Oni of Ife. Bronze striated head (marked with str ipes, grooves, or ridges in parallel lines) showing an Oni of Ife, thirteenth to fourteenth century. (C hrry ThompsonJ

(

Th • . '" Dry< of A and

Am. {ca . • WI; archil

• • • • '. • • • • • • • • • • • •

~c ~,;"'l.~:to'ljfGi~;':<i:-~!':;1·'L - :.L },~%~#'ttmrna: ;.

Chapter Preview

e Land and Peoples of Africa ,'I hat patterns of social and political

:-;;anization prevailed among the peoples :~ ~ frica, and what types of agriculture ='--.J commerce did Africans engage in?

. can Kingdoms and Empires ca. 800-1450)

',nat values do Africans' art, =,"='1itecture, and religions express?

AFRI(AN SO(IETIES AND KINGDOMS, (A. 400-1450

ntil fairly recently, ethnocentrism and racism lim­ited what the outside world knew about Mrica. But as recent scholarship has allowed us to learn more about early Mrican civilizations, we can now appreciate the richness, diversity, and dynamism of those cultures. We know now that between about 400 and 1500, some highly centralized, bureauc­

ratized, and socially stratified civilizations developed in Mrica alongside communities that had a looser form of social organization and func­tioned as lineage or descent groups.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • THELANDAND PEOPLES OF AFRI(A

What patterns of social and political organization prevailed among the peoples of Africa, and what types of agriculture and commerce did Africans engage in?

Mrica is immense. The world's second largest continent (af- J ter Asia), it covers 20 percent of the earth's land surface. ,~ Five climatic zones roughly divide the continent (see Map 9.1 ). Fertile land with unpredictable rainfall borders parts of the Mediterranean coast in the north and the southwestern coast of the Cape of Good Hope in tl1e south. Inland from these areas lies dry steppe country with little plant life. The steppe gradually gives way to Mrica's great deserts: the Sa­hara in the north and the Namib and Kalahari in the south. The vast Sahara-3.5 million square miles-tal<:es its name

from the Arabic word for "tan," the color of the desert. (Folk etymology ascribes the word Sahara to an ancient Arabic word that sounds like a parched man's gasp for wa-ter.) The Sahara's southern fringe is called the Sahel. The Savanna-flat grassland-extends in a swath across the widest

part of the continent, across parts of south-central Mrica and along the eastern coast. It is one of the richest habitats in the world,

229

~ -"~"1

'~~

.;

CHAPTER 9 African Societies and Kingdoms, ca. 400-1450

accounting for perhaps 55 pcrcent of the African continent. Dense, humid tropici rain forests stretch along coastal West Africa and on both sides of the equator in cen­tral Africa. Africa's climate is mostly tropical , with subtropical climates limited to th~ northern and southern coasts and to regions of high elevation . Rainfall is seasonal or. most of the continent and is very sparse in desert and semidesert areas.

Geography and climate have significantly shaped African economic developmem. In the eastern African plains, the earliest humans hunted wild animals. The dri~r steppe regions favored herding. Wetter Savanna regions, like the Nile Valley, encour­aged grain-based agriculture. Tropical forests favored hunting and gathering and_ later, root-based agriculture . Rivers and lakes supported economics based on fishing

Africa 's peoples arc as diverse as the continent's topography. In North Africa, con­tacts with Asian and Euro(Xan civilizations date back ro the ancient Phoenicians. Greeks, and Romans. The native Berbers, living along the Mediterranean, have inter­mi ngled with many difTerent peoples-with Muslim Arabs, who fi rst conquered North Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries C.E.; wi th Spanish Muslims and Jews, mam of whom settled in North Africa after their expulsion from Spain in 1492 (sec pag~ 402 ); and with sub-Saharan blacks.l The peoples living along the east, or Swahili_ COaSt developed a mariti me civilization and had rich commercial contacts \\~th south­ern Arabia, the Persian Gulf, India, China, and the Malay Archipelago.

Black Africans inhabited the region south of the Sahara, an area of savanna and rair. forest. The ancient Greeks called them Ethiopians, which means "(Xople ,,~th burn;: faccs.'"' The Berbers coined the term Akal-n-Iquillawell. which survives today as Gllil1~a. The Arabs introduced another term, Bilad al-Sudall. which survives as SlIdan. The Ber· ber and Arab terms both mean "land of the blacks." Short-statured peoples, sometim~ inaccuratcly referred to as Pygmies, inhabited the equatorbl rain fo rests. South ofthoSt forests, in the continent's southern third, lived the Khoisall, a small people ofyello\~­brown skin color who primarily were hunters bur also had domesticated livestock.

