The partial history of West Africa can be divided into five major periods:
- Its prehistory, in which the first human settlers arrived, agriculture developed, and contact made with the Mediterranean civilizations to the north.
- The empires that consolidated trade and developed centralized states.
- The slave-trading kingdoms, jihads, and colonial invaders of the 18th and 19th centuries.
- The colonial period, in which France and Great Britain controlled nearly the whole of the region.
- The post-independence era, in which the current nations were formed.
Read more about History Of West Africa: Prehistory, Empires, Jihad and Colonization, Postcolonial West Africa
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