Name____________________________________________Date__________________Block__________

African American Studies Unit 1: African HistoryHuman EvolutionHumans are a species of animal like all other animals on earth. Humans are a type of primate with the very scientific name Homo sapiens. Using fossil evidence, scientists believe that our species of human has existed on earth for 200,000 years. Other human species lived on earth before Homo sapiens became the dominant human species. Today, only Homo sapiens exist. Humans have a very close relationship to another group of primate species, apes. All humans and all great apes—gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos—share a common ancestor that lived between 6 and 8 million years ago. But between that ancient ancestor and ourselves, how did the human body change over time and why did this happen?The evolution of all species—including animals, plants, and bacteria—is based on a process called natural selection. Natural selection is process where characteristics become either more or less common in a population. Random mutations cause changes in an individual organism (animal, plant, bacteria), and these mutations can be passed to offspring. This process of change takes hundreds of thousands of years to affect an entire species. Mutations can be beneficial or harmful.

For example, modern human hands are more flexible and stronger than any previous humans. Scientists studying fossil records believe that one of our ancestor groups, Homo habilis, was the first human group to have hands like ours. But how did a population of humans without hands like ours evolve to have these hands? Scientists believe that first a small number of children were born with a mutation that gave them hands that were different from the rest of the population. This mutation was beneficial because it allowed these children to grow up with greater strength and flexibility of their hands, allowing them to build, fix, and write with greater skill than people without the mutation. Since mutations can be passed to offspring, scientists believe that over a very long period of time people chose to mate with people with the mutation, so their children would also have stronger hands. Eventually, those without the mutation became less desirable to partners and the characteristic died out when the last humans with the less desirable hands died.

Other physical characteristics that make us Homo sapiens developed over long periods of time. Our ability to walk on two legs (bipedalism), for example, evolved over 4 million years ago. Other important human characteristics such as our large and complex brains, our ability to make and use tools, and the capacity for language developed more recently. Many advanced characteristics like complex symbolic expression and making art emerged mainly during the past 100,000 years.

1) Modern-day humans (Homo sapiens) have very good eyesight. Ancient human species did not have such good eyesight. Use the explanation of natural selection and mutation to explain how this evolution may have happened.

2) Is possible to believe in God, or any type of supernatural power, while also believing in evolution? Why/why not?

3) Millions of years from now, will humans evolve to form a new type of human? If not, why? If so, how might they be different from ourselves?

From Hunting & Gathering to the Agricultural RevolutionSix to eight million years ago, the first humans fed themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants. Humans hunted large animals by striking them with poison-tipped spears, and they hunted small animals with elaborate traps and nets. They cooked and ate the animals, and they used the animal skins used for clothing and shelter. Most of their food came not from hunting, but rather, from gathering fruits, nuts, and roots. Once hunter gatherers located environments with plenty of animals to hunt and fruits and nuts to gather, they lived relatively restful lives with less time spent getting food and more time for leisure and socializing. Hunter gatherers lived in small groups of no more than one hundred, called bands, and they lived nomadically, moving to where the food supply was the best. Leadership was informal, with no one person named as a permanent leader. All members of the group were equals, and a band leader had no special status. He had a certain degree of authority or influence, but he did not have power, nor could he enforce his opinions on others. Technologically, nomadic hunter gatherers were limited because whatever they created had to be light enough to be carried.

Within only the last 11,000 years, an agricultural revolution began as some people began growing food. They took the wild food that grew around them and they domesticated (tamed) it by planting seeds in larger amounts to get more food (like wheat, rice, corn, or sorghum) from a single location. They domesticated wild animals ate the resulting livestock (like cows or chickens), and by staying in one place and growing lots of the same crop and raising lots of animals, farmers created a lot of food, which can feed a lot of people. As the food supply increased and the population increased, farmers gave a portion of their surplus crops to the leaders in return for protection. These farming societies were patriarchies, where men were leaders that made big decisions in society and individual families. These male leaders gained control of how much food was produced and where it was stored. Since the society stored food, not everybody had to farm, and the division of labor increased, where people were trained for special jobs including artisans such as metalworkers, who develop swords, guns, and other technologies. As farming communities grew larger and larger, they began to compete with other farming communities for the best land to grow crops. The leaders taxed other people, growing wealthy and influential. The leaders spent part of their wealth on creating armies and weapons to attack others and defend themselves.

4) Illustrate a hunting and gathering band in the left box, and illustrate a farming society in the right box. Answer the following questions in both your pictures: How do they get food? What do they do in their free time? Do a lot of people live together? Where do they live? What kind of technology do they have?

A Natural Experiment of HistoryThe Maori leaders wanted more wealth for themselves and their people. They made a plan to try to conquer a neighboring group, the Moriori, who lived on a nearby island. 500 Maori warriors loaded on a ship armed with guns and axes and sailed for the Moriori island. When they arrived, the Maori leaders announced that the Moriori were now their slaves. They killed all those who objected. An organized resistance by the Moriori could still then have defeated the Maori, who were outnumbered two to one. However, the Moriori had a tradition of resolving disputes peacefully. They decided in a council meeting not to fight back but to offer peace, friendship, and a division of resources.Before the Moriori could deliver that offer, the Maori attacked. Over the course of the next few days, they killed hundreds of Moriori, cooked and ate many of the bodies, and enslaved all the others, killing most of them too over the next few years as it suited their whim. A Maori conqueror explained, “We took possession…in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed, and others we killed—but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom.” The brutal outcome of this collision between the Moriori and the Maori could have been easily predicted. The Moriori were a small, isolated population of hunter-gathers, equipped with only the simplest technology and weapons, entirely inexperienced at war, and lacking strong leadership or organization. The Maori invaders (from New Zealand) came from a dense population of farmers chronically engaged in ferocious wars, equipped with more-advanced technology and weapons, and operating under strong leadership. Of course, when the two groups finally came into contact, it was the Maori who slaughtered the Moriori, not vice versa. The tragedy of the Moriori resembles many other such tragedies in both the modern and ancient world, pitting numerous well-equipped people against few ill-equipped opponents.

5) This story is from the Polynesian islands off the coast of New Zealand. How is it relevant (how does it connect) to how many farming societies replaced hunting and gathering societies around the world, including Africa? What advantages did the Maori have over the Moriori? (5 sentence minimum)

Climate of AfricaFrom north to south, Africa is divided into a succession of climatic zones. With the exception of a fertile strip along the Mediterranean coast and the agriculturally rich Nile River valley, most of the northern third of the continent consists of the Sahara Desert. For thousands of years, the Sahara limited human contact between northern Africa and the lands south of the Sahara--known as sub-Saharan Africa. Beneath the sands of the Sahara, large amounts of salt were found. Salt was so common in the desert village of Taghaza that houses were built out of it. Salt is also used preserve and flavor food. People who live in the Sahara region need salt to survive. In such hot

Painting of Maori man

climates, the human body loses salt through perspiration. Thus, people must eat more salt to make up for this loss.

Salt became a major reason why trade routes developed across the Sahara linking the major cities of West Africa with northern Africa. Traders domesticated camels and used them to travel in caravans, groups of travelers who moved across the desert. In the sea of sand, the camels were the ships of the desert. Camels were ideal animals to domesticate for traveling the Sahara. They travelled great distances with little food or water. The camel’s hump was a large lump of fat that provides energy if food becomes scarce. Also, a camel’s wide feet made walking soft and easy. The average caravan included about 1,000 camels and up to 12,000 were used in the caravans. Each camel could carry 350 pounds of salt on a trip that took about two months across the Sahara. South of the Sahara is a semi-desert region known as the Sahel. Here, Fulani cattle herders travel hundreds of miles with their animals to find food for them. They cannot travel below the Sahel because the tsetse (set-see) fly lives in the savannah and carries deadly diseases. South of the Sahel is the savannah, a huge grassland stretching from Ethiopia westward to the Atlantic Ocean. 6) What were three ways Africans used salt?

7) On the blank Africa map on the previous page, label the following climate zones: Sahara Desert, Sahel, Savanna, and Rain Forest. Use a different color for each zone and create a key for each zone.

