Sub-Saharan Africa during the Post-Classical Age
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Transcript Sub-Saharan Africa during the Post-Classical Age
Kingdoms, Diffusion, and Change
Not
just physically, but also culturally and
politically, Africa is divided by the Sahara desert
The Sahara is the world’s largest desert
During the Post-Classical age, almost all of
Saharan Africa and the northern continent had
fallen into the orbit of the Islamic world
But the story of sub-Saharan Africa is much
more complex
The Sahel is
the
semidesert
southern
fringe of the
Sahara
In
sub-Saharan Africa, the
development of strong, sizable
political units occurred later
and more slowly than in many
other parts of the world
Much of this had to do with the
tremendous varieties of
ethnicity and language in subSaharan Africa
For example, more than 2,000
languages and dialects are
spoken in the region
One
of the few common threads
shared by many – but not all –
peoples of sub-Saharan Africa is
descent from the Bantu tribes
Around 1000 B.C.E., the Bantu
began to move out of their
homelands in west central Africa
By 1000 C.E., descendants of the
Bantu tribes had settled in almost
all parts of the continent south of
the Sahara
With the passage of time, however,
each smaller group developed its
own distinct language and cultural
tradition
Another
factor limiting the growth
of major states was environmental
The fluctuating climate of subSaharan Africa and human
susceptibility to various insect- and
animal-borne diseases in subSaharan regions were both
obstacles to increasing the size of
local populations and the number
of workers available to cultivate
the land
Most
sub-Saharan communities were small
Social life revolved around the village
Food was provided by means of a
combination of hunting, herding, and
limited agriculture
It appears that most African societies
gained the skill of metalworking on their
own, rather than having it taught to them
by outsiders, as was commonly thought
until recently
Women
in sub-Saharan Africa tended to be treated
as subservient to men
However, women were often valued for their labor
as fieldworkers (while men tended cattle) and for
producing heirs
Women were also respected for their storytelling
abilities and their role in educating young people
about moral values and religious beliefs
Interestingly, unlike in most other societies, in
Africa, lineage was sometimes matrilinear, rather
than patrilinear
Women often inherited property and the husband
was required to move into his wife’s house
African
tribes possess a high degree of skill
in carving and sculpture, especially in wood
and ivory
Metal sculptures became more common
over time
By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
West African artists were creating
masterpieces out of bronze and ivory
In Ife, in present-day Nigeria, metal
workers formed bronze and iron statues by
designing molds with melted wax
These
sculptures may have influenced the
work of metalworkers from the West African
state of Benin
Such artists are famous for their
sophisticated and detailed bronze, brass, and
copper sculptures of heads, ornaments,
animal figures, and reliefs depicting court
life
Architecture
in Africa varied across regions
due to diverse cultural influences
In sub-Saharan Africa, Greater Zimbabwe
stood out for its impressive stone buildings
and walls
The stones had been carefully cut and
then set in place without mortar
In Mali, fourteenth-century builders used
timber as skeletons in reinforcing mud
mosques that still stand today
African
literature of this period was
preserved less by the written
language than by oral tradition
In their narratives, professional
storytellers chronicled history and
social custom
They also acted as entertainers and
served as advisers to kings
The most famous epic of sub-Saharan
Africa from these years is Son-Jara
(or Sundiata) from Mali
A
griot was a West African storyteller
A griot perpetuated the oral traditions of a family
or village
The griot carries the cultural knowledge and
identity of each people
The griot legacy stretches back for hundreds, and
in some cases, thousands of years
The griot is a chronicler of history – keeping track
of the history and developments of his people over
time
The griot is also guardian of the knowledge of his
people’s ancestry, or genealogy
As
time passed, there was increased interaction
between North Africa and the sub-Saharan part
of the continent
This included trade
Unfortunately, it also included slavery: for
hundreds of years, Arab slavers from the Middle
East penetrated to the south, capturing Africans
and forcing them into bondage
To
a good extent, Islam became part of subSaharan life
In West Africa, the state of Mali, with its
great city of Timbuktu, was an important
part of the Islamic world
Muslims also brought their religion to the
cities of the eastern coast
The spread of Islam brought trade to
previously isolated parts of southern Africa
Still, in comparison to North Africa, which
became almost completely Muslim, Islam’s
presence in sub-Saharan Africa was not as
extensive
The
greatest of early Sudanic (a region in North
Africa, South of the Sahara and Libyan deserts,
extending from the Atlantic to the Red Sea)
civilizations was Ghana
Ghana was founded in the fourth century C.E.
