Ch. 19 Notes: States and Societies of Sub-Saharan Africa

APWH

Jones

Ch. 19 Notes: States and Societies of Sub-Saharan Africa

Themes:

Peoples and societies of sub-Saharan and west Africa were never as tied into the classical era’s trade and communication networks as societies of east Africa and the Mediterranean basin.

 primarily explained by geographical realities

In the post-classical era,

peoples of the sub-Saharan and west African regions benefited from significant economic and demographic productivity.
In a sequence similar to the ones we’ve already seen in east Asia, south Asia (India), and western Europe---

societies in sub-Saharan and west Africa built powerful states and cities,

and participated in international and interregional trade networks.

interregional contact brought new influences,

particularly religious ones, into sub-Saharan and west Africa,

 helped to spread African peoples and goods into a wider world.

 The spread of Islam into many regions of sub-Saharan and trans-Saharan Africa tied these regions into dar al-Islam.

Geography of the African Continent:

main geography points:

the desert,

the lack of harbors,

 and the relatively few major rivers.

natural barriers to engaging in cross-cultural, intercontinental trade

The grassland/savannah border of the Sahara is called the sahel, which means “coast”.

Text reading: page 483; PSI map in chapter 19

Social Structures:

One of the major themes in terms of changes and continuities over the post-classical era in sub-Saharan Africa

is the end of the Bantu migrations and the development of settled/sedentary societies, ca. 1000.

Slaves were at the bottom of African social structures

As in Eurasia and the Americas, enslavement resulted from being

captured in a war,
from indebtedness,
and as criminal punishment.

Slavery in Africa, as elsewhere in the post-classical world, was personal, not hereditary.

Slaves were used for labor, and to show one’s social status.

Text reading: pages 80-83; 484-485; 496-500

State Politics and Economics:

In west and sub-Saharan Africa, there were no classical kingdoms to collapse and rebuild.

In these regions, we see the first major political organizations in the post-classical era.

African peoples developed a wide variety of political structures.

Ife and Benin were city-states

 whileKongo, Ghana, Mali, and Zimbabwe were kingdoms.

 All had courts and urban capitols,

where military, judicial, and financial affairs were overseen.

With strong economies built on agriculture (communally owned in the sub-Saharan regions),

 trade and wealth also underwrote the establishment of large and powerful kingdoms” in Africa

and that trade contributed to the introduction and spread of new crops.

the Zimbabweans were tied into the Swahili coast city-states and by extension to the Indian Ocean basin trade network.
The kingdoms of Ghana and Mali were dependent on the trans-Saharan gold-salt trade, and by extension were tied to the Mediterranean, NileBasin, and Islamic imperial economies.

Text reading: pages 485-493; 485-492; 494-496; 575-576

Continuing Spread of Islam:

Muslim merchants and travelers introduced Islam to sub-Saharan and west Africans.

 Muslim practices were merged into existing social and religious practices,

much to the consternation of more mainstream Muslims like Ibn Battuta, a traveling 14th-century qadi (legal scholar/judge).
the gradual adoption of Islam (first by rulers and merchants, and then by commoners) wove sub-Saharan and west Africans into dar al-Islam.
The ruler of Mali, Mansa Musa, took a famous hajj and stunned the east Africans and Arabs with his wealth,

 he brought scholars and architects back home with him to enhance the reputation of Mali within dar al-Islam, and Islam within Mali.

Overview:

Throughout most of the classical age, sub-Saharan Africa participated in the economy of the eastern hemisphere to a limited degree.

Geographic factors, most notably the Sahara desert, restricted trade and communication between sub-Saharan Africa and its neighbors to the north.

 Despite these boundaries, the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa developed “stateless” societies and intricate religious concepts.

The migration of the Bantu-speaking tribes brought languages and iron metallurgy to most of the sub-Saharan region.

 Later the rise of trans-Saharan trade helped to transform African life by inspiring larger, more centralized kingdoms and introducing new religions such as Islam and Christianity.

Effects of Early African Migrations

By the year 1000 Bantu-speaking people had spread throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa.

During the middle of the first millennium B.C.E. the Bantu mastered iron metallurgy,

they spread this skill throughout Africa by their migrations.

 Between 400 B.C.E. and 1000 C.E. the population of sub-Saharan Africa expanded from around 3.5 million to over 22 million,

partially because of agricultural advancements such as the domestication of the banana.