Egypt, Africa, and Race

Popular usage of the term race has often been imprecise and inaccurate. Unfortu· nately, the application of general characteristics and patterns of behavior to people!­based on perceptions o f physical diffen:nces is o ne of the legacies of imperialism an..: colonialism. Anthropologists insist that when applied to geographical, national, reb gioLls, linguistic, or cultural gro ups, the concept of race is inappropriate and has bee; refuted by tbe scientific data. But tbe issue of race continues ro engender fierce de· bate, as the example of Egypt shows.

Geographically, Egypt is obviously a part of the African continent. But from the days of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who visited E~1'~ (see page 8), down to the present, scholars have vigorously, e\'en ,~olently, debate.:. whether racially and culturally Egypt is part of the Mediterranean world or part of African world. Were Egyptians of the first century 8.C.E.-who made enormous con· tributions to the Western world in architecture (the pyramids), mathematics, philoso phy (the ideas of Socrates), science, and religion (the idea of divine kingship )-bl.1u.. people? The late Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop argued that much Western his· torical writing since the eighteenth century has been a "European racist plot" to de· stroy evide nce showing that the people of the pharaohs were black . Diop and Iu.. followers in Africa and the United States have amassed arch itectural and linguistic C\l·

dence, as well as a small mountain of quotations from Greek and Roman writers an..: from the Bible, to insist that the ancient Egyptians belonged to the black race. DiOf claimed to ha\'e examined the skin of ancient Egyptian mummies and said that on the­basis of " infallible scientific techniques ... the epidermis of those mummies was pi£: mented in the same way as that of all other (sub-Saharan) African negroes. "2

c §

G

or· th, ph _'I; pI. p" , -th, m, no th, th, E~ -wI"

A hok .::om .::i,il the : ncar Cllr

rhis, In

.mn be'n Impc _'lam their Turk:

Earl

Agric culti\· Delta down dan . .E It Spre dudin people burnir on roc

. "'-gainst this view, another group of scholars holds :hat the ancient Egyptians were Caucasians. They be­Ec,'e that Phoenician, Berber, Libyan, Hebrew, and Greek peoples populated Egypt and created its civiliza­::ion. These scholars claim that Diop badly misunder­~:ood the evidence. For example, whereas Diop relied m the book of Genesis to support his thesis, his de­

:r-.1ctors argue that the Hebrew Scriptures are not an m thropological treatise but a collection of Hebrew, .\lcsopotamian, and Egyptian legends concerned with :.';e origins of all human peoples-by which the He­:-rcw writers meant ethnic groups, not racial groups in :''1e twentieth-century sense. They point Ollt that the ;haraohs of the first century B.C-E. descended from the .\ Iacedonian generals whom Alexander the Great had ;;.1ced over Egypt. They were white. A few scholars ? ,esenting a "white thesis" assert that Egypt exercised :. -ci\'ilizing mission" in sub-Saharan Africa. Genetic =..';eories, perhaps inevitably, have been challenged on :D.my fronts, notably an archaeological one that proves :lO direct Egyptian influence in tropical Africa. Rather, :'le eddence suggests that indigenous cultures south of :,,-e Sahara developed independently, without any E~yp[ian influence. Both the "black thesis" and the -.".,hite thesis" arc extremist .

.\ third proposition, perhaps the most plausible, - ,Ids that ancient Egypt, at the crossroads of three

-

The Land and Peoples of Africa at' •

ca. 600 Christian missionaries COIl\'en Nubian rulc~

642 Muslim conquests of Egypt; Islam spreads throughout

Mrica

650-1500 Slave tnde from sub-Sahann Africa 10 {he

Medi ternnean

700-900 Berbers develop caravan routes

ca. 900-1100 Kingdom of Ghana; bananas and plantains arrive in Africa from Asia

ca. 1200-1450 Kingdom of Mali

ca. 1312-1337 Reign of t\-1ansa ,\-Iusa in Mali

1314-1344 Reign of Amda Siyon in Ethiopia

1324-1325 Mansa Mus;!.'s pilgrimage 10 !\-\ccca

~~,ntinents, was a melting pot of different cultures and peoples. To attribute Egyptian .:nilization to anyone group is blatant racism. t\olany diverse peoples contributed to :j,~ great achievements of Egyptian culture. Moderate scholars belie\'e that black M ­-:..::.ms resided in ancient Egypt, primarily in Upper Egypt (south of what is now '.liro), but that other racial groups constituted the majority of the populatio n.3 On

::.:lis complex issue, the jury is still Ollt. In the seventh and early eighth centuries, the Arabs conquered all of North Africa,

:ll.ing control of Egypt between 639 and 642 (see page 194); ever si nce, Egypt has :-cen an integral part of the Muslim world. Egypt's strategic location and commercial '::1portance made it a logical target for Crusaders in the Middle Ages. In 1250 the .\ lantluks, a military warrior caste that originated in Anatolia, took over Egypt. With t.'1cir slave soldiers, the Mamluks ruled ulltil they were overthrown by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.

