitation for profit, our ancestors generally took care of the environment well.

Such was the abundance of foodstuffs that Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the most-successful Spanish colonizer of the islands, was said to have reported the “abundance of rice, fowls, and wine, as well as great numbers of buffaloes, deer, wild boar, and goats” when he first arrived in Luzon.

5. Gold Was Everywhere

There was plenty of gold in the islands during the precolonial period in the Philippines, and it used to be part of our ancestors’ everyday attire.

In the book by historian William Henry Scott, it was said that a “Samar datu by the name of Iberein was rowed out to a Spanish vessel anchored in his harbor in 1543 by oarsmen collared in gold; while wearing on his own person earrings and chains .”

Much of the gold artifacts recovered in the country are believed to have come from the ancient kingdom of Butuan, a major center of commerce from the 10th to the 13th century. Ancient Indian texts also suggest that merchant ships used to trade with people from what they called  Survarnadvipa or “Islands of Gold,”  believed by many as present-day Indonesia and the Philippines.

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Precolonial treasures include ear ornaments called panika; bracelets known as  kasikas; and the spectacular serpent-like gold chain called  kamagi. Since their discovery, some of these valued gold artifacts have been looted, melted, and sold.

It didn’t matter to the treasure hunters that these gold ornaments were originally part of our ancestors’  bahandi  (heirloom wealth) and probably originated here and in other places they traded with.

6. We Had Smoother Foreign Relations

We’ve all been taught that before the Spanish galleon trade, the pre-colonial Filipinos had already established trading and diplomatic relations with countries as far away as the Middle East.

Instead of cash, our ancestors exchanged precious minerals, manufactured goods, etc., with Arabs, Indians, Chinese, and other nationalities. Many foreigners permanently settled here during this period after marveling at the country’s beauty and people.

Out of the foreigners, the Chinese were most amazed at the pre-colonial Filipinos, especially regarding their extraordinary honesty. Chinese traders often wrote about the Filipinos’ sincerity and said they were one of their most trusted clientele since they did not steal their goods and always paid their debts.

Out of confidence, some Chinese were known to leave their items on the beaches to be picked up by the Filipinos and traded inland. When they returned, the Filipinos would give them back their bartered items without anything missing.

7. We Built Warships That Could “Sail Like Birds”

They may be primitive, but our ancestors made the most of what they had and created amazing marine architecture. The Visayan warship karakoa was the result of such ingenuity.

Note that our early plank-built vessels were made in the same tradition as other boats dating back to 3rd century BCE. And that probably explains why our  karakoa is similar to Indonesia’s  korakora.

In his paper “Boat-Building and Seamanship in Classic Philippine Society,”  historian William Henry Scott described the karakoa as “ sleek, double-ended warships of low freeboard and light draft with a keel  on one continuous curve…… and a raised platform amidships for a warrior contingent for ship-to-ship  contact.”

The  karakoa  served not only as a warship but also as a trading vessel. Accounts from the 1561 Legazpi expedition described it as “a ship for sailing any place they wanted.” 

And sailed they did, reaching places as far as Fukien coast in China where a bunch of Visayan pirates pillaged the villages sometime in the 12th century.

The flexibility of its plank-built hull and the coordination of a hundred or so paddlers all helped karakoa  generate its best speed of 12 to 15 knots–three times the speed of a Spanish galleon. It was so efficient that Fr. Francisco Combés once wrote it could “ sail like birds.”

8. Our Forefathers in the Pre-Colonial Philippines Already Possessed a Working Judicial and Legislative System

Although not as advanced (or as complicated) as our own today, the fact that our ancestors already possessed a working judicial and legislative system shows that they were well-versed in the concept of justice.

Life in the pre-colonial Philippines was governed by a set of statutes, both unwritten and written, and contained provisions concerning civil and criminal laws. Usually, it was the datu and the village elders who promulgated such laws, which were then announced and explained to the people by a town crier called the umalohokan .

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The datu and the elders also acted as de facto courts in case of disputes between individuals of their village. In the case of inter-barangay disputes, a local board composed of elders from different barangays would usually act as an arbiter.

Penalties for anyone guilty of a crime include censure, fines, imprisonment, and death. As we’ve said, the system was imperfect, but it worked.

Tortures and trials by ordeal during this time were also common. You may have encountered “trial by ordeal” while reading stories from medieval Europe. It’s a method of judgment wherein an accused party would be asked to do something dangerous. If he luckily survives, he would be considered innocent. Otherwise, he would be proclaimed guilty.

Our ancestors–and even some of today’s indigenous peoples–had a similar custom. The difference is that our version didn’t usually end up in a life-or-death situation.

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The Ifugao, for example, subjected the involved parties to either a “hot water” or “hot bolo” ordeal. The former involved dropping pebbles in a pot filled with boiling water. The accused was then asked to dip his hands into the pot and remove the stones. Failure to do this or doing it with “undue haste” would be interpreted as a confession of guilt.

As the name suggests, the “hot bolo” ordeal required both suspects to have their hands touched by a scorching knife. The one who suffered the most burns would be declared guilty.

Other methods included giving lighted candles to the suspects; the guilty party was the one whose candle died off first. There’s also one which asked both persons to chew rice and later spit it out, the guilty person being the one who spits the thickest saliva.

9. They Had the Know-How To Make Advanced Weapons

Our ancestors—far from being the archetypal spear-carrying, bahag -wearing tribesmen we picture them as— were proficient in war. Aside from wielding swords and spears, they also knew how to make and fire guns and cannons. Rajah Sulayman, in particular, was said to have owned a huge 17-foot-long iron cannon.

Aside from the offensive weapons, our ancestors also knew how to construct massive fortresses and body armor. For instance, the Moros living in the south often wore armor that covered them head-to-toe. And yes, they also carried guns with them.

With all these weapons at their disposal and the fact that they were good hand-to-hand combatants, you’d think that the Spanish would have had a more challenging time colonizing the country. Sadly, the Spanish cleverly exploited the regionalist tendencies of the pre-colonial Filipinos. This divide-and-conquer strategy would be the primary reason why the Spanish successfully controlled the country for more than 300 years.

10. Several Professions Already Existed

Aside from being farmers, hunters, weapon-makers, and seafarers, the pre-colonial Filipinos also dabbled—and excelled—in several other professions.

To name a few, many became involved in such professions as mining, textiles, and smithing. Owing to the excellent craftsmanship of the Filipinos, locally-produced items such as pots, jewelry, and clothing were highly-sought in other countries. It is reported that products of Filipino origin might have even reached as far away as ancient Egypt. Clearly, our ancestors were very skilled artisans.

11. We Had Our Own Writing System

Using the ancient system of writing called the baybayin , the pre-colonial Filipinos educated themselves very well, so much so that when the Spanish finally arrived, they were shocked to find out that the Filipinos possessed a literacy rate higher than that of Madrid!

Father Chirino observed that there is “hardly a man, and much less  a woman, who does not read and write,” while Morga wrote that there were very few who “do not write it   (baybayin) very well and correctly.”

The   baybayin  is believed to be one of the indigenous alphabets in Asia that originated from the Sanskrit of ancient India.

Composed of 17 symbols, the ancient  baybayin  has survived in a few artifacts and Father Plasencia’s Doctrina Christiana en lengua Española y Tagala,  the only example of the  baybayin from the 16th century.

As to why the  baybayin  quickly disappeared, there are a few possible reasons. First, we were unlike China, which was miles ahead in writing and record-keeping. Instead, our ancestors used anything they could get their hands on as their writing pad (leaves, bamboo tubes, the bark of trees, you name it), while pointed weapons or saps of trees served as their ink.

The  Boxer Codex  also suggests that the content of whatever our ancestors wrote was relatively insignificant: “They have neither books nor histories nor do they write anything of any length but only letters and reminders to one another.”

Of course, the Spaniards also contributed to the early death of our ancient syllabic writing. Historian Teodoro Agoncillo believed so: “Aside from the destructive work of the elements, the early Spanish missionaries, in their zeal to propagate the Catholic religion, destroyed many manuscripts on the ground that they were the work of the Devil himself.” 

12. They Compressed Their Babies’ Skulls for Aesthetic Reasons

In the ancient Visayas, being beautiful could be as simple as having a flat forehead and nose. But since humans are not usually born with these features, the Visayans used a device called  tangad  to achieve them.

The  tangad was a comb-like set of thin rods that was put above the baby’s forehead, surrounded by bandages, and fastened at some point behind. Babies’ skulls are the most pliable, so this continuous pressure often results in elongated heads.

Some of these deformed skulls were recovered from various burial grounds in the Visayan region. Two are on display today at the Aga Khan Museum in Marawi.

Upon close examination of these skulls, it was also discovered that their shape varies depending on whether the pressure was applied between the forehead and the upper or lower part of the occiput (i.e., back of the skull). Hence, some had “normally arched foreheads but were flat behind, others were flattened at both front and back, and a few were asymmetrical because of uneven pressure.”

13. You Could Judge How Brave a Man Was by the Color of His Clothes

Clothing in the pre-colonial Philippines reflected one’s social standing and, in the case of men, how many enemies they had killed.

In the Visayas, for example, basic clothing included bahag  (G-string) for men and malong (tube skirt) for women. The material used to make these clothes could indicate the wearer’s social status, with the abaca being the most valued textile reserved for the elites.

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The Visayan  bahag  was slightly larger than those worn by present-day inhabitants of Zambales, Cordillera, and the Cagayan Valley. They usually had natural colors, but warriors who personally killed an enemy could wear red  bahag. 

The same rule applied to the male headdress called  pudong. Red was and still is the symbol of bravery, which explains why the most prolific warriors at that time proudly wore red bahag and pudong .

Historian William Henry Scott writes:

“A red ‘pudong’ was called ‘magalong’, and was the insignia of braves who had killed an enemy. The most prestigious kind of ‘pudong,’ limited to the most valiant, was, like their G-strings, made of ‘pinayusan,’ a gauze-thin abaca of fibers selected for their whiteness, tie-dyed a deep scarlet in patterns as fine as embroidery, and burnished to a silky sheen. Such pudong were lengthened with each additional feat of valor: real heroes therefore let one end hang loose with affected carelessness.”

14. Human Sacrifice Was a Bloody, Fascinating Mess

It’s not easy to be a slave in the ancient Philippines. When a warrior died, a slave was traditionally tied and buried beneath his body. If one was killed violently or if someone from the ruling class died (say, a datu ), human sacrifices were almost always required.

Father Juan de Plasencia, an early missionary who authored “Relacion de las Costumbres de Los Tagalos” in 1589, provided us with a vivid portrait of an ancient burial:

“Before interring him (the chief), they mourned him for four days; and afterward laid him on a boat which serve as a coffin or bier….. If the deceased had been a warrior, a living slave was tied beneath his body until in this wretched way he died .”

Sometimes, as a last resort, an alipin  was sacrificed in the hope that the ancestor spirits would take the slave instead of the dying  datu.  The slave could be an  atubang  or a personal attendant who had accompanied the  datu  all his life. The prize of his loyalty was often to die in the same manner as his master. So, if the  datu  died of drowning, the slave would also be killed by drowning. This is because of  onong  or the belief that those who belonged to the departed must suffer the same fate.

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Slaves from foreign lands could also be sacrificed. An  itatanun  expedition had the intention of taking captives from other communities. After being intoxicated, these captives would then be killed in the most brutal ways. Pioneer missionary Martin de Rada reported one case in Butuan wherein the slave was bound to a cross before being tortured by bamboo spikes,  hit with a spear, and finally thrown into the river.

They believed that the dying   datu was being attacked by the spirits of men he once defeated, and the only way to satisfy the ancestors was to kill a slave.

15. It Was Considered a Disgrace for a Woman To Have Many Children

There was no “family planning” in the pre-colonial Philippines. Everything they did was based on existing customs and beliefs, one of which was that having many children was undesirable and even a disgrace.

Such was their fear of having more children that pregnant women were prohibited from eating  kambal na saging or similar food. They believed eating it would cause them to give birth to twins, which greatly insulted them .

Almost everyone also practiced abortion. The Boxer Codex reported that it was done with the help of female abortionists who used massage, herbal medicines, and even a stick to get the baby out of the womb.

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For others, having multiple children made them feel like pigs, so pregnant women with their second or third child would resort to abortion to get rid of their pregnancy. Poverty was another reason, as reported by Miguel de Loarca: “….when the property is to be divided among all the children, they will all be poor, and that it is better to have one child and leave him wealthy.”

According to historian William Henry Scott, the Visayans also had a custom of abandoning babies with debilitating defects, which made many observers conclude that “Visayans were never born blind or crippled.”

16. Celebrating a Girl’s First Menstruation, Pre-Colonial Style

Although menarche  (first menstruation) is memorable for many women today, it rarely becomes a cause for celebration. In the precolonial era, however, this transition was seen as a crucial period in womanhood, so much so that all girls were required to go through an elaborate rite of passage.

The said ceremony was known as “dating” among ancient Tagalogs. It was usually held with the help of a  catalonan  ( babaylan ), the go-to priestess-cum-doctor at that time. During the ritual, the girl having her first period was secluded, covered, and blindfolded.

Isolation usually lasted four days if the woman was a commoner, while those belonging to the principal class had to go through this process for as long as a month and twenty days!

The Boxer Codex  explains that our ancestors blindfolded the girl so she wouldn’t see anything dishonest and prevent her from growing up a “bad woman. ” The mantles covering her, on the other hand, shielded her from wind blows, which they believed could lead to insanity.

