Central African

The Central African group includes the Adamawa, Gbaya, Zande, Banda, Ngbandi and Sara, the Baguirmi near Lake Chad, and the Fang and Bulu of the Atlantic forests, who speak Ubangian, Central Sudanic and Bantu languages. Their lands are the savannas and forests between Lake Chad, the Ubangi and the Congo basin.

The Sara kept patrilineal clans, and the Gbaya, who had lived in the region since at least the sixteenth century, came from the Lobaye valley. Southeast of Lake Chad the sultanate of Baguirmi was founded in 1522 under the mbang at Massenya and paid tribute to Bornu until the 1700s. In the early 1700s the Zande took shape through the conquests of the Vungara clan.