Comprehensive Notes on African Trade and Society

Expansion of African Trade

Ibn Battuta's Commentary on Mali Society (c. 1352)

Ibn Battuta, a scholar from Morocco, provides insights into the cultural dynamics of Sub-Saharan Africa during the 14th century.
He was an expert in Islamic law (shariah) and was sought after by Islamic governments in Mogadishu and Delhi.
His travelogue highlights Islam's role in connecting cultures across Asia, Africa, and southern Europe.
Islam's spread in Africa didn't cause mass conversions, but it significantly impacted politics, economics, and culture.
Many African societies that adopted Islam retained their pre-existing traditions.
Sub-Saharan Africa's history between the spread of Islam and European colonization is characterized by both continuity and change.

The Migrations of Bantu-Speakers

Linguists and historians have studied the Bantu language group's spread from Nigeria and Cameroon to cover about one-third of Africa.
The spread of Bantu languages resulted from the migration of Bantu-speaking people and their interactions with local groups.
The migrations involved small groups of Bantu speakers moving gradually.

Spreading Agriculture

Around 3000 B.C.E., Bantu-speakers migrated from West Africa, bringing agriculture with them.
They cultivated yams, oil palms, millet, and sorghum, leading to a food surplus and population increase.
Decreasing land fertility might have further motivated their movement.
Bantu-speakers shared their agricultural knowledge with hunter-foragers.
Bananas, introduced by Indonesian seafarers between 300 and 500 B.C.E., boosted population growth, enabling migration to areas unsuitable for yams.
Many Indonesians settled on Madagascar, and their spoken language is part of the Austronesian family of languages.
Increased land cultivation for bananas enriched diets and fueled population growth.

Technology

Bantu-speakers used canoes for river travel.
By 500 B.C.E., they possessed iron-making technology, which enabled them to create efficient tools for clearing land and weapons for warfare.
This technology gave them an advantage over other groups, such as the Batwa of the Congo Basin.
The Bantu-speaking peoples assimilated and displaced other African peoples.

Disease

Bantu-speakers carried infectious diseases like malaria, to which they had some immunity, but the forest people they encountered did not.

Societies

By 2000 B.C.E., Bantu-speakers reached Lake Victoria and the Great Lakes of East Africa, where they adopted raising sheep and cattle from nomadic pastoralists.
By 400 C.E., they reached South Africa, marking the end of their migration.
The long and extensive migration led to diversity among Bantu-speaking groups.
They formed close-knit communities in small villages.
Their societies were often matrilineal, tracing ancestry through mothers.
Some Bantu-speakers abandoned agriculture for nomadic pastoralism or hunting-foraging based on the local geography.

Religion

Bantu-speakers generally believed in a single creator god and many spirits.
They communicated with the god through spirits, often practicing ancestor veneration.

Arts

Belief in the spirit world inspired masks and sculpted figures representing ancestors.
Music, using drums, flutes, and horns, was an important part of worship, ceremony, and work.
They had a strong tradition of storytelling.

Political Structures in Inland Africa

By 1000 C.E., agriculture led to more complex political relationships.
Sub-Saharan African states generally didn't centralize power but formed kin-based networks where families governed themselves.
A male head (chief) mediated conflicts within the network.
Villages formed districts, and chiefs collectively addressed district issues.
Population growth increased competition and conflict, challenging kin-based communities.
Larger kingdoms became more prominent after 1000 C.E. Hierarchical political structures emerged in the Congo River basin.

Islam's Impact on Trade

Kin-based societies in Sub-Saharan Africa initially did not trade on a global level.
Sub-Saharan Africa increasingly traded with other parts of the world and learned of Islam.
Merchants and Islam arrived via the Sahara and the Indian Ocean.

Trans-Saharan Trade

The Sahara Desert had few inhabitants due to its arid climate.
The arrival of Islamic merchants in the 7th and 8th centuries dramatically increased trade volume across the Sahara.

Camels and Trade

Merchants from Southwest Asia used camels to cross the Sahara.
Camels, well-suited to the desert climate, can consume a large quantity of water at once (over 50 gallons in three minutes) and require less water than horses.
People developed various camel saddles for different purposes:
- South Arabians: $back \ of \ the \ hump$
- Northern Arabians: $on \ top \ of \ the \ hump$
- Northern Africans: $in \ front \ of \ the \ hump$
- Somalis: $for \ carrying \ loads$
By the end of the 8th century C.E., the trans-Saharan trade became well-known in Europe and Asia.
Gold was the most valuable commodity traded. Traded from the Senegal River near modern-day Senegal and Mauritania.
West African merchants traded gold, ivory, and slaves for salt, textiles, and horses.
For over 700 years, the trans-Saharan trade brought wealth to West African societies, especially Ghana and Mali.

Indian Ocean Trade

East Coast of Africa (Kilwa, Malindi, Mogadishu) traded among themselves since 2000 B.C.E.
International trade existed before Islam, with merchants from India, Southeast Asia, and Persia.
Greek and Roman mariners also traded in the region via the Red Sea.
By the 8th century C.E., Islamic merchants revitalized maritime trade after the decline of the Han, Gupta, and Roman civilizations.
The Indian Ocean trade led to thriving city-states known as the Swahili city-states.
"Swahili" means "coasters".
The Zanj Coast (East Africa) sold ivory, gold, slaves, tortoise shells, peacock feathers, and rhinoceros horns to Arab traders.
In exchange, the Zanj cities acquired Chinese porcelain, Indian cotton, and manufactured ironwork.
Chinese porcelain is commonly found in Swahili city ruins.
Trade brought wealth to East African coastal cities.
Architectural ruins in Kilwa indicated the wealth; buildings shifted from mud and clay to stone or coral.

Comparing Pack Animals

Camels:
- Benefits: Travel long distances, eat thorny plants, drink salty water, long eyelashes, only animal that can cross deserts, does not spook easily, high level of stamina.
- Drawbacks: Moves slowly, requires more water and food.
Oxen:
- Benefits: Can pull heaviest loads, unlikely to stray, can survive on local grazing, tolerates various climates and diets, calm disposition, requires little water, adapts well to cold and mountainous climates, maintains traction in mountains.
- Drawbacks: Less sure-footed than other pack animals, cannot tolerate high heat.
Horses:
- Benefits: Can run at high speeds, can be controlled with a bit, can be used in battle, can adapt to most climates and terrains.
- Drawbacks: Requires grain, spooks easily, can be stolen easily, strays easily, cannot pull heavy loads, carries less than other pack animals, cannot tolerate high heat.

Political Structures of West and East Africa

The trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean trades increased wealth in Africa.
Ghana and Mali emerged in West Africa.
Zimbabwe emerged in East Africa.

Ghana

Located between the Sahara and West African coast rainforests.
Existed from the 5th century, peaking from the 8th to 11th centuries.
Ghana's rulers traded gold and ivory for salt, copper, cloth, and tools.
The king ruled a centralized government from Kumbai Saleh, supported by nobles and an army.

Mali

By the 12th century, wars weakened Ghana; Mali rose in its place.
Mali profited from the gold trade and taxed other trade entering West Africa.
Most residents were farmers growing sorghum and rice.
Timbuktu and Gao became centers of Islamic life and learning. Timbuktu produced expensive books.
Sundiata, Mali’s founder, is a legendary figure.

Sundiata

His father ruled a small society in West Africa (Guinea).
Rival groups killed most of the royal family, but Sundiata, who was crippled, was spared.
He became a feared warrior and was forced into exile, where he gained strength and allies.
In 1235, Sundiata returned, defeated his enemies, and reclaimed the throne.
Sundiata, "the Lion Prince," was a capable ruler who cultivated the gold trade.
He likely was Muslim and used his connections to build trade relationships with North African and Arab merchants.

Mansa Musa

In the 14th century, Mansa Musa, Sundiata's grand-nephew, brought fame to Mali.
Mansa Musa was renowned for his religious leadership, not political or economic skills.
In 1324, he made an extravagant pilgrimage to Mecca with 100 camels, thousands of slaves and soldiers, and gold.
His pilgrimage showcased Mali's wealth.
After his visit, he established religious schools in Timbuktu, mosques, and sponsored religious studies.
Though most West Africans maintained traditional beliefs, Mansa Musa strengthened Islam in Mali.
Mali declined within 100 years after Mansa Musa's death.
By the late 1400s, the Songhay Kingdom replaced Mali as the dominant power.
Mansa Musa's efforts strengthened Islam in West Africa and still have a prominent place today.

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe was the most powerful East African kingdom between the 12th and 15th centuries.
Located between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers (modern Zimbabwe and Mozambique).
Zimbabwe's prosperity came from agriculture, grazing, trade, and especially gold.
Zimbabwe traded with Swahili city-states, Persia, India, and China.
Kings taxed all gold passing through the land.
Wealth was evident in its architecture; chiefs constructed their "zimbabwes" (dwellings) with stone, beginning in the ninth century.
The Great Zimbabwe had a massive stone wall (30 feet tall, 15 feet thick) built without mortar by the end of the thirteenth century.
In the late fifteenth century, nearly 20,000 people lived within the Great Zimbabwe.
Overgrazing damaged the environment, and the capital was abandoned by the end of the 1400s.
The stone wall still stands in modern Zimbabwe.

Social Structures of Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa was organized around kinship, age, and gender instead of centralized governments.
Kinship connections defined people as members of a clan or family.
Age was a significant social marker.
Communities divided work based on age, creating age grades or age sets.
Gender influenced social organization.
Men dominated specialized skilled activities while women engaged in agriculture, gathering, domestic chores, and raising children.

Women's Roles in Sub-Saharan Africa

Some societies were matrilineal.
Most Sub-Saharan communities were patriarchal.
Some examples of female empowerment existed.
Ibn Battuta observed that inheritance passed from a man to his sister, who would pass it to her sons.
Africans who converted to Islam did not always adopt all gender norms.
Unmarried men and women mixed freely, and women often did not veil themselves.
Sub-Saharan societies maintained pre-Islamic gender norms.

Slavery in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southwest Asia

Slavery was long-standing in Africa.
Prisoners of war, debtors, and criminals were enslaved.
Women commonly worked as household slaves.
Some accumulated slaves to increase their wealth and social status.
The arrival of Islam and global trade increased the volume of slaves in Africa.
Slaves were precious commodities along the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean trading routes.
Arab and Southwest-Asian merchants imported millions of Africans from the Swahili trading cities.
Slaves were uprooted and brought to unfamiliar lands.
Arab traders preferred women as servants and concubines.
Male slaves were used in the military or became high-ranking eunuchs.

Types of Slavery

Chattel Slavery: Slaves were the legal property of the owner. Common in the Americas, sixteenth century to nineteenth century. Children of slaves were automatically slaves.
Domestic Slavery: Slaves served as cooks, cleaners, or other household workers. Common in Classical Greece and Rome; the Middle East. Laws or customs might prevent a master from selling a slave. Slaves had some rights.
Debt Bondage: People became slaves to repay a debt. Common in East Africa before the fifteenth century; European colonies in the Americas. Children often inherited the debts of their parents. Some laws or customs might limit how severely a master could punish a slave.

Zanj Rebellion

Slaves from the East Coast of Africa were known in Arabic as Zanj.
Between 869 C.E. and 883 C.E., slaves working on sugar plantations in Mesopotamia revolted.
Led by Ali bin Muhammad, the Zanj Rebellion captured the city of Basra and established a splinter government.
After ten years, Mesopotamian forces defeated the rebels and killed Ali bin Muhammad.
The Zanj Rebellion was one of the most successful slave revolts in history (size and length).
The Indian Ocean slave trade between Africa and Southwest Asia continued into the nineteenth century.

Cultural Life in Sub-Saharan Africa

Music, visual arts, and storytelling were important for enjoyment and rituals.
These activities had additional significance in Africa.
Traditional African religions included ancestor veneration.
Song lyrics provided a way to communicate with the spirit world.
African music had a distinctive rhythmic pattern with percussive elements.
Visual arts commonly served a religious purpose.
Metalworkers created busts of past rulers for guidance.
Artists in Benin (West Africa) were famous for intricate iron and bronze sculptures.

Griot Literature

Literature was oral.
Griots (storytellers) were the conduits of history.
Griots had encyclopedic knowledge of family lineages and leaders' lives.
Groits also excelled at music, singing stories and accompanying themselves on instruments like the kora.
The griots were both venerated and feared because they possessed the power of language and story.
Griots preserved history and passed it on.
Kings sought their counsel on political matters.
The death of a griot was likened to a library burning.
Women were trained as griottes, singing at ceremonies and counseling brides.
The griottes provided women with a sense of empowerment.

Swahili: A Syncretic Language

The arrival of Islam brought cultural changes.
Islamic merchants on the Indian Ocean coast influenced the Swahili language, a Bantu language mixed with Arabic vocabulary.
Swahili is spoken in the African Great Lakes region and other parts of Southeast Africa.
Swahili is an official language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, and of the African Union.

Religion

Christianity entered Egypt and Ethiopia in the first century C.E.
Islam weakened its influence in Ethiopia (Axum).
In the twelfth century, a new ruling kingdom embraced Christianity and built 11 rock churches.
From the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, Ethiopia was a virtual island of Christianity in Africa.
Ethiopian Christianity developed independently due to its isolation.
People combined traditional faith traditions with Christianity.
This religious syncretism was evident in the construction of the 11 rock churches, which are still in use today.
Carved rock structures had been a feature of Ethiopian religious architecture since the second millennium B.C.E.

Historical Perspectives: Does Africa Have History?

Attitudes towards African history have changed.
Most African societies did not keep written records; history was oral (griots).

People Without a Past

Increased contact with Europe, Southwest Asia, and South Asia increased, writing spread.
History was viewed as a story based on written records.
Since Africans lacked written records, Europeans viewed them as people without a past.
This idea persisted into the 1900s.
Hugh Trevor-Roper (1965) said that Africa's past was nothing more than "barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant quarters of the globe."

A Pan-African Approach

Dismissive attitudes toward African history were changing.
Edward Wilmot Blyden (late nineteenth century) worked to validate African history.
Born in the West Indies (1832), he migrated to Liberia and became involved in its development.
Blyden argued that Islam was a unifying force because it wasn't a colonizer's religion.
Blyden advocated for the Pan-African movement (building a common African identity).
Leopold Senghor of Senegal advocated for studying African history and culture (mid-twentieth century).
Senghor argued that Africans had a distinctive heritage to be proud of.

Impact of Independence

Beginning in the 1950s, many African countries gained independence.
Freedom led to increased attention to African history by African scholars.
Ali Mazrui (Kenya) taught at universities in the United States.
Through television programs (The Africans: A Triple Heritage), Muzrui expanded awareness of Africa's past.
Mazrui emphasized that African cultures resulted from African geography, customs, Christianity, and Islam.
His criticism of European colonialism generated controversy.

Era of Globalization

Globalization has made historians more aware of interconnectedness.
Africa is treated as a full participant in history.
Ross Dunn's The Adventures of Ibn Battuta (1986) revealed cultural diversity and links among Africa, Asia, and Europe in the 1300s.