The girl was prohibited from eating anything apart from two eggs or four mouthfuls of rice–morning and night, for four straight days. As if that’s not enough, the girl was also not allowed to talk to anybody for fear of becoming talkative. All of these, while her friends and relatives feasted and celebrated.

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Each morning throughout the ceremony, the blindfolded girl was led to the river for her ritual bath. Her feet couldn’t touch the ground, so a catalonan or a male helper assisted her. The girl would be either led to the river through an “elevated walkway of planks” or carried by a male helper on his shoulder.

After immersing eight times in the water, the girl was carried back home where she would be rubbed with traditional male scents like civet or musk. Father Placensia, who witnessed the ritual, discovered later that the natives did this “ in order that the girl might bear children, and have fortune in finding a husband to their taste , who would not leave them widows in their youth.”

17. Social Classes Were Not As Permanent as We Thought

When the ancient Filipinos started trading with outsiders, the economy also started to improve. This was when social classes emerged, and life suddenly became unfair.

As you may recall from the HEKASI subject that bored you as a kid, there existed four classes of pre-colonial Filipinos: There was the ruling  datu  class; the wealthy warrior class called  maharlika;  the  timawa  or freemen; and the most ‘unfortunate’ of them all–the alipin or uripon class.

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The alipin was divided into two sub-classes: the  namamahay  or those who owned their houses and only served their masters on an as-needed basis; and the  saguiguilid  who didn’t own a thing nor enjoyed any social privileges.

You might think being born a slave then was tantamount to being doomed for life. However, that’s not the case, as there were reports of those who moved up or down the pre-colonial social ladder.

In the case of the  alipin,  he could improve his social status by marriage. For example, as recorded by Father Plasencia, “if the maharlikas had children by their slaves, the children and their mothers became free.”  Of course, this thing didn’t happen all the time, neither was it applicable to all social classes.

An  alipin  could also buy his freedom from his master if he were lucky enough to obtain gold through “war, by the grade of goldsmith, or otherwise.” However, note that inter-class mobility could only happen one step at a time. In other words, an alipin  could never bypass other classes to become a  datu  overnight,  and vice versa.

Other classes   could also be demoted to the slave class for various reasons. Save for the  datu  or chiefs, anyone who committed a crime and failed to pay the fine would become a slave.

As for the datu,  he could end up a low-ranked individual either because of poor leadership, which would prompt his followers to abandon him, or through an inter- barangay war, during which the captured and defeated datu , as well as his family, would lose some of their social privileges.

18. Courtship Was a Long, Arduous, and Expensive Process

Paninilbihan,  or the custom requiring the guy to work for the girl’s family before marriage, was already prevalent during the pre-colonial period in the Philippines. From chopping wood to fetching water, the soon-to-be-groom would do everything to win his girl’s hand.

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It often took months or even years before the parents were finally convinced that he was the right man for their daughter. And even at that point, the courtship wasn’t over yet.

The man was required to give  bigay-kaya,  or a dowry in the form of land, gold, or dependents. Of course, he needed the help of his parents to raise the required amount. Spanish chronicler Father Plasencia reported that a bigger dowry was usually given to a favored son, especially if he was about to tie the knot with the chief’s daughter. In the case of the Visayans, this dowry was usually given to the father-in-law, who would not entrust it to the couple until they had children.

Also Read: A Photo Of Ifugaos in Wedding Dress (1900)

In other areas of the country, the dowry was just the beginning. According to historian Teodoro Agoncillo, there was also the  panghimuyat  or the payment for the “mother’s nocturnal efforts in rearing the girl to womanhood” ; the  bigay-suso  or payment for the girl’s wet nurse (if there’s any) who breastfed her when she’s still a baby; and the himaraw  or the “reimbursement for the amount spent in feeding the girl during her infancy.”

As if that’s not enough to make the would-be groom go bankrupt, there was also the sambon  among the Zambals which was a “bribe'” given to the girl’s relatives. Fortunately, through a custom called pamumulungan or pamamalae , the groom’s parents had the chance to meet the in-laws, haggle all they could, and make the final arrangements before the marriage.

Agoncillo, T. (1990). History of the Filipino People (8th ed.). Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc.

Burton, R. (1919). Ifugao Law. American Archaeology And Ethnology , 15 (1).

Carpio, A. (2014). Historical Facts, Historical Lies, And Historical Rights In The West Philippine Sea (1st ed., pp. 8-9).

Geremia-Lachica, M. (1996). Panay’s Babaylan: The Male Takeover. Review Of Women’s Studies , 6 (1), 54-58.

Jocano, F. (1998). Filipino Prehistory: Rediscovering Precolonial Heritage . Punlad Research House.

Junker, L. (1999). Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms . University of Hawaii Press.

Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms . (2015). Asia Society . Retrieved 8 April 2016

Remoto, D. (2002). Happy and gay . philSTAR.com . Retrieved 9 April 2016

Scott, W. (1994). Barangay: Sixteenth-century Philippine Culture and Society . Ateneo University Press.

Vega, P. (2011). The World of Amaya: Unleashing the Karakoa . GMA News Online . Retrieved 8 April 2016

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in Facts & Figures , History & Culture

Last Updated April 10, 2023 03:27 PM

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Philippine Literature during Pre-Colonial Period

Precolonial Period

Filipinos often lose sight of the fact that the first period of the Philippine literary history is the longest. Certain events from the nation’s history had forced lowland Filipinos to begin counting the years of history from 1521, the first time written records by Westerners referred to the archipelago later to be called “Las Islas Filipinas”. However, the discovery of the “Tabon Man” in a cave in Palawan in 1962, has allowed us to stretch our prehistory as far as 50,000 years back. The stages of that prehistory show how the early Filipinos grew in control over their environment. Through the researches and writings about Philippine history, much can be reliably inferred about precolonial Philippine literature from an analysis of collected oral lore of Filipinos whose ancestors were able to preserve their indigenous culture by living beyond the reach of Spanish colonial administrators.

The oral literature of the precolonial Filipinos bore the marks of the community. The subject was invariably the common experience of the people constituting the village-food-gathering, creature and objects of nature, work in the home, field, forest or sea, caring for children, etc. This is evident in the most common forms of oral literature like the riddle, the proverbs and the song, which always seem to assume that the audience is familiar with the situations, activities and objects mentioned in the course of expressing a thought or emotion. The language of oral literature, unless the piece was part of the cultural heritage of the community like the epic, was the language of daily life. At this phase of literary development, any member of the community was a potential poet, singer or storyteller as long as he knew the language and had been attentive to the conventions f the forms.

Thousands of maxims, proverbs, epigrams, and the like have been listed by many different collectors and researchers from many dialects. Majority of these reclaimed from oblivion com from the Tagalos, Cebuano, and Ilocano dialects. And the bulk are rhyming couplets with verses of five, six seven, or eight syllables, each line of the couplet having the same number of syllables. The rhyming practice is still the same as today in the three dialects mentioned. A good number of the proverbs is conjectured as part of longer poems with stanza divisions, but only the lines expressive of a philosophy have remained remembered in the oral tradition. Classified with the maxims and proverbs are allegorical stanzas which abounded in all local literature. They contain homilies, didactic material, and expressions of homespun philosophy, making them often quoted by elders and headmen in talking to inferiors. They are rich in similes and metaphors. These one stanza poems were called Tanaga and consisted usually of four lines with seven syllables, all lines rhyming.

The most appreciated riddles of ancient Philippines are those that are rhymed and having equal number of syllables in each line, making them classifiable under the early poetry of this country. Riddles were existent in all languages and dialects of the ancestors of the Filipinos and cover practically all of the experiences of life in these times.

Almost all the important events in the life of the ancient peoples of this country were connected with some religious observance and the rites and ceremonies always some poetry recited, chanted, or sung. The lyrics of religious songs may of course be classified as poetry also, although the rhythm and the rhyme may not be the same.

Drama as a literary from had not yet begun to evolve among the early Filipinos. Philippine theater at this stage consisted largely in its simplest form, of mimetic dances imitating natural cycles and work activities. At its most sophisticated, theater consisted of religious rituals presided over by a priest or priestess and participated in by the community. The dances and ritual suggest that indigenous drama had begun to evolve from attempts to control the environment. Philippine drama would have taken the form of the dance-drama found in other Asian countries.

Prose narratives in prehistoric Philippines consisted largely or myths, hero tales, fables and legends. Their function was to explain natural phenomena, past events, and contemporary beliefs in order to make the environment less fearsome by making it more comprehensible and, in more instances, to make idle hours less tedious by filling them with humor and fantasy. There is a great wealth of mythical and legendary lore that belongs to this period, but preserved mostly by word of mouth, with few written down by interested parties who happen upon them.

The most significant pieces of oral literature that may safely be presumed to have originated in prehistoric times are folk epics. Epic poems of great proportions and lengths abounded in all regions of the islands, each tribe usually having at least one and some tribes possessing traditionally around five or six popular ones with minor epics of unknown number.

Filipinos had a culture that linked them with the Malays in the Southeast Asia, a culture with traces of Indian, Arabic, and, possibly Chinese influences. Their epics, songs, short poems, tales, dances and rituals gave them a native Asian perspective which served as a filtering device for the Western culture that the colonizers brought over from Europe.

Ten Reasons Why Life Was Better In PreColonial Philippines

Let’s look at some of the compelling reasons why we think life was really better during the pre-Spanish Philippines.

• Women Enjoyed Equal Status with Men.

During precolonial times, women shared equal footing with men in society. They were allowed to divorce, own and inherit property, and even lead their respective barangays or territories.

In matters of family, the women were for all intents and purposes the working heads, possessing the power of the purse and the sole right to name their children. They could dictate the terms of their marriage and even retain their maiden names if they chose to do so.

During this time, people also traced their heritage to both their father and mother. In fact, it could be said that precolonial Philippines was largely matriarchal, with the opinions of women holding great weight in matters of politics and religion (they also headed the rituals as the babaylans).

As a show of respect, men were even required to walk behind their wives. This largely progressive society that elevated women to such a high pedestal took a serious blow when the Spanish came. Eager to impose their patriarchal system, the Spanish relegated women to the homes, demonized the babaylans as satanic, and ingrained into our forefathers’ heads that women should be like Maria Clara—demure, self-effacing, and powerless.

• Society Was More Tolerant Back Then.

While it could be said that our modern society is one of the most tolerant in the world, we owe our open-mindedness not to the Americans and certainly not to the Spanish, but to the precolonial Filipinos.

Aside from allowing divorce, women back then also had a say in how many children they wanted. Sexuality was not as suppressed, and no premium was given to virginity before marriage. Although polygamy was practiced, men were expected to do so only if they could support and love each of his wives equally. Homosexuals were also largely tolerated, seeing as how some of the babaylans were actually men in drag.

Surprisingly, with the amount of sexual freedom, no prostitution existed during the pre-colonial days. In fact, some literature suggests that the American period—which heavily emphasized capitalism and profiteering—introduced prostitution into the country on a massive scale.

• The People Enjoyed A Higher Standard Of Government.

The relationship of the ruler to his subjects was very simple back then: In return for his protection, the people pay tribute and serve him both in times of war and peace.

Going by the evidence, we could say that our ancestors already practiced an early version of the Social Contract, a theory by prominent thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau which espoused the view that rulers owe their right to rule on the basis of the people’s consent.

Conversely, if the ruler became corrupt or incompetent, then the people had a right to remove him. And that’s exactly the kind of government our ancestors had. Although the datus technically came from the upper classes, he could be removed from his position by the lower classes if they found him wanting of his duties. Also, anyone (including women) could become the datu based on their merits such as bravery, wisdom, and leadership ability.

• We Were Self-Sufficient.

In terms of food, our forefathers did not suffer from any lack thereof. Blessed with such a resource-rich country, they had enough for themselves and their families.

Forests, rivers, and seas yielded plentiful supplies of meat, fish, and other foodstuffs. Later on, their diet became more varied especially when they learned to till the land using farming techniques that were quite advanced for their time. The Banaue Rice Terraces is one such proof of our ancestors’ ingenuity.

What’s more, they already had an advanced concept of agrarian equity. Men and women equally worked in the fields, and anyone could till public lands free of charge. Also, since they had little-to-no concept of exploitation for profit, our ancestors generally took care of the environment well.

Such was the abundance of foodstuffs that Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the most-successful Spanish colonizer of the islands, was said to have reported the “abundance of rice, fowls, and wine, as well as great numbers of buffaloes, deer, wild boar and goats” when he first arrived in Luzon.

• We Had Smoother Foreign Relations.

We’ve all been taught that before the Spanish galleon trade, the precolonial Filipinos had already established trading and diplomatic relations with countries as far away as the Middle East.

In lieu of cash, our ancestors exchanged precious minerals, manufactured goods, etc. with Arabs, Indians, Chinese, and several other nationalities. During this time period, many foreigners permanently settled here after marveling at the beauty of the country and its people.

Out of the foreigners, it was the Chinese who were amazed at the precolonial Filipinos the most, especially when it came to their extraordinary honesty. Chinese traders often wrote about the Filipinos’ sincerity and said they were one of their most trusted clientele since they did not steal their goods and always paid their debts.

In fact, some Chinese—out of confidence—were known to simply leave their items on the beaches to be picked up by the Filipinos and traded inland. When they returned, the Filipinos would give them back their bartered items without anything missing.

• Our Forefathers Already Possessed A Working Judicial And Legislative System.

Although not as advanced (or as complicated) as our own today, the fact that our ancestors already possessed a working judicial and legislative system just goes to show that they were well-versed in the concept of justice.

