2. Geography
• Tropics have the sun year
round
• Africa is almost entirely on
the tropics (like southern
Arabia, most of India and
Southeast Asia)
• Monsoons from the Indian
Oceans (wet season)
• Rainforests in West Africa
and west-central Africa
• Sahara is the world’s largest
desert
• Grasslands of East Africa
4. Divided by the Sahara
• Africa is divided by the
Sahara Desert
• Most of the Saharan
Africa and northern
Africa were heavily
affected by the Islamic
world
• Sub-Saharan Africa is
more complex
6. Common Thread
• Few things are common between all tribes
• One thing that is: most are descendants of the
Bantu tribes
7. Bantu
Tribes
• Around 1,000 B.C.E. the
Bantu began moving from
their homeland in west
central Africa
• Descendants settled all parts
of the continent south of the
Sahara
• With time, all these groups
developed into their own
group, with distinct
languages and cultural
traditions
8. Basics of Sub-Saharan
Societies:
• Most communities are
small
• Social life revolved
around the village
• Food: hunting,
herding, and limited
agriculture
• Metalworking (gained
this skill on their own,
were not taught)
9. • Women were below men
• Rolls: Valued for their field work, story-telling ability,
role in education, and for producing heirs
• African lineage is matrilineal, not patrilineal
– Women inherited property, and the husband was required
to move into his wife’s house
Sub-Saharan
Women
10. Sub-Saharan Art
• Skills: carving, sculpture (especially in wood
and ivory, bronze and iron)
11. Architecture
• Impressive stone building and walls (ex: Great
Zimbabwe)
• Used timber as skeletons in reinforcing mud
mosques that still stand today (ex: Mali)
12. Literatur
e • Literature preserved by oral
traditions
• Professional storytellers
told history and social
customs
– Also acted as entertainers
and served as advisors to the
king
13. Contact with North
Africa
• As time passed, trade,
linked the north and
south of Africa
• This trade, also included
slavery
• Arab slavers penetrated
south in Africa and
forced many Africans into
bondage
• Some traders owned
thousands of slaves
14. Contact with Islam
• Islam became part of the sub-Saharan life,
sometimes by force (ex: Ghana) and
sometimes peacefully (ex: Mali)
15. West Africa:
Ghana
• Founded in 500 C.E.
• Major supplier of gold to Europeans
when Europe began minting coins
• Muslim community of merchants
linked to the trans-Saharan trade
route
• Overtime, Ghana society weakened
because of the demographic
conditions and as its population grew
and its food production failed to
meet demands
• All this left Ghana vulnerable to
Muslim conquest (the immediate
cause of Ghana’s downfall)
16. Central Africa: Great Zimbabwe
• 1000-1400 C.E.
• Name means: “sacred graves of
the chiefs”
• Crucial as a political and religious
center
• Great walled city encircled 193
acres and home to 20,000 people
• Immensely wealthy
(archaeologists have found
evidence of this)
• Traded all over the world
17. Mali
• Important north-south
trade route for centuries
• Founded in 1200’s by a
conqueror and soon
became a center of trade in
western and northern Africa
• Conversion was beneficial
to having good trade
relations with Arabs
• Products: gold, salt, ivory,
animal skins, and slaves
18. Timbuktu
• Chief commercial
outposts (although not
the capital of Mali)
• Stopping point for
caravans and traders
going in all directions
• Main commodity: salt
• Also renowned center
of religious studies and
Islamic scholarship
19. Mansa Musa
• Mali’s most powerful ruler
• (1312-1337)
• Took pilgrimage to Mecca to
display Mali’s wealth
• Famous in Europe and Africa
as one of the world’s richest
monarchs
• Systemized the government
• By the early 1400’s, Mali was
under foreign attack, which
eventually led to its collapse
22. East Africa:
• Urban centers along coast
(nearly 40)
• All multiethnic: diverse in
population, language, culture
and religion
• Persians and Arabs pushed
southward and mixed with
local Africans
• Islam became important but
did not replace local religions
• Trade among these regions
goes back to days of Rome
23. Swahili
• Most widespread language in the
region was Swahili
• Became the “lingua franca”=
common tongue
• Most common language on eastern
coast
25. Spread of Islam to Africa
• Islam reached parts of
North Africa
(especially Egypt) in
the 600’s and 700’s
• Most in North
converted, but some
remained
Christian(some in
Nubia, Kush, Ethiopia
and Egypt)
26. Islam in Africa
• Brought by Arab traders (by either
overland caravan or sea)
• Most of the time, conversion was
peaceful, but sometime it was forced
• Why were the Arabs coming? AArraabb
SSllaavvee TTrraaddee
– Trade going northward: slaves, salt, ivory
and animal skins
– Trade going southward: manufactured
goods like glass, metalwork, and pottery
27. Islam in Africa
• Many of the Swahili city-states
on Africa’s eastern
coast were large Muslim
communities
• West coast, Sahara and sub-
Saharan Africa
• More dedicated converts
were the BBeerrbbeerrss, desert
nomads and hardened
warriors
• Copts, a Christian minority,
formed communities in Egypt
and Sudan
28. Indian Ocean Trade Network
• East African coast
• Desirable goods: ivory, slaves
• Commercial ties: India, Mediterranean, China
• Indian Ocean region was the world’s largest maritime
trading network and an area of rapid Muslim
expansion
29. Quick Review
• 1. Which of the following helps explain why the
development of strong and sizable political units
occurred later and more slowly in sub-Saharan
Africa than in many other regions of the world?
