ch 9 Flashcards
INTRODUCTION
-Adventurously sailing the Indian Ocean in the early 1500s CE, Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese naval
officer, was confident that he was helping to forge a new, enduring era of Portuguese dominance.
-Barbosa noted the brisk
trade and the riches of these African settlements where he saw a “great plenty of gold”
-in his mind he thought they were destined by God to have the gold, and so plundered and slaughtered many for it.
-the violence of Portuguese conquest and also his expectation that he and his countrymen were creating
a new Portuguese empire that would make a lasting mark in East Africa and the wider Indian Ocean
world. However, less than 100 years later, Portuguese influences were noticeably absent in most of
East Africa and their power in the Indian Ocean was fading rapidly.
-Americans have many common misconceptions about Africa. In addition to associating
Africa with extreme hardships, a plethora of western-made TV shows focus on wildlife and the
rainforests. However, these popular images don’t give an accurate portrayal of the everyday expe-riences of most Africans or tell us much about the history of the continent.
-African continent islarge and diverse. Africa is the second largest continent in the world. Today, it has over 50 inde-pendent countries. You can also find just about every imaginable environment, from savannahs,
rainforests, and deserts, to glaciers and snow-capped mountains in Africa. Its over 1,000 languages
-faced environmental challenges, rich minerals in areas, some barely rainfall
-past 5,000 years of African history, malaria, yellow fever, and trypanoso-
miasis (also known as sleeping sickness) have made the biggest impacts on population growth
and settlement patterns. Even today, all
three diseases affect the continent. Both
malaria and yellow fever are spread
to people by mosquitos.
-Environmental challenges and disease also affected settlement patterns as, for
example, people avoided more forested and wetter areas because of the prevalence of mosquitoes.
Additionally, Africans continuously adapted their herding and farming techniques to overcome
these challenges.
WRITING THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL AFRICA
-scholars have turned to a
wide range of materials to complement the available written records.
-Before about 1800 CE, many African societies kept their records orally, as opposed to in written
form. These societies have rich, complex histories that some past historians, relying primarily on
written records, ignored when they studied the African continent.
-nineteenth century scholars (european) portrayed Africans more negatively and primitive fashion, and even dicredetied their achievements to be the work of outsiders, they were wrong and scholars are working to fix it more by gaining multi-faceted information
-Griots held honored places in their societies, reflecting
their importance to both rulers and people’s everyday lives. Locally produced proverbs and oral
teachings also played vital roles in many ancient African societies.
-Amadou Hampate Ba, a famous author from Mali, to write, “In Africa, when an old man dies, it’s a library burning.”6
Terminology
-In 2010, one-third of Africa’s population lived in cities, and it is likely that one-half of Africa’s
population will be urban dwelling by 2030 (more recent phenomena)
-trade routes that connected Africa to much of the world, emphasizing that Africa
has been connected to the Arabian Peninsula, Asia, and Europe for millenia.
-the way that we commonly use “tribe” perpetuates a lot of the
negative stereotypes Europeans had of Africa in the nineteenth century.
-There are a handful of other terms that modern scholars scrutinize to show that they are
based on similar prejudices. Two such terms are “stateless society” and “bushmen.” “pygmy” Many written
sources from the nineteenth century produced by Europeans did not recognize the existence of
states in Africa that had more democratic, less centralized, or less hierarchical leadership struc-
tures.
-These written sources assumed that all states had kings or other centralized authority
figures. They denied the existence of states organized in other ways.
-Some African societies were centralized under the rule of monarchs, but others used, for example, councils of elders, had more decentralized, egalitarian systems, or relied on age-sets to mobilize labor and manage government
affairs.
-Africans were some of the first farmers and some of the first iron-workers.
Africans developed their own artistic traditions and unique
state structures. With such a big, diverse continent to consider,
AKSUM AND ETHIOPIA
-Aksum was a great trading empire, with its own coinage, its own language, and its own distinctive
Christian church.
-Ethiopia had very fertile, volcanic soils that supported
large populations. Climatic variation found at the different elevations throughout Ethiopia also
encouraged agricultural diversification and trade. Around 7000 BCE, there was population
growth in the region that corresponded with the Agricultural Revolution.
