Untitled Flashcards Set

EK 1.1.A.1 African American Studies combines an interdisciplinary approach with the rigor of scholarly inquiry to analyze the history, culture, and contributions of people of African descent in the United States and throughout the African diaspora. EK 1.1.A.2 African American Studies emerged from Black artistic, intellectual, and political endeavors that predate its formalization as a f ield of study. The discipline offers a lens for understanding contemporary Black freedom struggles within and beyond the academy. EK 1.1.A.3 African American Studies examines the development of ideas about Africa’s history and the continent’s ongoing relationship to communities of the African diaspora. LO 1.1.B Describe the developments that led to the incorporation of African American Studies into United States colleges and universities in the 1960s and 1970s. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.1.B.1 Toward the end of the Civil Rights movement and during the Black Power movement in the 1960s and 1970s, Black college students entered predominantly white institutions in large numbers for the first time in American history. EK 1.1.B.2 During the Black Campus movement (1965–1972), hundreds of thousands of Black students and Latino, Asian, and white supporters led protests at over 1,000 colleges nationwide, demanding greater opportunities to study the history and experiences of Black people and greater support for Black students, faculty, and administrators. LO 1.1.C Explain how African American Studies enriches the study of early Africa and its relationship to communities of the African diaspora. EK 1.1.C.1 Africa is the birthplace of humanity and the ancestral home of African Americans. African American Studies examines developments in early African societies in fields including the arts, architecture, technology, politics, religion, and music. The long history of these innovations informs African Americans’ experiences and identities. EK 1.1.C.2 Interdisciplinary analysis in African American Studies dispels misconceptions of early Africa as a place with an undocumented or unknowable history. Research in this field documents early Africa as a diverse continent with complex societies that made enduring contributions to humanity. These societies were globally connected well before the onset of the transatlantic slave trade. LO 1.2.A Describe the geographic features of the African continent. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.2.A.1 As the second-largest continent in the world, Africa is geographically diverse with f ive primary climate zones: desert (e.g., the Sahara), semiarid (e.g., the Sahel), savannah grasslands, tropical rainforests, and the Mediterranean zone. EK 1.2.A.2 Africa is bordered by seas and oceans (Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and Indian Ocean) with five major rivers (Niger River, Congo River, Zambezi River, Orange River, and Nile River) connecting regions throughout the interior of the continent. LO 1.2.B Explain how Africa’s varied landscape affected patterns of settlement and trade between diverse cultural regions. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.2.B.1 The proximity of the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean to the African continent supported the emergence of early societies and fostered early global connections beyond the continent. EK 1.2.B.2 Population centers emerged in the Sahel and the savannah grasslands of Africa for three important reasons: EK 1.2.B.2.i Major water routes facilitated the movement of people and goods through trade. EK 1.2.B.2.ii Fertile land supported the expansion of agriculture and the domestication of animals. EK 1.2.B.2.iii The Sahel and savannah grasslands connected trade between communities in the Sahara to the north and in the tropical regions to the south. EK 1.2.B.3 Variations in climate facilitated diverse opportunities for trade in Africa. EK 1.2.B.3.i In desert and semiarid areas, herders were often nomadic, moving in search of food and water, with some trading salt. EK 1.2.B.3.ii In the Sahel, people traded livestock. EK 1.2.B.3.iii In the savannah grasslands, people cultivated grain crops. EK 1.2.B.3.iv In the tropical rainforests, people grew kola trees and yams, and traded gold. LO 1.3.A Describe the causes of Bantu expansion across the African continent. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.3.A.1 Technological innovations (e.g., the development of tools*) and agricultural innovations (e.g., the cultivation of bananas, yams, and grains) contributed to the population growth of West and Central African peoples. EK 1.3.A.2 This population growth triggered a series of migrations of people who spoke Bantu languages throughout the continent from 1500 BCE to 500 CE, called the Bantu expansion. LO 1.3.B Explain how the Bantu expansion affected the linguistic diversity of West and Central Africa and the genetic heritage of African Americans. EK 1.3.B.1 Bantu-speaking peoples’ linguistic influences spread throughout the continent. Today, the Bantu linguistic family contains hundreds of languages that are spoken throughout West, Central, and Southern Africa (e.g., Xhosa, Swahili, Kikongo, and Zulu). EK 1.3.B.2 Africa is the home of thousands of ethnic groups and languages. A large portion of the genetic ancestry of African Americans derives from communities in West and Central Africa that speak languages belonging to the Bantu linguistic family. LO 1.4.A Describe the features of, and goods produced by, complex societies that emerged in ancient East and West Africa. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.4.A.1 Several of the world’s earliest complex, large-scale societies arose in Africa during the ancient era, including Egypt and Nubia (also known as Kush/Cush). Egypt and Nubia emerged along the Nile River around 3000 BCE. Nubia was the source of Egypt’s gold and luxury trade items, which created conflict between the two societies. Around 750 BCE, Nubia defeated Egypt and established the twenty-fifth dynasty of the Black Pharaohs, who ruled Egypt for a century. EK 1.4.A.2 The Aksumite Empire (present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia) emerged in eastern Africa around 100 BCE. The Red Sea connected the empire to major maritime trade networks from the Mediterranean and the Roman Empire to India, and its strategic location contributed to its rise and expansion. Aksum developed its own currency and script (Ge’ez). LO 1.4.A Describe the features of, and goods produced by, complex societies that emerged in ancient East and West Africa. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.4.A.3 The Nok society (present-day Nigeria), one of the earliest ironworking societies of West Africa, emerged around 500 BCE. They are best known for their pottery, naturalistic terracotta sculptures of animals and people adorned by various hairstyles and jewelry, and stone instruments. These artifacts are the most ancient extant evidence of a complex, settled society in sub-Saharan Africa. LO 1.4.B Explain why Africa’s ancient societies are culturally and historically significant to Black communities. EK 1.4.B.1 Aksum became the first African society to adopt Christianity under the leadership of King Ezana. Ge’ez, its script, is still used as the main liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Aksumite Empire exemplifies African societies that adopted Christianity on their own terms, beyond the influence of colonialism or the later transatlantic slave trade. EK 1.4.B.2 From the late eighteenth century onward, African American writers emphasized the significance of ancient Africa in their sacred and secular texts. Examples from ancient Africa countered racist stereotypes that characterized African societies as without government or culture. These texts formed part of the early canon of African American Studies. EK 1.4.B.3 In the mid-twentieth century, research demonstrating the complexity and contributions of Africa’s ancient societies underpinned Africans’ political claims for self-rule and independence from European colonialism. LO 1.5.A Explain how the influence of gold and trade shaped the political, economic, and religious development of the ancient West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.5.A.1 The Sudanic empires, also known as the Sahelian empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, emerged and flourished from the seventh to the sixteenth century. Each reached their height at a different time and expanded from the decline of the previous empire: Ghana flourished in the seventh to thirteenth centuries; Mali flourished in the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries; and Songhai flourished in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. EK 1.5.A.2 Ancient Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were renowned for their gold mines and strategic location at the nexus of multiple trade routes, connecting trade from the Sahara (toward Europe) to sub-Saharan Africa. EK 1.5.A.3 Trans-Saharan commerce brought North African traders, scholars, and administrators who introduced Islam to the region and facilitated its spread throughout West Africa. EK 1.5.A.4 Songhai was the last and the largest of the Sudanic empires. Following Portuguese exploration along the western coast of Africa, trade routes shifted from trans-Saharan to Atlantic trade, diminishing Songhai’s wealth. LO 1.5.B Explain how Mali’s wealth and power created opportunities for the empire to expand its reach to other societies within Africa and across the Mediterranean. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.5.B.1 In the fourteenth century, the Mali Empire was ruled by the wealthy and influential Mansa Musa, who established the empire as a center for trade, learning, and cultural exchange. EK 1.5.B.2 Mali’s wealth and access to trans Saharan trade routes enabled its leaders to crossbreed powerful North African horses and purchase steel weapons, which contributed to the empire’s ability to extend power over neighboring groups. EK 1.5.B.3 Mali’s wealth and Mansa Musa’s hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) in 1324 attracted the interest of merchants and cartographers across the eastern Mediterranean to southern Europe, prompting plans to trade manufactured goods for gold. LO 1.5.C Explain the connection between the Sudanic empires and early generations of African Americans. EK 1.5.C.1 The Sudanic empires in West Africa stretched from Senegambia to present-day Côte d’Ivoire and included regions of Nigeria. The majority of enslaved Africans transported directly to North America descended from societies in two regions: West Africa and West Central Africa. LO 1.6.A Describe the institutional and community-based models of education present in early West African societies. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.6.A.1 West African empires housed centers of learning in their trading cities. In Mali, a book trade, university, and learning community flourished in Timbuktu, which drew astronomers, mathematicians, architects, and jurists to the city. EK 1.6.A.2 Griots were prestigious historians, storytellers, and musicians who maintained and shared a community’s history, traditions, and cultural practices. EK 1.6.A.3 Gender played an important role in the griot tradition. Griots included African women and men who preserved knowledge of a community’s births, deaths, and marriages in their stories. LO 1.7.A Explain how syncretic practices in early West and West Central African societies developed and were carried forward in African-descended communities in the Americas. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.7.A.1 The adoption of Islam (e.g., in Mali and Songhai) or of Christianity (e.g., in Kongo) by leaders of some African societies often resulted in their subjects blending aspects of these introduced faiths with Indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmologies. EK 1.7.A.2 Africans who blended local spiritual practices with Christianity and Islam brought their syncretic religious and cultural practices from Africa to the Americas. About one-quarter of the enslaved Africans who arrived in North America came from Christian societies in Africa, and about one-quarter came from Muslim societies in Africa. EK 1.7.A.3 Spiritual practices that can be traced to West and West Central Africa, such as veneration of the ancestors, divination, healing practices, and collective singing and dancing, have survived in African diasporic religions*, such as Louisiana Voodoo. Africans and their descendants who were later enslaved in the Americas often performed spiritual ceremonies of these syncretic faiths to strengthen themselves before leading revolts. LO 1.8.A Describe the function and importance of Great Zimbabwe’s stone architecture. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.8.A.1 The Kingdom of Zimbabwe and its capital city, Great Zimbabwe, flourished in Southern Africa from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The kingdom was linked to trade on the Swahili Coast, and its inhabitants, the Shona people, became wealthy from its gold, ivory, and cattle resources. EK 1.8.A.2 Great Zimbabwe is best known for its large stone architecture, which offered military defense and served as a hub for longdistance trade. The Great Enclosure was a site for religious and administrative activities, and the conical tower likely served as a granary. EK 1.8.A.3 The stone ruins remain an important symbol of the prominence, autonomy, and agricultural advancements of the Shona kings and early African societies such as the kingdom of Zimbabwe. LO 1.8.B Explain how geographic, cultural, and political factors contributed to the rise and fall of the city-states on the Swahili Coast. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.8.B.1 The Swahili Coast (named from sawahil, the Arabic word for coasts) stretches from Somalia to Mozambique. The coastal location of its city-states linked Africa’s interior to Arab, Persian, Indian, and Chinese trading communities. EK 1.8.B.2 Between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, the Swahili Coast city-states were united by their shared language (Swahili, a Bantu lingua franca) and shared religion (Islam). EK 1.8.B.3 The strength of the Swahili Coast trading states garnered the attention of the Portuguese, who invaded major city-states and established settlements in the sixteenth century to control Indian Ocean trade. LO 1.9.A Explain how the adoption of Christianity affected economic and religious aspects of the Kingdom of Kongo. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.9.A.1 In 1491, King Nzinga a Nkuwu (João I) and his son Nzinga Mbemba (Afonso I) voluntarily converted the powerful West Central African Kingdom of Kongo to Roman Catholicism. EK 1.9.A.2 The Kingdom of Kongo’s conversion to Christianity strengthened its trade relationship with Portugal, leading to Kongo’s increased wealth. Ivory, salt, copper, and textiles were the primary goods of trade. EK 1.9.A.3 The nobility’s voluntary conversion allowed Christianity to gain mass acceptance, as the presence of the Church was not tied to foreign colonial occupation. A distinct form of African Catholicism emerged that incorporated elements of Christianity and local aesthetic and cultural traditions. LO 1.9.B ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE Explain how the Kingdom of Kongo’s political relations with Portugal affected the kingdom’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade. EK 1.9.B.1 As a result of the Kingdom of Kongo’s conversion to Christianity and subsequent political