Raye's History House

The Bantu migration took place over about 1500 years as the original inhabitants of approximately modern day Cameroon and southern Nigeria spread east and south across the African continent. Scholars haven’t determined the reason for the migration, but whether caused by overpopulation, conflict, or a sense of adventure the movement of these original people greatly changed Africa.

The western branch followed the coast and major rivers of the Congo River system and reached central Angola by 500CE. The eastern brach moved into the Great Lakes region of East Africa and then southward to South Africa where they settled in the modern day Limpopo province by 500CE. 

The Bantu peoples spread their language, iron working skills, high-yield farming techniques, housing styles, and pottery traditions throughout most of the southern half of Africa. Bantu peoples were able to do this successfully because of their superior tools and weapons, used both for intimidation and land clearing. Many indigenous groups were assimilated into the Bantu culture, but others fled into less hospitable areas to retain their own ways of life. For example, the Pygmy people retreated deep into the rainforest while the San escaped to the Kalahari desert.

The Bantu changed much of Southern Africa since they introduced farming and animal domestication (mainly goats, sheep, and cattle) to much of the continent and had a tendency towards centralized political authority, allowing for great civilizations to begin to expand by the 13th century. Great Zimbabwe and the Zulu Kingdom are examples of large Bantu civilizations. The Great Lakes region of East Africa also blossomed into an important center for trade, primarily with Arabs.

These civilizations set up trading networks, which spread objects and ideas along the African continent and with European and Arab traders on the coast.

The Bantu migration is mostly studied contemporarily by archeology and genetics. Scholars study the cultural, technological, and language similarities to attempt to track the movement of the Bantu peoples throughout prehistory. Lexicostatics (study of the relative closeness of local languages to each other) is especially important because Bantu similarities are primarily linguistic. The oral histories of Bantu groups are also studied, since most Southern African groups did not develop their own written language. Unfortunately, because of harsh terrain in certain areas of Africa, places such as the majority of the Congo have had very sparse archeological work done.

Today, there are about 535 Bantu languages making it the largest language family in terms of number of languages. This makes southern Africa one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world. The language is spoken by about 200 million people in 300-600 different ethnic groups. The most prevalent of these languages in Swahili, which is spoken by 80 million people. Also, twenty African countries have majority Bantu populations, and Bantu descendants make up 6% of the world’s population. 

Bantu people also gained knowledge and cultural attributes from the indigenous peoples around them, leading to great diversity among their descendants. Bantu peoples exist all around the world, but there are particularly large groups in Brazil and the Persian Gulf where they were historically taken as slaves.

Bonus fact: The highest proportion of albinos in the world is in the Bantu groups near Lake Victoria.

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