The Peopling of Africa

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Nubian Developments

• As previously discussed, Nubia was devoid of population 3,000 years ago. But within 250 years, the Kingdom of Kush sprang up at its capital at Napata. Taking advantage of Egyption internal conflict, the Kushytes conquered Kemet and installed the 25th Dynasty in 751 BCE. It lasted until an Assyrian invasion in 636 BCE. Kush survived, and lasted until the first centuries CE.
• Reconsolidation occurred around Meroe, south of Napata. Meroe had some advantages. It was farther south, meaning harder to invade from Egypt in the north. Its hinterland also had greater agricultural potential. Enough summer rain fell to increase production of sorghum at wadis. The Butana steppe between the Atbara and Nile rivers provided land for cattle grazing. The Red Sea was in easy reach, as well as the Ethiopian highlands where Aksum was.

(25th Dynasty Map. Meroe is located around the splitting of the Nile into its White and Blue parts near the bottom of the image)

• Around this time, the camel was also introduced into Africa. Ancient Kemetian sources about animals were silent about the camel despite Babylonians knowledge about it. Thos attitudes changed in the first century CE. The Nubians may have used camels before the Egyptians as well as the Beja.
• Meroe is regarded as a center for iron-smelting and perhaps its spread into southern Africa (I think it's unlikely because of the differing techniques between say the Nok and the Nubians). There are many slag heaps around the city site because of its productivity. Meroitic craft specialization was also unique. Pottery, jewelery, woodworkers and smiths of all kinds were known in Meroe. Also cotton was grown here, well before it appeared in Egypt. Finished cloth was a major export.
• The Ptolemies began to repopulation Lower Nubia. Nubia also took this up and re-populated southern Lower Nubia. Gold and emeralds in the eastern desert began to be exploited, but Lower Nubia largely depended on agriculture. Soon, Lower Nubia had a larger population than Upper Nubia - again.
• Decline soon set in. Egypt's declining prosperity hurt Mediterrenean trade. Aksum also launched an invasion into Upper Nubia in 350 CE to control commodities like gold, oils, fragrances, access to the Red Sea and peoples who could be enslaved. Nomadic incursions by the Beja hurt too. Rome moved its settlers away from the nomadic raiders, north of the First Cataract out of fear.
• When Meroe collapsed, it changed Nubia in many ways. Their language disappeared and it was replaced by modern Nubian languages (of Nilo-Saharan rather than Afro-Asiatic origins - probably from modern day Dar Fur). Peoples like the Nobatae and the Noba took advantage of the chaos.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Christianity, Islam and the Arab Advance

• By the middle of the first millenium CE, North Africa was within the expanding Christian world. No major population fluxes happened (except the arrival of the pagan Vandals a bit later) so we can surmise that people converted. But, in the Maghrib, Christianity was a fleeting presence. Along the Nile, it endured (around 10 per cent of Egypt's population, some 8 million people, remains Christian today).
• 80 to 90 percent of Egypt's population convered to Christianity by the end of the 4th cen. CE. This may have occurred because of a decline of the Egyptian economy which caused the old deities to lose their appeal as the Romans established harsher taxes. The new belief in Jesus provided salvation to Egyptian peasants and monasteries - an alternative to labouring for Rome. Monasteries allowed Egyptians to be shielded from taxes and providing a levy for Rome's armies. They supplanted landed estates as the dominan social and economic institution.
• Melkite and Monophysite doctrines of Eastern Christendom competed for power. Monophysite Monks, Coptic Christianity in other words, spread to the Red Sea port of Adulis and it was carried into the Ethiopian Highlands.
• It also entered Nubia by the 5th century CE and converted the entire population over several hundred years. Three Christian kingdoms emerged. Nobatia, Makouria and Alwa. Makouria was Melkite until it conquered Nobatia and became Coptic.
• In Maghrib, protests against Roman Empire was manifested in conversions by Berbers, Punic speakers and Jews. In spite of persecution, Christian adherents grew. Rural Numidians and Mauretanians also adopted the faith in time. Catholics and Donatists competed for number although the Catholics won out. But the invasion of North Africa by the Germanic Vandals in 429-432 plundered the region. A Vandal kingship developed in what is now Tunisia. All the while Berbers chipped at Vandal and Roman authority. Byzantium came to North Africa and defeated the Vandals in battle in 533 and reestablished control over North Africa. This didn't last long.

