AMSCO - 1.5 Reading Notes - AP History

Trans-Saharan Trade

- A network of trading routes across the great desert

- States of the Hausa Kingdoms used this

Hausa Kingdoms

- Formed seven states that were loosely connected through kinship ties

- No central authority

- People established prospering city-states, each with a specialty.

- Land-locked region

- Many benefited from the trans-Saharan trade

- They were frequently subject to domination from the outside.

- In the 14th century, missionaries brought Islam to the region.

Sundiata

- Mali's founding father: Sundiata

- Sundiata was a Muslim and used his connections with others of his faith to establish trade connections with North African and Arab merchants. He cultivated a thriving gold trade in Mali. Mali's wealth grew a lot under his leadership.

Indian Ocean Trade

- Zimbabwe used this

- Connected East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia

- People from places as far apart as Zimbabwe and Persia and China were connected with each other through this trade.

Great Zimbabwe

- A massive wall of stone (30 feet tall, 15 feet thick) surrounded the capital city.

- The wall was the first large one on the continent that people built without mortar.

- Inside the wall, most of the royal city buildings were composed of stone. By the end of the 15th century, almost 20,000 people lived within this.

- This wall still stands in Zimbabwe today.

Zanj Rebellion

- Considered one of the most successful slave revolts in history

- Enslaved East Africans (known as zanj in Arabic) provided valuable labor on sugar plantations in Mesopotamia. Many Arab workers mounted a series of revolts between 869 and 883. One of the revolts was led by Ali bin Muhammad and became known as the Zanj Rebellion. Muhammad and 15,000 enslaved people organized and captured the city of Basra and established a splinter government. Ten years after the original revolt, Mesopotamian forces finally put an end to the rebel forces and killed Ali bin Muhammad.

Griots/Griottes

- Griots were storytellers and were the conduits of history for a community. They had encyclopedic knowledge of family lineages and the lives and deeds of great leaders. Usually, griots were adept at music and would sing their stories while playing an instrument. Individuals said that a griot could sing your downfall or success. Griots were able to preserve a person's history by passing on stories from one generation to the next. When a griot died, it was as if a library had burned. Men served as griots.

- Women served as griottes. They would sing at special occasions. Like at a wedding, the griotte would counsel the bride to not talk back if her mother-in-law abused her or reassure the bride that if things got too bad, she could go back home. Griottes gave women a sense of empowerment in a patriarchal society.

Indian Ocean Slave Trade

- This trade started many centuries before the Atlantic Ocean slave trade between West Africa and the Americas.

- A strong demand in the Middle East for enslaved workers resulted in this.

- In some areas, it lasted into the 20th century.

Sub-Saharan Africa did not centralize its power like most Asian or European societies. Explain how they governed their societies.

Communities created kin-based networks where families governed themselves. A male head of the network, a chief, handled conflicts and managed neighboring groups. Groups of villages became districts, and a group of chiefs decided among themselves how to solve the district's problems. As populations increased, kin-based networks became more difficult to govern.

Why did larger kingdoms grow in prominence (mostly after 1000)?

Larger kingdoms grew in prominence because kin-based networks became more difficult to manage as the population grew. Competition among neighbors increased, which resulted in fighting among villages and district. Survival for small kin-based networks was hard.

Locate the Hausa Kingdoms on the map on pg. 44. Why did these states need to rely on the Trans-Saharan trade network?

These states needed to rely on the trans-Saharan trade because they needed contact with people from outside the region. A state on the western edge of the region specialized in military matters and defended the states against attack.

Ghana

- Located between the Sahara and the tropical rain forests of the West African coast

- The kingdom of Ghana was not in the same place as the modern nation of Ghana. Historians think that the kingdom had been found during the fifth century.

- Ghana reached its peak of influence from the eighth to eleventh century.

- Ghana's rulers sold ivory and gold to Muslim traders in exchange for tools, cloth, copper, and salt.

Ghana's capital city- Kumbai Saleh

- The king ruled a centralized government with the help from nobles and an army armed with iron weapons.

- Wars with neighboring societies had permanently weakened the Ghanian state by the 12th century.

Mali

- Most powerful

- Mali's founding father: Sundiata

- Sundiata was a Muslim and used his connections with others of his faith to establish trade connections with North African and Arab merchants. He cultivated a thriving gold trade in Malin. Mali's wealth grew a lot under his leadership.

Zimbabwe

- Built its prosperity on a mixture of agriculture, grazing, trade, and gold.

- Had rich gold field and taxes on the transport of gold made the kingdom wealthy.

- Traded with the Swahili city-states

In East Africa

- Through trading with the city-states, this kingdom was tied into the Indian Ocean trade.

- By the end of the 13th century, a huge wall of stone surrounded the capital city.

- Overgrazing damaged the surrounding environment, so residents abandoned.

Ethiopia

- Was Christian but then the spread of Islam in Africa weakened it

- In the 12th century, a new ruling kingdom (Axum) embraced Christianity.

- New leaders in this region ordered the building of eleven huge churches made out of rock.

- From the 12th to the 16th centuries, this was an island of Christianity and was separated from the Roman Catholic Church of western Europe and the Orthodox Church of eastern Europe because it developed independently. People combined their traditional faith traditions, like ancestor veneration and beliefs in spirits, with Christianity to make a unique form of faith.

Sub-Saharan Africa was also social organized around kinship, age, and gender. Explain how the role of gender impacted men and women in society.

- Males were involved in most activities that required a specialized skill, such as leather tanners and blacksmiths.

- Women were involved in food gathering and agriculture. They took the main responsibilities for completing domestic chores and raising their family's children.

Chattel

- Slaves were the legal property of the owner.

- Common in the Americas, 16th to 19th century

- Enslavement was permanent.

- The children of slaves were automatically slaves.

- Slaves had no rights.

Domestic

- Slaves were cooks, cleaners, or other household workers.

- Common in Classical Greece, Rome, and in the Middle East

- Often, enslavement was permanent (so not 100% yes, but 2% chance of no)

- Often, children of slaves were automatically slaves (not 100% yes, but most likely)

- Slaves had some rights. Laws or customs might prevent a master from selling a slave.

Debt Bondage

- People became slaves to repay a debt (sometimes through a mutual agreement).

- Common in East Africa prior to the 15th century and in European colonies in the Americas

- Enslavement permanent? Not in theory, but many slaves never regained freedom.

- Children of slaves automatically slaves? Children often inherited the debts of their parents.

- Some slaves had rights. Laws/customs might limit how severely a master could punish a slave.

Why was the Zanj Rebellion considered one of the most successful slave revolts in history?

The massive size and long length of time before it was defeated make this rebellion one of the most successful slave revolts in history.

Explain the significance of music, visual arts, and literature to the culture of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Along with these things providing enjoyment and marking rituals, song lyrics provided a way of communicating with the spirit world. African music typically had distinctive rhythmic pattern, and vocals were accompanied with percussive elements like handclaps,bells, pots, or gourds. Visual arts usually held a religious purpose. For instance, metalworkers designed busts of past rulers so that ruling royalty could look to them for guidance. Artists in Benin, West Africa were known for their intricate sculptures of iron and bronze.