Introduction for Chapter 10

10 African Societies And Kingdoms 1000 B.C.E.–1500 C.E.

> What role did trade play in the development of African kingdoms and empires? Chapter 10 examines Africa’s history to 1500. Between about 400 and 1500 highly centralized, bureaucratized, and socially stratified civilizations developed in Africa alongside communities with looser forms of social organization that were often held together through common kinship bonds. In West Africa several large empires closely linked to the trans-Saharan trade arose during this period. After 700 this trade connected West Africa with Muslim societies in North Africa and the Middle East. Meanwhile, Bantu-speaking peoples spread ironworking and domesticated crops and animals from modern Cameroon to Africa’s southern tip, and the Swahili established large and prosperous city-states along the Indian Ocean coast.

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Ife Ruler West African rulers, such as the one shown in this bronze head of a Yoruban king, or Oni, from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, were usually male. (The Granger Collection, NYC — All rights reserved)

LearningCurve

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ca. 1000 B.C.E.–1500 C.E. ca. 900–1100 C.E.
Bantu-speakers expand across central and southern Africa Kingdom of Ghana; bananas and plantains arrive in Africa from Asia
ca. 600 C.E. ca. 1100–1400 C.E.
Christian missionaries convert Nubian rulers Great Zimbabwe is built, flourishes
639–642 C.E. ca. 1200–1450 C.E.
Islam introduced to Africa Kingdom of Mali
642 C.E. ca. 1312–1337 C.E.
Muslim conquest of Egypt Reign of Mansa Musa in Mali
650–1500 C.E. 1314–1344 C.E.
Slave trade from sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean Reign of Amda Siyon in Ethiopia
700–900 C.E. 1324–1325 C.E.
Berbers develop caravan routes Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca