MEDIEVAL HISTORY NOTES: GRADE 7
CHAPTER 2 CIVILIZATIONS OF AFRICA
Section 1: Africa and the Bantu
I. Africa’s Physical Geography
-Tropical rain forests are located on either side of the equator. They have hot moist climates.
-Surrounding these forests are bands of savanna, areas of grassland with scattered trees and bushes. Much of Africa is savanna.
-Deserts stretch north and south of the savannas.
-The Sahara is a desert stretching across much of North Africa. It is the world’s largest desert.
-A band of lakes, deep valleys, and rugged mountains runs north to south through east Africa.
-Africa’s geography has affected its people’s ways of life. For example, there is little farming in Africa’s deserts because there is too little water.
-People herd cattle on the savannas, but cattle cannot survive in the rain forests. Flies and other pests in the rain forest carry diseases that are deadly for cattle.
II. The Bantu Migration
-The physical barriers formed by lakes, forests, mountains, and rivers did not stop the movement of people across Africa.
-The migrations of the Bantu people continued for more than 1,000 years. They are among the largest population movements in all of human history.
-Historians know a great deal about North Africa’s history. But they have only a sketchy knowledge of the history of Africa south of the Sahara. That area is called sub-Saharan Africa.
-Until modern times, the Sahara cut off this larger part of Africa from Europe.
-One reason this puzzle is so difficult is that the wood and clay that many African people used for building have disintegrated. Even iron tools and weapons have not lasted, because iron rusts fairly quickly.
-In early times, most Bantu-speaking peoples were fishers, farmers, and herders. Their villages were made up of the same clan, or group of families who traced their roots to the same ancestor.
-Many of these clans traced their ancestry through mothers rather than fathers. For this reason, property and positions of power were passed down through the mother’s side of the family.
-The Bantu-speaking peoples moved slowly from their traditional homelands. Each generation moved a fairly short distance in their search for better farmland and better grazing.
-In many places, they had to change the way they lived. For example, they learned to raise different crops and different kinds of animals.
-Often, Bantu people moved into areas where other people already lived. When this happened, they sometimes joined the groups living there. The older cultures then usually adapted to the Bantu culture.
- For example, the Bantu introduced crops such as yams to other parts of Africa. At other times, however, the Bantu forced the people already living there to leave their homes.
-As the Bantu migrated, they also carried a knowledge of metalworking with them. Iron tools gave the Bantu more control over their environment than older cultures had.
-With hard axes, they could cut down trees and clear the land. Their sharp iron-headed spears and arrows were powerful weapons for hunting and for warfare.
-These migrations continued over many generations, with groups moving whenever an area became crowded. In time, the Bantu had settled throughout Central and Southern Africa.
Section 2: Kingdoms of West Africa
I. Kingdoms of the Savanna
-Mansa Musa ruled Mali, a rich kingdom of the African savanna. The kingdoms of the savanna controlled rich trade routes across the Sahara.
-The Niger River, which flows through the region, was another important trade route.
-Traders traveling through these lands had to pay taxes on all their goods. This made the kingdoms rich. In return, the rulers kept peace and order throughout the land.
-Salt and gold were the basis of West African trade. Most of the salt came from mines in the central Sahara.
-Salt was very valuable. People needed it to flavor food, to preserve meat, and to maintain good health. Salt was scarce in the rain forest region. So people from the rain forest region of West Africa sold gold in exchange for salt.
-The first West African kingdom to be based on the wealth of the salt and gold trade was Ghana. By about A.D. 400, the people of Ghana took control of the trade routes across the Sahara. By about 800, Ghana was a major trading kingdom.
-Ghana’s capital, Kumbi Saleh, was divided into two cities. One was the center of trade. The other was the royal city where the king had his court.
-Around A.D. 1000, the power of Ghana began to weaken. Invaders from the north overran the capital and other cities. By the 1200s, Ghana had been broken into small, independent states.
-Soon, most of the trade in the area was controlled by a powerful new kingdom, the kingdom of Mali.
-Under the leadership of Sundiata, who united the kingdom about 1230, Mali took control of the salt and gold trade.
-By 1255, when Sundiata died, Mali had grown rich from trade. It had become the most powerful kingdom in West Africa.
-In 1312, Mansa Musa became the ruler of Mali. By this time, traders from North Africa had brought a new religion, Islam, to West Africa.
-Mansa Musa greatly expanded his kingdom and made Islam the official religion. Mansa Musa’s trip to the holy city of Mecca created new ties between Mali and the Muslim peoples of North Africa and Southwest Asia.
-During his 25-year rule, Mansa Musa used his new ties to these Muslim peoples to make Mali a center of learning. Scholars came to teach religion, mathematics, medicine, and law.
-In the late 1300s, however—about 50 years after Mansa Musa died—Mali’s power began to fade. Raiders attacked from the north, and fighting broke out within the kingdom.
-Several provinces broke away and became independent. One of these former provinces became an empire in its own right. It was called Songhai.
-Songhai became the leading kingdom of the West African savanna during the 1400s. Like the rulers of Ghana and Mali, Songhai’s leaders controlled trade routes and the sources of salt and gold.
-Songhai’s wealth and power grew when it conquered the rich trading city of Tomboctou in 1468.
-In less than 100 years, however, the kingdom of Songhai began to lose power. In the late 1500s, the people of Songhai began fighting among themselves.