– A. language was not yet developed
– B. People in Africa had not yet evolved
– C. There were many cannibals in this part of Africa
– D. There was a vast array of languages and dialects
spoken
– E. None of the above
Answer: D: The remarkable ethnic and linguistic diversity of sub-
Saharan Africa made it difficult for stable, united states to take shape
30. Answer: B
• 2. How did women in the small communities
of sub-Saharan Africa tend to be treated?
– A. They were seen as political equals
– B. They were valued as fieldworkers and for
education children.
– C. There were treated as goddesses
– D. More women served as chiefs than men
– E. Women tended the cattle and so had a lot of
power
31. Answer: A
• 3. African literature of this period was
preserved through
– A. oral tradition
– B. scroll paintings
– C. writings on large slabs of stone
– D. stories written on bronze statues
– E. manuscripts kept in pyramid-shaped archives
32. Answer: D: long term was environmental changes, but
short term was the Muslim invasion from the north
• 4. The immediate cause of Ghana’s downfall
was…
– A. environmental calamity
– B. the Crusades
– C. its takeover by the Portuguese
– D. Muslim conquest
– E. the slave trade
33. Answer: C
• 5. How do researchers know that the Great
Zimbabwe was so wealthy at one time?
– A. it left behind written accounts of history
– B. Explorers testified of its wealth
– C. Gold, jewelry, and other valuable items were
found in its ruins
– D. It still exists today and has remained wealthy
for hundreds of years
– E. None of the Above
34. Answer: E
• 6. As far back as what era did East Africa
already have commercial ties with India and
the Mediterranean region?
– A. the 1700’s
– B. the 1400’s
– C. the Sumerian era
– D. the Egyptian Old Kingdom
– E. the Roman era
35. Answer: B
• 7. Which of the following is an accurate
statement about East African cities during this
period?
– A. The area was no ethnically diverse
– B. The most widely used language was Swahili
– C. The area unfortunately never enjoyed a booming
economy
– D. Islam had not reached the shores of East Africa yet
– E. East African city-states were all under the rule of a
single Arab sheik
36. Answer: C
• 8. The Copts were and still are a ______
minority in predominantly Islamic Egypt
– A. Jewish
– B. Buddhist
– C. Christian
– D. Muslim
– E. agnostic
37. Answer: A
• 9. Which of the following is an accurate
statement about slavery at the time in sub-
Saharan Africa?
– A. By the 1200’s, some traders owned more than a
thousand slaves apiece.
– B. Slavery was confined to Timbuktu, at least until the
1400’s
– C. Only Muslims could own and sell slaves
– D. The people who were enslaved tended to live in
East Africa
– E. Slavery had not yet arrived in this region of the
world yet
38. Answer: D
• 10. How did African societies gain the skill of
metalworking?
– A. Muslims taught Africans the skill
– B. Western Europeans taught Africans this skill
– C. African societies learned this skill only after
they were enslaved
– D. They gained it on their own without outside
help
– E. None of the above.
39. Answer: D
• 11. Which of the following places in Africa
remained Christian despite the spread of Islam
on the continent?
– A. Marrakesh
– B. Swahili city-states
– C. Mali
– D. Ethiopia
– E. Tunisia
40. Answer: B
• 12. Timbuktu was renowned for its
– A. gold and its role in opposing the slave trade
– B. salt reserves and Islamic scholarship
– C. large harbor
– D. glass and ceramic architecture
– E. many Gothic churches