Early African Societies _\griculture began very early in Africa. Archaeologists suggest that knowledge of plant ~'UI [i \'ation moved west from ancient Judaea (southern Palestine), arriving in the Nile ~1 [;1 in Egypt about the fifth millennium B.C.E. Settled agriculture then traveled .rown the Nile Valley and moved west across the Sahel to the central and western Su­.::.tn. By the first century B.C.E., serried agriculture existed in West Africa. From there -: spread to the equatorial forests. Mrican farmers learned to domesticate plants, in­.::Juding millet, sorghum , and yams . Cereal-growing people probably taught forest ?Cople to plant regular fields. Gradually Mrican farmers also learned to dear land by :'urning. They evolved a sedentary way of life: living in \~lIages, clearing fields, relying )n root crops, and fishing.

CHAPTER 9 African Societies and Kingdoms, ca. 400-1450

Tassili Rock Painting This r.ceoe af cottle grazing neor the group af huts !represented on the left by stylized while ovols) (eRects the domesticotion of animals and the development of settled p(ulorol agriculture. Women and children seem 10 perform mast af the domes· tic chores. Tassili is a mountainous region in the Sahara. (/-kInri thole, Monlrichord, FrcmceJ

Between 1500 and 1000 B.C.E., settled agriculture also spread southward from Ethiopia along the Rift Valley of presem-day Kenya and Tanzania. Archaeological evi­dence reveals that the peoples of this regioll grew cereals, raised cartle, and lIsed wooden and stone tools. Cattle raising spread more quickly than d id planting. Early African peoples prized cattle highly. Many trading agreemems, marriagc allian""&s, political compacts, and treaties were negotiated in terms of cattlc.

Cereals such as millet and sorghum are indigenous to Africa. Scholars speculate that t raders brought bananas, taros (a type of )'am), sugar cane, and coconut palms to Af­rica from Southeast Asia. Because tropical forest conditions were ideal for banana trees, thei r cultivation spread rapidly; they were easier to raise than ccreal grains. Afri­cans also domesticated donkeys, pigs, chickens, geese, and ducks.

The evolution to a settled life had profound effICcts. In contrasl to nomadic condi­tions, settled societies made shared or common needs more apparent, and those needs strengthened ties among eXtended f;l. milics. Population also increased:

The change from a 1lIlIIler-glltlterer economy 10 a settledfarming economy affecled I)Opllla­lion /llImbers . ... What remaills wlce/'win is whether in Ihe agriculwral economy there were more people, helter fed. or more people, less well fed . ... In precolollial Africa agri­cllllural and pa~'lOral poplIlaliolls may 1101 haw! increased steadily oller time, bill flucmaled cyclically, growing (Ind deC/ining, ,"ollgh overall slowly growing. 4

Scholars dispute the route by which iron working spread to sub-Saharan Africa. Some belic\'e the Phoenicians brought the iron-smelting technique to northwestern Africa, from where it spread southward. Others insist it spread from the Meroe region on the Nile westward. Most ofWlCst Africa had acquired knowledge of iron working by 250 B.C.E., however, and archaeologists believe I"leroe achieved pre-eminence as an iron -smelting center only in the first century R.C .E. Thus a strOllger case can prob­ably be made for the Phoenicians. The great trans-Saharan trade rou tes may have car­ried ironworking south from the Mediterranean coast. In any case, ancient iron tools found at the village ofNok on the Jos Plateau in present-day Nigeria seem to prove a

I.!odei'(f -'. / ,.­","", ;: "Taghaza

,---< ..

" EUROPE ,~

~ , " .' ! ? I Block Sea

/' - ~ "!f ,_ ,<:: •• ~. ,,"

,/ ''4l,.~ .-TASSIU

AHAGGAR • Ghat

"4/f'diterraneon Sea

~ AlelUlndria- ' . Ceilo

EGYPT ~

.' '!: ~o ..

