Empires of Sub-Saharan Africa PDF

Notebook Page 8 Empires of Sub-Saharan Africa AP World History: Modern – Period 1  Great Zimbabwe Great Zimbabwe was a city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe; it was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe– a kingdom that thrived due to trading native gold and ivory Construction...

Notebook Page 8 Empires of Sub-Saharan Africa AP World History: Modern – Period 1  Great Zimbabwe Great Zimbabwe was a city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe; it was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe– a kingdom that thrived due to trading native gold and ivory Construction on the city began in the 11th century and continued until it was abandoned in the 15th century Archaeological evidence suggests that Great Zimbabwe became a center for trading with copper coins found to be of the same pure ore found on the Swahili coast, and also with artifacts suggesting that the city formed part of a trade network extending as far as China Causes for the decline and ultimate abandonment of the site around 1450 have been suggested as due to a decline in trade compared to sites further north, the exhaustion of the gold mines, political instability, and famine and water shortages induced by climatic change  Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa The Zagwe dynasty ruled many parts of present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea between the early 12th and late 13th century until their defeat at the hands of the Solomonic dynasty in 1270 AD From 1270 AD until 1636, the Solomonic dynasty governed the Ethiopian Empire; the empires of Ethiopia were, and remain, largely Christian with a sizable Islamic minority In fact, the kingdom itself maintained mythological status as a lost Christian kingdom in medieval Europe that was isolated by the Muslim conquests in North Africa In the early 15th century, Ethiopia made diplomatic contact with European kingdoms Upon contact, Portugal assisted the Ethiopian emperor (then known as the Emperor of Abyssinia) by sending weapons and four hundred men who helped defeat the neighboring Adal Sultanate, thus maintaining the lone East African Christian kingdom  Hausa Kingdoms The Hausa kingdoms were a collection of states started by the Hausa people, situated between the Niger River and Lake Chad These kingdoms (mainly city-states) benefited from trade routes connected to Ghana, Mali, and the Songhai Dynasty During the first millennium CE, Hausaland took shape as a political and cultural region as a result of the westward expansion of Hausa peoples By the 14th century Kano had become the most powerful city-state. Kano had become the base for the trans-Saharan trade in salt, cloth, leather, grain, and slaves. Despite relatively constant growth from the 15th century to the 18th century, the states were vulnerable to constant war internally and externally and were conquered in the 19th century by a West African Sunni caliphate