AP AFAM

Sahel

The area from the South of the Sahara to the north of humid savannas

Red sea

Body of water which separates the Arabian Peninsula from Africa.

Mediterranean Sea

Body of Water which separates Europe and Africa

Niger, Congo, Zambezi, Orange, and Nile

The five major rivers in Africa

Bantu expansion

The migration of Bantu people due to technological advancements and population increases.

Xhosa, Swahili, Kikongo, Zulu

Languages in the Bantu linguistic family

Ge'ez

Aksum script, used in Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Egypt

Emerged along the Nile in 3000 BCE. In 750 BCE was defeated by Nubia who ruled for a century as the 25th dynasty.

Nubia (Kush)

Formed along the Nile in 3000 BCE, produced gold and luxury items which were sourced to Egypt, creating conflict. Ruled Egypt as the 25th dynasty.

Nok society

Ironworking society, around 500 BCE. Known for pottery, terracotta, sculptures, fashion, and instruments.

Aksumite Empire

100 BCE, strategically placed along the Red Sea, allowing it to be connected to trade from Mediterranean to India. Developed currency and script. First to adopt Christianity.

Black Pharaohs

Leaders who ruled the 25th dynasty of Egypt under Nubia's rule.

King Ezana

Adopted Christianity and applied it to Aksumite society

Ghana

Flourished in 7th-13th centuries. Renowned for gold mines and location at center of trans Saharan trade routes.

Mali

Flourished 13th-17th centuries. Also renowned for gold mines and being at the center of trade. Extended power through crossbreeding horses and purchasing steel weapons. Mansa Musa led in 14th century and established as center of trade and learning.

Songhai

Flourished 15th-16th centuries. Renowned for gold and location, but was also the last and largest Sudanic Empire. Wealth was diminished due to trade routes shifting following Portuguese exploration.

Trans Saharan commerce

Trade of goods through North Africa/Europe to sub-Saharan Africa.

Hajj

A pilgrimage to Mecca, performed as a duty by Muslims.

Senegambia

In the general area where the Sudanic Empires were found. Many people from there were enslaved.

Mansa Musa

Ruler of Mali (r.1312-1337 CE) who made a hajj to Mecca; on the way there, he spread enormous amounts of gold showing the wealth of Mali; on the way back, he brought back education and Islamic culture. His hajj attracted merchants and cartographers.

Griots

Professional oral historians who serve as keepers of traditions and advisors to kings

Epic of Sundjata

Recounts the early life of Sundjata, an ancestor of Mansa Musa, who founded the Mali Empire.

Timbuktu (tombouctou)

Timbuktu is a city in Mali which was the center of education, trade, and cultural exchange.

Education in early West Africa

Centers of learning were housed in trading cities. Timbuktu had universities and book trades which drew scholars to the city.

Indigenous Cosmologies

The traditional worldviews and beliefs held by indigenous people regarding human and earth relation. They were syncretized with Islam and Christianity in Africa.

Louisiana Voodoo

An African diasporic religion that originated in Louisiana, now in the southern United States. Arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional religions of West Africa, the Roman Catholic form of Christianity, and Haitian Vodou.

Kongo

King Nzinga adopted Christianity, converting the Kingdom of Kongo to Roman Catholicism. This strengthened trade with Portugal. Ivory, salt, copper, and textiles were commonly traded. Christianity gained mass acceptance, and a form of African Catholicism emerged.

Shona people

The inhabitants of Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe

The capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe. Flourished in 12th-15th centuries. Known for its stone architecture, used as military defense and hub for trade.

Great Enclosure

A stone-walled enclosure found in Zimbabwe. Was a site for religious and administrative activities.

Swahili Coast

Linked trade between Africa and Asia. City states on the coast were united by shared language (Swahili) and religion (Islam). The Portuguese took over to control Indian Ocean trade.

King Nzinga Nkuwu

Also known as Joao I. King of Kongo who adopted Christianity

Nzinga Mbemba

Also known as Afonso I, Kongo's Christian king.

Kinship

The value of familial bonds which often formed the basis for political alliances.

Women's roles in ancient Africa

In early African societies women were spiritual leaders, political advisors, market traders, educators, and agriculturalists.

Queen Idia

Mother of the King of the Kingdom of Benin. Was a political advisor. Used spiritual power and medicinal knowledge to bring victories to Benin.

Queen Njinga

Queen of Ndongo and Matamba. Engaged in guerrilla warfare against Portuguese to maintain control of her kingdom. Participated in the slave trade.

Lisbon and Seville

Iberian port cities with high population of sub-Saharan Africans.

Cabo Verde and Sao Tome

Portuguese colonized these Atlantic islands and established plantations using the labor of enslaved Africans.

Ladinos

Africans who traveled with Europeans, working as intermediaries due to their familiarity with multiple languages, cultures, and commercial practices. Also worked as conquistadors. Part of the generation of Atlantic creoles, who did similar things.

Juan Garrido

First known African to arrive in North America with the Spanish in 1513. Served in Spanish military.

Estevanico (Esteban)

Enslaved healer from Morocco who was forced to be a translator and explorer in Texas in 1528.

Wolof, Akan, Igbo, Yoruba

Examples of West and Central African ethnic groups who brought practices to the Americas.

Impacts of slave trade on Africa

Domestic wars were exacerbated due to monetary incentives increased by the trade. Coastal states became wealthy and interior states became less stable. Suffered long term instability and loss of kin.

