West Africa (909 BCE – 819 CE) Antiquity — Sahelian Kingdom Seeds and Gold–Salt Gateways

Geographic and Environmental Context

The Atlantic and inland belt from Senegal and Mauritania east through Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria (western and central), plus the forest–savanna margins of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

Anchors: Senegal–Gambia valleys, Inland Niger Bend and Inland Delta (Timbuktu, Mopti, Gao), Middle Niger–Kainji basin, Jos Plateau, Hausaland (Kano, Katsina, Zaria), Upper Volta basin, Gold Coast forest margins, Futa Jallon highlands, Dahomey Gap.

• Sahel and forest–savanna margin the economic heart.

• Inland Niger Delta, Senegal Valley, Hausaland rising.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Aridity pulses continued, but rivers buffered.

Societies & Political Developments

• Proto-Ghana/Wagadu in western Sahel.

• Takrur (Senegal valley) precursors.

• Hausaland clustered towns.

• Forest–savanna edge (Gold Coast, Côte d’Ivoire) linked via kola–gold trade.

Economy & Trade

• Trans-Saharan salt–gold routes germinated.

• Iron, livestock, grain formed regional staples.

Technology & Material Culture

• Iron smelting widespread; Nok terracottas matured.

• Town ramparts, craft specializations.

Belief & Symbolism

• Ancestor cults; shrines for agriculture/fertility.

• Early divination traditions.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Salt–gold–grain trade and farming networks hedged against drought.

Transition

By 819 CE, West Africa hosted proto-kingdoms (Wagadu/Ghana, Takrur) and Hausaland towns, setting stage for the great empires of the medieval Sahel.

Arabic-speaking people have spread Islam into the northern Sahara by 750.

The earliest author to mention Ghana is the Persian astronomer Ibrahim al-Fazari who, writing at the end of the eighth century, refers to "the territory of Ghana, the land of gold".

The Ghana Empire lies in the Sahel region to the north of the West African gold fields and is able to profit from controlling the trans-Saharan gold trade.

The early history of Ghana is unknown but there is evidence that North Africa had began importing gold from West African before the Arab conquest in the middle of the seventh century.

Most of our information about the economy of Ghana comes from merchants, and therefore we know more about the commercial aspects of its economy, and less about the way in which the rulers and nobles may have obtained agricultural products through tribute or taxation.

The empire becomes wealthy because of their trading.

They have an abundant amount of gold and salt.

Al-Bakri noted that merchants had to pay a one gold dinar tax on imports of salt, and two on exports of salt.

Other products paid fixed dues, al-Bakri mentioned both copper and "other goods."

Imports probably include products such as textiles, ornaments and other materials.

Many of the hand-crafted leather goods found in old Morocco may also have their origins in the empire.

The main center of trade is Koumbi Saleh.

The king claims as his own all nuggets of gold, and allows other people to have only gold dust.

In addition to the exerted influence of the king onto local regions, tribute is also received from various tributary states and chiefdoms to the empire's periphery.

The introduction of the camel had played a key role in Soninke success as well, allowing products and goods to be transported much more efficiently across the Sahara.

These contributing factors will all help the empire remain powerful for some time, providing a rich and stable economy that is to last over several centuries.

The empire is also known to be a major education hub.

The Lemtuna, one of the Berber groups that had arrived in Mauritania in the eighth century, had attained political dominance in the Adrar and Hodh regions by the ninth century.

Together with two other important Berber groups, the Messufa and the Djodala, they set up the Sanhaja Confederation.

From their capital, Aoudaghast, the Lemtuna control this loose confederation and the western routes of the Saharan caravan trade that had begun to flourish after the introduction of the camel.

At its height, from the eighth to the end of the tenth century, the Sanhaja Confederation is a decentralized polity based on two distinct groups: the nomadic and very independent Berber groups, who maintain their traditional religions, and the Muslim, urban Berber merchants, who conduct the caravan trade.

Although dominated by the Sanhaja merchants, the caravan trade has its northern terminus in the Maghrebi commercial city of Sijilmasa and its southern terminus in Koumbi Saleh, capital of the Ghana Empire.

Later, the southern trade route will end in Timbuktu, capital of the Mali Empire.

Gold, ivory, and slaves are carried north in return for salt (ancient salt mines near Kediet Ij ill in northern Mauritania are still being worked), copper, cloth, and other luxury goods.

The ninth-century Arab writer, Al Yaqubi, describes ancient Ghana as one of the three most organized states in the region (the others being Gao and Kanem in the central Sudan).

Its rulers are renowned for their wealth in gold, the opulence of their courts, and their warrior-hunting skills.

They are also masters of the trade in gold, which draws North African merchants to the western Sudan.

