West african societies

Connections to the world

• Trade
• Timbuktu
• Sahara Desert

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Traders from North Africa brought Islam

islam

• Arabia, 622 A.D.
• Monotheistic
• Qur'an

Portuguese in West Africa

• 1470s
• Trading posts on coast - bypass Sahara
• West Coast ---- European trading

Sugarcane on plantations

Rival tribes
Model for Americas

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Three african kingdoms

Songhai

• Controlled trans-Sahara trade and savanna
• Rulers taxed goods
• Timbuktu = education center
• Administrative districts
• Largest West African Kingdom

benin

• Forest kingdom; Niger Delta trade
• Relations with Portugal
• Metalworking and art

kongo

• Manikongo - marriage, taxes & war
• Tools and weapons from iron
• Government resembled Europeans

West african culture

Family & Government

• Kinship & Lineage (lines of common descent)
• Family loyalty, inheritance, & marriage
• Age carried rank
• Chief consulted council elders

Religion

• Political leaders claimed authority
• Nature filled with spirits
• Most believed in single creator

Livelihood

• Farming, hunting, mining, trading
• Collective ownership of land
• Savanna depended on rivers
• West coast grew rice (on to Americas)

Use of Slave LAbor

• Tasks divided by age & social status
• Not born into slavery; could escape
• Not concern of first Portuguese sailors