What African empires existed prior to the slave trade?

Answer 1

From David Glenwinkel, A Millennium of African History

There is no way to sum up a thousand years of African history as it applies to Sub Saharan Africa and give any fairness to the complexities of such a vast and diverse geography, roughly twice the size of the United States in area, with every bit as much cultural diversity as found anywhere in the world, if not more.

Occupied but Never Conquered

However, there is that 30,000 foot view, and certain truth that something shattered the unchanging and hitherto unchanged cultures that had survived the insurgencies of many nations for thousands of years. The continent was mined for resources by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, but these great empires seem to have had little lasting impact on the area we know as Sub-Saharan Africa today. In fact, if any one pattern emerges in the study of African history, it is the story of a land that has been occupied, but never conquered.

An Outline of History - Africa

The influence of Egypt, which is ironically not considered an African Kingdom, on the rest of Africa, and vice versa is a hotly debated subject. Recent exploration into the regions of the Nubian Kingdoms has revealed a distinctly Egyptian type of kingdom building, culture, and architecture that does have the ring of the Egyptian Kingdoms. However, this influence did not penetrate deeply into the sub Saharan regions.

The Greeks had some influence in the northern realms of Africa, but to the ancient Greek the deeper heart of Africa was a mythical land at the farthest edges of the earth. Greek gods and heroes were believed to have visited the fringes of this place on the known world, but Greek influence historically had little, if any, impact on the ancient African community.

In 146 BC with the final defeat of Carthage, Rome took control of Africa and established its first colony, Africa Vetus. Rome's concerns were only to prevent the rise of another power on the far side of Sicily, and in terms of governance Rome's ventures in Africa were largely in the northern part of the continent. Rome did scour the continent for slaves, resources, and animals for the coliseums but there was no serious attempt to change or re organizes the traditional African community.

A Millennium of Change

About a thousand years ago things began to change. Two sets of major powers begin a sort of passive invasion of the African subcontinent. One is the emergence into the African scene of the Arabic merchants, who build trade routes into and throughout Africa, trading cloth and other goods for African goods, and slaves.

Slavery of Africans by Africans was a historical fact for thousands of years before the Europeans or Arabs ever entered the continent. Inter Tribal raiding was common, and slaves captured as a result of raids or warfare were often integrated into the tribal community. Slaves were commonly traded between African tribes, kingdoms, or nations for goods or services.

The Arabs commercialized the slave trade, but still made no attempt to conquer the Sub Saharan African communities they traded with. More than seven hundred years of Arabic slave trading had little impact on the traditional African community structure. Over the next seven to nine hundred years an estimated ten to eleven million slaves were exported from Africa.

At about the same time, roughly nine hundred to a thousand years ago Europe began to emerge from the dark ages. The age of European exploration began, and many European nations were reaching out, searching for water routes to the spice lands of India. The future European slave trade was not yet on the agenda. Europe at this time was actually under populated, the New World of the Americas was as yet commercially undiscovered, and there is no demand for slaves. However the seeds of change are in the wind and events will merge in time that will change the face of Africa forever.

From "The Insanity of Africa" copyright January 1, 2009, David Allen Glenwinkel

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According to Wikopedia:

African empires[1] were states[2] that included multinational structures incorporating various populations and polities into a single entity, usually through conquest.[3] There have been a number of empires[4] located in Africa[5] throughout history[6]. Below is a list of African empires[7] whose capital cities were on the African continent.[8] For the purpose of this article, only African states that held authority over unified groups (ethnic states under kings or chiefs rather than simply ethnicities under no central leadership other than the emperor) will be listed in accordance with the dictionary definition[9] of empire.

List of African empires by date established

• Egyptian Empire (1570 BC - 1070 BC)[10]
• Kushite Empire (760 BC - 656 BC)[11]
• Carthaginian Empire (575 BC - 146 BC)
• Aksumite Empire (50 AD - 937 AD)[12]
• Kanem Empire (700 AD - 1376 AD)[13]
• Ghana Empire (750 AD - 1076 AD)[14]
• Fatimid Caliphate (910 AD - 1171 AD)
• Almoravid Caliphate (1061 AD - 1147 AD)
• Almohad Caliphate (1121 AD - 1269 AD)
• Ethiopian Empire (1137 AD - 1974 AD)[15]
• Ayyubid Sultanate (1171-1254)
• Marinid Empire (1195 AD - 1465 AD)
• Mali Empire (1235 AD - 1645 AD)[16]
• Mamluk Sultanate (1250 AD - 1517 AD)
• Songhai Empire (1340 AD - 1591 AD)[17]
• Jolof Empire (1360 AD - 1889 AD)
• Kingdom of Kongo (c. 1395 - 1857)
• Bornu Empire (1396 AD - 1893 AD)[18]
• Oyo Empire (1400 AD - 1895 AD)[19]
• Adal Sultanate (1415 AD - 1555 AD)
• Benin Empire (1440 AD - 1897 AD)[20]
• Sennar Sultanate (1502 AD - 1821 AD)
• Kaabu Empire (1537 AD - 1867 AD)
• Kingdom of Luba (1585 AD - 1885 AD)
• Lunda Empire (1660 AD - 1887 AD)
• Aro Confederacy (1690 AD - 1902 AD)
• Asante Union (1701 AD - 1894 AD)[21]
• Kong Empire (1710 AD - 1894 AD)
• Bamana Empire (1712 AD - 1896 AD)
• Sokoto Caliphate (1804 AD - 1903 AD)
• Orange Free State (1854 AD - 1902 AD) [22][23][24][25]
• South African Republic (1856 AD - 1902 AD)[22][23][24][26]
• Wassoulou Empire (1878 AD - 1898 AD)

Largest African empires by size

• Fatimid Caliphate - 4.1 million km² (969 AD)[27]
• Mamluke Sultanate - 2.1 million km² (in 1400 AD)[27]
• Almohad Caliphate - 2.0 million km² (in 1220 AD)[27]
• Songhai Empire - 1.4 million km² (in 1590 AD)[17]
• Mali Empire - 1.29 million km² (in 1312 AD)[28]
• Aksumite Empire - 1.25 million km² (in 350 AD)[27]
• Egyptian Empire - 1.00 million km² (in 1300 BC)[27]
• Almoravid Caliphate - 1.00 million km² (in 1120 AD)[