-Since the Neolithic Revolution, Ethiopia stands out for its agricul-
tural productivity and innovation, both of which sustained large populations in the region.
Teff grass, nsete, false banana
-The Kebra Nagast (“The Glory of Kings”), a 700 year old text that is sacred for Ethiopian
Christians and Rastafarians, traces the origins of the Ethopian royal family back to the Queen of
Sheba and King Solomon of Jerusalem. The Kebra Nagast identifies the Queen of Sheba as an
Ethiopian ruler known locally as Queen Mekeda. According to the text, in approximately 950
BCE, the newly enthroned Queen Mekeda traveled to study with Jerusalem’s well-known king, King
Solomon.
-they had son Menelik who refused to be next Jeruselum King, stole Arc of the Covenant to Ethiopia, partially explains the formation of the Ethopian Orthodox Church
-According to the Kebra Nagast, early Ethiopian rulers
were descendants of King Solomon through Menelik I, part of Ethiopian religious beliefs
and has also legitimized claims to
political power.
-the
largest kingdoms in Ethiopia were
Da’amat and Aksum. The Kingdom
of Da’amat was the first to emerge
in northern Ethiopia in about the
tenth century BCE. In the 1960s and
1970s, archaeologists excavating
the Kingdom of Da’amat unearthed evidence of the region’s role in trade and its connections to
Southern Arabia.
-Inscriptions,
imagery, architectural styles,
and even overlaps in histori-
cal traditions (such as those
associated with the Queen
of Sheba) also suggest close
connections between the
Kingdom of Da’amat and
Saba (Yemen) in Southern
Arabia. For example, the
Kingdom of Da’amat used
religious symbols in its
monumental architecture,
including the disc and
crescent, also found in Southern Arabia.
-The oldest standing building in Ethiopia, the Temple at
Yeha (c. 700 BCE), had an altar with these symbols.
-very vocal scholars push us to
acknowledge the African origins of the Kingdom of Da’amat and view it as a precursor to the trading empire of Aksum.
-The Kingdom of Da’amat weakened in the fourth century BCE as Red Sea trade became more
important than some of the previous northern overland routes. It gave way to the state of Aksum,
with its important cities of Adulis and Aksum.
- Adulis, positioned on the coast, rose in prominence
and grew wealthy. It served as a safe harbor for ships traveling from Southeast Asia.
- The growing capital city in the interior, Aksum, was a stopover point for land-based trade routes into the Sudan and especially Sub-Saharan Africa.
-Africa. Ivory, slaves, tools, spices, gold, silver jewelry, copper, and
iron were eventually traded through the capital city of Aksum to the coast. The state of Aksum
began minting its own gold and silver coins in the third century CE, demonstrating how important
long-distance trade was to its economy.
-early conversion to Christianity
-Some of the coins minted in Aksum actually attest to King Ezana’s
conversion as the coins from the first half of Ezana’s reign have the disc and crescent symbols of
earlier Ethiopian rulers, while coins from the later decades of Ezana’s reign have a Christian cross.
-Ethiopian tradition traces the establishment of Christianity in the region back to two
shipwrecked Syrians. One of the Syrians, Frumentius, was particularly influential because he became
the first bishop of Ethiopia in 303 CE and guided the king of Aksum, King Ezana
-bishop, Frumentius also encouraged Christian merchants to settle in Aksum. About a century later,
Christianity in Ethiopia grew further as the state offered refuge to Christians fleeing persecution due
to doctrinal disputes within the Church. Nine priests, breaking with the Church in Jerusalem, settled
in Ethiopia and founded the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. They maintained ties with the Coptic
Church in Egypt and developed a distinct liturgy using Ge’ez, the local language. Members of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church also incorporated local beliefs,
-people of high class got a lot of wealth
-Ezana amassed wealth by
collecting tribute from surrounding states and taxing trade. Aksum and its surrounding states
were agriculturally productive with fertile soils and effective irrigration systems. Their agricul-
tural productivity meant that the work of peasants and the wealth generated through foreign
trade supported the ruling classes and elites.