Egyptian Empire (3100 BCE-30 BCE) Egypt was the first African civilization, and they built their empire around the Nile River in the fourth millennium BCE. The people of the Nile River were one of the groups that learned farming and chose to become a farming society, along with the Mesopotamians (Iraq), the Chinese, and the Mesoamericans (Mexico). Egypt was, as the Greek historian Herodotus observed 2,500 years ago, the “gift of the Nile.” It was the Nile River that allowed Egyptians to cultivate crops and herd animals in an otherwise desolate region, the Sahara Desert. The Nile also provided the Egyptians with a transportation artery, while its desert surroundings protected them from foreign invasion. Egypt’s leaders were called pharaohs, and people believed they descended from the Gods.

Ancient Egypt lasted for three-thousand years, the longest-lasting civilization in history. The vast majority of Egyptians were poor farmers. They produced the agricultural surplus which the wealth, power, and fame of the Egyptian civilization was built. The government seized the surplus for themselves and forced people to build large-scale irrigation and construction projects, like the tombs for burying the pharaohs. One hundred thousand men built the largest tombs of all: the Great Pyramids at Giza.

An elite group of well-educated civil servants made up the government’s bureaucracy, the group that carried out the government’s plans and enforced their rules. They used boats to travel the Nile to every town in the empire. Egyptians developed one of the oldest forms of writing, hieroglyphics, which is based on a combination of pictures and sound-symbols. Leaders probably first used it for tax purposes and record keeping. The desire to extend agricultural land and control irrigation projects led to the development of mathematics and astronomy. By measuring the amount of fertile soil, they could calculate taxes for that land. By studying the sun, the moon, and the stars, they could understand the seasons and calculate the timing of

floods. The last Egyptian dynasty ended when the Greeks invaded and conquered the empire in 332 BCE by Alexander the Great.

8) How did the environment support the growth of the Egyptian Empire?

9) What technological advancements did the Egyptian people make? How did the agricultural revolution support these advancements?

10) How did the Egyptian Empire end?

Kush Empire (1100 BCE-350 CE) The Egyptian Empire expanded southward and conquered the Nubian people in present-day Sudan. By 1100 BCE, however, the Nubians freed themselves of Egyptian control and founded the Kush Kingdom around 1000 BCE. The Kush Empire can be considered the first black empire, and the word Sudan comes from the Arabic ‘bilad a-Sudan’, which means ‘land of the blacks.’ Although free of Egyptian control, the Kush Empire was initially highly influenced by Egyptian culture. Kush leaders spoke Egyptian, wrote in hieroglyphics, worshipped Egyptian gods, and built pyramids

for their rulers. Gradually, however, the Kush people embraced their own language, worshipped their own gods, and created art full of animals common to the Nubians such as lions, ostriches, giraffes, and elephants.

Like Egypt, the leader of Kush was a monarch descended from the gods.

Unlike Egypt, the religious and political leaders of Kush had the power to appoint the new kings. Kush leaders made their wealth by controlling trade and farming surpluses. Kush people cut down trees and used the wood to fuel fires hot enough to create iron. The Kush used the iron for better farming equipment and weapons. Unlike the Egyptian people, most Kush people did not live around the Nile River because in Nubia the river is not as large. Instead, since more rain falls in Nubia, the people lived as cattle herders or farmers spread out across the land in rural villages. The Kush people paid less onerous (burdensome) taxes to the government than the Egyptian people and likewise probably had more freedom as well. The king ordered Kush warriors to hunt animals and he owned the profits made from selling ivory from elephant tusks, skins from leopards, and feathers from ostriches. The King hired these men to become Kush’s army, and they were famous for training elephants to fight.

In 730 BCE the Kush conquered the Egyptians resulting in the first Nubian (black) pharaohs in Egyptian history. The power of Kush was built on the strength of its agriculture and trade, but over-farming led to the exhaustion of the lands. By cutting down more trees than they planted, the Kush leaders created an unsustainable environment. Lastly, as the Kush Empire weakened, the Axum Empire to the south grew in

power and began dominating trade routes previously controlled by the Kush. In about 350 the Axum Empire invaded and conquered Kush.

11) Choose 6 important events or characteristics of the Kush Empire and illustrate a story of Kush.

Axum Empire አክሱም (100 BCE-950 CE)According to the Axum legend, the Queen of Sheba travelled to Jerusalem, fell in love with the king of Jerusalem, Solomon, and they had a son named Menelik. That son founded the Axum Empire and the ruling dynasty, the Lion of Judah. Foreigners called their land Ethiopia, or the people with ‘burnt faces’ (dark skin). The Axum Empire was located in present-day Ethiopia ኢትዮጵያ.