Life in precolonial Philippines was governed by a set of statutes, both unwritten and written, and contained provisions with regards to civil and criminal laws. Usually, it was the Datu and the village elders who promulgated such laws, which were then announced and explained to the people by a town crier called the umalohokan.

The Datu and the elders also acted as de facto courts in case of disputes between individuals of their village. In case of inter-barangay disputes, a local board composed of elders from different barangays would usually act as an arbiter.

Penalties for anyone found guilty of a crime include censures, fines, imprisonment and death. Tortures and trials by ordeal during this time were also common. Like we’ve said, the system was not perfect, but it worked.

• They Had The Know-how To Make Advanced Weapons.

A lantaka (rentaka in Malay), a type of bronze cannon mounted on merchant vessels travelling the waterways of the Malay Archipelago. Its use was greatest in precolonial Southeast Asia, especially in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Via Wikipedia.

Our ancestors—far from being the archetypal spear-carrying, bahag-wearing tribesmen we picture them to be—were very proficient in the art of war. Aside from wielding swords and spears, they also knew how to make and fire guns and cannons. Rajah Sulayman, in particular, was said to have owned a huge 17-feet-long iron cannon.

Aside from the offensive weapons, our ancestors also knew how to construct huge fortresses and body armor. The Moros living in the south for instance, often wore armor that covered them head-to-toe. And yes, they also carried guns with them.

With all these weapons at their disposal and the fact that they were good hand-to-hand combatants, you’d think that the Spanish would have had a harder time colonizing the country. Sadly, the Spanish cleverly exploited the regionalist tendencies of the precolonial Filipinos. This divide-and-conquer strategy would be the major reason why the Spanish successfully controlled the country for more than 300 years.

• Several Professions Already Existed.

Aside from being farmers, hunters, weapon-makers, and seafarers, the precolonial Filipinos also dabbled—and excelled—in several other professions as well.

To name a few, many became involved in such professions as mining, textiles, and smiting. Owing to the excellent craftsmanship of the Filipinos, locally-produced items such as pots, jewelry, and clothing were highly-sought in other countries. In fact, it is reported that products of Filipino origin might have even reached as far away as ancient Egypt. Clearly, our ancestors were very skilled artisans.

• The Literacy Rate Was High.

Using the ancient system of writing called the baybayin, the precolonial Filipinos educated themselves very well, so much so that when the Spanish finally arrived, they were shocked to find out that the Filipinos possessed a literacy rate higher than that of Madrid!

However, the high literacy rate also proved to be a double-edged sword for the Filipinos once the Spanish arrived. Eager to evangelize and subjugate our ancestors, the missionaries exploited the baybayin for their own ends, learning and using it to translate their various works. Consequently, the precolonial Filipinos became more easily susceptible to foreign influence.

• We Already Had An Advanced Civilization.

Contrary to foreign accounts, our ancestors were not just some backwards, jungle-living savages. In reality, precolonial Philippines already possessed a very advanced civilization way before the coming of the Spanish.

Our ancestors possessed a complex working society and a culture replete with works of arts and literature. When the colonizers came, everything contradictory to their own system had to go. Sculptures, texts, religious ceremonies, and virtually anything else deemed obscene, evil or a threat to their rule were eliminated.

Conclusively, we can only speculate what would have happened had our ancestors never been colonized in the first place. Although the Spanish era (and the American period by extension) did have their good points, would it have really been worth it all in the end?

Reflection:

Precolonial Literature in the Philippines by one means or another gave us an illustration from the past. It underscores on how our literature began in the country which is the Philippines. From that point forward, we Filipinos do truly have beautiful and awesome literature that we can some way or another be pleased with. Philippines indeed, without a doubt a nation that is rich in custom and tradition through having diverse characteristics. It was evident that each of the tribes we have had their own specific manner of living which some way or another make them stand-out from others. As what have aforementioned, their folk speeches, folk songs, folk narratives, indigenous rituals and mimetic dances really affirmed our ties with our Southeast Asian neighbors. Even when their lifestyle before was not the same as we have now, they really have these techniques and ways on preserving their traditions for them to be able to pass it from generation to another generation. The differing qualities and abundance of Literature in the Philippines advanced next to each other with the nation’s history. This can best be acknowledged in the sense that the nation’s precolonial cultural traditions are very much abundant. Through these things, I can truly say that Philippines is a home of diverse and unique culture, norms and tradition.

I would like to thank the owner of this articles that I used. These were very helpful for my project.

You could visit the real website and my reference for this. 🙂

http://www.filipiknow.net/life-in-pre-colonial-philippines/

http://www.angelfire.com/la2/litera1/precolonial.html

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4 thoughts on “ philippine literature during pre-colonial period ”.

Hi, great work! May I know the artist of the artwork above? Thanks!

Thank you. However, I am not certain who really made the artwork above. But most probably, its a Filipino art piece.

This is a great and a scholastic work! I really find it helpful especially in providing reference and justification to the highly organized system of the pre-colonial Philippine society. Thanks for posting.

Thank you so much. Delighted that this helps. God bless.

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1: Pre- and Early Colonial Literature

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• Page ID 41809

• Wendy Kurant
• University of North Georgia via GALILEO Open Learning Materials

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, students will be able to

• Categorize the types of Native American tales and their contribution to their respective tribes’ cultures.
• Identify significant tropes and motifs of movement in Native American creation stories.
• Identify the cultural characteristics of Native American creation, trickster, and first contact stories distinct from European cultural characteristics.
• Identify elements of trickster stories.
• Understand how the search for the Westward passage to Asia led to the European discovery of the Americas.
• Understand how the search for commodities led to territorial appropriation of North American land by various European countries.
• Understand the role religion played in European settlement in North America.
• Understand how their intended audience and purpose affected the content and tone of European exploration accounts.
• 1.1.1: Native American Accounts
• 1.1.2: European Exploration Accounts
• 1.2.1: Creation Story (Haudenosaunee (Iroquois))
• 1.2.2: How the World Was Made (Cherokee)
• 1.2.3: Talk Concerning the First Beginning (Zuni)
• 1.2.4: From the Winnebago Trickster Cycle
• 1.2.5: Origin of Disease and Medicine (Cherokee)
• 1.2.6: Thanksgiving Address (Haudenosaunee (Iroquois))
• 1.2.7: The Arrival of the Whites (Lenape (Delaware))
• 1.2.8: The Coming of the Whiteman Revealed - Dream of the White Robe and Floating Island (Micmac)
• 1.2.9: Reading and Review Questions
• 1.3.1: Letter of Discovery (1493)
• 1.3.2: Reading and Review Questions
• 1.4.1: From The Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (1542)
• 1.4.2: Reading and Review Questions
• 1.5.1: From A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588)
• 1.5.2: Reading and Review Questions
• 1.6.1: From The Voyages and Explorations of Sieur de Champlain (1613)
• 1.6.2: Reading and Review Questions
• 1.7.1: From The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624)
• 1.7.2: Reading and Review Questions
• 1.8.1: From A Description of New Netherland, the Country
• 1.8.2: Reading and Review Questions

Thumbnail: John Smith from an illustration in The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles ; with the names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Governours from their first beginning, Ano: 1584. (Public Domain; engraver uncertain via Wikipedia )

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Course: US history   >   Unit 1

• Native American societies before contact
• Native American culture of the Southwest
• Native American culture of the West
• Native American culture of the Northeast
• Native American culture of the Southeast
• Native American culture of the Plains

Lesson summary: Native American societies before contact

• Native American societies before European contact
• Pre-colonization European society
• African societies and the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade
• European and African societies before contact

Native North America

Core historical theme, review question.

• How did environment and geography determine migration and hunting patterns for pre-Columbian societies?

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Pre-Colonial Philippine Literature: Forms, Examples, and Frequently Asked Questions

The Philippines has a long history of storytelling, even before the Spanish arrived. These stories, passed down by word of mouth for many generations, were more than just entertainment. They were a way for our ancestors to teach people things, share important values, and connect with their culture. This blog will answer the question: “What are the dominant literary forms of pre-colonial Philippines?”

We’ll discuss each form of Philippine literature during pre-colonial period. We’ll also include pre-colonial literature examples and a brief explanation supporting each.

Forms of Philippine Literature During Pre-Colonial Period

Proverbs, known in Filipino as salawikain , are like practical advice passed down through generations. They often use rhymes to make them easier to remember and teach essential skills for navigating daily life.

Some examples include:

Riddles, or bugtong in Filpino, are mind teasers that challenge wit and creativity. Often poetic and playful, they use descriptions or metaphors to lead the listener to the answer. 

During the pre-colonial period in the Philippines, riddles were a common form of oral literature. They are like proverbs but differ in one thing—they demand an answer.

Filipino riddles often have a humorous tone, but their answers are often more serious than expected.

Here are examples of Philippine riddles:

Filipinos expressed their emotions and experiences through songs. These beautiful songs capture the joys and sorrows of our ancestors’ lives, from finding love to saying goodbye, and everything in between.

Here are five examples of Philippine folk songs during the pre-colonial period:

• Ili-ili (Ilongo): A lullaby that is an example of folk song in the Philippines during the pre-colonial period.
• Panawagon and Balitao (Ilongo): These are examples of love songs that were sung during the pre-colonial period.
• Bayok (Maranao): This is a type of folk song that originated from the Maranao people, a Muslim ethnic group in the Philippines, and is still sung today.
• Ambahan (Mangyan): This is a seven-syllable per-line (heptasyllabic) poem about human relationships, social entertainment, and a tool for teaching the young. It is an example of the traditional music of the Mangyans, an indigenous group in the Philippines.

These were narratives passed down, often explaining natural phenomena or cultural practices.  These narratives also tell stories of origin. Often, they’re called myths and legends.

Here’s how they differ:

These are the crown jewels of pre-colonial literature. These lengthy narrative poems recount the adventures and misadventures of heroes and supernatural beings. 

Here are a few examples:

Frequently Asked Questions about the Pre-colonial Philippine Literature

What is the pre-colonial era in the philippines.

The Philippines’ pre-colonial era is like the Philippines before history books were written down. It’s a long time ago, way before the Spanish came in the 16th century. Imagine a Philippines made up of many independent communities with their own languages, customs, and traditions.

What is Philippine literature during the pre-colonial period?

Since there weren’t any printing presses yet, literature back then wasn’t like the books we read today. Instead, stories were passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. Our ancestors would tell folktales, sing songs, recite poems, and chant proverbs to keep their traditions alive.

What is the difference between pre-colonial and colonial literature?

The main difference is when they were created . Colonial literature refers to stories written during the Spanish era, often influenced by European themes and religion. Literature written beyond this period, including American and Japanese, is also considered colonial literature. Pre-colonial literature, on the other hand, reflects the beliefs, way of life, and heroes of Filipinos before the arrival of the colonizers.

Why is pre-colonial literature important in the Philippines?

Pre-colonial literature is super important because it tells us much about how people lived back then. It shows their values, beliefs, and even how they saw the world around them. It’s like a window to the past!

What are the characteristics of pre-colonial literature in the Philippines?

Since it was passed down orally, pre-colonial stories often use repetition, rhyming, and vivid language to make them easier to remember and sing. They also focus on themes like bravery, community, and respect for nature.

How can these pre-colonial forms of literature be of use to your life right now?

Precolonial literature is like a treasure chest for understanding our past. These stories, myths, and poems are like windows into how people lived, what they believed in, and what was important to them way before colonization. This can help us appreciate our roots and where our traditions might come from. Plus, the lessons and morals in these stories are timeless. It’s like getting advice from old, wise people.

Do you think you can still use the lessons they teach in your daily life?

Yes! Even though things are different now, the lessons in precolonial literature can still totally apply today. They teach us about bravery, honesty, respect, and dealing with tough choices. These values are important no matter what time period you’re in. So, next time you read a pre-colonial story, think about the lesson it might be trying to tell. It might surprise you how relevant it can be!

If you’re looking for more resources about  literature , then make sure to browse my  website .

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Politics and Society in Pre-colonial Africa: Implications for Governance in Contemporary Times

• First Online: 06 October 2017

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The African continent is acknowledged as a leader in the history of human development and the origins of contemporary institutions. The evidence of human origins from southern and eastern Africa has highlighted the importance of Africa to the development of humanity. In areas such as cognitive development, the origins of social behavior (including the institution of the family, rituals and advances in tool technologies ranging from stone to metals), Africa is richly endowed with material evidence. This chapter focuses on the nature of pre-colonial political institutions and how they informed the development of African societies and civilizations. The chapter draws examples from the tapestry of African societies across time and space and highlights how these developments influenced local, regional and global systems including trade, urbanism and technology.

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Segobye, A.K. (2018). Politics and Society in Pre-colonial Africa: Implications for Governance in Contemporary Times. In: Oloruntoba, S., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95232-8_9

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2 (page 11) p. 11 Pre-colonial political systems and colonialism

• Published: September 2018
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Pre-colonial Africa had a wide diversity of politics and government, all related to the type of economic systems practised. Hunter-gatherers practised a form of primitive communism, while elsewhere three broad systems may be identified: large centralized kingdoms and empires; centralized mid-sized kingdoms; and widely scattered chiefdoms. ‘Pre-colonial political systems and colonialism’ explains that political and social identities were generally more related to affiliations, such as sharing a common language, than to being an inhabitant of a particular territory. It also outlines the impact of the slave trade, which began in the 15th century, and the different types of late-19th-century colonial rule on the African people and their politics.

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Pre-colonial history of Southern Africa

South Africa has one of the longest sequences of human development in the world. It begins with two million years old hominid fossils.