Christian art from Nubia. The figure on the left doesn't look too different from modern Sudanese today @Misreeya

• The linking of Northern Africa to the Wider Arab World began with Muslim Armies entering Egypt from Palestine in 639. By 642, Egypt was secured.
• Arab presence spread from the larger cities to towns and villages. Arabization within 300 years replaced Greek and Coptic for writing and speaking. Islam did not spread that rapidly, as evidenced by still existing Christian populations in Egypt. In Egypt, people were not forced to convert to Islam. At least at first.
• Egypt's population slide continued until the 8th century when they reached 2-2.25 million people. Turmoil of both religious and political kinds were endemic. Plus, outbreaks of disease and low Nile floods made life precarious. The population began to slowly rise again with new agricultural crops like rice, bananas, sugar cane and eggplant. Conditions improved further under the Fatimid Dynasty. They built Cairo as their capital and Egypt became central in the Arab World. Goods went to Southern China, India, Ethiopia and West Africa. Slaves increasingly were 'exported' into Egypt. However, the Fatimids put pressure on the Christian population to convert. Sunnis also faced discrimination because the Fatimids were Ismaili Shi'ites.
• Egypt became a Sunni state once again when the Ayyubids drove out the Fatimids in 1169. The population once again reached 5 million. The Ayyubids were in turn ousted by the Mamluks in 1250. The Mamluks were a military corps made up of Turkish and Circassian slaves who rebelled against their masters. Their regime lasted until the Ottoman conquest of 1517. Caira had around half a million people during this time. But, Egypt's population plumetted again because of plage outbreaks and famines caused by low Nile floods. Not to mention locust invasions. By the end of the 16th century CE, the population was just over 2 million. The recovery took place starting in the 17th century but Egypt's explosive growth rate didn't occur until the late 19th century.

(Mamluk Egypt and surrounding states such as Nubia and Makuria)

• After conquering Egypt, the Arabs continued to advance westwards. Arab conquerers were first attracted to cities in the Maghrib but like in Egypt, Arabization and Islamization occurred in the countryside in the following centuries. The Ifriqiya Plain (Tunisia) was a prosperous part of the Islamic World. It's wealth was based on grain, olive oil, dates, meats and skins. It also sold cloth south in exchange of gold, ivory and slaves. Slaves were import to their economy as soldiers, labourers, domestics, eunuch guards etc.
• Arab troops reached Mauretania, bypassing the Berber mountain srongholds and reached their main target - Visigothic Spain in 711. Holy men (of various sects) and merchants spread Islam instead of soldiers in the region. Until the 11th century CE, the Arab population was small. Most were in cities like Qayrawan, Tahert, Fes and Sijilmasa. The desert remained in Berber control except for the Tibesti Mountains where the Nilo-Saharan Tibbu held sway. Elswhere, the Berber tribes of Sanhadja and Zanata competed for power. Both had a servile class called Haratin which may have been defeated Nilo-Saharans.

Haratins

Berber woman from Morocco (note that her tatoos are similar to 'Libyan' tatoos depicted by Ancient Kemetians)

