CHAPTER 15 - Societies and Empires of Africa (800-1500) - World History: Patterns of Interaction (Atlas by Rand McNally 2009)

CHAPTER 15.1: North and Central African Societies

• Hunting-gathering societies began in Africa and still exist today
• The Efe are one of several hunting-gathering societies in Africa
  • They live in the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) 
  • Modern-day Efe live in small groups between 10-100 members, all of whom are related 
  • Each family occupies its own grass/brush shelter within a camp but their homes are rarely permanent 
  • The Efe collect few possessions and move to new camps as they use up the resources in the surrounding area
  • Women are gatherers and walk through the forest to forage roots, yams, mushrooms, and wild seeds
  • Efe men/older boys do the hunting
  • They add to their diet by trading honey, wild game, and other forest products for crops grown by farmers in nearby villages
• A respected older male serves as group leader
  • Although members of the group listen to/value the man's opinion, he doesn't give orders or act as chief
• Each family makes its own decisions/is free to come and go
• Group members settle arguments through long discussions
  • If they can't be settled by talking, a group member may decide to move to a different hunting band
• Daily Efe life is not governed by formal written laws
• Family organization is central to African society
• In many African families, families are organized in lineages, in which members believe that they are descendants of a common ancestor 
  • Besides its living members, a lineage includes past generations (spirits of ancestors) and future generations (unborn children)
  • Members feel strong loyalty to one another
• South of the Sahara, many African groups developed systems of governing based on lineages
• In some African societies, lineage groups took place of rulers
  • These societies became known as stateless societies and did not have a centralized system of power
  • Instead, authority was balanced among lineages of equal power so that no one family had too much control 
• The Igbo people (also called Ibo) of southern Nigeria lived in a stateless society as early as the 9th century 
• When a dispute arose within an Igbo village, respected elders from different lineages settled the problem
• Igbos later encountered challenges from 19th-century European colonizers who expected one single leader to rule over society
•  The way an African society traces lineage determines how possessions and property are passed on and what groups individuals belong to
• Members of a patrilineal society trace their ancestors through their fathers; inheritance passes from father to son
  • When a son marries, he, his wife, and children remain part of his father's extended family
• In matrilineal societies, children trace their ancestors through their mothers
  • Young men from a matrilineal culture inherit land and wealth from their mother's family
  • Even in matrilineal societies, men usually hold positions of authority 
• In many African societies, young people form close ties to individuals outside their lineage through the age-set system
  • An age-set system consists of young people within a region who are born during a certain time period
  • Each age set passes together through clearly identified life stages, such as warrior or elder
  • Ceremonies mark the passage to each new stage
  • Men/women have different life stages, with each stage having its own duties/importance
• Societies like the Igbo use this system to teach discipline, community, service, and leadership skills to the young
• Islam played a vital role in North Africa
• Muslims swept across the northwest part of the continent after Muhammad died in 632
• Many were converted by both sword and through pacifist means
• By 670, Muslims ruled Egypt and entered the Maghrib, the part of North Africa that is today the Mediterranean coast of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco
• Some African rulers converted to Islam and then based their government on Islamic law
• Muslims believe that God’s law is a higher authority than any human law, which resulted in Muslim rulers often relying on religious scholars as government advisers
• Following the law is a religious obligation in Islam, there is no separation from personal and religious life
  • Islamic law regulates almost all areas of human life 
• Islamic law helped bring order to Muslim states
• Various Muslim states had ethnic/cultural differences
  • These states also sometimes had differing interpretations and schools of Islamic law
• Berbers also converted to Islam
  • They were original inhabitants of North Africa
  • Berbers accepted Islam as their faith, but many maintained their Berber identities/loyalties
• Two Berber groups: the Almoravids/Almohads, founded empires that united the Maghrib under Muslim rule 
• 11th century: Muslim reformers founded the Almoravid Empire
