"I'm sure you will jump down my throat and try to put words in there saying i am trying to erase or minimize the horrible history and effect old and current of euro-coloniazism in Afrika, but that is not not case here. I am putting this querry out there in hopes of seeing a wholistic picture."

Well I wonder if you put this 'querry' out in hopes that someone might 'jump down your throat', but I'll leave that...

In fact your assumptions about 'tribal war' in pre-colonial Africa are false. This kind of New York Times assumption that 'they' have always been slaughtering one another is pure whitewash.

The word 'tribe' itself was coined by the Europeans during the colonial period in Africa.

The 'tribalism' we see in Africa today rose as a response to the brutalities of colonialism and slavery: as the Europeans drained resources out of the continent and smashed the infrastructure, language and family groups banded together for economic survival, not to mention physical protection.

Then in places like Rwanda for example, the Belgians chose one ethnic group over the other to carry out their 'indirect rule.' In this case, the lighter-skinned, 'Abyssinian' Tutsis were forced to crack the whip over the backs of the dark-skinned Hutus, setting the stage for the horror that continues today. 3.5 million people have died in DR Congo in the past six years as a result in large part of the continuing Hutu-Tutsi conflict. Before the Belgians came, there were no massacres, no slaughters, and in fact Hutus and Tutsis had a hard time telling each other apart.

The 'ethnic conflict' in the Balkans today (Serbs, Bosnians, and so on) has its sources in a very similar situation.

Before the Europeans came, Africans had evolved concepts of civil society and yes even democracy. This is not a romantic view of pre-colonial Africa, it is well-documented.

The division of Africa into 50+ 'nation-states' with unnatural boundaries set the stage for the suffering of Africa today.

"but are there other native problems and attrocities that occured before colonization and continue on to this day that are just black on black crimes period? one tribe killling off a next, stealing goats + cattle, stealing grazing land etc. just like their great great great great grand did before them??"

There have always been conflicts between people, and as in the Native American case, instances of 'tribal war' that involve rituals of males letting off steam and comparing the size of their penis, but NEVER of the horror and magnitude we see today, and that is the point. Did everyone get on perfectly in Africa before colonialism? Ridiculous question, really, and one that reveals a lack of historical understanding. If you really cared about the issue you could have researched it, but instead you pose a carelessly-worded and deliberately provocative question. A question that displays a racist tendency in you no matter what you say about Europeans being responsible.

If you look at a geo-physical map of Africa, it is easy to see that Africa could not have possibly evolved her exemplar civilizations if there was frequent conflict. The scholars say Egypt was stable for 4+thousand years. In reality it was much much longer. In East and West and Central Africa are numerous examples of peoples who worked cooperatively with their neighbors for the most part, because they had to. Africa is an extremely challenging place to live, and if people had been consumed by endless conflicts, they would not have survived. Mass slaughter is Europe's gift to the world, I am sad to say, and there is no escaping the fact.

We have the strangest concept of 'democracy' in this joint. We think because we can vote we have a democracy. In Africa there are numerous examples of hereditary monarchies, the Yoruba and Asante for example, that were set up so that people on the gound were in full control of their lives and their livelihoods, and the kings knew darned well that they were answerable to their people, and if they acted up, they were put out of there. Basil Davidson said that probably the most widespread indigenous idea in African civil society before colonialism was the people's mistrust of those in power, and an understanding that if responsible and engaged citizens of every station did not keep constant vigilance, the leaders were going to start getting stupid. Obviously, we in the US have no such grasp on democracy.

It is an amazing thing when you look at the history to see the bill of goods we have been sold about Africa. Your post is an example of this deep conditioning. The Europeans gut the place, and then report to the world what terrible shape those Africans are in. It is just as true today as 200 years ago. You have all these countries with their pity mercy and charity running to help the 'poor Africans' with one hand, and continuing to rob them with the other.

History is the cure. It makes us smarter about everything, reconnects us with not only our own long evolution as humans, but with our origins in the stars, and deconditions us and innoculates us against all the lies and misinformation we are fed daily. You should try it sometime.

This post of yours absolutely is an attempt to minimize and devalue the history, whether you think so or not. Endless work at self-knowledge is the only way you will be able to know what you're doing.