Team Members: Block: Africa: Trial Objectives Economics and Cross-Cultural

Team Members: ______Block: ______
Africa: Trial Objectives Economics and cross-cultural interactions

Instructions: The following primary and secondary sources are designed to provide your legal firm with the information needed to formulate arguments that will show that the societies you represent have met and exceeded the challenges posed by the following three questions. Use your time wisely and provide responses with proof that your culture has shown the best answers to these questions on earth for this time period. Be aware that other trial teams have access to this information as well and will be looking for weaknesses in your arguments. Be prepared to defend your assertions.

1. How is economic prosperity and opportunity distributed amongst the population in this society? Is economic prosperity dependent on exploitation of certain segments of this society or is it based on individual initiative? Why is this beneficial in either case?

2. What is more important; internal trade or external trade and contact? What kinds of items are they trading?

Does economic expansion depend on aggression towards other cultures or does it rely on peaceful interactions? What are the advantages of either?

Objective: How is economic prosperity and opportunity distributed amongst the population in this society? Is economic prosperity dependent on exploitation of certain segments of this society or is it based on individual initiative? Why is this beneficial in either case?

1. How does the king ensure that his people share in the wealth of natural resources found in Ghana? ______

Objective: What is more important; internal trade or external trade and contact? What kinds of items are they trading?

2. How does the Kingdom of Ghana take advantage of its central position between the gold fields of coastal Western Africa and the salt reserves on the edge of the Sahara? ______

“The king exacts the right of one dinar of gold on each donkey-load of salt that enters his country, and two dinars of gold on each load of salt that goes out. A load of copper carries a duty of five mitqals and a load of merchandise ten mitqals. The best gold in the country comes from Ghiaru, a town situated eighteen days' journey from the capital [Kumbi] in a country that is densely populated by Negroes and covered with villages. All pieces of native gold found in the mines of the empire belong to the sovereign, although he lets the public have the gold dust that everybody knows about; without this precaution, gold would become so abundant as practically to lose its value.... The Negroes known as Nougharmarta are traders, and carry gold dust from Iresni all over the place…”

-(Primary Source) Glimpses of the Kingdom of Ghana in HE 455 (AD 1077) by Al Bakir, A Muslim from Spain

Objective: Is economic prosperity dependent on exploitation of certain segments of this society or is it based on individual initiative? Why is this beneficial in either case?

3. How was slavery used in Mali? ______

4. Why is salt such an important resource in this part of the world that it would actually be more valuable than gold or silver? ______

“After twenty-five days [from Sijilmasa] we reached Taghaza, an unattractive village, with the curious feature that its houses and mosques are built of blocks of salt, roofed with camel skins. There are no trees there, nothing but sand. In the sand is a salt mine; they dig for the salt, and find it in thick slabs, lying one on top of the other, as though they had been tool-squared and laid under the surface of the earth. A camel will carry two of these slabs. No one lives at Taghaza except the slaves of the Massufa tribe, who dig for the salt; they subsist on dates imported from Dar'a and Sijilmasa, camels' flesh, and millet imported from the Negrolands. The Negroes come up from their country and take away the salt from there. At Iwalatan a load of salt brings eight to ten mithqals; in the town of Malli [Mali] it sells for twenty to thirty, and sometimes as much as forty. The Negroes use salt as a medium of exchange, just as gold and silver is used [elsewhere]; they cut it up into pieces and buy and sell with it. The business done at Taghaza, for all its meanness, amounts to an enormous figure in terms of hundredweights of gold-dust.

-(Primary Source) Ibn Battuta, Muslim judge and worldwide traveler, from his travel journals, including his trip to Mali, 1325-1354 C.E.

Objective: What is more important; internal trade or external trade and contact? What kinds of items are they trading?

5. The purpose of this invitation is clearly economic. Yet this economic purpose has political, social, and cultural dimensions as well. What are these other dimensions? How is economics related to other aspects of medieval Islamic society? ______

Objective: Which services provided to society deserve the most reward? Why?