  • The members came from a Berber group living in the western Sahara in present-day Mauritania
  • The movement began after Berber muslims made a hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca
  • They convinced a Muslim scholar from Morocco (Abd Allah Ibn Yasin) to return with them to teach their people about Islam
• Ibn Yasin's teachings attracted followers and he founded a strict religious brotherhood (the Almoravids) 
• 1050s: Ibn Yasin led the Almoravids in an effort to spread Islam through conquest
• 1059: Ibn Yasin dies
  • The Almoravids went on to take Morocco and found Marrakech, which became their capital
  • They overran Ghana by 1076 and also captured parts of southern Spain, where they were called Moors
• Mid-1100s: the Almohads, another group of Berber Muslim reformers, seized power from the Almoravids
  • They began as a religious movement in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco 
• The Almohads followed the teachings of Ibn Tumart
• After a pilgrimage to Mecca, Ibn Tumart criticized later Almoravid rulers for straying from the traditional practice of Islam
• He urged his followers to strictly obey the Qur'an/Islamic law
• The Almohads, led by Abd al-Mumin, fought to overthrow the Almoravids and remain true to their view of traditional Islamic beliefs
• By 1148, the Almohads controlled most of Morocco and ended Almoravid rule
• They kept the capital at Marrakech
• By the end of the 12th century, they conquered much of southern Spain
• In Africa, their territory stretched from Marrakech to Tripoli and Tunis on the Mediterranean
• The Almohad Empire broke up into individual Muslim dynasties 
• The Almohad Empire united Maghrib under one rule for the first time even though it only lasted just over 100 years

CHAPTER 15.2: West African Civilizations

• By 200 AD, trade across the Sahara existed for centuries but was infrequent/irregular because of harsh desert conditions
• Most pack animals couldn't travel very far in in the Sahara without rest or water
• 3rd century AD: Berber nomads began using camels
  • Camels could steadily travel much longer distances (60 miles in a day)
  • They could also travel more than ten days without water, which is twice as long as most pack animals 
• The introduction of the camel allowed for nomads to travel new desert routes and increase trade
• Trade routes crossed through the region farmed by the Soninke people
  • They called their ruled ghana or war chief
• By the 700s, Ghana was a kingdom and its rulers were growing rich by taxing goods that traders carried through their territory
• The two most important trade items were gold and salt
  • Gold came from a forest region south of the savanna between the Niger and Senegal rivers
  • Some sources estimate that until about 1350, at least 2/3 of the world’s supply of gold came from West Africa
• Even though West Africa was rich in gold, their forests and savanna lacked salt
  • The Sahara contained salt deposits
• Arab and Berber traders crossed the desert with camel caravans loaded down with salt 
  • They also carried cloth, weapons, and manufactured goods from ports on the Mediterranean
• African traders brought gold north from the forest regions
• Merchants met in trading cities and exchanged goods under the supervision of the king's tax collector
• Royal officials also made sure that all traders weighed goods fairly and did business according to law
• Royal guards also provided protection against bandits
• By 800, Ghana became an empire
• Because Ghana’s king controlled trade and commanded a large army, he could demand taxes and gifts from the chiefs of surrounding lands
• As long as chiefs made their payments, the king left them alone to rule their own people 
• The king stored gold nuggets and slabs of salt (collected as taxes) in his royal palace
  • Only the king had the right to own gold nuggets, although gold dust freely circulated in the marketplace
  • The king limited the supply of gold and kept its price from falling
• Ghana’s African ruler acted as a religious leader, chief judge, and military commander 
  • He headed a large bureaucracy and could call up a huge army
• Islam spread through North Africa by conquest and South Africa by trade
• Muslim merchants/teachers settled in the states south of the Sahara and introduced their faiths
• Ghana's rulers eventually converted to Islam
• By the end of the 11th century, Muslim advisers were helping to run the kingdom
• While Ghana’s African rulers accepted Islam, many people in the empire clung to their animistic beliefs and practices 
  • Animism = the belief that spirits living animals, plants, and natural forces play an important role in daily life
  • Much of the population never converted
  • Those who converted kept many of their former beliefs which they observed along with Islam
• In the upper-class, Islam's growth encouraged literacy
• Converts to Islam had to learn Arabic to study the Qur'an
• 1067: Muslim Almoravids of North Africa completed their conquest of Ghana 