-Building a powerful miitary, King Ezana expanded
the empire and claimed control over most of Ethiopia, Nubia, and Saba (Yemen).
-He also used
his assets to showcase his power with, for example, “conquest stones” that commemorated his
victories. In addition to celebrating Ezana’s military strength and commitment to ruling fairly,
the “conquest stones” also proclaimed that God had ordained his reign. The stones impart Ezana’s
edicts and Christian beliefs.
-He and other Aksumite kings also famously commissioned the construction of stelae
(singular: stele). Stelae were tall rectangular pillars with rounded tops set up to mark the under-
ground grave sites of Aksum’s royalty and elite. The most ornate stelae were elaboratedly carved
into a marble-like material with faux doors at the bottom and multiple stories, as indicated by
windows etched into each level. They have been described as “ancient skyscrapers,”
-The stelae demonstrate the wealth of Aksum’s
ruling classes and links between the ruling generations.
Unfortunately, the graves marked by the stelae have been
cleared out by tomb robbers in the intervening years.
-These artifacts also show the availability of
trade goods brought from long distances. Furthermore,
the architecture of the stelae is suggestive of connections
back to earlier kingdoms. For example, the rounded top
of the stelae is reminiscent of the disc symbol found in the
region as far back as the Kingdom of Da’amat. Ezana was
the first Christian king in the region; however, the archi-
tecture that he commissioned maintained ties to Aksum’s
pre-Christian past.
-Aksum’s power began to wane at the end of the sixth
century CE. First, the Persian Empire interrupted Aksum’s
trade with parts of southern Arabia in the late sixth century.
Then, Muslims increasingly dominated trade along the Red
Sea coast and the most profitable trade routes shifted from
the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.
-in response, Aksum shrank
as Ethiopia’s Christian rulers turned away from coastal trade
and became more dependent on the tribute they collected
from agriculturally productive regions to their south.
-the relationship between Ethiopian Muslims and
Christians remained complex.
-Muslims traders
and Christian elites oftentimes cooperated.
-However, there were
also periods of conflict, especially after Muslims unified to form the Adal Sultanate in the fourteenth
century. The Adal Sultanate militarily extended its influence over much of the region and for several
centuries supported a thriving, multi-ethnic state. In the sixteenth century, Ethiopian Christians allied
with the Portuguese to fight against the Adal Sultanate. After the fall of the Adal Sultanate, Ethiopian
Christians rejected Portuguese attempts to convert them to Catholicism and forced Portuguese mis-
sionaries out of the region
THE WESTERN SUDANIC STATES
-Who comes to mind as the richest person ever? Many economists and historians propose a person who might surprise you: Mansa Musa. Mansa Musa was an emperor in the Western Sudan during the Middle Ages. He was so rich that the people of his own time could not even fathom his wealth.
-How did Mansa Musa
become so wealthy? Like the other Western
Sudanic rulers, he controlled much of the
world’s access to gold during a period when
gold was in very high demand.
-The Western Sudan
does not correspond with a modern-day
African country; instead, it is a region.
Arabic-speaking travelers gave the region
its name, calling it bilad-al-Sudan or the “Land of Blacks.”
-The Sahel, which in Arabic means “the shore,” is a transition zone between the Sahara Desert to its north and the more forested regions to its south. Much of the Sahel is grassland savannah.
-Straddling regions
with different climates, the people of the Western Sudan developed productive agriculture, trade
networks, and an urban culture. The architecture of the Western Sudanic states stands out for its use
of mud (adobe) to construct its monumental buildings, such as the Great Mosque in Djenne and Aksia the Great’s tomb in Gao
-the people of this region organized and
supported—sometimes under duress—the
large states that dominated the Western
Sudan. Three of the best known of these
states became the empires of Ghana
-The leaders of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai
came to dominate the region because they
controlled access to West African gold.
-The spread of Islam and rise of
new states along the North African coast
and in Europe gave the biggest boost to the demand for gold.
-Monarchs in Europe and North Africa
wanted West African gold to mint coins. To meet the demand, Berber traders used newly introduced
camels to carry gold north across the desert. Then, they loaded up their camels with big slabs of salt
to return south.
