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AP World History Unit 3 - Chapter 18: States and Societies of Sub-Saharan Africa

Terms in this set (28)

bananas
Bananas encouraged a migratory surge. Between 300 and 500 Malay seafarers colonized Madagascar and established banana cultivation there. It increased the supply of food available to the Bantu and allowed them to expand more rapidly.
Bantu communities
The establishment of new Bantu communities contributed to changes in relationships between the Bantu and foraging peoples such as the forest dwellers of central Africa. Some forest peoples joined Bantu society while others retreated into the forests.
stateless society, segmentary society
Bantu societies did not depend on an elaborate hierarchy of officials or a bureaucratic apparatus to administer their affairs. They governed through family and kinship groups.
kinship groups
Male heads constituted a village's ruling council. Prominent family heads ruled as chief. A group of villages constituted a district. Village chiefs negotiated on matters.
Jenne-jeno
By 400 the settlement of Jenne-jeno became a center of iron production and trade. By the eighth century it had become the principal commercial crossroads of west Africa.
chiefs
Many districts fell under the leadership of powerful chiefs who overrode kinship networks and imposed their own authority.
Ife and Benin
The kingdoms of Ife and Benin arose in the forested regions of west Africa. Both realms were city states in which court and urban residents controlled the surrounding countryside. Both produced sculptures.
Kongo
By 1200 conflict between small states had resulted in the organization of larger, regional principalities that could resist political and military pressures. Kongo participated actively in trade networks. It included a king and officials who oversaw military, judicial, and financial affairs. Six provinces administered by governments supervised districts administered by subordinate officials. It was the most tightly centralized of the Bantu kingdoms.
camel
Camels equipped with camel saddles quickened the pace of communication and transportation across the Sahara.
Ghana
The principal state of west Africa at the time of the Muslim's arrival. It developed during the fourth or fifth centuries and it was a regional state.
gold
Gold was in high demand because of economic development in the eastern hemisphere. Muslim merchants searched for gold for consumers in the Mediterranean basin.
Koumbi-Saleh
The capital of Ghana and principal trading site.
qadis
"Judges" who head cases at law and rendered decisions based on the Quran and sharia. They were present in Koumbi-Saleh
Sundiata
The lion prince who built the Mali empire. He ruled from 1230 to 1255. By 1235 he had consolidated his hold on the Mali empire.
Mali
Mali benefited from trans-Saharan trade and controlled and taxed all trade traveling through west Africa. The capital city of Niani attracted merchants seeking to enter the gold trade.
Mansu Musa
Sundiata's grand-nephew who ruled Mali from 1213 to 1237 during the high point of the empire. He was a follower of Islam and built mosques in trading cities. He also sent students to study with Islamic scholars in north Africa and he established religious schools.
Swahili city-states
Coastal dwellers built Swahili society. They engaged in trade along the east African coast. They spoke Swahili, a Bantu and Arabic language. Swahili city states included Kilwa, Mozambique, and Sofala. They attracted Muslim merchants. They were each governed by a king who supervised trade and organized public life in the region.
Kilwa
One of the busiest cities on the east African coast. Between 1300 and 1505, Portuguese mariners subjected Kilwa to a sack.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe refers to the dwelling of a chief. Great Zimbabwe was a stone complex that served as the capital. Kings controlled and taxed the trade between the interior and coastal regions of the kingdom.
Islam
Trade brought cultural and political changes because merchants converted to Islam and laid a cultural foundation for close cooperation with Muslim merchants trading in the Indian Ocean basin.
clans
Extended families and clans served as the main foundation of social and economic organization in small-scale agricultural societies.
age sets
Members of age grades performed tasks appropriate for their level of development and often bonded with each other to form tight circles of friends and political allies.
slaves
Most slaves were captives of war, others came from debtors, suspected witches, and criminals. They worked as agricultural laborers. In the ninth century the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean trade networks stimulated increased traffic in African slaves.
diviners
Africans recognized classes of religious specialists who had the power to mediate between humanity and supernatural beings. Diviners understood the networks of political, social, economic, and psychological relationships within their communities and worked to identify the causes of trouble.
creator God
Many Africans believed in a single, dominant creator god from the early days of Sudanic agriculture.
Axum
Axum was a Christian society in Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Christianity
Ethiopian Christians had little contact with Christians in other lands so Ethiopian Christianity reflected the interests of its African devotees.
African Islam
Islam in sub-Saharan Africa reflected the interests of local converts. Islam supplemented the traditional religious of sub-Saharan Africa.
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