Before 5500 B. c.E., there were no cattle of any kind south of the sahara. But by 2000 B. c.E., cattle, sheep, and probably goats had been introduced to the area. the cattle herding peoples of the western sudan raise a breed of cattle called zebu that have a hump between their shoulders.
Zebu cattle were probably introduced from india. they are used primarily for milk production and are only rarely eaten for their meat. they are also sometimes used to carry heavy loads or for riding. these cattle cannot survive in the rainforest regions to the south of the savanna, because the forests are infested with tsetse flies. tsetse flies are
Nomadic Fula herd their Zebu cattle to market.
Carriers of trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, and the zebu have no immunity to that disease. _
They produced more food than they needed themselves, so they began trading the surplus (extra) with neighboring peoples. Eventually, they learned how to use iron to make tools and weapons. Later, they began to use horses for transportation. These advances made it possible for some peoples of the Sudan to put together powerful armies and dominate others. The economic and military successes of these more powerful groups eventually led to the founding of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay—three of the greatest empires in African history.
The Niger is the third longest river in Africa, after the Nile and the Congo. Its headwaters (the source of a river) rise less than 200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. They flow northeast from the Fouta Djallon mountain range that spans the border of modern Sierra Leone and Guinea. The Niger River eventually empties into the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of Nigeria, about 2,585 miles from its mountain sources.
After flowing down from the highlands of Guinea, the Niger River is joined by many smaller rivers. It is about 1,000 yards wide by the time it slowly flows over the rocky riverbed at Bamako (the capital of today’s Republic of Mali). Large riverboats cannot navigate on the Niger until a point that is about 37 miles past Bamako, near the town of Koulikoro. Even there, riverboat traffic is only possible during the months when the river is swollen by heavy rainfall in the highlands of Sierra Leone and Guinea.
One River,
Many Names
The Mande people of the Mali Empire called the Niger River the Joliba. The people of Songhay called it the Issa Ber. The area on the Niger where the three great empires of the medieval period were located is called the Middle Niger.
When the Niger gets beyond the city of Segu in Mali, it joins the Bani River and flows into a flat plain. On this flat plain, the Niger branches into many different channels, creating a huge network of waterways—the Inland Delta.
South of the Sahel during the period after 5000 b. c.e., the great floodplain (an area of low-lying ground next to a river that sometimes floods) of the Middle Niger River became a refuge for populations who were leaving the desert. Gradually, through the centuries, the Inland Delta changed from a vast swamp into the kind of floodplain that exists there now. It is known as the Inland Delta to tell it apart from the other great delta in southern Nigeria, where the Niger River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. (A delta is a piece of land at the mouth of a river that is shaped like a triangle and formed by the mud and sand from flowing water.)
In a good year, heavy rains (up to 80 inches) begin falling in the Fouta Djallon mountains of Sierra Leone and Guinea in March and April. By July, the swollen waters begin to reach the Inland Delta, causing the river to overflow. This creates a massive, shallow lake up to 150 miles wide and 300 miles long.
The seasonal pattern in recent centuries has been that the Middle Niger River floods the Inland Delta. Then the floodwaters recede (go back), leaving behind a network of small creeks and waterways. In the northern regions, the floods leave behind many lakes. The Niger River and all the streams and lakes of the Inland Delta support many animals who live on and around the water, including hippopotami, manatees, crocodiles, and many species of fish.
The annual flood deposits a rich layer of silt (fine particles of ash, clay, and other material) that turns the region into an extremely productive agricultural zone. Through the centuries, more and more farming peoples competed for space in this rich environment to cultivate
For more than 1,000 years, even to today, the Niger River has been the lifeblood of millions of people in West Africa. Fishing (shown here), transportation, and irrigation are the main uses of the waterway.
Their food crops. Meanwhile, herders competed for the best pasture land for their cattle.
Beyond the major cities of Segu and Jenne in Mali, the Niger River reaches the great trading port of Mopti. There it turns north. Then, through hundreds of miles, the river gradually turns back to the east as it passes Timbuktu, until it is flowing southeastward past Gao. This great turn in the river is called the Niger Bend.