Deracination

to remove or separate from a native environment or culture; especially : to remove the racial or ethnic characteristics or influences from

Commodification

the process though which something is given monetary value (humans in the slave trade)

La Amistad

Slave ship overtaken by Mende captives, who gained their freedom by going to court in America. Led by Sengbe Pieh.

Slave-Cotton System

Economic system reliant on enslaved labor for cotton.

Second Middle Passage

The massive trade of slaves from the upper South to the lower South that took place between.

Upper South

Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri

Lower South

Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina

Gang system

The organization and supervision of slave field hands into working teams on southern plantations. Used syncopated rhythms to keep pace of work.

Task system

A system of slave labor under which an enslaved person had to complete a specific assignment each day. After they finished, their time was their own. Had less oversight, so linguistic practices were maintained.

Gullah Creole

Linguistic practices developed in the Carolina lowcountry.

Slave Code

Laws that controlled the lives of enslaved African Americans and denied them basic rights.

Chattel slavery

A system of bondage in which a slave has the legal status of property and so can be bought and sold like property. Defines slavery as race based, inheritable, and life long.

Fifteenth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Stono rebellion

A 1739 uprising of slaves in South Carolina. Led South Carolina's 1740 slave code, which greatly prohibited enslaved people from practicing any sort of autonomy.

Dred Scott

United States slave who sued for liberty after living in a non-slave state, but ended up with the Supreme Court declaring that African Americans could never be US citizens.

Phenotype

Physical appearance. Greatly contributes to perceptions of racial identity.

Hypodescent

If someone had any percentage of Black ancestry, they were socially seen as inferior.

One-drop rule

the belief that "one drop" of Black blood makes a person inferior

Blues

Derived from the musical system of the fodet from the Senegambia region.

Sorrow/jubilee songs

Also called spirituals

Underground railroad

A system that helped enslaved African Americans follow a network of escape routes out of the South to freedom in the North

American colonization society

White leaders seeking to exile the growing free Black population to Africa.

Ethnonyms

socially preferred names for ethnic groups

Yamasee war

A pan-American Indian war from 1715 to 1717 led by the Yamasee who intended, but failed, to oust the British from South Carolina.

Fransisco Menendez

Black man who won his freedom fighting with the Spanish for Florida. Fought in Yamasee War, found refuge in St. Augustine. Led Fort Mose

St. Augustine

1st colony in Florida set up by Spain

Fort Mose

first free African settlement in North America

Jemmy

Leader of the Stono Rebellion from Angola.

Haitian Revolution

A major influece of the Latin American revolutions because of its successfulness; the only successful slave revolt in history; it is led by Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Alien and Sedition Acts

acts passed by federalists giving the government power to imprison or deport foreign citizens and prosecute critics of the government

Maroons

Runaway slaves who gathered in mountainous, forested, or swampy areas and formed their own self-governing communities. raided plantations for supplies, had military skills from Africa.

Guadelupe and Martinique

French colonies where slavery was temporarily abolished due to Haitian Revolution

Daily methods of resistance

Breaking tools, slowing work, stealing food, attempting to run away. Helped sustain the larger movement.

German Coast Uprising

Led my Charles Deslondes who led up to 500 enslaved people in the largest US slave revolt. Deslondes organized support across plantations and maroon communities and led a march to New Orleans. Was violently suppressed.

Madison Washington

Led mutiny aboard the slave brig Creole. Gained freedom in the Bahamas.

Nat Turner

United States slave and insurrectionist who in 1831 led a rebellion of slaves in Virginia

Denmark Vesey

United States freed slave and insurrectionist in South Carolina who was involved in planning an uprising of slaves and was hanged (1767-1822)

Maria W Stewart

African American abolitionist lecturer; gave lectures condemning slavery to men & women. Significant female figure in the fight of resistance.

Henry Highland Garnet

An African American who advocated the most radical solution to the slavery question. He argued, that slaves should take action themselves by rising up in revolt against their owners.

mutual aid societies

Made by free Blacks to fund Black schools, businesses, churches, and support writers and speakers.

First Wave Feminism

The feminist movement during the nineteenth and early twentieth century focused on de jure (officially mandated) inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage.

Great Dismal Swamp

A heavily forested area on the Virginia-North Carolina border that served as a refuge for fugitive slaves during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Palenques

Maroon communities in Spanish America.

Quilombos

independent black communities in backlands of Brazil

Capoeria

A martial art and dance that developed in Brazil from African traditions. Was a form of resistance disguised as dance.

Congada

a celebration of the king of Kongo and Our Lady of the Rosary. Example of religious syncretism

Second Seminole War

1835 war in which the Seminoles tried to retain their land in Florida. Maroons fought alongside seminoles

Trail of Tears

the forced removal of Cherokees and their transportation to Oklahoma

Slave patrols

Vigilante groups that enforced discipline on slaves and apprehended runaway slaves seeking freedom.

Emigrationism

The push to emigrate back to Africa or go elsewhere where Africans could be free and self-determining

Sierra leone

British Black settlement of Freetown

Paul Cuffee

A former slave who bought himself and became wealthy through the shipping industry; he has an epiphany that he must free his people, so uses his wealth and boats to buy up slaves and send them back to Africa. His idea helps form the American Colonization Society.

Martin R. Delany

He was the first black man to become a major in the U.S. Army

Frederick Douglass

(1817-1895) American abolitionist and writer, he escaped slavery and became a leading African American spokesman and writer. He published his biography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and founded the abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.

Radical resistance

Extreme forms of resistance against slavery, generally involved violent resistance, rebellions, uprisings, insurrections, etc.

Moral suasion

The effort to move others to a particular course of action through appeals to moral values and beliefs, without the use of enticements or force.