"". ~

8wa .

ARABIA

PERSIA

· ShiraI

"'- _~.-' G./I.

-

c "'~.

r~ &:-:.

1r" , "

o

:fr"

Awdaghost SA HARA TUAREG AIR

~

t . """ "''''

Gull of Guinea

ATLANTIC

o C E AN

_____ Spre<!d of Bantu-speakers

Major climatic l ones of Africa

U ... et equatorWil o Humid tropical and subtropical

o Tropicl!l with long dfY season (6-9 rnonms)

Sahefoan Of subdesert

Do.,,, !II Mediterranean ~ (cIitn3le moderated by altitude)

D~annah

.. "" NUBWIS ~ •

knowledge of ironworking in West Africa. The Nok culture, which enjoys enduring fame for its fine terra-cotta (baked day) sculptures, fl ourished from about 800 B.C.E. to 200 C.E.

Bantu Migrations The spread of iron working is linked to the migrations of Banru -speaking peoples. To­day the overwhelming majority of the 70 million people living south of rhe Congo River speak a Bantu language . Because very few Muslims or Europeans penetrated into the interior, very few wrinen sources for the early history of central and southern Africa survive. Lacking written sources, modern scholars have tried to reconstfllct rhe history of the Bantu-speakers on the basis oflinguistics, oral traditions (rarely reliable

INDIAN

DC E AN

t fl rR,' ,

" ~I ii.IJ' ,\ ,',\11

~'~it J ..... ~.",

'~;'i # ~

o ' 00 800 Km. I ! I I I o 400 800 IW.

.... n x·at Africa Before ,sao A.uito'~ dimo\e !O!'le~ have olwoy~ played 0 critical role in the history of the continent and its peoples. These zanes mirror each other north and sauth 01 the equator: tropical forest, savannah, subdeserl, desert, and tJ.edik!p raneen climate. Note olsa how the Bontu-speakers left the savannah 01 central West Africa, moved through the tropical forest at the equator, and reached the savannah 01 east­ern and southern Africa .

233

CHAPTER 9 African Societies and Kingdoms, ca. 400-1450

beyond three hundred years back), and archaeology. The word Bantll is a linguistic classification, and linguistics (the study of the nature, structure, and modification

of human speech) has helped scho lars explain the migratory patterns of African peoples cast and south of the equatorial forest. There are hundreds of Bantu languages, including Zulu, Sotho, and Xhosa, which are part of the southern African linguistic and cultural nexus. Swahili is spoken in eastern , and to a lim-

'-.! ited extent centr:ll, Africa. ~:';)'''iii;. Bantu·speaking peoples originated in the Benue region , the borderlands of

Nok Woman Hundreds of lerro-cotta sculptures such as the head of this ~n wrvive from the f'..IoII culture, which originated in the cenlml plateau of northern Nigeria in the firsl millennium B.C.E. (NotioooJ Museum, Logos, Nigeria/Wemer For­moll Archive; Art ReSO\lrce, NY)

Bantu The ,uople living ill Af­rica south of the COllgo Ril'er who s,uak a Balltu language.

Sudan The Africa /! regioll sur­rounded by the Sahara. the Gulf of Guinea. the Atlllntic Oceall. alld the mOlintaillS of Ethiopia.

modern Cameroon and Nigeria . In the second millennium B.C.E ., they began to spread south and cast into the forest zone of equatorial Africa. From there, groups moved onto the Savanna along the lower Congo River. Since: they had words for fishing, fishhooks, fish traps, dugout canoes, paddles, yams, and goats, linguists assume that they were fishermen and that they cultivated rOOts. Because initially they lacked words for grains and cattlc herding, they probably were not involved in those activities.

During the next fifteen hundred years, Bantu·speakers migrated throughou t the Savanna, adopted mixed agriculture, and learned ironworking. Mixed agriculture

(cultivating cereals and raising livestock) and ironworking were pr:lcticed in western East Africa (the region of modern Burundi ) in the first century B.C.E.

In the first millennium C. E., Bamu-speakers migrated into eastern and southern Africa. They did no t displace earlier peoples but assimilated with them. The earlier inhabitants gradually adopted a Bantu language.