• In the mid 11 century, the Lamtuna Sanhadja Berbers, located between Wadi Dar'a and the Senegal River, came under the rule of the puritanical Sunni Malikites. The Lamtuna were losing economic ground to Zanata and Arab traders and soon the Malikite Arabs had a ready-made army that had an incentive to launch a jihad. The Almoravid (literally, struggle to uphold the faith and not holy war) jihad enforced community prayer, prohibition against alcohol, Quranic education and pilgrimage to Mecca among other things. The movement took over all of Morocco, half of Algeria and Mauretania, 1/3rd of Spain and portions of the Sahel. Marrakesh was built to symbolize the Almoravid usurpation of Islam. It became a a major center of finance and scholarship.
• The movement didn't last long though. A Berber revolt gave rise to the Almohad Dynasty in 1147. The Almohads united much of Spain but they too fell apart to various kingdoms like the Marinides in Morocco, Hasfids in Ifriqiya etc. Arabization got a boost from the migrations of the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym into North Africa. As more Bedouin from Arabia arrived in the region, the Beja held onto their domains...but Berber occupied places in Egypt became Arab-occupied. The Arabs were more heavily resisted in the central Sahara by the Tuareg and Teda.
• The Bedouins degraded farmlands which made farming less productive. Underground water systems (foggaras) began to decay. But, the Bedouin aided the Trans-Saharan trade. They were skilled at herding camels which made the travel far easier. One route connected Morocco with the region between Senegal and Niger Rivers. Another when from the Niger Bend to Morocco and Ifriqiya. A third linked Tripoli to Northern Ngieria, especially around Lake Chad. A fourth connected Egypt with Lake Chad via Dar Fur.
  
  
  
• By the 14th century CE, Tripoli, Oran, Melilla and Tangier became midshipment points between Europe and tropical Africa. Jews were often the intermediaries between the Ummah and Christendom. They could be traced to a diaspora out of Egypt in the 2nd century CE.
• Other towns like Fes, Marrakesh, Awdaghust, Tadmekka and Tadekka became crucial to the trade. But agriculture lost its attraction. Slaves brought more immediate value. A labour shortage resulted, irrigation systems fell into disrepair and wells filled with sand. Ifriqiya went from a food exporter to not being able to feed itself.

• The largest obstacle to Islam's advance was Christian Nubia. It had a large military with horse cavalry and skilled archers (like all previous Nubian iterations). It repelled two invasions from Egypt in the 7th century causing a bakt (or treaty) to guarantee Nubia's autonomy in exchange of an annual quota of slaves. Lower Nubia became prosperous again. Barley, millet, dates and livestock support self-sufficiency. Towns like Qsar Ibrim and Gebel Adda has seveal thousand inhabitants. In Upper Nubia, towns like Soba and Dongola were likely largier than towns in Lower Nubia. But things began to change.
• In the 13th century, the power of the king waned. Local warlords began to operate out of castles, controlling land and people. Bedouins linked up with the Beja and began to raid the region. Nubia descended into chaos, Arabization and Islamization. Intermarriages between Nubians and Arabs sped up this process as strategic alliances were struck in this political flux. However, not all become 'Arab'. Nubians from Aswan retained a sense of Nubian identity. Farther south, the identity disappeared - considering themselves to be Arabs of the Ja'aliyin lineage. This also occurred among the founders of the Funj Sultinate, centerred in Gezira and Butana regions with Sennar as its capital. They may have been of Cushytic origins... this process of Arabization is still happening today, ex. the Baggara and the Zaghawa. The Nyamang of the Nuba Hills and the Fur of Jebel Mara retained their identities into the 21st century
  
  
  
  (Nubian male)

• The Arabs were not the last invaders of course. The Ottomans came in 1517. They went as far south as Nubia and as far west as Algeria. Their political control was weak given Istanbul's other concerns in Europe. Still, they added another element of ethnic diversity to the region. Turkish-Arab mixes became so common in the Maghrib, a term for them (Kuloglus) was coined. Bosnians also immigrated. Cairo became the seat of Ottoman power in Egypt and thus Egyptian trade. It was a jump-off for pilgrims going to Mecca. By the 18th century, its population exceeded 250,000. Algiers was the other major Ottoman city. It was highly prosperous and partially supported by piracy. It housed over 100,000 inhabitants.
• Morocco was an independent state divided between Arab lowlands and Berber mountains. It tried on a few occasions to establish a Trans-Saharan kingdom to access gold and slaves. As such, Morocco absorbed much Sahelian and Sudanic culture and genetics.
• The Ottoman hold weakened over time and Mamluk Beys took over in Egypt. Their exactions kept the country poor and popular revolts flared along with famine. Using the pre-text of establishing order, the French invaded in 1798. Napoleon and his French were driven out a few years later but it crushed Mamluk power forever. Egypt then began a proces of modernization in terms of politics, economics and miltiary affairs. Europe was its model. More European and American advisors came to Egypt during this period. They were technicians, entrepreneurs and adventurers. They stimulated the construction of the Suez Canal and a local cotton boom. As immigration increased, so did Egypt's population.
• Egypt expanded south (as was its pattern in times of old) and conquered numerous sultanates and Sennar. The Egyptians were unable to conquer Sudan however. Arab traders fled the Egyptian advance, but Egypt followed them - conquering various Nilotic and Central Sudanic peoples in their province of Equatoria.