on the main caravan route to north Africa
At its height in the tenth century, Ghana
controlled an area extending from the Atlantic
Ocean almost to Timbuktu
Ghana
controlled the prosperous salt for
gold trade
This trade connected North Africa and West
Africa
North African salt was exchanged for West
African gold
While Ghana did not control the salt or
gold deposits, its location allowed it to tax
traders entering the region
As such, Ghana was called “the land of
gold” though it owned no gold fields
Ghana’s capital of Koumbi Saleh hosted a
prosperous Muslim community of
merchants linked to the Trans-Saharan
trade routes
Over
time, Ghana’s ecological and demographic
conditions weakened its society
As its population grew, its food production
failed to meet demand in what was by then an
extremely arid environment
All of this left Ghana vulnerable to Muslim
conquest, the immediate cause of Ghana’s
downfall
Berbers from the desert moved against Ghana in
1062, but not until 1076 were they able to
capture the capital
Yet the nomads were unable to benefit from
their conquest, for they soon began fighting
among themselves, and Ghana became
independent once again
However,
the kingdom was never able to
recover its trade or repair the damage done
to its agriculture, and the empire began to
break up into tribal units
With
the decline of Ghana, Mali (which
probably had been a subject nation) grew,
and the Mali empire was firmly established
in the upper Niger River valley by Sundiata
(1230-1255)
Sundiata adopted Islam and Mali became a
Muslim kingdom
By the fourteenth century Mali controlled
the upper Niger west to the Atlantic and all
the land north of the forest and east along
the Niger to Hausaland
Sundiata
Keita rose to power by defeating the
king of the Sosso - Soumaoro (Sumanguru),
known as the Sorcerer King, in 1235
He then brought all the Mandinke clans rulers
(or Mansas) under his leadership, declaring
himself overall Mansa
He took Timbuktu from the Tuareg, transforming
it into a substantial city, a focus for trade and
scholarship
A significant portion of the wealth of the Empire
derived from the Bure goldfields
The first capital, Niani, was built close to this
mining area
Gold
was not its only mainstay
Mali also acquired control over the salt trade
The capital of Niani was situated on the
agriculturally rich floodplain of upper Niger,
with good grazing land further north
A class of professional traders emerged in
Mali
In the 14th century, cowrie shells were
established as a form of currency for trading
and taxation purposes
Mali reached its peak in the 14th century
Mansa
Musa was a significant king of Mali during
its height
Mansa Musa (1312-1337) was immortalized in
the descriptions of Arab writers, when he made
his magnificent pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324
“It is said that he brought with him 14,000 slave
girls for his personal service. The members of
his entourage proceeded to buy Turkish and
Ethiopia slave girls, singing girls and garments,
so that the rate of the gold dinar fell by six
dirhams. Having presented his gift he set off
with the caravan." - Cairo born historian alMaqurizi
Mansa
Musa also spent his wealth to more
permanent effect
He commissioned the design and construction
of a number of stunning buildings, for
example, the building of the mosques at Gao
and Jenne
Timbuktu became a place of great learning
with young men linked to Fez in the north
The
court of Mali converted to Islam after
Sundiata
As in Ghana, Muslim scribes played an
important role in government and
administration
But traditional religion persisted
Arab historians make much of the Islamic
influence in Mali, whereas oral historians
place little emphasis on Islam in their
histories
Ibn
Battuta visited Mali
This great medieval writer of
travel literature rivals the
significance of his contemporary
Marco Polo
Setting out from his native
Morocco in the 14th century he
travelled – or claims to have
travelled – the important regions
of the medieval world stretching
from west Africa to China
A
combination of weak and ineffective rulers
and increasingly aggressive raids by Mossi
neighbors and Tuareg Berbers gradually reduced
the power of Mali
In the east, Gao began its ascendancy while
remaining part of the Mali Empire
In the early 1400's, Tuareg launched a number of
successful raids on Timbuktu
They did not disrupt scholastic life or
commercial activity, but fatally undermined the
government by appropriating taxes for
themselves
Mali
collapsed when one of its vassals, the
King of Songhai, broke away in the fifteenth
century and eventually captured Mali
territory, ending up with an empire even
greater than Mali
The capital of Songhai was Goa, and its
wealth was based on control of the salt
mines
King Mohammed Askia’s reign (1493-1528)
was exceptional
The
city of Timbuktu became his center of
learning, a university was built, and clerics,
judges, and scholars flourished under his
patronage
Songhai fell to the Moroccans in1591
Muslims
had little influence in east Africa
until the thirteenth century
Although they occupied the coastline and
most of the land along the eastern
frontier of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and
although by the tenth century a series of
Muslim trading states had been built,
Christian Abyssinia was able to dominate
them and force them to pay tribute
Ethiopia became Christian during the
fourth century A.D.
This
domination eventually led, in the
fifteenth century, to religious wars between
Abyssinia and the Muslims
From
the 1250s to the 1450s, the
most powerful of the central
African states was the one that
emerged around the cities of
Mutapa and Great Zimbabwe
Politically linked, Mutapa and
Great Zimbabwe controlled seven
hundred miles of the Zambezi
river basin
The larger and more important of
the two cities was Great
Zimbabwe (ca. 1000-1400)
Its name means “sacred graves of
the chiefs”
Great
Zimbabwe was crucial as both a
political and religious center
Zimbabwe was a great walled city,
encircling 193 acres
It is clear that the people of Great
Zimbabwe were skilled builders
Great Zimbabwe was reputed to be
immensely wealthy, thanks to large
deposits of gold and diamonds
The city gained its wealth from the gold
trade
Gold was shipped east to Sofala, where it
became part of the East African-Indian
Ocean coastal trade complex
Rumors
of Great Zimbabwe’s wealth – and
lost treasures and hidden mines – persisted
for hundreds of years, long after the city
itself collapsed in the mid-to-late 1400s