first watch AFRICA Episode 3 Caravans of Gold Written & Presented by Basil David
ID: 399650 • Letter: F
Question
first watch AFRICA Episode 3 Caravans of Gold Written & Presented by Basil Davidson Executive Producer Mic on YouTube AFTER THAT In this episode of his series Africa, the Africanist Basil Davidson explores the West African Sudanese region that birthed the three great empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. For this week's discussion, I want for you to share with the class your general impressions of this documentary. In a few words, tell us what did you take away from this film relative to an understanding of West Africa?
NOTES WRITE A SIMPLE WORDS
Explanation / Answer
The documentary talks about the prosperity and rich culture of ancient Africa which was quite different from present day economically challenged Africa that we see. It shows what drove the Europeans to plunder this land and turning it into ruins of Africa as seen today. It was a land of splendour, rich palaces, well developed culture and intellectually advanced scholars and famous architecture. Long before Europeans reached Africa, there was already a well established system of trade with even far away regions like China and India through both land and water. Mali, Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe which are now one of the poorest countries were once high commercially attractive regions and trading center of the world about 600 years ago due to their high reserves of Gold available in Western Africa. The evidence of their ancient prosperous gold trade is still available today among the heaps of gold jewellery that locals wear to display their standard of wealth.
The documentary also sheds light on how Islamic religion played an important part in shaping Africa trade and culture. It started with the influence of a Mali ruler who promoted Islamic teachings and law after his pilgrimage and turned his Timbuktu province into the center of learning and religion. The scholarly books of Islam became an important part of trade and also the most. The Islamic preaching gave a strict law and code of conduct for people along with giving a better structure for their trading practices.
Africans found new gold reserves and developed a distribution system across the kingdoms which made the people residing near these gold reserves very prosperous. The present day king may not have any political powers but still adorns the gold jewellery and gives a glimpse of the wealth of ancient kingdoms when the king and all his courtyard men adorned gold in various forms. Banks of the river Niger became quite rich and developed port due to it being the center of trading for all items such as ivory, gold, iron, copper, food wherein traders all across the world would come here for business. River Niger also became the center of fish distribution where the fish is smoked dried for long time storage and then shipped to different regions for trade.
The prosperity of Western Africa has been written about by many ancient travellers who describe how this could be achieved with help of stable rule of 1000 years in kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and others. Despite the high availability of gold reserves, there was complete safety and security across Africa wherein women could flaunt their prosperity through their huge gold jewellery without any fear.
Africans developed sophisticated and intellectually advance methods of trade. Camel caravans could carry trading goods across places through Sahara desert, travelling for 60 days sometimes at a stretch. With Cairo as the destination of these caravans, it became the center of trade with entire world. For trading with far away China and India markets, Africans became expert in sailing using innovative sailing techniques such as angling the sail against the wind and managing the sailing vessels through rough oceans before the Europeans even knew about sailing. This in turn made Kenya port became the center of trade with china, India and Persian Gulf. The influence of these eastern trades can be seen in confluence of Chinese paintings in African architecture. Even the architecture knowledge of Africans was way ahead of the rest of the world which can be seen as proof from their well designed houses that they built for merchants on the port.
There were local fights for power among the clans but they were always united against the foreign enemies. The kings of northern Africa had even extended their Islamic reign in few parts of Spain. Cairo became the capital city and center of art and commerce at end of 14th century which propagated the Islamic teachings across the world. The trade ties with Europe can be seen in the depiction of African people in the Renaissance paintings of the Europe portraying the unity of mankind. However the news of wealth and gold of interior western Africa also reached Europe.
Portuguese ship led by Vasco da gama marked the start of European invasion of Africa. Many affluent countries of ancient Africa like Zimbabwe which housed royal palaces and Islamic Swahili architectural monuments was ransacked by Europeans who came through south Africa in search of gold and plundered other merchandises. Many who resisted were killed.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.