• The Maghrib had worse fortunes. The population declined due to bubonic plague episodes. Profits from piracy and slavery plummeted. Famine also was recurring. The population of Morocco in 1830 was 3-4 million. Berbers being half the population. Algeria was 3 million and half Berber too. Tunisia was 1 million plus with a few Berbers. Tunisia was the most urbanized. Tunis had 120,000 people. Algerias had 50,000 at most. There was 100,000 in Fes - Morocco's largest city.
• The French invaded Algeria in 1830 and began importing poor Parisians. Those in the countryside were under attack by Berbers who did not wish to lose their land to Europeans. Most French settlers settled on the coastline and around Algiers. The French sent military expeditions at the Berbers causing many to flee to Morocco. By 1846, there was over 110,000 settlers. Large areas were continually seized from Berbers with each rebellion. Algiera was made an integral part of France after the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871 (note that French settlers fled before the establishment of the Algerian Republic in 1962)
• As the 19th century came to a close, the French expanded their control into Tunisia and Morocco. Other portions of Morocco became Spanish. Cyrenaica and Tripoli became Italian in 1911.

 

[Misreeya]

Christianity, Islam and the Arab Advance

• By the middle of the first millenium CE, North Africa was within the expanding Christian world. No major population fluxes happened (except the arrival of the pagan Vandals a bit later) so we can surmise that people converted. But, in the Maghrib, Christianity was a fleeting presence. Along the Nile, it endured (around 10 per cent of Egypt's population, some 8 million people, remains Christian today).
• 80 to 90 percent of Egypt's population convered to Christianity by the end of the 4th cen. CE. This may have occurred because of a decline of the Egyptian economy which caused the old deities to lose their appeal as the Romans established harsher taxes. The new belief in Jesus provided salvation to Egyptian peasants and monasteries - an alternative to labouring for Rome. Monasteries allowed Egyptians to be shielded from taxes and providing a levy for Rome's armies. They supplanted landed estates as the dominan social and economic institution.
• Melkite and Monophysite doctrines of Eastern Christendom competed for power. Monophysite Monks, Coptic Christianity in other words, spread to the Red Sea port of Adulis and it was carried into the Ethiopian Highlands.
• It also entered Nubia by the 5th century CE and converted the entire population over several hundred years. Three Christian kingdoms emerged. Nobatia, Makouria and Alwa. Makouria was Melkite until it conquered Nobatia and became Coptic.
• In Maghrib, protests against Roman Empire was manifested in conversions by Berbers, Punic speakers and Jews. In spite of persecution, Christian adherents grew. Rural Numidians and Mauretanians also adopted the faith in time. Catholics and Donatists competed for number although the Catholics won out. But the invasion of North Africa by the Germanic Vandals in 429-432 plundered the region. A Vandal kingship developed in what is now Tunisia. All the while Berbers chipped at Vandal and Roman authority. Byzantium came to North Africa and defeated the Vandals in battle in 533 and reestablished control over North Africa. This didn't last long.