-salt valuable commodity
-With the flow of all of these goods,
the Western Sudanic states emerged at the nexus of the trans-Saharan trade routes.
-The North African Berber traders crossing the Sahara Desert were early converts to Islam, and
they introduced Islam to market towns of the Western Sudanic states.
-as trade continued, so did connections to areas around them
-Growing urban areas, like Timbuktu, attracted Muslim scholars.
-kings of
Mali and Songhai deliberately fostered these connections with the larger Islamic World due to their
religious beliefs and, sometimes, to enhance their status and secure their positions. For example,
Askiya Muhammad, the king of Songhai from 1495 to 1528, successfully sought recognition as
the “caliph of Sudan” from Egyptian rulers.
-As a result, Islam influenced the culture and lifestyle, particularly of urban
residents, in the Western Sudan.
Ghana
-the Soninke language
-lived in the area between the Niger and Senegal Rivers
-agricultural productivity supported labor
specialization, urban areas, and eventually state formation.
-farmers used iron tools to grow a lot of crops, also iron weapons
-Even before Ghana was a state with a clearly defined centralized administration, Soninke
speakers had been involved in extensive systems of trade using the region’s complex river
systems.
-They often acted as middlemen, trading in fish from the rivers, meat from herders, and
grains from farmers. After 300 CE, Ghanian leadership began collecting tributary payments from
neighboring chiefdoms.
-In the centuries that
followed, Ghana’s leaders used their ability
to tax trade to build an empire. By 800 CE,
they had consolidated their control over trade,
their authority over urban areas, and their
reign over tributary states.
-To build their
fortunes, the Ghanian kings taxed trade goods
twice. They taxed gold when it was initially
brought from the forested regions in the south
to their market towns and again right as the
Berber traders departed for the north.
-The kings shored up their power through their ostentatious
displays of gold and their monopoly over trade. Al-Bakri (medival arab scholar who had only just heard tale of the wealth!) recognized the centrality of gold to the
finances of the Ghanian kings. According to him, the kings claimed all of the gold nuggets for
themselves, leaving only gold dust for everyone else. By this time, the Ghanian kings had also used
their wealth to build strong armies, with archers and calvary, to collect tribute and carry out the
empire’s expansion.
-two separate sites within the capital city, Koumbi-Saleh. To
trade their wares, the merchants used one site, which was clearly Muslim with mosques, while the
king lived in a royal palace six miles away. The separation between the sites and lack of mosques
near the royal palace suggest that Islam had primarily impacted the market towns; the leadership
and masses of Ghana did not convert.
-Due to attacks from the Muslim
Almoravids from the North, issues
with overgrazing, and internal rebel-
lions, Ghana declined opening up an opportunity
for the rise of Mali.
The Mali Empire
-the king Sundiata Keita
-Sundiata overcomes these and other challenges
in the epic to found the new empire.
-The epic demonstrates the prevalence of syncretism or the blending of religious beliefs and practices in West Africa.
-the epic traces Sundiata’s background back to Bilali Bounama, one
of the early followers of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, and the powerful pre-Islamic, local
clans of the lion and the buffalo. According to oral tradition, Sundiata’s ability to draw from both
Muslim and traditional African sources of strength allows him to overcome adversity and defeat
his less worthy opponents.
-Like Sundiata, most of the subsequent kings of Mali combined Muslim and local religious
traditions. For example, they often completed the “Fifth Pillar” of Islam by performing the hajj,
the pilgrimage to Mecca required of all able Muslims. In the meanwhile, they continued to use
pre-Islamic amulets, maintain their animistic beliefs, and consider pre-Islamic sacred sites to
be important. Similarly, when they converted, the people living within Mali’s cities and those
involved in trans-Saharan trade also blended Muslim and traditional beliefs and practices.
-Sundiata established a sizeable empire with tributary states and became the mansa, or emperor,
of Mali. Most of the subsequent mansas of Mali maintained their control over the gold-salt trade,
the basis of their wealth.
-recognized as a prosperous trading center
-Mansa Musa, who was likely Sundiata’s grandson or grandnephew, further developed the
empire and made it one of the crossroads of the Medieval Islamic World. Mansa Musa used a large
army of approximately 100,000 soldiers to reunify the empire after several tumultuous decades.