Archaeological work has uncovered evidence that by 250 c. E. an urban population had developed at Jenne-Jeno in the floodplain between the Niger and Bani Rivers. Jenne-Jeno became one of the earliest cities of the Western Sudan. This probably happened about the same time that Kumbi Saleh was becoming the center of activity for the Ghana Empire far to the west. For some time at least, Jenne-Jeno would have been a prosperous city in the Inland Delta when the emperors of Ghana were ruling from their capital at Kumbi Saleh.
By 1000 c. E., the Niger River and neighboring regions supported widely scattered populations of fishermen, hunters, herders, and farmers. These people spoke a variety of languages. In the lands around the Sahara, the Berber peoples based their economies on raising camels, sheep, and goats, long-distance transportation, and raiding merchant caravans or forcing them to pay a toll.
Along the fringes of the Sahara, nomadic herders followed their livestock in yearly migrations to seasonal grazing lands. In the savanna, hunters pursued wild game such as lions, elephants, giraffes, gazelles, and hyenas. (All of these animals can still be found there.) On the rivers and lakes, fishermen using spears and nets harvested the many varieties of life that lived in the water.
But after 1200 c. e., the people of Jenne-Jeno began to move away. In the 13th century, that ancient city was abandoned. The question of where all those people went remains a mystery. However, about the time that Jenne-Jeno was going into decline, another city was rising a short distance away. In fact, it could be seen from the old city. Some of the people likely moved there. This newly developing city was called Jenne. Eventually, it became one of the most important cities of the Mali and Songhay Empires.
The Niger Bend area, which includes the vast Inland Delta, was the heartland of the Songhay Empire. It was such a desirable region that sometimes neighboring peoples would try to take control of the area. These attempts kept the armies of Songhay busy maintaining their control.
The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 c. e. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events. Therefore, historians have a limited amount of evidence to draw on. Many of the events and dates in history from this time can only be approximate.
To learn more, archaeologists excavate (dig out) ancient cemeteries and the buried ruins of early towns and cities. Climatologists (scientists who study climate) examine ancient weather patterns and environmental changes. Linguists (scientists who study languages) who specialize in Arabic and Berber early scripts figure out writing on tombstones
Dating from as early as 1013 c. E. Specialists in the Arabic language examine the writings of geographers who lived in Spain and North Africa. Ethno-historians (historians who study the history of particular ethnic groups) study the modern descendants of early peoples and think about how their ancestors lived. Other scholars interpret oral traditions passed on by word of mouth through many generations. These traditional stories contain no dates—just the local people’s own sense of what happened to their ancestors in the distant past.
It takes experts to study and learn from each of these historical sources. Taken together, they provide all the information that is available on the history of West Africa’s medieval empires.
The first people to write about ancient Ghana were Arab geographers who lived in North Africa and Spain. They began writing in the
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Which Way Does the Niger Flow?
Mungo Park (1771-1806) was born in a Scottish village, one of eight children in a poor farming family. He was an excellent student and eventually became a doctor. But he was more interested in adventure than in practicing medicine. He made two journeys to the Niger river: one from 1795 to 1797, and one in 1805.
In his day, Europeans knew the Niger river existed but none had ever seen it. They did not even know in which direction it flowed. maps of the time showed it wandering across the Sahara and connecting to the Nile river. in fact, arab geographers called it the "Nile" in their writings.
On Park's second trip, he tried to follow the river all the way to where it flows into the Atlantic. But he died at Bussa in what is now northern Nigeria.
Park kept a detailed day-to-day diary of his travels, and collected valuable information in it. This description is of the moment he first saw the Niger. He compared its width to the River Thames, which runs through London past Westminster Cathedral.
[LJooking forwards, I with infinfte pleasure the great object of my mission— the long sought for majestic Niger, glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly to the eastward. I hastened to the brink and, having drunk of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things, for having thus far crowned my endeavors with success.
(Source: Miller, Ronald, editor. The Travels of Mungo Park. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1954.)