Christian art from Nubia. The figure on the left doesn't look too different from modern Sudanese today @Misreeya

Finally someone here done the proper research and without a weird agenda, and starting to get it right. Yeah the art work of the Bishop of faras looks no different than the majority of Nile Valley Northern Sudanese/ and i can honestly say many but not all the people in Upper Egypt as well. The map of those period was porus

 

[Misreeya]

Christianity, Islam and the Arab Advance

• By the middle of the first millenium CE, North Africa was within the expanding Christian world. No major population fluxes happened (except the arrival of the pagan Vandals a bit later) so we can surmise that people converted. But, in the Maghrib, Christianity was a fleeting presence. Along the Nile, it endured (around 10 per cent of Egypt's population, some 8 million people, remains Christian today).
• 80 to 90 percent of Egypt's population convered to Christianity by the end of the 4th cen. CE. This may have occurred because of a decline of the Egyptian economy which caused the old deities to lose their appeal as the Romans established harsher taxes. The new belief in Jesus provided salvation to Egyptian peasants and monasteries - an alternative to labouring for Rome. Monasteries allowed Egyptians to be shielded from taxes and providing a levy for Rome's armies. They supplanted landed estates as the dominan social and economic institution.
• Melkite and Monophysite doctrines of Eastern Christendom competed for power. Monophysite Monks, Coptic Christianity in other words, spread to the Red Sea port of Adulis and it was carried into the Ethiopian Highlands.
• It also entered Nubia by the 5th century CE and converted the entire population over several hundred years. Three Christian kingdoms emerged. Nobatia, Makouria and Alwa. Makouria was Melkite until it conquered Nobatia and became Coptic.
• In Maghrib, protests against Roman Empire was manifested in conversions by Berbers, Punic speakers and Jews. In spite of persecution, Christian adherents grew. Rural Numidians and Mauretanians also adopted the faith in time. Catholics and Donatists competed for number although the Catholics won out. But the invasion of North Africa by the Germanic Vandals in 429-432 plundered the region. A Vandal kingship developed in what is now Tunisia. All the while Berbers chipped at Vandal and Roman authority. Byzantium came to North Africa and defeated the Vandals in battle in 533 and reestablished control over North Africa. This didn't last long.

Christian art from Nubia. The figure on the left doesn't look too different from modern Sudanese today @Misreeya

Finally someone that is doing the proper research without some weird agenda get it. This is one of my favorite period in Nile Valley history, because i am able to relate to them a great deal more during to period. Also the borders of this period was porous because at one time the Makurian kingdom or Nobatia or collaboration of both control what is now Northern Sudan/ Upper Egypt and parts of central Sudan. They control as far North of Akhmim Egypt, and Edfu(Upper Egypt)was the cultural centers of those kingdom.

By the middle of the tenth century, hostilities had again broken out with Egypt. The Nubians invaded that country and, benefiting from the state of disorder there, reached, in the year A.D. 962, as far as the town of Akhmim, and for a time controlled Upper Egypt, at least to the north of Edfu. The discovery there of Nubian documents in the monastery of St. Mercurios suggests that it had become a centre of Nubian culture.

This occupation of Upper Egypt continued for some while after the Fatimid conquest in A.D. 969, but relations between Nubia and Egypt were good, and the king of Nubia was regarded as protector of the patriarch of Alexandria. This period of the late tenth and eleventh centuries marks the height of Nubian power, but from then on the history is one of increasing Arab pressure and lessening Nubian strength, and control of Upper Egypt was lost.

MEDIEVAL NUBIA

As far as the fresco, and the relation how majority of people look. It is a dead ringer of the majority of people today, that frescoe and many others look exactly like us(North Sudanese), and some of the inhabitants in Upper Egypt today.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Finally done the proper research and without a weird agenda, and starting to get it right. Yeah the art work of the Bishop of faras looks no different than the majority of Nile Valley Northern Sudanese/ and i can honestly say many but not all the people in Upper Egypt as well. The map of those period was porus

Have I previously gotten it wrong?

 

[Misreeya]

Have I previously gotten it wrong?

