Togo's pre-colonial history is not particularly well recorded, even compared to the countries I have written about so far. There have been some references to oral histories within the tribes that occupy Togo, but there are no strong griot traditions in the same way as, say, Senegal or Mauritania to help consolidate information. The country is also rather far from Islamic regions in Africa, so there was likely not a lot of travel to the area by the major literate centers of Medieval Africa. Nevertheless, it is clear from the archaeological record that tribes had entered what is now Togo by at least the 11th century, and that movement and trade was quite active along the coastal areas.
Not long after Europeans arrived, the coast earned the nickname "The Slave Coast," for reasons which should be obvious. My reading about the Ewe people, who constitute about 1/3rd of the population, states that the tribes were largely decentralized and had a resistance to consolidating power amongst shared ethnic lines. As such, the Ewe were as involved in the slave trade as they were victims of it due to internecine tribal warfare. I'm sure the European powers didn't complain about the arrangement.
Somehow, for reasons I can't find, Togo didn't become a protectorate until 1884, when they signed a treaty with King Mlapa III of Germany. It occurs to me that this is around the time the Ashante finally fell in Ghana, so it could be that the main powers struggling for supremacy in the area, Britain, France, and Germany, had their hands full over to the West. The fall of the Ashante and the subsequent border drawings definitely played into the creation of German Togoland, but that doesn't explain why the area wasn't claimed earlier. *shrug*
Togo eventually became a colony in 1905, being exploited for labor and taxes until World War I, when France and Britain invade and form a brief condominium of the area until after WWII, when the West chunk of Togoland went to the British and was incorporated into Ghana, and the East chunk stayed with France and became Togo as we know it today. Politics have since been a back and forth between various strongmen and coups, the longest running leader being Eyadema Gnassingbé who ruled under a one-party system from 1969 until his death in 2005.
Because African nation borders were drawn by European powers over pre-existing ethnic regions (I hesitate to say boundaries), they aren't very useful for grasping African cultures. With that in mind, I'll start spending more electrons on the tribes themselves, although there is no way I could possibly get to all of them. The Ewe, mentioned above, are a strongly patrilineal tribal culture. The chief of the tribe is always male, and his family is the "owner" of the land the tribe lives on. I put this in quotes because "ownership" doesn't do justice the the relationship between the family and their land, which is considered an ancestral gift that be neither bought nor sold.
Their religion is Voodoo. Yes, that Voodoo, the same one that shows up in Haiti, and let me tell you, the cosmology of Voodoo's gods, goddesses, and spirits is intense. Like most Americans, my only contact with Voodoo was through Hollywood which, uh, lets say... Doesn't do justice to source material even when the authors are present. That said, Christianity and Islam are present, although in the minority. Now that I think about it, this is the first country where the indigenous religion outnumbers the two major religions. Curious.
Artistically, the Ewe are known for their kente cloth, a style of striped patterns made from interwoven cotton strips. Most music centers around drumming, and it is thought that good drummers inherited the spirit of an ancestor who was good at drumming. They also have several styles of dancing, from Agbadza, a traditional war dance which has since transformed into a dance to celebrate peace, to Bobobo, a very recent tradition based on 1940's and 50's Highlife songs, and danced for political rallies and important events like funerals.
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Today's composer is King Menseh (b.1971). Known as "The Golden Voice of Togo," King Menseh has developed a strong international career based largely out of Paris. His music is strongly influenced by Ewe and Kabye drumming, which is mixed with reggae, funk, and Afropop. Besides being a singer-songwriter, he has also acted with the Ki-Yi M'Bock Theater, a professional troupe of musicians, dancers, actors, and puppeteers based in Côte d'Ivoire. King Menseh also founded a philanthropic group, Foundation King Menseh, devoted to the care and education of orphans in Togo. I can't seem to find the lyrics to the song I've posted, but he tends to sing about the orphaned and the oppressed.
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