Chapter 10 African Societies and Kingdoms Part 1 – Flashcards
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Why was travel in Africa limited to a few intrepid (fearless) Muslim adventurers?
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Because of the continent's sheer size, along with the tropical disease and the difficulty of navigating Africa's rivers inland.
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What became critical factors with the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade in the 1500s?
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Ethnocentrism and racism
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What was the effect of colonialism?
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It distorted and demeaned knowledge and information about Africa.
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How were civilizations in Africa from 400 to 1500 developed?
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Highly centralized, bureaucratized, and socially stratified
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How were communities with looser forms of social organization held together?
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Through common kinship bonds
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What did large empires mainly trade through the trans-Saharan?
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Salt, gold, cloth, ironware, ivory, and other goods.
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What did the trans-Saharan trade connect?
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It connected West Africa with Muslim societies in North Africa and the Middle East.
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How did vast stores of new information arrive in Africa?
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Information was contained in books and carried by visiting scholars who came from an Islamic world that was experiencing a golden age.
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What did Bantu-speaking peoples spread?
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The spread ironworking and they domesticated crops and animals from modern Cameroon to Africa's southern tip.
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What did Bantu-speaking people establish?
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They established kingdoms such as Great Zimbabwe.
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What did the Swahili establish?
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They established large city-states along the Indian Ocean coast.
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What is an effect of Africa's rich diversity?
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It makes the study of its history exciting and challenging.
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What roughly divides the continent of Africa?
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Five climatic zones
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What is the fertile land?
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The climatic zone in which unpredictable rainfall borders parts of the Mediterranean in the north and and the southwestern coast of the Cape of Good Hope in the south.
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What is the inland?
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The areas in which there are dry steppes with little plant life.
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These steppes give way to which of Africa's deserts?
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The Sahara, the Namib, and the Kalahari deserts.
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What is the Sahel?
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The Sahara's southern sub-desert fringe.
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What are the savannah and to where do they extend?
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They are flat grasslands that extend in a swath across the continent's widest part - parts of south-central Africa and along the eastern coast.
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More about the Savannas -
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The Savannas are among the richest habitats in the world and account for some 55 percent of the African continent.
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What are the tropical rain forests?
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They are dense, humid forests that stretch along coastal West Africa and on both sides if the equator in central Africa.
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What roughly divides the African continent?
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Five main climatic zones
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What is the fertile land?
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A climatic land zone with unpredictable rainfall that borders parts of the Mediterranean in the north and the southwestern Cape of Good Hope in the south.
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What was the inland?
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The areas in which there were dry steppes and little plant life.
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What deserts do the steppes give way to?
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The Sahara, Namib, and Kalahari deseerts
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What is the Sahel?
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The Sahara's southern sub-desert fringe.
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What are the savannas and where do they extend?
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They are flat grasslands and they extend in a swath across the continent's widest part- parts of south-central Africa and along the eastern coast.
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More about the savannas-
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They are among the richest habitats in the world and account for..
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What is Africa's climate?
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It is mostly tropical with sub-tropical climates limited to the northern and southern coasts and the regions of high elevation.
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How is rainfall in Africa?
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It is seasonal on most of the continent and it is very sparse in desert and semi desert areas.
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What has significantly shaped African economic development?
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Geography and climate
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What did the drier steppe regions encourage?
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Herding
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What did the wetter savanna regions encourage?
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Grain-based agriculture
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What did tropical rain forests favor?
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They favored hunting and gathering and later root based agriculture - crops such as yams, potatoes, and cassava.
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What did rivers and lakes support?
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They supported economies based on fishing.
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Who had the greatest degree of contact with outside groups?
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Groups living on the coast or along trade routes.
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Who were the Berbers?
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They lived along the Mediterranean, intermingled with many different peoples- with Muslim Arabs, Spanish Muslims, Jews, and sub-Saharan peoples.
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What did the Swahili peoples do?
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They loved along the East African coast and developed a maritime civilization and had rich commercial contacts with southern Arabia, the Persian Gulf, India, China, and the Malay Archipelago.
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Who were the Ethiopians?
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They lived south of the Sahara and their name meant "people with burnt faces"
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Who were Pygmies?
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They inhabited the equatorial rain forests.
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Who were the Khoisan people?
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They lived south of the equatorial rain forests and they were primarily hunters but also domesticated livestock.
