Episode 28: African Kingdoms and Trade

The Big History of Civilizations (2016)

Dr Craig G Benjamin

Film Review

This is one of my favorite lectures as African history is so rarely taught in school. Benjamin begins by describing the Mali king Mansa Musa of Mali, who became world famous in 1324 when he undertook the Hajj to Mecca. He was accompanied by thousands of soldiers, attendants and slaves, as well as a hundred camels loaded with sacks of gold. He bestowed lavish gifts on all the kings and nobles who hosted him. He left so much gold behind stopover in Cairo that the global value of gold dropped by 25%.

On his return to Mali, he built mosques and madrassas* and sent students to study with Muslim in North Africa. Under Mansa Musa’s rule, Mali became one of the most famous centers of Muslim learning in the world.

Benjamin divides Africa’s early agrarian civilizations into tropical rainforest and savanna* cultures. Savanna-based societies were almost entirely patrilineal. Approximately 15% of the rainforest cultures were matrilineal. However even in patrilineal cultures, female relatives of chiefs played an important role as public officials, political and religious advisors and even soldiers.

Prior to the advent of Christianity and Islam, African cultures were polytheistic. Although some believed in a higher creator god, most appealed to nature gods or ancestors to protect them against crop failure or illness. In many cases, they relied on female shamans to intercede for them.

Farming first appeared in sub-Saharan Africa around 3000 BC just as the Sahara was desertified (prior to 3000 BC the region’s numerous lakes and rivers sustained tropical rainforests).

According to Benjamin, the first agrarian civilizations appeared around 1500 BC in four independent farming centers: the Ethiopian highlands (growing millet, sesame and mustard seed); the savannas of central Sudan (growing sorghum, millet, rice, peas and nuts); the West African savanna (growing oil palms, peas and yams) and in West African rainforests (growing bananas and coffee).

Around 1000 BC, domesticated cattle, sheep, goats and pigs spread to Africa from Asia. During the 7th century BC, iron metallurgy reached sub-Saharan Africa. Meroë in the Numbian kingdom of Kush became the first sub-Saharan iron works center, followed by Nok (in modern day Nigeria), which produced high quality steel comparable to that of Egypt and Rome. The adoption of steel tools, combined with improved food production, led to a substantial population increase, the development of specialized crafts and complex social structures and robust trade.

Benjamin also credits these changes for what he refers to as “Bantu expansion.” Between 3000 BC and 1000 AD, speakers of Bantu languages spread out from the Cameroon/Nigeria highlands throughout sub-Saharan Africa as hunter gatherer cultures transitioned into sedentary, socially complex societies that traded with Egyptian and Arab merchants.

West African agrarian civilizations included

• Aksum – the hub of the Aksumite empire, was established in northern Ethiopia around 400 BC. By the 8th century AD it had been taken over by Muslim traders.
• Nok (500 BC – 200 AD) – the first culture to appear in modern day Nigeria, initially interacted peaceably with Berber*** nomads in the Sahara desert. It collapsed in 200 AD after continual Berber attacks caused it to lose control of the gold, salt and slave trade.
• Malentu (modern day Ghana) – regained control of the gold trade and created the Mali empire In the 13th century AD. When gold replaced silver as the main currency of Europe, Mali became the world’s largest supplier of gold, exporting several tons annually.
• Songhai empire – replaced the Mali empire in the 15th century and built magnificent mosques and madrassas in Timbuktu. It was the largest west African empire until they were defeated by the Moroccans (who had gunpowder) in the late 16th century.
• Jenne-Jeno – an 80 acre city in the fertile Niger Delta around 250 BC. It’s success related largely to its easy access to salt and minerals from the Sahara and animals, plants and gold from southern cities. For many centuries it controlled all trans-Sahara trade.
• Ghana (named after its first warrior king) – founded in the 4th century AD, it monopolized the sub-Saharan trade in gold, salt and slaves**** for four centuries.

In East Africa, Swahili speaking people had formed hundreds of city-states prior to the arrival of Portuguese explorers and soldiers in the 15th century. Most of their rulers converted to Muslim, created classic Muslim palaces, mosques and fountains and traded gold, ivory and slaves.

In central Africa, agrarian civilizations included

• Mapungubwe – great city stated founded around 1075 AD. Its rulers amassed great power by assembling giant cattle herds and using them to trade with Swahili coastal cities. Mapungubwe ultimately became greater Zimbabwe (“houses of stone,” named after the magnificent stone palaces their elites lived in).
• Kongo (just north of greater Zimbabwe) – founded in 1390 AD. In 1665, it became a Portuguese colony after Portuguese troops killed their king in battle.

*Savanna is a mixed woodland-grassland ecosystem where trees are widely spaced, allowing sufficient sunlight for abundant grassland.

**In patrilineal kinship systems, the line of descent (inheritance and property rights) derives from the father’s lineage. In matrilineal systems the line of inheritance is traced through the mother.

***Muslims referred to Libyans as “barbars” (from the Greek word for barbarian) because they were extremely hard to conquer. This was later bastardized to Berber.

****Between the 8th and early 20th century, roughly one million slaves were transported 1200 miles across the Sahara desert to be shipped to distant regions. This number excludes the Transatlantic slave trade.

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