 By around 1000 C.E. the Bantu had spread throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa

and their language differentiated into around five hundred different tongues.
Early Bantu political organization was marked by a structure often referred to as “stateless societies,”
which meant that there was no elaborate bureaucracy or hierarchy of officials.
This does not mean, however, that there was no governmental structure.
Rather, family and kinship units played a much more strategic role in providing a governing structure.
Male family heads made up a village ruling council, with the most prominent member acting as chief.
Groups of villages would join together to form a district, but apparently the government was more collective and less truly centralized.
After the year 1000 C.E., increasing population pressures and military challenges led to the rise of more centralized governments and larger kingdoms.

 The best example of a Bantu kingdom is Kongo, which reached its peak in the fourteenth century.

Islamic Kingdoms and Empires

The rise of trans-Saharan trade, precipitated by among other things the increasing domestication of the camel, greatly influenced the world of sub-Saharan Africa.

In addition to more tangible trade goods such as gold or slaves, religious concepts such as Islam crossed the desert.

A series of powerful and dynamic Islamic kingdoms, beginning with Ghana, rose to dominate West Africa.

Ghana, centered around the capital of Koumbi-Saleh, controlled the gold trade across the Sahara.

In the thirteenth century Ghana was superseded by Mali
under the leadership of the legendary lion king Sundiata.

Mali dominated the trade routes and West Africa from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century.

The peak of Mali’s power came during the reign of Mansa Musa,

whose pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324–1325 is probably the single most dramatic moment in medieval African history.
Despite being a very conscious display of his wealth and splendor, Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage was also indicative of his tremendous devotion to Islam and the religion spread rapidly during his reign.

East Africa was also dependent on trade,
except in this instance the trade went through the Indian Ocean.

 Swahili city-states such as Mogadishu, Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Mozambique, and Sofala dominated east Africa politically and economically.

Islamic merchants exchanged goods from Persia, India, and China with the city-states.
Eventually the Swahili leaders converted to Islam.
The most prosperous of the Swahili city-states was Kilwa,

 which was influential from around 1300 until the city-state was sacked by the Portuguese in 1505.

 Central African kingdoms such as Zimbabwe also indirectly shared in the trading prosperity.

 The magnificence of stone complexes such as Great Zimbabwe speaks to the power and wealth of this kingdom.

African Society and Cultural Development

Africa has always been, and continues to be, a land of extraordinary diversity.

This diversity expresses itself

politically
linguistically
Socially
culturally.
The larger kingdoms developed social classes similar to most other societies studied so far,
while the smaller states and stateless societies created a more fluid social situation.

 In these smaller states, conditions such as;

kinship, age groupings, and sex and gender expectations played a more important role in establishing social position.

Women:

Even considering the dominant role played by men politically, women in sub-Saharan Africa possessed more opportunities than did women in other parts of the world.
Even the arrival of Islam did not substantially worsen the condition of women in sub-Saharan Africa.

 Private ownership of land was not an established institution.

This fact made the possession of slaves an important barometer of personal wealth.
As many as ten million African slaves were shipped north as part of the trans-Saharan slave trade between 750 and 1500 C.E.

 The Zanj slave revolt led by Ali bin Muhammad expressed the important role that slavery played in Islamic society.

Religion:

African religious life also mirrored the complexity of the continent.

 Certain factors, however, such as:

the existence of a distant creator-god,
the possibility of reaching lesser gods and spirits associated with nature,
and the role of diviners in making that connection, were common motifs.

The arrival of Islam and to a lesser extent Christianity, as seen in the kingdom of Axum, brought about a transformation of African religious life.

 Nevertheless, these new religions never completely eliminated the native traditions and often, in fact, took on aspects of the original African beliefs.

MAP:

Geography Skills

Ife / Benin
Kongo / Niger River
Senegal River / Congo/Zaire River
NileRiver / ZimbabweRiver
Sahara / the sahel (“coast”)
Ghana / Mali
Jenne / Timbuktu
Gao

Historical Terms and Concepts to Know

*Who, what, where, why, when, how, so what?

Bantu migrations / stateless society
Sundiata / Mansa Musa
gold-salt trade / Ibn Battuta
kinship groups / age groups
creator god / cotton
sugar cane

WestEast South