The settled cultivation of ccreals and the keeping of livestock, together with intermarriage with indigenous peoples, apparently led over a long time to con­siderable population increases and the need to migrate further. The so-called Bantu migrations should not be seen as a single movement of cultivating, iron\\"ork.ing, Bantu-speaking black people sweeping across Africa from west to east and d isplacing all peoples in their path . Rather, those migrations were "a se ries of interrelated diffu· sions and syntheses, as small groups of Bantu·speakers interactcd with preexisting peoples and new technical developments to produce a range of distinct cultural syn­theses across rhe southern half of Africa. "5

The Bantu-speakers' expansion and subsequent land settlement that dominated the first millennium and a half C.E. of eastern and southern African history was uneven. Enormous differences in the quality of the environment conditioned settlement. Some regions were well watered; others were very arid. This situation resulted in very un­even population distribution. The largest concentration of people seems to have becn in the region bounded on the west by the Congo River and on the north, south, and cast by Lakes Edward and Victoria and Mount Kilimanjaro, comprising parts of mod· ern Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania. There the agricultural system rested on sorghum and yam cultivation. Between 900 and 1100, bananas and plantains (a starch)' form of the banana) arrived Cram Asia. Because little effort was needed for their cultivation and the yield was much higher than for yams, bananas soon became the staple crop. The rapidly growing Bantu-speaking population led to furt her migration southward and easnvard.6 By the eighth century Bantu-speaking people had reached the region of present-day Zimbabwe, and by the fifteenth century Africa's southeastern coast.

Kingdoms ofthe Western Sudan (ca. 1000 8.c.,.-1500 CE.)

The Sudan is that region bounded by the Sahara to the no rth , the GulfofGuinca to the south , the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the mountains of Ethiopia to the east. In the Savanna of the western Sudan- where the Bantu migrations originatcd- a se­ries of dynamic kingdoms emerged in the millenni um before European intrusion.

Between 1000 B.C.E. and 200 C. E. , the peoples or thc western Sudan made the mo­mCl1[ous shift from nomadic hunting to settled agriculture. The rich Savanna proved ideally suited to the prod uction of cereals, especially rice, millet, and sorghum. People

The Land and Peoples of Africa 31'. situated ncar the Senegal River and Lake Chad supplemented their diet with fish. Food supply affects population, and the peoples of the region-known as the Mande­speakers and the Chadic-speakers, or Sao-increased dramatically in number. By 400 C.E. the entire Savanna, particularly the areas arOUt,d Lake Chad, the Niger River bend, and present-day central Nigeria (see Map 9.1), had a large population .

Families and clans affiliated by blood kinship li\'ed together in villages or small city­states. The basic social unit was the extended family. A chief, in consultation with a council of elders, governed a village . Some villages seem to have fo rmed kingdoms. \-iJlage chiefs were responsible to regional heads, who answered to provincial gover­nors, who in turn were responsible to a king. The chiefs and their families formed an .uistocracy.

Kingship in the Sudan rna)' have emerged from the priesthood , whose members we re believed to make rain and to have contact with spirit powers . African kings al­ways had religious sanction or support for their authority and were often considered ,jj\·ine. In this respect, early African kingship bears a strong resemblance to Germanic Wlgship o f the same period: the king's authority rested in part on the ruler's ability :0 negotiate with outside powers, sueh as the gods.

:\frican religio ns were animistic and polytheistic. Most people believed that a su­::,reme being had created the universe and was the source of all life. The supreme be­.ng breathed spirit into all living things, and the anima, or spirit, residing in such ::lings as trees, water, and earth had to be appeased. During the annual agricultural .:-.-.::\e, for example, all the spirits had to be propitiated from the time of clearing the ,;.l.:,d through sowing the seed to the fi nal harvest. Because special ceremonies were 'X.::essary to satisfY the spirits, special priests with the knowledge and power to com­~unicate wid, them through sacred rituals were needed . Thus the heads of families md \illages were likel), to be priests. Each fumily head was responsible fo r maintain­::g the fumily ritual cults-<:eremonies honoring the dead and living membe rs of ::.::e fa mily.7

In sum, the most prominent feature o f early African society was a strong sense of .. "Ommuniry based on blood relationship and on religion. Extended families made up ::J.e \'illages that collectively formed small kingdoms. What spurred lhe expansion of :±:ese small kingdoms into formidable powers controlling sizable territory was the de ­.dopment of long-disrance trade. And what made long-distance or trans-Saharan ::-ade possible was the camel.

