Sahara

The Sahara, the largest desert in the world, covers about 3.3 million square miles, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

Over time, the Sahara has functioned as a conduit for trade as well as a barrier to contact between the Mediterranean world and sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence of human activity (rock paintings, artifacts, and tools) in the Sahara dates back more than 10,000 years. The desert has witnessed climatic variations, but it has remained similar to its present conditions for the last 5,000 years. Most of the desert consists of open plains of rock and gravel. Only one-fifth of the Sahara is sand. The boundaries of the desert have expanded in drier periods and contracted in wetter eras.

Today about 2.5 million people live in the Sahara near oases or in the highlands, where the climate is slightly wetter. In the desert people make a living much the same way desert people made a living more than 1,000 years ago: through pastoralism and trade. Regular trade across the Sahara began around the first century, when camels were introduced to the region. The staple goods of the trans-Sahara trade were gold, slaves (see slave trade), salt, textiles, and weapons. Over the centuries three major routes evolved. One crossed the desert from present,-day Morocco to the ancient Soninke kingdom of Ghana, near the Senegal River. The second crossed from present-day western Algeria to the Songhai kingdom near the bend of the Niger River. The third route crossed from present-day Tripolitania to the kingdom of Kanem, just east of Lake Chad. All three routes were in frequent use by A. D. 900.

In addition to serving as a conduit for trade, the Sahara served as a refuge for political and religious groups. In the 10th and 11th centuries, when Sunni and Shiite Muslims defeated the Ibadi Muslims of the Maghreb, the Ibadi Muslims retreated to the Sahara and formed an independent state in the Fezzan. They have survived as independent communities ever since in Wadi Mzab (Algeria) and Jabal Nafusa (Libya).

In the western portion of the Sahara, the Almoravids, a puritanical and militaristic Muslim sect comprised primarily of Sanhaja Bergers, launched invasions from the desert. In 1078 the Almoravid army sacked Kumbi Salheh, the capital city of Ghana, and took control of the trans-Sahara trade route that ran from Morocco to Ghana. By 1100 the Almoravids controlled territory as far north as Spain and as far south as the kingdom of Ghana. The Almoravid Empire collapsed in the mid-12th century, and most of the Almoravids retreated to the desert. Ghana never fully recovered to its previous level of political and economic power in the western regions.

Such economic and political development in the Sahara would eventually be crucial in the formation of the trans-Atlantic economy in the early modern age. As scholars have recently come to recognize, commerce boomed across the Atlantic basin and brought four continents together because the preconditions for engaging in longdistance trade already existed. The Saharan salt trade can be seen as a prime example of such behavior. Well before 1492, traders had developed their own commercial language, known as azayr, which enabled them to communicate more efficiently and allowed the trade to become more profitable. Merchants used these profits to develop their communities, with some of the resources set aside to support scholars. Eventually, the development of these commercial centers, particularly in Morocco, smoothed the integration of northern Africa into larger commercial networks. In the end, those networks, already developed, would play a crucial role in the slave trade.

As European explorers slowly inched their way around the coast of West Africa seeking direct access to the gold fields of the west African kingdoms, trade across the Sahara continued. By 1578 the Portuguese were prepared to launch a major offensive against the Moroccan kingdom in an effort to gain a major foothold in West Africa. The Portuguese suffered a devastating defeat. Inspired by victory, the Moroccans began organizing an assault on the Songhai kingdom across the Sahara. In 1591 they were successful, yet within decades, despite maintaining official power, real control of the desert region reverted to the Tuaregs, the original inhabitants of the Sahara.

In the central region of the Sahara, power changed hands in the 16th century as well. Sultan Idris Aloma of Bornu conquered the old kingdom of Kanem and exerted its control over the desert region and its trade until the 17th century. Then Kel Owey, a Tuareg leader, defeated the Bornu army, giving the Tuareg political control of the central Sahara region until the onset of colonialism.

Further reading: Tony Allan and Andrew Warren, eds., Deserts: The Encroaching Wilderness: A World Conservation Atlas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Ann McDougall, “The Caravel and the Caravan: Reconsidering Received Wisdom in the Sixteenth-Century Sahara,” in Peter C. Mancall, ed., The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2007); Colin McEvedy, The Penguin Atlas of African History, rev. ed. (Harmondsworth, U. K.: Penguin, 1995).

—Tom Niermann