It is not easy to summarize the history of these dark African peoples,
because so little is known and so much is still in dispute. Yet, by
avoiding the real controversies and being unafraid of mere questions of
definition, we may trace a great human movement with considerable
definiteness.

Three main Negro types early made their appearance: the lighter and
smaller primitive stock; the larger forest Negro in the center and on the
west coast, and the tall, black Nilotic Negro in the eastern Sudan. In the
earliest times we find the Negroes in the valley of the Nile, pressing
downward from the interior. Here they mingled with Semitic types, and
after a lapse of millenniums there arose from this mingling the culture of
Ethiopia and Egypt, probably the first of higher human cultures.

To the west of the Nile the Negroes expanded straight across the continent
to the Atlantic. Centers of higher culture appeared very early along the
Gulf of Guinea and curling backward met Egyptian, Ethiopian, and even
European and Asiatic influences about Lake Chad. To the southeast, nearer
the primitive seats of the earliest African immigrants and open to
Egyptian and East Indian influences, the Negro culture which culminated at
Zymbabwe arose, and one may trace throughout South Africa its wide
ramifications.

All these movements gradually aroused the central tribes to unrest. They
beat against the barriers north, northeast, and west, but gradually
settled into a great southeastward migration. Calling themselves proudly
La Bantu (The People), they grew by agglomeration into a warlike nation,
speaking one language. They eventually conquered all Africa south of the
Gulf of Guinea and spread their influence to the northward.