-mali stretch farther than ghana had, trade in agricultural produce more important than in ghana,
-Farmers specialized in
regional crops and the state operated
farms where slaves grew food for the
royal family and the army.
-Mansa
Musa also developed the empire’s
administration, dividing the territory
into provinces and appointing
competent governors. With all of
these achievements, Mansa Musa is
best remembered for going on the hajj
from 1324 to 1325 CE. He attracted
a great deal of attention traveling in
a huge caravan made up of almost
100 camels, 12,000 slaves, and an
estimated 30,000 pounds of gold.
Local lore claims that he gave out so
much gold during his three month stay
-made value of gold go low in places he went cause of having so much
-Mansa Musa further cultivated Islamic
connections by building new mosques
and schools. He hosted Muslim scholars
and made cities, including Timbuktu,
Djenne, and Gao, into centers of learning.
Mansa Musa also encouraged the use
of Arabic, and the libraries, especially
of Timbuktu, became repositories of
Islamic manuscripts. The Catalan Atlas
(Figure 9.10) demonstrates Mansa Musa’s
preeminence. Commissioned by Charles
V of France, the 1375 map shows Mansa
Musa ruling his empire.
-Mansa
Musa paid for his various projects by
collecting tribute from surrounding
states and taxing trans-Saharan and
inter-regional trade.
-Several factors, such as weak
leadership, foreign invasions, and
rebellions within the tributary
states, led to the decline of Mali
after Mansa Musa’s death. The
empire got increasingly smaller
-he captured Timbuktu, Songhai’s leader Sunni Ali had begun to build a new empire, the Songhai
Empire, through military conquest.
Songhai
-the Sorko people who lived alongside
the Niger River, southeast of Gao.
-Sorko had created their own state,
Songhai, trading along the river and building a military that used war canoes. With the growth of
trans-Saharan trade and eventually the discovery of new gold fields, the Sorko and other ethnic
groups in the area established market towns in Songhai. Most of the people who moved to these
market towns converted to Islam
-the Mali Empire collected tribute from Gao, though other parts of the Songhai state remained in-
dependent. Using his military to pick off pieces of Mali in its waning years, Sunni Ali built the
Songhai state into an empire in the 1460s.
-During its Golden Age, the Songhai Empire was ruled by Askia Mohammad I
-Referred to as Askia the Great, Askia Mohammad I was a devout Muslim, who centralized the
empire’s administration, encouraged agriculture, and further expanded the state. Askia rose to
power as the general-in-chief of the army of Gao. He won a military victory over Sunni Ali’s son
to found a new dynasty, the Askia dynasty. As a devout Muslim, Askia went on the hajj to Mecca
from 1496 – 1497. The pilgrimage brought him international recognition and reinforced his
claims to power especially because the Sharif of Mecca bestowed Askia with the title “the Caliph
of the Sudan.” Upon his return, Askia used Islam to validate attacks on neighboring states, like the
Mossi in 1498. He also rebuilt Islamic centers. Leo Africanus, originally from Granada (Spain),
traveled through Timbuktu
-Under Askia, Timbuktu, Djenne, and Gao, once again, beckoned scholars and people with com-
mercial aspirations. Taxing gold remained an important source of revenue for the king, but trade
expanded to incorporate items such as manuscripts, kola nuts, prisoners of war (who were sold as slaves), horses, and cowry shells (which were used as an internal currency).
-Additionally, to cen-
tralize his administration, Askia appointed loyal Muslim governors to new provinces, replacing
hereditary rulers.
-After his death, Askia’s sons, particulary his last son, Askia Dawud (r. 1549 –
1582 CE) continued to generate wealth by taxing trans-Saharan trade. Like their father, they also
tended to invest in Songhai’s Islamic centers. For example, during the reign of Dawud, there were
approximately one hundred and fifty Islamic schools operating in Timbuktu. Askia Dawud’s death
in 1582 saw the reemergence of power struggles amongst competing rulers and rebellions within tributary states, signaling the end of
the Golden Age of Songhai.