The military achievements of these and later western Sudanic rulers and their control over the region's gold mines constitute the nexus of their historical relations with merchants and rulers of North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Most ethnic groups constituting the modern Ghanaian population had settled in their present locations by the end of the sixteenth century.

Archaeological remains found in the coastal zone indicate that the area has been inhabited since the early Bronze Age (circa 4000 BCE), but these societies, based on fishing in the extensive lagoons and rivers, left few traces.

Archaeological work also suggests that central Ghana north of the forest zone is inhabited as early as three thousand to four thousand years ago.

Oral history and other sources suggest that the ancestors of some of Ghana's residents entered this area at least as early as the tenth century CE and that migration from the north and east continued thereafter.

These migrations result in part from the formation and disintegration of a series of large states in the western Sudan (the region north of modern Ghana drained by the Niger River).

Prominent among these Sudanic states is the Soninke kingdom of Ghana.

Strictly speaking, ghana is the title of the king, but the Arabs, who leave records of the kingdom, apply the term to the king, the capital, and the state.

West Africa (820 – 963 CE): Ghana’s Rise, Sahel–Forest Gateways, and River Towns

Geographic and Environmental Context

West Africa includes Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and western–central Nigeria (Hausaland).

• Anchors: the Senegal–Gambia valleys, the Niger Bend and Inland Delta, the Volta and Benue corridors, and forest margins from Guinea to Ghana–Benin.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

• The Medieval Warm Period brought generally favorable rains to the Sahel and Sudan belts.

• Flood-recession farming in the Inland Niger Delta and lower Senegal supported cereals, fish, and pastures.

Societies and Political Developments

• Ghana (Wagadu) consolidated between the Senegal and upper Niger, taxing caravans at nodes around Koumbi Saleh.

• Takrur formed in the lower Senegal valley as an early riverine state.

• Towns at Gao on the Niger Bend grew into a commercial polity (Songhay ancestors).

• Forest–savanna margins (Mande and early Akan ancestors) supplied gold, kola, and ivory to Sahelian markets.

• In Hausaland (northwest–central Nigeria), early urban kernels (e.g., Kano, Katsina) emerged as walled towns within a mosaic of farming chieftaincies.

Economy and Trade

• Trans-Saharan caravans linked Ghana to Sijilmassa and Awdaghust (gold for salt, copper, cloth).

• Savanna agriculture (millet, sorghum) and floodplain gardens fueled surplus; cattle herds grazed Sahel pastures.

• Forest exports—gold (Bambuk, Buré), kola, ivory—moved through Mande brokers northward.

Subsistence and Technology

• Dryland grains with iron hoes and ard ploughs; river fisheries and flood-recession plots in the Inland Delta.

• Iron smelting furnished tools and weapons; donkeys and oxen moved farm goods; camels dominated the desert legs.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

• Sahara–Sahel axes: Sijilmassa ⇄ Awdaghust ⇄ Ghana; Air–Azawad ⇄ Gao.

• Niger River tied Gao to Inland Delta fisheries and pasture markets; Senegal River sustained Takrur.

Belief and Symbolism

• Indigenous religions centered on earth shrines, ancestor veneration, and river spirits.

• Early Islamic presence (merchants, scholars) clustered in caravan towns and separate quarters, without displacing local cults.

Adaptation and Resilience

• Ecological complementarity—Sahel grains, river fish, forest gold and kola—buffered shocks.

• Toll-taking states (Ghana, Takrur) maintained caravan security; when one route faltered, traffic shifted to alternatives.

Long-Term Significance

By 963, West Africa was a Sahelian–riverine commonwealth: Ghana dominated gold–salt corridors; Gao and Takrur anchored the Niger and Senegal; forest margins fed northbound trade that would power later state formation.

Koumbi Saleh is a large cosmopolitan city comprising two distinct sections: the Muslim quarter, with its Arab-influenced architecture, and the black quarter of traditional thatch and mud architecture, where the non-Muslim king of Ghana resides.

Important towns develop along the trade routes.

The easiest, though not the shortest, routes between Ghana and Sijilmasa are from Koumbi Saleh through Aoudaghast, Oualata, Tichit, and Ouadane.

These towns along the route grow to be important commercial as well as political centers.

Aoudaghast, with its population of five thousand to six thousand, is a big town with a large mosque and several smaller ones, surrounded by large cultivated areas under irrigation, as described by the Arab chronicler Al Bakri in the eleventh-century.

Oualata is a major relay point on the gold and salt trade route, as well as a chief assembly point for pilgrims traveling to Mecca.

Chinguetti, later an important religious center, is another important Mauritanian trade city of the Sanhaja Confederation.

Although Koumbi Saleh does not outlive the fall of the Ghana Empire, Aoudaghast and particularly Oualata will maintain their importance well into the sixteenth century, when trade begins shifting to the European-controlled coasts.