The Trans-Saharan Trade '!be expression " trans·Saharan trade" refe rs to the north-south trade across the Sa­:uta (see Map 9.2 ). The camd had an impact on this trade comparable to the very

poftallt impact of the horse all European agriculture. Although scholars dispute :::Llctly when the camel was introduced from Central Asia-first into Nordl Africa, ::xn into the Sahara and the Sudan-they agree that it was before 200 C.E. Camels .:::&::l carry about five hundred pounds as fa r as twenty-fi ve miles a day and can go fo r -Z\"!i without drinking, living on the water stored in their stomachs. Sometimes stupid .oj \-icioLlS, camels had to be loaded on a daily, sometimes twice -daily, basis. And -~..:h of the cargo fo r a lo ng trip was provisions for the journey itsel f. Nevertheless, ..::..::::leis proved more efficient fo r desert transportation than horses o r oxen, and the

of this beast to carry heavy and bulky freigh t not only brought economic and so­......... .::hange to Africa but also affected the development o f world co mmerce.

Someti me in the fifth century, the North African Berbers fashioned a saddle fo r use ::tc camel. This saddle had no direct effect on commercial operations, for a mer­

-l:r.! usually walked and guided the camd on foot. But the saddle gave the Berbers a:. i...ater the region's Arabian inhabitants maneuverability on the animal and thus a

-cful political and military advantage: they came to dominate the desert and to

....... lucrative romes across it. The Berbers determined who could enter the desert ,

Berbers NOflh African {lco/,Ies who were Ihe firs/to de"e!op saddles for use 011 Ihe camel.

CHAPTER 9 African Societies and Kingdoms, ca. 400-1 450

and they extracted large sums of protection money from merchant caravans in ex­change for a safe trip.

Iktween 700 and 900 C.E., the Berbers developed a network of caravan routes be­tween the Mediterranean coast and the Sudan (sec Map 9.1 ). The Morocco-Niger rome ran from Fez to Sijilmassa on the desert's edge and then south by way of Tag­haza and Walata and back to Fez. Another route originated at Sijilmassa and extended due south to Timbuktu with a stOp at Taghaza. A third route ran south from Tripoli to Lake Chad. A fourth ran from Egypt to Gao by way o f the Saharan oases of Ghat and Agades and then o n to Takedda.

The long expedition across the Sahara testifies to the spirit of the traders and to their passion for wealth. Because of the blistering sun and da~'1:ime temperatures reachi ng 110 degrees, caravan drh'ers preferred night travel , when temperatures might drop to the low 20s. Ibn B,muta, an Arab traveler in the fourteenth century when the trade was at its height, left us one of the best descriptions of the trans-Saharan traffic (see page 213 ).

Nomadic raiders, the Tuareg Berbers, posed a serious threat. The Tuaregs lived in the desert uplands and preyed on the caravans as a way of life. Thus merchants made safe -conduct agreements with them and selected guides from among them. Caravans of twelve thousand camels were reported in the fourteenth century. Large numbers of merchants crossed the desert together to discourage attack. Blinding sandstorms o f­ten isolated part of a line o f camels and on at least one occasion buried alive some camels and drivers. Water was the biggest problem. The Tuaregs sometimes poisoned wells to wipe out caravans and steal their goods. To s3tisfy normal thirst and to com­pensate for constant sweating, each person required a galion of water per day. Desper­ate thirst sometimes forced the traders to kill camels and drink tbe fOLll, brackish water in their stomachs. It took Ibn Battuta twenty-five days to travel from Sijilmassa to the oasis ofTagbaza and another sixty-five days to travel from Taghaza to the impo rtant market town ofWalata.

The Arab-Berber merchants from North Africa who controlled the caravan trade carried manufuctured goods-silk and cotton cloth, beads, mirrors-as well as dates and salt (essential in tropical climates to replace the loss from perspiration) from the Saharan oases and mines to the Sudan. These products were exchanged for the much­covered commodities of the West African savanna- gold , ivory, gum, kola nuts (eaten as a stimulant ), and captive slaves.

The steady growth of trans-Saharan trade had three important effects on West Af­rican society Tbe trade stimu lated gold mining and the search for slaves. Parts of modern-day Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana contained rich veins of gold . Both sexes shared in mining it. Men sank the shafts, hacked ou r gold -bearing rocks, and crushed them, separating the gold from the soil. Women washed the gold in gourds. Alluvial gold (mixed with soil, sand, or gravel ) was separated from the soil b)' panning. Scholars estimate that by the eleventh century nine tons were exported to Europe annually- a prodigious amount for the time, since even with modern machinery and sophisticated techniques, [he total gold exports from the same region in 1937 amounted to only twenty-one tons. A large percentage of this metal went to Egypt. From there it was transported down the Red Sea and eventually to India (sec Map 8.2 on page 2 10 ) to pay for the spices and si lks demanded by Mediterrancan commerce. West African gold proved "absolutely vital for the monetization of the medieval Mediterranean economy and for the maintenance of its balance of payments with South Asia."8 African gold linked the entire world , exclusive of the Western Hemisphere.