Within the Axum Empire, the king exercised most direct power in the capital. Beyond the capital, regional rulers paid tribute to the king. The king’s wealth and power came from his control of foreign trade. His officials taxed all imports and exports. The Axum kings were the top leaders of the military, law, and religion. Axum leaders tolerated Christian traders who helped spread Christianity in Ethiopia. Axum’s King Ezana converted to Christianity around 330 CE and declared Axum to be a Christian empire. Axum became the first Christian state in sub-Saharan Africa. Christians believe in one god and that Jesus Christ was his son and messenger. Axum leaders gave financial assistance to the church to create monasteries, schools of religious study. King Ezana invaded and conquered the Kush Empire. Axum

gained even greater control over caravan routes in northeastern Africa and Axum thrived on international trade. Its major port, Adulis, invited merchants from Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, and Persia.

Axum people became reputable architects, and they built stele (steel-lay), tall stone towers to honor their gods. Intricately carved from single pieces of stone, many of these huge monuments are still standing. The tallest stele weighed 700 tons and was almost 100 feet tall. The Axum Empire stopped expanding when the Islamic Empire, founded by the Muslim prophet, Muhammad, gained power and expanded into Africa. This decreased the amount of wealth gained from trade and weakened the Axum Empire. The decline of Axum was also due to deterioration in the environment. This was the result of the long-term cutting down of trees and over-exploitation of the soil, leading to erosion. Although the Axum Empire ended by the year 1000, it is important to note that no foreign invader has ever conquered Ethiopia.

12) What present-day nation is Axum located in?

13) What are stele, and why did they build them?

14) Which king converted to Christianity?

15) Why do you think some common Axum people chose to convert to Christianity while others chose to stick with animism?

West Africa: An IntroductionJust like in Egypt, Kush, and Axum, most West Africans were farmers. They often lived with their extended families in villages and they farmed the land communally, meaning the land was not owned by a single family or person. Also like most agricultural societies, patriarchy was popular in West Africa. In a patriarchy, men are the supreme leaders of the empires and families. It was common for men to take two or more wives, and women were often considered the property of men. However, some women had prestigious leadership jobs and grew wealthy. As in most civilizations around the world, many West African societies had slavery. West African people enslaved prisoners of war, criminals, and people in debt. Warriors captured in battle were sometimes enslaved, criminals could be punished with slavery, and some people were forced to or chose to repay their debts with a period of slavery. Most of these people were enslaved for a certain amount of years, and not for their entire lives. Children born to enslaved parents were often born slaves as well. According to tradition, some slaves had certain rights, and some slave owners faced severe punishment for mistreating slaves. Slaves often worked as farmers for their masters. Slaves who worked as household servants could have close relationships with their master and some married into their master’s family. At the same time, other slaves toiled under terrible conditions, carrying heavy loads on their heads on long treks, working in mines, and being beaten, and even sometimes worked to death. Most people in West Africa followed Islam, animism, ancestor worship, or a combination of each. Islam is the religion that Muslims worship. They believe in one god (Allah = god in Arabic) and that Muhammad was the final prophet (messenger) of God. Arab traders from the north introduced Islam into West Africa. Islam was more popular in the cities, where traders and government officials lived. Animism is a term used to describe traditional West African

religions that were popular in the rural areas. In animism, everything in the natural world has a spirit. Rain, rivers, trees, lions, and snakes, for example, are all parts of creation that have spirits. These spirits may be strong or weak, dangerous or helpful. People must respect the gods and provide offerings of food, drink, and animal sacrifice to keep them satisfied. Ancestor worship also formed part of many Western African cultures. Ancestors are deceased family members from long ago. In ancestor worship, people must respect these men and women and be careful to follow their advice and guidance.

