The Sudan is the region bounded by the Sahara to the north, the Gulf of Guinea to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the mountains of Ethiopia to the east (see Map 10.1). In the western Sudan savanna — where the Bantu migrations originated — a series of dynamic kingdoms emerged in the millennium before European intrusion began in the 1400s and 1500s.

Between 1000 B.C.E. and 200 C.E. the peoples of the western Sudan made the momentous shift from nomadic hunting to settled agriculture. The rich savanna proved ideally suited to cereal production, especially rice, millet, and sorghum. People situated near the Senegal River and Lake Chad supplemented their diet with fish. Food supply affects population, and the region’s inhabitants — known as the Mande-speakers and the Chadic-speakers, or Sao (sowl) — increased dramatically in number. By 400 C.E. the entire savanna, particularly around Lake Chad, the Niger River bend, and present-day central Nigeria, had a large population.

Families and clans affiliated by blood kinship lived together in villages or small city-states. The extended family formed the basic social unit. A chief, in consultation with a council of elders, governed a village. Some villages seem to have formed kingdoms. In this case, village chiefs were responsible to regional heads, who answered to provincial governors, who in turn were responsible to a king. The kings and their families formed an aristocracy.

Kingship in the Sudan may have emerged from the priesthood, whose members were believed to make rain and to have contact with spirit powers. African kings always had religious sanction or support for their authority and were often considered divine. In this respect, early African kingship bears a strong resemblance to Germanic kingship of the same period (discussed in Chapter 14). The king’s authority rested in part on his ability to negotiate with outside powers, such as the gods.

Although the Mende in modern Sierra Leone was one of the few African societies to be led by female rulers, women exercised significant power and autonomy in many African societies. Among the Asante in modern-day Ghana, one of the most prominent West African peoples, the king was considered divine but shared some royal power with the Queen Mother. She was a full member of the governing council and enjoyed full voting power in various matters of state. The Queen Mother initially chose the future king from eligible royal candidates. He then had to be approved by both his elders and the commoners. Among the Yoruba in modern Nigeria, the Queen Mother held the royal insignia and could refuse it if the future king did not please her. She also placed the royal beaded crown on the king’s head. The institutions of female chiefs, known as iyalode among the Yoruba and omu among the Igbo in modern Nigeria, were established to represent women in the political process. The omu was even considered a female co-ruler with the male chief.

Western Sudanese religious practices, like African religions elsewhere, were animistic and polytheistic. Most people believed that a supreme being had created the universe and was the source of all life. Most African religions also recognized ancestral spirits, which might seek God’s blessings for families’ and communities’ prosperity and security as long as these groups behaved appropriately. If not, the ancestral spirits might not protect them from harm, and illness and misfortune could result. Some African religions believed as well that nature spirits lived in such things as the sky, forests, rocks, and rivers. These spirits controlled natural forces and had to be appeased. During the annual agricultural cycle, for example, all the spirits had to be propitiated from the time of clearing the land through sowing the seed to the final harvest. Because special ceremonies were necessary to satisfy the spirits, special priests with the knowledge and power to communicate with them through sacred rituals were needed. Family and village heads were often priests. Each family head was responsible for ceremonies honoring the family’s dead and living members.2

In some West African societies, oracles who spoke for the gods were particularly important. Some of the most famous were the Ibo oracles in modern Nigeria. These were female priestesses who were connected with a particular local deity that resided in a sacred cave or other site. Inhabitants of surrounding villages would come to the priestess to seek advice about such matters as crops and harvests, war, marriage, legal issues, and religion. Clearly, these priestesses held much power and authority, even over the local male rulers.

Kinship patterns and shared religious practices helped to bind together the early western Sudan kingdoms. Islam’s spread across the Sahara by at least the ninth century C.E., however, created a north-south religious and cultural divide in the western Sudan. Islam advanced across the Sahel into modern Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, northern Nigeria, and Chad but halted when it reached the West African savanna and forest zones. Societies in these southern zones maintained their traditional animistic religious practices. Muslim empires along the Niger River’s great northern bend evolved into formidable powers ruling over sizable territory as they seized control of the southern termini of the trans-Saharan trade. What made this long-distance trade possible was the “ship of the desert,” the camel.