Human Origins

South African scientists have been actively involved in the study of human origins since 1925 when Raymond Dart identified the Taung child as an infant halfway between apes and humans. Dart called the remains Australopithecus africanus , southern ape-man, and his work ultimately changed the focus of human evolution from Europe and Asia to Africa. In many ways this discovery marked the birth of palaeoanthropology as a discipline.

Today, we know that australopithecines represent the first human ancestors to walk upright, and they are only found in Africa. In South Africa, scientists usually find australopithecine remains in breccias in dolomite. The majority were found through lime mining activities near Johannesburg (lime was used to process gold at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries), and most line mines here have exposed some breccias. This dolomite band contains some of the best-known australopithecine sites in the world. Kromdraai, Swartkrans and Sterkfontein, for example, appear in every major textbook on human origins. Because of its richness, a large portion of the fossil-bearing zone has been listed as a World Heritage Site, known as the ‘Cradle of Humankind’.

Recently, a new find from the Cradle has made world headlines. Lee Berger and his team found the extraordinarily well-preserved remains of a juvenile male and adult female of a new species, Australopithecus sediba . The hominids had fallen down a deep sink hole and were then covered by calcified sediment in an underground pool. The sediment dates to between 1.78 and 1.95 million years ago. Visit www.wits.ac.za for images and more information.

Although many specimens have been found in breccias, australopithecines did not normally live in caves. They probably slept in the tropical forest galleries that stood along the river banks. They were probably omnivorous, eating mostly plants and some meat, somewhat like chimpanzees. Their bones ended up in the dolomite caves because they were hunted by leopard, hyena and sabre-toothed cats which did use caves, or by accident, as in the case of the recent discovery. Museum displays on human evolution are open to the public at Maropeng, on the edge of the World Heritage Site, and at Sterkfontein.

Stone age period

Earlier Stone Age

Some hominids began to manufacture stone tools about 2.6 million years ago, thus beginning the Earlier Stone Age (ESA). Known as the Oldowan industry, most of the earliest tools were rough cobble cores and simple flakes. The flakes were used for such activities as cutting meat and skinning animals. At present, it is unclear which hominids made Oldowan tools. Many scientists believe Homo habilis produced them. Sterkfontein is one of the few sites anywhere to yield an in situ assemblage of Oldowan tools. This rare occurrence further increases the importance of the World Heritage Site.

By about 1.4 million years ago, hominids started producing more recognizable stone artefacts such as handaxes, cleavers and core tools. Although serving many purposes, these Acheulian tools were probably designed to butcher large animals, such as elephants, rhino and hippo, which had died of natural causes. Because these animals were particularly dangerous, hominids were probably not yet able to hunt them. At this time, then, our ancestors were most likely specialized scavengers. Such scavenging yielded enormous amounts of protein which was critical in the evolution of the human brain. The hominids that made Acheulian tools can confidently be identified as Homo ergaster (formerly called Homo erectus ).

Acheulian artefacts seldom occurred in cave sites until the end of the Earlier Stone Age (from about 400,000 to 250,000 years ago), but some have been found at Sterkfontein and Swartkrans. Most Acheulian material is found outside caves because our ancestors had not yet mastered fire. One exception appears to be Swartkrans, but the date of some 1 million years ago is controversial. Whatever the date, the controlled use of fire had certainly been mastered by the Middle Stone Age.

Middle Stone Age

The repeated use of caves by 250,000 years ago, the beginning of the Middle Stone Age (MSA), indicates that our ancestors had developed the concept of a home base and hearths show that they could make fire. Furthermore, tool kits included prepared cores, parallel-sided blades and triangular points. These points were hafted to make spears used to hunt large grazers such as wildebeest, hartebeest and eland. By this time, then, our ancestors had become accomplished hunters.

These early hunters are classified as archaic humans. By 100,000 years ago, they were anatomically fully modern. The degree to which their behaviour was equally modern, however, is still under investigation. Indeed, the MSA is particularly important today for this study.

Fully modern human behaviour, such as abstract thought, complex politics and kinship systems, requires the use of true language. Other animals communicate, but only humans have the ability to string together sounds in unlimited combinations. Unfortunately, archaeologists can not study directly abstract thought, kinship systems or language. This is why small artefacts are so important. Among other artefacts, compound tools, such as hafted harpoons and compound glues for hafting spear points, indicate complex thought. Evidence for these cognitive advancements comes from Sibudu Cave near Durban and Blombos Cave in the Cape both dating to about 70 000 years ago. These were important steps in the cultural evolution of humanity. In addition, the widespread use of red ochre, presumably as body paint, also shows that MSA behaviour had become more human. The recent finds of decorated ochre at Blombos and decorated ostrich eggshells at Diepkloof, also in the Cape, further demonstrates this point. Important displays of MSA artefacts are open to the public at the Iziko Museum in Cape Town and the Origins Centre in Johannesburg.

Later Stone Age

By 25,000 years ago and the beginning of the Later Stone Age (LSA), archaeological deposits contain a diagnostic tool kit that includes small scrapers and segments manufactured from fine-grained materials. By this time, LSA peoples were hunting small game with bows and poisoned arrows. Furthermore, the numerous shell middens which dot the coastline in the Cape attest to the exploitation of marine resources at different seasons.

In addition to bow hunting and shellfish collection, human behaviour was recognisably modern in other ways. Uniquely human traits such as rock art and purposeful burials with ornaments were a regular practice. In southern Africa these people were the ancestors of the San (or Bushmen) .

San rock art has a well-earned reputation for aesthetic appeal and symbolic complexity. David Lewis-Williams and his team have been able to unravel this complexity, at least in outline, through the careful use of some 13 000 pages of text recorded in the late 19th century in English and the San language. Rather than a record of daily life, the art is essentially religious. Among other aspects, it expresses beliefs about the role of shamans (medicine people) in controlling rain and game, and in healing through the famous ‘trance dance’. Trance images figure prominently, along with animals of power, such as eland, elephant and rhino. Visit www. sarada .co.za for images and more information.

Overall, southern Africa probably has the largest corpus of rock art anywhere in the world, and the Drakensberg contains some of the finest. Because of its richness, it is part of the Ukahlamba-Drakensberg World Heritage Site. Important examples of engravings and paintings are on display at Iziko Museum, Cape Town, the Natal Museum , Pietermaritzburg, and the Origins Centre, Johannesburg. Various cave sites are also open to the public in the Cape. Visit www.cllp.uct.ac.za for more information.

Pastoralists

The relationship between San hunter-gatherers and Khoekhoe pastoralists is the subject of current research. This question is of interest because it was the Khoekhoe who first traded cattle to the Cape Dutch in the 17th century. The main question concerns Khoekhoe origins: some believe they were local hunter-gatherers who acquired sheep and cattle, while others think they brought domestic animals with them from East Africa. Ultimately, the answer will involve linguistic and genetic data as well as archaeology. Both San and Khoekhoe were in southern Africa when the first Bantu-speaking farmers arrived about 2000 years ago.

Pre-colonial Farmers

According to historical linguistics, the Bantu language family originated in West Africa, along the border of present day Nigeria and Cameroon. Generally, the evidence suggests that between 200 BC and AD 200 the ancestors of Eastern Bantu-speaking people moved out of this homeland into East and Southern Africa. These people cultivated sorghum and millets, herded cattle, sheep and goats and manufactured iron tools and copper ornaments. As a rule these homesteads were sited near water and good soils that could be cultivated with iron hoes. Because metalworking represents a totally new technology, some archaeologists call this period the Iron Age. The first 900 years are known as the Early Iron Age (EIA), while the people themselves are sometimes referred to as Early Farming Communities (EFC).

As agriculturalists, these farming people lived in semi-permanent homesteads comprising pole-and-daga (wattle and daub) houses and grain bins arranged around animal byres. This arrangement, known as the Central Cattle Pattern, was characteristic of Eastern Bantu speakers who preferred cattle for bride wealth, traced their blood from their father, practised male hereditary leadership and had a positive attitude about the role of ancestors in daily life.

One EFC settlement near Lydenburg yielded artefacts related to the spiritual world. Seven ceramic heads had been deposited in a deep storage pit some 1200 years ago. These helmet sculptures each had eyes, a mouth and other human-like features. Two were large enough to cover a person’s head, but the others would have been mounted on poles. These sculptures were most likely used in initiation ceremonies of some sort. Replicas are on display at the Lydenburg Museum and the originals are at the Iziko Museum in Cape Town.

Throughout the Iron Age, climatic fluctuations played a significant role in structuring human geography. When EIA people first entered southern Africa, the climate was warmer and wetter than today. Between about AD 700 to 900 the climate was colder and drier than at present, and EIA farmers would have retreated to more optimal areas. The climate became better again sometime during the Middle Iron Age, between AD 900 to 1300. At about AD 1700, however, the ‘Little Ice Age’ reached its nadir, and its impact upon human population was particularly severe.

Besides these changes, Iron Age farmers had to contend with unpredictable droughts. When the droughts were particularly severe, from 3 to 5 years in a row, rainmakers would perform special rituals on special hills, and the common people would follow with various cleansing rituals. Evidently, some people had to burn their grain bins down and build new ones on top. These burnt structures are not as common as archaeologists once thought, and they can now be used as a cultural proxy for severe drought. The ultimate cause of the droughts was probably El NiÁ±o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) activity because this is the most important mechanism driving climatic variability in the Southern Hemisphere. According to data from South America, ENSO activity was particularly frequent during the last 2500 years.

Climate and geography played a significant role in the development of greater social complexity in the Limpopo Valley. Located at the junction of Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the Shashe and Limpopo rivers became the ‘Nile of South Africa’ during the Middle Iron Age. Regular flooding at this time made intensive agriculture possible. The resultant population increase, along with surplus trade from the Indian Ocean gold and ivory trade, led to the development of marked social classes and sacred leadership at Mapungubwe. As a result, Mapungubwe was the first indigenous civilisation in southern Africa, predating even Great Zimbabwe. The famous gold rhinoceros from Mapungubwe is a national icon and the inspiration for South Africa’s highest civilian award. Because of its significance to African prehistory in general, the Mapungubwe landscape became a World Heritage Site in 2003. The landscape is also a National Park and accessible to the public. Its new interpretive centre won an international prize. Treasures from Mapungubwe are also on display at the Mapungubwe Museum, University of Pretoria. Another facility in Pretoria, the National Culture History Museum, displays a large number of clay figurines from an early initiation site near Mapungubwe.

Shortly after the abandonment of Mapungubwe (about AD 1300), the ancestors of the present day Sotho-Tswana moved south from East Africa. Archaeologists have recorded the earliest Sotho-Tswana sites, characterized by a ceramic style called Moloko, in the Limpopo Province. Somewhat later, Sotho-Tswana people moved south into a large part of Gauteng and the Northwest Province. About 100 years earlier, the ancestors of Nguni-speaking people had moved from East Africa into the KwaZulu-Natal region. These Late Iron Age farmers left huge numbers of stonewalled settlements throughout South Africa.

Southern Nguni built the first stonewalling in about AD 1300 in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. Known as Moor Park, this first walling stands in defensive positions on hilltops and spurs. The front-back orientation of these settlements conforms to the shape of the terrain. Somewhat later (about AD 1450), a few Northern Nguni moved up onto the Free State highveld and built circular settlements. The best known are near the hill Ntsuanatsatsi (the legendary place of origin of the BaFokeng), which has given its name to the walling type. Somewhat later still, these Nguni people moved across the Vaal River into the hilly areas of Gauteng and the North West Provinces, introducing the practise to Sotho-Tswana people. By the late 18th century, Western Sotho-Tswana had created the Molokwane type, best known from the site with the same name west of Rustenburg. Some Molokwane settlements were huge aggregations, housing up to 20 000 people. From this time on, urban settlements became characteristic of Sotho Tswana life.

The huge Sotho-Tswana settlements were also a characteristic of the unusual period known as the difaqane (or mefacane ) ”• the time of trouble. The causes of the difaqane are controversial. Formerly, historians began the period in 1821 when the Hlubi moved out of KwaZulu-Natal and attacked the Tlokwa on the plateau. In this interpretation, Shaka of the Zulu was one of the prime causes. Recent work, however, has shown that Shaka was a result, not a cause, and that causal processes had began a few decades earlier among the Sotho-Tswana as well as Nguni. The causal processes included an extended period of high rainfall, the introduction of maize and consequent population increase, competition for the ivory trade in the Sotho-Tswana area, competition for cattle in KwaZulu-Natal, hunting on horseback with guns in the Karroo and finally, a serious drought that lead to an agricultural collapse. Oral traditions of widespread famine, cannibalism and total annihilation of enemies at this time indicate an ecological imbalance between people and resources. In response to this chaos, Sotho-Tswana tended to live on hilltops and aggregate into large settlements for mutual protection. These defensive moves may have begun as early as 1780.

At about 1826, Mzilikazi moved into the Magaliesberg to escape Shaka. Mzilikazi’s entry into Gauteng marks the beginning of the Historic Period.

Historical period

Mzilikazi established his first headquarters in the Heidelberg region and then moved further west somewhere near Pretoria. With a large and powerful force, he defeated, subjugated or absorbed local Sotho-Tswana. In about 1830, the Zulu attacked Mzilikazi, so he moved his headquarters west near Zeerust. Thus, Mzilikazi only stayed in the Pretoria area for four or five years. Even so, his presence made such an impact that most European landowners in the region credit all stonewalling to him.

