Turning South African History Upside Down: Ivory and Gold Production, the Indian Ocean Trading System and the Shaping of Southern African Society, 600–1900 AD

A focus on the colonial period has created a foreshortened history of South Africa which has been further blinkered by the reification of national boundaries. This perspective has limited the understanding of deeper and wider historical processes that moulded society’s past and present. It gives pride of place to cultural, economic and political influences that spread northward from the southernmost tip of Africa. But it ignores the reality that until the first decades of the 19th century a distinct political economy influenced the northern interior of what became South Africa. This system was the product of ongoing interaction between regional dynamics and ancient and evolving Indian Ocean trading networks. It was for many centuries an important zone of economic and political innovation, but it has been largely overlooked in general accounts of South African history. This article argues that a narrative which starts in the seventh century in the Limpopo Valley and which traces the interactions between trade and political transformation through the emergence of states at Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe, Thulamela and subsequently the rise of the Venda, Pedi and Zulu kingdoms provides helpful and engaging perspectives on the making of South Africa.