Africa Flashcards
How many different languages did the people of sub-Saharan Africa speak by the 11th century.
800
What types of people did Africa support?
Hunter Gatherers, fishing peoples, nomadic hurderers, settled cultivators, people who drew their livelihoods from mining, manufacturing, and trade.
What challenges did Kin based societies face after 1000 C.E.
Population growth, and conflicts between villages
What makes it difficult to speak about African society and cultural developments?
Diversity
What did increased conflict encourage Bantu communities to organize?
Military forces for both offensive and defensive purposes.
How did many Bantu districts fall under the leadership of powerful chiefs?
The chiefs overrode kinship networks and imposed their own authority on their territories.
In what cities did africans develop complex societies with clearly defined classes?
Kongo, Mali, and Kilwa
What sort of authority structure existed inside smaller states in Africa?
Kin-Based authority structures
What sort of ruling elite did small states generate?
An aristocratic ruling elite
What emerged in sub-Saharan Africa after about 1000 C.E.
Small kingdoms
What kingdoms arose in the forested regions of W. Africa
Ife and Benin.
Outside larger states and empires, what were the principal considerations that determined social positions?
Kinship, sex, and gender expectations
What was the governmental structure of Ife and Benin like?
They were city-states where the court and urban residents controlled the countryside with family relationships and political alliances.
What served as the main foundations or social and economical organizations in small-scale agricultural societies.
Extended family and clans
What was one of the most active areas of political development in Africa?
The basin of the Congo River
What was the governmental structure of the Congo Area like by 1200.
Larger regional principalities that could resist political and military pressure came into being.
How did the people of Sub-Saharan Africa view ownership of land?
They did not recognize private ownership of the land and used it in common in the communities.
Name one of the more prosperous of the Congolese states.
The kingdom of the Kongo
What groups of people made up communities in Africa?
Multiple extended families make up the communities.
What did the Kingdom of Kongo participate in, and what did this involve?
They participated in trade networks that involved copper, Raffa cloth, and nzimbu shells.
What modern day places did the Kingdom of Kongo bring under its control by the 14th century?
The republic of the Congo and Angola
What were the male heads in the communities in Africa responsible for?
Dividing up lands for their relatives to farm and the distribution of a harvest.
What did the central government of Kongo include?
The king and officials who oversaw military, judicial, and financial affairs?
What was the most tightly centralized of the early Bantu kingdoms?
The Kongo
Who ended the authority of the Kings and government of the Congo?
Portuguese slave traders
Who introduced Islam to sub-Saharan Africa?
Merchants from N. Africa and SW. Asia
What routes did Islam travel along to Africa, and what places did these routes lead to?
West Africa by trans-Saharan camel caravans, and costal East Africa over the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean.
How did the arrival of the Camel affect Africa?
It quickened the pace of communication and transportation across the Sahara.
What aspects of Africa did Islam influence?
The political, social, economic, cultural, and religious
Who has lived in the Sahara since 5000 B.C.E.?
Small groups of Nomadic peoples.
Where did Camels come from, and how did Camels get to Africa?
They came from Arabia, and got to Africa by passing through Egypt and the Sudan.
What did the special camel saddle do?
Take advantage of the animals’ distinctive physical structure.
How long did a caravan take to cross the Sahara?
70-90 days
Why were camels so useful?
They could travel long distances without needing water.
What did camels do after 300 C.E.?
Increasingly replace horses and donkeys as the preferred transport animal.
When did Arab conquers introduce Islam to N. Africa?
The 7th and 8th centuries.
When did Arab conquers introduced Islam to N. Africa, what else did they do along with this?
They integrated the region into a rapidly expanding zone of commerce and communication.
What was Gao?
The endpoint for a lot of caravan routes across the Sahara that offered access to the Niger River valley.
What was the Niger river valley a flourishing market for?
Copper, Ironware, cotton textiles, salt, grains, and carnelian beads.
What was the principal state of W. Africa at the time of the Muslims’ arrival?
The Kingdom of Ghana.
Where was Ghana?
Between the Senegal and Niger rivers in a region on the border between the modern states of Mali and Mauritania.
How many kings ruled in Ghana before Muhammad went on the Hijra?
22
What was the most important commercial site in W. Africa, and why was it so important?
Ghana, because it was the center for the trade in gold.
When did Ghana develop as a state?
During the 4th or 5th century CE
Did Ghana produce gold?
No
How did Ghana get its gold?
The kings got gold nuggets from lands to the south.
Where did Ghana probably get its gold, and why?
The Niger, Gambia, and Senegal rivers, because they had the world’s largest supply of gold at the time.
How did Ghana’s kings enrichen and strengthen Ghana?
Controlling and taxing the gold trade
What else did Ghana provide during trading besides Gold?
Ivory and Slaves
What did Ghana import?
Horses, cloth, small manufactured wares, and salt.
What brought huge wealth and power to Ghana, even more than before?
Integration into the trans-Saharan trade networks.
Ghana capitol
Koumbi-Saleh
What was the population of Koumbi-Saleh when Ghana was at its height?
15-20 thousand people
How did Al-Bakiri describe Koumbi-Saleh?
A flourishing site with buildings of stone and more than a dozen Mosques.
Who was Al-Bakiri?
A Spanish Muslim traveler of the mid 11th century
How large was the army that Ghana’s kings financed?
200,000 warriors.
What did Ghana’s army do?
Protected the sources of gold, maintained order in the kingdom, kept allied and tributary states in line, and defended Ghana against nomadic invasions.
What had the kings of Ghana done by about the 10th century?
Converted to Islam
How did the kings converting to Islam help Ghana?
They led to improved relations with Muslim merchants and nomads, and recognition and support from Muslim states in N. Africa.
Did the kings of Ghana attempt to impose Islam on their society, or exclusively accept Islam?
No, neither
What did the kings of Takrur do in relation to Islam?
They zealously campaigned for the conversion of their entire kingdom.
How did the Ghanese mix Islam and traditional religious customs?
Despite the practicing of Islam, native religious specialists practiced magic and kept idols in the woods surrounding the royal palace
How did the Kingdom of Ghana fall?
It collapsed because raids from the desert greatly weakened it.
After Ghana, who did political leadership in W. Africa fall to?
The Mali empire, which emerged just as Ghana dissolved.
What was Sundiata known as?
The lion prince
Who is Sundiata?
founder of the Mali empire, he united the kingdom in trade and politics
Bantu Migrations:
When the Bantu people migrated and settled in most parts of Africa south of the equator. These migrations resulted in the spread of agriculture and herding to almost all parts of Africa
Forest Peoples:
food gatherers who served as useful guides in environments that were unfamiliar to the Bantu. Eventually integrated into Bantu society.
Time of Sundiata’s reign
1230 to 1255
What did Sundiata do?
He built the Mali empire during the first half of the 13th century after his return from exile
Kin-Based Societies:
society based on village chiefs who were chosen because they were the male head of a family. The village chiefs worked together to settle matters.
What did Sundiata do while away from home?
He made astute alliances with local rulers, gained a reputation for courage in battle, and assembled a large army dominated by cavalry.
What areas did Mali include?
Ghana, and other neigboring kingdoms that are today Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.
What did Mali benefit from on an even larger scale than Ghana?
Trans-Saharan trade
What did Mali control and tax?
Almost all trade passing through W. Africa