6. What class of society seems to be worthy of the most respect in this society? ______

“A decree has been issued, may God exalt the Sultan’s exalted command, and may his (the sultan’s) justice keep the subjects in assured protection. He requests the prayers of the people of both east and west for his thriving reign, and let all of them be sincere. He offers a genuine welcome to those who come to his realm, as to the Garden of Eden, by whatever gate they may choose to enter, from Iraq, from Persia, from Asia, Minor, from the Hijaz, from India, and from China. Whoever wishes to set forth – the distinguished merchants, the men of great affairs, and the small traders, from the countries enumerated and also those which have not been enumerated – and whoever wishes to enter our realms may sojourn or travel at will and to come to our country…God’s blessing accrues in the baggage of whoever does a good deed by lending or receives a good deed by borrowing. Another of features is that anyone who comes there hoping for anything, gets what he wants, for it is a land of Islam, with armies whose swords are beyond reproach. For justice has made its lands prosper and has multiplied its inhabitants…The rest of the people and all the merchants have no fear there of any oppression, for justice protects….Whoever brings merchandise with him, such as spices and other articles imported by the Karimi merchants, will suffer no unjust impost nor be subjected to any burdensome demand, for (our) justice will leave with them what is desirable and remove what is burdensome. If anyone brings (white) male slaves (mamluks) or slave-girls, he will find their sale price beyond his expectations and (will be accorded) the tolerance in fixing a profitable price which is customarily accorded to those who import such slaves near and all the more distant lands; for our desire is directed toward the increase of our troops, and those who import mamluks have gained a title to our generosity.”

-(Primary Source) Egyptian Sultan’s Letter of invitation to surrounding kingdoms, 1280 - 1290

Objective: What is more important; internal trade or external trade and contact? What kinds of items are they trading?

7. What kinds of products are the East Africans trading in? ______

8. What regions was East Africa trading with? How important were East African goods to these other regions? ______

“The land of Zanj produces wild leopard skins. The people wear them as clothes, or export them to Muslim countries. They are the largest leopard skins and the most beautiful for making saddles….They also export tortoise-shell for making combs, for which ivory is likewise used…the sea of Zanj ends with the land of Sofala and the Waqwaq, which produces gold and many other wonderful things…It is from this country that come tusks weighing fifty pounds and more. They usually go to Oman, and from there are sent to China and India. This is the chief trade route, and if it were not so, ivory would be common in Muslim lands.”

-(Primary Source) Abul-Hasan Ali al-Masudi, “Meadows of Gold” 915 C.E.

Objective: What is more important; internal trade or external trade and contact? What kinds of items are they trading?

9. Where is the most contact coming from with trade? What does this say about cultural contact and sophistication of the East African people? ______

FOREIGN GOLD & SILVER COINS DISCOVERED AT SWAHILI CITIES:

From Classical and Post-Classical Era Trading Civilizations to 1450 C.E.

Kilwa / Mafia / Zanzibar / Pemba / Kenya / Somalia / Total
Hellenistic / 1 / 2 / 22 / 25
Persian / 5 / 5
Roman / 2 / 1 / 6 / 9
Byzantine / 2 / 46 / 48
Umayyad / 2 / 2
Abbasid / 7 / 1 / 8
Seljuk / 1 / 1
Mameluk / 2 / 4 / 6 / 12
Mongol / 2 / 4 / 1 / 7
Muslim, misc. / 20 / 3 / 15 / 38
Tang China / 4 / 1 / 5
Sung China / 9 / 185 / 2 / 16 / 212
Ming China / 6 / 6
Ceylon / 4 / 4
Vietnam / 4 / 4
South India / 2 / 2

Kenyan Swahili cities are Mombasa and Lamu; Somalia includes Mogadishu

10. What role did slavery have in economic expansion across Africa? ______

Objective: Does economic expansion depend on aggression towards other cultures or does it rely on peaceful interactions? What are the advantages of either?

11. How did powerful African kingdoms use their military resources to further their economic gain? ______

“Slavery had existed in sub-Saharan Africa since antiquity. Most were either war captives, those who could not pay their debts, criminals, and suspected witches. Most worked as agricultural laborers, but others worked as construction laborers, miners and porters. Slaves were an important source of wealth as one could thereby increase one’s agricultural production and enhance one’s position in society. With the expansion of trade in the Indian Ocean basin, trade in slaves soon became prominent. Slaves in India, Persia, southwest Asia and the Mediterranean Basin had previously come from Eastern Europe (in fact the term comes from the word "Slav") but the demand was far greater than supply. As a result, trade in African slaves soon accelerated. The trade became so important that large states and societies made war on smaller ones who could not effectively defend themselves in order to obtain captives who were sold in northern slave markets. As many as twenty thousand people were sold in some given years. Ibn Battuta reported crossing the Sahara desert with a caravan comprised of six hundred slaves bound for the North. When Mansa Musa traveled to Mecca, he carried five hundred slaves with him, many of whom were distributed to his hosts as gifts. The Islamic slave trade was smaller than the more modern Atlantic slave trade, but estimates are that between 760 and 1500, more than ten million African slaves were deported to the north. The economic success of this endeavor created networks within Africa for the trade, and provided the foundation for the Atlantic slave trade.”

