Comparing Egypt, Meroe, Ghana, Mali, And Ethiopia

Aimee DuBois

Dr. Quirk

HIST 151

December 11, 2017

Final

When thinking of Africa most would think of a place that is poor and dangerous to be in.. Although, Africa has a long history going all the way to the beginning of civilization and during this time there have been multiple different civilizations and cultures that have flourished in this country. Through the history of Africa there have been many great nomadic tribes and organized kingdoms. There have been many large and powerful Empires that were involved in the trading system of many countries. Africa has a history of success and power just like every other country. In this paper these five large empires will be discussed: Egypt, Meroe, Ghana, Mali, and Ethiopia. While also comparing

This empire began its rise to power by the growing of cereal crops which lead to the growth in numbers, the drying climate and new iron and tools which lead to more agriculture, their increasing aggressiveness due to iron weapons and use of horses in battle, the Sanhaja Berber raids forced the settlements to unite in order to defend themselves, and their location helped them dominate the Trans Sahara Trade with gold and salt. They were made up on the Saninke and Mande people. They were a non-literate society so most of what we know is from outside sources. There were two major towns, one Islamic with multitudes of Mosks for the traders, and the King’s royal town. The King’s town had his palace, the structures were made of stone and wood, and there were scared thorn trees all over that housed magicians, who were the priests, and were the graves for the kings. The king would wear special garments made of cotton and/or silk, and would be accompanied by slaves who carried gold shields and swords. They were the middlemen in the trade of the salt and gold, so the products were taxed both coming in and leaving, making the Empire very rich. The king would only trade the gold dust on the streets and would keep all of the gold nuggets for himself. At a lower level they had chiefs that would collect the taxes from the people, and in order to ensure the loyalty of the chiefs, the king

The 14th century Mali is what is known as the Famous Mali. The richest man to ever live, Mansa Musa, lived in Mali. He was the king of this empire, and ruled in both secular and religious aspects over his subjects. He was only to be approached by crawling on your knees out of respect for him. Islam was the religion for the rulers and the rich, but the traditional, animistic, religion was still practiced by the masses and was encouraged by the king. The local economy was driven by farming. However, they were involved in the trade of gold as the middlemen. They interacted with both Europe and Asia in trade because their trading market was so large. They were also very stable and were a military power of their time. They eventually declined because of their dependence on the strength of the king and they were constantly