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The urban Tichitt Tradition may have been the earliest large-scale, complexly organized society in West Africa, [55] [60] and an early civilization of the Sahara, [12] [8] which may have served as the segue for state formation in West Africa.
- Overview
- First read: preview and skimming for gist
- Second read: key ideas and understanding content
- Third read: evaluating and corroborating
- States and Empires of West Africa
- The Golden King
- States and Trade in the Sahel to 1100 CE
- From the Decline of Wagadu to the Rise of Mali
- African diversities
Agriculture wasn’t easy in the dry West African Sahel, but people there grew whole kingdoms. Rulers who could manage trade routes, religion, and relationships with pastoralists had the best chance of success.
The article below uses “Three Close Reads”. If you want to learn more about this strategy, click here.
Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!
For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:
1.Who was Mansa Musa, and why might he have had a problem with his portrayal in the first photo?
2.Examine the map shown in the article. What does it tell us about settlements of communities in the Sahel?
3.What is the Sahelian state model? What is its significance?
4.What is religious pluralism? How is it relevant to understanding west African communities?
5.What are some of the arguments for and against considering Mali an empire?
At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:
1.Can you think of other societies you’ve learned about in which the state supported religious pluralism? Which societies, and when?
2.How does this article support, extend, or challenge your understanding of the “state” when viewed through the filter of the communities frame?
Now that you know what to look for, it’s time to read! Remember to return to these questions once you’ve finished reading.
By Trevor R. Getz
Agriculture wasn't easy in the dry West African Sahel, but people there grew whole kingdoms. Rulers who could manage trade routes, religion, and relationships with pastoralists had the best chance of success.
Examine the image below. A man sits in the middle of a late fourteenth century map, staring at a yellow orb, a nugget of gold. He is clearly a king, for he wears a crown and holds a scepter. To Europeans, these are symbols of kings, and the image was created by the European map-maker Abraham Cresques who lived in Spain around the year 1375. Yet the king is African, not European. He is Mansa Musa I, ruler of the state of Mali, and is possibly the wealthiest man of his time. He probably did not really have a crown or a scepter because these were not West African symbols of kingship. But the gold nugget is accurate because Mansa Musa controlled some of the richest goldfields of this era.
There were plenty of West African states in this era, but Mansa Musa's Mali is the one that shows up in world history texts because it left behind the most evidence. Mali emerged from a region that had given birth to many states in earlier centuries. Also, unlike North Africa and Europe, the collapse of the Roman Empire was not felt in West Africa. But it certainly had its own political patterns and connections to those other parts of the world. As early as 300 CE, trade routes crossing the Sahara Desert linked North Africa, including Roman controlled regions, to the growing cities in West Africa. These cities, including Jenne-Jeno, were relatively egalitarian and had little centralized authority. But that changed by 800 or 900 CE.
The region south of the Sahara Desert was known as the Sahel, or sometimes the Western Sudan (this region is far to the west of the current countries of Sudan and Southern Sudan). This was mostly dry grassland, with some wetter areas, including two large rivers called the Senegal and the Niger. Plus there were several lakes in an area known as the Chad Basin1 . These wet areas could support large populations of people. As usual, that created a need for organization and governance. So different communities built states, sometimes collaboratively, and sometimes forcefully. The earliest we know of was Wagadu, the state we usually call by the title of its ruler, Ghana. Headquartered near the Niger River, it was probably established around the end of the sixth century. Nearby, the city of Gao controlled a region that we know as Kawkaw. Further to the east, a number of communities combined to build the state of Kanem in the Chad Basin around the ninth century. Other states in this region soon followed, and it didn't hurt that many shared the same language, called Hausa. To the west, the state of Takrur was built on the Senegal River around the ninth century. It was sometimes under the control of Wagadu, and sometimes independent.
These kingdoms competed and fought with each other, conducted diplomacy, formed alliances, and generally shared ideas about how to manage a kingdom. Despite their diversity and the vast size of this region, they had three major elements in common. We call these the Sahelian state model.
First, these states generally relied on the domination of long-distance trade for the funds they needed to govern and survive. Wagadu, for example, controlled a large portion of the gold trade because it sat in the middle of the trade route that sent the gold north. Most West African gold in this period was mined a hundred miles or so south of Wagadu, and it was in great demand in North Africa and Europe, thousands of miles to the north. Meanwhile, the Hausa states and Kanem controlled the sale of kola nuts, grown in the forests to the south and mostly used as a stimulant in North Africa and the Middle East. (Kola has caffeine and was one of the original ingredients that made Coca-Cola such a stimulating drink!) Takrur controlled regional trade in grain and salt. These states also manufactured goods, especially textiles, but their governments were more focused on trade because it was easier to tax.
Second, these states all relied on densely populated, wet, grain-producing centers. They had little control over the people in the drier regions around them—most of whom were nomadic herders. The governments of the big states couldn't really rule them, and in fact the nomads sometimes raided or invaded the cities around the lakes and rivers. The most control these governments could exert over the nomads was the occasional demand of tribute, usually in the form of some trade goods, money, or animals.
During the twelfth century, Wagadu (Ghana) began to decline and lost its status as the biggest state in the region. It is possible that this was partly because of an invasion by North Africans hoping to take control of the gold trade, but not too many historians buy that story. They may have merely been surpassed by a state to the south, Susu, which gained control over most of the gold and kola nut trade. It also had successful textile and iron industries. The Susu were the great power of the region for a hundred years, until they were themselves defeated by a new power.
That new power was the state of Mali, led by its first mansa (sultan, king, or emperor), Sunjata. Sunjata's full name was Sogolon Mari Djata. "Sogolon" was actually his mother's name, and although he may have been Muslim, he still embraced matrilineality and other local cultural and religious ideas. In fact, much of his power came from his mother, who may have been related to the rulers of Susu. She brought him supporters, as did his father, who was a king of a nearby territory. Sunjata defeated Susu around 1240. In the wake of his victory, he built the long and lasting state of Mali. Many of his followers then took their forces and conquered the people around them until Mali stretched more than a thousand miles east to west.
It is interesting that most high schools limit their teaching of African history, pre-1500 CE, to Mali and the Sudanic African states, leaving out many regions that had states and complex systems of trade. In the forests to the south of the Sudanic zone, there were actually large kingdoms including Benin and the Yoruba and Igala states. They were built to ensure the safety of farmers and control the profits from trading kola nuts, gold, and other goods going north. In the mountains of Central Africa, the kings of Kitara and their neighbors created systems of nobility and monarchy based on ownership of cattle. Along the Congo River, chiefs gave gifts to each other to secure military and political alliances. In northeast Africa, the massive kingdom of Ethiopia was ruled by a Solomonic dynasty, so named because it claimed the biblical king Solomon as an ancestor. In Southeast Africa, extensive states like the one centered on the stone city called Great Zimbabwe existed alongside smaller societies. Historians are learning much more about these kingdoms, which we once ignored. It's a great example of how history's many narratives can grow and change based on the evidence and on who is telling the story.
[Notes]
Author bio
Trevor Getz is Professor of African and world History at San Francisco State University. He has written or edited eleven books, including the award-winning graphic history Abina and the Important Men, and co-produced several prize-winning documentaries. He is also the author of A Primer for Teaching African History, which explores questions about how we should teach the history of Africa in high school and university classes.
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