In both Gauteng and around Zeerust, Mzilikazi had removed enemies and consolidated followers so that he was surrounded by uninhabited land. Consequently, the land appeared empty when Voortrekkers crossed the Vaal in 1836. Ultimately, the Voortrekkers chased Mzilikazi out of South Africa, making it possible for Boers to settle permanently north of the Vaal.

This paper was written for SAHO in 2010 by Prof TN Huffman from the Archaeology Department at the University of the Witwatersrand.

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Article contents

Economic history of the united states: precolonial and colonial periods.

• Peter C. Mancall Peter C. Mancall Department of History, University of Southern California
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190625979.013.480
• Published online: 26 April 2021

The economy of territory that became the United States evolved dramatically from ca. 1000 ce to 1776. Before Europeans arrived, the spread of maize agriculture shifted economic practices in Indigenous communities. The arrival of Europeans, starting with the Spanish in the West Indies in 1492, brought wide-ranging change, including the spread of Old World infectious disease and the arrival of land- and resource-hungry migrants. Europeans, eager to extract material wealth, came to rely on the trade in enslaved Africans to produce profitable crops such as tobacco, rice, and sugar, and they maintained connections with Indigenous communities to sustain the fur trade. The declining number of Indigenous peoples, combined with growing numbers of those of European or African origin, altered the demographic profile of North America, particularly in the territory east of the Mississippi River. Over time, Europeans’ consumer choices expanded, though the wealth gap between white colonists grew, as did the economic gap between free colonists, on the one hand, and unfree Black and Native peoples on the other.

• North America
• economic development
• environmental change
• consumer behavior

Before 1600 , the territory that later became the United States was populated by hundreds of Indigenous nations as well as some Europeans who had migrated to North America after the exploratory ventures of Christopher Columbus at the end of the 15th century . Over the course of the 16th century , wherever Natives met newcomers, they invented new economic relationships, often based on trade. By the time the English established what became their first permanent colony at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 , the peoples of North America had created and sustained a variety of economies. Those systems evolved during the colonial period with the development of more robust commercial networks linking the four continents on the edges of the Atlantic. Labor regimes within North America evolved too, with productivity in many areas the result of work by enslaved peoples, especially Africans. Many, if not most, of the goods produced for export (as opposed to local consumption) in the colonial era came at the expense of enslaved peoples working on sugar plantations across the West Indies, rice plantations in lowland Carolina, and tobacco plantations near Chesapeake Bay. The sale of these crops produced stark differentials in wealth within particular colonies and from one colony to the next. Jamaica, which did not join the rebellious thirteen British mainland colonies in 1776 , was the wealthiest British colony in 18th-century North America, its planter class enjoying riches while its enslaved peoples endured degrading conditions that undermined their families and threatened their lives.

Precolonial

By ca. 1000 ce , Indigenous peoples across the Americas had developed their own economies. Though there is no evidence of trade connecting Native Americans with peoples across either the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic, archaeological evidence suggests that goods moved through North America along aboriginal trade routes. Unlike the commercial systems created by Europeans, this Native commerce likely consisted of a series of short-distance exchanges. Thus, wampum, a bead made from a shell native to Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound, spread across much of the interior to peoples who had no direct access to the Atlantic coast (Miller & Hammell, 1986 ; Salisbury, 1982 ). In exchange, those who proffered wampum received goods to which they otherwise had no access, such as the hides of certain animals or stones used for decoration or as tools. Historians and anthropologists once debated whether Native Americans had the same economic impulses as Europeans—were all of them, as the question emerged in the 20th century , homo economicus who behaved as rational consumers? Countless studies have revealed that very different economic motivations and behavior drove human activity (Cronon, 1983 ; Martin, 1978 ). But the desire for rare or prestige goods existed among Europeans and Indigenous in early North America (Potter, 1993 ; Richter, 2011 ).

Scholars differ in their estimates of the pre- 1492 population of North America, suggesting that the Indigenous population was between 1.2 million and 2.6 million (Ubelaker, 1992 ). Most of these peoples inhabited small communities, though 21st-century archaeological evidence of a site known as Etzanoa, near Arkansas City, Kansas, might have had as many as 20,000 residents between ca. 1400 and ca. 1700 (Blakeslee, 2018 ) (see Appendix, Table 1 ). In other places, human populations tended to be smaller, but permanent communities did exist. In the Southwest, for example, Puebloan peoples created durable settlements by building adobe houses atop mesas and developing irrigation systems to maximize their water supply (Salisbury, 1996 ).

Cahokia, the largest city in pre-contact North America (near modern-day East Saint Louis, Illinois), once had a population estimated by archaeologists at perhaps ten thousand at its core and another 20,000 to 30,000 people living nearby and with close connections to it. Monk’s Mound, the largest surviving structure at Cahokia (which got its name when a group of Trappist monks took up residence there in the 18th century ), took hundreds of thousands of hours of labor to construct, and the supplies for building it came from many miles away. Archaeologists have speculated, based on the distribution of grave goods, that there was a strict social and political hierarchy in the region and that its largest buildings could have been constructed by enslaved peoples. Those grave goods and other finds at Cahokia, and the presence of Cahokia-style ceramics in communities hundreds of miles away, suggest that the city was the hub of an extensive trade network, which moved goods from the northern plains or even the Atlantic coast into the continent’s interior. The presence in these graves of executed women, many of them likely young, also suggests that gender played a role in determining one’s fate (Pauketat, 2009 ).

The archaeological record suggests that Cahokia thrived for perhaps 200 to 300 years. But by the 13th century the Mississippian residents of the city had dispersed. While scholars debate the reason for the community’s disappearance, Cahokia was likely the victim of climate change, including a series of devastating droughts in the middle decades of the 12th century combined with a mega-storm in ca. 1150 . Together, these climatic events made it more difficult to sustain a large population, and the residents of Cahokia emigrated, though they took aspects of their economy and culture with them. Like the great cities of Mesoamerica (such as Tenochtitlán, Chichén Itza, or Palenque), Cahokia had thrived because those in control of the city organized enormous expenditures of labor to sustain it and to build the large mounds that could be seen from far away in the near table-flat lowlands of the region. But its longest and most important legacy was providing a model for what must have seemed at the time as the long-term benefits of maize cultivation (Baulthus et al., 2020 ; White et al., 2019 ).

The émigrés from Cahokia spread agricultural knowledge when they left. Though scholars debate whether the development of sedentary communities was good for human health, with some economists and archaeologists maintaining that residents of mobile communities that relied more on hunting and fishing than planting were healthier, maize agriculture provided sustenance for larger communities. The flourishing Indigenous nations in the modern Southeast serve as a testimony to the impact of maize and the importance of learning both its benefits and limitations. Individuals who relied too much on maize suffered from nutritional deficiencies, which remain inscribed on their bones and teeth. But combined with other plants, notably squash and beans to form the so-called three sisters, maize cultivation allowed for community growth with less physical harm. Since maize could be stored after a harvest, those who farmed it could rely on a food source even in times of dearth. Maize cultivation became a fixture in Indigenous economies across eastern North America, just as it had earlier in much of the Southwest—though maize likely arrived there not from Cahokia but instead from other migrants who brought it north from its origins in central Mexico (Verano & Ubelaker, 1992 ).

Many of the Native peoples of eastern North America, the primary territory later colonized by English migrants, lived in semipermanent communities. From spring to autumn, Indigenous tended to cluster together in areas suitable for maize agriculture. After the harvest, settlements broke into smaller groups, usually defined by kin relationships, and dispersed for the winter. This strategy made sense to Natives, who maximized their production of food and decreased their labor demands by adopting a transhumant lifestyle. In areas where maize agriculture was unreliable because of the shortness of the growing season (north of the Saco-Kennebec watershed in the East, for example), Indigenous tended to concentrate their efforts on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants (Cronon, 1983 ). In the West, Native peoples also responded to environmental conditions in ways that made sense. Thus, in the Southwest most Indigenous tended to inhabit the same towns year-round, whereas across the plains many peoples migrated to follow bison herds, which provided much of their sustenance. Wherever they lived, Native Americans’ economic activities modified the environment, though the changes that Indigenous peoples wrought paled in comparison to the later colonial reshaping of the landscape. Just as important, Indigenous economies were dynamic: the introduction of European livestock transformed Native lives and communities, evident in the emergent equestrian cultures in the Southwest and the tending of sheep and cows across much of the East (Barr, 2017 ; Hämäläinen, 2003 , 2010 ).

European Expansion

When Europeans arrived in North America in the 16th century , they believed that they had found a continent overflowing with marketable commodities. Columbus had informed his supporters that the West Indies lay waiting to be exploited. Spanish conquistadors who conquered Montezuma’s Aztec empire based in Tenochtitlán sent great hauls of gold and silver across the Atlantic, as did the followers of Francisco Pizarro who conquered the Incan peoples of the Andes. Those conquerors murdered the Incan emperor Atahualpa even after his people had paid a vast ransom in gold, silver, and jewels. The Spaniards who arrived in the Western Hemisphere did more than bring Europeans’ attention to a “New World.” They also established an economic precedent: whatever existed in the Western Hemisphere could either be traded for or taken, especially since the Indigenous of the Americas were, to the newcomers, uncivilized. Developments in the West Indies after 1492 demonstrated that Europeans, eager to get rich, were willing to enslave and relocate Native peoples. These practices had a devastating impact, especially for the Tainos, whose population shrank even before the first report of an epidemic. Slavery and dislocation, not microbes, brought their demise (Elliott, 1970 ; Livi-Bacci, 2003 ; Reséndez, 2016 ).

The European conquest and colonization of the Western Hemisphere hinged on the widespread acceptance—by Europeans—of the notion of “discovery.” As they understood it, any European who traveled to an area previously unknown to Europeans could claim that area even if it was inhabited. The practice began with Columbus. In the published report of the first of the four exploratory voyages he would make, he acknowledged that he found islands with large populations but he still claimed them in the name of the Christian god and his monarchs. Soon after news of Columbus’s first landing crossed the Atlantic, the Spanish and Portuguese went into negotiations, based on earlier Portuguese claims of islands in the mid-Atlantic, to determine who could lay claim to the lands that Columbus had seen. In 1493 , Pope Alexander VI, who presided over a still-undivided Christendom, issued a decree known as the “Inter Caetera” or Bull of Donation, granting both of the Iberian nations the authority to lay claim to lands not previously “in the actual possession of any Christian king or prince.” The next year, the Spanish and Portuguese signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which created an imaginary line in the Atlantic Ocean about halfway between the islands Columbus had visited and the Cape Verde islands, which the Portuguese had previously claimed and colonized. Drawn on European maps, without any consultation from Indigenous Americans, the agreement solidified the notion of the doctrine of discovery. From that point forward, the entire Western Hemisphere was open to any European claimant as long as another Christian nation had not arrived sooner. While the Iberians and, later, the English, French, and Dutch would often try to compensate Indigenous Americans for their territory, the newcomers had no doubt that their legal claim was superior to that of the Natives. Eventually, the immigrants would create other justifications for taking Native lands, defending their seizure as a prize secured in war or because they used the land as the Christian god intended and therefore had a superior claim to Indigenous residents (Greer, 2018 ; Mancall, 2017 ).

Laying claim to land was the first step in the European conquest and colonization of the Americas. The next also sprang from Columbus’s journey of 1492 . Starting in 1493 , printers began to spread news about the Western Hemisphere using the still relatively novel invention of movable type, which had transformed the circulation of information within Europe ever since the German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented it in the late 1430s. The first printing of Columbus’s letter announcing the discovery appeared in Barcelona in 1493 . By the end of the century, it had been translated and printed across Europe. By the early 16th century , an ever-larger number of publishers realized that there was an enormous market for books describing the Western Hemisphere. These books told the story of European travelers, typically extolling the riches to be harvested in the Americas as well as the importance of spreading Christianity among Indigenous peoples. The circulation of information encouraged other Europeans to sail across the Atlantic. In the process, they brought back American plants never seen before in Europe, including tomatoes, potatoes, maize, and tobacco. They also inadvertently carried Old World pathogens to the Americas, which caused devastating epidemics. The historian Alfred Crosby coined the term “the Columbian Exchange” to explain the movement of people, plants, animals, and germs across the Atlantic. Ongoing access to American goods provided new economic opportunities for Europeans. The spread of infectious diseases devastated Native communities, shrinking them and making their homelands all the more tempting to Europeans seeking economic gain. So did the arrival of European livestock, notably cows, horses, sheep, and pigs, though in the early 17th century colonists’ inability or unwillingness to fence their lands meant that their animals often destroyed Indigenous fields, producing tensions that contributed to warfare (V. Anderson, 1994 , 2004 ; Crosby, 1986 ; Elliott, 1970 ; Jones, 2003 ).

Wherever they went, Europeans hoped to extract mineral wealth. The conquistadors who expanded the boundaries of New Spain northward into modern-day New Mexico, Arizona, and California believed that they would find Cíbola, a mythic city of gold and jewels. Though they failed in that pursuit, many of the explorers continued to believe that great riches would come to the Europeans who managed to find minerals. In modern northern Mexico, Spanish explorers and would-be mine owners discovered large deposits of silver in Zacatecas and Parral and quickly set out to find the labor necessary to extract it. The amount of silver here never reached what the Spanish and their enslaved and mita workers extracted from Potosí in Bolivia, but there was more than enough for those who had economic and political authority to either obtain enslaved Africans or, more commonly, hire local Indigenous. When the number of those willing to do the backbreaking work diminished, mine owners turned toward enslaved Indigenous, including Apaches captured farther north (Bakewell, 1984 ; Hendricks & Mandell, 2000 , 2004 ; Lane, 2019 ; Velasco Murillo, 2016 ; Weber, 1992 ).

