Well, the colonial influence also royally mucked things up, particularly in Western Africa in the very early years of North and South American colonization, via the slave trade, which encouraged different African groups/tribes to conduct wars in order to capture people from other tribes to sell to Europeans for the slave market. It's certainly true that slavery created that problem. But there was already conflict between these different groups/tribes before European contact: the Europeans just capitalized on this conflict.

The geographical thing came later, in terms of European nations divvying up actual territory in the 19th century--where what you're saying is definitely true. But at first (pre-1800) the Europeans were not as interested in setting up colonies in Africa itself but using its resources (human and otherwise) to further their colonial goals in the Americas.

/history grad student

Just for the record, I wasn't trying to diminish the influence of the slave trade on Africa or anything.

My intial impulse was to say that there were tribes but not countries before colonialization (I think countries as we think of them are pretty new historically anyplace really.) I thought that might have been the idea that Centaur was thinking about.

No, I mean tribes such as the Hutus and Tutsis. People believe they have always been a tribe when they haven't.
There have always been societies in African countries, with their own cultures and identities. What screwed things up was the colonialists shoving these societies together based upon geographical location for administrative ease, calling them tribes and making them live together. Naturally, people who do not share a common background do not get along very well. There are power struggles within these tribes.
My point was that the African tribe as we know it was not a permanent fixture. There is still much civil strife in many of the countries today because of colonial laziness. They can barely keep up the power structure within the tribe and the civil wars and genocides we see are a result of trying to gain the upper hand over another tribe. (See Rwanda for a prominent example).
I took Western African Politics and thoroughly enjoyed the class. Half of my midterm was an essay explaining the political problems and tribal warfare and how colonialists screwed everything up.

You don't count :D

Centaur, are you sure you mean the tribes weren't there or that colonial powers pushed tribes together into the geographic spaces they wanted them in?

Rwanda is a good example. There were tribes before colonization, I'm pretty sure. The problems may have resulted from external powers trying to make one country out of distinct tribes.

ETA: I stand corrected on Rwanda, at least according to what wikipedia has to say. The two two major "tribes" don't seem distinct at all as far as genetics and language. Interesting.

There were no 'tribes', just groups of people who lived together. There was relative peace among these groups. It was when the colonialists pushed these little societies together and called them a tribe that the problems started. For a modern day example, let's say we take one half of a state such as Florida, and say, "you all live near each other even though you have entirely separate cultures. Now you're a tribe; act like it." No sane person will react kindly to that.
Another key issue is classism. The colonialists would pick a city and build that city up, making an industrial epi-center. Now, think of this like a bulls-eye, with the city in the middle. If you live in or around that city, you're going to get a decent job. The further away you are, the less likely it is that you'll get a job and you're probably neglected by the governing body. When we couple that with the geographically based tribes created by the colonialists, you can see another fine example of a catalyzing conflict. Those who live far away from the city are made into a tribe; they don't get along because they're not the same, so there's already tension. Then the colonialists create another tribe from the people living close to the city. Now this new tribe has more money, and a better position in society. They're higher up in the class system. This was how it was for the Hutus and Tutsis. The Tutsis lived close to the big city, while the Hutus lived a lot further away. The system put in place by the colonialists made it very hard for someone to move up the financial ladder, so the resentment starts and tension builds. The Tutsis were basically told that they were better than the Hutus. Why? Arbitrary grouping.
Wow, that was long-winded.

GC, I learn things here.

/thanks centaur :)

Yeah, me too.

So are you saying that there aren't ANY culturally distinct groups prior to colonization or just that in certain places the tribal stuff was overblown by colonial powers?

How do you explain like the Zulus, Ebo, and stuff?

I am a wealth of useful/less information! I'll try and find the link where all this is written (a book called 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa' or something like that. Really interesting!).

EDIT: Found it! http://www.marxists.org/subject/afri...rope/index.htm

Pay no heed to the website it's hosted on. I really don't know why people dismiss historical fact because of political leanings. The guy who wrote this was a socialist...big deal!

I think you might be missing my point...maybe I'm just not clear enough. I can ramble sometimes.
Before there were tribes as we know them, Africans lived in culturally distinct groups and societies, separate from each other, perhaps sharing a geographical area but remaining unique with their own customs and traditions. When the colonialists rolled in (yes, the brits were infamous for screwing up countries the world over!) they put these smaller societies together and made them into a tribe, such as the Hutus or the Zulus, all because they lived in the same area. The colonialists had no respect whatsoever for Africa's cultural diversity. So I am saying the colonialists MADE the Zulu tribe-before that, they co-existed in the same area peacefully but had nothing in common other than their geographical location.
Another example-England and France share the English Channel. Let's say Denmark invades, starts conquering Europe all over the place and says, "England and France are close. They share common water. It's easier for us if we make them one country." The cultures are entirely different from one another but now the former countries are expected to unify under one name, even if there was hostility prior to this grouping.
Does that make sense? There were always culturally distinct groups, but not the tribes we know today.