1. Africa in the Common Era: 2017-18

2. Aim: How did great empires influence the history of Africa?

3. Instructional Objectives
We will be able to:
Describe the characteristics of the kingdoms of West Africa.
Describe how cultural diffusion affected West African religion.
Show My Story DVD: Byzantine Empire
Islamic Civilization
Early Africa Civilization

4. What geographic features affected the African Kingdoms? How?
What geographic features affected the African Kingdoms? How? *

5. African Terms:
desert - a region with plants especially adapted to dry conditions
Sahara - large desert in northern Africa.
trans-Saharan - trade across the Sahara.

6. 7.14 African Political Organization:
kinship - connection among people by blood, marriage, or adoption.
clans - groups of people who share an ancestor.
Kinship groups: Through family groups, Village council = male family heads, Chiefs,
Chiefdoms:
Population growth increased conflict
Organized military forces, around 1000 CE
Powerful chiefs overrode kinship networks and imposed authority.

7. Trade in the Sahara: 7.13
merchant - a person who buys and sells goods for profit; a person who trades goods.
commerce - activities that relate to the buying and selling of goods and services.
Salt would become a major trading commodity (Commerce) for human health and preservation of food.

8. Trade in the Sahara: 7.13 (cont.)
By 100 A.D. farming villages in West Africa would begin to produce surplus.
Surplus food led to labor specialization - the division of jobs and skills in a society.
Surplus food would also be traded with other villages for products.
savanna - a grassland with few trees.
Trade networks would eventually develop linking the Savanna to rainforest regions with trade networks across the Sahara to the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia.

9. Trade in the Sahara: 7.13 (cont.)
In exchange for gold the West Africans would trade salt.
In the savanna, salt was scarce but was abundant in many parts of the Sahara.
With the prospering of this salt and gold exchange, cities emerged along the trade routes with monarchs and kingdoms emerging.

10. Salt:
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11. Trans-Sahara Trade Routes 7.14
Began with Ghana Empire in the 5th century C.E., the Trans-Sahara Trade routes Linked the Mediterranean to African Empires→ supplied gold and salt.
caravan - a large group that travels together. They used camels!
Eventually Africans sent slaves north.
Ghana came to be known as the “Gold Coast.”

12. Empire of Ghana

13. Early trade routes in Ghana 7.14
What geographical feature did the trade routes cross north of Ghana? How do you think goods were transported? What was traded?
Early trade routes in Ghana 7.14 *

14. Trans-Sahara Trade Routes 7.14
Beginning of trade: Ghana
Height of trade: Mali
Decline of trade: Portuguese invaders/Atlantic slave trade

15. Trade Routes:
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16. Songhai Kingdom: 7.13
a West African group of peoples living along the Niger River in the area of Timbuktu and Gao in Mali. The center of their trade was Jenne (7.13).

17. Empire of Mali 7.13
The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa.

18. Mansa Musa: 7.17
“The richest king on the face of the earth by reason of wealth and treasure of [gold].”
Mali’s most famous king and ruled for 25 years.
A Muslim - a person whose religion is Islam; a follower of Islam.
Under rule Mali reached wealth, power, & fame.
Islam spread and he set out to build new mosques.
He led a pilgrimage (a journey) or Hajj (an Islamic religious pilgrimage) to Mecca in 1324. *

19. Mansa Musa mQ

20. African Political Organization: Christian Kingdoms: 7.18
Reached Africa by 1st C.E.
Nubia: Independently Christian until the 13th C.E.
Ethiopia:
Egypt: Were Copts!
Copts constitute the largest Christian community in the Middle East, as well as the largest religious minority in the region.

21. African Political Organization: Islamic Kingdoms 7.18
Islam - a religion which teaches that there is only one God and that Muhammad is God’s prophet; the religion of Muslims.
Islamic Impact:
Active trade with Islamic world (Dar al- Islam)
Islamic world interested in Ghana!
By 11th C. E., Muslims was part of culture in the Savannah.

22. African Political Organization: Islamic Kingdoms 7.13
Timbuktu: Center of Islamic learning.
Young men “kept in irons until they had memorized the entire Qu’ran” (Ibn Battuta)
“Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom come from Timbuktu."
High literacy rate

23. Timbuktu

24. Timbuktu today. The books below are over 400 years old.*

25. Ancient Africa Cities:

26. The importance of written and oral traditions in the transmission of African history and culture: 7.15
Oral Tradition: community’s cultural and historical background, passed down in spoken stories and songs.
Griot: a member of the peoples of western Africa whose function is to keep an oral history of the tribe or village and to entertain with stories, poems, songs, dances, etc.

27. African Political Organization: East Africa 7.13
Swahili
Arabic term meaning “coasters”
Mogadishu to Sofala
Swahili: Bantu derivative language + Arabic
Trade with Muslim merchants
City-States
Chiefs gain power by taxing trade on ports
Ports→city-states governed by kings in 11th and 12th centuries

28. African Political Organization: East Africa: 7.13
Great Zimbabwe
The stone complex known as Great Zimbabwe built in 12th C
18,000 people lived there in the 15th C (some say up to 30,000!)
Kings organized flow of gold, ivory, slaves
Wealth lie in cattle production

29. Africa Review:
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30. Why are we studying this???
Where is Benghazi, Libya, and Mogadishu, Somalia located??

31. Assignment Questions:
Why were these West African Kingdoms so wealthy?
Why did these civilizations develop along the Niger River?
Why was Timbuktu such an important city?
What religion was practiced in all of these kingdoms?
Why is Mansa Musa such an important figure in West African history?

32. The End: