Chapter 7: Early African Civilizations

The Development of Civilizations in Africa

The Land of Africa

• After Asia, Africa is the largest of the continents.
  • It stretches nearly five thousand miles (around eight thousand km) and is almost completely surrounded by two oceans and two seas.
• As diverse as it is vast, Africa includes several distinct geographical zones.
  • The northern fringe, on the coast washed by the Mediterranean Sea**,** is mountainous.
  • South of the mountains lies the largest desert on Earth, the Sahara.
  • Africa south of the Sahara is divided into a number of major regions.
• Far to the east is a very different terrain of snow capped mountains, upland plateaus, and lakes.
  • A distinctive feature is the Great Rift Valley, where mountains loom over deep canyons.
  • Much of this region is grassland populated by wild animals.
• Further to the south lies the Congo basin, with its dense vegetation watered by the mighty Congo River.
  • The tropical rain forests of this area then fade gradually into the hills, plateaus (relatively high, flat land areas), and deserts of the south.

The Climate of Africa

• Africa includes four distinct climate zones, which help to explain the different lifestyles of the peoples of Africa.
• Deserts form another climate zone.
• The Sahara in the north and the Kalahari in the south are the two largest deserts.
  • Altogether, deserts cover about 40 percent of Africa.
• A third climate zone is the rainforest that stretches along the equator and makes up about 10 percent of the continent.
• A final climate zone consists of the savannas, broad grasslands dotted with small trees and shrubs.

Emerging Civilization and the Rise of Islam

• About seven or eight thousand years ago, hunters and gatherers in Africa began to tame animals and grow crops.
  • By 2000 B.C., a busy trade had arisen between Egypt and the area to the south known as Nubia.
  • In 750 B.C., Kush conquered Egypt. In 663 B.C., however, the Kushites, who were still using bronze and stone weapons, were overwhelmed by the Assyrians, who were armed with iron spears and swords.
• The economy of Kush was based at first on farming.
• Meroë was well located at the point where a newly opened land route across the desert to the north crossed the Nile.
• For the next several hundred years, Kush was a major trading empire with links to other states throughout the region.
• Not much is known about Kushite society.
  • It seems likely that it was mostly urban.
• Kush flourished from about 250 B.C. to about A.D. 150, but declined because of the rise of a new power in the region.
• Axum owed much of its prosperity to its location along the Red Sea, on the trade route between India and the Mediterranean.
  • For a time, Axum competed with the neighboring state of Kush for control of the ivory trade.
• Probably as a result of this competition for ivory, in the fourth century A.D., King Ezana, the Axumite ruler, launched an invasion of Kush and conquered it.
  • Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Axumite civilization was its religion.
• When Ezana died, Axum was a flourishing kingdom.
• The rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula had an impact on neighboring areas.
• By the eighth century, a number of Muslim trading states had been established on the African coast of the Red Sea.
  • Beginning in the twelfth century, however, problems arose as the Muslim states along the coast began to move inland to gain control over the trade in slaves and ivory.

Kingdoms and States of Africa

The Kingdom of Ghana

• Ghana, the first great trading state in West Africa, emerged as early as A.D. 500.
  • The kingdom of Ghana was located in the upper Niger River valley, a grassland region between the Sahara and the tropical forests along the West African coast.
  • The kings of Ghana were strong rulers who governed without any laws.
  • To protect their kingdom and enforce their wishes, Ghanaian kings relied on a well-trained regular army of thousands of men.
• The people of Ghana had lived off the land for centuries.
• The region had an abundant supply of iron ore.
  • Ghana also had an abundance of gold.
• The heartland of the state was located near one of the richest gold-producing areas in all of Africa.
• Muslim merchants from North Africa brought to Ghana metal goods, textiles, horses, and salt.
  • Ghanaians traded their abundant gold for salt and other products brought from North Africa.
• Other exports from Ghana, including ivory, ostrich feathers, hides, and slaves, also found their way to the markets of the Mediterranean and beyond.
• Much of the trade across the desert was carried by the Berbers, nomadic peoples whose camel caravans became known as the “fleets of the desert.”
  • In a typical caravan trek, as many as a hundred camels would be loaded with goods and supplies for the journey across the desert.
  • The trading merchants of Ghana often became wealthy.