• The Almoravids eventually withdrew from Ghana, but the war badly disrupted the gold-salt trade
• Ghana never regained its power as a result
• By 1235, the kingdom of Mali emerged
  • Its founders were Mande-speaking people, who lived south of Ghana 
• Mali's wealth was also built on gold 
• As Ghana remained weak, people who had been under its control began to act independently
• Miners also found new gold deposits farther east, which led the most important trade routes to shift eastward
  • This made the people of Mali wealthy and enabled them to seize power
• Sundiata, Mali's first great leader came to power by crushing a cruel/unpopular leader
  • Sundiata became Mali's mansa or emperor
• Through a series of military victories, he took over the kingdom of Ghana/the trading cities of Kumbi/Walata
•  Sundiata put able administrators in charge of Mali's finances, defense, and foreign affairs
• He also promoted agriculture/re-established the gold-salt trade through his capital at Niani
  • Niani became an important center of commerce and trade
• 1255: Sundiata dies
• Some of Mali’s next rulers became Muslims 
  • They built mosques, attended public prayers, and supported the preaching of Muslim holy men
• The most famous of them is Mansa Musa (r. 1312-1332)
• Mali experienced turmoil between Sundiata and Mansa Musa's reign
• There were 7 different rulers in roughly 50 years
• Mansa Musa was also a skilled military leader who exercised royal control over the gold-salt trad/squashed every rebellion
• Under Mansa Musa, the empire expanded to roughly twice the size of the empire of Ghana
• Mansa Musa divided it into provinces and appointed governors to govern his far-reaching empire
• Mansa Musa was a devout Muslim and went on a hajj to Mecca (1324-1325)
• When he returned, he ordered the building of new mosques at the trading cities of Timbuktu/Gao
• Timbuktu became one of the most important cities of the empire
  • It attracted Muslim judges, doctors, religious leaders, and scholars from far and wide 
    • They attended Timbuktu's mosques/universities
• 1352: One of Mansa Musa’s successors prepared to receive a traveler and historian (Ibn Battuta)
  • Ibn Battuta had traveled for 27 years, visiting most of the countries in the Islamic world
• Ibn Battuta visited Timbuktu and other cities in Mali after leaving the royal palace
  • As a devout Muslim, he praised the people for their study of the Qur’an but criticized them for not strictly practicing Islam's moral code
  • Mali's justice system greatly impressed him
• 1353: Ibn Battuta left Mali
• Within 50 years, the empire began to weaken  
• Most of Mansa Musa’s successors lacked his ability to govern well
• The gold trade shifted eastward as new goldfields were developed elsewhere
• As Mali declined in the 1400s, people who had been under its control began to break away 
• This included the Songhai people to the east
  • They built up an army/extended their territory to the large bend in the Niger River near Gao (their capital)
  •  They gained control of the all-important trade routes
• The Songhai had 2 rulers, both of whom were Muslims:
  • One of them was Sunni Ali, who built a vast empire by military conquest
    • His rule began in 1464 and lasted nearly 30 years
    • He built a professional army that had a riverboat fleet of war canoes and a mobile fighting force on horseback
    • He expanded Songhai into an empire through his skill as a military commander/aggressive leadership
    • 1468: Sunni Ali achieved his 1st major military triumph by capturing Timbuktu
    • 5 years later, he took Djenne, a trade city that had a university 
    • He surrounded the city with his army 7 years before it fell in 1473 
    • Sunni Ali completed the takeover of Djenne by marrying its queen
  • Sunni Ali dies in 1492, his son succeeded him as ruler
    • Almost at once, the son faced a major revolt by Muslims who were angry that he did not practice their religion faithfully
      • The leader of the revolt was a devout Muslim (Askia Muhammad)
      • He drove Sunni Ali's son from power and replaced him
  • Aska Muhammad set up an efficient tax system/chose able officials
  • He appointed officials to serve as ministers of the treasury, army, navy, and agriculture
  • The well-governed empire thrived under his rule
• The Songhai Empire lacked modern weapons
• The Chinese invented gunpowder in the 9th century
• Around 1304, Arabs developed the first gun, which shot arrows 
• 1591: a Moroccan fighting force of several thousand men equipped w/ gunpowder/cannons crossed the Sahara/invaded and defeated Songhai warriors that were only armed with swords/spears
• The collapse of the Songhai empire ended a 1,000 year period in which powerful kingdoms/empires ruled the central region of West Africa
• City-states developed in other parts of West Africa
• Muslim traditions influenced some of these city-states while others held to their traditional African beliefs
• The Hausa were a group of people named after the language they spoke. 