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What was ancient Egypt in Africa?
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At the crossroads of three continents, it was a melting pot of different cultures and people.
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What did the diverse people do in Egypt?
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They contributed to the great achievements of the Egyptian culture.
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What profoundly changed many African societies?
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New crops from Asia and the establishment of settled agriculture.
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What did agriculture depend on?
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Local variations in climate and geography.
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What knowledge and skills did Bantu-speakers take that had developed in northern and Western Africa?
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The knowledge of domesticated livestock and agriculture, along with iron working skills.
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What was the most prominent feature of early West African society?
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A strong sense of community based on blood relationships and religion.
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Who made up the villages that collectively formed small kingdoms?
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Extended families
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Where did settled agriculture travel?
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Plant cultivation moved west from the Levant arriving in the Nile Delta in Egypt and then traveled down the Nile Valley and moved west across the Sahel to the central and western Sudan.
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How were West Africans living in the first century B.C.E.?
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In agricultural communities
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What did African farmers learn from the spread of plant cultivation?
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They learned to domesticate plants including millet, sorghum, and yams.
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What was the method "slash and burn"?
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A method of clearing land to plant grains on plots of land.
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What were the African's sedentary way of life?
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They lived in villages, cleared fields, relied on root crops, and fished.
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How did hunting-and-gathering societies live?
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They survived only in scattered parts of Africa, particularly in the central rain forest region and in southern Africa.
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What does Archeological evidence reveal?
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it reveals that the peoples of east Africa grew cereals, raised cattle, and used wooden and stone tools.
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What were tools of East Africans made of?
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wood and stone
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Why did cattle raising spread faster than planting?
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Because the herds prospering on the open savannas were free of tsetse flies which are devastating to cattle.
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What were negotiated in terms of cattle?
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Many trading agreements, marriage alliances, political compacts, and treaties.
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What cereals are indigenous to Africa?
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Millet and sorghum
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What agricultural products did traders bring to Africa?
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Bananas, taros, sugarcane, and coconut palms. They were brought to Africa from southeast Asia.
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Why did cultivation spread rapidly?
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Because tropical forest conditions were ideal for banana plants.
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What did native peoples domesticate throughout sub-Saharan Africa?
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Donkeys, pigs, chickens, geese, and ducks.
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What was the only animal native to Africa that was domesticated?
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The guinea fowl
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What were other animals native to Africa that were too temperamental to domesticate?
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Elephants, hippos, giraffes, rhinos, and zebras
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What was the difference between nomadic societies and settled societies?
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Settled societies made shared or common needs more apparent, and those needs strengthened ties among extended families.
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What kind of populations increased?
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Agricultural and pastoral populations, but they fluctuated over time.
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How were Early African Societies influenced?
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by the spread of ironworking
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Who was believed to have brought the iron-smelting technique to northwestern Africa?
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The Phoenicians
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Who achieved pre-eminence as an iron-smelting center by the first century B.C.E.?
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Meroe
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Where were ancient iron tools found and what were its effects?
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They were found at the village of Nok on the Jos Plateau. (Nigeria) They prove that ironworking industries existed in West Africa by 700 B.C.E.
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What does the Nok culture endure fame for?
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Its fine terra cotta sculptures
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What is the spread of ironworking linked to?
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It is linked to the migrations of Bantu-speaking peoples.
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Who were the Bantu?
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They were speakers of a Bantu language living south and east of the Congo River.
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Why did very few written sources for the early history of central and southern Africa survive?
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Because Muslims or Europeans rarely penetrated into the interior, and because Bantu-speakers seldom had written languages.
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How have scholars tried to reconstruct the history of the Bantu-speakers?
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On the basis of linguistics, oral traditions, archaeology, and anthropology.
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Who have played critical roles in providing information about early diets and environments?
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Botanists and zoologists
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What were some of the hundreds of Bantu languages?
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Zulu, Sotho, and Xhosa, which are part of the southern African linguistic and cultural mix. Swahili was spoken in eastern and sometimes central Africa.
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Where did Bantu speaking peoples originate?
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In the Benue Region, in the borderlands of modern Cameroon and Nigeria.
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Where did Bantu-speakers spread in the second milleneium B.C.E. ?
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They spread south and east into the equatorial forest zone.
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What sent people in search of land?
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Rapid population growth.
