Golden Age Of Ghana Essay

Imperialism is defined as one country’s domination of the political, economic, and social life of another country. In Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, imperialism was present and growing. The main countries involved in the imperialism in Africa were the French, German, and Great Britain. The French’s empire was mainly in North and West Africa while Britain’s colonies were scattered throughout the continent. Germany ruled over such countries as Tanganyika, Togoland, and Cameroon, until their defeat in World War I.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Europeans had raced to colonize the country Africa. Great Britain was the leaders at this time in colonizing the land filled with rich natural recourses. These recourses were considered a necessity to the industrialization of the world, specifically Nigeria. During this colonization that Great Britain was doing in their new land, you could imagine that the locals were not too happy about this. The British had no respect for the culture or Nigerian traditions. The longer they stayed the more that they adopted for each other's cultures. However even with the cultural exchanges between the two countries, there was much conflict for the people of a dark colored skin

The History of Africa is very interesting. They had many trade routes and many resources such as salt and gold, their most popular resource was gold. Mansa Musa was their leader and had gone on the Haji as a duty and made their empire known throughout other countries. After that journey the empire had expanded even more that from the start of when their empire first rose up. As you could tell Mansa Musa was a good leader because of the choices he had made to create africa today. In Medieval Africa, Mansa Musa had an Economic impact on Africa because of the duty of islam and the value of gold.

Ghana: wealthy because of gold; declined because of loss of trade, drought, and pressure from outside forces

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,

African Kingdoms were civilized prior to the accession of Europeans in the 15th century. African Kingdoms, such as Ghana, Mali and, Aksum were already progressive in the areas of trade, wealth, and overall advancement. Aksum’s location benefited the region’s advancement by making it a trading center. Mansa Musa was one of the most generous people who expanded the Mali empire through wealth. Through trade and wealth came overall advancement, which brought the rise of literature and art.

The Kingdom Ghana in western Africa flourished. Ghana gained control of the salt-and-gold trade (Doc. 2). This was important because Gold was used as a currency,

The relationship between the geography of West Africa and the development of the Kingdom of Ghana go hand in hand. It was a great place for civilization because it flourished over time. The Kingdom of Ghana’s development was helped because of trade and wealth.

Gold and salt mines surrounded Ghana and were kept a secret from the other countries who might want to get in on the great wealth of Ghana. Another reason Ghana had an opulent economy was because people loved books and would pay a great fortune to buy them. In Document 1 it talks about how the location of Ghana was important to the economy and in Document 4, people in Ghana lived on to do great tasks, because of the knowledge they got from all the books they bought. As seen in the map in document 1, it shows Ghana located directly in the middle of 12 gold and salt mines which they kept private so no one could steal their good fortune (Document 1). In the fourth document it reads,“Here are many doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men that are well maintained at the king's costs. Various manuscripts and written books are brought here . . . and sold for more money than other merchandise” (Document 4). This is helpful because they used the mines to trade with people who did not have the opportunity to collect gold and salt, but needed it. The salt is used to keep food fresh in warmer areas, and the gold is used for trading. They also highly appreciated books and would pay a substantial of money to get them. Books started to even become more highly priced than items like merchandise. The location of Ghana contributed greatly to the rich and wealthy atmosphere of Ghana as well as

In early Africa, the kingdom of Ghana was prosperous due to the trade of salt and gold. Ghana’s location benefited it in many ways. First Ghana’s location allowed them to be the center of the Gold/Salt trade. Since salt was so valuable at the time, the people of Ghana were able to sell salt for gold throughout Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Middle East. Ghana also made a lot of revenue from taxes on the Gold/Salt trade route. Since they were the center

The second Empire that was more extensive was Mali in West Africa. They were dominating in the 13th and 14th century. This empire was one of the largest trading posts in the world, which had roots in the gold of West Africa. Mali Empire flourished because of the trade above all else. This empire contained three immense gold mines within its borders unlike the Ghana Empire, which was only a transit point for gold. The taxed every single once of gold, cotton and salt that entered its borders. Mali was the source of almost half the old world’s gold exported from mines in Bambuk, Boure and Galam. The gold nuggets were the exclusive property of the mansa, and were illegal to trade within his borders. All gold was immediately handed over to the imperial treasury in return for an equal value of gold dust. The gold dust had been weighted and bagged for use at least since the reign of the Ghana Empire. The next great unit of exchange in this empire was salt. Salt was as valuable, if

    Mali already controlled the trans-Saharan trade routes between the salt deposits of Taghaza in the north and the gold-bearing lands of Wangara in the south. During Mansa Musa’s reign, Mali strengthened its control of the trade routes by gaining important cities such as Gao and Timbuktu, on and near the Niger River and Walata. His forces expanded westward to the Atlantic coast of Takrur and eastward beyond the Middle Niger. Trade and ideas flowed freely between Mali, North Africa, Spain, Egypt and Arabia. Muslim traders plied the desert with their caravans carrying brass work from Spain, brocades from Egypt, precious stones from India and returned with gold, salt, cola nuts and ivory. Mansa Mūsā, whose empire was one of the largest in the world at that time, is reported to have observed that it would take a year to travel from one end of his empire to the other. As he gained power, he adopted many titles such as ‘Emir of Melle’, ‘Lord of the Mines of Wangara’ and ‘Conqueror of Ghanata’. He established diplomatic ties with North Africa that facilitated unprecedented Trans-Sahara trade which further enriched his kingdom and ushered in prosperity

How did the polity of Ancient Ghana arise? How did Ghana maintain its strength and what were some of the challenges? The Wagadou Empire was a monarchy, and the king was regarded by the people to be a semi-divine figure who kept order and justice. Ghana was not rich in natural resources as it was located along a major trade route between ivory and gold producing areas and salt miners in the Sahara. Merchants were lured into Ghana by the wealth of gold and prosperity helped the capital, Kumbi Saleh, to be a center of trade. The country will eventually become a prosperous entrepôt. Ancient Ghana derived power and wealth from gold and transportation of camels during the Sub-Saharan trade to increase the quantity of goods that were transported. The traditional Ghanan religions and Islam spread

diplomacy or military force. In the 20th century many European countries attempted to colonize the great continent of Africa. Europeans saw Africa as an area they would be able to profit from, as it had a great climate, good size, and some phenomenal natural resources. While the Europeans divided the continent of Africa they failed to see the possible negative effects on themselves, and the indigenous people of Africa. Their foresight was limited to only the positive outcomes.

The scramble for Africa represents the most thorough and systematic process of colonialism in world history. The European colonial powers managed to conquer and control almost the entire continent of Africa in a short, twenty-five year period from about 1875 to 1900. Some of the European states involved were already well-established global powers; the others were up and coming nations that desired to emulate and compete with the dominant imperial states. Various factors allowed for and contributed to the conquering of the whole of Africa by European states. The slow, but ever-growing European presence on the perimeter and the completion for dominance between the major European states acted as the platform for the inevitable quest for