West African Empires

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West AfricanEmpires

• Ghana, Mali, Songhai

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Ghana

• Kingdom becomes wealthy from trade taxes
• Trade gold and salt
• Camel caravans
• Islam spreading through trade
• Ghana attacked by the Almoravids

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Ghana
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GOLD

• The king adorns himselfwearing necklaces and
  bracelets The court of appeal is held in a domed
  pavilion around which stand ten horses with gold
  embroidered trappings. Behind the king stand ten
  pages holding shields and swords decorated with
  gold, and on his right arm are the sons of
  subordinate kings of his country, all wearing
  splendid garments and with their hair mixed with
  gold
• al-Bakri

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Mali

• Also built on the gold trade
• Sundiata the mansa of Mali
• Took over Ghana
• Mansa Musa- Islamic leader
• Expands the empire- divides into provinces
• Timbuktu becomes important center for trade and
  religion

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Songhai

• Took over trade from Mali
• Sunni Ali
• Professional army
• Expansion
• -- Took Timbuktu
• Askia Muhammad
• -- Devout Muslim
• -- Government Bureaucracy
• Defeated by Arabs with modern weapons

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• Southern
• Africa

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Great Zimbabwe

• Built on gold trade
• City is built on major trade route
• City is the center of the empire
• Abandoned by 1450

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• European colonists wonder where the ruins came
  from!
• Their solution must have been built by a white
  tribe- Black Africans could never have built
  these!

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Legacy of Colonization

• Problems haunt Africa today
• Societies built on beliefs of racial superiority
• Overly strong nationalist movements
• Economic development
• Exports- diamonds, coffee, oil, gold