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What did the evolutions of centralized Kingdoms allow?
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It allowed rulers to expand their authority, while causing newly subjugated peoples to flee in the hope of regaining their independence.
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Because the early Bantu-speakers had words for fishing, fish-hooks, fish traps, paddles, etc, linguists assume that they cultivated ----
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root crops
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Becuase Bantu-speakers lacked words for grains and cattle herding, ----
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they probably were not involved in grain cultivation and livestock domestication.
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Where did Bantu speakers migrate and what did they learn?
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They migrated through the savannas and adopted mixed culture and learned ironworking.
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What is mixed agriculture?
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cultivating cereals and raising livestock
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What was practiced in western East Africa?
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Mixed agricultural and ironworking
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Where did Bantu speakers migrate in the first millennium C.E.?
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into eastern and southern Africa
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What did Bantu-speakers do with their iron weapons?
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They either killed, drove off, or assimilated the hunting-gathering peoples they met.
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What happened to some of the assimilated inhabitants?
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They adopted the Bantu language, contributing to the spread of Bantu culture.
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What led to a long period of considerable population increases and the need to migrate farther?
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The settled cultivation of cereals, the keeping of livestock, and the introduction of new crops together with Bantu-speakers' intermarriage with indigenous peoples.
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What determined settlement patterns? What did they result in?
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Significant environmental differences These differences resulted in very uneven population distribution.
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Where was the greatest population density?
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In the region bounded on the water by the Congo River and on the north, south, and east, by Lakes Edward and Victoria and Mount Kilimanjaro.
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What did the agricultural system rest on?
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Sorghum and yam cultivation
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Why did bananas become the Bantu people's staple crop?
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Because cultivation required little effort and the yield was much higher than forest yams.
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Where had Bantu-speaking people reached by the fifteenth century?
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Africa's southeastern coast.
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---- is the region bounded by the Sahara to the north, the Gulf of Guinea to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the mountains of Ethiopia to the east.
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Sudan
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What emerged in the western Sudan savanna? (where the Bantu migrations originated)
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A series of dynamic kingdoms emerged in the millennium before European intrusion began in the 1400s and 1500s.
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What shift did the people of the western Sudan make between 1000 B.C.E. and 200 C.E.?
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They made a momentous shift from nomadic hunitng to settled agriculture.
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The ----- proved ideally suited to ------- production, especially rice, millet, and sorghum.
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rich savanna cereal
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People situated near the Senegal River and Lake Chad supplemented their diet with ----
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fish
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What is the effect of food supply?
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It affects population and the region's inhabitants. inhabitants increased dramatically in number.
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What were the inhabitants of the region of western Sudan known as?
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The Mande-speakers and the Chadic-speakers, or Sao.
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Who lived together in villages or small city-states?
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Families and clans affiliated by blood kinship
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Who formed the basic social unit? (Western Sudan)
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The extended family
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Who governed a village in western Sudan?
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A chief, in consultation with a council of elders.
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In villages that formed into kingdoms ----(Western Sudan)
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Chiefs were responsible to regional heads, who answered to provincial governors, who in turn were responsible to a king.
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(Western Sudan) Who formed the aristocracy?
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The kings and their families
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In Sudan, where did Kingship emerge from?
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It may have emerged from the priesthood, whose members were believed to make rain and to have contact with spirit powers.
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African kings always had ----
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religious sanction or support for their authority and were often considered DIVINE
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What did African kingship resemble?
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The Germanic kingship of the same century.
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What did the King's authority rest on?
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It rested on his ability to negotiate with outside powers, such as the gods.
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What was one of the few African societies to be led by female rulers?
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Mende
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What was the position of women in African?
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They exercised significant power and autonomy.
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The ---- were among the most prominent west African peoples, and the king was considered ----- but shared some royal power with the ----- -----.
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Asante ; divine ; Queen Mother
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Who was the Queen Mother?
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She was a full member of the governing council and enjoyed full voting power in various matters of state. She initially chose the future king from eligible royal candidates.
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Among the Yoruba the Queen Mother held the royal ---- and could do what with it?
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Insignia ; She could refuse it if the future king did not please her.
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What were the institutions of female chiefs known as? Why were they established?
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Iyalode among the Yoruba and Omu among the Igbo The institutions were established to represent women in the political process.
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What was the omu considered?
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A female co-ruler with the male chief.