-Then, the biggest blow to the
crumbling Songhai Empire came from
the invasion by Morocco in 1591. The
Moroccan army used new technology,
muzzle-loading firearms, to defeat the
Songhai troops. The Songhai state
limped along until 1737, but after
1591, it was no longer a unified empire
with control over numerous tributary
states.
–in summary: The
leaders of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai,
each in turn, taxed trans-Saharan
trade and grew powerful. They built
their empires with urban centers,
strong militaries, and numerous
tributary states. However, the
Moroccan invasion eroded their
power. Furthermore, the Age of Exploration, begun by the Portuguese in their progress down
the West Africa coast in the fifteenth century, redirected trade. Trans-Saharan trade diminished
and was largely replaced by trade up and down the Atlantic coast of West Africa.
THE SPREAD OF AGRICULTURE AND GREAT ZIMBABWE
-Africa linguistic similarities on the continent.
-at first -European scholars
hypothesized that about 2,000 years
ago there was a Bantu Migration, a
massive departure of thousands of Bantu
speakers from the Bantu homeland. As
they described, Bantu-speakers imposed
iron technology and traditions of agricul-
ture on the peoples they encountered in eastern and southern Africa. Influenced by their own conceptions of coloniza-
tion, nineteenth century anthropologists portayed the Bantu Migration as a rapid conquest of Sub-Saharan hunter-gath-
erer societies by the technologically advanced, Iron Age Bantu speakers.
-now we think-Since the 1990s, historians of Africa
have used linguistics to reject some pieces
of the nineteenth-century description of
the Bantu Migration. Referring instead
to Bantu expansions, they generally
agree that the movement of Bantu
speakers was more of a slow diffusion of
languages and technologies that lasted
about 4500 years, from roughly 3000
BCE to 1500 CE. Bantu speakers took
multiple routes, and sometimes their
movement occurred on the scale of a single family, as opposed to a mass of thousands. From
the linguistic evidence, historians also suspect that both Bantu speakers and those they settled
amongst contributed ideas and technologies; there was mutual “teaching and learning from one
another.”14 The current view of the Bantu expansions is much more complex as it recognizes give
and take between Bantu newcomers and indigenous populations. For example, some indigenous
populations rejected Bantu languages, while others repackaged Bantu technologies incorporat-
ing their own innovations. There was no Bantu migratory conquest of indigenous communities.
Instead, the study of linguistics seems to confirm that Bantu languages, iron-working, and
agriculture slowly spread through eastern and southern Africa in the early centuries CE.
-These corrections are important because they allow scholars to much more accurately discuss
state formation in southern Africa. In the colonial era, European scholars sometimes jumped to
misleading conclusions when they encountered evidence of early African states.
-example of them thinking Africans didn’t build the great zimbabwe because they were racist, yet a couple accuratly put in as the work of the Bantu civilization
-a
prosperous elite based in Great
Zimbabwe ruled over about 300
settlements on the Zimbabwe
Plateau. Great Zimbabwe and the
linked settlements had similarly
constructed walled enclosures,
practiced mixed farming (they
grew crops and kept livestock),
and used iron, copper, and bronze.
The 300 settlements paid tribute
in the form of ivory, gold, cattle,
and crops to the rulers in Great
Zimbabwe. The wealth generated
through the collection of tribute
helped Great Zimbabwe become a
center of trade and artistry. Great
Zimbabwe exported gold and ivory
to cities like Sofala and Kilwa Kisanwani, on the East African coast. From the coast, these goods
were carried to the Persian Gulf, India, and China. In exchange, Great Zimbabwe’s elite imported
luxury items like stoneware, colored glass beads, and cotton. Out of these imports, artisans based
in Great Zimbabwe made jewelry, ornaments, and cloth for elite consumption.
-The stone buildings were constructed with local granite,
and the stones were stacked without mortar. Scholars hypothesize that the ruling elite resided
and performed ceremonies on the Hill Complex, symbolically demonstrating their authority
with the height and separation of the complex. From about 1300 CE, more than 15,000 people
lived in the valley below them in small, circular homes with thatched roofs and walls made
of clay and gravel. The Hill Complex overlooked a number of other structures, including the
famous Great Enclosure.
