1. Trans-Saharan Trade Network

2. across Sahara Desert Exchange of goods Set of connections
Definition:
TRANS = SAHARAN= TRADE= NETWORK=
across
Sahara Desert
Exchange of goods
Set of connections

3. 1. It was a link between Africa and the Arab world.
What was the trans-Saharan trade network?
1. It was a link between Africa and the Arab world.
Arabia
Africa
This provided the opportunity of the trade of goods, such as gold, and ideas, including religion.

4. What was travel like along the trans-Saharan trade route?
People traveled using camels because they had flat feet to move easily across sand and could retain water (and would not have to be fed often).
It took two months to cross the mile Sahara Desert.
It was a difficult trip, but
people risked dying of
thirst to become rich.

5. Trans-Sahara Trade Routes

6. I am the king of Ghana. I, along with the societies of Berbers in the north, keep the Saharan trade routes safe and punish thieves severely!

7. North:
salt ceramics glass oil lamps
gold kola nuts palm oil copper
South:

8. Tunisia
Egypt

9. Trans-Sahara Trade Routes
Linked Africa and Arabia
Used camels to transport gold, religion, and ideas
Arabs spread ideas, system of writing, and worked in government
Mansa Musa – spread gold and Islam – center of learning in Timbuktu

10. Timbuktu Center of learning, many mosques, and trade
Young men “kept in irons until they had memorized the entire Qu’ran” (Ibn Battuta)
“Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom come from Timbuktu."
High literacy rate

11. AFRICANS CONVERT TO ISLAM

12. How did the ideas & beliefs of Islam spread into Africa?
Arab merchants came to live in Africa and so their ideas spread.
Arab traders brought the first system of writing and numbers to West Africa.
The African kings hired Arabs as government officials to help them take care of trade matters.

13. However, the Africans kept some of their own traditions, such as a matrilineal form of choosing the next ruler (the next king would be the king’s sister’s son). Women were also still very independent and they still scarred their faces to show clan affiliations.

14. WHY ISLAM?
Africans converted to Islam because it stressed the belief in the “brotherhood of all believers,” which encouraged trust and peaceful trade between people of different nationalities.

15. Oral traditions and Traditional religions - copy
Children would learn their history by griots
Storytellers would teach basic skills, life lessons, and proverbs
Polytheistic
Creator god and lesser gods
Listen to the signs from their ancestors

16. Family, Labor specialization, and Regional Commerce - Copy
EXTENDED FAMILIES
FARMERS
WEST KINGDOMS – ISLAM, GOLD, AND SALT
MATRILINEAL
MINERS OF GOLD AND SALT
EAST KINGDOMS – CHRISTIANITY, TEXTILES
KING’S NEPHEW GOT POWER
MERCHANTS
TIMBUKTU AND JENNE - TRADE
BANTU MIGRATIONS
METAL WORKERS AND POTTERY MAKERS
NIGER RIVER
HONORING ANCESTORS
SCHOLARS
USE OF CAMELS/CARAVANS

17. Slavery - copy Arab Slave Trade (East African Slave Trade)
Began in the 700s
Slaves were captured in central Africa
They were transported across the Sahara to the Middle East
Atlantic Slave Trade
Slavery already existed in Africa
Europeans began to take slaves from West Africa to be shipped to the New World by the end of the 1500s
Taken to New World to work on plantations growing crops such as sugarcane
Lasted until the mid 1800s.