Ninth century about kingdoms south of the Sahara. These are the best records to have survived to the present day.
In the eighth century, even before these Arab geographers had their first contact with the North African kingdoms, they were aware that the kingdom of Ghana existed below the Sahara. They had also heard there was a great river in the land of the Sudan, but they thought it must be the Nile. They knew the Nile was very long and that it began somewhere deep in Africa, but they had never heard of the Niger.
What got the Arab geographers’ attention in the first place were stories they heard from travelers, who told tales of fabulous wealth to be found in Ghana. Late in the eighth century, Arab astronomer and scholar Ibrahim al-Fazari (d. ca. 777) called Ghana “the land of gold” (as quoted by N. Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins in Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History). Others repeated what he said. The Arab geographer al-Hasan ibn Ahmad al-Hamdani (ca. 893-945) declared that the richest gold mine on earth was in Ghana. For geographers such as al-Hamdani, Ghana was a mysterious place of darkness where there were “waters that make the gold grow” (from Levtzion and Hopkins).
The empire of Ghana was one of three great West African empires of the medieval period that were described by Arab travelers and geographers. An empire is formed when one kingdom becomes more powerful than its neighbors. The more powerful king forms an empire by conquering his weaker rivals and adding their lands and wealth to his kingdom.
After Ghana, the empire of Mali rose to power, and after Mali came Songhay. The three of them together dominated West African history for about 900 years.
From the eighth century to about the last part of the 12th century, Ghana was the major power south of the Sahara. It is recognized as an empire because the Arab geographer and historian Ahmad al-Yaqubi (d. 897), among others, described its king as very powerful, with lesser kings under his authority.
In the late 11th century, Ghana was seriously challenged for control of the trade routes that ran through the south. Awdaghust, Ghana’s
Most important commercial city, was captured by the Almoravids, a group of Sanhaja peoples who were part of the Islamic Empire. Ghana recovered its power for part of the 12th century, then went into decline for the final time.
These boys in modern-day Mali have just taken part in a centuries-old
Circumcision ceremony
That marks their passage into adulthood.
Meanwhile, in the 11th century, a large region above the Upper Niger River fell under the control of the Susu, a southern group of the Soninke people. The Susu took control of the old Ghana territories for a time. Then they themselves were conquered by the Mali Empire.
Mali, the second of the great empires of the Western Sudan, was founded in the first half of the 13th century. Far to the south of ancient Ghana, a large group of Mande chiefdoms (little states run by chiefs) had been in existence for a long time. The Mande people are culturally related to the Soninke people of Ghana, but up to this time they had never been unified under one leader.
By the end of the 12th century, the Mande chiefdoms had fallen under the domination of the Susu. The Susu peoples were ruled by a powerful king named Sumanguru Kante. Susu was one of several small kingdoms that were prosperous during the decline of Ghana and before the founding of Mali.
According to oral tradition, the Mande people’s greatest hero was Sunjata Keita (sometimes spelled Sundiata). In the middle of the 13th century he united the Mande chiefdoms. Then he led them in a war that freed them from Susu domination and established the foundations of the Mali Empire, which would prosper until the late 14th century.
Songhay, the third of the medieval West African empires, began as a trading town called Gao on the eastern side of the Niger Bend. Gao (which the Arab geographers called Gawgaw) had its beginnings about the same time that Ghana was getting started, some time after 500. Gao eventually developed into a kingdom controlled by the Songhay people. These people have some cultural similarities to the Mande peoples of Ghana and Mali, but they speak a different language.
In the early 14th century, Gao was conquered by Mali and added to the Mali Empire. About 30 years later, the Mali Empire’s influence had begun to decline. By the 1430s, Gao had regained its independence.
In the second half of the 15th century, a great ruler named Sii Ali Beeri (sometimes spelled Sunni Ali) came to power in Gao. He conquered many neighboring chiefs and kings, took over their territories, and established the Songhay Empire. The Songhay rulers controlled a vast empire in the Western Sudan. Their lands included eastern portions of the old empires of Ghana and Mali. Songhay was conquered by an army from Morocco in 1591.
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