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How were western Sudanese religions?
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Animistic and polytheistic
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What did most people believe and recognize in their religions?
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That a supreme being had created the universe and was the source of all life. Most recognized ancestral spirits.
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What might ancestral spirits do?
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They might seek God;s blessings for families' and communities' prosperity and security as long as the groups behaved appropriately.
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What did the ancestral spirits do if people misbehaved?
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The might not protect them from harm, and illness and misfortune could result.
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Some African religions believed as well that nature spirits lived in such things as the ----. These spirits controlled natural forces and had to be appeased.
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sky, forests, rocks, and rivers.
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What happened to the spirits during the annual agricultural cycle?
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They all had to be propitiated from the time of clearing the land through sowing the seed to the final harvest.
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Why were special priests with the knowledge and power to communicate with spirits through sacred rituals needed?
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Because special ceremonies were necessary to satisfy the spirits.
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Who were often priests?
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Family and village heads
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What was each family head responsible for?
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Ceremonies honoring the family's dead and living members.
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Who were oracles?
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People who spoke for the gods Ex: Ibo oracles
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What were Ibo oracles?
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Female priestesses who were connected with a particular local deity that resided in a sacred cave or other site.
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Why would inhabitants from surrounding villages go to the priestesses?
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To seeks advice about such manners as crops and harvests, war, marriage, legal cases, and religion.
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What helped bind together the early western Sudanese kingdoms?
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Kinship patterns and shared religious practices
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By what century did Islam spread across the Sahara?
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By the ninth century C.E.
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What did Islam's spread result in ?
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It created a north-south religious and cultural divide in western Sudan.
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To where did Islam advance and where did its spread halt?
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Islam advanced across the Sahel into modern Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, North Nigeria, and Chad but halted at the west Africans Savannas and forest zones.
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What had Muslim empires along the Niger River's great northern bend evolved into?
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They evolved into formidable powers ruling over sizable territory as they seized control of the southern termini of the trans-Saharan trade.
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What made the long-distance across the trans-Saharan trade possible to travel?
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The "ship of the desert" ; the camel
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What does trans-Saharan trade refer to?
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The north-south trade across the Sahara desert
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What was the impact of camels on trade comparable to?
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The impact of horses and oxen on European agriculture.
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Where was the camel first introduced?
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First into North Africa, then into the Sahara and the Sudan before 200 C.E.
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What are the advantages of the camel?
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They can carry about five hundred pounds as far as twenty-five miles a day and can go for days without drinking, living on the water stored in their stomachs.
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Why did camels have to be loaded on a daily basis?
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Because they were temperamental and difficult to work with
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True/False - Camels proved more efficient for desert transportation than horses or oxen.
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True
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What did the trans-Saharan trade bring to Africa and what were its effects?
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It brought lasting economic and social change to Africa. It facilitated the spread of Islam and affected the development of world commerce.
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Who spread Islam along the trans-Saharan trade routes?
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Muslim Arab invaders
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Who were the North African peoples who controlled the caravan trade between the Mediterranean and the Sudan?
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The Berbers
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What did the North African Berbers create? What did it do?
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They fashioned a saddle for use on the camel. It had no direct effect on commercial operations, but it allowed maneuverability on the animal and thus a powerful political and military advantage: they came to dominate the desert and create lucrative routes across it.
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What were different things that the Berbers did since they dominated the desert?
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They determined who could enter the desert, and they extracted large sums of protection money from merchant caravans in exchange for a safe trip.
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What did the Berbers develop between 700 C.E. and 900 C.E.?
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They developed a network of caravan routes between the Mediterranean coast and the Sudan.
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Why did car an drivers prefer night traveling?
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Because the blistering sun and high temperatures during the day
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Who was Ibn Battuta and what did he do?
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He was an Arab traveler in the fourteenth century who left one of the best descriptions of the trans-Saharan traffic.
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Who were the Tuareg and what did they do?
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The were nomadic raiders (Berbers) who posed serious threats to trans-Saharan traders. They preyed on caravans as a way of life.
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What did merchants fontina voice being victimized by the Tuareg?
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They made safe-conduct agreements with them and selected guides from among them.
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Large numbers of merchants traveled the desert together to ----
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Avoid attack
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What often separated a line of camels and one time buried alive some camels and drivers?
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Blinding sandstorms
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What was the biggest problem of traveling the desert and what was its solution?
