The Story History Forgot to Tell
When Howard W. French published Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World in 2021, he did something revolutionary. He restored Africa to the center of modernity’s origin story, showing how Europe’s rise was inseparable from Africa’s gold, labor, knowledge, and strategic geography.
But there’s a dimension French’s masterwork left largely unexplored—one that gallops through centuries and continents with thundering hooves: Africa’s equestrian legacy.
From the cavalry empires of Mali and Songhai to the Moorish horsemen who dominated medieval Iberia, African mastery of horsemanship shaped world history. Yet this story—of empire, expertise, and endurance—has been systematically erased from mainstream narratives.
Black in the Saddle: From African Cavalries to Modern Cowboys rides into that gap.
Why Howard W. French Matters—And What Comes Next
Howard W. French is an acclaimed journalist and historian whose work challenged Eurocentric narratives that positioned Africa as peripheral to world history. In Born in Blackness, French meticulously traced how Africa’s resources, labor, and strategic importance were foundational to Europe’s development and the birth of the modern world.
His central argument: Africa is not an afterthought to modernity—it is modernity’s starting point.
Black in the Saddle builds on French’s framework but adds a critical missing piece: the equestrian dimension. While French restored Africa’s economic and demographic centrality, the story of African cavalry—their military sophistication, breeding expertise, and knowledge systems—remained in the margins.
This blog series brings those riders into full view.
From Empire to Plantation: Africa’s Equestrian Mastery
Long before Europeans arrived on African shores, cavalry empires dominated the Sahel and North Africa:
- The Ghana Empire (circa 300–1200 CE) controlled trans-Saharan trade routes with mounted warriors
- Mali Empire’s cavalry under Mansa Musa (1312–1337) projected power across West Africa with thousands of horsemen
- Songhai Empire (15th–16th centuries) maintained elite cavalry units that secured one of history’s largest African empires
- Moorish North Africa developed sophisticated horse breeding, training, and military tactics that influenced medieval Europe
These weren’t just warriors on horses. They were engineers of mobility, masters of logistics, and keepers of knowledge systems that connected continents.
When the transatlantic slave trade began, this expertise didn’t disappear—it was stolen, repurposed, and exploited.
The Riders Who Built the Americas
On plantations across the Caribbean and American South, enslaved Africans maintained critical skills in:
- Horse breeding and bloodline management
- Training and breaking horses
- Veterinary care and animal husbandry
- Cattle herding and ranch management
After emancipation, these skills carried thousands of Black men into the American West. By some estimates, one in four cowboys was Black—a fact Hollywood spent a century erasing.
From Bill Pickett (inventor of bulldogging) to Nat Love (the real “Deadwood Dick”), Black cowboys weren’t just part of the frontier story—they defined it.
The Lineage Lives: From Compton to Global Reconnection
Today, the equestrian legacy continues through movements like the Compton Cowboys—a group of Black riders in South Los Angeles who use horses for community healing, youth mentorship, and cultural reclamation.
Leaders like Randy Savvy and the broader Black equestrian renaissance are reconnecting the dots: from African cavalry empires to plantation expertise to frontier cowboys to modern urban riders.
This isn’t nostalgia. It’s living history.
Events like AfroFuture Festival in Ghana further cement this reconnection, bringing the African diaspora home to celebrate heritage, innovation, and forward motion.
Why This Story Matters Now
Reintroducing African cavalry into mainstream historical narratives:
- Reclaims erased histories of power, skill, and agency
- Connects Africa’s precolonial empires to modern Black cultural leadership
- Challenges outdated frontier myths that portray the American West as exclusively white
- Restores knowledge systems that were stolen and rebranded as European innovation
As Louis C. Hook writes: “The lineage is unbroken; the story never ended. We’re simply bringing it back into the light.”
Ready to Ride Deeper?
Black in the Saddle isn’t just a book—it’s a movement to restore one of history’s most powerful and overlooked legacies. From empire to plantation to modern renaissance, the story of African horsemanship is the story of survival, mastery, and reclamation.
Explore the full story at Educated Hood Rat Press