Slaves were West Africa 's second mOSt valuable export (after gold). African slaves, like their earl), European and Asian counterpans, seem to have been peoples captured in war. In the Muslim cities of North Africa, southern Europe, and southwestern Asia , there was a high demand fo r household slaves among the elite. Slaves also worked the gold and salt mines. Recent research suggests, moreo\"er, that large numbers of black slaves were recruited through the trans-Saharan trade for Muslim military service.

... -- - -- - -

• j • I • • • • • • I • II;

The land and Peoples of Africa 00. YEARS

Table 9.1 Estimated Magnitude of Trans·Saharan Slave Trade, 650-1 500

ANNUAL AVERAGE OF SLAVES TRADED TOTAL

650-800 1,000 150,000 --_._._ .. - .. _ .. _ ... _ ... _ ... _ .. _. __ ._._--_._ .. __ ._-_._ ... _ .... _ •... -800-900 3,000 300,000

900-1100 8,700 1,740,000 -_ .... _ .. _ .. _ ... _ . __ .. _._._ ... _ .. _ .. _-_._ .. _ .. _ ... _-_ .. _.'-"'-"-"-"-"'-"-"-'-' 1100-1400 5,500 1,650,000 --_. __ ... _ .. _._ ..... _ .. _ .. __ .. __ .. __ ... __ ._._._. __ ._ .. _._ .. __ ._ .... _ ... _ .... _. 1400-1500 4,300 430,000

Solorce: From R. A. Ausu:n, ~The Trans-Saharan Slal'e Trade: A Tentative Census," in The t:ncommon Market: Es5ays ;n the Econom;c H;story of the Atlallt;, Sialle Trade, ed. H. A. Geme£)' and J. S. Hogendorn (New York: Academk Press, 1979). Used with permission.

".7 f. , ,"1'4;' 't"l'l , ... ~,·:t-':T i t] ru-..o .lJ, [ .. ' at rn

::-Yt death rates from disease, man umission , and the assimilation of some blacks into ·!:.:slim society meant that the demand for slaves remained high for centuries. Table : $hows one scholar's tentative conclusions, based on many kinds of evidence, about

::x scope of the trans-Saharan slave trade. The total number of blacks enslaved over .or: S50-year period may be tentatively estimated at mo re than 4 million.9

SI.l\"ery in Muslim societies, as in European and Asian countries before the fifteenth ..::::.rury, was no t based on skin color. Muslims also enslaved Caucasians who had been :"W"chased, seized in war, or kidnapped from Europe. Wealthy Muslim households in \..ordoba, Alexandria, and Tunis often incl uded slaves of a nu mber of races, all of

:tom had been completely cut off from their cultural rOOlS. Likewise, West African cngs who sold blacks [Q no rthern trnders also bought a few white slaves-Slavic, Bri t· ~'"t. and Turkish-for their domestic needs. Race had little [Q do with the phenome ­~n of slavery. lo

The trans-Saharan trade also stimulated the development of vigorous urban centers =t West Mrica. Scholars date the growth of African cities from around the early ninth :cntury. Families that had profited from trade tended to congregate in the border zones between the Savanna and the Saharn. They acted as middlemen between the :nine rs [Q the south and Muslim merchants from the no rth. By the early thirteenth .:cntury, these families had become powerful blaek merchant dynasties. Muslim trad · C":"S fro m the Mediterranean settled permanently in the trading depots, from which ::tey organized the trans-Saharan caravans. The concentration of people stimulated l.griculture and the craft industries. Gradually cities of sizable population emerged . .. enne, Gao, and T imbuktu , which enjoyed commanding positions on the Niger River :<nd, became centers of the export-import trade. Sijilmassa grew into a thriving mar­ut center. Kumbi, with berween fifteen thousand and twenty thousand inhabitants,

as probably the largest city in the western Sudan in the twelfth century. (By Euro­:-can standards, Kumbi was a metropolis; London and Paris achieved its size o nly in :...'te late thirteenth century. ) Between 1100 and 1400, these cities played a dynamic ~1c in the commercial life of West Mrica and Europe and became centers ofintellec­:ual creativity.

