MC_A Concise History of Africa

WEST AFRICA

C omplex societies inhabited the mid-Niger and Senegal valleys from about 200 BC. Trade across the Sahara enabled the development of great empires, the best-known of these being Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. The Ghana Empire, ca. 750–1076 The first and largest of the great medieval empires in West Africa, the Ghana empire , as Europe and Arabia referred to it, on account of the title of its emperor, was known to its own citizens, a Mandé subgroup known as the Soninke, as Wagadou, reaching the height of its power in about 1000 AD.

Words to Understand Empire: An extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch. Ethnic: Relating to races or large groups of people who have the same customs, religion, origin, etc. Mandinka: A West African ethnic group living mainly in Senegal, Gambia, and Sierra Leone.

The Soninke were mixed farmers, raising animals and

their territory were gold mines and the rich floodplains of the Niger river. The empire came into being due to changes in the economy of the Sahel, which allowed more

growing millet in an area that is now south-eastern Mauritania, western Mali, and eastern Senegal. Within

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