  • They first emerged b/t the years 1000-1200 in the savanna area east of Mali/Songhai in present-day northern Nigeria
• Songhai briefly ruled the Hausa city-states, but they soon regained their independence
• In city-states such as Kano, Katsina, and Zazzau, local rulers built walled cities for their capitals
  • Hausa rulers governed the farming villages outside the city walls from their capitals
• Each ruler depended on the crops of the farmers and on a thriving trade in salt, grain, and cotton cloth made by urban weavers
• Because they were located on trade routes that linked other West African states with the Mediterranean, Kano and Katsina became major trading states
  • They profited greatly from supplying the needs of caravans 
• Zazzau, the southernmost state, conducted a vigorous trade in enslaved persons
  • Zazzau’s traders raided an area south of the city/sold their captives to traders in other Hausa states, who then sold them to other North or West African societies in exchange for horses, harnesses, and guns
• The Hausa kept some slaves to build and repair city walls and grow food for the cities
• All the Hausa city-states had similar forms of government
  • Rulers held great power over their subjects, but ministers and other officials acted to check this power
  • For protection, each city-state raised an army of mounted horsemen
  • Although rulers often schemed/fought to gain control over their neighbors, none succeeded for long
  • The constant fighting among city-states prevented any one of them from building a Hausa empire  
• The Yoruba also all spoke a common language
  • Originally the Yoruba-speaking people belonged to a number of small city-states in the forests in present-day Benin and southwestern Nigeria
• Most people farmed
• Over time, some of these smaller communities joined together under strong leaders, leading to the creation of several Yoruba kingdoms
• Yoruba kings were considered divine and served as the most important religious/political leaders in their kingdoms
• All Yoruba chiefs traced their descent from the first ruler of Ife
  • According to legend, the creator sent this first ruler down to earth at Ife, where he founded the first Yoruba state
• All Yoruba chiefs regarded the king of Ife as their highest spiritual authority
• A secret society of religious and political leaders limited the king’s rule by reviewing the decisions he made
• Ife and Oyo were the two largest Yoruba kingdoms
• Ife was developed by 1100 and was the most powerful Yoruba kingdom until the late 1600s, when Oyo became more prosperous
• Both Ife and Oyo had high walls surrounding them 
• Most rural farms in the surrounding areas produced surplus food, which was sent to cities
  • This enabled city dwellers to become traders/craftspeople
• According to tradition, Benin artists learned their craft from an Ife artist brought to Benin by the oba to teach them
• 1480s: Portuguese trading ships began to sail into Benin’s port at Gwatto 
• The Portuguese traded with Benin merchants for pepper, leopard skins, ivory, and enslaved persons
• This began several centuries of European interference in Africa, during which they enslaved Africans and seized African territories for colonies 

CHAPTER 15.3: The Eastern City-States and Southern Empires

• Villages along the east coast began to develop into important trade cities
• By 1100, many Bantu-speaking people had migrated across central Africa to the east coast
• They established farming/fishing villages
• The existing coastal villages gradually grew into bustling seaports built on trade b/t East African merchants and traders from Arabia, Persia, and India
• As trade increased, many Muslim Arab/Persian traders settled in the port cities.
