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Essay about Africa Before European Arrival - Summary

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Africa Before European Arrival
People of the early African kingdoms were able to create successful trade routes with Europe and Asia, become very wealthy from conquering and gaining land, and were able to have a strong central government. All of this was done before the Europeans had reached Africa. Trade flourished on the East African coast, especially when trading was established with India and Arabia. African kingdoms were prosperous, because of their success with not only trading but also with their ability to conquer land. A governmental structure is key to allowing any kingdom to thrive, and the African people were able to achieve this.
Once Africa got involved with the major trading centers, trade improved and they were able …show more content…

In the kingdom of Benin, making castes with bronze was introduced to the rest of the world. “Now this kind of work is done with clay, and wax, and red metal (copper), and soldier (zinc) and lead, and fire…Next it is set aside to cool, then (the outside covering of clay) is broken off,” (Document 7). The art of creating bronze castes was very popular in Benin and the popularity soon spread to most of Northern Africa.
Even before Europeans came to Africa, the kingdoms in Africa were quite wealthy. As previously mentioned, Ghana was a very strong kingdom in which its people were also incredibly wealthy. Their government appeared to be wealthy as well, which assisted Ghana in being able to control the gold and salt trade. An Arab scholar, Al-Bakri, wrote about the king’s court and how basically everything that the court had was gold (Document 2). The point of view of this document was also positive, and that is because scholars are usually upper class, just like the king’s court. Al-Bakri thought very highly of the court, and explains in detail how every person has some gold on them and how their surroundings also possessed gold. Ghana had a strong army and an intelligent political counsel, which made other countries fear them. Nations around Ghana did not want to start problems and usually just maintained peace with Ghana (Document 3). Ghana was not the only successful kingdom, one of the leaders of Mali, Mansa Musa,

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