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African Culture
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Adam Taylor
Per. 3 AP US History
6-7-04
Chapter 1 Section 3
African Culture I. West Africa
A. Between 400-1500 the great empires of Ghana, Mali, Songhai rose and fell in West Africa.
1. There were based all on the supply and demand of gold and salt.
B. Geography: The Lay of the Land
1. Large territory north Med. Sea, west Alt. Ocean, and south as well.
A. Northern section is the Sahara desert.
1. Edge of the Sahara is the Savannah.
B. Along the west coast is the coast along with rainforest, and the Niger River
home to civilizations.
C. Early merchants used horses, oxen, and donkeys to get across the desert.
1. All that changed when the Arabian people introduced the camel
which carried and traveled more.
A. This took place circa 300-500 A.D.
D. Now trade began with gold, ivory, ostrich feathers, and furs across the desert.
C. Islam and West African Civilizations
1. The trade routes helped spread the ideas of Islam.
A. Islam started spreading in 600 A.D.
B. By 711 A.D. they were known as Muslims and they spread from Middle East
to the Atlantic Ocean.
C. Even the traders in West African where Muslims.
D. The Lure of Gold
1. The demand of gold grew greatly in Northern Africa is the 800’s and 900’s due to the
use of gold coins.
2. The same happened in Europe in 1300’s and two thirds of the gold for Europe and
North Africa came from West Africa. II. The Empires of West Africa
A. The people at the southern edge of the Sahara controlled the gold and salt trade due.
B. Ghana, the earliest empire started in the 4th century B.C.
1. Located between the gold mines of Bambuk (Senegal) and the salt mines of Taghaza.
A. The Soninke where the Ghana people.
B. They grow wealthy when the Muslims conquered North Africa in the 6th and
7th century.
C. With the travel of Muslim merchants on trade routes they built places of
worship called mosques.
D. By the early 1200’s the Ghana empire collapsed.
1. Due to farm failing, new gold mines elsewhere taking the trade away
from them, and the wars with the Muslims in the Sahara.
C. Mali, east of the Ghana the Malinke people who controlled the upper Niger Valley.
1. They came to power by controlling the gold mines of Bure and the Ghana empire.
2. By the mid 1300’s century the Mali empire spread past Timbuktu, and west down
Senegal and Gambia River to the Atlantic Ocean.
3. The ruler of the empire was called the Mansa.
1. The capital city was home to the bureaucracy officers and offices needed to
help the empire.
4. The outlaying villages and towns had their own ruling class.
5. By the 1300 century the Mali empire reached its peak under the rule of the Mansa Musa and his brother Mansa Sulayman.
D. Songhai, the Sorko people, lived along the middle Niger, east of Mali.
1. They controlled the rivers and trade waters due using boats.
2. By the 800’s it had grown into a empire.
3. When it started to declined the ruler Sonni Ali used powerful cavalry and fleet of war canoes to seize Timbuktu
in 1468.
4. Until his death he led attacks until 1492.
1. Attacking the Taghazi mines, and southward down the Niger and captured
Jenne.
2. Sonni Ali’s son lost the throne to a general Askiya Muhammad and he made Timbuktu a great learning center.
3. Songhai remained a great wealthy empire until 1591 when Moroccan troops armed with guns and cannons defeated Songhai’s
armies. III. The Forest Kingdoms of Guinea
A. The jungle here made was home to the small kingdoms of Ife and Benin.
1. The Yoruba of Ife and Edo of Benin were farmers, hunters, and traders living in small
villages.
2. They had very rich farm so they had surplus food that allowed them to trade for salt
and gold and have time for skilled workers of other
sorts like artisans.
3. The people of Benin created a large walled in city that was ruled by the Oba.
1. In mid 1400’s the Oba Ewuare built a large army and gained control of land from the Niger delta west of the
current city of Lagos, Nigeria is today.
4. After the conquering the local chiefs where replaced and some of the people where sold
to the Portuguese.
1. Later in the 1700s they had a civil war lost and they were sold off to the
Portuguese. IV. Central and Southern Africa.
1. Lived in the rainforest, and they farmed, and fished a lot.
2. They were matrilineal, meaning they traced their heritage through the women.
3. Women farmed, and men hunted.
4. The chief’s daughters son was the one to come to power.
5. The Kongo empire came to in the 1400.
6. By the early 1500’s Kongo king ruled a large area from the Atlantic Ocean to the Kwango River. V. Slavery
A. Started by African tribes by people captured in wars, criminals, and people in debt.
1. A lot of times they were let free after hard work, but with the Arab merchants they
started to sell them.
B. The Gold Trade
1. The Akan people began mining gold in Mali using enslaved African work force to do
the work.
2. In the early 1400s the Portuguese traded slaves for gold with the Akan people.
C. Sugar and Slavery
1. In the 1100 the Muslims showed the Europeans sugarcane and caused the demand for
sugar because 20 percent of their intake a day was sugar
calories.
2. Europeans set up sugarcane plantations on Cyprus and Sicily.
3. But to get the production they needed they needed a large work force so came the idea
of slaves.
4. The first people were Muslims and Slavic people.
5. The increase of demand in 1400s caused Spain and Portugal to plant on the Madeira
Islands and the Canary Islands.
6. This is were they first used African slaves.