Trust me definitely not you! You are one of the most objective poster here but there are members here that flat out deny the authenticity of the painting, which is pretty much researched and authenticated by Sudanese and Polish archaeologist that excavated those sites, and done the proper research of that time period.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Trust me definitely not you! You are one of the most objective poster here but there are members on here who flat out deny the authenticity of the painting, which is pretty much researched and authenticated by Sudanese and Polish archaeologist who excavated those sites, and done the proper research.

Horrible. This is an important site for African history! Nubia's cultural tradition lasted such a long time.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

The fact that Nubia continued from the time of the Old Kingdom of Egypt to the Funj Sultanate should be celebrated

 

[Grano-Grano]

Bump.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Bump.

Thanks breh.

I'll add some stuff on West Africa sometime before the end of the week. Then I'll be done for the Africa portion, I think. Unless someone has a great source on Madagascar, Comoros, Reunion stuff.

I might do some stuff on the Igbo peopling of the Americas on this thread or in another one.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Forgot to add this Dutch print rendering of the city of Buali, capital of the Loango Kingdom

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

The Peopling of West Africa

• The geography of West Africa was a major factor in the shaping of its features. Going north to south you have the Sahara Desert. Following that, a short rainy season supports the sparse vegetation of the steppelike Sahel. Then you have the classic Sudan. The rainy season lasts from four months in the north to seven months in the south. Baobab and acacia trees are sprinkld across an open landscape dominated by bushes and grasses. Finally, you have the rainforest region. There's actually two rainforest zones in West Africa. The east is basically an extension of the equatorial rainforest that stretches all the way to the Congo. In December through February it's a bit less wet than the Congolese forests though. The west is monsoonal with a nine to ten month rainy season that brings 4,000 to 5,000 milimeters of precipitation - peaking in July and August. Separating the two is a wedge of savanna and woodland countryside. Of course, the coast is fringed with mangrove swamps.
  
  
  
  
  Sahara Desert in Niger
  
  
  
  
  The Sahel in Mali

Savanna in Burkina Faso

Rainforest in Nigeria

Liberia's coastline

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Peopling of West Africa (ctd)

• The advent of agriculture some 4,000 years ago kicked off monumental changes which have shaped the region ever since. Other actors which were important include Saharan nomads who were escaping desertification. Their arrival may have put more pressure on the Niger-Congo peoples whose numerical growth further realigned the region.
• Other factors of course include crop and livestock productivity, soil fertility, water supply, disease burden (river blindness, sleeping sickness, malaria). Preferred locations developed as population centers where many languages within the Atlantic, Mande, Gur, Kwa, Benue-Congo and Adamawa-Ubangi of the Niger-Congo peoples developed.
• Later on, factors such as iron-making, interregional and international trade factored in. Trade with Europeans, for example, allowed for faster state formation because a group of people could gain access to guns.

Examples of Niger-Congo Languages (These classifications may have been readjusted)
- Atlantic: Wolof, Serer, Fula (Fulani/Fulbe), Diola, Temne, Kisi
- Mande: Soninke, Malinke, Bambara, Dyula, Lorma, Kpelle, Mano, Vai, Dan
- Gur: Seufo, Grusi, Mossi, Dagomba, Mampruli, Dogon (?)
- Kru: Bakwe, Bassa, Krahn
- Ijoid: Ijaw (Ijo), Oruma
- Kwa: Ewe (Ewe is now reclassified to be closer to Benue-Congo languages like Igbo and Yoruba), Akan, Baule, Aja, Fon
- Benue-Congo: Yoruba, Nupe, Igbo, Biram, Jukun, Ibibio, Efik, Tiv, Bantu
- Adamawa-Congo: Mbum, Bari, Gbeya, Ngabanda, Banda, Zande, Amadi

Iron Making

• Africa south of the Sahara went straight from the 'stone age' to the 'iron age'. Earliest known site is in the 700-400 BCE range, with the Taruga site in the Jos Plateau, Central Nigeria. Slag desposits and thirteen iron furnaces have been discovered here...it's likely that it's associated with the Nok Culture. The Nok are known for their terra-cotta figurines and pottery. It's likely that they were sedentary farmers of yam. The homeland of the Benue-Congo peoples is probably where the Niger and Benue rivers meet.
  
