Africa's+European+and+Islamic+Contacts

The ways the contacts were established between sub-Saharan Africans and Europe mirrored those of the contacts with the Islamic world earlier. Between 1500 and 1800 there were many similarities and differences with the political, commercial, and cultural relations with these two foreign influences.

Africans surrendered very little territory to the Europeans during the three and a half centuries before 1800. Local African rulers controlled the European trading posts on the Gold and Slave coasts with fees and rents. The Europeans established two major colonies in Africa during this time, which were the Portuguese colony of Angola and a colony at the southern tip of the continent, which was started by the Dutch East India Company. The difference between these two colonies was that unlike Angola the Cape Colony did not export slaves. The slaves were imported from regions such as Madagascar, South Asia, and the East Indies.

North Africa became a permanent part of the Islamic world in the first century of expansion. The Africans of this region learned Muslim beliefs gradually from traders that were headed to East Africa from the Middle East. The geography, trading skills, and military power of the sub-Saharan Africans kept them from being conquered by Islamic expansion until the sixteenth century when all of North Africa was annexed by the Ottoman empire except Morocco. The Sahara desert, so far, was an effective reinforcement against invasion.

The Songhai Empire of West Africa was pushing its authority into the Sahara from the South. This great empire received its wealth from the trans-Saharan trade. Songhai’s main challenge was the army’s of Morocco, whose rulers sent a military expedition across the Sahara. During this voyage half of this expedition survived. The Moroccan’s defeated the Songhai empires army in spite of being outnumbered drastically but were able to stand a chance due to the advantage of firearms. Morocco was never able to capture western Sudan but gained great wealth over the next two centuries from slaves, local goods, and tolls on merchants.

Traders Approaching Timbuktu: As they have done for centuries, traders brought their wares to this ancient desert-edge city.

Although the destruction of the Songhai weakened the trans-Saharan trade the Hausa trading cities became major centers of trade in central Sudan. The goods the Hausa imported were very similar to the African traders in the Atlantic except Alcohol, which was prohibited to Muslims. The goods they sent back in return, which was also like the Atlantic trade was gold and slaves. Some exports to the north from these major trading cities were cotton textiles, Kola nuts and leather goods.

During the slave trade to the Islamic north within two hundred years roughly eight hundred and fifty thousand slaves trudged the deserts various routes.

Unlike the slaves in the Americas, which worked on plantations the slaves in the Islamic world were either soldiers or servants. In fact the Moroccan’s had an army of one hundred and fifty thousand slaves from the south. However slaves in Morocco were also plantation workers, servants or artisans. Also unlike the Americas most slaves in the Islamic world were women who served as concubines, servants, and entertainers. In the Islamic slave trade there was a lot more children in the trade who worked as harem guards.

The central Sudanese kingdom of Bornu, who had been ruled by the same dynasty since the ninth century, expanded greatly with the help of firearms. The Bornu sold its captives from war as slaves for more guns or horses. To show his power one Bornu king went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and brought with him an enormous number of fifteen thousand slaves.

Both Christians and Muslims in this period saw no moral restraint with owning slaves. In fact Muslims thought enslaving non-Muslims was a good thing because it converted them but in Bornu the kings did not follow the rule and enslaved its own people.

Islamic cultural influences had a much longer exposure to sub-Saharan Africans that those of Europe’s. In sub-Saharan Africa Islam became a major urban influence in which the merchants and Scholars learned to read the Quran, understand the Arabic language, and most African legal systems mirrored those of the Islamic world. European influences, on the contrary, only interested a few coastal Africans in the 1700’s by the Portuguese at Angola. Usually only Coastal African traders learned European languages while most inland trade routes used African Languages. Some African traders actually sent their sons to Europe to learn the European ways.

Although both Muslims and Europeans obtained slaves the Europeans exported 8 million to the Atlantic sea trade while the Islamic trade obtained 2 million. As for the population loss when one looks into it the overall population remained large while the locations that engaged in this trade were drastically reduced. However since women were not shipped away as much as men the population would eventually be able to recover.

The sub-Saharan Africans were very meticulous about the goods they received from the trades. Many historians believed that imports of textiles and metals would threaten the production of local African weavers and metalworkers. However this theory was proven wrong because the imports were too small weaken local production and that these imports likely supplemented local production. The goods received in the sub-Saharan trade were intended to be consumed by the local population, just as in Europe. However these trades would not help local economies they would only make the merchants supplying them wealthy. Before 1800 there was little European influence in Africa but there was a great influence in the Americas. As the major Islamic influence, the Ottoman Empire was declining and the surge of influence shifted in the Europeans direction.

Simon