-(Secondary Source) Mr. Jensen

12. What regions of Africa are involved in cross-cultural trade and what regions are left out of the trade at the beginning of the Post-Classical period in Africa? What is the primary resource being distributed? ______

13. How have trade routes expanded by the end of the Post-Classical period? What regions have been added to the trade zones? ______

Objective: Does economic expansion depend on aggression towards other cultures or does it rely on peaceful interactions? What are the advantages of either?

14. What culture is the agent of trade to the African’s? How did this trade expand and what goods were in high demand on both sides? ______

8th–9th centuryTradebrings Arab merchants to the East African coast. Gradually this trade leads to the formation of settlements (which are nevertheless primarily African communities) and intermarriage with local African populations, giving rise to the Swahili Coast Culture. Exports include ivory, slaves, ambergris, and gold. Zanzibar eventually develops as a slave warehouse.
8th–9th centurythe site of Kilwa on the coast of modern-day Tanzania is first occupied. Originally fishing and weaving community that may have traded with interior settlements, Kilwa later develops into one of the most important trading centers on the Swahili coast. Ivory is probably a major item of trade, exchanged for ceramics brought from the Persian Gulf by Arab merchants. Locally minted silver and copper coins, dated between 980 and 1100, are found on Pemba Island.
ca. mid-9th centuryLate Iron Age sites such as K2 (Bambandyanalo) emerge in the Limpopo River valley, as well as the earliest walled settlements to appear on the Zimbabwean plateau. Goods such as imported glass beads found at both centers indicate the existence of trade with the eastern coast of Africa. Abundant tools and ivory ornaments found at K2 point to a thriving ivory-working industry. The K2 community declines in the mid-eleventh century withMapungubwe'srise to power.

-(Secondary Source) Metropolitan Museum of Art: Heilbrunn Timeline of History

15. Which social group benefited most from international contact in Africa? ______

Objective: What is more important; internal trade or external trade and contact? What kinds of items are they trading?

16. How did trade maintain itself among the other regions of Africa that were not in contact with Islam? ______

Long-distance trade—the supply-and-demand-driven movement of goods, people, and cultural attitudes and practices—typically stimulates historical change. Different regions in Africa were oriented differently in relation to trade routes and trading partners, and these regions developed in markedly different ways between 1000 and 1700. The North African coast and the Sahel lay amidst trading networks linking the Mediterranean world, the growing Daral-Islam(“House of Submission”—the Islamic realm), and the rich kingdoms of West Africa. The East African coast was integrated into the trading and cultural networks of the Indian Ocean basin and was firmly engaged with the Muslim world there. The rest of sub-Saharan Africa was culturally diverse; people here engaged primarily in intra-African trade with cultures that occupied other ecological niches. It is important to remember that Africa is a continent that is home to many societies with different histories, languages, religions, and cultures. In this way it is similar to Europe, but Africa is also much larger than Europe and more ethnically and culturally diverse. Along the Mediterranean, the key new factor in African historyat this time was the Ottomans’ imperial expansion into Egypt and the Maghreb. The long Ottoman hegemony altered the political configuration of the Mediterranean world. Merchants and missionaries carried Islam and Arabian cultural influences across the Sahara from North Africa and the Middle East to the western, central, and Nilotic Sudan, where Muslim conversion played a growing social and political role, especially among the ruling elites who profited most from brokering trade between their lands and the Islamic north. Islam provided a shared arena of expression for at least some classes and groups in societies over a vast area from Egypt to Senegambia.

-(Secondary Source) Peterson

Objective: Does economic expansion depend on aggression towards other cultures or does it rely on peaceful interactions? What are the advantages of either?

17. Would the Swahili city-states be so successful without interacting with outside cultures? What is proof of this fact from this account? ______

Objective: Which services provided to society deserve the most reward? Why?

18. What is the primary type of economic activity taking place on the Swahili Coast? What kinds of products is this activity producing? ______

“The Zanj of the East African coast have no ships to voyage in, but use vessels from Oman and other, countries which sail to the islands of Zanj which depend on the Indies. These foreigners sell their goods there, and buy the produce of the country. The people of the Djawaga islands go to Zanzibar in large and small ships, and use them for trading their goods, for they understand each others’ language. Opposite the Zanj coasts are the Djawaga islands; they are numerous and vast; their inhabitants are very dark in color, and everything that is cultivated there, fruit, sorghum, sugar-cane and camphor trees, is black in color. Among the number of the islands is Sribuza, which is said to be 1,200 miles round; and pearl fisheries and various kinds of aromatic plants and perfumes are to be found there, which attract the merchants.”

Team Members: ______Block: ______ Africa: Trial Objectives Economics and Cross-Cultural

Team Members: Block: Africa: Trial Objectives Economics and Cross-Cultural