African Civilization
EQs:
1) How did geography influence Africa’s development?
2) Where were Africa’s trading kingdoms?
3) How was Islam introduced to Africa?
4) Who was Mansa Musa?
Africa’s Geography & Its Effects
• Remember, 40-40-10-10 (varied climates
& terrains)!
• Hardly any usable natural harbors
• Interior is a high plateau = rivers flow down
to the coast & are filled w/ rapids
• Travel is difficult & done mainly to trade
• Geographic diversity & natural barriers
lead to numerous cultures being
developed
Traditional Societies
• Village gov’t
– Power shared among community members
– Village decisions made by consensus & open
discussion
• Family Patterns; group over the individual
– Nuclear families = parents & children work & live
together as a unit
– More commonly, several generations lived in one
household; extended families form clans
– Community values enhanced by clan identification
Religion
• Variety of beliefs across Africa
• Early Africans were polytheistic
• Some believe spirits of the dead are
present among the living
• Animism: every living & nonliving thing in
nature has a spirit
• Islam: becomes an important social and
religious force as kingdoms rise and fall
Trading Kingdoms
• West Africa
– Ghana (800-1000)
– Mali (1200-1450)
– Songhai (1450-1600)
• East Africa
– Axum
• Located on Red Sea
• Merging of cultures
• Judaism & Christianity
introduced
• What was traded?
– Salt & Gold
– Salt from the Sahara
traded for gold from
the savanna regions
– Iron, copper & other
minerals
MANSA MUSA & TIMBUKTU
• Mansa Musa was
Mali’s most powerful
ruler
• Borders were
extended & his
warriors protected &
controlled the land
• Mansa Musa
converted to Islam &
made a pilgrimage to
Mecca
• Mansa Musa builds a
university in Timbuktu
& students of Islam
travel from all over
the Muslim world to
study there
• By the 1400s,
Timbuktu is a leading
center of learning
Mansa Musa: Depiction of him
holding a gold nugget, created c.
1375
Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu
Discovery of Timbuktu by
westerners; c. mid-1800s
Africa & Global Trade
• Seas link continents
– Mediterranean
– Red Sea
• Ocean
– Indian ocean
• Goods make their
way to African coasts
and then traded
across the seas
• Hausa-1300s-the Hausa
people built city-states in
present day Nigeria
– Caravans across the
Sahara
– Dominate Saharan trade
routes by 1500
• Benin-people from
coastal rainforest in
Guinea
– Trade ivory, pepper, &
slaves
– Cast bronze & brass
East African City-States
• 600CE=Arab &
Persian merchants
set up trading
communities
• 1000CE=port cities
(like Mogadishu)
trading w/India
• Slaves captured
inland and sold to
Persian merchants
• Trade leads to mixing
of cultures
• Swahili = the
language spoken by
the people of this
blended culture
– Arabic words mixed
with Bantu words