By contrast, the Europeans who arrived along the Atlantic coast during the 16th century often had more mundane hopes. To be sure, the French and the English each wanted to find mineral wealth, but they failed. The English explorer Martin Frobisher, who sailed west of Greenland and into modern-day Frobisher Bay, thought he had found gold on his three expeditions in the 1570s; but when he returned home, the ore he had transported turned out to be worthless. Still, Frobisher and others had another economic goal in mind: they hoped to find a water route, marked on the most up-to-date maps at the time, that connected the Atlantic to the Pacific through modern-day Canada. Finding this “Northwest Passage,” they knew, would provide a quick water route to the rich markets of East Asia, previously approachable only via a very long and expensive journey around Africa and India. But while climate change has proved that 16th-century cartographers were right to argue for the existence of the passage, centuries of cold weather made early modern navigation of this region impossible (Mancall, 2013 ). Still, despite repeated European exploratory ventures into frigid northern waters, the French and the English who traveled to North America during the 16th century nonetheless managed to find sources of wealth. The most successful among them were probably cod fishermen, many of whom embarked from the English port of Bristol and sailed across the North Atlantic to the plentiful cod populations around the Grand Banks (off modern-day Newfoundland) and Georges Banks (off modern-day New England). Those waters had been fished centuries earlier by Norse sailors who had pioneered routes that took them from Scandinavia to Iceland, from there to Greenland, and eventually to the modern Maritime Provinces of Canada. But by the time of Columbus, the Norse had abandoned their northern Atlantic colonial plans, which meant that the great schools of cod and other fish were undiminished when Basque, English, and other European crews arrived (Crosby, 1986 ; Quinn, 1975 , 1990 ).

Some of those fishermen landed on the shores of North America and began to trade with local peoples. Though there is no precise documentation for the origins of what became the fur trade, there is no doubt that Europeans were trading manufactured goods for the hides of beaver, otter, and other furbearers during the first half of the 16th century . Over time, the fur trade became an enormous economic pursuit. Native Americans who wanted European goods—such as certain types of clothing, tools, and materials for personal adornment—killed thousands of animals and hauled them to coastal entrepôts. The system thrived in part because Europeans, long reliant on European fur-bearing animals, including beaver, faced shortages at home. Unfortunately for Indigenous peoples, the spread of the fur trade also meant sustained exposure to Old World diseases such as smallpox, which devastated Native Americans who had no prior exposure to such pathogens. They succumbed in horrific numbers to the accidentally imported scourges (Axtell, 1992 , 1998 ; Jones, 2003 ; Krech, 1981 ; Martin, 1978 ).

Sixteenth-century European reports about North America often emphasized the potential fertility of the Western Hemisphere. Travelers told tales, some perhaps too fantastic to be believed, about the great beasts that inhabited American forests and the vast schools of fish that swam in American rivers. More commonly, visitors recognized the abundant crops that Native Americans were able to produce. The English who arrived at Roanoke, an island off the coast of modern-day North Carolina, in the 1580s, provided uncommon details about a pre- 1607 colonial effort. The immigrants hoped to create a permanent colony in North America, but they failed to do so. Their disappearance in the late 1580s sent a message that colonization was not always an easy business. Still, among the travelers were Thomas Harriot, a young mathematician and ethnographer, and John White, a skilled painter. Harriot’s first report on the region appeared in London without any pictures in 1588 , and again the next year in a large compendium of travel accounts edited by the younger Richard Hakluyt, an assiduous promoter of the English colonization of North America. In 1590 , a Flemish engraver working in Frankfurt-am-Main published an illustrated edition of Harriot’s report, along with pictures drawn from White’s watercolors. This edition of this book, A Briefe and True Report of the Newfound Land of Virginia , was published simultaneously in four languages—English (the language of Harriot, White, and Hakluyt), German (the vernacular in Frankfurt), Latin (the language of scholars), and French (likely to appeal to persecuted Protestants seeking a new homeland away from war-torn Europe). The book provided the English (and other Europeans) with a keen sense of the economic bounty to be had in North America. In the hands of avid promoters of colonization, Harriot’s text and White’s pictures circulated along with other information about American resources (Mancall, 2007 ). Taken together, the promotional material solidified certain ideas in the minds of potential colonists. First, the reports suggested, the soil in America could sustain agriculture. Second, there were large populations of useful animals and fish that could be harvested. Third, the Native peoples could be converted to Christianity and thus “civilization,” which meant that they also would adopt the logic of the market and become avid trading partners. Fourth, land could be acquired from the Indigenous, presumably through treaties and purchases. For Europeans who inhabited a continent in which the rural population had long since grown too large to be sustained in the countryside, the vast resources of North America beckoned (Mancall, 2017 ).

By the end of the 16th century , the French had established themselves in the Saint Lawrence Valley, though they were never able to attract many colonists to their North American holdings. The Spanish had created settlements in New Mexico and Florida, though neither proved to have a substantial economic effect on the Spanish empire. By contrast, the English had yet to succeed at all in territory that would become the United States. However, they had information about American resources, and in the early 17th century they used that knowledge to launch what became the most successful colonization efforts in North America.

Economic Change in English/British North America

In 1600 , there were few Europeans in territory that became the United States. That situation changed dramatically over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries . By 1775 , when the Revolutionary War began, there were approximately two million people inhabiting territory controlled by the English in eastern North America; the Spanish had expanded their holdings in the Southwest and Florida; French migrants (whose numbers had grown to perhaps 60,000) remained in their old territory as well as the Mississippi Valley; and the number of Indigenous peoples had decreased to perhaps one-tenth of what it had been in 1492 , though most of the continent remained Indian Country. A man or a woman traveling along the East Coast in 1775 would have encountered the descendants of migrants from the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, the German-speaking regions of central Europe, Africa, Ireland, and Scotland, all of them inhabiting territory in the British Empire. According to many scholars, the economy that this diverse population created was among the most productive in Western history (Bailyn, 1986 , 2012 ; Jones, 1980 ).

The growth of the immigrant English population began in 1607 , a product of diverse economic forces. Around the start of the century, English investors began to pool their resources in joint-stock companies. This enabled shareholders to spread risk and encourage innovation. Like the rise of maritime insurance earlier in parts of Europe, the English joint-stock company opened up new possibilities for expansion. Groups of investors formed the Muscovy Company and the Levant Company. Later, similar sentiments fueled the rise of the East India Company, which became a crucial institution in the rising global power of the English (Scott, 1911 ).

After trying to establish colonies in Newfoundland, Guiana, and Roanoke in the 16th century , and on the coast of Maine in the early 17th century , the English managed to create a permanent North American community when they founded Jamestown, Virginia. The agent behind the operation was the newly launched Virginia Company, which provided financing for ships traveling to North America and helped recruit young men and women to work there. The commercial origins of the company could be seen in the sex ratio of the colonists. In some years, men outnumbered women by almost six to one, a ratio that made family formation difficult. Though many of the first colonists succumbed to local diseases—about 50% of them died of typhoid fever, dysentery, or possibly malnutrition within four years of their arrival—organizers of the settlement managed to convince enough young English men and women to migrate there for the village to survive. The economic base of the colony remained precarious until the mid-1610s, when colonists, desperate to find a profitable export, began to experiment with tobacco production. At the time, many Europeans believed that tobacco was a wonder drug that could cure a wide range of human diseases, though not all believed that developing a tobacco business was a good idea. James VI of Scotland, who became King James I of England after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 , wrote a pamphlet decrying the negative effects of tobacco—not for the physical damage it caused to human bodies but instead the moral corruption that ensued when too many people became addicted to it. Still, despite some voices of protest, the crop succeeded, and planters in Virginia, and later Maryland, prospered as a result (Mancall, 2004 ). An Indigenous uprising in 1622 , quickly labeled a “massacre” by the English, led to the dismantling of the Virginia Company in 1624 , but the surviving migrants remained in what became a royal colony (Musselwhite et al., 2019 ).

Tobacco cultivation was demanding work in the 17th and 18th centuries . Because so many English migrants died soon after their arrival in North America, the tobacco economy survived only because of sustained migration, which brought large numbers of English to the Chesapeake. The vast majority of immigrant men (approximately 85%) and women (almost 100%) arrived as indentured servants. During the early decades of settlement many found economic opportunity after the end of their service. Still, even with the boom in the tobacco trade, many of the migrants never survived their initial indenture. By mid-century those who did complete their service discovered that much of the best land in the tidewater was no longer available. Their disappointment contributed to a decline in the number of English who went to the Chesapeake (Tate & Ammerman, 1979 ; Walsh, 2010 ).

Analyses of the “American” economy often focus on territory that became the United States. That approach might make sense for the national period, but it distorts the economy of colonial North America. Pennsylvania farmers who grew wheat to supply plantations in the West Indies had economic opportunities because of the extraordinary growth of enslaved Africans in English (or British) colonies. For much of the 17th century , Barbados was a far more powerful economic engine than Virginia or Massachusetts. The English conquest of Jamaica in 1655 set the conditions for an even more economically dynamic model. Economic growth in British colonies hinged on obtaining laborers. Through the first half of the 17th century , thousands of English men and women migrated across the Atlantic, many of them as indentured servants (Canny, 1994 ; Games, 1999 ). English policymakers and economic theorists had hoped that they could establish colonies without relying on slavery, even in the Caribbean. A group of wealthy Puritans, for example, believed that they would be able to turn Providence Island, a virtually uninhabited locale off the Nicaraguan coast when they arrived in 1630 , into a profitable center of cotton production. But the English could not sustain their venture there even though they bolstered their numbers with enslaved Pequot taken captive in southern New England in 1637 . In 1641 , the English lost their hold on the island (Kupperman, 1993 ).

But losing Providence did not quell the desire that the English had to make profits in the West Indies or in other parts of the Atlantic. In 1609 the English had laid a claim to the reef-enclosed archipelago they called the Summer Islands, now known as Bermuda. By 1616 , they had imported enslaved Africans to help develop the land. In 1619 , a group of approximately 20 Angolans arrived in Virginia. Their legal status was not yet defined, but they were enslaved, the first Africans forced to work in territory that became the United States (Musselwhite et al., 2019 ). In 1627 , the English decided to colonize Barbados, another unpopulated island. (There had been an earlier Indigenous population, but it had disappeared by the time the English arrived.) Like the English who went to Providence Island, they did not at first recognize that the greatest profits would come from sugar production. But by the 1640s, a rising group of planters, many of them younger sons of English gentry who would not inherit property at home and saw making money abroad as their best chance of social advancement, recognized the profits to be made from sugar. Some of the planters hoped to recruit English or Irish indentured servants to clear the fields, plant and tend the crop, and then transform raw cane into molasses. But while they understood what was necessary to create a profitable plantation, having learned lessons from Dutch colonization along parts of the Brazilian coast, they discovered they could not rely on poor young men from Britain or Ireland. Instead, they made the decision to purchase enslaved Africans (Burnard, 2015 ; Burnard & Garrigus, 2016 ; Wood, 1974 ).

The English Barbadian planters did not invent the slave trade, nor were they the first Europeans to profit from it in the Americas. From the early 16th century until 1650 , the Spanish had imported 250,000 to 300,000 enslaved Africans. Most of them worked in Mexico and Peru. From 1625 to 1650 , the Portuguese imported approximately 50,000 enslaved Africans to work in Brazil. During those years, the English purchased 20,700 of the enslaved to work in the West Indies. Barbados soon became the most profitable colony. Its wealthiest residents were English who commanded large numbers of enslaved Africans to produce sugar. They hosted elaborate feasts at their homes, impressing visitors with the astonishing foods and alcohol they made available to guests. At the same time, the overseers of their plantations imposed harsh work regimes. They did so after planters had made the most gruesome and heartless calculation: it would be less expensive to work another human to death and then purchase a replacement than to provide better housing, nutrition, and basic medical care that might enable the enslaved to live longer. With that calculation in mind, plantation owners purchased an increasing number of enslaved Africans (Eltis, 2000 ; Eltis & Richardson, 2010 ).

Sugar was so profitable to the planters that they cleared as much land as possible to produce it. They were so eager to expand sugar plantations on Barbados that planters denuded a one-time rich environment. Monoculture, common in parts of Britain, became dominant there, but with two costs. First, ecological change transformed the landscape. Planters, servants, and enslaved workers cleared forests to make houses and fences and to provide fuel for sugar mills. They were so successful that a second cost became evident: Barbadian planters needed to import food and wood. The initial rationale that had driven planters from England—to find a place to become rich—now led them to create an economy dependent on others for basic sustenance. In Jamaica, the need to import food took a disproportionate toll on free colonists, exacerbating the economic differences among the non-enslaved population. Ecological change was so great in Barbados and on other sugar islands that it eventually fed new sensibilities favoring conservation (Burnard, 2001 ; Burnard et al., 2019 ; Grove, 1995 ; Schwartz, 2004 ).