-With its stone walls up to thirty-five feet tall, the Great Enclosure was
the largest structure in precolonial sub-Saharan Africa. The Great Enclosure was a ceremonial
site, perhaps used by religious leaders or as a site for the initation of youth. Scholars disagree
about its exact function, but suggest that the Great Enclosure further demonstrated the status
and wealth of the capital city and the ruling classes.
-Great Zimbabwe declined in the fifteenth century and was abandoned by 1450 CE. Some
scholars suggest that the site deteriorated because it was supporting up to 30,000 people and thus
became too crowded, deforested, and stripped bare of resources through overuse. Surrounding
gold mines may have also been depleted.
-In any case, trade shifted to support the rise of two new
kingdoms, Batua to the west and Mutapa to the east. Both kingdoms built stone walls like those seen
in Great Zimbabwe and practiced mixed agriculture, using cattle for ceremonies and as symbols
of the ruling elite’s power. From the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, the kingdoms also
faced the Portuguese and the influx of other African populations. The Mutapa Kingdom lasted
the longest,
–Overall, this rewritten history of southern African statehood
acknowledges the significance of the Bantu expansions that brought agriculture and iron to many
regions. It also celebrates the African origins of great civilizations and demonstrates how Africans
shared technologies and cultural practices across the Zimbabwean plateau.
THE SWAHILI CITY-STATES (EAST AFRICA)
-story of Mrimba getting stopped from getting land back from son in law Sultan Ali, In this oral tradition, the union of Mrimba’s
daughter and Sultan Ali forged a new Muslim
family, with Persian and African ancestry, that
ruled Kilwa Kisiwani and the mainland coast.
just one account of Kilwa Kisiwani’s origins;
-in response to resident
Arab merchants who scorned non-Muslims
and some African practices, African elites in
East Africa claimed descent from Shirazis
(Persians) and to have been early converts to
Islam. In some cases, the connections may
have been exaggerated or inaccurate from a
historical standpoint. However, regardless of
their accuracy, these stories demonstrate some
of the defining features of Swahili identity.
-As it controlled gold coming from Great
Zimbabwe, Kilwa Kisiwani became one of the
most prosperous of the Swahili city-states.
-Swahili city-states were
wealthy urban areas connected both to the African interior and the larger Indian Ocean World.
Dozens of Swahili city-states running down the East African coast from Mogadishu to Sofala, and
including islands off the coast, were commercial centers, tied together by a shared identity, not an
overarching political structure. In addition to Islam and claims to Persian ancestry, Swahili identity
also became associated with Indian Ocean trade, an urban style, and a shared language (Swahili).
-Historians of Africa trace the origins of the Swahili city-states to the Bantu expansions,
-Bantu farmers had built communities along the East African
coast. They traded with southern Arabia, southeast Asia, and occasionally Greece and Rome.
Although trade contracted after the fall of the Roman Empire, it rebounded several hundred years
later. At that time, residents of the Swahili city-states played a pivotal role as middlemen, selling
gold, timber, ivory, resins, coconut oil, and slaves from the interior regions of Africa to traders
arriving from throughout the Indian Ocean World. In return, Swahili elites bought imported glass,
porcelain, silk, spices, and cloth.
-The seasonal monsoon winds that allowed trade between the
Swahili coast and southern Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and southeast Asia also facilitated cultural
exchange. Blowing towards the East African coast three to four months of the year and reversing
several months later, the monsoon winds stranded traders for months at a time, encouraging
intermarriage and cultural exchange.
-The seasonal monsoon winds that allowed trade between the
Swahili coast and southern Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and southeast Asia also facilitated cultural
exchange. Blowing towards the East African coast three to four months of the year and reversing
several months later, the monsoon winds stranded traders for months at a time, encouraging
intermarriage and cultural exchange.
-Furthermore, the wealth of the Swahili coast attracted
Persian and Arab immigrants. With African, Arabian, and southeast Asian influences, Swahili
culture became a blended culture as, for example, the Swahili language incorporated loan words
from Arabic and Hindi.