-The kingdom became weaker. And it easily fell to the guns and cannons of an army from Morocco, in North Africa. The era of the rich and powerful trading empires of West Africa was at an end.
- II. Kingdoms of the Forest
-Ghana, Mali, and Songhai developed on West Africa’s savanna. At the same time, other kingdoms arose in the rain forests to the south of these grasslands.
-The people of the rainforest were not Muslim. They practiced religions with hundreds of different gods.
-Two of the most important kingdoms of the West African forests were centered around the cities of Ile-Ife and Benin. Both of these cities were located in the present-day nation of Nigeria.
-As with the kingdoms of the savanna, trade made these forest kingdoms powerful and wealthy.
-About A.D. 1000, Ile-Ife became a major cultural and trading center. The powerful leaders of this kingdom were called onis.
-Historians know little about the early city or the people who lived there. One of the reasons that we know little about Ile-Ife is that the modern town of Ife is located on top of the earlier city. Also the region is thickly forested and damp.
-The city of Benin dates to the 1200s. At that time, workers in the region mined copper, iron, and gold. Benin’s leaders, called obas, also sold slaves to African traders.
-By the 1500s, Benin reached its greatest strength and size. The oba controlled a large army, priests, government workers, and less important local chiefs.
-The city of Benin ruled the trade routes along the rivers to the north and south. It became immensely rich. It ruled much of present-day southern Nigeria.
-Benin remained strong until the late 1600s, when the kingdom began to lose its power over the region.
III. Focus on Tombouctou
-From the salt mines of the Sahara, caravan leaders drove their camels through the hot desert sand. Heavily weighted with slabs of salt, the camel train headed south.
-Meantime, trade caravans from West Africa’s gold mines traveled north. They met in the West African city of Tombouctou.
-In the 1500s, salt was as valuable as gold in the city’s markets.
Section 3: East Africa’s Great Trading Centers
I. Ancient Ethiopia
-Thousands of years ago, rich civilizations began to develop in southern Arabia and northeastern Africa along the Red Sea. By A.D. 1, the city of Aksum, located in present-day Ethiopia, was an important East African center of trade.
-Although the city of Aksum was located in the mountains about 100 miles inland, it controlled a trading port at Adulis on the Red Sea. Over time, Aksum conquered much of modern Ethiopia and southwestern Arabia.
-The merchants of Aksum traded goods at ports as far away as India. One of the main trading goods they controlled was ivory.
-As they traded goods with foreign merchants, the people of Aksum also exchanged ideas and beliefs with them.
-During the A.D. 300s, King Ezana of Aksum learned about a new religion—Christianity. Soon the king became a Christian himself and made Christianity the official religion of the kingdom. Over time, most people under Aksum’s rule converted to Christianity.
-For several hundred years. Aksum kept its control of the major trade routes linking Africa with Europe and Asia. Then in the A.D. 600s, Muslims fought with the rulers of Aksum for control of the Red Sea trade routes.
-Eventually, the Muslims conquered the coastal ports. The Muslim conquest of the coast ended the trade that had given Aksum its power and wealth.
-After Aksum had lost power, the Christian kings of the region built churches and monasteries. Many neighboring lands converted to Islam, but present-day Ethiopia remained Christian.
-Cut off in their mountainous home, the Ethiopians had little direct contact with other Christian peoples. In time, their churches developed unique customs and traditions.
-Another unique feature of the region’s Christianity is a group of churches built about A.D. 1200 under King Lalibela. The king had his people build new churches—but not from the ground up. Instead the people were to carve the churches down into the solid red rock.
-The flat rooftops of the buildings are level with the surrounding land.
II. Rich Centers of Trade
-After Muslims gained control of Indian Ocean trade, trade centers developed along the east coast of Africa. Each of these ports was a city-state. By 1400, there were about 30 such city-states along Africa’s Indian Ocean coast.
-Trade thrived in East Africa because the region supplied goods such as gold and ivory that were very scarce outside of Africa.
-In return, Muslim traders brought luxury goods that could not be found in Africa. Muslim traders from Arabia also brought their religion and language to these African city-states.
-The merchants of Kilwa traded goods from inland regions of Africa for the foreign goods that traders brought to the port by sea.
-Contact between Africans and Arabs in Kilwa and other coastal city-states led to a new culture and language. Called Swahili, this Bantu language has words borrowed from Arabic. Swahili was spoken all along the East African coast.
-In the 1500s, Portuguese troops sailing from Europe captured and looted Kilwa and the other coastal city-states. Portugal took over the prosperous trade routes.
-But the influence of Swahili culture remained. Today, Swahili is the official language in Kenya and Tanzania, and most East Africans use Swahili for business. Islam is still an important religion in the region.
-Much of the gold traded at Kilwa was mined in an inland area to the south, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. This was the region controlled by the powerful southeastern city of Great Zimbabwe.
-Great Zimbabwe grew rich and powerful through trade.
-Historians believe that the city of Great Zimbabwe had been founded by about 1100. Its Bantu-speaking people were the ancestors of today’s Shona people.
-Most people in this area were poor farmers. For those who were better off, large herds of cattle were an important form of wealth.
-Richest of all were the leaders who controlled the gold trade.
-Great Zimbabwe thrived for hundreds of years. Historians believe that the city reached its peak before the early 1400s. By 1500, the city had fallen. Its stone ruins still stand, and its history is a source of pride for the present-day nation of Zimbabwe.