Yet despite the eventual move toward reliance on an enslaved workforce, for much of the 17th century free workers, the majority of them indentured servants, outnumbered those who had no choice. In all, approximately 116,000 migrants traveled from England to the Chesapeake during the 17th century , the vast majority sailing across the Atlantic before 1660 . After mid-century, with disappointment spreading among those who had finished their terms, the earlier optimism faded along with the on-the-ground opportunity. By the 1660s, the number of migrants declined too (Canny, 1994 ). Many who might have traveled across the Atlantic instead chose to remain in England, where the return of plague and the 1666 Great Fire of London provided new employment opportunities. Still others decided to migrate to other colonies where the possibilities for obtaining land and work seemed greater. For their part, tobacco planters who looked for labor for their holdings increased the number of enslaved Africans they purchased. Although the Chesapeake magnates did not invent the slave trade, which by the mid- 17th century had existed in the Atlantic basin for generations, their decision to import slaves to work on tobacco farms reoriented the economy and culture of the southern mainland English colonies. Once established, slavery remained a dominant component of the regional economy until the U.S. Civil War. By one estimate, there were about 28,000 enslaved in mainland British North America by 1700 . The number exceeded 150,000 by 1740 and was over 450,000 in 1770 . Those numbers reflected but one segment of the transatlantic slave trade. From 1501 to its eventual abolition in 1867 , enslavers shipped 12.5 million Africans into bondage. The transit across the Atlantic was only the first arduous journey for the enslaved, many of whom were sold at auction time and again within North America (Berlin, 1998 ; Eltis, 2000 ; Galenson, 1981 ; Newman, 2013 ; O’Malley, 2014 ; Thornton, 1998 ; Walsh, 2010 ).

The move toward expanding the enslaved population within territory that became the United States sprang from the logic and models worked out in the West Indies during the middle decades of the 17th century . The timing was crucial. The decline in available indentured servants from Britain in the 1660s did not diminish American planters’ belief that they needed to produce for export. Instead, even though there were price fluctuations for major commodities, the demand for labor remained high. This was the economic climate when English planters began to colonize lowland Carolina, which proved to be an ideal environment for rice cultivation. Many of the first planters there came from Barbados, making Carolina a “colony of a colony” in the words of the historian Peter Wood. From its inception, Carolina’s demography reflected the demand for bound labor. It was the first mainland colony to have a Black majority, and by the middle of the 18th century , when about one-half of Virginia’s population was of African descent (including a minority who were free), approximately two-thirds of Carolina’s population consisted of enslaved Africans or their descendants who had been born into enslavement based on the English idea that the status of an infant followed that of their mother. If a woman was an enslaved African, her children would be the property of the planter who claimed the mother’s body and service—even if the child was conceived by a white planter raping an enslaved African woman (Berlin, 1998 ; Wood, 1974 ).

Bound labor existed in other parts of the English mainland colonies too, though in New England it was more the exception than the rule. After the initial Pilgrim colonization of Plymouth, which began in 1620 , large numbers of Puritans traveled to New England during the so-called Great Migration, from 1630 to 1642 . During that period, approximately 21,000 English men, women, and children moved to Massachusetts. Although they never created a substantial export-oriented economy—their most important trade goods were furs purchased from local Native Americans—the colonists inhabited healthy environments. As a result, their populations swelled; family size in many New England communities was, on average, eight to 10 individuals (V. Anderson, 2010 ; Demos, 1970 ; Greven, 1970 ). Still, demographic success did not promise wealth. Instead, the great fecundity of the colonists led to overpopulation and land shortages, and by the third generation of settlement (approximately the final third of the 17th century ), many grown children chose to migrate from their home communities to found new satellite villages. Such internal migration made sense from an economic perspective, but it did not always please Puritan clerics, who had envisioned the creation of communities in which families would be able to remain close together. But even without substantial demand for new sources of labor, English families purchased enslaved Indigenous or Africans, though in numbers far less than in tobacco- and rice-growing regions (Newell, 2015 ; Warren, 2016 ).

The relatively small number of enslaved Africans (or Natives) in New England should not be taken to mean that the Puritans and others who traveled there lacked a desire to become wealthy. Historians have long debated the motivations for the Puritans’ migration, which was concentrated during a 12-year period beginning in 1630 and came to an end with the English Civil War. While it is no doubt true that the desire to find a place to practice their faith without persecution contributed to the decision of many to leave home, economic problems, especially in the woolen industry, created problems independent of their religious beliefs. The combination of financial precariousness for some and intolerance for many proved a powerful incentive. But once in North America, after an initial period of economic dislocation—predictable, perhaps, when a group of primarily urban residents migrate to a place that they considered a “wilderness”—many colonists in New England set about to improve their economic standing. At times, the pursuit of economic gain by individuals threatened the sensibilities of others; in one celebrated instance a Boston merchant named Robert Keayne wrote a 50,000-word will justifying his economic practices in the face of accusations that he sought individual profit rather than the betterment of the community (Bailyn, 1964 ). When immigrants dispersed and created new towns west of the initial core around Boston, many among them sought to make a profit, including the Williams family, the founders of Springfield, Massachusetts, which they quickly turned into a trading post that operated, as the historian Stephen Innes put it, like a “company town” (Bailyn, 1955 ; Innes, 1983 ; J. Martin, 1991 ). Across New England, colonists learned how to integrate wampum into their negotiations, first relying on Indigenous-produced strings and then introducing European-made glass beads into the business. In the process, wampum evolved from a prestige good to a form of currency—a “wampum revolution” as the historian Neal Salisbury wrote (Salisbury, 1982 ).

The Colonial Economy

By the late 17th century , the English had expanded their settlements along the Atlantic coast. Victory over the Dutch in the 1660s allowed the English to take control of the colony of New Netherland, which they renamed New York. In 1681 , King Charles II granted an enormous tract of land to William Penn, who created the colony of Pennsylvania. The English also created colonies in North and South Carolina, in East and West Jersey (later combined into New Jersey), and across New England (New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island). Plymouth, initially independent, was absorbed by Massachusetts in 1691 . The creation of the colony of Georgia in 1732 represented the final territorial expansion of the English during the colonial period.

Scholars who have examined the economy of the mainland colonies of British America have often focused on the staple crops produced in particular regions. Such an approach demonstrates the intense regional differences that existed. In low-lying areas in the southern colonies, notably South Carolina and Georgia, planters imported thousands of slaves to produce rice, a crop that they then exported to English ports, where merchants typically arranged to ship it again, to the Iberian Peninsula, where rice was always in great demand. Over time, southern colonists added indigo to their exports, as well as deerskins, which they obtained from Choctaws, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Creeks (Muscolges) who survived the demographic catastrophe wrought by the arrival of Old World diseases. Tobacco dominated exports from Virginia and Maryland, though by the late-colonial period planters also had begun to export wheat. New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey became the center of cereal exports. Unlike the South, most of the agricultural exports produced in the middle colonies came from farms worked by free laborers, either the owners themselves, their children, or hired help (including, at times, the work of indentured servants, many of whom came from the Rhineland). Colonial farmers in the middle colonies shipped much of their produce to the English outposts in the West Indies, a trade that planters in the islands needed in order to concentrate their land and enslaved laborers on the production of sugar. In terms of exports, New England lagged behind the other regions, though the merchants of Boston, Newport, and Salem took a direct hand in organizing the shipments of goods across the Atlantic basin, taking advantage of towns developing along its coastline and supporting fishing ventures. By the second half of the 18th century , English traders had established commercial connections stretching from the Ohio Valley to the Atlantic (Bailyn, 1986 ; Davis & Engerman, 1999 ; Dunn, 1972 ; Heyrman, 1984 ; Hinderaker, 1997 ; Innes, 1988 ; McCusker & Menard, 1991 ; Perkins, 1988 ; Peterson, 2019 ).

Throughout the colonial period, the economy of North America remained rural. As late as 1790 , the time of the first census of the United States, over 90% of the population inhabited farms or small rural communities. Yet even with the urban share of the population relatively slight, the cities that did exist became crucial for organizing economic activity. Merchants who clustered in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City, along with others in the coastal ports of New England and Charleston, South Carolina, played a dominant role in determining the imports that other colonists would find in their local stores. They also created the financial infrastructure to support commerce across English America (Doerflinger, 1986 ; Henretta, 1978 ; Perkins, 1994 ; Peterson, 2019 ).

Free colonists, even in rural areas, benefited from the increase in long-distance commerce across the Atlantic basin. Though economic opportunities for this population contracted at times, stability was common (though with some exceptions, such as Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1676 ) and most individuals remained connected to markets that brought consumer wares across the interior regions of British colonies. The earliest colonial houses tended to be small and of simple architectural design. By the early decades of the 18th century , wealthier colonists, especially urban merchants and rural plantation owners, expanded their properties. Economic stratification, present even from the start, became more pronounced over time among the free population. Relatively few lived as well as the wealthiest planters of Barbados or Jamaica. But along the lower reaches of rivers feeding into the Chesapeake, and in Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia, the rich inhabited better housing, and they filled their rooms with imported finery. Much of what they purchased had been produced from American materials, including fine mahogany furniture made from West Indian and Central American forests. Wealthy women could purchase elaborate dresses made from imported silk, serve their guests from fine china on tables with English silverware and Chinese porcelains, and have their portraits painted by artists trained in England or on the continent. Some Americans, conscious about their image, projected an image of rustic simplicity, evident in the popularity in the late 18th century of images of Benjamin Franklin wearing a raccoon skin cap. But the richest among them might own a beautiful silver pot created by Paul Revere or a stunning painting by John Singleton Copley. To be sure, the wealthiest people in Britain lived more extravagantly. There was no American equivalent of Blenheim Palace, for example. But Mount Vernon and Monticello, each funded by profits of enslaved laborers, were hardly the rude log cabin of American myth (J. Anderson, 2012 ; Anishlansin, 2016 ; Bushman, 1998 , 2011 ; Carr et al., 1991 ; Clemens, 1980 ; Coclanis, 1990 , 2005 ; Isaac, 1982 ; Kamensky, 2016 ; Peterson, 2001 ; Shammas, 1990 , 2012 ).

Viewed from a distance of over 200 years, the economy of the English colonies appears a great success, at least for the free population. The English never suffered the kind of defeat that the Spanish experienced in New Mexico during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 , an Indigenous uprising that forced Spanish colonists back into Mexico, at least for a time (Weber, 1992 ). The English colonies also had a reputation for being an excellent place to find work, a “best poor man's country,” a term promoters used for Pennsylvania in the 18th century , an idea that helped that colony become a magnet for migrants during the early-modern period (Lemon, 1972 ). Hence Europeans flocked to the Anglo-American colonies and avoided New France; even poverty-struck French men and women refused to go to their nation’s American settlements, leaving them mostly in the hands of soldiers and missionaries. Though English expansion had a catastrophic impact on the Native peoples of eastern North America, Natives remained as trading partners and often neighbors of European colonists. By the mid- 18th century , if not earlier, Indigenous had experienced a commercial revolution: many had become eager consumers of European goods such as manufactured clothing, guns and powder, metal tools, and alcohol, a commerce that began in earnest after 1650 and had unfortunate consequences for many Indigenous groups (Calloway, 1997 ; Hinderaker, 1997 ; Mancall, 1991 , 1995 ; C. Martin, 1975 ; Richter, 1992 ; Silver, 1990 ; Usner, 1987 ; Wickman, 2018 ). To the north, the Hudson Bay Company, which began its operations in 1671 despite the mutiny that had led to Henry Hudson’s own death in 1611 near the shores of the bay that now bears his name, had operations that stretched far into the Canadian west and generated large profits for its investors (Carlos & Lewis, 2010 ).

In recent times some scholars have questioned the nature of the economic success experienced by the English and have shown the benefit of analyzing American economic history in a wide geographical context (Usner, 2014 ; Van Ruymbeke, 2013 ). There is no doubt that the prosperity colonists enjoyed often came from exploiting the labor of Native peoples as well as enslaved African and African-American men, women, and children, and from the purchase and appropriation of lands earlier tended by Indigenous communities (Berlin, 1998 ; Burnard, 2004 , 2020 ; Coclanis, 1991 ; Guasco, 2016 ; Greer, 2018 ; Mancall & Weiss, 1999 ; Steckel & Rose, 2002 ; Vickers, 1983 ). Close examination of the lives of urban denizens also suggests that many working people never enjoyed the prosperity they had hoped to find in North America (Smith, 1990 ). In addition, the pursuit of economic gain often created long-term environmental damage, at times to the point of reducing or eliminating specific pursuits, such as the beaver trade in New England (Cronon, 1983 ; Pluymers, 2016 ; Silver, 1990 ). The lack of large sets of statistics makes it difficult to provide measures for entities such as output per capita. Still, whatever the rate of economic growth, the history of the colonial era reveals that success came often to those who migrated from Europe and their descendants while, as many historians have argued, the material basis of that wealth sprang from the labors and lands of others.

Further Reading

Those interested in learning more about the early American economy might want to start with John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of British North America, 1607–1789 (revised ed., Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 1991), which provides the best overview of economic activity for the period, and Stephen Innes, ed., Work and Labor in Early America (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 1988), a series of economic history essays covering a wide territory.

For Native economic activity, the best starting point is William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (Hill and Wang, 1983), a searing reminder of the fact that it is impossible to understand economic activity without considering both the physical world and cultural differences of those who often lived near each other.

Regional differences mattered throughout the period, especially between the primarily free population of New England and other areas where enslaved laborers were crucial to economic performance. For superb regional analyses See Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1955); Trevor Burnard and John Garrigus, The Plantation Machine: Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); Ann M. Carlos and Frank D. Lewis, Commerce by a Frozen Sea: Native Americans and the European Fur Trade (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010); Thomas Doerflinger, A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in Revolutionary Philadelphia (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 1986); and Simon P. Newman, A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).

For the late colonial period see the meticulous work of Alice Hanson Jones in Wealth of a Nation to Be: The American Colonies on the Eve of the Revolution (Columbia University Press, 1980).