The Kingdom of Mali

• The state of Ghana flourished for several hundred years.
• The greatest of these states was Mali, established in the midthirteenth century by Sundiata Keita.
  • Like George Washington in the United States, Sundiata is considered the founder of his nation.
  • Sundiata defeated the Ghanaians and captured their capital in 1240.
  • He united the people of Mali and created a strong government.
• Extending from the Atlantic coast inland as far as the famous trading city of Timbuktu, Mali built its wealth and power on the gold and salt trade.
• One of the richest and most powerful kings was Mansa Musa, who ruled from 1312 to 1337 (mansa means “king”).
  • Mansa Musa doubled the size of the kingdom of Mali.
  • Everywhere he went, Mansa Musa lavished gold gifts on his hosts and made hundreds of purchases with gold from merchants.
  • No doubt, Mansa Musa’s great pilgrimage left people with an image of him as a great ruler of a powerful and prosperous kingdom.
  • He imported scholars and books to introduce his subjects to the message of Allah.
  • Mansa Musa proved to be the last powerful ruler of Mali.
• By 1359, civil war divided Mali.
• Within another hundred years a new kingdom—that of Songhai—was beginning to surpass Mali.

The Kingdom of Songhai

• Like the Nile, the Niger River floods and thus provides a rich soil for raising crops and taking care of cattle.
• In 1009, a ruler named Kossi converted to Islam and established the Dia dynasty.
• Under the leadership of Sunni Ali, who created a new dynasty—the Sunni—in 1464, Songhai began to expand.
• The Songhai Empire reached the height of its power during the reign of Muhammad Ture.
  • Muhammad Ture continued Sunni Ali’s policy of expansion, creating an empire that stretched a thousand miles along the Niger River.
  • After Muhammad Ture’s reign, Songhai entered a period of slow decline.
• Near the end of the sixteenth century, that decline quickened when the forces of the sultan of Morocco occupied much of Songhai.

Societies in East Africa

• South of Axum, along the shores of the Indian Ocean and inland from the mountains of Ethiopia through the lake district of central Africa, lived a mixture of people.
• Beginning in the first millennium B.C., new peoples began to migrate into eastern Africa from the west.
• Farming peoples who spoke dialects of the Bantu family of languages began to move from the region of the Niger River into East Africa and the Congo River basin.
• Recent archaeological work has provided us with a better idea of the nature of Bantu society.
  • The communities that arose as a result of these population movements were based on subsistence farming— growing just enough crops for personal use, not for sale.
  • Within the families in the villages, men and women performed different tasks.
• On the eastern fringe of the continent, the Bantu-speaking peoples gradually began to take part in the regional trade that moved by sea up and down the East African coast.
  • The result was the formation of a string of trading ports that included Mogadishu,, Mombasa, and Kilwa in the south.
• Merchants in these cities grew very wealthy
• In the fourteenth century, two monumental buildings were constructed in Kilwa of coral cut from the cliffs along the shore.
  • The Arab traveler Ibn Battuta called Kilwa, which he visited in 1331, “one of the most beautiful towns in the world.”
  • Kilwa’s splendor did not last long, however.
• As time passed, a mixed African-Arabian culture, eventually known as Swahili, began to emerge throughout the coastal area.
• Intermarriage was common among the ruling groups.
• The term Swahili was also applied to the major language used in the area.
  • Swahili was a mixed language that combined Bantu with a number of Arabic words and phrases.
• Today it is the national language of Kenya and Tanzania.

States and Stateless Societies in South Africa

• In the southern half of the African continent, states formed more slowly than in the north.
• Until the eleventh century A.D., most of the peoples in this region lived in what are sometimes called stateless societies.
• A stateless society is a group of independent villages organized by clans and led by a local ruler or clan head.
• In the grassland regions south of the Zambezi River, a mixed economy of farming, cattle herding, and trade had developed over a period of many centuries.
• From about 1300 to about 1450, Zimbabwe was the wealthiest and most powerful state in the region.
  • The ruins of Zimbabwe’s capital, known as Great Zimbabwe, illustrate the kingdom’s power and influence.
  • The Great Enclosure, whose exact purpose is not known, dominated the site.
  • The massive walls of Great Zimbabwe are unusual.