West African art was intimately related to religious practice. West Africans, seeking to preserve the images of their ancestors, excelled in woodcarving and sculpture in bronze and brass. Throughout the region, artists produced masks representing the ancestral spirits and gods and goddesses. Wooden figurines were very common. West Africans used them in funerals, in rituals related to ancestral spirits, in medical practice, and in coming-

of-age ceremonies. Musicians played drums, xylophones, bells, flutes, and mbanzas (predecessor to the banjo) to produce a highly rhythmic accompaniment to the dancing that was an important part of religious ritual. A call-and-response style of singing played a vital role in ritual, and they created sophisticated rhythms. In West Africa, griots (gree-o’s) were storytellers who passed down the people’s history from generation to generation. Stories are traditionally told in the evening, after the day’s work is done. A crowd gathers around an elder or other skilled storyteller. The narrator may use singing, chanting, acting, and voices to bring his or her tale alive. The people in the audience become a vital part of the experience, contributing their responses and joining in the songs. Through the give-and-take of their narratives, storytellers teach the values and wisdom of their people.

16) Complete the chart about slavery in Africa:

What were the 3 ways that people became slaves in West Africa?

Predict one way of how these slaves could become free:

Name 3 jobs that African slaves could be assigned?

1) 1)

2) 2)

3) 3)

17) Identify the 3 religious traditions from West Africa and describe each one:

Name of Religious Tradition:Description of each tradition:

18) What is a griot? In your lifetime, who has been a griot for you?

Wagadu Empire (300 CE-1100 CE)The first empire established in West Africa was Wagadu. Founded by the Soninke people in the area north of the modern nation of Ghana, its origins are unclear. Outsiders who feared the power of the Wagadu Empire called it ‘Ghana’, or ‘the war chief.’ The

principal source of the empire’s wealth was from taxing trade. The most important traded items were salt, gold, and kola nuts. Salt mines were located north of the empire within the Sahara Desert. Gold mines were located in the Wangara forests in the south. Wagadu leaders controlled the caravan trade routes between the Sahara Desert and West Africa, and they taxed the trade routes.

Taxation of trade allowed Wagadu’s leaders to invest in technology and the military.

They created iron for better farming tools and created innovative methods for farming in the Sahel. They created better weapons like swords and spears as they trained horses to build a stronger military. King Tenkaminen in the eleventh century had an army of over 200,000.

The Wagadu Empire collapsed due to ecological destruction and foreign invasion. The Sahel was already a difficult place for growing crops. By the early thirteenth century, the Wagadu people had worn out much of the land and the region could no longer support a large settled population. In the year 1062, a North African group of Muslims named the Almoravids invaded Wagadu. For ten years the people fought against the invaders, but the battles severely weakened the empire by 1077. The kingdoms of Mali, Songhai, and Tekrur declared independence from Wagadu. In battle, the leaders of Mali defeated leaders from Wagadu and captured Kumbi Saleh.

19) How did Wagadu’s leaders gain wealth? What did they do with the wealth?

20) Wagadu’s capital city was Kumbi Saleh. Look at the map of the Wagadu Empire and explain why you think it was such a great location.

21) Why did the Wagadu Empire collapse?

Mali Empire (1240-1500)Following the defeat of Wagadu, many groups competed for power. The leader of the Mali people, Sunjata Keita (kay-ta), challenged King Sumanguru for power. Malinke legends recall their battles as clashes between powerful magicians. Sumanguru could reportedly appear and disappear at will, assume dozens of shapes, and catch arrows in midflight. Sunjata defeated Sumanguru’s much larger forces through superior military maneuvers and legend states that Sunjata wounded Sumanguru with a special arrow that robbed him of his magical powers. This victory was followed by others and Sunjata Keita’s Mali Empire grew to a population of over 8 million and stretched 1,500 miles from the Atlantic coast to the city of Gao.

Mali, which means “where the emperor resides,” was socially, politically, and economically similar to Wagadu. The Mali Empire depended on well-developed agriculture as well as control of the trade across the Sahara, as had Wagadu before it. Unlike the Wagadu Empire, which was mostly located in the Sahel, the Mali Empire expanded into the savannah, where rainfall helped farmers produce regular food surpluses. Farmers gave a portion of their surplus crops to the government in return for protection. Mali sustained a large army who used iron spears, bows and arrows, and each army battalion had an elite corps of horsemen. Mali leaders gained most of their wealth by taxing trade between the Sahara Desert and the Wangara gold mines. Historians have evidence that Mali’s leaders researched plans to explore the Atlantic Ocean, and it is possible that ships reached the Americas. At the same time, however, it should be noted that Mali traders began selling Africans as slaves from the eastern part of the empire to sell to Arabs in the Middle East.

