Later African Kingdoms East and West The Portuguese travel along the western and eastern Africa coasts in th 1400 s and 1500 s They dominated the trans saharan gold trade Major players in the slave trade Senegambia Named after the two dominant rivers Senegal and Gambia Societies and languages in Senegambia Stateless societiesm with difined social classes Wolof chief with his griot History of the society Wolof speakers They had clearly defined classes royalty and nnobility warriors peasents Nobility elected king head of own troops He appointed village chiefs Acquired revenue from chiefs import export duties tributes from conqured enemies Senegambia s stateless socities were based upon age grade systems Age grades were group of teenage males and females whom the society initiated into adulthood at the same time All people born within a certain period linked together by the facts sorts of mini generations Benin 1 2 3 4 5 6 1400 s 1500 s raise of the benin kingdom Monarchy run by OBA organized higheracrhial state At its height its capital benin city was huge First visited by portugese in 1485 Benin kingdom lasted until the 1800 s Their greatest art lay their metal working by the lost wax process Kingdoms of Sudan Kingdoms of Songhay Kanem Bornu and city states of Hausaland inland Sudan Under Mohammed Toure Songhay spread from Gao the capital to east and west walling up Timbuktu o Mohammed Toure coverted to islam He rebuilt royal army and reorganized tax collecting Replaced local officials with Arab ones He founded a dynaty which lasted through 9 kings but only 3 out of 9 kings died of natural causes Kanem Bonu To the eas of songhay o King Idris Alooma built a standing army and equipped with firearms and camel mounted calvary deafeated locals with spears Hausaland o Between sonhay and Kanem Bornu o It was never an empire or kingdom o Hausa merchants carrued on trade in slaves and kola nuts o City states the kano and katsina rose Society in western Africa Women and children Wives and children were highly desired because They could clear and cultivate the land They brough pretiage social support and security in old age For this reason The major goal of society in West Africa was the production of children without children your are nake Men gained number of wives Poligamy was the norm Tensions between male generations Emphasis on male virilty and femal fertility Soceity in western Africa Work Unlike Europe there was abundance of land Large sections of the region lightly populated The portugeese introduced maize sweet potatoes and diseases There was not abundance of manufacture Some metal work Local cloth Sime spices Salt Everything was on a pre industrial level Ethopia Ethopia survived as Christian Coptie Islamic invasion from South Helped by portugeese Then portugeese wanted conversion to Catholicism Then other local peoples strugulled with Ethiopians Jesuits were explelled in 1633 The Swahili city state Independent Islamic towns inhabited by the swahhili people of the coast Vasco De Gama arrived in 1498 and throughout the 1500 s the portugeese attacked each town in turn Local people became slaves The Dutch and the British took control of this area later and sominated the slave trade
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