  
  
  
  Nok Figurine
• Other iron making sites have been uncovered in Akoujit in western Mauretania and Agades in Niger. Meroe was mentioned as an earlier post on this thread by Taruga is a few hundred years older. Taruga is also notable because they used sophisticated pre-heating techniques and they had an ability to make steel with a high carbon content - unlike Nubia.
• Iron tools are much more effective as tools than stone or bronze (though sub-Saharan Africans never made bronze). Iron axes and hoes cut down trees and turned up the earth, allowing more area for planting crops. Iron weapons were also deadlier...the ability to make iron strengthened the success of those who mastered that technology. But, the technology diffused over West Africa over 1000 years. Perhaps because blacksmithing was a special trade (and is still regarded as such in many West African societies).

Trade and Empire in the Western Sudan

• Archaeological evidence in Senegambia/Niger River bend show evidence of imported wares and localized chiefdoms in the early centuries of the 1st millenium CE. Numerous megaliths show that social stratification and population growth occurred.

Ancient stone megaliths in Senegambia

• By 900-800 BCE, agricultural expansion at Dhar Tichitt created dozens of walled villages containing 500 to 1000 people. These people were probably related to the Mande. A few centuries later, the walls came down. Perhaps a new spirit of peaceful cooperation arose? Then between 600 to 300 BCE, the villages scattered to more hard to reach, defensible places. Maybe Berber nomads threatened their way of life?
• At Jenne-Jeno in the inland delta of the Niger River, people settled there about 250 BCE. Because the geography provided a wide range of food producing possibilities - traders, fishers, farmers and herders were drawn to the area. A trade network formed and expanded. No copper, stone or iron are nearby but artifacts have been found with all three elements. The closest source of copper is Aïr in modern day Niger. The place was surely a inter-regional trading centre. This tradition later became Ghana, Mali, Songhai and other states.

Ghana

• The first polity in the area to gain prominence is Ghana, formed by the Soninke (Mande) - following developments from Dhar Tichitt. An accomodation with Berbers was probably reached because a well-established state was allowed to grow without their harassment. Muslim Berber visitors around 800 CE noted how it was flourishing, particularly its capital Koumbi. Its riches must've mainly come from trade, since its agricultural productivity was a bit lower owing to it being located near the northern margin of reliably good land for crops. This was offset by access to salt, gold and Berber trading partners.
• Salt was mined in the Western Sahara and taken to Koumbi or Awdaghust, another important trade centre in Ghana. It was traded to salt poor savanna and forest regions. This trade went on for many centuries but it was eclipsed by gold derived from deposits in the Upper Senegal River area in a place known as Bambuk. Gold was an important symbol for the Ghanaian royalty and it was (and still is) a valuable commodity.
• The Trans-Saharan gold trade might have started because of the demand for gold during Byzantine North Africa (as discussed earlier on). This continued after North Africa became Arab-ruled by states like the Almoravids. Ghana filled a void from tapped reserves in North Africa and Spain.
• Slaves and Kola nut were also traded. Both were from the forest zone.
• Ghana was nicknamed the Land of Gold and it became a destination for Arab and Berber merchants and holy men. Ghana might have peaked in the 11th century CE. Koumbi grew to have 15-20,000 people. The city was actually two (!). One housed the royal court and its retinue, the other served Muslims and non-indigenes. Awdaghust was half the size of Koumbi. While Arabs and Berbers came to Ghana, the Soninke created trade networks with other parts of West Africa. The diaspora of Soninke people is a testament to that.
• Ghana's decline began in the second half of the 11 century CE. Conflicts with the Almoravids weakened the state, who seized Awdaghust.