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Water Solution - Each person required a gallon of water per day. Desperate thirst sometimes forced the traders to kill camels and drink the foul, brackish water in their stomachs.
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How did the Tuareg use the problem of water to their advantage?
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They poisoned wells to wipe out caravans and steal their goods.
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What trade did Berber merchants control? What were the products exchanged for?
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They controlled the caravan trade that carried dates, salt, silk and cotton cloth, beads, and mirrors which all went to the Sudan. These products were exchanged for gold, ivory, gum, kola nuts, slaves.
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Who were slaves?
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Men and women who were sold to Muslim slave markets in Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and Cairo.
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What were the three important effects of the trans-Saharan trade?
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1. The trade stimulated gold mining 2. Trade in gold and other goods created a desire for slaves 3. The trade stimulated the development of urban centers
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Where did metal from mines go to and why?
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Some of the metal went to Egypt and then it was transported down the Red Sea and eventually into India. It was transported to India to pay for the spices and silks demanded by Mediterranean commerce.
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Why were slaves needed in Northern Africa? How were they captured?
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They were needed to works the gold and salt mines, to be household slaves among the elite, and for Muslim military service through the trans-Saharan trade. They were captured in war.
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What meant that the demand for slaves remained high for centuries?
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Manumission (the freeing of individual slaves), high death rates from disease, and the assimilation of some blacks into Muslim society
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Was slave based on race?
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No. Muslims enslaved not only blacks, but also Caucasians who had been purchased, seized in war, or kidnapped from Europe. All slaves had been completely cut from their cultural roots. West Africa. Kings sold blacks to northern traders and bought a few white slaves - Slavic, British, and Turkish- for their own domestic needs.
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Who acted as middlemen between the miners in the south and the Muslim merchants in the north?
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Families that had profited from trade who tended to congregate the border zones between the savanna and the Sahara.
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What happened to the families who acted as middlemen by the thirteenth century?
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They had become powerful merchant dynasties.
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What cities became centers of the import-export trade on the Niger River pending?
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Jenne, Gao, and Timbuktu, which had gradually become cities of sizable population.
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What city grew into a thriving market center?
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Sijilmasa
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What was the largest city in the western Sudan in the twelfth century?
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Koumbi Saleh
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What role did these cities play between 1100 and 1400 C.E.?
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They played a dynamic role in Western Africa's commercial life and became centers of intellectual creativity.
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What was the most influential consequence of the trans-Saharan trade?
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The introduction of Islam to west Africa
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What did Arab invaders overrun in the eighth century?
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All of coastal North Africa
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The Arab invaders introduced the Berbers to Islam ----
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And the Berbers gradually became Muslims and carried Islam to sub-Saharan west Africa since they were traders.
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Who were the militant Almoravids and what did they do?
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They were a coalition of fundamentalist Western Sahara Berbers who preached Islam to the rulers of Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and Kanem-Bornu.
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Why did these rulers convert to Islam?
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Because they admired the Muslim administrative techniques and because they wanted to protect their kingdoms from Muslim-Berber attacks.
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Why did some merchants adopt Islam?
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Because they wanted to preserve their elite mercantile status.
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Muslims quickly became integral to ----
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West African government and society
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Islam in west Africa was a ----
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Class-based religion with conversion inspired by political and economical motives.
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What peoples largely retained their traditional animism?
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Rural people in the Sahel region and the savanna and first peoples farther south.
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What did conversion to Islam introduce to west Africans?
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It introduced a rich sophisticated culture.
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What was the Muslim diwān?
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The agency for keeping financial records that was adopted by Ghana's king.
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Because efficient government depends on keeping and preserving records ----
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Islam's arrival in west Africa marked the advent of written documents there.
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What did the Arab Muslims also teach Ghana's rulers?
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How to manufacture bricks, and royal palaces and mosques began to be built of brick.
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Why did African rulers correspond with Arab and North African Muslim architects, theologians, and other intellectuals?
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Because they advised them on statecraft and religion.
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What happened after the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 642?
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Islam spread southward from Egypt up the Nile Valley and west to Darfur and Wadai. This Muslim penetration came gradually through commercial networks.
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What happened from the ports on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden?
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Maritime trade carried the Prophet's teachings to East Africa and the Indian Ocean.
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What was founded by the Muslims that is today Somalia's capital?