• Arabic blended with the Bantu language to create the Swahili language
• Persian traders moved south from the Horn of Africa
• They brought Asian manufactured goods to Africa/African raw materials to Asia  
• In the coastal markets, Arab traders sold porcelain bowls from China and jewels/cotton cloth from India
•  They bought African ivory, gold, tortoiseshell, ambergris, leopard skins, and rhinoceros horns to carry to Arabia
• By 1300, more than 35 trading cities were created along the coast from Mogadishu in the north to Kilwa/Sofala in the south
  • They grew wealthy by controlling all incoming/outgoing trade
  • Some cities also manufactured trade goods
• 1331: Ibn Battuta visited Kilwa
  • Rich families lived in fine houses of coral and stone
  • They slept in beds inlaid with ivory and their meals were served on porcelain
  • Wealthy Muslim women wore silk robes and gold and silver bracelets 
  • Kilwa grew rich because it was as far south on the coast as a ship from India could sail in one monsoon season
    • Trade goods from southerly regions had to funnel into Kilwa so Asian merchants could buy them
• In the late 1200s, Kilwa seized the port of Sofala (a trading center for gold mined inland)
  • Controlling Sofala allowed Kilwa to be able to control overseas trade of gold from southern Africa
  • Kilwa became the wealthiest, most powerful coastal state
• 1488: the first Portuguese ships rounded the southern tip of Africa/sailed north, looking for a sea route to India 
  • They wanted to gain profits from the Asian trade in spices, perfumes, and silks
  • When the Portuguese saw the wealth of the East African city-states, they decided to conquer them and take over trade themselves
• Using their shipboard cannon, the Portuguese took Sofala, Kilwa, and Mombasa
• The Portuguese kept their ports and cities on the East African coast for the next two centuries
• Muslim traders introduced Islam to the East African coast/the growth of commerce caused the religion to spread 
• A Muslim sultan, or ruler, governed most cities
  • Most government officials and wealthy merchants were Muslims
  • However, the vast majority of people along the East African coast held on to their traditional religious beliefs, which also applied to those who lived in inland villages
• Arab Muslim traders exported enslaved people from the East African coast
• Traders sent Africans acquired through kidnapping to markets in Arabia, Persia, and Iraq 
  • Wealthy people often bought slaves to do domestic tasks
• Muslim traders shipped enslaved Africans across the Indian Ocean to India, where Indian rulers employed them as soldiers
• Enslaved Africans also worked on docks and ships at Muslim-controlled ports and as household servants in China
• Even though Muslim traders enslaved East Africans/sold them overseas since the 9th century, the numbers remained small and did not increase dramatically until the 1700s
• Gold/ivory that helped the coastal city-states grow wealthy came from the interior of southern Africa
• The Shona people established Great Zimbabwe in southeastern Africa
• By 1000, the Shona people settled between the Zambezi/Limpopo rivers in modern Zimbabwe
• The area was well suited to farming/cattle raising
• Its location had economic advantages 
  •  Great Zimbabwe stood near an important trade route linking the goldfields w/ the coastal trading city of Sofala
  • Great Zimbabwe gained control of these trade routes sometime after 1000
• 1200s-1400s: It became the capital of a thriving state
• Its leaders taxed the traders who traveled these routes/demanded payments from less powerful chiefs
•  Great Zimbabwe became the economic, political, and religious center of its empire
• By 1450, Great Zimbabwe was mysteriously abandoned
  • One theory suggests that cattle grazing had worn out the grasslands/farming worn out the soil/people used up the salt & timber, which meant that it couldn't support a large population
• Almost everything that is known about Great Zimbabwe comes from its impressive ruins
• According to Shona oral tradition, a man named Mutota left Great Zimbabwe about 1420 to find a new source of salt
  • He founded a new state to replace Great Zimbabwe  
• As the state grew, its leader Mutota used his army to dominate the northern Shona people living in the area/forced them to make payments to support him/his army
• These conquered people called Mutota and his successors mwene mutapa, meaning “conqueror” or “master pillager”
•  The Portuguese who arrived on the East African coast in the early 1500s believed mwene mutapa to be a title of respect for the ruler
  • The term is also the origin of the name of the Mutapa Empire  
• By the time of Mutota’s death, the Mutapa Empire had conquered all of what is now Zimbabwe except the eastern portion
• By 1480 Mutota’s son Matope claimed control of the area along the Zambezi River to the Indian Ocean coast
• The Mutapa Empire was able to mine gold deposited in nearby rivers/streams
•  Mutapa rulers forced people in conquered areas to mine gold for them
• The rulers sent gold to the coastal city-states in exchange for luxuries  
• Even before the death of Matope, the southern part of his empire broke away, but the Mutapa Dynasty remained in control of the smaller empire
• In the 1500s, the Portuguese tried to conquer the empire
  • When they failed to do so, they resorted to interfering in Mutapa politics
  • They helped to overthrow one ruler and replace him with one they could control