Perhaps the mOSt influential consequence of the trans-Saharan trade was the intro­"::'uction of Islam [Q West M rican society. In the eighth century, Arab invaders overran .ill of coastal North Mrica. The Berbers living there gradually became Muslims. As :raders, these Berbe rs carried Islam to sub· Saharan West Africa, the region known in . Vabic as Bilad ai-Sudan, "Land of the Blacks." From the eleventh century onward,

Primary Source: The Book of Routes and Rea lms This QCCo/lnt by lIIl Isft/mic geogral,her Iflls how t! gllest of the king ofGhant! lIl"ened a drought. lind thereby led the king 10 llCCepl 1$1(1111 .

CHAPTER 9 African Societies and Kingdoms, ca. 400-1450

Mogadishu A Muslim port city jowlded between the eighth and tellth eel/turies; lodoy it is the capiwl oj Somalia.

stateless societies Ajrican societies bound together by ethnic or blood ties rather Ihml being political states.

mi litalll Almoravids, a coalition offund:lmentalist western Sah:lran Berbers, preached Isl3l11 to the rulers afGhan:l, Mali, Songh:ti, and Kanem-Bornu , who, admiring Mus· lim administrative techniques :lnd w:lnting to protect their kingdoms from Muslim attacks, accepted Isl3mic conversio n. Some merchants also sought to preserve their elite mercantile status by adopting Islam. By the tenth century, l\oluslim Berbers con · trolled the north-SOllth trade routes to the S:lv:lnna. By the eleventh century, African ru lers of Gao and Ti mbuktu had accepted Islam. The king of Gh:lna was also influ · enced by Islam. Muslims quickly became integral to West African government and so· ciety. Hence in the period from roughly 1000 to 1400, Islam in West Africa was a class-based rdigion with conversion inspired by political or economic motives. Ru ral people retained their traditional animism.

Conversion to Islam introduced West Africans to a rich and sophisticated cultu re By the late eleventh century, Muslims were guiding the ruler of Ghana in the opera· tion of his administr.ltive machinery. The king of Ghana :ldopted the Muslim diwan. the agency for keeping financial records (see page 196 ). Because efficient government depe nds on the preservation of records, the arrival of Islam in West Africa marked the advent of written documents there. Arab Muslims also taught the rulers of Ghana how to manufacture bricks, and royal palaces and mosques began to be built of brick. African rulers corresponded with Muslim architects, theologians, and other intellectu­als, who advised them on statecraft and religion. Islam acccler.lted the development of the West African empires of the ninth through fifteenth centuries.

After the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 642 (sec page 194), Islam spread southward from Egypt up the Nile Valley and west to Darfur and Wadai . This Muslim penetra· tion came not by mili tary force bur, as in the tr.lns-Saharan tr.lde routes in West Af· rica, by gr.ldual commercial passage.

Muslim expansion from the Arabian peninsula across the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa, then southward along the coast of East Africa, represents a third direction of Islam's growth in Africa. From ports on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, maritime tr.lde carried the Prophet's teachings to East Africa and the Indian Ocean. Muslims fou nded the port city of Mogadishu, today Som:llia's capitaL In the nvclfth century. Mogadishu developed into a Muslim sultanate, a monarchy that employed a slave military corps against foreign and domestic enemies. Archaeological evidence , con­firmed by Arabic sources, reveals a r.lpid Islamic expansion along Africa's cast coast in the thirteenth century. Many settlers came fro m Yemen in the southern Arabian pen­insula, and one fumily set up the Abul -Mawahib dynast), in Kilwa.1l Ibn Battuta dis­covered a center for Islamic law when he visited Kilwa in 1331.

. . . . . . . --. . . . . . . . . . . . . AFRI(AN KI NGDOMS AND EMPIRES «A 800-1450)

What values do Africans' art, architecture, and religions express?

All Mrican societies shared o ne basic feature: a close relationship between poli tical and social organization. Ethnic or blood tics bound clan members together. What scholars call stateless societies were culturally homogeneous ethnic societies. The smallest o nes numbered fewer than :I hundred people and were no madic hunting groups. Larger stateless societies of perhaps several thousand people lived a settled and often agricultural or herding life .

The period from about 800 to 1450 witnessed the fl owering of several powerntl African states. In the western Sudan , the large empires of Ghana and Mali developed, complete with large royal bureaucracies. On the cast coast emerged powerful city· states based on sophisticated mercantile acth·ities and , like Sudan, vcry much influ · enced by Islam. In Ethiopia, in centr.ll East Mrica, kings rel ied 0 11 the Christian fuith