ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses various aspects of the history of horses in pre-colonial West Africa, and explains the importance of the horse in West African history. The substantial resources invested by West Africans in the purchase and maintenance of horses, even in areas where they were of little or no military significance, must have had an important influence upon the character of the economic, social, and political structures of the horse-using societies. The military importance of horses in pre-colonial West Africa has been so often stressed by historians that in the present context it is above all necessary to insist upon the qualifications which need to be made to any generalization about the dominance of cavalry in warfare. The predominance of rulers in the ownership and distribution of horses was probably due in part to the fact that they acquired horses through tribute and through purchase. The levying of tribute in horses was a widespread practice in pre-colonial West Africa.