-more perfect quality being their urban style
-A few families made up the elite, ruling classes, while most people in the cities were
less wealthy, working as craftsmen, artisans, clerks, and sailors. People in villages along the coast
could also identify as Swahili. Claimants of
Swahili identity spoke the Swahili language
and were Muslim. Archaeology shows that
emerging Swahili cities had mosques and
Muslim burial grounds
-By their height, the Swahili
city-states were distinctly Muslim; they had
large mosques built of local coral stone.
-The
Swahili, regardless of their economic status,
drew a distinction between themselves as
Muslims and the “uncultured,” non-Muslim
Africans of the interior.
-The elite families played a role in fash-
ioning Swahili urban style. In addition to
tracing their descent back to some of the
earliest Muslim settlers from Persia, they
embraced Islam, financing mosques, prac-
ticing purdah (the seclusion of women),
and hosting large religious celebrations.
-Their Muslim identity stimulated trade, as
visiting Muslim merchants felt comfortable
extending credit to them and living with
their Swahili host families while waiting for
the winds to turn.
-urban swahili city states got a distinguished architecture, “stone-towns”, wealthy made multi level houses with coarse coral, houses showed that they were creditworthy citizens
-Like other
Swahili, the ruling classes distinguished themselves from non-Muslims of the interior. They may
have been partially moved to draw this distinction by their desire to sell as slaves people captured
in the neighboring, non-Muslim communities.
-there was Slavery within the Indian Ocean World, the zone of contact and interaction connecting people living adjacent to the Indian Ocean, which began well before the spread of Islam
-slaves put to work in variety cases
-famous slave revolt Led by Ali ibn Muhammad, the Zanj rose up in the Zanj Rebellion, a
guerrilla war against the Abbasids. For fourteen years, the Zanj and their supporters, altogeth-
er an estimated 15,000 people, raided towns, seized weapons and food, and freed slaves. They
captured Basra and came within seventy miles of Baghdad, the Abbasid capital. The rebels created
their own state with fortresses, a navy, tax collection, and their own coinage. At enormous cost,
the Abbasids finally put down the revolt in 883 CE using a large army and by offering amnesty to
the rebels.
-looking at the agency of slaves
-suggested this led to abandon of using slaves as plantation workers
-The rebellion helps them explain why the Indian Ocean slave trade developed differently
than the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
-While there were some similarities between the trans-Atlantic trade that brought slaves to the
Americas and the slave trade within the Indian Ocean World, there were important differences.
Both slave trades took Africans, contributing to an African diaspora, or a dispersal of African
peoples and their descendants, all over the world.
-The trans-Atlantic slave trade, which lasted
approximately 300 years and reached its peak in the eighteenth century CE, forced approximately
12 million people, mostly from West Africa, into the Americas. The slave trade within the Indian
Ocean lasted much longer, about 2000 years, and was generally smaller in scale.
-African slaves in the Indian Ocean World had more social mobility, especially since many of
them were skilled soldiers. Also, according to Islamic precepts, slaves had some basic rights and
could be incorporated into the households that they served. Theoretically, a freeborn Muslim
could not be enslaved.
-Unlike slavery in the Americas, slavery within the Indian Ocean World was
not racially codified, so freed slaves did not automatically face racial discrimination.
-And due to
their reproductive capacities, women were more sought after as slaves within the Indian Ocean
World, while the trans-Atlantic slave trade had the highest demand for young men.
-Portuguese began
to set up a Trading Post Empire, which intended to tax trade within the Indian Ocean.
The Trading Post Empire consisted of a series of forts along the Indian Ocean coast where
Portuguese administrators collected taxes and issued trade permits.
-Portuguese returned to the Swahili city-states to enforce their will. As the Swahili city-states
did not have a unified political structure or large armies, the Portuguese successfully looted
and destroyed some Swahili cities. However, the Portuguese cultural influence and their ability
to enforce tax collection was very limited north of Mozambique. The Portuguese did not move
inland beyond the coastal cities and, by and large, trade within the Indian Ocean continued
without a great deal of Portuguese interference. However, the Portuguese presence encouraged
Swahili leaders to ally with the Omanis from southern Arabia. In 1699, the Omanis, working
with some Swahili rulers, seized Mombasa from the Portuguese, and began an era of Omani
dominance of the Swahili coast.
