Question

What was the state of African people before European trying to establish control in the mid-1800s?

Answer 1

Sub-Saharan Africa prior to the 19th Century largely consisted of large tribes, save in West Africa where -- ironically -- the Slave Trade had led to the creation of larger social organizations.

Explanation:

Sub-Saharan Africa had largely been handicapped by nature in two particulars. One was its isolation due to distance, disease barriers, and a shortage of harbours with navigable rivers permitting inland access. While -- at great cost -- the Sahara Desert could be crossed, Tse-tse flies and altitude (in Ethiopia) were formidable barriers to travel much beyond it.

The consequence was that Sub-Saharan Africa never really had the chance to advance beyond tribal iron age cultures except on the very edge of the Sahara (Mali, the Sudan and Ethiopia).

The other barrier was the natural shortage of domesticable plants. Wheat, maize, rice, millet, barley and potatoes had allowed other civilizations to appear, but Sorghum was not reliable enough to allow civic culture to be maintained in most of Sub-Saharan Africa: Save were coastal enclaves let Arabs (from 700 AD) and Europeans (from 1450 AD or so) set up trading posts for slaves, gold and ivory.

Cattle had been domesticated for millennia in Europe and Asia, but disease resistant strains that could survive in Sub-Saharan Africa only appeared around 1000 AD -- allowing Bantu pastoralists to slowly spread through much of the continent.

The back-handed gift of the Slave Trade from both the Arabs and the Europeans was the importation of new food-crops: Yams, Rice, Millet, Maize, etc. That finally allowed greater concentrations of people, and new kingdoms were emerging just as Europeans got quinine, breech-loading firearms, and other advantages that let them go far beyond the coastal enclaves.