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Mogadishu. Mogadishu developed into a Muslim sultanate, a monarchy that employed a slave military corps against foreign and domestic enemies.
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What was the one basic feature that all African societies shared?
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A close relationship between political and social organization.
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What bound clan members together?
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Ethnic or blood ties
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What were stateless societies?
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African societies bound together by ethnic or blood ties rather than y being political states. The smallest ones numbered fewer than a hundred people and were usually nomadic hunting groups.
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The larger stateless, or decentralized, societies were consisted of several thousand people who lived in settled and often agricultural and/or herding life. EX: Tiv
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These societies lacked a central authority figure, such as a king, capital city, or military.
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A village or group of villages might recognize a chief as ----
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Someone with limited power and whose position was not hereditary, but more commonly they they were governed by local councils, whose members were either elders or persons of merit.
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Where did the weakness of stateless societies lay?
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In their inability or organize and defend themselves against attack by the powerful armies of neighboring kingdoms.
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What is the period from 800-1500 which witnessed the flowering of several African states known as?
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The Age of Africa's Great Empires
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What empires developed during this period?
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Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, complete with sizable royal bureaucracies
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On the East coast emerged thriving cities based on ----
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Sophisticated mercantile activities
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In Ethiopia, what did Kings rely on to strengthen political authority?
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Their people's Christian faith
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What was the empire of Great Zimbabwe in Southern Africa built on?
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The gold trade with the east coast
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What was Ghana?
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From the word for "ruler", it is,the name for a large and influential African kingdom inhabited by the Soninke people.
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What did Muslim traders and other foreigners apply to the region where the Soninke lived?
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They applied the King's title
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What did the Soninke call their land?
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Wagadou Only the southern part of Wagadounrecei Ed enough rain to be agriculturally productive.
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What led to abundant crop production that supported a large population?
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Skillful farming and efficient irrigation systems
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What did the Soninke call their King?
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Wat chief
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Why did Ghana capture the Berber town of Awdoghost?
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Becuase it was situated on the trans-Saharan trade route.
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T/F - All authority sprang from the King.
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True
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What was the point of religious ceremonies and court rituals?
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They emphasized the King's sacredness and were intended to strengthen his authority.
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The King's position was ----
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Hereditary in the matrilineal line
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Who is al-Bakri?
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A Spanish Muslim geographer
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Who assisted the King in the work of the government?
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A council of ministers (Mostly Muslim)
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Separate agencies were responsible for----
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Taxation, royal property, foreigners, forests, and the army.
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Where did the Ghanaian Kimg hold court?
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In Koumbi Saleh, which is described to be two towns; one in which the akin and the royal court lived and the other Muslim.
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Why did the Muslims of Koumbi Saleh live separately from the African artisans and tradespeople?
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Either to protect themselves or to preserve their special identity.
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What did Muslim religious leaders exercise?
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Civil authority over their fellow Muslims.
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Who was the imam and the muezzin?
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The imam was the religious leader who conducted the ritual worship, and the muezzin led the prayer responses after the imam.
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Complicated cases were appealed to the King who often relied on ----
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The advice of Muslim legal experts.
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To support the kingdom ----
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The royal estates produced annual revenue, mostly in the form of foodstuffs for the royal household.
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What was the largest import?
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Salt
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On what did Berber merchants pay tax to the King and what did they get in return?
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They paid a tax on cloth, metalwork, weapons, and other goods to the King and in return the King received royal protection from bandits.
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What was the largest source of income?
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The gold industry
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Who occupied the highest rung on the Ghanaian social ladder?
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The governing aristocracy - the king, his court, and Muslim administrators.
question
Below the merchants stood the ----
answer
Farmers, cattle breeders, gold mine supervisors, and skilled craftsmen and weavers. The lowest rung were the slaves, who worked in households, on farms, and in the mines.
question
What granted the most prestige?
answer
High status which was based on blood and royal service.
question
What stood apart from these social classes?
answer
The army
question
What did Ghana's king maintain at his palace?
answer
A standing force of a thousand men
question
What is a possible reason for the decline of Ghana?
answer
Powerful neighbors such as Mandinka
question
What is the most common reason for the decline of Ghana?
answer
The Berber Almoravid Dynasty of North Africa invaded and conquered Ghana around 1100 and forced its rulers and people to convert to Islam.
