History Final (African Medieval History)

Question 1

how long has writing been around in Egypt

Answer 1

3rd century BCE

Question 2

How did writing come to be in Ethiopia?

Answer 2

writing came with christian missionaries who came from Egypt and beyond (and wrote in greek)

Question 3

When did writing come into africa and how

Answer 3

writing came with Islam, after the 7th-8th century expansion of the caliphate.

Question 4

Where did the Islam Caliphate spread and what about the merchants and travelers? how did they travel

Answer 4

spread to North Africa-and the area which is today Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco… From this area, merchants and travelers were eventually able to travel across the Sahara desert to the Sahel (Sub-Saharan west Africa) They were able to do this using camels, a domesticable draft animal capable of storing moisture in their fat humps.

Question 5

what were the 2 things merchants were looking for

Answer 5

1. gold
2. slaves

Question 6

where was gold found

Answer 6

In west Africa, especially around the river Niger, there are gold deposits in the ground-and it’s extracted either by mining for it artisanally or looking for it in river bottoms as gold dust/nuggets.

Question 7

who would extract the gold, and what else would they do

Answer 7

The people who extracted the gold were regular villagers who practiced agriculture and raised animals-but also in their spare time, looked for gold, which was mostly appropriated by a small military (sometimes religious) elite.

Question 8

Over time, various states rose and fell in this region, what were they and what where they built around?

Answer 8

Empire of Mali,Songhai empire, Empire of Kanem-Bornou. They were built around the gold trade and also slave trade

Question 9

what were the 2 main slave trades that marked african history?

Answer 9

1. West Africa towards the Muslim world
2. The Atlantic Triangular trade ( from africa to the americas)

Question 10

explain the west Africa to Muslim world trade

Answer 10

The ruling classes of the “gold states” found another way to enrich themselves by kidnapping villagers from the interior of their territories and selling them to Tuareg and Arab merchants who took them across the Sahara to be sold again in the slave markets of the Muslim world.

Question 11

what was One of the main reasons many West-African populations converted to Islam

Answer 11

because it protected them from this slave trade (in Islam a muslim can’t enslave another muslim according to the prophet Mohammad)

Question 12

For a long time, Islam was mostly the religion of who?

Answer 12

the urban elites, but gradually moved to the countryside.

Question 13

How many people were uprooted from the slave trade from africa to muslim

Answer 13

over 20 million people

Question 14

who organized the triangular slave trade and when

Answer 14

European merchants starting in the 15th century

Question 15

the triangular slave trade was what years? and how many people were enslaved

Answer 15

1500-1800, 10 million people

Question 16

what were the 2 slave trades responsible for in the african nations

Answer 16

the enduring poverty

Question 17

In west Africa a series of large and powerful kingdoms/empires rise and fall between what years

Answer 17

8th - 15th century

Question 18

explain what the African kingdoms engaged in?

Answer 18

They are all this high class that engages in the gold and slave commerce is also the first to convert to Islam (Islam first develops in large trading cities and then slowly spreads to the countryside)

Question 19

What did the Berber merchants from north africa buy and where did some of the stuff come from

Answer 19

both slaves and gold with large slabs of rock salt, which was mined in the Sahara desert.
They also paid with bars of copper, cloth, and finished luxury goods.

Question 20

what are the societies like? (in sense of liberal, egalitarian…)

Answer 20

inegalitarian and exploitative → they are “extractive”