Discuss the key drivers behind state formation in the West African Savannah. The early Iron Age states of West Africa can be argued to have emerged through four key factors.

by rakhi2 (student)

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Discuss the key drivers behind state formation in the West African Savannah?

The early Iron Age states of West Africa can be argued to have emerged through four key factors. These include: the Camel and Trade, the location of Ghana and the expansion of the Gold Trade, Nomads and Farming and Technology. The latter I will argue is perhaps the most significant. This is because while trade, in particular the expansion of the Gold Trade, did encourage power and wealth among the Soninke peoples of the Ancient Kingdom of Ghana, it was access to new farming techniques and new iron technology that was the key driver behind state formation as it made particular societies more organised than others thus enabling these groups to form larger more settled communities.

Long distance trade across the Sahara had taken place for many centuries through use of pack oxen. For example, small amounts of Gold dust and red stones travelled North across the desert to Roman North Africa and passed through groups of desert dwellers before reaching its destination. However, Romans did not manage to stimulate regular or direct trade across the Sahara. Therefore, trade was small scale and sporadic but with the introduction of the Camel in the 5th century, it revolutionised the scope and scale of trade as the Camel could travel longer distances at a steadier pace. As a result, Berber Nomads could reach more distant oases and open up new trading routes across the Sahara. This was important because before the Camel trans-Saharan trade was mostly a local affair with main trade occurring in the form of salt exchange, from the Taghaza mine, for food. However, the Camel enabled for the first time regular long distance trade across the whole of the Sahara. For example, wild game animals were wiped out from North Africa; therefore there was a demand for ivory, Ostrich feathers and furs from West Africa and as the Camel revolutionised desert transport, North African Arab interest in Gold from West Africa grew. This led to the expansion of the Gold trade which will be discussed further. These types of trade created important trading settlements where goods were exchanged. One of the more important settlements was Ghana. As a result, this expansion of trade due to the revolutionised transport in the form of a Camel led to the Ghanaian state growing powerful and rich and was therefore, a significant contributory factor in the growth of the early state. But, it was not just Ghana that grew out of the expansion of trade. By 1255 Mali had embraced an extensive country including the former dependencies of Ghana and some territories to the East. It controlled the sources of the most important articles of trade such as the salt mines of Taghaza, copper of Takedda and Gold mines to the South. However, it is clear that the main trade that the camel helped expand was the Gold trade, enabling wealth to really form the foundations of the early state of Ghana.

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Ghana grew in financial prowess due to the expansion of the Gold trade more so than any other trade. But more importantly, a reason for Ghana’s success in controlling the Gold trade was perhaps its location. The Soninke were ideally placed to exploit a growth in trade to and from the Sahara. They were midway (Western Sahel) between the Taghaza salt mines in the Sahara desert and the Bambuk goldfields to the South. Therefore, before the introduction of the Camel, they traded grain for Salt and during the 8th and 9th century, after the introduction of the camel, North African Arabs became directly involved and North African access to the Gold in West Africa widened. The Soninke acted as middlemen by passing salt from the Taghaza mine to the Bambuk in exchange for Gold. The Soninke then sold this Gold to Muslim traders in the Capital, Kumbi-Saleh, in exchange for salt, clothing and other imports from Maghrib. The key to what led to the growth and early state formation of Ghana was the taxing of this particular trade as it allowed the Kings of Ghana to obtain vast amounts of wealth. For example, the King taxed one dinar of Gold for each load of Salt imported into the Kingdom and two dinars on Salt re-exported to the Goldfields of the South. Therefore, expansion of the trans-Saharan trade in Gold was paralleled by the growth in the state of Ghana because of the wealth achieved by such high levels of control over this particular trade. Linked to the expansion of the Gold trade is the spread of Islam that accompanied this trade. People of Ghana had for a long time been practicing a ritualised pagan religion, worshipping nature and animal spirits. However, when trade routes opened, Islam spread throughout Ghana and most natives converted. Through closer Arab contact Berber Nomads of the Northern and Western Sahara converted to Islam. This created a sense of brotherhood and eased their transactions with the Arab merchants of the Maghrib. Therefore, this shared sense of brotherhood and a common religious conversion could be seen as a slightly less but still important factor behind the formation of the early Ghanaian state.

Two factors that helped form the state of Ghana were Nomadic groups and farming and technology. Nomadic Berber groups, in particular the Sanhaja, were a factor that contributed to the formation of the state of Ghana. Another advantage in location was that the Soninke were placed near the Southern fringes of the desert and were therefore in contact with the Saharan nomads from whom they received horses. This gave the Soninke additional military advantage over neighbouring peoples enabling the rapid growth of the state. However, contact with the Saharan nomads was not always peaceful but was indeed advantageous. For example, with the drying out of the Sahara nomads penetrated further into the Sahel for their seasonal grazing and in the years of drought this became raids on settled agricultural communities. But this was an advantage to the formation of the state because these Sanhaja raids encouraged Soninke farmers to group together for their own protection. Therefore, these Nomadic Sanhaja raids stimulated the early formation of the Ghanaian state. The final and most significant factor in the formation of state is Farming and Technology. We may argue that the development of farming and iron-working enabled certain groups to live together in larger, more settled communities and therefore in the last few centuries BCE these developments increased farming and hunting efficiency thus contributing to the growth of state. The key here is that state formation depended on some societies remaining organised on a simple small village basis and some grouping into larger chiefdoms. It was these chiefdoms that expressed a natural ability of iron-working farmers to form larger, settled communities. As the Sahara became drier, farming technology had to be improved. Therefore, the ancestors of the Soninke developed these new techniques and the farmers of the Western Sahel made use of the new iron technology, for example, iron swords and spears. Consequently, the formation of the state of Ghana arose out of the Soninke using more superior iron weaponry to seize more farming and grazing land from their weaker, less organised neighbours.

This essay has focussed on four key factors in the formation of the state. Much of the focus of these factors has been placed on Ghana and this is because out of all the early Iron Age states of West Africa, we know most about Ghana as it was most involved in the trans-Saharan gold trade and so Arabic speakers who visited it were able to write about it. After discussing the four factors, the argument that farming and technology was by far the most significant contributing factor to state formation still holds true. This is because although the expansion of the gold trade enabled Ghana to grow rich, it was the access to new technology and more superior iron weaponry that contributed to an infrastructure that was essential in not only forming but maintaining the prosperous Ghanaian state of West Africa.

Word count: 1,380

Bibliography

Kevin Shillington, History of Africa

J.F Ade Ajayi and Ian Espie, A Thousand Years of West African History

Ralph A Austen, African Economic History. Internal Development and External Dependency

Nehemia Levitzon, Ancient Ghana and Mali

Kevin Shillington, History of Africa chapter 6 pages 86-87

J.F Ade Ajayi and Ian Espie, A Thousand Years of West African History chapter 4 page 63

Kevin Shillington, History of Africa chapter 6 pages 90 and 92

Ibid.

Ibid pages 88 to 90

Ibid.