ties with Portugal, the King of Portugal demanded access to the trade of enslaved people in exchange for military assistance. EK 1.9.B.2 Kongo nobles participated in the transatlantic slave trade, but they were unable to limit the number of captives sold to European powers. EK 1.9.B.3 Kongo, along with the greater region of West Central Africa, became the largest source of enslaved people in the history of the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas. LO 1.9.C Explain how the Kingdom of Kongo’s Christian culture influenced early generations of African Americans. EK 1.9.C.1 About a quarter of enslaved Africans directly transported to what became the United States hailed from West Central Africa. Many West Central Africans were Christians before they arrived in the Americas. EK 1.9.C.2 In Kongo, the practice of naming children after saints or according to the day of the week on which they were born (“day names”) was common before the rise of the transatlantic slave trade. As a result, Christian names among early African Americans (in Iberian and English versions, such as Juan, João, and John) also have African origins and exemplify ways that ideas and practices around kinship and lineage endured across the Atlantic. LO 1.10.A Describe the function of kinship along with the varied roles women played in early West and Central African societies. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.10.A.1 Many early West and Central African societies were composed of family groups held together by extended kinship ties, and kinship often formed the basis for political alliances. EK 1.10.A.2 Women played many roles in West and Central African societies, including as spiritual leaders, political advisors, market traders, educators, and agriculturalists. LO 1.10.B Compare the political and military leadership of Queen Idia of Benin and Queen Njinga of Ndongo-Matamba. EK 1.10.B.1 In the late fifteenth century, Queen Idia became the first iyoba (queen mother) in the Kingdom of Benin (present-day Nigeria). She served as a political advisor to her son, the king. EK 1.10.B.2 In the early seventeenth century, when people from the kingdom of Ndongo became the first large group of enslaved Africans to arrive in the American colonies, Queen Njinga became queen of the kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba (present-day Angola). LO 1.10.B Compare the political and military leadership of Queen Idia of Benin and Queen Njinga of Ndongo-Matamba. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.10.B.3 Both Queen Idia and Queen Njinga led armies into battle. Queen Idia relied on spiritual power and medicinal knowledge to bring victories to Benin. EK 1.10.B.4 Queen Njinga engaged in 30 years of guerilla warfare against the Portuguese to maintain sovereignty and control of her kingdom. She participated in the slave trade to amass wealth and political influence, and expanded Matamba’s military by offering sanctuary for those who escaped Portuguese enslavement and joined her forces. LO 1.10.C Describe the legacy of Queen Idia of Benin’s and Queen Njinga of Ndongo-Matamba’s leadership. EK 1.10.C.1 Queen Idia became an iconic symbol of Black women’s leadership throughout the African diaspora in 1977, when an ivory mask of her face was adopted as the symbol for FESTAC (Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture). EK 1.10.C.2 Queen Njinga’s reign solidified her legacy as a skilled political and military leader throughout the African diaspora. The strength of her example led to nearly 100 more years of women rulers in Matamba. LEARNING OBJECTIVES LO 1.11.A Explain the reasons why Africans went to Europe and Europeans went to Africa before the onset of the transatlantic slave trade. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.11.A.1 In the late fifteenth century, trade between West African kingdoms and Portugal for gold, goods, and enslaved people grew steadily, bypassing the trans-Saharan trade routes. African kingdoms increased their wealth and power through slave trading, which was a common feature of hierarchical West African societies. EK 1.11.A.2 Portuguese and West African trade increased the presence of Europeans in West Africa and the population of sub-Saharan Africans in Iberian port cities like Lisbon and Seville. EK 1.11.A.3 African elites, including ambassadors and the children of rulers, traveled to Mediterranean port cities for diplomatic, educational, and religious reasons. In these cities, free and enslaved Africans also served in roles ranging from domestic labor to boatmen, guards, entertainers, vendors, and knights. LO 1.11.B Explain how early forms of enslaved labor by the Portuguese shaped slavebased economies in the Americas. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE EK 1.11.B.1 In the mid-fifteenth century, the Portuguese colonized the Atlantic islands of Cabo Verde and São Tomé, where they established cotton, indigo, and sugar plantations using the labor of enslaved Africans. EK 1.11.B.2 By 1500, about 50,000 enslaved Africans had been removed from the continent to work on Portuguese-colonized Atlantic islands and in Europe. These plantations became a model for slave labor-based economies in the Americas.