U N I T I I I

ANCIENT AFRICA

AFRICAN RELIGION

• Traditionally African religion was Syncretic• Syncretic can be described as the blending of various ideas

• When Christianity and later Islam arrived, religions were often blended with traditional beliefs

• Can this be a conflict with a Monotheistic religion?

SUDANIC KINGDOMS

GHANA, MALI, SONGHAI

• All three started in the Sahel region around the headwaters of the Niger River

• These Kingdoms acquired wealth by dominating the Trans-Saharan Trade of gold and salt.

• Old world importance of land trade

• Era of pre-European maritime importance

WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT BEING A

“MIDDLE MAN?”

• Conversion to Islam was important for trade relationships

• Arab and Berber traders had salt to the north

• Many groups to the southextracted Gold and produced Ivory

• All the trade empires successfully taxed all goods coming through the Empire.

• They were successful in receiving tribute

GHANA EMPIRE (830-1235 CE)

MALI EMPIRE (1230- 1600 CE)

SONGHAI EMPIRE (1430- 1591 CE)

TRADE NETWORKS

Salt to the north

Gold to the south

MANSA KANKAN MUSA I (MANSA MUSA)

• Very effective ruler, divided the Empire into different provinces

• Mali became an important cultural and intellectual center under Mansa Musa

• Important City of Timbuktu

• Learning and Trade Center

• Pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca1324.

• Brought thousands of solders and hundreds of camels

• Flooded the Egyptian gold market with tribute

• Decrease in value from 10 to 25%

BANTU MIGRATIONS

BANTU MIGRATIONS

• Long complex process

where two groups of

Bantu speakers

eventually linked up

• Bantu based languages

began to dominate the

continent

• This can still be seen today

• The Bantu people

brought new

agricultural practices to

mostly nomadic

peoples

MODERN LANGUAGE FAMILY MAP OF AFRICA

• What language

family has the

most land?

• What is

important about

the Niger River?

SWAHILI CITY-STATES

• A large scale ocean trading network developed on the Indian Ocean • Chinese, Indian and Arab

merchants all began trading on the East African coast

• Swahili Culture was born• A blend of native Bantu

based languages and Arabic

• Islam became the religion of the area

• City-states such as Zanzibar, Mombasa, and Mogadishu became wealthy through trade

COMPARED TO EUROPE

• What happens when there is plenty of land and plentiful trade?

• Europe had more blood shed and all conflict was over land

• Europe’s only source of wealth was land

• European monarchs would envy Ghana, Mali’s and Zanzibar’s resources and wealth

• Mali was an intellectual hub while Europe crawled out of the Dark Ages