Mali’s political and economic leaders were Muslims, but most people throughout the empire retained animism. In the rural areas where most of Mali citizens lived there were few educational opportunities. Higher learning was more common in the cities, where Islam played a larger role. Mali’s most important city was Timbuktu, a major hub for trade and a center of Islamic learning. There were several mosques in the city, over 150 Islamic schools, a law school, and

many book shops. Mosques in Mali were a blend of traditional West African and North African architecture; they were built of stone or baked-mud bricks and had tall, thin minarets. Malian rulers paid for the construction of large mosques such as the famous Djenne (Ja-Nay) Mosque.

Under the ruler Mansa Musa (1312-1337), the Mali Empire reached its peak. One of the wealthiest rulers in world history, Musa made himself and Mali famous when in 1324 he undertook a pilgrimage across Africa to the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Arabia. He traveled with a large entourage. Besides his wives and slaves, there were also sixty thousand porters and a vast caravan of camels carrying supplies and provisions. For purchases and gifts, he brought along over six hundred pounds of gold. In addition, 500 slaves each carried a golden staff. Mansa Musa gave away so much gold when he passed through Cairo that the value of gold was depressed for years. Two hundred years after its founding, Mali began to disintegrate as the leaders could not protect the people from foreign invasions from the Tuareg people from the north and the Mossi from the south. Eventually, the Songhai people grew in power, kicked out the invaders, and founded a new empire.22) The year is 1500 and you are Mansa Mahmoud IV, the last king of the Mali Empire. From your palace you can see the enemy entering the city of Jenne, and you know that your empire will soon crumble. But before you the enemy breaks down the door to your palace, you will write a letter about the importance of the history of the Mali Empire. From each of the four paragraphs about the Mali Empire, choose the two most important events that you want people to remember.

محمود ٤مانسا(Mansa Mahmoud IV)

Songhai Empire (1470-1591)Sonni Ali, the first king of the Songhai Empire, built the last and largest of the western African empires. As Songhai's military conquered a region, the local rulers were replaced with relatives of the Songhai family in order preserve the region's loyalty to the empire. The removal of traditional rulers and the centralization of power helped prevent provinces from breaking away. Like the previous empires, Songhai leaders controlled the trade of gold and salt over the Sahara Desert. Like the Mali Empire, merchants captured other African people outside their empire to sell as

slaves to Arabs in the north. Songhai leaders invested their profits from taxing trade into building a large military, which used horses and war canoes. Songhai leaders also supported the growth of Jenne and Timbuktu as centers of trade and academics, and Timbuktu was the home of the famous Sankore University.

Sonni Ali’s family blended Islam with animism, which was not popular with some orthodox Muslim families, those which adhered to only Islam. Askia Muhammad Toure, an orthodox Muslim leader, led a revolt against Sonni Ali, and he became the new emperor. Askia Muhammad Toure used his power to spread the influence of Islam within the empire. Despite these efforts, rural farmers, who made up 95% of the population, continued to practice animism. In the late 1500s, several challenges faced the Songhai Empire including internal fighting, drought, and a decrease in trade. However, these were common challenges for Songhai leaders, who saw no cause for alarm. The Songhai Empire had the strongest military and wealthiest economy in West Africa, and its people were relatively prosperous and happy. But everything changed in 1591.

In 1591 the king of Morocco, hoping to regain access to West African gold sent an army to attack Gao, Songhai’s capital. The Songhai horsemen armed with bows, arrows, and iron swords, were slaughtered by the Moroccan army and their new weapon of choice, the gun. The Songhai army fled in chaos to the south, and the Moroccans captured the major cities of Jenne, Timbuktu, and Gao. Songhai leaders realized that the old military tactics did not work, so they called on their men to use guerilla warfare, where small groups of soldiers use surprise attacks and use booby traps to kill the enemy and terrorize them. Over time, the Moroccan leaders lost the will to continue fighting, and they withdrew from Songhai. But the damage was done, and the empire collapsed. Its army destroyed, the Songhai Empire fell apart.

23) Identify the two major leaders from Songhai history and explain the contributions of each:

Major Leader

Contribution

24) What was the main reason the Songhai Empire collapsed?