Map of the Kingdom of Ghana

Takrur and Soso

• Takrur was Ghana's main rival in the west. Founded by Atlantic-speaking peoples known as Tukulor, they lived in the middle and lower reaches of the Senegal River valley. They were the first African polity south of the Sahara to embrace Islam. They adopted a strict version of Islam from the Almoravids. This cooperation allowed them to challenge the goldfields of Bambuk and ultimately prevail in the 12th century CE. They grew wealthy and power after defeated Ghana. It was also ethnically more homogenous than Ghana which helped it survive for centuries longer than Ghana.
• Soso was apparently founded by Malinke blacksmiths (!) or southern Soninke clans. They adopted an anti-Islamic stance and a reputation for ferocity in battle. Soso sacked Koumbi in the first half of the 13th century Ce.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

The Peopling of West Africa (ctd.)

Mali

• The beginnings of Mali are linked to another Malinke clan, known as the Keita in the Upper Niger valley south of Bamako. Real origins probably go as far back as Jenne-Jeno. In the eleventh century, the Keita adopted Islam an started to bring other Malinke under a single kingship centered on the town of Niani. Situated in an area with a lot of agro-productivity and on the routes to goldfields, Mali grew strong enough to overthrow the Soso in the 1330s. Soon, Mali expanded into inclde the Lower Senegal and Upper Nigers eastward to the Niger Bend and northward into Sahel.
• It was even more diverse than Ghana because of its size. The majority of people lived in villages and grew rice, sorghum and millets. Some herded or fished. The towns grew to include many tradespeople, holy men and scholars. Soninke, Wolof, Tukulor, Fulani, Bambara, Bozo, Songhai, Berbers and Arabs all called Mali 'home' at its height. Tradings groups like the Wangara, Dyula, Marka and Yarre arose too. They established a Malinke presence across West Africa.
• Walata and Timbuktu became Trans-Saharan trade terminuses. Niani grew as an administrative centre. Mali also profited from Arab-Maures advance into the western desert. Their caravans carried goods to Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt. Factionalism destroyed Mali, as well as attacks from the Mossi Kingdom. The Tuareg seized Walata and Timbuktu. The Soninke broke away. Critically, the Songhai became independent

Tuareg woman

Songhai

• The Songhai was founded by the descendants of the Late Stone Age aquatic tradition, when the Sahara was green. A small state centered on Gao formed betwen 500-700 CE in response to the formation of Ghana's wealth. It fell under Mali's influence until that state began to breakdown in due time.
• Songhai seized Timbuktu, Djenne and the lands in-between. Military expeditions checked the Mossi Kingdom and drove them back into the Upper Volta River basin. They also tried to check the Fulbe (Fulani) expansion. Following these successes, they sent military expeditions to the south in order to expand their borders and collect tribute from new subject peoples. They did not invade the rump-state succesor of Mali, but in the north it seized all of the former possessions of Mali. The saltworks of Taghaza and Air came under their control. Even the Hausa states of Northern Nigeria were attacked.
• Unlike the Soninke and Malinke, the Songhai never sent out colonists to their new territories. They were content with their homelands.
• Songhai was quite wealthy. The salt trade was very profitable. Demand for gold and slaves from Portugal, Genoa, Venice, Naples and Sicily intensified their riches. Goods like glass and copper wares, cloth and perfumes cam in. Horses were imported too for their chain mail cavalry. Timbuktu attracted scholars of astrology, astronomy, medicine, Arabic grammar, rhetoric, history, geography and Quranic studies.

Artistic depiction of Songhai's cavarly on the Sahel

Manuscript from Timbuktu

Trade networks in West Africa circa 1600s

• Songhai could not maintain its grip over its conquests. Internal conflicts weakened the ruling elites. Battles over Islam, royal succession and prestige occurred. Morocco invaded in 1591 to control sources of gold believing (wrongly) that they were in Songhai itself. Their muskets and arquebuses vanquished the cavalry of Songhai. Songhai resistance continued for two decades but it could not put itself in order again.
• Songhai's demise allowed for smaller states like Gonja, Mossi, Mampruli, Dagomba, Tukulor, Wolof and Serer to become more dominant. Cities remained cosmopolitant however, as West Africa's centre of gravity moved towards the coast.
• At their height, Niani and Gao may have had 100,000 inhabitants each. Djenne - 30-40,000 and Timbuktu 80,000.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Songhai man