African Society and Culture

Aspects of African Society

• African towns often began as fortified walled villages and gradually grew into larger communities serving several purposes.
  • These towns were the centers of government, and the markets were filled with goods from faraway regions.
• Although Ibn Battuta’s description on the preceding page might not suggest it, the relationship of African kings to their subjects was beneficial to king and subject.
• In most Asian societies, the royal family and the aristocracy were largely isolated from the rest of the people.
  • The relationship between king and subject in many African states helped both sides.
  • Few Africans, of course, ever had an audience (meeting) with their kings.
• At the basic level was the extended family, made up of parents, children, grandparents, and other family dependents.
  • These extended family units were in turn combined into larger communities known as lineage groups.
  • Lineage groups served as the basic building blocks of African society.
  • Women were usually subordinate to men in Africa, as they were in most early societies around the world.
• There were some key differences between the role of women in Africa and elsewhere, however.
  • In many African societies, lineage was based on the mother rather than the father.
  • In other words, these were matrilineal societies (societies in which descent is traced through the mother) rather than patrilineal societies (societies in which descent is traced through the father).
• In a typical African village a process existed for educating young people and preparing them to become part of the community.
• Fathers then took control of their sons’ education.
  • Boys learned how to hunt and fish, how to grow plants, and how to clear the fields for planting.
  • Girls continued to learn what they needed from their mothers.
  • As the children matured, they played a larger role in the community.
• Finally, young people reached a point in their upbringing where they were expected to enter the community fully.
• Berber groups in North Africa regularly raided farming villages south of the Sahara for captives.
• The use of captives for forced labor or for sale was also common in African societies further south and along the coast of East Africa.
• Life was difficult for most slaves.
  • Many slaves were used in the royal household or as domestic servants in private homes.

Religious Beliefs in Africa

• Early African religious beliefs varied from place to place. Most African societies shared some common religious ideas.
  • One of these was a belief in a single creator god.
  • The Yoruba peoples in Nigeria, for example, believed that their chief god sent his son Oduduwa down from Heaven in a canoe to create the first humans.
  • Sometimes, the creator god was joined by a whole group of lesser gods.
  • The Ashanti people of Ghana, for example, believed in a supreme being called Nyame, whose sons were lesser gods.
• One way to communicate with the gods was through ritual.
  • This process was usually carried out by a special class of diviners, people who believe they have the power to foretell events, usually by working with supernatural forces.
• Another key element in African religion was the importance of ancestors.
• Many African religions shared a belief in an afterlife.
• African religious beliefs were challenged, but not always replaced, by the arrival of Islam.
• The process was even more gradual in East Africa.
• As Islam spread southward, it was adopted by many lowland peoples.
  • In some ways, of course, the beliefs of Islam were in conflict with traditional African beliefs and customs.
• As elsewhere, in Africa imported ideas were combined with native beliefs to create a unique brand of Africanized Islam.

African Culture

• In early Africa, as in much of the rest of the world at the time, the arts—whether painting, literature, or music—were a means of serving religion.
  • A work of art was meant to express religious conviction.
• The earliest art forms in Africa were rock paintings.
  • The most famous examples are in the Tassili Mountains in the central Sahara.
• Wood carvers throughout Africa made remarkable masks and statues.
• In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, metal- workers at Ife, the capital of the Yoruba people, in what is now southern Nigeria, produced handsome bronze and iron statues.
  • The Ife sculptures may have influenced artists in Benin in West Africa, who produced equally impressive works in bronze during the same period.
• Like wood carving and sculpture, African music and dance often served a religious purpose.
  • African music also served a social purpose. It was used to pass on to young people information about the history of the community.
• Storytelling, usually by priests or a special class of storytellers known as griots, served the same purpose.