For consumer behavior see Carole Shammas, The Pre-Industrial Consumer in Britain and America (Oxford University Press, 1990).

For works relating to enslaved peoples see especially Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Harvard Univesity Press, 1998); David Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge University Press, 2000); Gregory E. O’Malley, Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619–1807 (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 2014); and John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 , 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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Table 1. The Population of North America, 1500–1800 (in Thousands)

* Includes territory from the Arctic to the southern border of the United States.

** British colonies in the Western Hemisphere only, including the West Indies; both categories include migrants and American-born peoples of European or African ancestry.

Source: For Native peoples: Ubelaker ( 1992 , Table 3, p. 173); for European and African peoples: McCusker and Menard ( 1991 , Table 3.1, p. 54).

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Social and Religious Studies

UNIT 12:CIVILIZATION OF PRE-COLONIAL RWANDA

Key unit competence: The student-teacher should be able to analyze the civilization of pre-colonial Rwanda

Introductory Activity

 Do you think that in the Pre-colonial period, Rwandans had managed to develop different elements of their civilization? If you think so, write down a 500 word text justifying your assertion.

The term “civilization” refers to the process through which people settling on a territory improve their ways of living during a given period of time. This concept is also defined as a set of characters, distinct signs, pertaining to intellectual, artistic, moral and material life of a country or a given society. Civilization also refers to the great advance in highly developed culture and way of life when people began to farm, form governments, use metals, develop cities and use writing.

12.1. Social organization of the Pre-colonial Rwanda

Learning activity 12.1

 Define the concept of civilization. Thereafter, describe the social organization of the Pre-colonial Rwanda.

12.1.1. Family, lineage and clan 

The social organization of Pre-colonial Rwanda was based on three main elements including nuclear family, lineage and clan.

The nuclear family was a key element of this organization. It was composed of the husband, his spouse and children if they had them. For polygamy, a man had many wives and single children. Every wife had her own homestead and their husband used to visit them one after one. 

 In case of death of a spouse, a woman would remarry with one of the members of the family of the deceased in order to form a Leviticus family. The children resulting from this union were socially considered at the same level like those of other spouses.

 The lineage is a set of several families descending from one common and real ancestor and recognizable because of the genealogical tree traces. People who claim the same lineage take on the name of the common ancestors. Besides carrying a proper genealogic remembrance, the members of the same lineage have kept a minimum residential unity. In the traditional Rwanda, there was minor lineage, inzu and majorlineage, umuryango. 

 “The term “clan” means a group of people who claim to be descendants from one common mythical ancestor. The term “clan” corresponds to the term “ubwoko”. Clans also have animal totems. 

The clan is a set of several lineages claiming a same mythic common ancestor, but rather far off and fictitious. It is not easy to trace it using a genealogical tree. The members of same clan share the same culture, same taboos and same totem.

11.1.2. Alliance and solidarity in traditional society 

The alliance between families and individuals was reinforced and maintained through marriage and solidarity.

Traditional marriage

In traditional Rwanda, a daughter was considered as a linking factor between families. Marriage was a union between a man and woman, after the former had paid dowry (cow, goats and hoes) and after organizing ceremonies where big quantities of beer were served. 

 A part from marriage, there was also solidarity blood pact (Kunywana / Guca ku nda) rescuing (Gutabarana) giving a cow (Guhana inka)

11.1.3. Division of labor 

In the Rwandan society, it is worth noting that every able member even young children had to be active. But all members of the society were not equally strong. Therefore, there were activities reserved for certain categories of people: men, women and children.

  For men: to fish, to hunt, to dig the fields, to build houses, to herd cows or goats and to serve in the army; 

For women: to look after babies, to maintain the house, to prepare the food, to weave, to fetch water and to collect firewood;

For children: to collect firewood, to fetch water, to herd cows or goats, to sweep or clean house. 

However, as the children grew up, parents began initiating them in the work of adults according to their sex. Boys educated by their father and girls educated by their mother (mu rubohero).

Application activity 12.1  

1. Basing on the definitions and features of the lineage and clan, compare and contrast these two concepts.

 2. Explain different roles played by clans in the Pre-colonial Rwanda.

12.2. Cultural organization

 Learning activity 12.2

During the Pre-colonial period, the kingdom of Rwanda was already endowed in matter of cultural organization. Analyze to which extent this affirmation can be justified.

12.2.1. Traditional religion 

Conception of Imana (God)

 In the Pre-colonial period, Rwandans were monotheists who believed in One Supreme Being. They commonly accepted their God (Imana) as omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.

However, there were no rites for Imana, no temple to worship Imana but Imana is present in throughout some aspects of the daily living of Rwandans.

Omnipresence of Abazimu 

By “Abazimu” we understand spirits of the departed or dead. According to the belief of Banyarwanda, a human being is made up a visible part (body) and an invisible part (soul). Upon dying, the union of body and soul disappears and in a mysterious way the soul is transformed into a spirit called in Kinyarwanda “Umuzimu”.

Guterekera or culture for ancestors 

This rite concerns to offer some things as food or drinks to Umuzimu. That rite took place in small house called Indaro. The gestures are accompanied by oral requests formulation according to circumstances.

Kubandwa 

The rite of Kubandwa is a ritual ceremony accomplished in two steps and consists to offer the offertories to Ryangombe and other Imandwa.

People of Ancient Rwanda performing the rite of kubandwa

The first stage of kubandwa is “Kwatura and the second step, called “Gusubizwaho” or “Gusubira ku ntebe” . A similar cult was practiced in the north of the country and it was rendered to Nyabingi. She was a noble woman never married and died very old. After her death, her followers (Abagirwa or Ababyukurutsa) spread her cult.

12.2.2. Rites and Taboos

 The Rites (Imigenzo/Imihango) and taboos (Imiziro) can be considered to have been in the framework of religion in traditional Rwanda. They are part of beliefs which influenced behavior of ancient Rwandans. Rites were activities that were performed in a particular way or occasion at ceremony as the naming a child (Kwita Umwana or Gusohora umwana), marriage, funerals… while Taboos were activities that were not allowed to be done because they could bring curses. E.g. Kwica inyamanza, kwicara ku isekuru, etc.

Application activity 12.2 

1. In the Pre-colonial period, Rwandans had their own way of believing in God. Write a 250 words text explaining the concepts of Imana(God), Nyabingi and Imandwa during that time. 

 2. Write short notes to explicate the following terms: Taboo, guterekera, kubandwa

12.3. Political and military organization

Learning activity 12.3

 The Pre-colonial Rwanda was politically and militarily well organized. Justify this statement.

The political and administrative structure of pre-colonial Rwanda mainly that of the 19th Century, was built on four pillars, namely a monarchy conceived in terms of a theocracy, a two-headed monarchy (King and Queen Mother), a policy of territorial aggrandizement, conquest and patriotism

12.3.1. Political organization  

The Pre-colonial Rwanda had several institutions reinforcing the king and his representatives. These institutions include Ubwiru (court secrets), Ubuhake (gifts of cows), Ubusizi (dynastic poetry was important in legitimizing the ruling king), Ubucurabwenge (knowledge on the dynastic genealogy), Ibitekerezo by’Imiryango (family historic narratives), etc.

The Ancient kingdom of Rwanda was divided into Ibiti or Districts which were large constituencies covering several hills and villages. Ibiti were divided into Ibikingi which were a collection of different hills where administrative authority was exercised. Igikingi consisted of division (a hill or a sub-hill) rich in pastures which was part of the provincial division.

The Ibikingi were similar to sub-chieftaincy divisions of the colonial era and there were two types of Ibikingi: the‘administrative Igikingi’ and ‘pastoral Igikingi’.

King (Umwami )

The king was very honoured in Ancient Rwanda. He occupied the topmost position in the political, administrative and military hierarchy to the extent that these functions were closely linked. Following his nomination, the king identified himself as a separate entity from the nobility. The kingdom of Rwanda was sacred and the king was therefore supposed to have the divine origin. The king was the sole proprietor of everything and had every right to life and death over his subjects. He was also in charge of the armies, lawmaker and supreme judge. His sentences had no appeal.

Queen-mother (Umugabekazi )

 She was usually the mother of the king or his step mother. She could perform some ceremonies defined by the tradition. She was the confident of and chief advisor to the king. She could orient the king’s actions and act as regent in case the king came to the throne when he was still young. 

  Custodians of the esoteric code (Abiru) 

They were the guardians of the tradition and royal secrets. They were high dignitaries and they came second as advisors of the king. They mastered the rites and symbolic procedures and processes of the country and their accomplishment. The king confided to them the name of his successor and he passed recommendations to the successor through them.

Chiefs (Abatware b’intebe) 

They were the heads of Ibiti appointed by the king and lived most of their lives in the royal court. They were consulted by the king especially in the time of crises. They had the functions of controlling farmers and cattle keepers; supervising closely and control the functions of land and cattle sub-chiefs; commanding the army; raising taxes for the king, ikoro and other service; distributing land and to withdraw it from others if it was felt necessary 

At the level of “Igikingi” the administration was insured by three chiefs. These chiefs were appointed by the king depending on their merit or the merit of their families.

The chief responsible of land (Umutware w’ ubutaka) 

He was in charge of agricultural production and responsible for collecting royal tribute, “ikoro” from agricultural production. He had the responsibility to settle disputes arising from land issues like land distribution and settling new inhabitants on his land. 

The chief responsible for cattle (Umutware w’umukenke) 

He was responsible for pastures in his Igikingi and collected tax dues from cattle keepers. He had to know and supervise pastures reserved for Inyambo or cows for the royal court.

The army chief (Umutware w’ingabo) He had the role of commanding the army and participating in the fighting between Rwanda and its enemies. He was also in charge to settle disputes between other chiefs and conflicts between the pastoralists. 

12.3.2.Military organization

 In traditional Rwanda, the military institution was very strong and powerful. The army in Ancient Rwanda had the role of expanding country; participating in the different wars; fighting against cattle rustlers and various raids; ensuring territorial security. 

At the royal court, there was a military training camp known as “Itorero” where the young men Intore recruited from among the king’s favorite chiefs learnt and practiced such values as generosity, courage, patriotism, the moral responsibility, self discipline, the quality of being a man, “kuba umugabo”.

Application activity 12.3

 1. In the Pre-colonial Rwanda, the King, Queen-mother, Abiru and Chiefs played a paramount role in the administration and politics of their country. Write a 250 word text to prove this assertion. 

2. Describe the role that was played by the institution of army in Rwanda during the pre-colonial period.

 3. At every beginning of a new reign, the king had to start training his own army of young Rwandans. Identify different steps that were followed in this process.

12. 4. Economical organization

Learning activity 12.4 

The economic domain, in the pre-colonial Rwanda, comprised of different sectors. Analyze the place of each of them in satisfying the needs of Rwandans during this period.

Economic organization in Ancient Rwanda was based on the following economic activities: agriculture, animal rearing, handicrafts and trade.

12.4.1.Agriculture

 It was the principle activity and characterized by archaic production method (tools, crop rotation system, conservation methods…) which gave poor yields. Agriculture was subsistence in nature, this means individual or the family consumption. Cultivation was carried out according to climate seasons such as Umuhindo, Urugaryi, Itumba and Icyi or Impeshyi and he main crops cultivated were beans, sorghum, peas, maize, yams, bananas, tobacco, sweet potatoes. 

12.4.2. Animal rearing 

The animal production in Ancient Rwanda was mainly based on cattle rearing, goats, sheep and the keeping of the dogs and the bees.

12.4.3. Handicraft

 It was a very important activity in the daily life of Rwandans. It was from handicraft that Rwandans could get most tools to satisfy their daily needs. They made clothes, metal and wooden objects destined for commercial purposes. 

The clothes made were the Ishabure for the girls; Inkanda for the women; Uruhu for the men; Impuzu made from skin of umuvumu while ishabure, inkanda and uruhu were made from the skins of animals. 

Metal tools made included spears, arrows, knives and hoes. Three regions of Rwanda had celebrity on making and production of hoes such as: Buberuka (Amaberuka) Buramba (Amaramba) Rusengesi (Amasengesi)

12.4.3.Trade  

Trade system in traditional Rwanda involved exchange of goods for other goods, with was known as a barter system. The trade was mainly based on agricultural products, animal products and handicrafts. 

Many markets or commercial centers through the country especially the northwestern regions were the following: Mushwiza, Ryabizige, Mulinzi, Mubuga, Butare, Kazirabageni, Mururu, Rwanza, Itetero, Buramba, Kaziba, Agasakuza, Miyove and Vunga. 

The main imported products from the neighboring countries included the salt from Lake Eduard; the bracelet from Masisi and Buhavu; the perfume from Ijwi Island.

Application activity 12.4 

1. Rwandans performed a number of economic activities including agriculture, animal rearing, trade and handicraft. Identify different items Rwandans were able to produce internally and these ones they could import from outside. 

2. Metal working was very important during the pre-colonial period. Hoes were the main tools that were made up of metal. Identify different names of hoes manufactured and the place where this activity was carried out.

Skills lab 

By reading different textbooks that have been written on the civilization of the Pre-colonial Rwanda, explain some positive aspects of this ancient civilization that are likely to be preserved today and the negative ones that deserve to be rejected.

End unit assessment

1. Analyze the role played by the nuclear family in the Pre-colonial Rwanda. 

2. Differentiate a lineage from a clan. 

3. In the Pre-colonial Rwanda, the King was at the top of the administrative and political hierarchy. He therefore played a vital role at this level of the life of his country. Comment on this statement.

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